I do not understand this nonsense about 500k needed to remain profitable.it is all about scaling,the more players ,the more staff you needmore servers more GM's ect ect.

I will use a perfect example.

FFXI I do not tihnk ever had 500k,perhaps they did but mainly had a core base of around 250-300k.They did not expect to break even until 5 years after release and as stated at LESS than 500k.So how can they turn a profit each subsequent year at 250k and EA says they need 500k to be able to profit at all?

SWTOR did not deliver a high poly count game,i know because my machine is usually borderline for running games,but i had no problem running the game.So they already have a cost efficient game to run.MOST developers cut down to around 35-50 from the initial 75-125 it takes to make the initial game.Point is that you are making a game with a MUCH higher payroll and getting zero money in return,you most certainly can operate with 500k and far less employees.

I call total bull on this 500k claim needed.Unless my math is off that is 7 million a month at 15,that is 85 or so million a year.That is enough money to fund an entire project,so who are they kidding?

Now they are going free to play,which imo is a sad cop out to allow them little to no further development.I have no idea how a developer can snub 85 million a year for a GAMBLE at making less than 1/4 of that.This will mean the quality of graphics will be lowered,the bandwidth lowered,more players per server ,nobody working on bugs and very few GM's.Going free to play means you will have no room to complain because you are gaining free access.I still just do not get this move,unless they figure that small 35 man staff needed  adds up to around 50 million in cost to keep it going.

Originally posted by Gdemami

 

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Originally posted by Phry

 

They do .. if you've been paying any attention to the 'Euro' debt crisis and the stock markets, then i would say that investors really do base their multi million dollar etc decisions on rumours. Rumours, speculation, and very little actual facts.. which is why the markets fluctuate as wildly as they do.. and is also why  Investment Banking is referred to as 'casino style banking'.

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Erm no, they don't.

One fundamental error you make in your assertion is that investors know as much as you do. They do know a lot more and their understanding of context is also much broader.

Sure, many announcements may cause fluctuations in intraday trading, swings here and there followed by corrections but that is just little waves caused by speculation upon new fundamental. The long term trends though, are created by big money moving that are far beyond daily events.

I think you are missing the point. The dealers tend to have access from a lot of different rumours, from a lot of different places, and put all those rumours together to 'factor' into the market the possible effect of the rumours.

No-one really knows what will happen to Italy and Greece in the Euro crisis, but the ones that will come out of it best and the dealers that have listened to the most rumours and got their factoring right.

That's why some news hits the markets, but the numebrs don't change much, because the effect has often been factored in depending on the strength of the rumour ... it's also whay I like to use market orders for a lot of my own trades, to catch the swings in my favour, but minimise the movements against.

Originally posted by observer

2:03: Disappointing performance of Star Wars: The Old Republic was offset by powerful performance of Battlefield 3.

They really think people are going to believe that?  No sane person would believe that spin.

Over 1 million people purchased the battlefield membership thing that gives you all the DLC for the game, that costs £40, the least amount of money they made just from that was something like £40,000,000 so it's not hard to believe at all that helped to mask some of the financial hit taken by SWTOR.

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Originally posted by DukeTyrion

I think you are missing the point.

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Not really, as I expressed the mechanics clearly and you are basically not saying anything else or new I did not cover, just you do it in your own very special way while being stuck in scope of intraday trading....

Originally posted by SlickShoes

Originally posted by observer

2:03: Disappointing performance of Star Wars: The Old Republic was offset by powerful performance of Battlefield 3.

They really think people are going to believe that?  No sane person would believe that spin.

Over 1 million people purchased the battlefield membership thing that gives you all the DLC for the game, that costs £40, the least amount of money they made just from that was something like £40,000,000 so it's not hard to believe at all that helped to mask some of the financial hit taken by SWTOR.

Exactly.

Plus Battlefield 3 has sold almost 14 million copies. The profit from Battlefield 3 when all is said and done will be enough  to fund another SWTOR.

Originally posted by Gdemami

 

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Originally posted by DukeTyrion

I think you are missing the point.

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Not really, as I expressed the mechanics clearly and you are basically not saying anything else or new I did not cover, just you do it in your own very special way while being stuck in scope of intraday trading....

What you are suggesting is that people wait for the hard numbers before deciding on the value of the stock.

What I am saying is the rumours cause the price to move and for the rumours to be factored in, only to be hardened up when the real facts come out. So the fact is, the stocks move first because of the rumours, and have already moved a long way towards their destination before the hard numbers are produced.

Are yu telling me that people hear all these issues about Greece and the likes and do nothing? Of course they do, and the rumour might sit there for a day, a week or a year before something is published that hardens those numbers up.

Rumours change positions, to say otherwise is foolhardy.

I don't think Bioware has the now how to keep a F2P game alive.  They barely knew how to keep the pay model alive all they know was that EA wanted to make money and off they go.....

F2P  sorry SWTOR but my hard drive has GW2 waiting for AUG 25th and on...goodbye

Originally posted by Atlan99

Originally posted by SlickShoes

Originally posted by observer

2:03: Disappointing performance of Star Wars: The Old Republic was offset by powerful performance of Battlefield 3.

They really think people are going to believe that?  No sane person would believe that spin.

Over 1 million people purchased the battlefield membership thing that gives you all the DLC for the game, that costs £40, the least amount of money they made just from that was something like £40,000,000 so it's not hard to believe at all that helped to mask some of the financial hit taken by SWTOR.

Exactly.

Plus Battlefield 3 has sold almost 14 million copies. The profit from Battlefield 3 when all is said and done will be enough  to fund another SWTOR.

Ehmm  some of that money will also fund FAILED projects  which EA has many  which means  just like SWTOR

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Originally posted by DukeTyrion

Rumours change positions, to say otherwise is foolhardy.

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It is not, I was just trying to be polite...

Originally posted by jeremyjodes

It's Been a good popcorn day. you should risk your sanity and visit the TOR forums. unreal I can't keep up with the people posting over there.

 

But yeah, we all knew this day was coming.

I went over. It was just too much. I couldnt find a thread that WASNT about the new f2p deal.

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From the Earnings Final Script
Although it launched well, subscriptions have been on a declining trajectory and have now slipped below one million. Last year we announced that the breakeven point was roughly 500,000 subscribers. And while we are well above that today, that’s not good enough.

The message from players exiting the game is clear – 40 percent say they were turned off by the monthly subscription. And many indicated they would come back if we offered a free-to-play model.

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Even if the current sub numbers ARE above 500K, EA can no doubt see the trend in the decline rate, and that's why they're making this F2P move.

They can see how many "active subs" have not actually logged-in for a month or more. They can see that those subs are not renewed when they run out. So they can predict with some accuracy what their numbers will look like in 2 or 3 or 4 months' time, and that was most likely not a pretty picture.

My 6-month sub only runs out in October, but I haven't logged-in in the last 2 months. My sub has been cancelled, but I'm sure I'm included in the "currently active sub" count. I expect I'll be receiving several emails with "special offers" once the F2P conversion takes place. 

All this must be having an effect on the future development and expansion of SW:TOR. The F2P conversion will no doubt take development time away from content creation. EA are also faced with the difficult decision of how much additional cash they can afford to throw at the game in the hopes that it will imprpve the Cash Shop earnings.

Originally posted by gw1228

Exactly.

Plus Battlefield 3 has sold almost 14 million copies. The profit from Battlefield 3 when all is said and done will be enough  to fund another SWTOR.

Ehmm  some of that money will also fund FAILED projects  which EA has many  which means  just like SWTOR

Ehmm. I hate to break it to you but SWTOR will make lots of money.

Originally posted by Atlan99

Originally posted by gw1228

Exactly.

Plus Battlefield 3 has sold almost 14 million copies. The profit from Battlefield 3 when all is said and done will be enough  to fund another SWTOR.

Ehmm  some of that money will also fund FAILED projects  which EA has many  which means  just like SWTOR

Ehmm. I hate to break it to you but SWTOR will make lots of money.

Nope.

EA will never recover the money wasted on the SWTOR fiasco. Let alone the money they wasted on Bioware.

The only way anyone could still be under that delusion are clueless people who still think:

EA profits = shelf price x boxes sold + some absurdly inflated active paying sub number x $15

SWTOR peaked at some 640 employees on the team. Even with the 200 or so layoffs so far, the SWTOR team is still absurdly large and costly for a MMORGP that most likely only has some 200k or active paying subs.

Monthly overhead for the SWTOR team salary alone is roughly:

Team size x average team salary x 1.5 / 12 dollars a month

Average salary is most likely somewhere in the 50-100k a year range

1.5 is the usualy estimate of base salary to actual amount an employee costs a company due to medical benefits, stock options, 401k, management overhead, etc.

Divide everything by 12 to get the monthly burn rate just for employees.

EA is probably still burning 2-3 million a month just on the SWTOR team right now. And then add on the costs to run the data centers, non-development employees like customer service, etc.

The SWTOR team is going to need more drastic cuts to get down to some reasonable skeleton crew size that other F2P games have. 

Originally posted by Gdemami

 

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Originally posted by tiefighter25

snip

EA has also anounced they will buy back $500 million in EA stock. If you want to be a uber-hater, you could say thet EA has to buyback stock because SWTOR 's failure halved their stock value. So if you say that SWTOR cost $500 million in production and marketing, and the stock buyback is an additional $500 million; SWTOR is now a billion dollar mistake.

 

It is EA conference call, not SWTOR conference call. Sub numbers are not an investor interest.

If SWTOR was such a failure and EA was doing so bad, they would not sink more money on stock reacquisition. They do it to pump stock price per share to revitalize their stock value and/or they expect bull on their shares in the future.

Doesn't follow. Radioshack have been buying back their own shares for a decade; one assessment I read last week is that they have probably lost c. $2.4 billion from doing so as their results - and stock price - have continued to fall.

Anyone denying the inevitable failure of this game to achieve its purpose is being stubborn. ;)

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Originally posted by gervaise1

Doesn't follow.

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Why not? They just did what I said suggested EA is doing.

Or do you have any other explanation why Radioshack sunk 2.4B USD on their shares?

Originally posted by Atlan99

Originally posted by gw1228

Exactly.

Plus Battlefield 3 has sold almost 14 million copies. The profit from Battlefield 3 when all is said and done will be enough  to fund another SWTOR.

Ehmm  some of that money will also fund FAILED projects  which EA has many  which means  just like SWTOR

Ehmm. I hate to break it to you but SWTOR will make lots of money.

Based on what?  Because its clear SWTOR has been underproforming since launch, but magically they are going to start making lots of money?

Why did DDO or LofRo or just about any western mmo go ftp? Because they were failing as a ptp.

Originally posted by Jonoku

The sub numbers will drop as low as 300k subs or less when August 25th/28th comes. Keep in mind some people still have 6 month sub running unable to get refunds unfortunately.

Yah, my husband bought the 6 month sub and since they gave a free month isn't gone as a subscriber yet even though he unsubbed 1 month after buying the game.

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Originally posted by Ryowulf

Why did DDO or LofRo or just about any western mmo go ftp? Because they were failing as a ptp.

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Yes, P2P model is dead. Is that a message you wanted to deliver?