Hello, I am a employee from Bioware...

But in all seriousness, I sure hope they did, I hate when games/ companies fail, but thats how it happens.

EA put more of 500 millions in this game 

EA put more of 500 Millions in SWTOR,

I am still playing swtor and i am enjoying the game 

Originally posted by Souldrainer

Originally posted by Ringbus

Originally posted by Souldrainer

Originally posted by busdriver

If they spent $200 millions making it, then not a snowballs chance in hell.

 

Assuming they never sold a single Collector's Edition box, the game made $115 million on day 1. Additionally, there is a press statement from January/Feb time frame (hard to pull up on my phone here) where Bioware said, flat out, that the game was making them a profit. So yeah... you can think what you want to.

Boggle.

How can anyone be dumb enough to believe developer return from retail game sales work like:

shelf/retail price * copies sold???

 

 

Read the post right above yours.

[mod edit]

Do you honestly think a developer gets 120 million dollars from a game that sells a couple million copies???

Really???

Forget the 150,200,300 million EA blew developing the SWTOR fiasco. Or the 700 million or so wasted buying Bioware. Let's just focus on post development.

EA sells each copy to retail stores for some 20-25 dollars.

Out of every copy sold to retailers, EA must pay for:

* Duplication of the master disc and label printing

* Materials for the box and assembly

* Storage and shipment to retailers

* EA's own internal distribution staff who contact retailers to convince them to buy copies of the game, give the game good shelf space, etc.

Those are just the major bites out of the sales of each box.

Before layoffs EA was still paying the salries of one of the largest development teams in the industry. Every employee's cost to EA is going to be roughly 1.5 times their salary. 50k a year dead weight employees cost the company roughly 100k a year, lead developers making 130-150k are in the 300k range. EA is paying 2,3, to 4 million dollars a month depending on what the total number of employees there are just since the game shipped.

In addition EA is paying for 24/7 tech support/customer service staff in multiple countries/regions.

24/7 server tech staff to run the data centers.

Throw in digital distribution, collector edition boxes, whatever hell else you want. EA hasn't made 200 million, 100 million, 50 million in profits from this fiasco. Nor will they ever. The money EA wasted on SWTOR will never be recovered.

EA's only goal now with SWTOR is to lessen the damage. [mod edit] and turn the game into a free to play cash shop.

Originally posted by Ringbus

Originally posted by Souldrainer

Originally posted by Ringbus

Originally posted by Souldrainer

Originally posted by busdriver

If they spent $200 millions making it, then not a snowballs chance in hell.

 

Assuming they never sold a single Collector's Edition box, the game made $115 million on day 1. Additionally, there is a press statement from January/Feb time frame (hard to pull up on my phone here) where Bioware said, flat out, that the game was making them a profit. So yeah... you can think what you want to.

Boggle.

How can anyone be dumb enough to believe developer return from retail game sales work like:

shelf/retail price * copies sold???

 

 

Read the post right above yours.

What is really is mind boggling about isn't just that you thought game companies get 60 dollars in profits from a 60 dollar retail game.

It's that in your desperation to claim this game made back the hundreds of millions wasted on by EA that you didn't even stop to think just how laughably absurd the numbers you were claiming were.

Do you honestly think a developer gets 120 million dollars from a game that sells a couple million copies???

Really???

Forget the 150,200,300 million EA blew developing the SWTOR fiasco. Or the 700 million or so wasted buying Bioware. Let's just focus on post development.

EA sells each copy to retail stores for some 20-25 dollars.

Out of every copy sold to retailers, EA must pay for:

* Duplication of the master disc and label printing

* Materials for the box and assembly

* Storage and shipment to retailers

* EA's own internal distribution staff who contact retailers to convince them to buy copies of the game, give the game good shelf space, etc.

Those are just the major bites out of the sales of each box.

Before layoffs EA was still paying the salries of one of the largest development teams in the industry. Every employee's cost to EA is going to be roughly 1.5 times their salary. 50k a year dead weight employees cost the company roughly 100k a year, lead developers making 130-150k are in the 300k range. EA is paying 2,3, to 4 million dollars a month depending on what the total number of employees there are just since the game shipped.

In addition EA is paying for 24/7 tech support/customer service staff in multiple countries/regions.

24/7 server tech staff to run the data centers.

Throw in digital distribution, collector edition boxes, whatever hell else you want. EA hasn't made 200 million, 100 million, 50 million in profits from this fiasco. Nor will they ever. The money EA wasted on SWTOR will never be recovered.

EA's only goal now with SWTOR is to lessen the damage. Dump most of the incompetent and overpaid clowns at Bioware responsible for this turd of a game. Massively cut back the bloated SWTOR team down to a skeleton crew and turn the game into a free to play cash shop.

 

Originally posted by Ringbus

What is really is mind boggling about isn't just that you thought game companies get 60 dollars in profits from a 60 dollar retail game.

It's that in your desperation to claim this game made back the hundreds of millions wasted on by EA that you didn't even stop to think just how laughably absurd the numbers you were claiming were.

Do you honestly think a developer gets 120 million dollars from a game that sells a couple million copies???

Really???

Forget the 150,200,300 million EA blew developing the SWTOR fiasco. Or the 700 million or so wasted buying Bioware. Let's just focus on post development.

EA sells each copy to retail stores for some 20-25 dollars.

Out of every copy sold to retailers, EA must pay for:

* Duplication of the master disc and label printing

* Materials for the box and assembly

* Storage and shipment to retailers

* EA's own internal distribution staff who contact retailers to convince them to buy copies of the game, give the game good shelf space, etc.

Those are just the major bites out of the sales of each box.

Before layoffs EA was still paying the salries of one of the largest development teams in the industry. Every employee's cost to EA is going to be roughly 1.5 times their salary. 50k a year dead weight employees cost the company roughly 100k a year, lead developers making 130-150k are in the 300k range. EA is paying 2,3, to 4 million dollars a month depending on what the total number of employees there are just since the game shipped.

In addition EA is paying for 24/7 tech support/customer service staff in multiple countries/regions.

24/7 server tech staff to run the data centers.

Throw in digital distribution, collector edition boxes, whatever hell else you want. EA hasn't made 200 million, 100 million, 50 million in profits from this fiasco. Nor will they ever. The money EA wasted on SWTOR will never be recovered.

EA's only goal now with SWTOR is to lessen the damage. Dump most of the incompetent and overpaid clowns at Bioware responsible for this turd of a game. Massively cut back the bloated SWTOR team down to a skeleton crew and turn the game into a free to play cash shop.

 

Dont waste time, these kids have been explained many times that it isnt so, but they just repeat their mantra:

2,38*60+6-7*15*700000= lots of money, they made crapload of profits.

Someday they will grow up and find out it isnt so for themselves.

Originally posted by ZigZags

Your reasoning is flawed. Just because they are laying people off does not mean they are in the red. They could be in the black but obviously their revenues are dropping and their current structure and staff is unsustainable in the long run so the cuts could be necessary to ensure support for the game for the coming years.

 

This game sold so many Copies including collectors editions then enjoyed a solid first couple months of subscribership. Im confident they made a hefty profit and will tone the game down to cut any future losses.

 

Thanks to the hypsters, the pig was fed and thus we can all expect more hyped up and over spent MMOs meant for a quick profit in the near future.

Mmm, you just said they are in the red.

Yes, they have hefty cushion form initial sales. If that is eaten up, then they are really screwed. And drying up of THAT proves they are in the red month to month and are just on damage control. Only question is: when will cutting of expenses stop, when will they be out of the red. And yes that includes staff, and YES that includes even less content than its released now, and thats nothing to write home about already.

I love when someone claims something is flawed and then proceeds to confirm its true :)

And they sold only so many collectors editions, because it WAS very limited.

SWTOR paid for development while selling boxes. And EA told us that it will be profitable as loong as they will have more than 500k subscribers. 

So yeah - TOR paid for itself. 

Problem with this game right now is that - it's boring. There is nothing else to do except story and it's fun for the first time playing Reps or Imps. After that 99% of the quests are the same for every class in the faction and only difference is in personal story.

That's it. There nothing more. And because of that they are loosing subs quite fast. From 1.7mln to 1.3mln in just 2 months and right now - who knows.

Originally posted by dariuszp

SWTOR paid for development while selling boxes. And EA told us that it will be profitable as loong as they will have more than 500k subscribers. 

So yeah - TOR paid for itself. 

Problem with this game right now is that - it's boring. There is nothing else to do except story and it's fun for the first time playing Reps or Imps. After that 99% of the quests are the same for every class in the faction and only difference is in personal story.

That's it. There nothing more. And because of that they are loosing subs quite fast. From 1.7mln to 1.3mln in just 2 months and right now - who knows.

They had 300m$ budget.

Can you  explain to all of us how exactly they made that back by selling boxes?

Well they sold 2mln boxes for 60$ in just 2 months from the start and they still selling quite an amount of it. And they still sell it. Last month I checked and game was stil a bestseller in biggest online shop in my country. More than half a year after release. And this was bestseller list for every game in this shop. On just "online games" they are still in top 3 after Guild Wars 2 and Secred World.

From global bestseller list they drop out after Guild Wars 2 started beta weekends. 

Originally posted by Alminie

Originally posted by SlothnChunk

Originally posted by Alminie

Originally posted by Danrlei

Did SWTOR paid for itself already?

VG charts info on SWtor sales up to the date"14th Jul 2012 "

are at 2.38m sold

so do the math it is

2,380,000 x "lets just say it sold for 50 buck on average." = 119,000,000

and it's been stated that Development for SWtor cost           200,000,000

so based on these facts looks like they have had a loose    -81,000,000

 

But thats not including monthly subscriptions, lets just say they had 1/3 of the sales as consistent subscribers.

793333x15 bucks a month = 11,899,995 x number of months since release 7 = 83,299,965

I would say they at best have broke even.

It would be 2.38 million X $50 profit per copy (average of all versions) = $119,000,000

793333 X $10 per month (roughly 1/3 goes to LA for IP) X 7 months = $55,533,310

Total Estimated  Profit = $174,533,310

development cost ($150 million on average) + advertising/continued development/support since launch ($50 million) = $200,000 million total spent on TOR

Game is still a good $25 million away from breaking even. And that was being conservative on several estimates.

where does $10 per a month come from?

pretty sure swtor costs $15 a month. ;-)

One-third of the monthly sub goes to Lucasarts for the Star Wars IP.  So Bioware makes $10 per month on subs....and I was being generous giving 100% of that profit.

They are several months away from just breaking even.

No.

Source: EA.

JR, EA CEO, stated that SWTOR needs 1M recurring subs "to make a profit but nothing to write home about. Back in Feb' they only announced 1.7M "subs" and in March learnt that "about half were subscribers" - so 850k  

OK he didn't say for how long but EA was talking about the long term back in Feb and articles subsequemtly suggested 1 to 2 years.

And since Feb' EA has "consolidated" the servers by 90% - so we can assume that subs are still less than 1M.

So on EA data : no.

Originally posted by SlothnChunk

Originally posted by Alminie

Originally posted by SlothnChunk

Originally posted by Alminie

Originally posted by Danrlei

Did SWTOR paid for itself already?

VG charts info on SWtor sales up to the date"14th Jul 2012 "

are at 2.38m sold

so do the math it is

2,380,000 x "lets just say it sold for 50 buck on average." = 119,000,000

and it's been stated that Development for SWtor cost           200,000,000

so based on these facts looks like they have had a loose    -81,000,000

 

But thats not including monthly subscriptions, lets just say they had 1/3 of the sales as consistent subscribers.

793333x15 bucks a month = 11,899,995 x number of months since release 7 = 83,299,965

I would say they at best have broke even.

It would be 2.38 million X $50 profit per copy (average of all versions) = $119,000,000

793333 X $10 per month (roughly 1/3 goes to LA for IP) X 7 months = $55,533,310

Total Estimated  Profit = $174,533,310

development cost ($150 million on average) + advertising/continued development/support since launch ($50 million) = $200,000 million total spent on TOR

Game is still a good $25 million away from breaking even. And that was being conservative on several estimates.

where does $10 per a month come from?

pretty sure swtor costs $15 a month. ;-)

One-third of the monthly sub goes to Lucasarts for the Star Wars IP.  So Bioware makes $10 per month on subs....and I was being generous giving 100% of that profit.

They are several months away from just breaking even.

where do you get that info? ;-)

Originally posted by dariuszp

SWTOR paid for development while selling boxes. And EA told us that it will be profitable as loong as they will have more than 500k subscribers. 

So yeah - TOR paid for itself. 

Problem with this game right now is that - it's boring. There is nothing else to do except story and it's fun for the first time playing Reps or Imps. After that 99% of the quests are the same for every class in the faction and only difference is in personal story.

That's it. There nothing more. And because of that they are loosing subs quite fast. From 1.7mln to 1.3mln in just 2 months and right now - who knows.

 What makes you think they still have 500K subscribers? And what makes you think they'll still have 500K subscribers 2 years from now? Being profitable on 500K subscribers isn't a one month deal, it's more like years and TOR hasn't managed to maintain 500K subs for years. So no, nothing points to TOR having paid for itself. On the contrary, cutting devs to lower the cost of maintaining the game, is not a sign of a game that has paid for itself and is bringing in cash left, right and center.

The being profitable on 500K has more to do with the cost of running and further developing the game, hence why they're cutting the team, because they are not holding 500K long term. It is a requirement to reduce the amount of money they're going to lose on this. EA has enough games that are raking in money, they can take a hit, even if it's a big one.

Originally posted by Alminie

Originally posted by SlothnChunk

Originally posted by Alminie

Originally posted by SlothnChunk

Originally posted by Alminie

Originally posted by Danrlei

Did SWTOR paid for itself already?

VG charts info on SWtor sales up to the date"14th Jul 2012 "

are at 2.38m sold

so do the math it is

2,380,000 x "lets just say it sold for 50 buck on average." = 119,000,000

and it's been stated that Development for SWtor cost           200,000,000

so based on these facts looks like they have had a loose    -81,000,000

 

But thats not including monthly subscriptions, lets just say they had 1/3 of the sales as consistent subscribers.

793333x15 bucks a month = 11,899,995 x number of months since release 7 = 83,299,965

I would say they at best have broke even.

It would be 2.38 million X $50 profit per copy (average of all versions) = $119,000,000

793333 X $10 per month (roughly 1/3 goes to LA for IP) X 7 months = $55,533,310

Total Estimated  Profit = $174,533,310

development cost ($150 million on average) + advertising/continued development/support since launch ($50 million) = $200,000 million total spent on TOR

Game is still a good $25 million away from breaking even. And that was being conservative on several estimates.

where does $10 per a month come from?

pretty sure swtor costs $15 a month. ;-)

One-third of the monthly sub goes to Lucasarts for the Star Wars IP.  So Bioware makes $10 per month on subs....and I was being generous giving 100% of that profit.

They are several months away from just breaking even.

where do you get that info? ;-)

It's called a licensing fee to use the Star Wars IP.

Originally posted by JoeyMMO

Originally posted by dariuszp

SWTOR paid for development while selling boxes. And EA told us that it will be profitable as loong as they will have more than 500k subscribers. 

So yeah - TOR paid for itself. 

Problem with this game right now is that - it's boring. There is nothing else to do except story and it's fun for the first time playing Reps or Imps. After that 99% of the quests are the same for every class in the faction and only difference is in personal story.

That's it. There nothing more. And because of that they are loosing subs quite fast. From 1.7mln to 1.3mln in just 2 months and right now - who knows.

 What makes you think they still have 500K subscribers? And what makes you think they'll still have 500K subscribers 2 years from now? Being profitable on 500K subscribers isn't a one month deal, it's more like years and TOR hasn't managed to maintain 500K subs for years. So no, nothing points to TOR having paid for itself. On the contrary, cutting devs to lower the cost of maintaining the game, is not a sign of a game that has paid for itself and is bringing in cash left, right and center.

The being profitable on 500K has more to do with the cost of running and further developing the game, hence why they're cutting the team, because they are not holding 500K long term. It is a requirement to reduce the amount of money they're going to lose on this. EA has enough games that are raking in money, they can take a hit, even if it's a big one.

EA talked about being profitable with 500k in early 2011. However this was subsequently clarified - see EA reports post to:

- 500k subs needed to cover running costs and I assume, as I said above, make an operating profit

- 1M subs to make a profit.

To illustrate the difference assume you go to the bank, take out a loan and buy a flat that you rent out. Say it costs $250 a month to pay for on-going monthly cleaning, maintenance, gardening (whatever) and you charge $500 a month rent. OK you are making an operating profit of $500 - $250 on which you can pay taxes and so forth.

There is the small detail of the bank loan however ... only when you have paid off the loan will you be making a profit.

I hope not ...or they may not have learned anything.

2 million x $60 = 120million

an average of 1million subs x $15 =  15million a month  x 7months = 105million

So 225 milllion - 30% licensing fee to George is ~ 150 million.

Now that's assuming that retailers didn't take a penny, that they don't pay any employees a cent or have any other costs and paid nothing to develop the game which is obviously far from the truth. It's very hard to imagine they would be in the black IMO.

Originally posted by SlothnChunk

Originally posted by Alminie

Originally posted by SlothnChunk

Originally posted by Alminie

Originally posted by SlothnChunk

Originally posted by Alminie

Originally posted by Danrlei

Did SWTOR paid for itself already?

VG charts info on SWtor sales up to the date"14th Jul 2012 "

are at 2.38m sold

so do the math it is

2,380,000 x "lets just say it sold for 50 buck on average." = 119,000,000

and it's been stated that Development for SWtor cost           200,000,000

so based on these facts looks like they have had a loose    -81,000,000

 

But thats not including monthly subscriptions, lets just say they had 1/3 of the sales as consistent subscribers.

793333x15 bucks a month = 11,899,995 x number of months since release 7 = 83,299,965

I would say they at best have broke even.

It would be 2.38 million X $50 profit per copy (average of all versions) = $119,000,000

793333 X $10 per month (roughly 1/3 goes to LA for IP) X 7 months = $55,533,310

Total Estimated  Profit = $174,533,310

development cost ($150 million on average) + advertising/continued development/support since launch ($50 million) = $200,000 million total spent on TOR

Game is still a good $25 million away from breaking even. And that was being conservative on several estimates.

where does $10 per a month come from?

pretty sure swtor costs $15 a month. ;-)

One-third of the monthly sub goes to Lucasarts for the Star Wars IP.  So Bioware makes $10 per month on subs....and I was being generous giving 100% of that profit.

They are several months away from just breaking even.

where do you get that info? ;-)

It's called a licensing fee to use the Star Wars IP.

Yep EA will pay LA something; EA wouldn't comment on what though. Probably a very complex formula vut it will depend on EA / LA and on EA's risk-reward position.

It could be as simple as a bucket of cash - up front or in installments.  EA might have opted for this if they thought they had a huge hit and wanted maximum reward.

If EA were less sure then they may have paid LA a smaller guaranteed sum and agreed to pay LA so much per subscriber (or so much per sub up to 500k, so much between 500k and 1M subs, so much between 1M and 2M etc etc <aybe so much per box sold and all sorts of stuff. The success of the 3D remake could have been in there as well - as that would be advertising!

Paying a smaller fixed sum would reduce EA's cost (i.e. risk) but also limit their potential reward

Bottonlime: LA will have made money.

Originally posted by Danrlei

Did SWTOR paid for itself already?

Probably not but that isn't the relevant question.  The more relevant question was "if it did pay for itself, was the ROI worth it after locking up almost 300 million of capital over 7 years?" 

The answer to that question is almost certainly no.

Guys , you are missing a important point about the license fee. 

Brand fee is not used to be a % of the venues, is a fixed price that can be negotiated every X years (4 years usually, 3 sometimes, 5 the few) 

LA will get their part and doesnt care if game  is profitable or not.

thats why they refused to keep SWG, they didnt renegotiate  the license just because EA paid more than SOE just thinking in how much they wil milk the guys...So be sure the LA part is HUGE, maybe more than 200m$ year.

So don't try to fool yourselves, SWTOR is a fiasco for everyone but LUCAS, he will get his 1000m$ from the game despite is a success or not.

EDIT: Numbers are a speculation... what I want to mean is the fact that the game never will paid itself with poor numbers, and this 4 or 5 years of license is what the game will run. They will try to search the way to make the money...turning it F2P or whatever, but they need to pay LA  so close the game is not an option. Fanbois will see it as a success and EA as a charge. when the license finish...goodbye SWTOR.