And where would someone find a reliable source commenting on some obscure, and incorrect, statistic in a 3 year old news article? It is the same as asking someone to prove a negative - it cannot be done.
FYI, read the full paragraph from the article and try to apply logic to what it says. "Despite a $300 million investment, "The Sims Online" from Electronic Arts Inc. only has about 80,000 subscribers more than a year after its release, far short of the company's stated goal of 1 million. " According to this, EA spent $300 million in hopes of selling the game to 1 million subscribers, lets add that up as it proves that the quote must be in error. $50 x 1,000,000 sold = $50,000,000 in revenue and that is what you get from what the article says was the companies goal. So to believe this is totally accurate we have to believe that EA spent $300 million in hopes of making $50 million. Subscriptions you say? OK, to break even and make up the other $250,000,000 at a subscriber population of 1,000,000 at $15 per month it would take 16+ years just to BREAK even, not counting the costs of running servers and all the other associated expenses and such those 16 years. Still want to argue that it must be true or are you at least mildly intelligent enough to realize that the quote is improperly stating the actual investment in the game?
LOL how wrong can you get.
1,000,000 x $15 per month x 12 months per YEAR = $180,000,000. 16+ years my arse, try 1.6 years.
I don't buy the figure, unless someone has a copy of EA's own account records from the time of the development of TSO. No records implies no evidence to back up said figure. It's a speculatory figure without those said records.
Comments
1,000,000 x $15 per month x 12 months per YEAR = $180,000,000. 16+ years my arse, try 1.6 years.
A brief timeline
UO launches September 25 1997
EA.com formed in 1999
The Sims launches February 4 2000
TSO pre-meeting discussion 2000
TSO launched December 17 2002
E&B shut down in order to invest more in TSO
$300m total investment ( NOT development )? Sounds credible to me.
I don't buy the figure, unless someone has a copy of EA's own account records from the time of the development of TSO. No records implies no evidence to back up said figure. It's a speculatory figure without those said records.
-- Brede