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Star Wars: The Old Republic: EA's "Largest Ever" Project
MikeB
Community ManagerAdministrator RarePosts: 6,555
Eurogamer is reporting that EA's Chief Banker Eric Brown has described Star Wars: The Old Republic as Electronic Arts' "largest ever development project, period, in the history of the company".
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No specifics on The Old Republics budget were provided, but Mr. Brown mentioned that a typical EA project (non-MMO) runs around $30 million, with any MMO costing well above that. As a point of reference, World of Warcraft cost Blizzard $100 million to make. World of Warcraft generates that amount of cash every month nowadays, and as Eurogamer notes, EA is obviously interested in recouping costs the same way.
A pretty big gamble, but we're (hopefully) only a year away from finding out.
Read the full story over at Eurogamer.
Comments
" World of Warcraft cost Blizzard $100 million to make. World of Warcraft generates that amount of cash every month nowadays, and as Eurogamer notes, EA is obviously interested in recouping costs the same way. "
Oh man Bioware is hooked!!!!
There's no chance in hell that they will make WoW type money.
I almost feel bad for them.
Well Thanks for the info dude but honestly I would not want to be bioware right now.
Playing: Rift, LotRO
Waiting on: GW2, BP
Well no one said that they are spending $100m on SW:TOR, but you can certainly deduce that it is well over $30m which is still no small chunk of change. It is definitely a gamble for EA, we will have to see how it turns out!
Ouch. This is nothing but bad news as far as I can see. These guys are banking on another anomaly happening and no matter how good the game is it'll never hit WoW's subscriber base because the MMO era is slowly grinding down.
I look forward to the game and I'm sure it'll be phenomenal, but I don't even think there are enough MMO junkies, or even enough Star Wars geeks, to keep this behemoth afloat.
Man... My prayers are with bioware bro. I love those guys single player Rpgs I really hope this mmo doesn't kill them.
Right now the average sub count for the p2p market outside of WoW is around 150k. So many games and so little gamers for each.
I wish those guys luck.
Playing: Rift, LotRO
Waiting on: GW2, BP
Its still over a year away so no one has a clue what will happen. The steam in wow is gone. Everyone is looking for something different. No matter if it never gets 11mil players. It could very well be a huge hit if they do it right. Now days no one takes time to make the mmo. Its like 2 years..done!
You don't need 12 million subscribers to be a success. Box sales alone can recoup 100 million. Look at GTA IV; it cost $100 million to develop and they made 5x that much back in 6 months as a single player game. TOR doesn't have to be a WoW killer to make EA a ton of cash -- it just has to be good.
Why would it be a gamble? Are they making yet another easy-mode-depthless-solo-so-you-can-raid game? If they are, then its not a gamble. They will lose that battle. The market is saturated with those types of games.
With a dedicated and awesome Television ad campaign... Box sales could be astronomical.
But it won't hold people. It won't hold people because its an Online Single Player Game.
WoW holds people because its online social crack. SWTOR won't be that.
I guarantee you WoW didn't think they would have 11 million subscribers. There was no reason to think a MMO could break the 2 million mark back when WoW was in development(that means the decision to spend 100 million was made ~2001). EQ had max 500,000 subs during its peak, which was a booming success back then.
WoW isn't a single player game? Everything is solo until you get to the max level.
Facebook is social crack, WoW is not.
What worries me is that they're putting so much money/effort into this game that if it's anything but a resounding success with millions of subscribers, it will probably be considered a failure. Cheaply made, indie company MMOs can squeek by with 100,000 subscribers and still be profitable. If SWTOR only has 100,000-300,000 after the first month is over... the company will go bankrupt.
They won't go bankrupt. Trust me. EA AND bioware couldn't go bankrupt on that.
EA definitely wouldn't be happy, though. I just hope they wouldn't act like those dicks over at activision did with infinity ward. No offense of course to activision (I don't want a lawsuit).
I have faith in bioware, though. They haven't failed me yet.
I'm thinking the same thing.
They will easily get 1 million sales (at least) regardless of additional subs.
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Bioware is on a roll for the money with Dragon Age and Mass Effect 2 recently launched the coffers are full. I suspect SWTOR would run around a budget of twice the non mmo quoted region.
SWTOR will be a huge success. I am willing to bet on this. Not just the initial box sales but sub numbers. The MMO genre and been missing out on story based features. Not a single MMO to date has drawn me in with lore or story. Me and millions of othres skip past all that. I believe SWTOR will be the first to finnaly hit the mark with it's story. It will be the first MMO that will draw in just about every player and give them more purpose for actually playing the game and watching the events unfold. Bioware is one of the few companys that actually know how to really make great stories and incorporate them into their games.
Take a look at the recently released Mass Effect 2. It's actually one of the first games in awhile that I actually have spent the time to complete 100% if content (excluding DLC). I also just bough Final Fantasy 13. My older brothers rarely play games anymore but theyll still try some of the new AAA titles. My brothers wont even touch FF13 and I don't blame them. Sure the good story may be there, but the characters and their dialouge ruin some of the experience. It sucks. Bioware creates good stories and backs them up with good dialouge and characters worth learning about.
And to those that think their arent enough MMO junkies and StarWars junkies to make this as (or more) successful as WoW; then oh boy you guys are terribly wrong. You have no idea.
I don't think this is true at all. Why was WoW so successful? Because it was polished, well thought out, and accessible to non-MMO players. Other MMOs have tried to become "WoW killers," but they always fail on one or two accounts.
Look at Age of Conan or DDO. Both had huge initial box sales, reportedly 1 million sales or around there each, yet both failed to provide enough polish and content beyond the initial starting area.
If Bioware can release a polished, good game with as much content as they claim, and not too difficult game mechanics (I'm not talking STO easy, but intuitive like WoW) then SWTOR may very well become the Next Big Thing in the MMO world.
SWTOR already has a lot going for it: a studio experienced with making engaging RPGs, they have an IP that is gigantic (Star Wars,) an IP that is big that they made themselves (The Old Republic era of Star Wars,) they seem to be releasing lots of content (reportedly over 200 hours of gameplay, 11 planets revealed so far,) it will have a long development time (about 6 years.) They can polish, prep, and create something good with all those elements.
SWTOR will easily sell over a million boxed compies, they have to much going for them not to with how many people are die hard fans of both Bioware and Star Wars. That alone will most likely either completely replenish what they spent, or at least come very very close. Im not sure why everyone thinks they need WoW type numbers to even make some sort of a profit or risk going bankrupt.
My Guild Wars 2 Vids
I guarantee you WoW didn't think they would have 11 million subscribers. There was no reason to think a MMO could break the 2 million mark back when WoW was in development(that means the decision to spend 100 million was made ~2001). EQ had max 500,000 subs during its peak, which was a booming success back then.
There's going to be a very large difference between these two games when it comes to their "Single Player" aspects.
*slaps wrist* just another hit!
Well it is still nice to see a company take the time to focus on more than a money maker mmo 2 year out of the box and fail. It does seem they are trying to give swtor a bit of longevity, done right with a focus on the community and watching the past 2 years or more in game failcades they could try to not make the same mistakes.
In the new world it's not true to say a mmo cannot fetch the high teen millions of subscribers, what will make that work is a solid game and good choices of advertisements. Reaching out to the communities all around and getting people the chance to review parts of the game as it nears launch will also help. ( if the game is good and such ) using the mmo sites to sell a game is alot more effective than some crappy tv run time. Once the player base reads about a potential worthy game the reviewers words are worth the weight in gold.
But all said and done they really do not need to go for maxed out subscriptions on launch, I'd say a good box sale and a solid core would do a game better on staying around. As people play it and spread the word to more if they like it brings in a better type of subscriber to the game and that is one who has a higher chance to be a repeat subscriber.
So I do hope they are actually taking notes and watching what people really are needing and wanting in a mmo instead of pushing off a crap mmo....Atari went for the money, and lets see where that gets them in 3-4 months having one of the most profitable ip's one could ask for, slightly different crowd of people compared to star wars but still both insanely large names to pin to a mmo......
No doubt just the name alone like STO will sell a good chunk of that to refund the investments......but bottom line is the game's content and playability will dictate the profits which could be many times more.
almost forgot pre-launch marketing is key, don't lie to potential subscribers and that will go a long way.
Too bad, byebye SWTor
Well as far as I can see so far the game play looks like it will be the same old same old tab target crap, only difference is we follow a story? .................
ps, I may be wrong, if i am sorry, but ths is what i know so far.
I'm sure SWTOR will sell like fresh baked cookies just like ME2 did. Its just a matter of turning the hype up on the game which both Bioware and EA have perfected.
The problem is can they interest people with this clearly made for solo play story driven game for long enough for them to subscribe. Hype can get you only that far. AoC is a good example... It had story... the hype was amazing... And yet some people still call Funcom - Failcom. (like me)
We'll see i guess. ME2 kind of broke my undeniable faith in Bioware... I really hope they can pull off SWTOR...
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While I don't expect the kind of subscription numbers Blizzard continues to attract with Warcraft . A decent Star Wars mmo could easily generate several million regular subsribers . I hope it does well . We really need another big mmo on the block if only to prove that its possible for a company other than Blizzard can get it right . Only this and the new Final Fantasy mmorpg appeal to me enough to go out an buy them upon release .
I read your comments and many of you so called experts are totally wrong... First the MMO area is not ending its only just started WoW was the first big step, this game will be the seccond big step
SW:TOR will be a many in one game...
-Oldfashioned MMORPG
-Single player RPG
-Space combat game
-(Pod) racing game
-Shooter with FPS like gameplay
Beleive me, this game will rock... and it will cost ... it will cost a lot like $650.000.000 , but the reward will be aesome
Best MMO experiences : EQ(PvE), DAoC(PvP), WoW(total package) LOTRO (worldfeel) GW2 (Artstyle and animations and worlddesign) SWTOR (Story immersion) TSW (story) ESO (character advancement)