Originally posted by tiefighter25

Originally posted by Gdemami

 

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Originally posted by tiefighter25

Game doesn't  retain subscribers to cover development costs. Game company executes measures to minimize losses.

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Conclusions. Same circular reasoning I was pointing out before.

Hope that helped.

No it doesn't help at all. I have no idea what you are talking about. I stated that in pure fiscal terms, SWTOR is a failure. EA has stated that the game has failed to meet fiscal expectations. EA has said it is changing its pay structure to hopefully aid its underperformance.  There is a whole lot of cause and effect going on there.

[mod edit]

I state facts, you pick a term form a list of false rhetoric.

You keep stating that SWTOR is not a fiscal failure, to conclude so one would be employing circular logic. Then you never explain why that it is circular logic other then giving a thin definition as to what a conclusion derived by circular logic is.

Furthermore you never give any reason why SWOR shouldn't be considered a fiscal failure other then it isn't. Additionally you never give any reasons why one should consider SWTOR a success.

Just accusing people of circular logic and saying that FTP is the wave of the future doesn't make SWTOR any less of a financial failure.

 Tiefighter is right Gdemami...you keep falling back on these "logical fallacy" arguments, but you're basically ignoring the actual issue.

In reality, the only folks who could say 100% whether SWTOR is a financial failure is EA.  They have their projections for SWTOR, and what it actually made.  If SWTOR is doing better than projected, then it is a financial success...if it is doing worse, then it is some degree of a failure.

That said, if you look at what EA is saying to their investors and the media...it becomes fairly clear that SWTOR probably did not meet projections.  Consider this snippet of the article here:  http://www.gamefront.com/ea-battlefield-3-premium-largely-off-sets-poor-swtor-performance/

The contrast between EA’s prepared remarks during their Q4 2011 and Q1 2013 — between stolid optimism and rueful pragmatism — could not be more stark:

Interim CFO Ken Barker, 5/7/2012:

“We delivered an extraordinary launch of a solidly profitable long-term franchise…We expect this title will further expand our margins in fiscal 13 as we get the full year benefit of subscription revenue…the current number of active subscribers, 1.3 million, is very consistent with the original assumptions we made when we acquired BioWare in 2008….while this franchise is very profitable, it only represents a mid-single digit percent of our total profitability in fiscal 13.”

EA Labels Head Frank Gibeau, 7/31/2012:

“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.”

Look at his statement at the end of July...it's pretty clear that SWTOR is not doing as well as they hoped, and they are reacting to this by changing the business model in a bid to get it back on track.  I would say that this is a good indicator that SWTOR did not meet their projections.

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Originally posted by tiefighter25

No it doesn't help at all. I have no idea what you are talking about.

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I clearly pointed out and explained where a flaw in your train of thoughts is. Then you either come and build a counter argument or you address my own fallacy. You did neither.

What more should I do? Ball is on your court, not mine.

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Originally posted by Creslin321

Tiefighter is right Gdemami...you keep falling back on these "logical fallacy" arguments, but you're basically ignoring the actual issue.

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No, he is not right.

I am not ignoring anything, I see it clearly, just I am not making hasty, baseless, biased conclusions.

It is as you say, only EA can really claim it a failure and so far they did not - or if the game simply shuts down. Neither is happening.

I was never denying SWTOR was underperforming. EA stated that 500k subs is considered as a low range revenue and SWTOR approached the range. Those are facts.

But that is about all one can say. For anything else you would need very solid back up which tiefighter, or in a matter of fact anyone so far, did not provide.

Originally posted by Gdemami

 

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Originally posted by tiefighter25

No it doesn't help at all. I have no idea what you are talking about.

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I clearly pointed out and explained where a flaw in your train of thoughts is. Then you either come and build a counter argument or you address my own fallacy. You did neither.

What more should I do? Ball is on your court, not mine.

 

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Originally posted by Creslin321

Tiefighter is right Gdemami...you keep falling back on these "logical fallacy" arguments, but you're basically ignoring the actual issue.

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No, he is not right.

I am not ignoring anything, I see it clearly, just I am not making hasty, baseless, biased conclusions.

It is as you say, only EA can really claim it a failure and so far they did not - or if the game simply shuts down. Neither is happening.

I was never denying SWTOR was underperforming. EA stated that 500k subs is considered as a low range revenue and SWTOR approached the range. Those are facts.

But that is about all one can say. For anything else you would need very solid back up which tiefighter, or in a matter of fact anyone so far, did not provide.

If this was a debate, I would say your arguments are thin, disingenuous, and spurious. Here's the thing. This is the General Discussion board, not the General Debate board.  I'm not saying that a lively discussion of opposing views isn't both encouraged and welcomed; what I'm saying is that your attempts to bog discusion down into meangless wordplay is tedious.

You aren't trying to discuss anything. You're seeking a vitcory where the only prize is the sound of one hand clapping.

You could have just said that you didn't think SWTOR was the biggest MMO failure because even though it is severely underperforming, it still garners a small day to day profit and with changes it may become more successful in the future.

Instead you've turned yourself into SWTOR's attorney for a trial that exsists only in your head.

-Edited some typos.-

Originally posted by Creslin321

Originally posted by tiefighter25

Originally posted by Gdemami

 

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Originally posted by tiefighter25

Game doesn't  retain subscribers to cover development costs. Game company executes measures to minimize losses.

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Conclusions. Same circular reasoning I was pointing out before.

Hope that helped.

No it doesn't help at all. I have no idea what you are talking about. I stated that in pure fiscal terms, SWTOR is a failure. EA has stated that the game has failed to meet fiscal expectations. EA has said it is changing its pay structure to hopefully aid its underperformance.  There is a whole lot of cause and effect going on there.

[mod edit]

I state facts, you pick a term form a list of false rhetoric.

You keep stating that SWTOR is not a fiscal failure, to conclude so one would be employing circular logic. Then you never explain why that it is circular logic other then giving a thin definition as to what a conclusion derived by circular logic is.

Furthermore you never give any reason why SWOR shouldn't be considered a fiscal failure other then it isn't. Additionally you never give any reasons why one should consider SWTOR a success.

Just accusing people of circular logic and saying that FTP is the wave of the future doesn't make SWTOR any less of a financial failure.

 Tiefighter is right Gdemami...you keep falling back on these "logical fallacy" arguments, but you're basically ignoring the actual issue.

In reality, the only folks who could say 100% whether SWTOR is a financial failure is EA.  They have their projections for SWTOR, and what it actually made.  If SWTOR is doing better than projected, then it is a financial success...if it is doing worse, then it is some degree of a failure.

That said, if you look at what EA is saying to their investors and the media...it becomes fairly clear that SWTOR probably did not meet projections.  Consider this snippet of the article here:  http://www.gamefront.com/ea-battlefield-3-premium-largely-off-sets-poor-swtor-performance/

The contrast between EA’s prepared remarks during their Q4 2011 and Q1 2013 — between stolid optimism and rueful pragmatism — could not be more stark:

Interim CFO Ken Barker, 5/7/2012:

“We delivered an extraordinary launch of a solidly profitable long-term franchise…We expect this title will further expand our margins in fiscal 13 as we get the full year benefit of subscription revenue…the current number of active subscribers, 1.3 million, is very consistent with the original assumptions we made when we acquired BioWare in 2008….while this franchise is very profitable, it only represents a mid-single digit percent of our total profitability in fiscal 13.”

EA Labels Head Frank Gibeau, 7/31/2012:

“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.”

 

Look at his statement at the end of July...it's pretty clear that SWTOR is not doing as well as they hoped, and they are reacting to this by changing the business model in a bid to get it back on track.  I would say that this is a good indicator that SWTOR did not meet their projections.

That's extremely subjective.  Saying that whether it succeeds depends on the publisher/devs projections.   That is not good enough for most things.

The question is will they ever see a profit?  At this point based on sales and subs they will take a major loss when you consider dev costs and advertising (which was huge).  I don't need exact figures to say this because there is currently such a large obvious shortfall.  I don't need to know precisely where a ball will land to understand that it is going over the fence and a home run or a foul ball.

Will F2P eventually make it profitiable?  I have no idea.  But when they clearly need to make $100 million OR MORE to break even they have some real trouble.  There is more than enough information out there to say that figure is in the ballpark even if we do not have the exact numbers.  Just from all the people hired and all the ad buys done and from the sales themselves a VERY conservative estimate puts them at $50-100 million in the hole with a rapidly strhinking revenue stream that won't make that up any time soon and is just a burden for little return.

You do not need exact figures to say somethign is a financial failure or to ascertain things.  You merely need to hit certain thresholds.  The thresholds here are so glaring that it is not that hard to say 100% it is currently failing.

actually nope.

They changed the business model to match the market; that does NOT indicate any kind of failure.

Subjective facts;

1. best raiding in any mmo right now - most challenge and most reward.

2. Best individual play for storyline - with voice acting and interactions that the group can turn one way or the other and affect the outcome by how they choose to respond- no other MMO has this.

3. Best pvp EVER, end of story. Yes you get slaughtered when you are a newb. Scoundrel V90, Powertech V68, Operative V65, Sorc V 55. Yes, I still get owned sometimes, but if Im rolling with vets on my team, we have a damn good chance... and even if I lose, I kick ass all the way.

I could go on and on about why this game is the best, but those are the top 3 that matter to me as an mmo player.

Noobs and whiners will disagree- let them QQ.

Originally posted by Wolfmeister

actually nope.

They changed the business model to match the market; that does NOT indicate any kind of failure.

Subjective facts;

1. best raiding in any mmo right now - most challenge and most reward.

2. Best individual play for storyline - with voice acting and interactions that the group can turn one way or the other and affect the outcome by how they choose to respond- no other MMO has this.

3. Best pvp EVER, end of story. Yes you get slaughtered when you are a newb. Scoundrel V90, Powertech V68, Operative V65, Sorc V 55. Yes, I still get owned sometimes, but if Im rolling with vets on my team, we have a damn good chance... and even if I lose, I kick ass all the way.

 

1. Tee Hee

2. Agreed

3. ROFL

They didn't change models to match the market, they changed models because they are bleeding players at a ridiculous rate.

SWTOR will be the highest quality F2P game on the market but will still fail because they are counting on people subscribing once they hit the cap.  It didn't work the first time.  They need a better store model.

Originally posted by Beanpuie

Age of Conan, Vanguard and Star Trek Online

None of those had as big a budget as SWTOR, nor as big an IP.

LotRO is about as big a failure as the 3 you mentioned. Biggest IP in the world and it could barely keep above water for years.

SWTOR is the most expensive MMO ever made, with two of the biggest studios in the world. Within 3 months half the team has been fired and the game is going FTP.

That's probably the biggest failure I've ever seen.

Definitly FFXIV at release. I have never seen any company so apologetic for their product. Also, they didn't charge the sub fee for what like the first year? No cash shop and no sub for the longest time. That is nothing if not admitting you don't want to drive a way the few people who were actually playing it.

But I do have to temper this by saying that the changes they have been making and what I have been hearing about a realm reborn are very encouraging. If SE can succeed, even moderately in turning this ship around they will have made the biggest comeback ever. MMOs don't get second chances but FFXIV might just fight its way around that truism.

Originally posted by pharazonic

Sure you guys can argue that F2P is not a failure and that the game had "always been intended for F2P/Freemium" . Personally I think this view is bogus but whatever.

 Completely agree! anyone who argues that is just stupid. LOL they always planned it? nah maybe as a backup when they thought the sub numbers would crash. The only issue is they crashed long before people anticipated. People actually told me that the game would not go F2P until 3 years after launch. That didn't happen.

But the FACT remains that this game was THE WoW killer. Everyone from EA's CEO to BioWare's developers to SWTOR community managers said that this was the game that was going to face Blizzard's juggernaught, WoW. (You can look up articles posted during SWTOR's development that how this was the next big thing; I am not making this stuff up.) 

 Rift actually took more players from WoW then any other title so far, around 2mil. And now WoW has some of Rift's features trying to get those players back in MoP. AOE looting anyone? LOL Oh i know you're not making this stuff up, people will argue with you about it but i have the launch and prelaunch videos and the articles with that stuff in them.

Well, one game still requires you to buy the latest expansion at FULL PRICE. One game still requires you to buy the game to level to levelcap. One game still has a major expansion coming up. One game still requires a subscription fee. That game isn't SWTOR. 

I wouldn't say WoW is still a success because they are slowly bleeding members, and two months after their release we will see a drop in subs again most likely as annual passes will be stopping left and right. And while i don't deny at launch of their new exp there will be a rise in the number of subs but after the newness wears off that $40 tiny expansion (i played the beta) won't hold people's attention much longer. People are getting tired of the same old, even WoW's same old. I personally stopped playing until they put someone other then ghostcrawler in charge. Shoulda listened to people's complaints in BC when Blizz decided he was the best man to run WoW, smh. 

This has got to be the most monumental MMO failure - way beyond other "WoW killers" like AoC, War, etc. I mean, even WAR still has a subscription. How sad. 

Originally posted by itgrowls

 Rift actually took more players from WoW then any other title so far, around 2mil. And now WoW has some of Rift's features trying to get those players back in MoP. AOE looting anyone? LOL Oh i know you're not making this stuff up, people will argue with you about it but i have the launch and prelaunch videos and the articles with that stuff in them.

Originally posted by cylon8
i dont get you people shouldn't we be celebrating and supporting the games that HAVE survived...regardless of whether or not the provide any future proofing for the genre they still are financial and fan successes. And frankly sto isn't a failure...perfect no a failure NO

It was a pretty massive failure. It only ever started to get some cash flow when it became free. Mainly for the same reason SWTOR was a failure.

We celebrate these failures because it finally taught the stupid publishers that we will not pay monthly fees for over instanced linear games that pretend to be MMOs, but miss the point of them entirely.

Originally posted by smh_alot

Originally posted by itgrowls

 Rift actually took more players from WoW then any other title so far, around 2mil. And now WoW has some of Rift's features trying to get those players back in MoP. AOE looting anyone? LOL Oh i know you're not making this stuff up, people will argue with you about it but i have the launch and prelaunch videos and the articles with that stuff in them.

 

? Wtf... lol, Rift didn't even have that many players, 2mil, let alone that they all got stolen from WoW. This sounds like utter made up nonsense.

It IS absolute nonsense. Rift already had to merge servers because they lost so many players. That's never, EVER been a good sign.

SWTOR failed the moment it needed 500K subs to break even. Not even WOW had 500K subs at launch. I remember being there at launch, and it only had a few servers. It just grew and grew, over the years.

Now everyone piles into a MMO at launch, and then enjoys it for a few months, and then quits, instead of everyone trying it over time and building population.

I think SOE with ProSieben has made it the "Biggest MMO Failure to date". Not one person in the ProSieben thread on the EQ2 forums wants to migrate, and is prepared not to play a SOE (or rather ProSieben) game ever again, but at least with SWTOR some people actually like SWTOR and want to play it.

Originally posted by Tibernicus

Originally posted by smh_alot

Originally posted by itgrowls

 Rift actually took more players from WoW then any other title so far, around 2mil. And now WoW has some of Rift's features trying to get those players back in MoP. AOE looting anyone? LOL Oh i know you're not making this stuff up, people will argue with you about it but i have the launch and prelaunch videos and the articles with that stuff in them.

 

? Wtf... lol, Rift didn't even have that many players, 2mil, let alone that they all got stolen from WoW. This sounds like utter made up nonsense.

It IS absolute nonsense. Rift already had to merge servers because they lost so many players. That's never, EVER been a good sign.

Ye, they did.

Nevertheless, Rift was and is a massive success considering where they took off. And after well done merges (free transfers once per week), working and well done dungeon finder tool the game is fabulous to play. At any given time the most waiting time to do expert dungeon is 5 min max (unless you've queud only DPS, then it's infinite). And because the callings (classes) are so all around, you can play any role on any calling and have fun.

I predict Rift will be around for few years more, good sign or not. Just because the game is really working, good looking enough and most important HAS BROKE EVEN.

SW:ToR on the other hand will be forgotten soonish. The only thing keeping it alive are those guys in robes that think it's better to have anything star wars than nothing star wars.

Oh god YES! How can anyone doubt SWTOR is THE biggest FAIL in the history of MMOs, or even the history of gaming! They had everything! Bioware, a beloved and experienced studio! Star Wars, THE biggest IP ever! The endless coffers of EA and LucasArts to pay! Years and years of development time! AND a previous Star Wars MMO as referrence for experience! It was THE singlemost expensive MMO and expensive game!

We beta testers told them ALL they needed to know. So the critique was on the table!

Given all this, yes, SWTOR is the biggest FAIL in MMO and gaming history ever. They would need another 100 Million investment, 1-2 years COMPLETE overhaul and relaunch like FF14, only EA being evil will never do that.

Originally posted by pharazonic

This has got to be the biggest MMO failure to date. Big and I mean BIG budget studios (BioWare, and then all of Mythic), many millions of dollars, reknown voice actors and actors, world-famous interllectual property (Star Wars - who doesn't know it???), one of the titans of video games, EA and many years of anticipated development - all of this to crash and burn in less than a year? 

 

Sure you guys can argue that F2P is not a failure and that the game had "always been intended for F2P/Freemium" . Personally I think this view is bogus but whatever.

 

But the FACT remains that this game was THE WoW killer. Everyone from EA's CEO to BioWare's developers to SWTOR community managers said that this was the game that was going to face Blizzard's juggernaught, WoW. (You can look up articles posted during SWTOR's development that how this was the next big thing; I am not making this stuff up.) 

 

Well, one game still requires you to buy the latest expansion at FULL PRICE. One game still requires you to buy the game to level to levelcap. One game still has a major expansion coming up. One game still requires a subscription fee. That game isn't SWTOR. 

 

This has got to be the most monumental MMO failure - way beyond other "WoW killers" like AoC, War, etc. I mean, even WAR still has a subscription. How sad. 

HAHAHAH, you call make million of dollars a failure????  Some people have no clue... Ya the game did not meet expectations, nether did GW2, or any other game... But a failure fair from it,  to funny, and I do not play SWTOR as of right now, so call people fanboys all day.

Get a clue before you say a game fails, but if a game makes millions EA is laughing it up.... When it goes free they will make more just like DDO and LOTR did.. People/gamers today make me laugh, there is no such thing as a WOW killer, WOW came out when new gamers started the genre and Blizzard was a huge name....

Get a clue

Originally posted by Darkcrystal

HAHAHAH, you call make million of dollars a failure????  Some people have no clue...

Yah, when you need tens of millons just to stay afloat and youre making only millions its called a failure.

So yah, ill give you a hint:

get a clue