Here's how i see it.  Like it or not, SWTOR has and still have the best way to tell you a story in a MMO to date.  Even if you don't like the game as a whole, it would be stupid to not agree on that.

It has all of the "classic" mmo features you can expect from a game of that age.  Gear progression, dungeons (FP), raids (operation), crafting, group finder and arena.

F2P is going to surprise most of us i'm afraid.  It's going to be a big hit.  They are working on a new tv commercial (that will be release when they switch model) and they will stick to that "new things every 6 weeks".

Do not underestimate the F2P models.  I believe that the game will be MORE profitable with this model that it currently is... And i believe with f2p, they will be able to deliver free content every 6 weeks and some cool DLC (5 to 10$ a pop).

Originally posted by matraque

Here's how i see it.  Like it or not, SWTOR has and still have the best way to tell you a story in a MMO to date.  Even if you don't like the game as a whole, it would be stupid to not agree on that.

It has all of the "classic" mmo features you can expect from a game of that age.  Gear progression, dungeons (FP), raids (operation), crafting, group finder and arena.

F2P is going to surprise most of us i'm afraid.  It's going to be a big hit.  They are working on a new tv commercial (that will be release when they switch model) and they will stick to that "new things every 6 weeks".

Do not underestimate the F2P models.  I believe that the game will be MORE profitable with this model that it currently is... And i believe with f2p, they will be able to deliver free content every 6 weeks and some cool DLC (5 to 10$ a pop).

Ah, but that's where the failure is, MMORPG's aren't supposed to tell you a story, the players are supposed to make their own stories, that's what keeps them playing and paying.

Otherwise you get a throw away experience, just like a book or a movie, once you finish reading the story, you put it away, rarely to ever return.

It may have all the classic features of the modern theme park MMORPG, but it's pretty obvious that model fails to retain subs over the long haul unless you happen to be a developer named Blizzard.

They had the money and time to make a truely amazing MMORPG experience, and instead they delivered up something that was mostly average outside of its story telling.

For that alone I consider the title a failure, and F2P is just the inevitable result to bring life into a flagging title.

SWTOR is not a failure because it's going F2P. SWTOR is a failure because it's bad game and people are leaving with speed of light.

F2P is just another way to milk players once they refused paying sub for this game. They are hoping that some people stay and pay for anything just to get $$. Trick is - they giving for free ONLY thing in this game that have some value (story). Everything else is just bad and not worth a peny. Story itself is also just avarage. 

Themeparks are an excuse for lazy developers to produce just one or two paths through a game-world.

In closing, yes, SWTOR is the most hilariously tragic failure of the decade - given it's budget.

Originally posted by TobiasGrey

Originally posted by Kopogero
SWTOR is a failure because it didn't copy the SWG-Pre CU model. Themeparks in generals been failure over the last 5 years with the exception of WOW.

Try the last 8 years. There hasn't been a single successful themepark. Rift came the closest but even they were merging servers almost right away.

 

 

Posts like these are amazingly stupid..  No one would be making MMOs if WoW was the only successful one. You don't need 9 million subs to be a success.

I don't see SWTOR as becoming a failure for going F2P at all, If anything it will only make it better since there won't be any financial hurdles to continuing playing (unless of course they design a system that makes endgame unplayable to non subscribers). I never found the game to be all that bad, sure its a WoW clone and plays similar but I don't feel that is a negative at all. The fact that it is a Star Wars game alone is going to interest people but hearing its F2P I can see the game having a much larger player base then it ever could have as a sub game.

I feel the game failed due to them not releasing more content in a timely manner which has become expected post Rift, if they can manage to get their act together and provide more content it will only get better. The transition to F2P is going to happen to every game at some point, even WoW so I see this more as a change in the genre overall and not just games that are losing players.

Originally posted by Kyleran

Originally posted by matraque

Here's how i see it.  Like it or not, SWTOR has and still have the best way to tell you a story in a MMO to date.  Even if you don't like the game as a whole, it would be stupid to not agree on that.

It has all of the "classic" mmo features you can expect from a game of that age.  Gear progression, dungeons (FP), raids (operation), crafting, group finder and arena.

F2P is going to surprise most of us i'm afraid.  It's going to be a big hit.  They are working on a new tv commercial (that will be release when they switch model) and they will stick to that "new things every 6 weeks".

Do not underestimate the F2P models.  I believe that the game will be MORE profitable with this model that it currently is... And i believe with f2p, they will be able to deliver free content every 6 weeks and some cool DLC (5 to 10$ a pop).

Ah, but that's where the failure is, MMORPG's aren't supposed to tell you a story, the players are supposed to make their own stories, that's what keeps them playing and paying.

Otherwise you get a throw away experience, just like a book or a movie, once you finish reading the story, you put it away, rarely to ever return.

It may have all the classic features of the modern theme park MMORPG, but it's pretty obvious that model fails to retain subs over the long haul unless you happen to be a developer named Blizzard.

They had the money and time to make a truely amazing MMORPG experience, and instead they delivered up something that was mostly average outside of its story telling.

For that alone I consider the title a failure, and F2P is just the inevitable result to bring life into a flagging title.

 

Where does it says MMORPG's aren't suppose to tell you a story?  They ALL tell you a story... it's the way of delivering it that is different.

It is not a thrown away experience if they keep adding and delivering new chapters (that remains to be seen).

I just like reading threads like this because it reminds of how the majority of you where praising this game back in Dec./Jan. time frame. I find it funny how fast most of you can defend something so much then just turn your back and like it never happened.

The mmorpg.com community is a funny bunch

Originally posted by Acvivm

I don't see SWTOR as becoming a failure for going F2P at all, If anything it will only make it better since there won't be any financial hurdles to continuing playing (unless of course they design a system that makes endgame unplayable to non subscribers). I never found the game to be all that bad, sure its a WoW clone and plays similar but I don't feel that is a negative at all. The fact that it is a Star Wars game alone is going to interest people but hearing its F2P I can see the game having a much larger player base then it ever could have as a sub game.

 

I feel the game failed due to them not releasing more content in a timely manner which has become expected post Rift, if they can manage to get their act together and provide more content it will only get better. The transition to F2P is going to happen to every game at some point, even WoW so I see this more as a change in the genre overall and not just games that are losing players.

The game needs 500K subs to break even. If the game has 10 million players and none buy anything from the store then it will be a failure for EA and SWTOR will close, as they will not be making any money to make it better. There may not be financial hurdles for players but there still is for EA!

The last bit is a bit contradictory - If WOW becomes F2P, then it will be because they lost players, there is no way they will make it F2P when they have millions of subs.

If SWTOR sustained at lest 1 million subs and did not get down to 500K subs then it too would not be F2P now. With 2 million sales, and it not being a failure, then it would have maintained more people. When people bought the game they knew it cost $15 per month, and it was not F2P. Even if it sustained 1 million subs it would have been just OK. For it to be a success it would have needed to grow in subs, and then maybe drop down again after about a year, like what SWG did

There have been loads of layoffs, SWTOR now less priority for EA, no expansions announced yet, just free updates, which only happened to SWG after the NGE. SWG never went F2P, therefore SWG was more success than SWTOR

I find it very interesting that many people feel the game is a failure based on current profitability with an assumed 500K subscribers verse the guesses in the ballpark of $100-150 million development cost.  Either way, without knowing hard numbers, just using the estimates posters toss around on this site which seem very low in my opinion, people say that 2 million customers bought the game originally, then about 3 months in 1.5 million subscribers left the game.  Some quick math here considering we are in August now.  2 million times $60 bucks equals $120 million for initial release revenue.  2 million subscribers got there first month free and then paid for roughly 2 more months of service at 15 bucks per month, so 2 million times 30 bucks equals $60 million for first 3 months of subscrition revenue.  Now, lets say 500K subscribers at $15 per month for 6 months assuming all 1.5 million left immediately after the initial three months.  So 500K times 15 times 6 equals 45 million for the last 6 months of subscription revenue.  So if we total all three of these up, we get $225 million in revenue for the first 9 months of the games release, we haven't even reached a year yet!  If the game keeps 500K subscribers for 12 months, that is 90 million a year in subscription revenue.  How can SWTOR possibly be a failure based on this math? 

The game has far from failed would be my conclusion from a profitability stand point cosidering a worst case estimate of $225 million in Revenue in the First 9 months.

Originally posted by Bynt

I find it very interesting that many people feel the game is a failure based on current profitability with an assumed 500K subscribers verse the guesses in the ballpark of $100-150 million development cost.  Either way, without knowing hard numbers, just using the estimates posters toss around on this site which seem very low in my opinion, people say that 2 million customers bought the game originally, then about 3 months in 1.5 million subscribers left the game.  Some quick math here considering we are in August now.  2 million times $60 bucks equals $120 million for initial release revenue.  2 million subscribers got there first month free and then paid for roughly 2 more months of service at 15 bucks per month, so 2 million times 30 bucks equals $60 million for first 3 months of subscrition revenue.  Now, lets say 500K subscribers at $15 per month for 6 months assuming all 1.5 million left immediately after the initial three months.  So 500K times 15 times 6 equals 45 million for the last 6 months of subscription revenue.  So if we total all three of these up, we get $225 million in revenue for the first 9 months of the games release, we haven't even reached a year yet!  If the game keeps 500K subscribers for 12 months, that is 90 million a year in subscription revenue.  How can SWTOR possibly be a failure based on this math? 

The game has far from failed would be my conclusion from a profitability stand point cosidering a worst case estimate of $225 million in Revenue in the First 9 months.

Your subscription numbers are considerably off.  

Facts: 

- 2 mil boxes at release

- Feb subscribers were at 1.3 mil

- Hint at P2W in article on June 15th

- 250k is the threshold for P2W conversions.

Dec. 20th release

Jan. 20th:  2 mil

Feb 20th:  1.3 mil

March 20th: 950k

April 20th:  660k

May 20th:  ~250k  ( March and April are averaged drops in population beween this point and Feb. )

June 20th - Aug 20th:  <250k   

Best case scenario the game has made ~180 mil.

Originally posted by thinktank001

Originally posted by Bynt

*Snip*

 

Your subscription numbers are considerably off.  

Facts: 

- 2 mil boxes at release

- Feb subscribers were at 1.3 mil

- Hint at P2W in article on June 15th

- 250k is the threshold for P2W conversions.

 

Dec. 20th release

Jan. 20th:  2 mil

Feb 20th:  1.3 mil

March 20th: 950k

April 20th:  660k

May 20th:  ~250k  ( March and April are averaged drops in population beween this point and Feb. )

June 20th - Aug 20th:  <250k   

 

Best case scenario the game has made ~180 mil.

 

 

I didn't do any real research for these numbers, I just took a rough guess based on what I see many MMORPG users were posting in these forums about what they guessed the game was doing.  Either way, your numbers are very close to my guess as well, espsecially considering that EA hasn't released anything concrete in several months.  So lets assume your guess is more accurate than mine, I can see it.  My opinion is that the numbers are significantly higher but thats my guess.

But thank you for seeing this the same way I do, with a guess at development cost of $100-150 million, the game is still in the 10's of millions of dollars above development cost, so how can we utilize this math to prove the game is failing when financially the game is profitable in less than one year of release? 

I just find it odd that so many people point to this as some major sign that the game is some how in trouble or failing when even the most pessimistic numbers show it to be profitable.

Originally posted by Bynt

I didn't do any real research for these numbers, I just took a rough guess based on what I see many MMORPG users were posting in these forums about what they guessed the game was doing.  Either way, your numbers are very close to my guess as well, espsecially considering that EA hasn't released anything concrete in several months.  So lets assume your guess is more accurate than mine, I can see it.  My opinion is that the numbers are significantly higher but thats my guess.

But thank you for seeing this the same way I do, with a guess at development cost of $100-150 million, the game is still in the 10's of millions of dollars above development cost, so how can we utilize this math to prove the game is failing when financially the game is profitable in less than one year of release? 

I just find it odd that so many people point to this as some major sign that the game is some how in trouble or failing when even the most pessimistic numbers show it to be profitable.

We don't know the actual development costs, but the consenus seems to be in the $150-$200 million range. Markting costs need to be accounted for and EA spends a huge amount on marketing every year ($747M in 2011 across the company). In 2009, EA said they typically spent 2-3x the development cost for a game on marketing. Given the exceptional costs of SWtOR that ratio probably doesn't apply here, but it's still likely a big number. I'd guess in the $50-$100 million range. Remember that this game was going to be EA's World of Warcraft.

There are ongoing costs associated with marketing, infrastructure, legal, development and support. There are probably some costs that are significantly higher than they should be given the game's current size such as hardware or software leases. Typcial operating costs are around %35. My understanding is Lucas Arts gets a 35% cut of all subscription revenue. So with the current guesses at subscription numbers the game could optimistically be making up to $1M to $2M per month in profit which is in line with EA statements that 500k was is profitable and could survive at 350-400k subscribers.

The game is failing because it was going to make $80M/year in profit for EA and looks like it's trending toward loosing money if F2P doesn't save it. With their budget, time and IP they needed to do better. They're not some unknown studio on a tight budget, they're one of the biggest game companies in the world and they are barely making a profit.

I wanted to download the trial client and give the train wreck a good once over in person, but apparently after $300mil in voice overs they forgot to keep enough cash on hand for general purpose webhosting. 150kb/s for a 27gig+ DL on a 26/6mbs line? HA HA NO