Originally posted by Distopia

Originally posted by Blackwater56

Originally posted by Distopia

Originally posted by Blackwater56

Originally posted by FrodoFragins

 

Personally, 1.3 million as of March 31 is still pretty good

Uh, no. Not when you sold 2.3 million copies total

 

So SWTOR lost 1 million subs AND STILL hasn't merged server.

 

That's all that can be said about the business mantality of EA. 

And yes, the free month was included. The report was from the end of April

What 1.3 million isn't a decent sub base? What?

THEY LOST

ONE MILLION

SUBSCRIBERS

 

In 5 months.

WoW, with 13 million subs, lost 1 million IN ONE YEAR

 

SWTOR has taken a MASSIVE hit.

Massive hit sure, but that's the norm, people could say that about just about every MMO since 05. But 1.3 mil is something many sub based games wish they had, many never even reach a million in sales.

So, you grant the numbers are a near 50% loss, and you spin it with "so, everyone wishes they still had 1.3 mill."  I actually am not as eeyorish on the numbers.  But if I was, I wouldn't be trying to say it was okay.  That's terrible numbers, and proof more of the power of hype than anything else.  That's not something to look forward to for the future of MMOs.

Originally posted by Berikai

Originally posted by Axehilt

This blows my earlier model out of the water in terms of subscriber retention.

Running the numbers I think I used 1.6m as a baseline and assumed a 30% bleed in customers every month.  Even with that ultra-conservative "the game is dying zomg" style of customer loss, the game broke even after only 3-4 months against their $200MM cost to produce it.

Sounds like they're doing way better than that and probably broke even on the 2nd or 3rd month and unless they're still running the full team (extremely doubtful) they're swimming in profits.

Out of 2.4 mill sales they probably made 70-80 mill profit max as they only get a portion of the box sales and that's not even counting I believe %35 to LA.So maybe 50 mill profit.The first 30 days are included and when you figure 1.5mill subs at $15x3 month's = about $67 mill you're not even close to breaking even.By the time you figure server cost's and such and more sub bleed they may turn a profit by years end.

 

Then you gotta factor in the 65 mill marketing blitz they launched, then the cut to the people outside the company who bankrolled this project (there's always a few of those)

Originally posted by Precusor

Originally posted by maplestone

Originally posted by Myria

1.3 million paying customers, making it easily the second largest western MMO, is... Dying?

It's a question of return on investment.  If you cut through the cheering/jeering from the stands, there is a real serious question here about the entire future of our hobby.

If the game is sufficiently profitable, it will become the template for the entire next generation of clones (from the tiny collection of companies able to afford to pay the cost).  If the game fails to turn a profit, it will be unlikely we see another fully voice-acted story-driven MMO attempted any time soon. 

Given the astronomical sums whispered about how much was spent to construct the game, it is entirely possible for it to have one of the highest subscription rates ever and still be the death of its infant subgenre.  That said, there are so many contradictory numbers and so much spin flying around that I'm finding it difficult to get a feel on exactly what's going on.  I guess only time will tell how investors and publishers are reading these reports.

EA spent around 100 million to developed SWTOR and they got all that money back from their box sales.

 

 

Got a source that says they spent only 25% more than it took to make vanilla WoW, especially considering Blizzard didn't have to pay a third party for their IP, and were able to do a substantial amount of their marketing through battle.net?

Originally posted by Souldrainer

Originally posted by Burntvet

Originally posted by Souldrainer

OP, glad you enjoyed it.  SWTOR is not for everybody.  At its core, SWTOR is for Star Wars fans who have moderate to severe alt-itis.

More likesomeone having delusions of living in SW universe and near infinite patience/toleration of boredom.

How many times can you REALLY do 90% of the same content over and over? Three? Four? For many people, it is about 1.5. They play one toon to 50 and start playing one of the other faction and give up in the middle.

 

If regrinding alts was the plan for getting people to play TOR over the middle and longer term, it was a lousy idea.

And thus, the population continues to decline, because most players are not willing to do that for something so boring, because at the end, there isn't a damn thing to do, except more meaningless grind.

 

 

 

I do things differently.  All I do are class quests and PVP, basically.  But yeah, population decline might happen soon if they don't undo some of their backward steps of 1.2, but I digress.  The "continues to decline" part of your statement assumes a decline has begun, and yet, no number declines were actually posted anywhere.  On matters of fact, please stick to known truths.

bumped for ironic lulz after EA confirms it's been more than a steady decline

Originally posted by Greyhooff

Bioware/EA viral marketing department is in panic mode.

Check out the sheer number of EA paid shills on this thread in the SWTOR official forum. It is mind-boggling.

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=447469&page=19

They banned all the constructive critics and anyone who said anything negative, now their threads are just pages of shills discussing back and forth with fanboys, backed up by their corrupt fascist moderators who are "editing" threads to make them look better, all desperately trying to make the game look as if it's not completely dead already.

Their new story: it was the bad community that killed SWTOR.

That's right, they're blaming the players for SWTOR's problems, in order to deflect the blame from their **** devs who made a **** game!

Nice spin, blame the community that tried to fix the game by providing feedback and solutions - and got banned for it, and don't blame the terrible clueless lead developers who destroyed the game with terrible decisions, 1.2 class balance, no merges because "it would look bad" etc etc etc.

The truth is, we didn't deserve such a great game.  We weren't ready for Bioware to revolutionize the industry, so we destroyed it.

Originally posted by Talonsin

I think WoW really screwed up everyones expectations for MMO and sub numbers.  I dont deny the game has lost a lot of subs but it is also pulling in some cash.

 

2 mill copies sold ($50 mill assuming they averaged half the sales price)

3 months of 1.5 mill sub average ($67+ mill)

In the first quarter alone they almost broke even on the $150 development costs.  Even if they fall down to 1 mill subs thats still $15 million a month coming in.  At mid-summer the game will have paid for itself and then become a money printing machine compared to most other MMO's.

 

I agree everyone expected more from the game but if I were an investor, I would not be concerned just yet. 

 

As the Biodrones say "where do you get that 150 development cost" figure from? 

But you also have to take into account the maintenence in their data centers for all these servers.  Not out of this world expensive, but not cheap either.  Then you need to take into account the tens of millions they've spent in marketing.  Then the cut that goes out to other third parties besides  the retailers.  Then you gotta pay the creditors.

That is what has investors a bit pessimistic, and then you tie in the overall disastarous shape that EA is currently in.  That will continue until end of the year when they release Madden, and this provides a temporary tonic.

Originally posted by Nevulus

Originally posted by adam_nox

Originally posted by Nevulus

"But “Star Wars: The Old Republic” showed signs of weakening. EA said active subscribers totaled 1.3 million at the end of the quarter — down 24% from the 1.7 million reported at the end of the December period, when the game first launched"

I work as a stock analyst for [edit]. I specialize in the tech sector, lately I have been assigned to online games.I wish I could publish our results from our analyst group so you can see the impact SWTOR had on EA, or lack of, and the truth behind the numbers. But alas I am not allowed so I will only say that as much as I would like to see EA crumble and burn, They are holding well over a million paid subs as of March.

You knowing any more than anyone else who is following the stock and the publically available info, and acting upon it, would be insider trading.  In truth, analysts are talking heads, and we often laugh at them on these forums for being so wrong.  You can say you know etc etc, but you don't.  No one knows how many subs are being floated by their 30 day freebies, and other accounting methods that they don't have to detail.

 

As to the impact on EA, who cares.

 

I was right when I said they would maintain over 1 million subs, and I will be right again when their number drops under 1 million in 4 months. You can laugh all you want, they can't maintain 1 million without a big expansion within the next 4 months. or some MAJOR changes. And after listening to the conference call, I just dont see that happening.

So your not relying on some super duper secret data from your firm...... your relying on **%&%*&% common sense.  A game declining in sales, unless it makes real changes, will increase its rate of decline.  This ain't neccessarily rocket science.  How much student debt you rack up in college so you would be able to make this prediction?

Originally posted by Slampig

If you people don't play it, why beat this dead horse?

Is it a case of the "I told you so's"?

I mean, the forum space needs to be concentrated on the Elder Scrolls and this is just taking up too much of that space...

Eh, you know how this goes.

Game gets incredible hype.

Game ends up not meeting it.

Player points it out, and states he is leaving.

Those who think it does live up to the hype go into full forum-rage in attacking the individuals.

Haters go into full forum-rage in attacking the fanbois.

Numbers come out proving the haters not neccessarily right, but closer to the truth than the fanbois.

At this point, just grab the popcorn and enjoy the show!

Originally posted by SuperXero89

Consolidate or get rid of dailies.  I should not have to spend the entire day running dailies spread out across three planets that take hours to complete.  Add a cross-server dungeon finder, increase loot rewards in hardmode flashpoints, decrease difficulty of hardmode flashpoints.  Profit.

While they're at it, possibly decrease the level of rewards from storymode operations or increase difficulty so that people aren't skipping straight to the raid content after hitting 50.

 

Now all BioWare has to do is add more content.

Remove dailies, yes.  replace it with, I dunno, actual content.  And please send that message to every damn MMO company out there.  But Bioware has already said "repeatable non-raid content" is in the future.....

As far as reduce the difficulty of HM, no.  You don't want to do that as an MMO.  Maybe on one mission or so, but across the board, no.  If anything HM needs to be redesigned so it is tactically far different because of the increased difficulty, not just a DPS race.  Though that is hard to do when you are defined by a trinity system admittedly.

Originally posted by PyrateLV

“Star Wars: The Old Republic” showed signs of weakening. EA said active subscribers totaled 1.3 million at the end of the quarter — down 24% from the 1.7 million reported at the end of the December period, when the game first launched.

 

ROFL!

 

What happened to - "subscriber numbers haven’t dropped, but concurrent users at peak times have" - Daniel Erickson

That statement came less than a month ago

 

 

Eh, in this case, it was just a lagging indicator.  i'm sure he knew what was coming next, but he wasn't technically lying.  He was just speaking with so much legalese that anyone who understood MMO's couldn't stop laughing as he talked.

But the money shot here is that basically within 4 months of release, TOR has lost at least 25% of its subcriber base.  No real way to spin that. 

Originally posted by Stormsone

They should have just made this Dark age of Camelot 2 because it looks more like that than elder scrolls.  Not saying I won't consider playing this but its more then likely I will pass it up for something better. I am curious after reading the article about elder scrolls online what the game developers were thinking. I guess they started development 5 years ago when wow was still at the top of its game and the staff is mainly made up of people that have zero experience making sandbox games or action combat games so they would have been like this. "Well guys we don't know diddly jack about sandbox games or how to make it so you need to aim in combat,so we will make a combat auto attack with a  hotbar game with a class level sytem like we have done before.We will make a few tweaks so people will not notice that its not anything remotely like oblivion or morrowind but,we can copy the things we see wow do or that we did when working on past mmos and put it in a world with elder scrolls lore.The fans will surely understand right?." 

I bet thats what they said to themselves but the way elderscroll fans are reacting does not bode well for the game.

I see a few deluded fanbois and a few deluded trolls who already had their minds made up, and no amount of evidence or facts would change their opinion.

Then I see a lot of people who say it could be good, it could be bad, lets wait and see.

Meanwhile, I see all the sites going "OMFG, ELDER SCROLLZ ONLINE!!!!ELEVEN!!!!!  MUST WRITE ARTICLE.

Meanwhile, Zenimax says "look at all the free traffic and marketing we just generated."

Then the suits at Bethesda say "Wait, you mean there are people who exist that haven't played Skyrim.  Not for long after this free marketing blitz our IP just got!"

So honestly, this doesn't sound that different or surprising than what I expected.

Originally posted by Wickedjelly

Originally posted by Kyleran

No they are not!  EA says subs are holding steady, so it must be true regardless of the actual evidence you have observed.

But seriously, I think that's how we have to look at MMO's these days, fun for a few months after lauch, then you take a break and come back after the next content expansion.

The era of long term play is probably long past.

 

 I can honestly say I won't be coming back to this game even after an expansion. No ill will towards the game just no interest whatsoever in it no matter what they do.

Normally I do at the very least peek my head in from time to time in these games but far as this one goes...

No thanks...

I can honestly say I think this is the first mmo I have played that I have no desire whatsoever to return to it even when they offer free time to play.

Yeah, can't see myself returning either.  It is the first MMO I don't have an itch to at least login and see how things are going.

My guild has rolled up, like so many others.  Even when there is people in this game, everyone forgets, they aren't grouping for the most part except for end-game stuff.  During the leveling process, I saw people all the time.  none were grouped tho. So even if I come back, it will still remain a solo, single player experience.

I have Skyrim or Witcher 2 for that.  I don't need to pay 15 bucks a month.  I don't see this changing, so no desire to return.

Originally posted by Opapanax

Originally posted by Monorojo

We had fun SWTOR. I loved you, i hated you, you were my everything, you were my nothing.

 

I will always remember the times we had together. They were decent in retrospect.

 

Good night sweet prince. Back to WoW I go.

 Whaaaaa....

Did he really even leave WoW, I thought he was playing TOR.....

Meh, the games are all the same to me.  Just tell me if it was the one with orcs, or the ones with voiceovers.

Originally posted by tixylix

I remember when I would take me like 3 months to get to end level in an MMO. You know the times before guides on the internet and everyone sharing secrets. In EQs day people didn't share how to do content, it was kept secret but now everyone and their mum is doing end game content. This is why boredom sets in because everyone can do everything instead of having goals.

Yeah, I saw this and said "this has to be a troll thread."

The game does suck, but being able to experience all end game content by the end of 6 weeks really is pretty fail.  Now I loved POTBS, and you could level to 50 in 36 hours if you were really dedicated.  But then again, the "end-game" was player driven, so that's different than TOR, where the "end-game" is entirely one instance after another, just every now and then one particular instance has players that might fight back.

Originally posted by scottns

You know what's really going to suck?  We'll probably never get another single player Elderscolls game now...Never.  At least they went out with a bang with Skyrim.

Not nececssarily.

Bethesda has already stated they were in the early stages of planning out the next Elder Scrolls game.

Wanna know why they will continue to make SRPG's in the Elder Scrolls universe?  Much as it pains me to say it.... consoles.  Skyrim sold over 13 million copies and it hasn't been out a year.  You simply aren't going to get that kind of market on the PC alone.

Originally posted by Bladestrom

Originally posted by Stellus
Third person view with hotbar/cooldown combat and a class system means this is DOA and certainly NOT a true Elder Scrolls MMO. What a complete waste of a perfectly good opportunity. Rename it something else so it doesn't tarnish the Elder Scrolls brand.

Couldnt agree more, cartoony graphics rather than real and gritty?!  Cmon can the development house not do basic market research?  Elder scrolls should be dark, have a ton of atmosphere and a sense of history That is what makes elder scrolls what it is. Hero engine, dear god they are going to release something 15 years out of date by the time it is released.  yuo can almost hear the same conversation that the 'marketing team' in bioware had - omg, lets make a game as successful as WOW - but in Elder scrolls world.   Gutted, I love Beth games.

To be perfectly honest, let me pose an honest question.  Seriously, it is honest, not trolling.

Who the hell played Elder Scrolls games for the combat mechanics?  Really, the combat system  isn't that good.  And you've been able to use a hotbar before in Elder Scrolls games.  Most of us who play on the PC don't act like we play on a console.  When one thinks of Elder Scrolls, they don't think of the awesome uber first person combat system. 

You think of the freedom that is offered in the game to really do just about anything you want.  One thinks of the incredibly rich and deep world offered in each outing.   Considering you haven't seen the world yet, you really don't know if the game will or won't "Have a sense of atmosphere" based off of a few maybe screenshots in a magazine.

I have my own serious concerns about this game, but we really can't say much about a game we learned about formally 36 hours ago, and we haven't seen any actual gameplay footage on.  As far as that goes, consider me cautiously pessimistic.

Originally posted by dontadow

Originally posted by Ghabbo

Originally posted by Zhauric

Eh, read an article on it and quite honestly it sounds like every other MMO. Well cept the whole voting an emperor from the playerbase thing. Hope it fullfills the desires of some but I'm thinking I may have to pass. But who knows. Still seems some time off.

As for the one who asked release year it was said 2013.

 

Vote xxxDarthLordLegolas01xxx 2013

 

JK... awesome sandbox mechanic 

Yay 99.9 perceont of people who play the game will never experience this mechanic. So lets waste millions of dollars in development for something that 200 people will only enjoy.  

Don't play MMO's as single player games?

Personally, if I were to play it, I would be very active in that aspect of things.  It is called interacting with the community.  Should try it sometime.

There's a few things that have come out that make you wonder about this game.  And then there's features like that which are a very good thing.  Of course, the question remains:  what are the perks of being Emperor?

Originally posted by Unlight

Originally posted by Olgark

Here is hoping they can make a perfect MMO RPG like they can make the perfect single player RPG.

 

When have they ever made a perfect single player game?  Skyrim was the pick of the litter in many ways (although overall, I still think Morrowind was far more entertaining), but it was FAR from perfect.  In fact, without the modding community, it would have been nigh on unplayable for many of us.  An MMO by these folks isn't going to have a devoted and creative community to rely on, to shore up the game's weaknesses.

I think what Morrowind had was actually compelling characters.  Oblivion and Skyrim both had compelling worlds (Oblivion more in its quest lines, Skyrim in its randomness built into the world), but I haven't found anyone with as amibigous a nature as Vivec in the later TES games.  You could view Vivec as an evil souless SOB or as a benevolent divinity, and depending on which side of the coin you saw it from, you'd be right.  He was a fascinating character.  Not neccessarily ally or villian, he was just "there" dominating his world.  Oblivion came close with the Count of Skingrad, but that should've been developed more.

Originally posted by Brenelael

Originally posted by Z3R01

Who's making the game? If its Todd Howard and company i will get excited but if its some stupid online division of Zenimax filled with old mmo developers then ill pass.

 

Last I checked Todd Howard had no interest in making a Elder Scrolls MMO. Either they twisted his arm or got his go ahead to make the game with a completely new studio with the game set in a time period that Todd would never use in his games.

Todd Howard has nothing to do with this besides giving them some "Lore Guidance" according to the info we have so far. It looks like Zenimax Online is developing this seperately and the core TES team at Bethesda Softworks has little to do with it. Todd did state in one of the Skyrim interviews that they are already in the very early pre development stage of the next single player TES game so there is hope that this won't effect the TES series at all and will be more of an "Ugly Stepbrother" of the series. Kinda like the mobile games and Redguard was between Daggerfall and Morrowind.

 

Bren

I hope ESO does good, but they still need to make an Elder Scrolls VI.  Especially if, following the DB story, there is no longer an Emperor.

Though at the same time, I wouldn't mind them chronicling the rise of Tiber Septim, or even further back into the second or even first age as well.  That's the thing with The Elder Scrolls Lore, if you bother to read it.  There's a ton of material to mine.  It is akin to a story they've been developing for over 20 years now.

Originally posted by enoch420

I expect more shoddy work from Bethesda. Level 45 and I beat the main story in Skyrim....the rest is just boring and it still has tons of stability issues. Thanks to the mod community, it's better than what it would be. Still, I don't trust Bethesda anymore after failrim.

If you are playing an Elder Scrolls game to "Beat it", you are doing it wrong.

I got stuck in that mindset.  Had been awhlie since Oblivion, and I was used to playing games where the point was to plow through them, to "beat it."  So I played Skyrim for about 50 hours, then got bored.

Took several months off, then due to not wanting to log back into ME3, and TOR epically failing, I fired up Skyrim, and resolved to play it like I did Morrowwind and Oblivion.  You had "quests" to do, but on your way to that quest point, head into every dungeon you find.  Read every bit of lore you find in that dungeon.  Talk to people you come across.  Or just follow someone.  See Imperials taking a Stormcloak away?  Follow them.  Follow them through a small village, back into the wilderness.  Ambush them.  Then when you think about letting the Stormcloak guy go, wack him to.

Then after 3 hours, go "oh shit, didn't I have some quest I was supposed to get back to?"  Oh look, a dragon fighting mammoths and giants!

In other words, if the Elder Scrolls MMO is to be good, they need to avoid pleasing players akin to yourself like the bloody plague.