SWTOR Budget

Jason2444

Some interesting qoutes you guys might like

 

EA finally addressing the 300 million dollar question (if ya get my drift)

 

"One is there's been a fair amount of talk on various blogs describing spends that are vastly higher than anything we've ever put in place so don't read sort of gamer blogs as having any substance, some of them bring a chuckle but they also bring a frustration for those that are being responsible with the management of EA's R&D dollars when they read sort of falsehoods out of the press."

 

Another qoute that follows that up

 

"We previously described to folks that half a million subscribers or so the game is substantially profitable but its not the kind of thing that we would write home about it, anything north of a million subscribers, it's a very profitable business."

 

Thoughts?

 

I'm sure a lot are so hell bent on believing EAlouse that they'll just dismiss it as damage control

Ihmotepp

500K ot break even, 1 mil to make serious cash?

 

Better be one helluva game. Those are big numbers for any MMO besides WoW (not counting free loaders in cash shop games since they don't pay the bills).

Darth_Osor

They never say how long they need to keep those 500k to be profitable, though.  Unless the game is a failure of STO proportions, they will EVENTUALLY be profitable, even with fewer than 500k.

catlana

"At half a million subscribers, the game is substantially profitable", means that the game makes a decent profit at that number within a year. The development cost of Star Wars is likely around 100 million given that expectation. Which strangely enough is what most real stock analysts believed it to be for a long time. EAlouse was a fraud. 

jerlot65

Originally posted by Ihmotepp

500K ot break even, 1 mil to make serious cash?

 

Better be one helluva game. Those are big numbers for any MMO besides WoW (not counting free loaders in cash shop games since they don't pay the bills).

Those aren't big numbers at all for this game.  And 500k still pulls in a profit.  Its not break even.

Isane

They will get their money back juist from single player peeps buying the game and playing KOTOR 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 and so on.

Absolutely no problem , if they retain subscribers they will make billions.

GMan3

    Whoa, calm down there Isane.  Making that kind of claim is just as bad as the claims of "Worst Game Evar!!!!".  Actually it is worse in some ways since it just draws trolls like a moth to a flame.

Isane

Originally posted by Darth_Osor

They never say how long they need to keep those 500k to be profitable, though.  Unless the game is a failure of STO proportions, they will EVENTUALLY be profitable, even with fewer than 500k.

Theres at least 8 full single player games thrown in. On top of everything else. They will get their cash back easily.

eye_m

Originally posted by GMan3

... it just draws trolls like a moth to a flame.

 you called?

Isane

Originally posted by GMan3

    Whoa, calm down there Isane.  Making that kind of claim is just as bad as the claims of "Worst Game Evar!!!!".  Actually it is worse in some ways since it just draws trolls like a moth to a flame.

Gman chill out, I didnt state a timescale or currency....... I am getting a little bored with all the false assumptions everyone is throwing around. My statement isn't and wont be that far out over a 10 year period using dollars but if it is well it's no worse than the rubbish others are banding about.

Bottom line is is the game will make money and will be successful, how succesful well thats up for grabs but it wont fail.

If I play it for more than a month that will be great , but even if I only play it for a week I will have got my moneys worth.

Deewe

Originally posted by catlana

"At half a million subscribers, the game is substantially profitable", means that the game makes a decent profit at that number within a year. The development cost of Star Wars is likely around 100 million given that expectation. Which strangely enough is what most real stock analysts believed it to be for a long time. EAlouse was a fraud. 

The $100 milions has always been the most realistic number. It's like the budget to make 2/3 AAA single players games or MMO. That's already quite big even if not as big as what was spend on Tabula Rasa.

 

bobbyjr

Bioware and LEC stated that the cost was around $100 m. But going by the experiences of the unnamed AND named sources that left both companies over this game,  that $100 million was spent on voiceovers and the license. Not much was actually invested in the game. Whether that changes in the next 3 months when it's due to be released, we will see, but since they have shown almost nothing of the game to substantiate it being the "next big mmo"m i hold out very little hope of it being worth any amount of money they put in this game.

 

I am a HUGE starwars fan, and i always have been. However, there has been almost nothing advertised by this game, or shown on their premade machinima trailers that hold my interest.  It seems like the only people who are actually getting hyped for this game are the ones who yell "bioware is amazing. They make fantastic single player games, so they must make fantastic mmo's". Bit of a hint for them.  Mythic was exactly the same, and what happened with  them? ....  yea.

MMO.Maverick

Originally posted by bobbyjr

Bioware and LEC stated that the cost was around $100 m. But going by the experiences of the unnamed AND named sources that left both companies over this game,  that $100 million was spent on voiceovers and the license. Not much was actually invested in the game.

Lol. That's the funniest statement I read this weekend, those sources must've been drunk or trippin' when they said those things

 

Originally posted by Deewe

Originally posted by catlana

"At half a million subscribers, the game is substantially profitable", means that the game makes a decent profit at that number within a year. The development cost of Star Wars is likely around 100 million given that expectation. Which strangely enough is what most real stock analysts believed it to be for a long time. EAlouse was a fraud. 

The $100 milions has always been the most realistic number. It's like the budget to make 2/3 AAA single players games or MMO. That's already quite big even if not as big as what was spend on Tabula Rasa.

I think the amount of 100 million dollar was mentioned for Tabula Rasa, but don't forget, because of pressure from above they completely changed the game while in mid-development, if people that followed its development may recall, Garriot's initial plan and course for the game was totally different from what Tabula Rasa became after that first plan got scrapped. So, all that budget wasn't spent on the development of that 2nd, final product but also on that former scrapped design.

Tabula Rasa was more of a rush job to save what could be saved from the project, but any radical change in course mid-project is a bad idea and huge raise of the development costs.

Hellfyre420

Wow people still are talking about EAlouse? Much less beleive what he had to say..

dinams

I thought EA itself had said 150 Million...

Oh well, whatever.. its still a helluva amount of money I would love to put my hands in..

Hellfyre420

Originally posted by bobbyjr                                                                                                                                                                        It seems like the only people who are actually getting hyped for this game are the ones who yell "bioware is amazing. They make fantastic single player games, so they must make fantastic mmo's". Bit of a hint for them.  Mythic was exactly the same, and what happened with  them? ....  yea.

Umm.. Mythic never made a one singleplayer game that is worth mentioning.. This is from the FAQ on the WAR website.

 

What games has Mythic Entertainment done prior to this?

Mythic Entertainment has created over fifteen games and expansion packs. Our older titles include some of the most popular online-only games of their time including: Spellbinder: The Nexus Conflict, Aliens Online, Starship Troopers: Battlespace, Silent Death Online, Rolemaster: Magestorm, Darkness Falls, Darkness Falls: The Crusade, Splatterball, Godzilla Online and Dragon's Gate. Our most famous product is Dark Age of Camelot which has been one of the leading MMORPGs in the world since its release in 2001.

 

Bioware on the otherhand has SWTOR, Mass Effect 1&2, Dragon Age, Baldurs Gate, NWN, Jade Empire, MDK2, ect..

 

How can you compare Spallterball to Mass Effect? You can't..

 

The people who are hyped up for this game because its made by Bio Ware are hyped because LOOK at Bio Wares track record you're self.. They havn't released an unpolished game yet, nor an RPG that wasn't hyped up beyond beleive.. They are the KINGS of western singleplayer RPGs, and it's only natural when you are the best at something that you'd want to move on and conquer another genre.. That's what Bio Ware is doing with SWTOR, and i beleive they will be succesful..

 

Then maybe we can see Mass Effect Online! lol

GMan3

Originally posted by bobbyjr

Bioware and LEC stated that the cost was around $100 m. But going by the experiences of the unnamed AND named sources that left both companies over this game,  that $100 million was spent on voiceovers and the license. Not much was actually invested in the game. Whether that changes in the next 3 months when it's due to be released, we will see, but since they have shown almost nothing of the game to substantiate it being the "next big mmo"m i hold out very little hope of it being worth any amount of money they put in this game.

 

I am a HUGE starwars fan, and i always have been. However, there has been almost nothing advertised by this game, or shown on their premade machinima trailers that hold my interest.  It seems like the only people who are actually getting hyped for this game are the ones who yell "bioware is amazing. They make fantastic single player games, so they must make fantastic mmo's". Bit of a hint for them.  Mythic was exactly the same, and what happened with  them? ....  yea.

     Maybe I am wrong, but I do not remember BioWare OR EA ever saying how much has been spent on SWTOR.  As a matter of fact, I have seen them purposely dodge that question once a long ways back, shortly after the official announcement that it was going into development, if I remember right.

    As for listening to EA Louse . . . well I wouldn't trust him to tell me the current weather if he was standing next to a window.  I've said it before and I'll say it again, he was fired!  Most likely because his actual worth to the company was not enough to keep him around instead of other more talented people, that is generally the way it goes after all.  In a bitter temper tantrum he trashed the company he worked for, sounds pretty standard overall.

   Now it's your turn, tell me please, what other MMO or any other game out there have we ever known more about at this stage in it's development?  Keep in mind the NDA is still in affect in this game so not a lot gets out.  This is standard practice for developers, and yet we know a huge amount about SWTOR.  I'm pretty impressed by that myself.

    As for your Mythic statement, well other people have commented on that, so I'll let it go.

    The one thing that has impressed me the most about this game is the complete lack of people violating the NDA to tell us how bad this game is.  Think about it, if you were testing this game and it sucked, would YOU bother keeping secret about it?  I mean, it's that bad right?  So you obviously would not play the game later, so why not tell everyone?  I keep hearing good stuff though, but nothing bad yet from NDA leaks and as far as I am concerned, that bodes very well for this game.

Phono

Imagine 10 $ a month subscription, multiply that by 12 months and you get 120 $ pr player. 120 $ multiplied by 500k players counts to 6 billion dollars. ill say that 6 billion dollars is quite a revenue for the 300 million $ production cost.  

drake_hound

Well there is a couple of reasons for this .

1 they only target the english speaking audience ...

That market is quite small worldwide on a MMORPG market , aside from wow .

Most mmorpg can hardly reach the 500k subs . and wow has korean taiwanese spanishe and russian market .

So offcourse the expectation will drop , 500k subscribers is to break even , but there target is 1 million subscribers over 6 months .

 

To maintain that market majority comes from the Bioware fans itself , dont get it wrong those are some rabbit fans with enough cash to make it happen . (just they ain´t such louth mouth fans like GW2 and WoW )

So infact basing on there reports , they decided to drop off the starwars fans (basically good for 1-2 million on paper and theorie) just go for reality , thats people who like a welldone sci fi mmorpg , and bioware fans .

So there target market is 1 million , so they are gambling low , if it happens to be higher nobody would complain.

But real numbers only will be shown after 6 months , if its a success or failure .

 

2nd reason is that they invested big , 100+ million so they rather be safe then sorry .

After warhammer fiasco (a game who sold 1 million boxes but less then 500k subscribers and going down)

They rather take things a bit safer , so example it will probaly sell 2 million + boxes ... (lowest estimate)

But selling boxes isn´t the same as maintaining subscribers .... one of the thing WoW cataclysme showed (4.7 million games sold but less then 3 million subscribers , this is a established game )