Questionable part 1: "With a price tag approaching $200 million, SWTOR..."
Okay so this article isn't the first to "guess" at how much SWTOR cost, but it just seems like another stab at the dark...but this isn't really the most questionable part, which leads me to...
Questionable part 2: SWTOR will cost at least $7.5 million a month to maintain
What huh????? I don't think ANY MMORPG requires nearly $7.5 million a MONTH to maintain. This figure just seems ridiculous. I think it shows how uninformed a lot of journalists are about the industry.
What do you guys think of this article?
Heh , if those numbers were real , SWtor would cost 50$ a month to play and would shut down by March. Impossible that they cost that much to maintan. CCP's EVE-Online are WAY better equipped and don't even put a fraction of those numbers on maintaining their servers.
Questionable part 1: "With a price tag approaching $200 million, SWTOR..."
Okay so this article isn't the first to "guess" at how much SWTOR cost, but it just seems like another stab at the dark...but this isn't really the most questionable part, which leads me to...
Questionable part 2: SWTOR will cost at least $7.5 million a month to maintain
What huh????? I don't think ANY MMORPG requires nearly $7.5 million a MONTH to maintain. This figure just seems ridiculous. I think it shows how uninformed a lot of journalists are about the industry.
What do you guys think of this article?
I think by maintain the are including all the people currently developing new content and fixing bugs, add to that the support persons, cost of all the servers, bandwidth and so on and those 7.5 million does not sound too unreasonable.
Regarding the production cost. Rift cost $50 million to produce. With all the voice acting, story telling and SW licensing fees I would say that SW:TOR would cost considerably more, atleast twice that.
Not going to pretend to know whether it's accurate or not. If true it does raise some questions about how F2P can be profitable, considering the costs of sustaining the number of players who frequent them. It would also explain the importance of that 15 dollars a month, which I think is a topic we've (Op and I) discussed a few times on the GW2 forum.
7.5 million does sound like an awful lot per-month. However money is easily spent and expenses can rack up rather fast, especially when you're running a service that employs so many, as well as needs as much hardware to operate.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
The $7.5M figure for "monthly costs" in the LA Times article was derived simply by multiplying EA's supposed statement of "500K subs to break even" by the $15 monthly sub fee. No magic or mystery involved.
Quote:
EA has said that covering the game's operating costs will require 500,000 paying subscribers. At $15 a month, the figure implies that the game costs at least $7.5 million a month to maintain, including an undisclosed royalty fee to Lucasfilm
A quick google reveals that LA's cut is rumoured to be 35% after EA recoups costs.
Both articles use numbers from various other reports on the internet that anyone can google. In fact, one LA Times reporter says TOR cost "nearly 200M", the other says "close to 200M", but then goes on to say "EA declined to comment", but Wall Street analysts pegged the cost at "$150 million to $200 million or more".
So the LA Times reporters don't know anything more than anyone else. They're just speculating, based on what everyone else is speculating, and of course the $200M figure sounds more dramatic than the $150M, so they'll favour the high-end number.
Hm, not so sure I am. They have a lot of precise numbers and more facts gathered than any other article, so it could be true. Keep in mind, Bioware always said they keep their entire team employed after launch. That alone is gonna cost LOTS of Dollars. I would not brush it off so easily. I mean, what do WE know about such things?
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert
Comments
Heh , if those numbers were real , SWtor would cost 50$ a month to play and would shut down by March. Impossible that they cost that much to maintan. CCP's EVE-Online are WAY better equipped and don't even put a fraction of those numbers on maintaining their servers.
I think by maintain the are including all the people currently developing new content and fixing bugs, add to that the support persons, cost of all the servers, bandwidth and so on and those 7.5 million does not sound too unreasonable.
Regarding the production cost. Rift cost $50 million to produce. With all the voice acting, story telling and SW licensing fees I would say that SW:TOR would cost considerably more, atleast twice that.
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Not going to pretend to know whether it's accurate or not. If true it does raise some questions about how F2P can be profitable, considering the costs of sustaining the number of players who frequent them. It would also explain the importance of that 15 dollars a month, which I think is a topic we've (Op and I) discussed a few times on the GW2 forum.
7.5 million does sound like an awful lot per-month. However money is easily spent and expenses can rack up rather fast, especially when you're running a service that employs so many, as well as needs as much hardware to operate.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
The $7.5M figure for "monthly costs" in the LA Times article was derived simply by multiplying EA's supposed statement of "500K subs to break even" by the $15 monthly sub fee. No magic or mystery involved.
Quote:
EA has said that covering the game's operating costs will require 500,000 paying subscribers. At $15 a month, the figure implies that the game costs at least $7.5 million a month to maintain, including an undisclosed royalty fee to Lucasfilm
A quick google reveals that LA's cut is rumoured to be 35% after EA recoups costs.
Both articles use numbers from various other reports on the internet that anyone can google. In fact, one LA Times reporter says TOR cost "nearly 200M", the other says "close to 200M", but then goes on to say "EA declined to comment", but Wall Street analysts pegged the cost at "$150 million to $200 million or more".
So the LA Times reporters don't know anything more than anyone else. They're just speculating, based on what everyone else is speculating, and of course the $200M figure sounds more dramatic than the $150M, so they'll favour the high-end number.
Hm, not so sure I am. They have a lot of precise numbers and more facts gathered than any other article, so it could be true. Keep in mind, Bioware always said they keep their entire team employed after launch. That alone is gonna cost LOTS of Dollars. I would not brush it off so easily. I mean, what do WE know about such things?
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert