Originally posted by MosesZD

Originally posted by Karteli

Originally posted by kulhat

Hey!, maybe they WANT to annoy people away, what do we know :)

All this will surely work in that direction.

This is a good speculation as to their intent.  If EA can MAKE this game fail, then they might be able to excuse themselves from their obligation with George Lucas .. an obligation which carries a high cost.

 

In essense, EA might be trying to get this game to tank, because in the long run, it's more profitable.  They still need to show that they "tried", which will be important in court hearings.

 

lol.   Problem is the 'speculators' don't have a clue.   A brief rundown:

 

BioWare and Pandemic formed a Company (VG Holding Corp.) in 2005.   This Company (BioWare/Pandemic) got in bed with Lucas Arts (the publisher) to make SWTOR.   They didn't have the money to do this.   So they took advances.   They took a LOT of advances.    Close to $190 million worth of advances.

 

Sometime later, BioWare sells itself to EA.    It was an interesting deal.   First, because it cost EA $620 million in cash.  Then EA had to buy-out another $155 million in VG stock options.   Second, are more importantly, they had to give VG (which had money problems) $35 million (as a loan) for them to take care of their obligations.  Plus they had to absorb $190 million of debt owed to Lucas Arts from the production advances BioWare took.

 

When EA took over BioWare, the absorbed the Company.  Including the LA debt.   BioWare doesn't exist as a separate company.  They ARE EA.   They're a division.   Like Chevy and Buick are divisions of GM.     So they're not going to escape this debt by throwing up their hands and saying "oh my, this isn't working."

 

Beyond the debt, there is the royalty situation.   As long as the game runs, LA will get royalties.   LA usually takes 30% though who knows what they're taking here...   So, Fremium or not, 30% (or some lower number perhaps) of every dollar will have to go to LA.   And you can be sure, George Lucas has very good accountants and attorneys and much bigger pockets to pay them.   After all, they're about 20 times the size of EA.

 

Hell, at $3.3 billion, George Lucas personally is worth almost as much as EA (Lucas is personally worth $3.3 billion, EA is worth $3.8 billion (market cap, worth less on the books (equity method))).

 

So, grand Internet 'thinkers' to the contrary, I see no way out of this mess beyond EA going Chapter 7.

 

So if we tally up the numbers of SWTOR for EA:

1.) $620 million to aacquire VG Holding Coro (Bioware and Pandemic)

2.) $155 million in VG stock options

3.) $35 million sundry VG debt

4.) $190 million of Bioware debt to Lucas Arts

5.) $300 million in SWTOR production and development costs.

6 .) $200 million in SWTOR marketing costs.

7.)  $500 million in stock buyback to raise the price of their (EA) stock after SWTOR's spectacular underperformance.

You're suggesting SWTOR cost EA $2 billion?

Free to Play is expensive.

I play SWTOR. I enjoy it. But, the Cartel Market and the F2P plan is going to fail. I just went on the PTS, and everything in the market is junk.

(1) If people were not willing to pay a monthly subsripition before, they are not going to pay a lower weekly subsrciption now. (The free verson of the game is not playable.)

(2) People who log in to try the game out for the first time are going to quit because it won't be fun with the limitation. 

(3) The gambling cases are going to cause existing subsrcibers to quit. Here's why: I  went onto the PTS andI spent all the coins that they give you on cases. I ended up getting a bunch of the same items  and did not want to use any of them. It seems like they created a few good things and are holding them up as a carrot while in reality the cases are filled with junk 95% of the time. This is just going to piss people off. Pissed of players will find another game. This is  as true a fact as can be.

What is EA thinking???

Originally posted by MuratReis

What is EA thinking???

That we are all robots ready to drop our cash into their pockets.

I wonder if they're not doing the routine of deliberately and knowingly going overboard with their initial restrictions, fully expecting backlash.

Because what they do then, is make a few concessions over things they were never "married to" in the first place, such as allowing one extra quick bar, to which players say "okay well that's better" and then are accepting of it.

Basically, they're doing a version of haggling... start way higher than you intend to sell something for, so that when you've haggled down a bit, you end up getting exactly what you wanted, or even a bit more.

Wouldn't surprise me at all.

I just hope people are weighing the restrictions on their own merit, and not accepting it because it's "not as bad as it could have been".

It sounds cynical, I know... but you really have to read between the li(n)es with anything big companies like this do. Everything is calculated, even the things that seem random and ridiculous. They're not flipping coins or making these decisions willy-nilly.

"Free to Play is expensive"

what a beautiful statement.

reminds me of this...

I really liked the City of Heroes F2P model (game's closing in November due to NCSoft decision, likely to get more to play GW2). They favored previous subscribers that's subbed for 2-5 years and you were already ahead of younger players when the game went F2P.

With SWTOR, subbed players will only get 900 cartel when the game goes F2P, as far as I know and there's very little worth getting under 900, if I bother to log in I'll probably spend all that cartel on unlocking the other 2 quickbars. At least they're revamping the restrictions, they would've been the laughing stock in game reviews and magazines in the coming months.

This is just... damn. Like getting a free cinema ticket just to discover the "catch" - a dude with a baseball bat tenderizing your face before, during and after the movie.

"Now THAT should teach the f2p crowd to play for free in OUR game!"

Originally posted by MuratReis

(3) The gambling cases are going to cause existing subsrcibers to quit. Here's why: I  went onto the PTS andI spent all the coins that they give you on cases. I ended up getting a bunch of the same items  and did not want to use any of them. It seems like they created a few good things and are holding them up as a carrot while in reality the cases are filled with junk 95% of the time. This is just going to piss people off. Pissed of players will find another game.

Welcome to the world of lockboxes / lootboxes (PWE/Turbine) :I

"they created a few good things and are holding them up as a carrot while in reality the cases are filled with junk 95% of the time" that's exactly the point. And not to forget it's only a few seconds work to them to increase that 95% for, let's say 98%. And a few months later to 99%.

Originally posted by Po_gg

Originally posted by MuratReis

(3) The gambling cases are going to cause existing subsrcibers to quit. Here's why: I  went onto the PTS andI spent all the coins that they give you on cases. I ended up getting a bunch of the same items  and did not want to use any of them. It seems like they created a few good things and are holding them up as a carrot while in reality the cases are filled with junk 95% of the time. This is just going to piss people off. Pissed of players will find another game.

Welcome to the world of lockboxes / lootboxes (PWE/Turbine) :I

"they created a few good things and are holding them up as a carrot while in reality the cases are filled with junk 95% of the time" that's exactly the point. And not to forget it's only a few seconds work to them to increase that 95% for, let's say 98%. And a few months later to 99%.

And who is forcing subscribers to buy anything in cash shop? We, subscribers are playing this game for a quite different reason. At least I do :). I intend to spend cash in shop though, but mostly as my way of appreciation for the game I love (means - I support the game).

And some of items in boxes are pretty cool. You really don't need to buy hundreds of it. LOL.

They just need to take this sorry excuse of a game and shut it down. I still can not believe they shut SWG down for this. Even with the NGE so many whined about, SWG was still twice the game TOR is. I can not believe how the gaming community has sunk so low to like these types of theme park wow clone console style rpgs they call mmo's this day in age.

I was so excited for TOR, and i did buy it. But after 7+ years in SWG and few other mmo's i just couldnt stomache playing this game. With the news of F2P i was deciding to return to play TOR and give it a second try. But after reading this and still seeing issues from day one still looming over TOR's head......... i just dont think i could return.

And no im not saying TOR was 100% bad, it had some great features and i did like the graphics, voice, and quest system. But everything else that a real and true mmo should be, just wasnt there.

Our community of gaming freaks (me being one) need to wake up and and start wanting more out of our mmo''s and not be satisfied with these games being released left and right. For the time and money spent making TOR, it should have blown every game out there out of the water. We need to demand more from gaming companies.

Honestly i just feel with newer age mmo players coming into the community, they just dont know what a real mmo is or should be. Many have no clue what a true sandbox is and are scared away from misconceptions of open world pvp and other horrific things they hear buy a handful of people. BTW only a few sandboxes have full loot/open world pvp by the way ;) And making mmo's so easy a 2 year old can play just isnt the way.

Now i fear i will never see another star wars style mmo again, and i just love the idea.

Originally posted by Onomas

They just need to take this sorry excuse of a game and shut it down. I still can not believe they shut SWG down for this. Even with the NGE so many whined about, SWG was still twice the game TOR is. I can not believe how the gaming community has sunk so low to like these types of theme park wow clone console style rpgs they call mmo's this day in age.

I was so excited for TOR, and i did buy it. But after 7+ years in SWG and few other mmo's i just couldnt stomache playing this game. With the news of F2P i was deciding to return to play TOR and give it a second try. But after reading this and still seeing issues from day one still looming over TOR's head......... i just dont think i could return.

And no im not saying TOR was 100% bad, it had some great features and i did like the graphics, voice, and quest system. But everything else that a real and true mmo should be, just wasnt there.

Our community of gaming freaks (me being one) need to wake up and and start wanting more out of our mmo''s and not be satisfied with these games being released left and right. For the time and money spent making TOR, it should have blown every game out there out of the water. We need to demand more from gaming companies.

Honestly i just feel with newer age mmo players coming into the community, they just dont know what a real mmo is or should be. Many have no clue what a true sandbox is and are scared away from misconceptions of open world pvp and other horrific things they hear buy a handful of people. BTW only a few sandboxes have full loot/open world pvp by the way ;) And making mmo's so easy a 2 year old can play just isnt the way.

Now i fear i will never see another star wars style mmo again, and i just love the idea.

 

 

I also wish they did not shut down SWG. SWTOR would get much less hate and we would have all SW fans satisfied as they would all play what they wanted... SWG or SWTOR... Too bad.. really.

It's like they're trying to kill the game off. Pathetic.

Not sure why anyone argues any F2P of this game that needs to be taken offline immediately as it is the biggest piece of crap ever compiled.

Surprised they just not make the crowd control features in PvP to use tokens that you buy in cash shop in the terms of say 25 cents each... Like they did in NFS World. Oh yeah that game tanked because of that, now I know why :D

The game is bad, we all know it, some wierdo's stick around because of some interactive movie entertainment... Aside from that, there is ZERO reason to play this game...It is complete horse doo doo all the way around.

No one even talks about the poor game mechanics this game has across the board... all they carea about is what they are payin for?

I'll fix this mess for you guys.. how about you all put in $5 a month and we'll convert this trash into a slideshow of art, everyday you get new pictures to oooh and aaah and let your imagination go off of whats taking place..

Originally posted by Karteli

Originally posted by kulhat

Hey!, maybe they WANT to annoy people away, what do we know :)

All this will surely work in that direction.

This is a good speculation as to their intent.  If EA can MAKE this game fail, then they might be able to excuse themselves from their obligation with George Lucas .. an obligation which carries a high cost.

 

In essense, EA might be trying to get this game to tank, because in the long run, it's more profitable.  They still need to show that they "tried", which will be important in court hearings.

As far fetched a this sounds - it could be. I watched 2 paper rpg companies struggle with and lose the Star Wars licensing. I know in both cases that the high cost of the license was a good portion of the reason the companies gave up on it.

I don't care anymore. Star Wars is no longer for the young at heart - it is aimed at kids. Clone wars (tv and online) is doing well I believe. Guess which audience that is aimed for.

Originally posted by tiefighter25

Originally posted by MosesZD

Originally posted by Karteli

Originally posted by kulhat

Hey!, maybe they WANT to annoy people away, what do we know :)

All this will surely work in that direction.

This is a good speculation as to their intent.  If EA can MAKE this game fail, then they might be able to excuse themselves from their obligation with George Lucas .. an obligation which carries a high cost.

 

In essense, EA might be trying to get this game to tank, because in the long run, it's more profitable.  They still need to show that they "tried", which will be important in court hearings.

 

lol.   Problem is the 'speculators' don't have a clue.   A brief rundown:

 

BioWare and Pandemic formed a Company (VG Holding Corp.) in 2005.   This Company (BioWare/Pandemic) got in bed with Lucas Arts (the publisher) to make SWTOR.   They didn't have the money to do this.   So they took advances.   They took a LOT of advances.    Close to $190 million worth of advances.

 

Sometime later, BioWare sells itself to EA.    It was an interesting deal.   First, because it cost EA $620 million in cash.  Then EA had to buy-out another $155 million in VG stock options.   Second, are more importantly, they had to give VG (which had money problems) $35 million (as a loan) for them to take care of their obligations.  Plus they had to absorb $190 million of debt owed to Lucas Arts from the production advances BioWare took.

 

When EA took over BioWare, the absorbed the Company.  Including the LA debt.   BioWare doesn't exist as a separate company.  They ARE EA.   They're a division.   Like Chevy and Buick are divisions of GM.     So they're not going to escape this debt by throwing up their hands and saying "oh my, this isn't working."

 

Beyond the debt, there is the royalty situation.   As long as the game runs, LA will get royalties.   LA usually takes 30% though who knows what they're taking here...   So, Fremium or not, 30% (or some lower number perhaps) of every dollar will have to go to LA.   And you can be sure, George Lucas has very good accountants and attorneys and much bigger pockets to pay them.   After all, they're about 20 times the size of EA.

 

Hell, at $3.3 billion, George Lucas personally is worth almost as much as EA (Lucas is personally worth $3.3 billion, EA is worth $3.8 billion (market cap, worth less on the books (equity method))).

 

So, grand Internet 'thinkers' to the contrary, I see no way out of this mess beyond EA going Chapter 7.

 

So if we tally up the numbers of SWTOR for EA:

1.) $620 million to aacquire VG Holding Coro (Bioware and Pandemic)

2.) $155 million in VG stock options

3.) $35 million sundry VG debt

4.) $190 million of Bioware debt to Lucas Arts

5.) $300 million in SWTOR production and development costs.

6 .) $200 million in SWTOR marketing costs.

7.)  $500 million in stock buyback to raise the price of their (EA) stock after SWTOR's spectacular underperformance.

You're suggesting SWTOR cost EA $2 billion?

Free to Play is expensive.

 

HA! Perhaps EA should have spent $2 billion cash (and $2 billion in stock) in buying Lucas Films instead of spending $2 billion cash chasing a Star Wars MMO license.

Originally posted by mikecackle

Not sure why anyone argues any F2P of this game that needs to be taken offline immediately as it is the biggest piece of crap ever compiled.

because technically it's called freemium, because it forces you to sub. nowhere near F2P.

Aside from that, there is ZERO reason to play this game...It is complete horse doo doo all the way around.

for many of us there was never a reason to play because we saw the misrepresentation early.

No one even talks about the poor game mechanics this game has across the board... 

 Oh trust me we talked about it ALOT and we were attacked for it and reported for revealing to the public just what kind of people were in charge of it and the evidence to support our claims were ignored. Notably on these very forums. 

Originally posted by tiefighter2

HA! Perhaps EA should have spent $2 billion cash (and $2 billion in stock) in buying Lucas Films instead of spending $2 billion cash chasing a Star Wars MMO license.

Ah, but thats where stupidity is shown:

They didnt really see SWTOR, they saw WoW with different skin and its 10-12m subs and, ofcourse, WoWs income. They most probably were counting on making all they invested in 2-3 years, and they would just be showered with monies. lol

Incompetent, short sighted, greeedy people. Big promises, big premiums and ultimately big failures.

Same crap as bankers did and pushed most of the world into crisis.

EA was warned that it cannot release game that belongs in 2004 in 2012 and expect that kind of result. Well, it cost the dearly, it certanly made a deed dent, just look at stock prices, and what they had to do to get em up.