It will peak very early then peoples will see how boring and shallow it is, a year later, they will merge half the servers, 2 years later the game will be a ghostown. Now ask you analyst to analyze that.
i sense much anger in you.
You are wrong my young padawan. I'm just stating the obvious. Each time something with the name Star Wars comes out peoples go crazy over it thinking it's the best thing since slice bread, it's not.
It will peak very early then peoples will see how boring and shallow it is, a year later, they will merge half the servers, 2 years later the game will be a ghostown. Now ask you analyst to analyze that.
i sense much anger in you.
You are wrong my young padawan. I'm just stating the obvious. Each time something with the name Star Wars comes out peoples go crazy over it thinking it's the best thing since slice bread, it's not.
When it comes to looking through crystal ball no one is right or wrong. only time can tell. By the way we are talking in terms of MMOS here and there has only been one SW title before and now SWTOR is a second. So there is hardly enough data to support your conclusion.
It will peak very early then peoples will see how boring and shallow it is, a year later, they will merge half the servers, 2 years later the game will be a ghostown. Now ask you analyst to analyze that.
Lol, everyone and their predictions. The game will do well, anyone that thinks it won t is crazy. After that it could grow, or like 99% of the MMOs it will dwindle. I don t see it becoming a ghostown anytime soon, as some are saying. I actually could see it grow, then the other way, but who knows. Noone can.
Hmm, IMO these are... risky predictions, at least the 3 millions in 6 months.
1. The Bioware brand is surely going to be a big multiplier for this game, but how big? Their most recently released game got some mixed user ratings, maybe more people than usually are in a wait-and-see mode.
2. Assuming SWToR will hit the 3+ million mark (most Bioware-games did, I guess?), for how many hours do these peoples normally play a BW-game? Plus I read some opinions of people, they probably will play it for 1-3 months.
3. Competition. I have no idea when GW2 comes out, it may still be a long way to go for Arenanet. But what about other online games? Competition doesn´t necesserily mean MMO. What if an online game like Diablo 3 releases in February? Well, don´t ask for my opinion about D3, but if people buy games because of brands, then they will surely buy Diablo 3 because it is Blizzard.
4. "Curse of MMOs" since several years. They sell many boxes, but people stop playing after few months and jump to the next Flavour of the month game.
5. New content. When people hit max level, how frequently will new and/or long lasting content be added? I expect Bioware to make some voiced over future content in advance, but once it is consumed it could be a pita to make new voiced-over content.
6. Pay to play. How many people, who normally play single, online, or F2P games, are willing to pay monthly for a game? Well, I do, don´t ask me . But I do have this discussion with other people on different forums, and their arguments are getting better and better.
These would be some concerns, that come to my mind initially. Sure, these analysts might have different and stronger arguments, but the ones above are mine: from a random guy on the interwebz who likes reading about MMOs since many years.
3 million by next june? Nope. 3 months and this game is on the downward trend, especially if D3 releases and GW2/the secret world are closing in on release. The majority of the people that love this game love it for the story and one or two runs to max level will have them quitting since 90% of it is shared content. The endgame is another raid grindfest that most veteran MMO players aren't going to buy into another gear grind, especially since it is heavily grindy due to it being reused hard/nightmare mode regular dungeons.
You don't need to be an industry analyst to know this game has retention issues, that was known as soon as story was the major feature.
No matter what you do/say you are never going to convince the "haters" that this game isn't going to F2P in a year.
And this is why I posted this thread. I as a "citizen" could never persuade any hater or person who simply doesn't like ToR that it will be successful. The obvious response will always be "Well, you are a fan so of course.. blah blah blah". Or there will be the ever lurking "Prove it" or "Show me the data" when stumped at logical responses.
The only real way to settle things is to view what the professionals, who's job it is to monitor the industry, trends and financial side of running a mmo think... not what 'developers' think, or 'fans/haters' think, or even rival companies like WoW's Kotick think.
Analysts aren't paid to give favorable opinions because their REPUTATION and job depend on it. If someone was paid to say "Warhammer will be great, so will FFXIV and Shadowbane" and they flop.. he won't be working there for long or his opinions as a pro will be tacked to his chest.
The only way to rebut any argument is to go with what professionals say and honestly, we've seen quite a few analysts saying already that TOR will be very successful and profitable beyond 'break even'.
I still have yet to see someone, ANYONE, post an analyst review of this game that says "I don't think this game will sell more than 1 million boxes nor will it retain more than 150K and be F2P in one year" which is what most of these clown citizens say on internet forums.
So you're treating their "predictions" as infallible gospel, then?
Sorry to burst your bubble, but Professional =/= Infallible. There are many Professionals on Wall Street who base their entire business around making predictions... and they can be wrong quite often... yet they're still professionals at what they do.
Predictions can be wrong. They can be way off. They can fall way short of the actual numbers. They can overshoot the actual numbers.
Just like any other MMO, the only "proof" will be once the game launches and people have had the chance to play it for a month or so, and then see where it levels off after the newness/novelty wears off and attrition kicks in. The numbers the game settles into at that point will be the "proof" of how well TOR does.
"If you just step away for a sec you will clearly see all the pot holes in the road, and the cash shop selling asphalt..." - Mimzel on F2P/Cash Shops
I think they must be assuming that preorders will only be a fraction of the number of boxes they sell and subs they retain, as if they're completely ignorant of trends specific to MMOs. One thing I've noticed in recent years, preorders seem to account for the huge percentage of initial MMO sales. I figure it's because when people are sure they want to play an MMO, they all want the benefits like early access. This sort of thing isn't a factor in the latest shooters and the like, but its become a lot more of a mainstream attitude towards MMOs than it used to be.
Another thing to consider is that these days, everyone knows about open betas, and almost everyone that's interested in an MMO gives them a try. This is also very different from other genres - so not only do those people preorder, but there are a lot less people waiting on word-of-mouth to buy the game if the reviews are good, and all that. So its difficult for an MMO to accumulate subs faster than they lose subs, even when retention is good, because they've already got most of thier potential playerbase, right out of the gate.
If retention is poor, OTOH, like so many have been, they wont even have half a million subs by June... and none of this is specific to TOR. I'm not even going to mention what I think will happen, given my own experience in the beta - if I were an analyst, it'd probably be important to be unbiased, and all bias aside, those are some seriously unlikely predictions. You'd have to be biased or ignorant to think otherwise.
When I want a single-player story, I'll play a single-player game. When I play an MMO, I want a massively multiplayer world.
Originally posted by Tardcore Originally posted by popinjay
Originally posted by Aguitha Now ask you analyst to analyze that.
I don't have any analyst.
Those are industry analysts (note: PLURAL) that disagree with your assessment. Of course, you could always see if you can find ONE analyst who could validate your opinion on Google or Bing, although that might take awhile.
Trust me, based on the number of people who hate on TOR, if there was one analyst who thought TOR would bomb and reported that professionally, they would have posted it LONG ago and not just resorted to "Hey, Cousin Frankie over at SWTORHATERDOTCOM hates it, and I agree".
When (if) you find one, we'll be here.
Originally posted by Tardcore
Professional analysts, so this means they are making an educated guess. And educated or not, its still guesswork.
Same thing as above.
Try and find one educated guesser who says the game WON'T do well. You're not gonna find it so that means these educated guesses by most of them is more than likely, pretty spot on. Well Bobby Kotick, the person who pretty much started this whole controversy for one. But that is pointless anyway as I am among the people who feel this game will be quite successful.
Kotick isn't a trained professional analyst, lol. He's the CEO and President of TOR's competition.
If you want to boil what an analyst is down to an "educated guesser", that would make just about anyone an "analyst", which is incorrect. That would mean anyone who's played enough mmos could qualify themselves as an "analyst" according to your definition including most of the people on this site.
But we all know how that turns out in the long run. It ends with thousands of educated guessers wondering how Warhammer failed, how Auto Assault failed, how FFXIV failed, how Tabula Rasa failed even though they 'predicted' they wouldn't because they liked them personally.
Hmm, IMO these are... risky predictions, at least the 3 millions in 6 months.
1. The Bioware brand is surely going to be a big multiplier for this game, but how big?
Their most recently released game got some mixed user ratings, maybe more people than usually are in a wait-and-see mode.
2. Assuming SWToR will hit the 3+ million mark (most Bioware-games did, I guess?), for how many hours do these peoples normally play a BW-game? Plus I read some opinions of people, they probably will play it for 1-3 months.
3. Competition. I have no idea when GW2 comes out, it may still be a long way to go for Arenanet. But what about other online games? Competition doesn´t necesserily mean MMO. What if an online game like Diablo 3 releases in February? Well, don´t ask for my opinion about D3, but if people buy games because of brands, then they will surely buy Diablo 3 because it is Blizzard.
4. "Curse of MMOs" since several years. They sell many boxes, but people stop playing after few months and jump to the next Flavour of the month game.
5. New content. When people hit max level, how frequently will new and/or long lasting content be added? I expect Bioware to make some voiced over future content in advance, but once it is consumed it could be a pita to make new voiced-over content.
6. Pay to play. How many people, who normally play single, online, or F2P games, are willing to pay monthly for a game? Well, I do, don´t ask me . But I do have this discussion with other people on different forums, and their arguments are getting better and better.
These would be some concerns, that come to my mind initially. Sure, these analysts might have different and stronger arguments, but the ones above are mine: from a random guy on the interwebz who likes reading about MMOs since many years.
You've given some thoughts to it and those seem valid points to me.
To elaborate a bit and take it further,
Number 1. How many of those customers that follow Bioware are PC players and how many are console players will play some role here. I doubt a console player will easily buy a gaming PC even because of Bioware. I know I wouldn't change to buy a console no matter what games they have.
Number 3. This is quite a valid point. Let's take PvP-players for example (doesn't apply well to SW:TOR, but for an examples sake). Those who want to compete against other people don't generally care if it's MMO or FPS or even TPS as long as there's competition. Rift for example took a magical hit when BF3 released, Skyrim was released at the same time and it might have been the real reason for it but magically PvPers pretty much vanished.
4. This "curse" has been high expectations and low delivery. Expectations lifted by a hype (WAR, Aion to some degree, AoC).
Then there is a new threat to be taken under consideration. World economics. It's looking grim and if the recession is going to hit world more deeply we might end up into a situation where masses simply can't afford (money or time) to play a monthly fee games. And you have to take under consideration the initial cost of getting the equipment to play the game (PC, connection) too.
"Lucas is going to be the principal beneficiary of the success of Star Wars," Kotick posited. "We've been in business with Lucas for a long time and the economics will always accrue to the benefit of Lucas, so I don't really understand how the economics work for Electronic Arts."
Kotick went on to say that the odds are stacked against new investors in the massively multiplayer market. "If you look at the history of the people investing in an MMO and achieving success, it's a small number," he said.
"Lucas is going to be the principal beneficiary of the success of Star Wars," Kotick posited. "We've been in business with Lucas for a long time and the economics will always accrue to the benefit of Lucas, so I don't really understand how the economics work for Electronic Arts."
Kotick went on to say that the odds are stacked against new investors in the massively multiplayer market. "If you look at the history of the people investing in an MMO and achieving success, it's a small number," he said.
Nitpicking, but he doesn't say it won't be profitable. He's just saying it might not be EA that is the most or at all profitable company...
Originally posted by DarkPony Originally posted by psyfighter
Originally posted by Aguitha
It will peak very early then peoples will see how boring and shallow it is, a year later, they will merge half the servers, 2 years later the game will be a ghostown. Now ask you analyst to analyze that.
i sense much anger in you. *nods sagely* And anger leads to the Dark Side! Seeing him on Korriban we will! *cackles*
That's the thing I'm wondering about. I see a lot of the critics who hate the game remark that they've played Jedi and found the story not good because they didn't relate. Well, doh! No wonder...
Since when has a hater ever identified with the Light side of the Force? They probably should have rolled a few Sith so they could fully express their rage and anger, because it seems they were too restricted and not able to hate enough. :P
Originally posted by WSIMike Originally posted by popinjay
Originally posted by BadSpock
No matter what you do/say you are never going to convince the "haters" that this game isn't going to F2P in a year.
I still have yet to see someone, ANYONE, post an analyst review of this game that says "I don't think this game will sell more than 1 million boxes nor will it retain more than 150K and be F2P in one year" which is what most of these clown citizens say on internet forums.
So you're treating their "predictions" as infallible gospel, then?
Gospel? No. You're reading it wrong. Let me try and put it another way so you might get what I'm saying...
Suppose you went to a doctor with some ailment you THINK might be something. So you sit down, he/she asks you a ton of questions then he does tests. He says it's too early to tell what you have for sure but they are pretty sure, based on their experience and your symptoms, you've got X.
So, not satisfied with the answer you go to another doctor who does the same thing. They come up with the same conclusions for the most part; you've more than likely got X. Every doctor you go to afterwards all come to the same conclusion; it's X.
As much as you try (because you do not agree with the diagnosis) you simply cannot find ONE medical professional who thinks it's not X, it's Y or something else.
You simply cannot go against an industry of professionals in any case when there is no evidence to the contrary to your untrained eyes. It MAY turn out to be Y, but odds are and based on the empirical data reviewed by the experts and the lack on one doctor saying Y, it's going to be X.
TLDR: 100% of gaming industry analysts agree SWTOR will be a sound MMO with healthy subscriptions that should make a more than healthy profit.
"Lucas is going to be the principal beneficiary of the success of Star Wars," Kotick posited. "We've been in business with Lucas for a long time and the economics will always accrue to the benefit of Lucas, so I don't really understand how the economics work for Electronic Arts." Kotick went on to say that the odds are stacked against new investors in the massively multiplayer market. "If you look at the history of the people investing in an MMO and achieving success, it's a small number," he said.
Nitpicking, but he doesn't say it won't be profitable. He's just saying it might not be EA that is the most or at all profitable company...
If this were science where we needed exact figures for formulas or something, I'd agree the nitpicking is warranted.
But since this is more about reading English and understanding context and meaning between adults, he does question how they will be profitable. Considering he's their chief competition, most adults understand exactly what he's saying.
I think they must be assuming that preorders will only be a fraction of the number of boxes they sell and subs they retain, as if they're completely ignorant of trends specific to MMOs. One thing I've noticed in recent years, preorders seem to account for the huge percentage of initial MMO sales. I figure it's because when people are sure they want to play an MMO, they all want the benefits like early access. This sort of thing isn't a factor in the latest shooters and the like, but its become a lot more of a mainstream attitude towards MMOs than it used to be.
Another thing to consider is that these days, everyone knows about open betas, and almost everyone that's interested in an MMO gives them a try. This is also very different from other genres - so not only do those people preorder, but there are a lot less people waiting on word-of-mouth to buy the game if the reviews are good, and all that. So its difficult for an MMO to accumulate subs faster than they lose subs, even when retention is good.
If retention is poor, OTOH, like so many have been, they wont even have half a million subs by June... and none of this is specific to TOR. I'm not even going to mention what I think will happen, given my own experience in the beta - if I were an analyst, it'd probably be important to be unbiased, and all bias aside, those are some seriously unlikely predictions. You'd have to be biased or ignorant to think otherwise.
Swtor is the 1st AAA MMO since WoW and when after 1 year of 24/7 beta the 95% of the terster still want to play the game at launch, i dont see a low retention rate. And the people quit when the game Fail at some point, Warhammer was an unfinished game, AION was a lie, Rift, lot of people was there for the PvP and again it was a lie, Same with AoC, Lotro, DC, STO. But BW did and amazing job with Swtor, they really learned form the mistakes of games like warhammer, etc, and BW can make new content and updates pretty fast, to dont let people get bored. And there is not competition for swto, D3 is not even a MMO, Gw2 is b2p and is a game who doesnt have the 10% of the content of swtor, TSW is a Funcom Game. And again swtor is an amazing game, 3 mill by june is really possible.
Originally posted by Vhaln I think they must be assuming that preorders will only be a fraction of the number of boxes they sell and subs they retain, as if they're completely ignorant of trends specific to MMOs.
If retention is poor, OTOH, like so many have been, they wont even have half a million subs by June... and none of this is specific to TOR.
You're forgetting that's not all pre-orders, that's just to date with four weeks to go.
They've already sold over 900k and that is only in the U.S.
And, that is only BOX sales so far, not counting digital sales.
And, they haven't even done their PR blitz yet.
And, it hasn't even been released in stores for pre-Christmas rush for walk-ins in the U.S. or Europe yet.
Your ommissions are far more egregious than what you say theirs are about pre-orders. Also as said, they can do pretty well with a poor retention rate unlike games like Rift or anything previously released.
I've already mathmatically proven they only need a fraction of retention to remain profitable which can't be seriously disputed.
The problem with a lot of the critics is they have this stick in their heads that TOR has to have a 95% retention rate or something to remain profitable because they simply don't understand the numbers here, even though they've been presented countless times.
No matter what you do/say you are never going to convince the "haters" that this game isn't going to F2P in a year.
I still have yet to see someone, ANYONE, post an analyst review of this game that says "I don't think this game will sell more than 1 million boxes nor will it retain more than 150K and be F2P in one year" which is what most of these clown citizens say on internet forums.
So you're treating their "predictions" as infallible gospel, then?
Gospel? No. You're reading it wrong. Let me try and put it another way so you might get what I'm saying...
Suppose you went to a doctor with some ailment you THINK might be something. So you sit down, he/she asks you a ton of questions then he does tests. He says it's too early to tell what you have for sure but they are pretty sure, based on their experience and your symptoms, you've got X.
So, not satisfied with the answer you go to another doctor who does the same thing. They come up with the same conclusions for the most part; you've more than likely got X. Every doctor you go to afterwards all come to the same conclusion; it's X.
As much as you try (because you do not agree with the diagnosis) you simply cannot find ONE medical professional who thinks it's not X, it's Y or something else.
You simply cannot go against an industry of professionals in any case when there is no evidence to the contrary to your untrained eyes. It MAY turn out to be Y, but odds are and based on the empirical data reviewed by the experts and the lack on one doctor saying Y, it's going to be X.
TLDR: 100% of gaming industry analysts agree SWTOR will be a sound MMO with healthy subscriptions that should make a more than healthy profit.
Um that is really just not even a realistic example.
When I go to a medical professional and they tell me I have cancer and the next says the same etc etc etc That kind of thing is based on objective and non optional data that isn't affected by many other things.
3 million people being subscribed to TOR which is the topic 3 million subs by next June... has no basis in fact until it happens. If a doctor tells me I have cancer then I have Cancer.
A more realistic example would be a doctor saying that if I continue to do A then I will get B... while the activity may increase my chances of getting to "B" there is no guarantee I will actually get there.
What kind of background in MMO's does this analyst have? I mean.. I've been beta testing "online" games for 25 years so that's my relative background to how I view the game. Being some analyst is not going to change reality...
Here are some factors that I view...
We have a crap economy world wide
We have a market that is overly saturated with games that are very much like TOR.
So the one thing that TOR has going for it when you cut the BS out is "Star Wars."
Licensed IP's beyond the cost carry a lot of factors. One of which is fans of that IP which is obviously the intended market (along with standard MMO players) may not react well to an interpretation of that IP (look at people who crap on movies because it wasn't "the book" on video etc)
Oh and historicly speaking how many MMO's that are Western based AND subscription based have retained 1 million subscribers concurrently (even just hit that many people paying subs for 1 month) let alone 3 million.
I have always said this game will make a profit.. but I don't see this game being anywhere near 3 million subscrbers in June of any year.
I don't hate the game but when it comes to subscriber numbers and things like that.. there is reality and perceptions of what that reality will be. The fact I see the game at less than a million subs (when the ceo of ea said 500,000 would make a good profit) doesn't mean I hate it.. but ya obviously I certainly don't agree with this prediction.
*edit to add* The presales thing that people keep bringing up is kind of moot as well. I've expected that either by release or 30 days from release the game will have sold (not shipped - shipped numbers are generally higher than sales) upwards of 2 million copies and likely over 2 million. What I'm talking about is actual retention of subscribers. Having 2 million players in the first 30 days does not equat to 2 million of even 1 million paying a subscription fee 30 days later. I've always expected this game to break pre-order records for MMO's... its after the sale that I see problems.
Swtor is the 1st AAA MMO since WoW and when after 1 year of 24/7 beta the 95% of the terster still want to play the game at launch, i dont see a low retention rate. And the people quit when the game Fail at some point, Warhammer was an unfinished game, AION was a lie, Rift, lot of people was there for the PvP and again it was a lie, Same with AoC, Lotro, DC, STO. But BW did and amazing job with Swtor, they really learned form the mistakes of games like warhammer, etc, and BW can make new content and updates pretty fast, to dont let people get bored. And there is not competition for swto, D3 is not even a MMO, Gw2 is b2p and is a game who doesnt have the 10% of the content of swtor, TSW is a Funcom Game. And again swtor is an amazing game, 3 mill by june is really possible.
I think 3M subs will be achieved by June, even higher. However, every thing else you posted in this reply is straight BS. No truth at all. Just made up fanboy shit.
When you do this you invalidate yourself, not making your point stronger but casting doubt on anything you say in the first place. Most people learn this around the age of 7-10
##Best SWTOR of 2011 Posted by I_Return - SWTOR - "Forget the UI the characters and all ofhe nitpicking bullshit" "Greatest MMO Ever Created"
##Fail Thread Title of 2011 Originally posted by daveospice "this game looks like crap?"
Um that is really just not even a realistic example.
When I go to a medical professional and they tell me I have cancer and the next says the same etc etc etc
Cancer is a known. There is no disputing it. This is hardly a good example. It's why I said X because it's an unknown by professionals.
When something is unknown, it means it's unknown and you can only GUESS at what it is until time passes. Cancer isn't an unknown.
Likewise, TOR is an unknown but there isn't ONE analyst who says it's going to bomb. Or not do well. Or not be profitable.
This is the hole in your theory. You can ALWAYS find one doctor who says for whatever reason "I don't think you have cancer.. those 99% of other doctors are wrong" and he MAY be right.
But here, you don't have one saying that about TOR. That's where your argument falls straight through the floor.
First of all, 250k subscribers to offset server costs? Either those servers are made of pure gold or management for that part of the operation defecates into pure gold bowls.
Secondly, no chance in hell SWTOR will have 1.5 mil permanent subscribers 6 month down the road. 600k - likely, which will make it financially successful, still.
This is, of course, just a pathetic opinion of a pathetic citizen, but we'll see who's right.
SWTOR will have WAY more subs that 600K after 6 months - it's a better MMO than any I've played in the last 5 years and - it's Star Wars! In fact - believe they'll have MORE that 1.5 mil permanent subs at the 6 month mark.
Currently playing SWTOR and it's MUCH better than it was at launch.
But all these reports and what not mean nothing IMO. The masses of MMO players are a fickle bunch. Some "analyst" who probably does not even play MMOs cant possible predict sub numbers with any accuracy.
In any case it will be interesing to follow in the coming months when I am having slow days at work. Like today - where R U 5pm?-
I beg to disagree. Market research and forecasting is done for any market and gaming is no exception. The only difference is that most gamers think that those "evil business people" don't "understand" them. Marketing is my major and we try to understand consumers all the time. Everything we do is with our customers in mind.
But then again many people on these boards don't even know the meaning of a public company.
Mission in life: Vanquish all MMORPG.com trolls - especially TESO, WOW and GW2 trolls.
But all these reports and what not mean nothing IMO. The masses of MMO players are a fickle bunch. Some "analyst" who probably does not even play MMOs cant possible predict sub numbers with any accuracy.
In any case it will be interesing to follow in the coming months when I am having slow days at work. Like today - where R U 5pm?-
I beg to disagree. Market research and forecasting is done for any market and gaming is no exception. The only difference is that most gamers think that those "evil business people" don't "understand" them. Marketing is my major and we try to understand consumers all the time. Everything we do is with our customers in mind.
But then again many people on these boards don't even know the meaning of a public company.
Oh I fully understand how valuable marketing and market research can be for companies. And I even fully understand what a public company is
There are "evil business people" just like there are "evil" everythings. But overall business people are generally just that, business people. And while I dont have a marketing degree assuming most gamers are ignorant of marketing & analyst ploys to meet agendas is in itself ignorant.
Not saying that is what this analyst is doing. I personally just dont put alot of faith in those numbers. Just my personal opinion tho.
Sorry if that came across as a bit confrontational, was not meant to be I sometimes have a hard time wording text that comes across as such when not intended to be.
My spelling and coherent thought process may not be up to speed this early.... hope that made sense..... need... more... coffee.....
In 2004 two big games were coming out. I had my eye on Everquest 2 being a huge I mean mega fan of the original one I was all set. I had played Diablo and saw this other game people were talking about. I took a gander at the screenshots and sort of cringed ...my god I thought those colors are garish to say the least and I completely dismissed the game.
Then Everquest 2 came out and I did not really like it hello shared debt anyone ? Single worst MMORPG concept ever. So having no choice I decided to go look at WoW again. I bought the game and logged in and tried out a human and was quickly bored . I thought okay one other toon and rolled a night elf. I was completely hooked from the moment I stepped into Teldrassil. The colors that previously were puke worthy suddenly all fit and the whole world just came together and I met people made friends and spent a couple of years entertained. I rolled an orc and PvP something I never tried completely took over my life.
I went back to Everquest 2 later on and in fact I do love that game a lot and in a lot of ways the game has a lot more going for it than WoW but if you asked me in 2004 what I thought WoW's chances were I would have never thought even a fraction of its success capable. You cannot based on what you feel about a game predict what a whole genaration of gamers are going to do. Will SWTOR succeed ? I think so but what do I know .
I'm saying this as a guy who's done market analysis for high tech (although not for games specifically):
Three million subs seems rather optimistic by June, though certainly not impossible. Even if Bioware was selling "generic sci fi game," they'd do well because they have a legion of fans. The Mass Effect series has sold 7 million copies. Add the Star Wars name and you're going to attract huge numbers. What's working against them is the fact that not a lot of people like to invest in a subscription game much past the 2-3 month mark. That's been true of every MMO besides WOW. Even WOW struggles to keep 3 million subscribers in the Western market - most of their vaunted numbers come from Asia.
Past the six months mark, it's really a crap shoot. Look at 2012 holiday season. You'll probably have the next WOW expansion, plus excellent non-subscription online games like Diablo 3 and Guild wars 2. If Bioware is slow on updating content, they could very well be hurting in December. Heck, Mass Effect 3 could easily cannibalize the Bioware fans who feel TOR is no longer worth the monthly fee. Trying to make big predictions more than six months out is like a meteorologist trying to exactly predict the weather a year out.
Comments
I havent played anything star wars in long time.
When it comes to looking through crystal ball no one is right or wrong. only time can tell. By the way we are talking in terms of MMOS here and there has only been one SW title before and now SWTOR is a second. So there is hardly enough data to support your conclusion.
*nods sagely*
And anger leads to the Dark Side!
Seeing him on Korriban we will!
*cackles*
My brand new bloggity blog.
Lol, everyone and their predictions. The game will do well, anyone that thinks it won t is crazy. After that it could grow, or like 99% of the MMOs it will dwindle. I don t see it becoming a ghostown anytime soon, as some are saying. I actually could see it grow, then the other way, but who knows. Noone can.
Hmm, IMO these are... risky predictions, at least the 3 millions in 6 months.
1. The Bioware brand is surely going to be a big multiplier for this game, but how big?
Their most recently released game got some mixed user ratings, maybe more people than usually are in a wait-and-see mode.
2. Assuming SWToR will hit the 3+ million mark (most Bioware-games did, I guess?), for how many hours do these peoples normally play a BW-game? Plus I read some opinions of people, they probably will play it for 1-3 months.
3. Competition. I have no idea when GW2 comes out, it may still be a long way to go for Arenanet. But what about other online games? Competition doesn´t necesserily mean MMO. What if an online game like Diablo 3 releases in February? Well, don´t ask for my opinion about D3, but if people buy games because of brands, then they will surely buy Diablo 3 because it is Blizzard.
4. "Curse of MMOs" since several years. They sell many boxes, but people stop playing after few months and jump to the next Flavour of the month game.
5. New content. When people hit max level, how frequently will new and/or long lasting content be added? I expect Bioware to make some voiced over future content in advance, but once it is consumed it could be a pita to make new voiced-over content.
6. Pay to play. How many people, who normally play single, online, or F2P games, are willing to pay monthly for a game? Well, I do, don´t ask me
These would be some concerns, that come to my mind initially. Sure, these analysts might have different and stronger arguments, but the ones above are mine: from a random guy on the interwebz who likes reading about MMOs since many years.
3 million by next june? Nope. 3 months and this game is on the downward trend, especially if D3 releases and GW2/the secret world are closing in on release. The majority of the people that love this game love it for the story and one or two runs to max level will have them quitting since 90% of it is shared content. The endgame is another raid grindfest that most veteran MMO players aren't going to buy into another gear grind, especially since it is heavily grindy due to it being reused hard/nightmare mode regular dungeons.
You don't need to be an industry analyst to know this game has retention issues, that was known as soon as story was the major feature.
So you're treating their "predictions" as infallible gospel, then?
Sorry to burst your bubble, but Professional =/= Infallible. There are many Professionals on Wall Street who base their entire business around making predictions... and they can be wrong quite often... yet they're still professionals at what they do.
Predictions can be wrong. They can be way off. They can fall way short of the actual numbers. They can overshoot the actual numbers.
Just like any other MMO, the only "proof" will be once the game launches and people have had the chance to play it for a month or so, and then see where it levels off after the newness/novelty wears off and attrition kicks in. The numbers the game settles into at that point will be the "proof" of how well TOR does.
and the cash shop selling asphalt..." - Mimzel on F2P/Cash Shops
I think they must be assuming that preorders will only be a fraction of the number of boxes they sell and subs they retain, as if they're completely ignorant of trends specific to MMOs. One thing I've noticed in recent years, preorders seem to account for the huge percentage of initial MMO sales. I figure it's because when people are sure they want to play an MMO, they all want the benefits like early access. This sort of thing isn't a factor in the latest shooters and the like, but its become a lot more of a mainstream attitude towards MMOs than it used to be.
Another thing to consider is that these days, everyone knows about open betas, and almost everyone that's interested in an MMO gives them a try. This is also very different from other genres - so not only do those people preorder, but there are a lot less people waiting on word-of-mouth to buy the game if the reviews are good, and all that. So its difficult for an MMO to accumulate subs faster than they lose subs, even when retention is good, because they've already got most of thier potential playerbase, right out of the gate.
If retention is poor, OTOH, like so many have been, they wont even have half a million subs by June... and none of this is specific to TOR. I'm not even going to mention what I think will happen, given my own experience in the beta - if I were an analyst, it'd probably be important to be unbiased, and all bias aside, those are some seriously unlikely predictions. You'd have to be biased or ignorant to think otherwise.
When I want a single-player story, I'll play a single-player game. When I play an MMO, I want a massively multiplayer world.
Same thing as above.
Try and find one educated guesser who says the game WON'T do well. You're not gonna find it so that means these educated guesses by most of them is more than likely, pretty spot on.
Well Bobby Kotick, the person who pretty much started this whole controversy for one. But that is pointless anyway as I am among the people who feel this game will be quite successful.
Kotick isn't a trained professional analyst, lol. He's the CEO and President of TOR's competition.
If you want to boil what an analyst is down to an "educated guesser", that would make just about anyone an "analyst", which is incorrect. That would mean anyone who's played enough mmos could qualify themselves as an "analyst" according to your definition including most of the people on this site.
But we all know how that turns out in the long run. It ends with thousands of educated guessers wondering how Warhammer failed, how Auto Assault failed, how FFXIV failed, how Tabula Rasa failed even though they 'predicted' they wouldn't because they liked them personally.
"TO MICHAEL!"
You've given some thoughts to it and those seem valid points to me.
To elaborate a bit and take it further,
Number 1. How many of those customers that follow Bioware are PC players and how many are console players will play some role here. I doubt a console player will easily buy a gaming PC even because of Bioware. I know I wouldn't change to buy a console no matter what games they have.
Number 3. This is quite a valid point. Let's take PvP-players for example (doesn't apply well to SW:TOR, but for an examples sake). Those who want to compete against other people don't generally care if it's MMO or FPS or even TPS as long as there's competition. Rift for example took a magical hit when BF3 released, Skyrim was released at the same time and it might have been the real reason for it but magically PvPers pretty much vanished.
4. This "curse" has been high expectations and low delivery. Expectations lifted by a hype (WAR, Aion to some degree, AoC).
Then there is a new threat to be taken under consideration. World economics. It's looking grim and if the recession is going to hit world more deeply we might end up into a situation where masses simply can't afford (money or time) to play a monthly fee games. And you have to take under consideration the initial cost of getting the equipment to play the game (PC, connection) too.
Kotick questions how SWTOR will benefit EA
"TO MICHAEL!"
Nitpicking, but he doesn't say it won't be profitable. He's just saying it might not be EA that is the most or at all profitable company...
*nods sagely*
And anger leads to the Dark Side!
Seeing him on Korriban we will!
*cackles*
That's the thing I'm wondering about. I see a lot of the critics who hate the game remark that they've played Jedi and found the story not good because they didn't relate. Well, doh! No wonder...
Since when has a hater ever identified with the Light side of the Force? They probably should have rolled a few Sith so they could fully express their rage and anger, because it seems they were too restricted and not able to hate enough. :P
"TO MICHAEL!"
I still have yet to see someone, ANYONE, post an analyst review of this game that says "I don't think this game will sell more than 1 million boxes nor will it retain more than 150K and be F2P in one year" which is what most of these clown citizens say on internet forums.
So you're treating their "predictions" as infallible gospel, then?
Gospel? No. You're reading it wrong. Let me try and put it another way so you might get what I'm saying...
Suppose you went to a doctor with some ailment you THINK might be something. So you sit down, he/she asks you a ton of questions then he does tests. He says it's too early to tell what you have for sure but they are pretty sure, based on their experience and your symptoms, you've got X.
So, not satisfied with the answer you go to another doctor who does the same thing. They come up with the same conclusions for the most part; you've more than likely got X. Every doctor you go to afterwards all come to the same conclusion; it's X.
As much as you try (because you do not agree with the diagnosis) you simply cannot find ONE medical professional who thinks it's not X, it's Y or something else.
You simply cannot go against an industry of professionals in any case when there is no evidence to the contrary to your untrained eyes. It MAY turn out to be Y, but odds are and based on the empirical data reviewed by the experts and the lack on one doctor saying Y, it's going to be X.
TLDR: 100% of gaming industry analysts agree SWTOR will be a sound MMO with healthy subscriptions that should make a more than healthy profit.
"TO MICHAEL!"
Nitpicking, but he doesn't say it won't be profitable. He's just saying it might not be EA that is the most or at all profitable company...
If this were science where we needed exact figures for formulas or something, I'd agree the nitpicking is warranted.
But since this is more about reading English and understanding context and meaning between adults, he does question how they will be profitable. Considering he's their chief competition, most adults understand exactly what he's saying.
"TO MICHAEL!"
Swtor is the 1st AAA MMO since WoW and when after 1 year of 24/7 beta the 95% of the terster still want to play the game at launch, i dont see a low retention rate. And the people quit when the game Fail at some point, Warhammer was an unfinished game, AION was a lie, Rift, lot of people was there for the PvP and again it was a lie, Same with AoC, Lotro, DC, STO. But BW did and amazing job with Swtor, they really learned form the mistakes of games like warhammer, etc, and BW can make new content and updates pretty fast, to dont let people get bored. And there is not competition for swto, D3 is not even a MMO, Gw2 is b2p and is a game who doesnt have the 10% of the content of swtor, TSW is a Funcom Game. And again swtor is an amazing game, 3 mill by june is really possible.
You're forgetting that's not all pre-orders, that's just to date with four weeks to go.
They've already sold over 900k and that is only in the U.S.
And, that is only BOX sales so far, not counting digital sales.
And, they haven't even done their PR blitz yet.
And, it hasn't even been released in stores for pre-Christmas rush for walk-ins in the U.S. or Europe yet.
Your ommissions are far more egregious than what you say theirs are about pre-orders. Also as said, they can do pretty well with a poor retention rate unlike games like Rift or anything previously released.
I've already mathmatically proven they only need a fraction of retention to remain profitable which can't be seriously disputed.
The problem with a lot of the critics is they have this stick in their heads that TOR has to have a 95% retention rate or something to remain profitable because they simply don't understand the numbers here, even though they've been presented countless times.
"TO MICHAEL!"
Um that is really just not even a realistic example.
When I go to a medical professional and they tell me I have cancer and the next says the same etc etc etc That kind of thing is based on objective and non optional data that isn't affected by many other things.
3 million people being subscribed to TOR which is the topic 3 million subs by next June... has no basis in fact until it happens. If a doctor tells me I have cancer then I have Cancer.
A more realistic example would be a doctor saying that if I continue to do A then I will get B... while the activity may increase my chances of getting to "B" there is no guarantee I will actually get there.
What kind of background in MMO's does this analyst have? I mean.. I've been beta testing "online" games for 25 years so that's my relative background to how I view the game. Being some analyst is not going to change reality...
Here are some factors that I view...
We have a crap economy world wide
We have a market that is overly saturated with games that are very much like TOR.
So the one thing that TOR has going for it when you cut the BS out is "Star Wars."
Licensed IP's beyond the cost carry a lot of factors. One of which is fans of that IP which is obviously the intended market (along with standard MMO players) may not react well to an interpretation of that IP (look at people who crap on movies because it wasn't "the book" on video etc)
Oh and historicly speaking how many MMO's that are Western based AND subscription based have retained 1 million subscribers concurrently (even just hit that many people paying subs for 1 month) let alone 3 million.
I have always said this game will make a profit.. but I don't see this game being anywhere near 3 million subscrbers in June of any year.
I don't hate the game but when it comes to subscriber numbers and things like that.. there is reality and perceptions of what that reality will be. The fact I see the game at less than a million subs (when the ceo of ea said 500,000 would make a good profit) doesn't mean I hate it.. but ya obviously I certainly don't agree with this prediction.
*edit to add* The presales thing that people keep bringing up is kind of moot as well. I've expected that either by release or 30 days from release the game will have sold (not shipped - shipped numbers are generally higher than sales) upwards of 2 million copies and likely over 2 million. What I'm talking about is actual retention of subscribers. Having 2 million players in the first 30 days does not equat to 2 million of even 1 million paying a subscription fee 30 days later. I've always expected this game to break pre-order records for MMO's... its after the sale that I see problems.
I think 3M subs will be achieved by June, even higher. However, every thing else you posted in this reply is straight BS. No truth at all. Just made up fanboy shit.
When you do this you invalidate yourself, not making your point stronger but casting doubt on anything you say in the first place. Most people learn this around the age of 7-10
##Best SWTOR of 2011
Posted by I_Return - SWTOR - "Forget the UI the characters and all ofhe nitpicking bullshit" "Greatest MMO Ever Created"
##Fail Thread Title of 2011
Originally posted by daveospice
"this game looks like crap?"
When something is unknown, it means it's unknown and you can only GUESS at what it is until time passes. Cancer isn't an unknown.
Likewise, TOR is an unknown but there isn't ONE analyst who says it's going to bomb. Or not do well. Or not be profitable.
This is the hole in your theory. You can ALWAYS find one doctor who says for whatever reason "I don't think you have cancer.. those 99% of other doctors are wrong" and he MAY be right.
But here, you don't have one saying that about TOR. That's where your argument falls straight through the floor.
"TO MICHAEL!"
SWTOR will have WAY more subs that 600K after 6 months - it's a better MMO than any I've played in the last 5 years and - it's Star Wars! In fact - believe they'll have MORE that 1.5 mil permanent subs at the 6 month mark.
Currently playing SWTOR and it's MUCH better than it was at launch.
I beg to disagree. Market research and forecasting is done for any market and gaming is no exception. The only difference is that most gamers think that those "evil business people" don't "understand" them. Marketing is my major and we try to understand consumers all the time. Everything we do is with our customers in mind.
But then again many people on these boards don't even know the meaning of a public company.
Mission in life: Vanquish all MMORPG.com trolls - especially TESO, WOW and GW2 trolls.
Oh I fully understand how valuable marketing and market research can be for companies. And I even fully understand what a public company is
There are "evil business people" just like there are "evil" everythings. But overall business people are generally just that, business people. And while I dont have a marketing degree assuming most gamers are ignorant of marketing & analyst ploys to meet agendas is in itself ignorant.
Not saying that is what this analyst is doing. I personally just dont put alot of faith in those numbers. Just my personal opinion tho.
Sorry if that came across as a bit confrontational, was not meant to be
I sometimes have a hard time wording text that comes across as such when not intended to be.
My spelling and coherent thought process may not be up to speed this early.... hope that made sense..... need... more... coffee.....
In 2004 two big games were coming out. I had my eye on Everquest 2 being a huge I mean mega fan of the original one I was all set. I had played Diablo and saw this other game people were talking about. I took a gander at the screenshots and sort of cringed ...my god I thought those colors are garish to say the least and I completely dismissed the game.
Then Everquest 2 came out and I did not really like it hello shared debt anyone ? Single worst MMORPG concept ever. So having no choice I decided to go look at WoW again. I bought the game and logged in and tried out a human and was quickly bored . I thought okay one other toon and rolled a night elf. I was completely hooked from the moment I stepped into Teldrassil. The colors that previously were puke worthy suddenly all fit and the whole world just came together and I met people made friends and spent a couple of years entertained. I rolled an orc and PvP something I never tried completely took over my life.
I went back to Everquest 2 later on and in fact I do love that game a lot and in a lot of ways the game has a lot more going for it than WoW but if you asked me in 2004 what I thought WoW's chances were I would have never thought even a fraction of its success capable. You cannot based on what you feel about a game predict what a whole genaration of gamers are going to do. Will SWTOR succeed ? I think so but what do I know .
I'm saying this as a guy who's done market analysis for high tech (although not for games specifically):
Three million subs seems rather optimistic by June, though certainly not impossible. Even if Bioware was selling "generic sci fi game," they'd do well because they have a legion of fans. The Mass Effect series has sold 7 million copies. Add the Star Wars name and you're going to attract huge numbers. What's working against them is the fact that not a lot of people like to invest in a subscription game much past the 2-3 month mark. That's been true of every MMO besides WOW. Even WOW struggles to keep 3 million subscribers in the Western market - most of their vaunted numbers come from Asia.
Past the six months mark, it's really a crap shoot. Look at 2012 holiday season. You'll probably have the next WOW expansion, plus excellent non-subscription online games like Diablo 3 and Guild wars 2. If Bioware is slow on updating content, they could very well be hurting in December. Heck, Mass Effect 3 could easily cannibalize the Bioware fans who feel TOR is no longer worth the monthly fee. Trying to make big predictions more than six months out is like a meteorologist trying to exactly predict the weather a year out.
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