SWTOR - a success.

ignore_me

Originally posted by daltanious

Originally posted by artemisentr4

Originally posted by Karahandras

Originally posted by LoverNoFighter
Really??????

Just old of mild curiosity who(apart from the fanboys) is/are claiming it's a success?

For me it was a success for my expectations. I wanted a solo oriented MMO with a SW story. I got that. Because I played through the stories while still crafting, buying and selling and grouping for Heroics or just with others in the same place as me so we didn't fight each other for objectives. But the game failed expectations overall from both fans and investers.

 

The game will not die, it will continue for a few more years at least. It will be fun for someone like myself who is looking for this type of story driven gameplay. And it will be great with the F2P because I can get that without having to pay monthly. What they need to do is embrace the solo/heroic story and add new planets with a lot of content to buy once it goes F2P. Instead of Operation content, but they seem to be stuck with the current users wanting more ops.

Well, myself would never ever play game that I can not (mostly) solo. Period. I have a job, kids are grown but I have other things to attend to. An because of my job I can hardly plan when to play. I already play however to much. :-) So I never have found any fun in lfg-in for 2 hours just to had to go to sleep or to work at time when group was found. Never found any joy being unable to progress because of requirement of group for quest I wanted to to at 3 at night.

I dare to say that group ONLY games (i mean forced gruping games) are DEAD. No ressurection available. No game today can have any success if not SOLO friendly. Hardly can come to my mind any game other then FF XI online where there is FORCED grouping and it is still alive. Ok, exception are very rare pvp only games with little or no questing at all. But that is exception.

So gaming industry have simply followed flow of money.

And really wondering when somebody says that SWTOR is solo game, if he/she have actually played at all. Because as I KNOW after 7 to 8 months playing it without interruptions that SWTOR can be soloed (as much as any other game with exception of FF XI) but also that one can level without single solo action (only mondatory for game progress are class quests that are solo). There are so many group possibilities that is just choice. Do not blame game if nobody want to use this choice.

As I already repeated many times, SWTOR for me is best, most fun and complex game ever. I must however add that I could not care less for pvp and end game that I currently do. Second is WOW. Third ... well ... I guess Rift but GW2 aproaching very fast for fun and a lot of candy factor.

Well to people who ride bicycles mopeds are really fast and cool

Karteli

Originally posted by Loke666

Originally posted by Karteli

Originally posted by Loke666

Actually, we are not 100% sure of that, particularly after counting away Lucas arts share.

EA have been rather quiet aboutr anything financial. In april they said the game would be back to 2 million steady subs at the end of the year and 3 million at the end of next year, while in early august they just said it went F2P with not much comments beside that all MMOs would be soon.

I'd be interested in a quote on that, or a video interview.  If you know of it, can you find it for us?

Hmm, cant find it right now but here is one from a month earlier when they assumed it would hit 2 millions in June: http://www.videogamer.com/pc/star_wars_the_old_republic/news/star_wars_the_old_republic_to_hit_2_million_subscribers_soon.html

I did not invent the thing, but lets to be safe say I accendently put it a month too late and the 2 million mark 6 months earlier (it is about the same level of disaster) unless someone else can find the friggin numbers, it was one of EAs analysts that put out the numbers in EAs april.

But whatever, lets just call that one "unconfirmed" here, my googling skills seems a bit off tonight.

Ah OK, that was what an analyst said, not EA, in that example posted.  When you said "they" above in red, I thought you meant EA said that, which would be very newsworthy :-)

 

Analysts say all kinds of things, when they are right, they get better jobs .. when they are wrong they change names :P

Lathander81

I think we all knew that SW was a niche game market just like Startrek. I think it was a success as long as they are making a profit.

Paddyspub

I would call Rift or Eve more of a success than this game.

gervaise1

Originally posted by ZigZags

The game was a financial success probably. It seems like the box sales generated more than enough to cover its development expenses.

No. Based on EA's own statement that SWTOR needed 1M (long term) subs to "make a profit but nothing to write home about" EA haven't recovered there investment. (500k subs was to make a profit at the operating level). And, based on what EA reported, the highest sub number was just about half of 1.7M - OR 850k. So no profit.

Boxes cost money to produce and distribute and retailers take a very large % of the sale price; for AoC Funcom reported just over 20%; for SWTOR analysts suggested $60M profit on the initial 2M sales - a far higher % as some of the sales were via Origin. A long way short of what the game cost however - especially factoring in a % of the cost of buying Bioware. 

TeknoBug

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Originally posted by Lathander81
I think we all knew that SW was a niche game market just like Startrek. I think it was a success as long as they are making a profit.

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I'm not sure how much of a profit they actually made since they spent $300-500 million and sold 2+ million copies with ~300K concurrent users at launch, don't forget a good chunk of that profit goes to Lucas Arts and EA so.... however I suck at math so I'm not going into that department.

Yakamomoto

the real success will come with the first expansion, then it will be real StarWars with more to do.. pazzaak, swoop racing, housing, space combat..

Draron

Originally posted by Paddyspub
I would call Rift or Eve more of a success than this game.

Financially? Yes. Sub wise? No. Even with SWTOR being "dead", it still has more sub than these 2 games.

I've played all 3 of them btw. I have Rift on my machine atm since I return to it every few months and am waiting for Storm Legion. I've played SWTOR the longest of the 3 because I found it more entertaining. It's just a matter of taste, really.

gervaise1

Agree about SWTOR having more subs than Rift - and EVE at this moment in time. If SWTOR had remained sub based the comparison with EVE might have gotten interesting.

Of course come the end of the year SWTOR will have fewer subs. Going F2P is a risk; in their own presentations EA have said that most people who play F2P games play for free and they rely on hooking whales to bring in the money - whales apparently being the term for people who get hooked. Does SWTOR have the ability to keep people hooked enough so they want to fork out money though ....

Amana

There's honestly nothing here in the OP that enables any sort of discussion. No reasons, no substantiated points, nothing. Therefore it's kind of a bait.