Regardless of how well it is or isn't doing or where the populations stand, one thing is for sure; TOR didn't even come close to achieving all of what the hype said it would. There's a number of people who were claiming that, whether it succeeded or failed, that TOR would be a "Genre Changer". Some were right on this site.

Wonder where those people are now? Where ever they are, I hope that crow they're eating isn't too bitter.

In the end, as others and myself predicted, TOR hasn't changed squat.

One thing I would have liked to see it change was how completely and ridiculously sucked into hype people let themselves get. Sadly, I don't think that's goin to change either.

Originally posted by Moaky07

Then what would be fact all knowing swammi?

 

I mean a legitimate estimate, not the stuff you scraped out of your ass. 2.4M boxes at 40 bucks to EA on average(which I explained the number) is 100M(96 to be technical). 15 bucks a month is 15 bucks a month....4 months counted since some got 5th free. 1.3M average for those months since we started at 1.7M, and going with the game followed the same trend.

 

The math is right. The folks refusing to wrap their head around it.....not so much.

 

The game has either already made back the initial investment of 150-200M, or it is damn close.

Its nowhere near what you are saying and someday you might actually get it since all posts that thoroughly explain it to you againg and again just get ignored.

They NEVER had 1,7m SUBS and they admitted it, 1,3m is padded number, and they admitted that. Its questionable if they ever broke 1m actual subs.

What they DID have is 1,7m ACTIVE ACCOUNTS. And 1,3m ACTIVE ACCOUNTS.

Originally posted by Atlan99

EA is the publisher and they get all revenue until a profit is made.

That means $40 a box is probably low-balling. 2.4 millions copies sold so far. That means $96 million just off box copies.

1.3 million first month subs x 12 (monthly sub fee) = 15.6 million.

Now we don't know what subs have been the last 4 months. Let's average 500k.

0.5 million x 12(sub fee) x 4 months = 24 million

Which means SWTOR has brought in $135 million at least in revenue.

Subs from what gas been reported in other games is 0,5, so they keep 7,5$.

So lets be optimistic and say:

96m + 1m (avg) subs over 4 months= 126m

And thas on OPTIMISTIC side of things.

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Originally posted by Zippy

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Originally posted by Moaky07

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Originally posted by Ringbus

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Originally posted by Moaky07  Actually it has.....40 bucks per box sold on average(taking the highs of direct sales and collectors editions minus sharing money with store bought standard copies to get this ball park figure). That is 100M alone.   4 Months of 1.3M subs average since it started higher, and maybe it did lose another 300k for arguments sake. 4x15 x 1.3M is 78M.   That gives us 178M. Not all subs payed for the 5th month, so we wont include it even though it puts us closer to the 200M top end of estimates.  No it isnt 220M, but it is getting close. That is even to say they did spend 220.....estimates have ranged 150 to 200M.  If TOR hasnt made back the investment, they are in the ball park now, and after it is pure gravy.   I know it chaps the haters asses this game is going to keep chugging along, but it would be nice if you guys quit with the insistence it is still deep in the hole. Rational examination shows otherwise.    

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  What is so bizarre about these crazy and insane numbers you are posting isn't just how far off in fantasyland they are but the fact that even a moments thought into comparing what you are claiming to other game companies and games would make it obvious just how hilariously absurd they are. No one, not EA, not any game company, is making 100 million dollars off two million or so game sales. Not anywhere close to those numbers.  

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Then what would be fact all knowing swammi?   I mean a legitimate estimate, not the stuff you scraped out of your ass. 2.4M boxes at 40 bucks to EA on average(which I explained the number) is 100M(96 to be technical). 15 bucks a month is 15 bucks a month....4 months counted since some got 5th free. 1.3M average for those months since we started at 1.7M, and going with the game followed the same trend.   The math is right. The folks refusing to wrap their head around it.....not so much.   The game has either already made back the initial investment of 150-200M, or it is damn close.    

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On average a developer only gets 25% of the retail sales price back.  But that % is higher now because on average over 50% of pre launch sales now are digital which BW will get a higher % back.  Most likley their average return on 2 millon boxes or 120 milion of sales would be less than  50%.  Maybe a retrun of $50 million.  Tor likely only had 1 million subs the first month.  Their sub definition hasbeen very liberal including free players and players who have not finished their first month.  a 500k sub average over 6 months would be generous.  Using a high $15 figure that would be $45 million.  Now add itheir costs of mainating the game whic is typically 50% of the amount of subs.  In recent times that number has dropped but considerr that Tor has been maintaining close to 200 servers while only having the population to run 10 servers so their average cost is likely extremely high.  Plus they have been advertising on a huge scale since release and until recently retaining a large staff trying to finish the game and save what subs they have left.  I would not be suprised if their costs have not exceeded the $45 million in revenue they have generated. BW and thier investors have lost a lot of money in this game.  With the 200k or so players they have left they are not getting that money back.

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As silly as those number guessing games are with people pulling random numbers out of nowhere trying to make it sound (and ALWAYS fail at it) as if they would have an actual clue... those numbers sound very unrealistically low even for me as a TOR pessimist. So nah, doubt your guessing is even anywhere close.

Originally posted by Atlan99

Originally posted by Ringbus

 

What is so bizarre about these crazy and insane numbers you are posting isn't just how far off in fantasyland they are but the fact that even a moments thought into comparing what you are claiming to other game companies and games would make it obvious just how hilariously absurd they are.

No one, not EA, not any game company, is making 100 million dollars off two million or so game sales. Not anywhere close to those numbers.

 

EA is the publisher and they get all revenue until a profit is made.

That means $40 a box is probably low-balling. 2.4 millions copies sold so far. That means $96 million just off box copies.

1.3 million first month subs x 12 (monthly sub fee) = 15.6 million.

Now we don't know what subs have been the last 4 months. Let's average 500k.

0.5 million x 12(sub fee) x 4 months = 24 million

Which means SWTOR has brought in $135 million at least in revenue.

 

Heh, I wanted to post a correction, but you beat me to it :-)

Also don't forget thought that 40% was sold via Origin, digitally, and owned by EA, both the fact that it was digital and that EA owns Origin means that a larger percentage of the 60 dollar is gained by EA/BW, I wouldn't be surprised if that'd be 50-55 dollar for like 0.8-1m units. Also not to forget that the price in Europe was 70 dollar (euro and pound conversion), which is even 10 dollars more.

On top of that you have the digital deluxe editions that were 20 dollars more expensive and the collector's edition boxes that were sold out.

All that together also brings up that amount for millions of dollars.

Originally posted by mikahr

Originally posted by Moaky07

Then what would be fact all knowing swammi?

 

I mean a legitimate estimate, not the stuff you scraped out of your ass. 2.4M boxes at 40 bucks to EA on average(which I explained the number) is 100M(96 to be technical). 15 bucks a month is 15 bucks a month....4 months counted since some got 5th free. 1.3M average for those months since we started at 1.7M, and going with the game followed the same trend.

 

The math is right. The folks refusing to wrap their head around it.....not so much.

 

The game has either already made back the initial investment of 150-200M, or it is damn close.

Its nowhere near what you are saying and someday you might actually get it since all posts that thoroughly explain it to you againg and again just get ignored.

They NEVER had 1,7m SUBS and they admitted it, 1,3m is padded number, and they admitted that. Its questionable if they ever broke 1m actual subs.

What they DID have is 1,7m ACTIVE ACCOUNTS. And 1,3m ACTIVE ACCOUNTS.

 

I'm not gonna look up the data and sources, but from what I recall retention loss after the initial first month for a number of AAA MMO's was measured around the 20-30%. From the figures as seen in trend tools like Xfire and Raptr (yeah, yeah, I know, limited value etc), TOR also seemed to fall within that range. So, even while we're all just guessing here, your assumption about the 1 million actual subs max sounds off.

Originally posted by Moaky07

Originally posted by Ringbus

Originally posted by Moaky07 

Actually it has.....40 bucks per box sold on average(taking the highs of direct sales and collectors editions minus sharing money with store bought standard copies to get this ball park figure). That is 100M alone.

 

4 Months of 1.3M subs average since it started higher, and maybe it did lose another 300k for arguments sake. 4x15 x 1.3M is 78M.

 

That gives us 178M. Not all subs payed for the 5th month, so we wont include it even though it puts us closer to the 200M top end of estimates.  No it isnt 220M, but it is getting close. That is even to say they did spend 220.....estimates have ranged 150 to 200M.  If TOR hasnt made back the investment, they are in the ball park now, and after it is pure gravy.

 

I know it chaps the haters asses this game is going to keep chugging along, but it would be nice if you guys quit with the insistence it is still deep in the hole. Rational examination shows otherwise.

 

 

 

What is so bizarre about these crazy and insane numbers you are posting isn't just how far off in fantasyland they are but the fact that even a moments thought into comparing what you are claiming to other game companies and games would make it obvious just how hilariously absurd they are.

No one, not EA, not any game company, is making 100 million dollars off two million or so game sales. Not anywhere close to those numbers.

 

Then what would be fact all knowing swammi?

 

I mean a legitimate estimate, not the stuff you scraped out of your ass. 2.4M boxes at 40 bucks to EA on average(which I explained the number) is 100M(96 to be technical). 15 bucks a month is 15 bucks a month....4 months counted since some got 5th free. 1.3M average for those months since we started at 1.7M, and going with the game followed the same trend.

 

The math is right. The folks refusing to wrap their head around it.....not so much.

 

The game has either already made back the initial investment of 150-200M, or it is damn close.

 

 

those have yet to be proven as facts there bub. First all the figures come from the first financial director (who left btw) and then the 1.3 came from the second. No official report has been made, they were all vague attempts at staving off stock holders running, they never released actual figures. Second, EVERYTHING this company is doing with it's personel should send up red flags for everyone. The director of finance left, shortly after that three major devs left, shortly after that they laid off 200 people (of which 245 were working on the actual developement sound gameplay etc.), shortly after that they started talking (putting it out public to check people's reactions) about DLC content they've been holding onto for future content seeing if people would get mad, people got mad so they canned that idea, and now the BW lead director said that "might" get into F2P but the EA Director over everyone says they definitely ARE getting into F2P. ALL of the signs are pointing to one thing, they screwed up, didn't keep enough players now they are looking for better avenues other then the fail model of subscription pricing. (it's fail because other then WoW no one else has really been a slam dunk success story with this model).

So really, who is the fool here? Ignoring part of the evidence because you don't like it doesn't mean it's not there and calling everyone crazy because we don't believe the figures presented by EA/BW themselves in an unofficial capacity doesn't mean we are wrong. :) I believe in math and science and facts, some financial director saying it word of mouth instead of a report showing the details does not equal fact, it equals PR. I've had a long history of bad PR with other companies, this one is a company as well nothing new.

Originally posted by smh_alot I'm not gonna look up the data and sources, but from what I recall retention loss after the initial first month for a number of AAA MMO's was measured around the 20-30%. From the figures as seen in trend tools like Xfire and Raptr (yeah, yeah, I know, limited value etc), TOR also seemed to fall within that range. So, even while we're all just guessing here, your assumption about the 1 million actual subs max sounds off.

As they said themselves: subs are funny thing :)

@itgrowls: for all you say you bring actually little financial sales figures or data into the discussion that contradicts what the other guy is saying. He was talking about revenues, you're talking about people getting fired. You can make of it what you like, but that the revenues or growth (or lack of them) figures haven't met their expectations, still isn't saying anything about the sales and revenues they made. Besides that, when you look at the regular sub retention pattern after a launch of an AAA MMO, and TOR isn't an exception on that negatively or positively, and put that next to the initial sales figures and publisher/developer percentages, you can at least make a rough estimation, instead of wild unproven conjecture based on other indirect events.

Mind you, in the end it's still all speculations, of course, but regarding sales, revenues and sub retention patterns there's actually a lot of info about those available.

Originally posted by mikahr

Originally posted by smh_alot I'm not gonna look up the data and sources, but from what I recall retention loss after the initial first month for a number of AAA MMO's was measured around the 20-30%. From the figures as seen in trend tools like Xfire and Raptr (yeah, yeah, I know, limited value etc), TOR also seemed to fall within that range. So, even while we're all just guessing here, your assumption about the 1 million actual subs max sounds off.

As they said themselves: subs are funny thing :)

Yep, which doesn't dismiss the fact that subs can bring in a lot of money especially in the months after launch when they're usually highest :-)

Originally posted by Atlan99

EA is the publisher and they get all revenue until a profit is made.

Which means EA pays for their own internal staff to perform the same function that eats into the amount they make on each game.

You can play these games all day long.

In the real world the amount of money a game company sees out of each sale is dramatically lessened by:

* Box manufacturing cost

* Media duplication

* Shipping

* Storage of stock

* Sales/distribution staff

If any of these crazy revenue or profit estimates had any basis in reality there would be a whole lot more game developers sitting in 10 million dollar mansions retired and never having to work again just off of a couple million sales of one of their games.

 

Originally posted by Ringbus

Originally posted by Atlan99

EA is the publisher and they get all revenue until a profit is made.

Which means EA pays for their own internal staff to perform the same function that eats into the amount they make on each game.

You can play these games all day long.

In the real world the amount of money a game company sees out of each sale is dramatically lessened by:

* Box manufacturing cost

* Media duplication

* Shipping

* Storage of stock

* Sales/distribution staff

If any of these crazy revenue or profit estimates had any basis in reality there would be a whole lot more game developers sitting in 10 million dollar mansions retired and never having to work again just off of a couple million sales of one of their games.

 

Exactly. Some people apparently live in a fantasy world where operating costs are nil, and executives have reasonable salaries.

[mod edit]

Originally posted by smh_alot
Yep, which doesn't dismiss the fact that subs can bring in a lot of money especially in the months after launch when they're usually highest :-)

Yup, but when you start to stretch definition of "subscription" right from the start - its telling.

Fact is that they never had 1,7m subs, and fact is that they never reported true number of subs, only active accounts numbers, and we all know that not all active accounts transfer to subs.

Originally posted by MMOarQQ

Exactly. Some people apparently live in a fantasy world where operating costs are nil, and executives have reasonable salaries.

I just assume they are kids that havent stepped into real life yet and had to actually earn some money on their own.

Or just very unaware and...naive...adults, which is even worse.

[mod edit]

Originally posted by MMOarQQ

Originally posted by Ringbus

Originally posted by Atlan99

EA is the publisher and they get all revenue until a profit is made.

Which means EA pays for their own internal staff to perform the same function that eats into the amount they make on each game.

You can play these games all day long.

In the real world the amount of money a game company sees out of each sale is dramatically lessened by:

* Box manufacturing cost

* Media duplication

* Shipping

* Storage of stock

* Sales/distribution staff

If any of these crazy revenue or profit estimates had any basis in reality there would be a whole lot more game developers sitting in 10 million dollar mansions retired and never having to work again just off of a couple million sales of one of their games.

 

Exactly. Some people apparently live in a fantasy world where operating costs are nil, and executives have reasonable salaries.

 

There are some good figures and articles around, that split the revenues up in what a developer gets, what a publisher, what the production cost is, what the retailer gets and so on, don't feel like going hunting for them again now. But suffice to say that when a company is publisher and developer at the same time, they get a considerable part of those sales. Even more so when it's digital sales with low cost/unit, and the distribution network via which the sales are handled belongs to them too.

As for the operational cost of maintaining a server park, that has gone down drastically in the past 10-15 years. A good example is ANet, that even without any expansion or subs managed to keep the GW server cluster running for years even when it still had a very large and active playerbase.

Of course, there are other costs here, but we're talking about directly related costs here.

Originally posted by smh_alot
There are some good figures and articles around, that split the revenues up in what a developer gets, what a publisher, what the production cost is, what the retailer gets and so on, don't feel like going hunting for them again now. But suffice to say that when a company is publisher and developer at the same time, they get a considerable part of those sales. Even more so when it's digital sales with low cost/unit, and the distribution network via which the sales are handled belongs to them too.

 

As for the operational cost of maintaining a server park, that has gone down drastically in the past 10-15 years. A good example is ANet, that even without any expansion or subs managed to keep the GW server cluster running for years even when it still had a very large and active playerbase.

 

Of course, there are other costs here, but we're talking about directly related costs here.

Customer support costs

"Free" update/patch costs

And all indirect costs.

It adds up quite fast. BW has whole studio for just SWTOR, they dont develop anything else on the side.

It wouldnt be down to 25%, but they dont keep ALL of it in any case, 40-60% is quite reasonable estimate, depending on % of digital sales heavily.

SWTOR can be bought for quite a discount for quite a while now, is it also calculated in these "estimations"? They also reported that they had significant number of "fraudalent" keys with notice those will be banned in the future...

[mod edit]

Originally posted by mikahr

Originally posted by smh_alot
Yep, which doesn't dismiss the fact that subs can bring in a lot of money especially in the months after launch when they're usually highest :-)

Yup, but when you start to stretch definition of "subscription" right from the start - its telling.

Fact is that they never had 1,7m subs, and fact is that they never reported true number of subs, only active accounts numbers, and we all know that not all active accounts transfer to subs.

 

>.> They had 2-2.4m sales. Rough player retention averages in the post-launch months of a number of AAA MMO's are known, TOR didn't really deviate from those as far as could be observed, don't see why a retention/sub figure of 1.4-1.7m after the first month should be considered strange, since it falls well withing the range of retention drop that other AAA MMO's went through after launch. But ok, in the end it's all just speculating, I agree -_-

Originally posted by kartool

Originally posted by Drakxii

I can't wait for this to be true.  It would prove players perfer a more open sandbox type game over a linear themepark, as SWTOR had the same base if not larger then SWG, and yet SWTOR failed way sooner.

No, it wouldn't prove that at all. It would only prove that people don't like SWTOR. WoW proves people like linear themepark games already.

SWTOR can't be too far off their last announced numbers because EA have shareholders and lying to your shareholders is a very bad thing to do and will get you into a lot of trouble. Sure, they probably do have less than 1.3 subs at this point and possibly under 1 mil - but to think they only have 200-300k is just, well some dude talking out his ass.

just wanted to say understand the difference between public shareholders and majority share holders. Lying to public shareholders is common lyingto majority share holders is not. Most majority shareholders are professional businessman. This will continue to be a common pratice because even tho say Bank Of America lied about Merrill Lynch losing alot of money stocks are increasing which equals out to more than the sec fined them. If you are a majority shareholder you receive reports like this: https://www.box.com/shared/9if6v2hr9h

Originally posted by smh_alot

Originally posted by mikahr

Originally posted by smh_alot
Yep, which doesn't dismiss the fact that subs can bring in a lot of money especially in the months after launch when they're usually highest :-)

Yup, but when you start to stretch definition of "subscription" right from the start - its telling.

Fact is that they never had 1,7m subs, and fact is that they never reported true number of subs, only active accounts numbers, and we all know that not all active accounts transfer to subs.

 

>.> They had 2-2.4m sales. Rough player retention averages in the post-launch months of a number of AAA MMO's are known, TOR didn't really deviate from those as far as could be observed, don't see why a retention/sub figure of 1.4-1.7m after the first month should be considered strange, since it falls well withing the range of retention drop that other AAA MMO's went through after launch. But ok, in the end it's all just speculating, I agree -_-

Because they had a disclimer on 1,7m figure. Why are you going in circles?

Facts are: they didnt have 1,7m subs and 1,3m subs when they reported they had, they were just ACTIVE ACCOUNTS, and for all we know they might have never even broken 1m subs.

They admitted themselves they use "creative math" with subs, and string of events points at not so good state of the game.

Don't forget uncle George gets 30% of all SWTOR money.

Originally posted by stratasaurus

I just wanted to comment on where BW is right now on money gained for a  game that cost $210M(I believe) to develop.  BW said prelaunch in a statement that they needed at least 500k longterm subs for the game to break even and 1M to be profitable and 1.5 to 2M subs to be a big success.  Lets look at what they have brought in so far(I could be wrong on numbers here so feel free to correct I am going off what I have seen).

developement 210M

boxes sold 1.7Mx59.99 =  $120M

4 months of subs for this 6 month period(1 month came free with box and they handed out another month free in april)

lets say an average of 1.5M subs(this is a high number) for this time period so thats 15x4x1.5M=90M

So assuming they made 100% of the money from box sales and monthly subs and have had no operating cost since the 210M developement number came out and they have had 1.5M subs for this whole period,  they would be even with not a cent in profit.

I know some people paid 79.99 for the game and not 59.99 but they also don't get 100% of the box sales so my point is this isn't exact math I am just showing that BW has made no money on SWTOR 6 months after launch they are in all likelyhood still deep into the red on this game and 200k subs a month will not pull them out.

After reading through my post I realized I forgot my main point.  Which is EA has already said(quoting from the MMORPG videocast) that SWTOR is no longer as important to them as their top titles like Madden football but is more in line with Tiger Woods(lower top 10 i'm guessing).  So with how much it would cost to produce game updates and especially how much it would cost to do an expansion they are not going to do that for 200k subs and SWTOR will shut down I do not believe they will keep it running long term for any less than 500k subs.

You are probably not far off but there is one key element you have missed.

Ongoing salaries.

e.g. 450 people will cost approximately $30 million a year.  (not taking into consideration pension, health, bonus's etc.)

So in that 6 month period they would need to fork out $15 million.  ($2.5 million a month)

To cover just the salaries they need around 166k-200k active paying subs.

 

If you take into account operational costs

- rent, facilities, software licenses, servers, IT hardware etc etc

Then the numbers are going to jump again.

 

If this was my business I would probably have the following plan.

- 1st - gradually fire or administer ALL non essential staff to other projects. (3/4 at least)

- 2nd - Open the game up to other regions if it was cheap enough.  Try and get a small spike in sales

- 3rd - Offer a $60 12 month sub to try and get another spike in sales

- 4th - After both spikes, go to a FTP model.

- 5th - After I have tried to generate sales from various models, try and break even or get a few million in front and then shut down asap.