They might raise the number later.. Games usually gets more optimized as time go and as people gets better computers with more ram for that matter.
Lol
Can't wait until they do. Sure will do my server a lot of good.
XD
1. For god's sake mmo gamers, enough with the analogies. They're unnecessary and your comparisons are terrible, dissimilar, and illogical.
2. To posters feeling the need to state how f2p really isn't f2p: Players understand the concept. You aren't privy to some secret the rest are missing. You're embarrassing yourself.
3. Yes, Cpt. Obvious, we're not industry experts. Now run along and let the big people use the forums for their purpose.
So yes, the game is a massive success, and has done wonderful things for the MMO genre.
wrong
I'm not following that either. How can anyone know what this game has done for the genre at this point? Outside of impressive initial sales we don't even know at this point what the general consensus is going to be for this game yet over the long haul.
Unless of course you want to cite the same yahoos that raved about Warhammer, AoC, etc. Way too early to know how SWTOR will be remembered overall from either a good or bad perspective outside the initial sales the game had. That will be.
Now whether it will be remembered as the start of a new era and behemoth of an mmo or one of the biggest drops in player populations and retainability remains to be seen.
The Old Republic can be considered the Avatar of the MMO world, and it should.
Not in terms of success, but in terms of "if this doesn't succeed then there will never be a massive buget MMO ever made again."
The Old Republic succeeded, clearly with the numbers it is boasting, so we can expect other companies not to be scared off from the MMO genre with big buget MMO's.
Such as it was with Avatar, if the film didn't do well then we couldn't expect any more big budget 3D movies to be made as commonly as they are now.
Yay for the MMO Genre. Why do people not realise this?
2 million copies at an average of $80 per copy. The normal edition was less, but the digital deluxe and collector's editions were more. That's $160 million in revenue right there.
1.7 million active subscribers. Even if only 1 million of those are past the initial free month, that's another $15 million.
So in the first month alone, they've basically recouped the entire 6 years worth of development costs (or they will in another month or so).
And no other MMORPG in history has reached 1 million subscribers (3 days), or 2 million sales (5 weeks) as quickly as SW:TOR has. So I think your "expectations" are a bit unrealistic.
The fact that they've already covered 100% of their development costs, and everything from here on just continues to pay for more development (and data centers of course), means they're in a pretty darn good position. I think I'd read somewhere they only need 500k subscribers to be profitable, so at 1.7 million subs, yeah I think they're doing just fine.
Don't people have any idea on other cost than development?
Umm, 80$ per copy? Not realy, EA and BW aren't getting anything even near that. Things to consider up to 23% or more VAT depending on location, margin of retailer, wholesaler in some cases ,transport, manufacturing, license, is it gross revenue or profit, and other expences. No, you can't count whole price to EA and development...
15$ what about VAT 15% for EU and then the cost of running servers: hardware, electricity and service. Then there is customer service, billing and other costs...
It's not very straight forward to calculate without inside knowledge of MMO-bussiness...
I agree with you... but I'm not sure how VAT is a factor in that equation.
VAT as far as I know is largely a Euro based... value added tax. Here we just have "sales tax". I would think VAT works the same as in its an ADDED cost. So if the game cost 59.99 (dollars or euro's) in general its 59.99 + Tax = Sales price. If your VAT is factored into the base price then you are getting a pretty good deal there.
Now... if you wanted to bring up the fact that a 3rd party shop selling the game for 59.99 (euro's or dollars) is making a profit. Then obviously in those cases they are paying EA less than the listed price... Since EA claims that 40% of their sales were through Origin... that means 60% of their sales made less money per box due to places like Amazon actually wanting a profit on their sales.
Obviously Origin has its own costs for EA... but based on dealing with Origin customer service... I would hope there is not much cost there for employees or they need to ramp up the quality a lot.
I would also point out that beyond costs you mentioned for *live* service which must be added to production costs... we have no idea how the sales break down. Considering that CE's were 149.99 in the US... it would be interesting to know what percentage of total sales were CE's. It would be relative to the point the one person you quoted was trying to make. As far as what EA's actual average take per box sale was. It would just be interesting to know... the CE numbers.. at least in my opinion.
What mmo is it that you like playing that sold over 2 million in this amount of time again?
Consider the developement costs. Consider the developer. Consider the publisher. Consider the IP. If you still don't realize why it is indeed ONLY 2 million copies I'm afraid I won't be able to help you understand.
That's what I was getting at...
Sure - if you throw enough money at something you can push up the results. I bet if they'd spent $1 billion on development and marketing they might've sold 3 million copies.... but for the money they spent (and will spend with the continued costs of running an mmo), I don't think 2 million is all that impressive.
Well... consider the math for a moment:
2 million copies at an average of $80 per copy. The normal edition was less, but the digital deluxe and collector's editions were more. That's $160 million in revenue right there.
1.7 million active subscribers. Even if only 1 million of those are past the initial free month, that's another $15 million.
So in the first month alone, they've basically recouped the entire 6 years worth of development costs (or they will in another month or so).
And no other MMORPG in history has reached 1 million subscribers (3 days), or 2 million sales (5 weeks) as quickly as SW:TOR has. So I think your "expectations" are a bit unrealistic.
The fact that they've already covered 100% of their development costs, and everything from here on just continues to pay for more development (and data centers of course), means they're in a pretty darn good position. I think I'd read somewhere they only need 500k subscribers to be profitable, so at 1.7 million subs, yeah I think they're doing just fine.
You realize that from those 80$ they might get 40$ net, right? Maybe even less. So it's not 160$ millions right there, rather 80$ million. And from the 15$ milion the first month you can substract a lot from costs, because you must know they said with 1M players they would me making a profit "but nothing worth writing home about". So i don't think they made even 1M at all but let's be generous and consider that they recoverd 80M + 1M total. Still 219$ million to go if you believe the 300$ million figure. 100$ million if you believe a 180M figure, etc.
Only 50% margin on retail sales? I don't think that's likely.
First, 40% of their sales were digital on Origin. They're making 100% of the profit there, minus the cost of the download/bandwidth and whatever royalty they pay to LucasArts. I'll speculate (since you're throwing around your own made-up numbers) that, in fact, they're making 90% margin on digital sales.
For the remaining 60% of boxed sales, I'll bet you're right on the collector's edition, which has a lot of goodies in there. But for the standard edition, again the price of a couple of DVD's, a box to put them in, and the cur that goes to the distributors/retailers, I have to think they're making 80%. I mean a $60 game can't cost more than $10-15 to produce and sell via retail.
So the average margin is probably closer to 80%. 2 million x $80 x 80% = $128 million.
Now, as for the $15/month... if they didn't make a good deal of margin on this, then something is seriously wrong. Otherwise how can all of the F2P games, or games that offer free trial through level 20 (like WoW and Rift) make any money at all? The cost to keep the service live would simply be far too expensive to justify. But to keep the math simple, let's say they're making $10 profit on the $15 fee.
That's about 1 million players player (conservatively) x $10 = $10 million.
So even with a more conservative approach, they've still made almost $140 million. I'll bet that just about ANY other MMORPG (other than WoW) would be THRILLED to have made so much, given that most other "succesful" MMO's measure their subscriber numbers in the 100K's, not Millions.
Anyway... it's all a silly debate really - so long as they have their 500k subs, they're doing OK, and they're almost 4x that right now...
The Old Republic can be considered the Avatar of the MMO world, and it should.
Not in terms of success, but in terms of "if this doesn't succeed then there will never be a massive buget MMO ever made again."
The Old Republic succeeded, clearly with the numbers it is boasting, so we can expect other companies not to be scared off from the MMO genre with big buget MMO's.
Such as it was with Avatar, if the film didn't do well then we couldn't expect any more big budget 3D movies to be made as commonly as they are now.
Yay for the MMO Genre. Why do people not realise this?
Stop hating, start playing.
First of all I am playing the game. Just because I don't paint everything in the prettiest of lights or have rainbows shooting out of my ass doesn't mean I'm not playing and enjoying the game.
Just being realistic and it is far to early to either praise this game as the echelon of mmorpgs or to run around clamoring about its demise. Until we know how this game is going to do at retaining players and bringing in new players past their initial burst in sales we won't really know.
I hope it is a long term success but far as I'm concerned the jury is still out on that.
...and frankly there are signs I have seen that could show the long term health and overall potential of this game going either way far as I'm concerned pending on how BW handles the next few months.
1. For god's sake mmo gamers, enough with the analogies. They're unnecessary and your comparisons are terrible, dissimilar, and illogical.
2. To posters feeling the need to state how f2p really isn't f2p: Players understand the concept. You aren't privy to some secret the rest are missing. You're embarrassing yourself.
3. Yes, Cpt. Obvious, we're not industry experts. Now run along and let the big people use the forums for their purpose.
So yes, the game is a massive success, and has done wonderful things for the MMO genre.
wrong
I'm not following that either. How can anyone know what this game has done for the genre at this point? Outside of impressive initial sales we don't even know at this point what the general consensus is going to be for this game yet over the long haul.
Unless of course you want to cite the same yahoos that raved about Warhammer, AoC, etc. Way too early to know how SWTOR will be remembered overall from either a good or bad perspective outside the initial sales the game had. That will be.
Now whether it will be remembered as the start of a new era and behemoth of an mmo or one of the biggest drops in player populations and retainability remains to be seen.
The Old Republic can be considered the Avatar of the MMO world, and it should.
Not in terms of success, but in terms of "if this doesn't succeed then there will never be a massive buget MMO ever made again."
The Old Republic succeeded, clearly with the numbers it is boasting, so we can expect other companies not to be scared off from the MMO genre with big buget MMO's.
Such as it was with Avatar, if the film didn't do well then we couldn't expect any more big budget 3D movies to be made as commonly as they are now.
Yay for the MMO Genre. Why do people not realise this?
Stop hating, start playing.
that's a horrible comparison.. avatar made almost 3 billion dollars worldwide and what if it didn't? if it made only 100 million you really think no one would make another big budget special effects movie again? 3D or not.. it's not just one company putting this stuff out just because one has a failure doesn't mean others won't try if that was the case nothing would ever be produced again big products and big investments fail all the time.. to me all it means is companies will be more cautious about what they invest their big bucks in and not just put there money into any run of the mill piece of crap they think will sell because it worked so well in the past.. but hey that's just me..
Valua, I do not agree in the least. I have seen this argument before that treats TOR as the last chance for big budget MMOs and it is not. Trust me, whether TOR fails or not Blizzard's Titan is still going to release and they are spending money on it. It is not just Blizzard, companies are spending to tap into the MMO market. Bioware is not the first and it shall not be the last. TOR has nothing to do with. I am trying to restrain my disdain of TOR to be fair, but we should not try to turn this game into something that it isn't.
I am sorry, I just do not think TOR should be hyped as a savior of big budget MMOs. It just appears ridiculous to say it all rides on TOR, so we should excuse the terrible customer service, the terrible game engine, and the poor quality of 1.1. Perhaps you are not going in that direction, but I have seen this exact same argument used to excuse a lot of bullshit. Again, maybe you are not, but I just find this line reasoning bizarre.
Furthermore, why do MMOs need a big budget in the first place? Were UO, DAoC, and WoW produced with mega budgets?
Why does TOR need to suceed for the future of MMOs? It doesn't.
I do not agree in the least. I have seen this argument before that treats TOR as the last chance for big budget MMOs and it is not. Trust me, whether TOR fails or not Blizzard's Titan is still going to release and they are spending money on it. It is not just Blizzard, companies are spending to tap into the MMO market. Bioware is not the first and it shall not be the last. TOR has nothing to do with.
I am sorry, I just do not think TOR should be hyped as a savior of big budget MMOs. It just appears ridiculous to say it all rides on TOR, so we should excuse the terrible customer service, the terrible game engine, and the poor quality of 1.1. Perhaps you are not going in that direction, but I have seen this same argument used to excuse a lot of bullshit. Again, maybe you are not, but I just find this line reasoning bizarre.
Furthermore, why do MMOs need a big budget in the first place? Were UO, DAoC, and WoW produced with mega budgets?
Blizzard and it's games should not be taken into consideration when comparing to the rest of the MMO genre.
Blizzard and it's MMO's should be taken out of the MMO genre, and put into their own, they have no strong competition and probably never will.
It's like comparing Oprah Winfrey to a McDonalds employee.
What ever Blizzard (Oprah) does will be a success, without a doubt, and sell more than any other MMO ever.
But if the other companies, like BioWare (McDonalds employee) take risks and succeed then other companies (also McDonalds employees) might have the courage to follow suit.
that's a horrible comparison.. avatar made almost 3 billion dollars worldwide and what if it didn't? if it made only 100 million you really think no one would make another big budget special effects movie again? 3D or not.. it's not just one company putting this stuff out just because one has a failure doesn't mean others won't try if that was the case nothing would ever be produced again big products and big investments fail all the time.. to me all it means is companies will be more cautious about what they invest their big bucks in and not just put there money into any run of the mill piece of crap they think will sell because it worked so well in the past.. but hey that's just me..
It's not really a horrible comparison.
Very rarely do companies (whether they be film or game companies) take risks. But when risk takers succeed then the other companies follow suit. It's all about money, nobody wants to be the risk taker and risk losing money.
Most of those that take risks fail. Some do not.
James Cameron took a risk creating a movie that relied on special effects and 3D, and he succeeded. Now almost every film is in 3D, and special effects movies are all over the place.
BioWare/EA took a risk, creating a massive budget game in a very risky genre, the MMO genre. They have proven, so far, to be successful, good for them. I can gaurentee you that if their success continues we will see many big buget MMO's coming our way soon.
Good for us, good for the MMO genre, good for companies.
Everyone is talking about retention rates and how many "real" subscribers this game actually has...
I think the bigger question is why did it only sell 2 million copies in the first 6 weeks? I don't care how that is spun by EA - that cannot be something they are pleased about.
This is an EA/Bioware game... supposed to be the next big thing. To see sales drying up as fast as they did in January...
So, in your opinion, the "fastest selling subscription MMO in history" did not sell fast enough? Where do opinions like this come from? It's like Dethklok releases a CD and everybody goes out and buys two copies, and you're the guy standing there asking why they only sold 12 bilion?
Error: 37. Signature not found. Please connect to my server for signature access.
Blizzard and it's games should not be taken into consideration when comparing to the rest of the MMO genre.
Blizzard and it's MMO's should be taken out of the MMO genre, and put into their own, they have no strong competition and probably never will.
It's like comparing Oprah Winfrey to a McDonalds employee.
What ever Blizzard (Oprah) does will be a success, without a doubt, and sell more than any other MMO ever.
But if the other companies, like BioWare (McDonalds employee) take risks and succeed then other companies (also McDonalds employees) might have the courage to follow suit.
Lol
All we need now is to add vehicles to the mix and the circle will be complete.
/cue "Circle of Life" song
1. For god's sake mmo gamers, enough with the analogies. They're unnecessary and your comparisons are terrible, dissimilar, and illogical.
2. To posters feeling the need to state how f2p really isn't f2p: Players understand the concept. You aren't privy to some secret the rest are missing. You're embarrassing yourself.
3. Yes, Cpt. Obvious, we're not industry experts. Now run along and let the big people use the forums for their purpose.
I still do not think TOR should be hyped up to be a savior of big budget MMOs. It simply isn't. That is simply trying to turn it into something it is not. Furthermore, why do MMOs need a big budget? Did DaoC, UO, or WoW have massive budgets?
SImply put, I do not think TOR is good for the genre. Honestly, considering the time and money put into it I am somewhat disgusted.
I still do not think TOR should be hyped up to be a savior of big budget MMOs. It simply isn't. Whether investors become more cautious has nothing does not mean there will never be another big budget MMO. Furthermore, why do MMOs need a big budget? Did DaoC, UO, or WoW have massive budgets?
WoW had the biggest buget of all time in the MMO genre at it's time of release.
So yes, the most successful MMO of all time had a big budget.
You can see why companies, like BioWare, believe that a big buget = successful game.
And it might. I can't stand playing low budget/indie games.
BioWare/EA took a risk, creating a massive budget game in a very risky genre, the MMO genre. They have proven, so far, to be successful, good for them. I can gaurentee you that if their success continues we will see many big buget MMO's coming our way soon.
Good for us, good for the MMO genre, good for companies.
if this is the product of what a big budget mmo is all about then I would rather big budget companies stay out of the MMO buisness and leave it to the small companies with some creativity.
if this is the product of what a big budget mmo is all about then I would rather big budget companies stay out of the MMO buisness and leave it to the small companies with some creativity.
That's your opinion.
Mine is that BioWare has done very well, for themselves and the genre.
The Old Republic is the best MMO to be released since Lord of the Rings Online.
With estimates ranging from 80 mil to 500 mil out there (80 mil being tohe only one from an official source) you have no clue what it actually cost to make TOR.
I still do not think TOR should be hyped up to be a savior of big budget MMOs. It simply isn't. Whether investors become more cautious has nothing does not mean there will never be another big budget MMO. Furthermore, why do MMOs need a big budget? Did DaoC, UO, or WoW have massive budgets?
WoW had the biggest buget of all time in the MMO genre at it's time of release.
So yes, the most successful MMO of all time had a big budget.
You can see why companies, like BioWare, believe that a big buget = successful game.
And it might. I can't stand playing low budget/indie games.
With estimates ranging from 80 mil to 500 mil out there (80 mil being tohe only one from an official source) you have no clue what it actually cost to make TOR.
Wait a bit. They come up with numbers for everything else so I'm sure they'll be along soon to explain to everyone exactly how much money BW spent.
Along with BW's financial forecast, population growth expectancy, and average penis size of BW employees.
1. For god's sake mmo gamers, enough with the analogies. They're unnecessary and your comparisons are terrible, dissimilar, and illogical.
2. To posters feeling the need to state how f2p really isn't f2p: Players understand the concept. You aren't privy to some secret the rest are missing. You're embarrassing yourself.
3. Yes, Cpt. Obvious, we're not industry experts. Now run along and let the big people use the forums for their purpose.
if this is the product of what a big budget mmo is all about then I would rather big budget companies stay out of the MMO buisness and leave it to the small companies with some creativity.
That's your opinion.
Mine is that BioWare has done very well, for themselves and the genre.
The Old Republic is the best MMO to be released since Lord of the Rings Online.
A big budget brought a good MMO, finally!
Thank god for BioWare.
anything I would want to say in reponse to this would get me kicked off the forums and ill just leave it at that..
Guild Wars 2 is Buy to Play. Like Guild Wars 1 players they will buy it and then continue to sub to another game.
Guild Wars 2 will only be competition to Guild Wars 1, and very little competition to anyone else. Even though it might sell more boxes than every other game.
Star Wars doesn't have much to worry about when it comes to GW2 other than maybe people not subscribing because they think The Old Republic is unplayable after playing GW2. Which I doubt will be the case.
When GW2 releases The Old Republic will have had many patches and changes, and it will probably be considered a great game.
if they are happy spending 20 hours a week in GW2 and bored with SWTOR, why would they sub for a game they chuck a couple of hours into. Just because it doesnt have a sub doesnt mean it isnt competition.
anything I would want to say in reponse to this would get me kicked off the forums and ill just leave it at that..
Ah I see, you're one of those people who believe that their own view alone is correct.
Can you not just live with the fact that people, many people, enjoy the game for what it is?
If not, then I suggest you look into sorting that out about yourself.
I'm one who looks at reason and views the world with a critcal eye and does not let big corporations spoon feed me the same crap year after year no matter how well the marketing is.. but guess thats just me.
Comments
Lol
Can't wait until they do. Sure will do my server a lot of good.
XD
1. For god's sake mmo gamers, enough with the analogies. They're unnecessary and your comparisons are terrible, dissimilar, and illogical.
2. To posters feeling the need to state how f2p really isn't f2p: Players understand the concept. You aren't privy to some secret the rest are missing. You're embarrassing yourself.
3. Yes, Cpt. Obvious, we're not industry experts. Now run along and let the big people use the forums for their purpose.
..
The Old Republic can be considered the Avatar of the MMO world, and it should.
Not in terms of success, but in terms of "if this doesn't succeed then there will never be a massive buget MMO ever made again."
The Old Republic succeeded, clearly with the numbers it is boasting, so we can expect other companies not to be scared off from the MMO genre with big buget MMO's.
Such as it was with Avatar, if the film didn't do well then we couldn't expect any more big budget 3D movies to be made as commonly as they are now.
Yay for the MMO Genre. Why do people not realise this?
Stop hating, start playing.
I agree with you... but I'm not sure how VAT is a factor in that equation.
VAT as far as I know is largely a Euro based... value added tax. Here we just have "sales tax". I would think VAT works the same as in its an ADDED cost. So if the game cost 59.99 (dollars or euro's) in general its 59.99 + Tax = Sales price. If your VAT is factored into the base price then you are getting a pretty good deal there.
Now... if you wanted to bring up the fact that a 3rd party shop selling the game for 59.99 (euro's or dollars) is making a profit. Then obviously in those cases they are paying EA less than the listed price... Since EA claims that 40% of their sales were through Origin... that means 60% of their sales made less money per box due to places like Amazon actually wanting a profit on their sales.
Obviously Origin has its own costs for EA... but based on dealing with Origin customer service... I would hope there is not much cost there for employees or they need to ramp up the quality a lot.
I would also point out that beyond costs you mentioned for *live* service which must be added to production costs... we have no idea how the sales break down. Considering that CE's were 149.99 in the US... it would be interesting to know what percentage of total sales were CE's. It would be relative to the point the one person you quoted was trying to make. As far as what EA's actual average take per box sale was. It would just be interesting to know... the CE numbers.. at least in my opinion.
Only 50% margin on retail sales? I don't think that's likely.
First, 40% of their sales were digital on Origin. They're making 100% of the profit there, minus the cost of the download/bandwidth and whatever royalty they pay to LucasArts. I'll speculate (since you're throwing around your own made-up numbers) that, in fact, they're making 90% margin on digital sales.
For the remaining 60% of boxed sales, I'll bet you're right on the collector's edition, which has a lot of goodies in there. But for the standard edition, again the price of a couple of DVD's, a box to put them in, and the cur that goes to the distributors/retailers, I have to think they're making 80%. I mean a $60 game can't cost more than $10-15 to produce and sell via retail.
So the average margin is probably closer to 80%. 2 million x $80 x 80% = $128 million.
Now, as for the $15/month... if they didn't make a good deal of margin on this, then something is seriously wrong. Otherwise how can all of the F2P games, or games that offer free trial through level 20 (like WoW and Rift) make any money at all? The cost to keep the service live would simply be far too expensive to justify. But to keep the math simple, let's say they're making $10 profit on the $15 fee.
That's about 1 million players player (conservatively) x $10 = $10 million.
So even with a more conservative approach, they've still made almost $140 million. I'll bet that just about ANY other MMORPG (other than WoW) would be THRILLED to have made so much, given that most other "succesful" MMO's measure their subscriber numbers in the 100K's, not Millions.
Anyway... it's all a silly debate really - so long as they have their 500k subs, they're doing OK, and they're almost 4x that right now...
First of all I am playing the game. Just because I don't paint everything in the prettiest of lights or have rainbows shooting out of my ass doesn't mean I'm not playing and enjoying the game.
Just being realistic and it is far to early to either praise this game as the echelon of mmorpgs or to run around clamoring about its demise. Until we know how this game is going to do at retaining players and bringing in new players past their initial burst in sales we won't really know.
I hope it is a long term success but far as I'm concerned the jury is still out on that.
...and frankly there are signs I have seen that could show the long term health and overall potential of this game going either way far as I'm concerned pending on how BW handles the next few months.
1. For god's sake mmo gamers, enough with the analogies. They're unnecessary and your comparisons are terrible, dissimilar, and illogical.
2. To posters feeling the need to state how f2p really isn't f2p: Players understand the concept. You aren't privy to some secret the rest are missing. You're embarrassing yourself.
3. Yes, Cpt. Obvious, we're not industry experts. Now run along and let the big people use the forums for their purpose.
that's a horrible comparison.. avatar made almost 3 billion dollars worldwide and what if it didn't? if it made only 100 million you really think no one would make another big budget special effects movie again? 3D or not.. it's not just one company putting this stuff out just because one has a failure doesn't mean others won't try if that was the case nothing would ever be produced again big products and big investments fail all the time.. to me all it means is companies will be more cautious about what they invest their big bucks in and not just put there money into any run of the mill piece of crap they think will sell because it worked so well in the past.. but hey that's just me..
http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/339443/Video-FollowUp-Guide-For-Enhancing-Graphics-and-Performance-in-SWTORSorry-still-Nvidia-Only.html
Valua, I do not agree in the least. I have seen this argument before that treats TOR as the last chance for big budget MMOs and it is not. Trust me, whether TOR fails or not Blizzard's Titan is still going to release and they are spending money on it. It is not just Blizzard, companies are spending to tap into the MMO market. Bioware is not the first and it shall not be the last. TOR has nothing to do with. I am trying to restrain my disdain of TOR to be fair, but we should not try to turn this game into something that it isn't.
I am sorry, I just do not think TOR should be hyped as a savior of big budget MMOs. It just appears ridiculous to say it all rides on TOR, so we should excuse the terrible customer service, the terrible game engine, and the poor quality of 1.1. Perhaps you are not going in that direction, but I have seen this exact same argument used to excuse a lot of bullshit. Again, maybe you are not, but I just find this line reasoning bizarre.
Furthermore, why do MMOs need a big budget in the first place? Were UO, DAoC, and WoW produced with mega budgets?
Why does TOR need to suceed for the future of MMOs? It doesn't.
Blizzard and it's games should not be taken into consideration when comparing to the rest of the MMO genre.
Blizzard and it's MMO's should be taken out of the MMO genre, and put into their own, they have no strong competition and probably never will.
It's like comparing Oprah Winfrey to a McDonalds employee.
What ever Blizzard (Oprah) does will be a success, without a doubt, and sell more than any other MMO ever.
But if the other companies, like BioWare (McDonalds employee) take risks and succeed then other companies (also McDonalds employees) might have the courage to follow suit.
It's not really a horrible comparison.
Very rarely do companies (whether they be film or game companies) take risks. But when risk takers succeed then the other companies follow suit. It's all about money, nobody wants to be the risk taker and risk losing money.
Most of those that take risks fail. Some do not.
James Cameron took a risk creating a movie that relied on special effects and 3D, and he succeeded. Now almost every film is in 3D, and special effects movies are all over the place.
BioWare/EA took a risk, creating a massive budget game in a very risky genre, the MMO genre. They have proven, so far, to be successful, good for them. I can gaurentee you that if their success continues we will see many big buget MMO's coming our way soon.
Good for us, good for the MMO genre, good for companies.
So, in your opinion, the "fastest selling subscription MMO in history" did not sell fast enough? Where do opinions like this come from? It's like Dethklok releases a CD and everybody goes out and buys two copies, and you're the guy standing there asking why they only sold 12 bilion?
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Lol
All we need now is to add vehicles to the mix and the circle will be complete.
/cue "Circle of Life" song
1. For god's sake mmo gamers, enough with the analogies. They're unnecessary and your comparisons are terrible, dissimilar, and illogical.
2. To posters feeling the need to state how f2p really isn't f2p: Players understand the concept. You aren't privy to some secret the rest are missing. You're embarrassing yourself.
3. Yes, Cpt. Obvious, we're not industry experts. Now run along and let the big people use the forums for their purpose.
I still do not think TOR should be hyped up to be a savior of big budget MMOs. It simply isn't. That is simply trying to turn it into something it is not. Furthermore, why do MMOs need a big budget? Did DaoC, UO, or WoW have massive budgets?
SImply put, I do not think TOR is good for the genre. Honestly, considering the time and money put into it I am somewhat disgusted.
WoW had the biggest buget of all time in the MMO genre at it's time of release.
So yes, the most successful MMO of all time had a big budget.
You can see why companies, like BioWare, believe that a big buget = successful game.
And it might. I can't stand playing low budget/indie games.
if this is the product of what a big budget mmo is all about then I would rather big budget companies stay out of the MMO buisness and leave it to the small companies with some creativity.
http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/339443/Video-FollowUp-Guide-For-Enhancing-Graphics-and-Performance-in-SWTORSorry-still-Nvidia-Only.html
That's your opinion.
Mine is that BioWare has done very well, for themselves and the genre.
The Old Republic is the best MMO to be released since Lord of the Rings Online.
A big budget brought a good MMO, finally!
Thank god for BioWare.
What about UO or DaoC?
I do not know what to say. I disagree with you entirely.
TOR is not the savior of big budget MMOs. I do not think it was good for the genre either.
edit: In fact, considering the big budget I am disgusted with the story, the customer service, and the endgame. The big budget did not solve that.
With estimates ranging from 80 mil to 500 mil out there (80 mil being tohe only one from an official source) you have no clue what it actually cost to make TOR.
bioware don't believe anything
EA say - bioware do
Wait a bit. They come up with numbers for everything else so I'm sure they'll be along soon to explain to everyone exactly how much money BW spent.
Along with BW's financial forecast, population growth expectancy, and average penis size of BW employees.
1. For god's sake mmo gamers, enough with the analogies. They're unnecessary and your comparisons are terrible, dissimilar, and illogical.
2. To posters feeling the need to state how f2p really isn't f2p: Players understand the concept. You aren't privy to some secret the rest are missing. You're embarrassing yourself.
3. Yes, Cpt. Obvious, we're not industry experts. Now run along and let the big people use the forums for their purpose.
anything I would want to say in reponse to this would get me kicked off the forums and ill just leave it at that..
http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/339443/Video-FollowUp-Guide-For-Enhancing-Graphics-and-Performance-in-SWTORSorry-still-Nvidia-Only.html
Ah I see, you're one of those people who believe that their own view alone is correct.
Can you not just live with the fact that people, many people, enjoy the game for what it is?
If not, then I suggest you look into sorting that out about yourself.
if they are happy spending 20 hours a week in GW2 and bored with SWTOR, why would they sub for a game they chuck a couple of hours into. Just because it doesnt have a sub doesnt mean it isnt competition.
Only on mmorpg.com is the fastest selling MMO in history considered a failure.
I'm one who looks at reason and views the world with a critcal eye and does not let big corporations spoon feed me the same crap year after year no matter how well the marketing is.. but guess thats just me.
http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/339443/Video-FollowUp-Guide-For-Enhancing-Graphics-and-Performance-in-SWTORSorry-still-Nvidia-Only.html