We know from start that the initail costs of the game ie the budget was covered by the boxed sales of the game. We also know that SWtOR has always maintaned a profit even back when they were firing people it has always stayed in teh black.
Thats why they did the firings so they could stay profitable.
Absolutely delusional posts like this are just mind boggling.
It is one thing to be a fanboy of something and latch on to inflated sales/sub numbers, lowball cost estimates of the creating a game, etc.
But when you are so far off the deep end that you are claiming things that don't even make sense...
Game companies are putting out two million plus selling games many times a year. Do you really think these company's are making 200-250 million off the sales of these games???
Really???
This is like the delusional, and rapidly dwindling, Xbox fans who get their 'sales numbers' from vgchartz - a site run by a little kid Xbox fan who was permabanned from the neogaf forums for making up hilariously fake and inflated Xbox/Xbox game sales numbers. He then stormed off and created vgchartz so he could spread his fake sales numbers without interference. His fake sales numbers are so absurd that he regularly makes up numbers that claim Xbox sales that don't even make sense since they are greater than the already massively inflated Microsoft numbers.
Doesn't matter, as long as fanboys have something to latch on to. "I believe these numbers because I want them to be true"
The roughly 60 million number off 2.4 million box/digital download sales is right in line with what most game companies make off similar sales numbers.
That 60 million number is REVENUE. Not profit.
Not even close to the 200-250 million wasted by EA on the SWTOR fiasco. And off course no where near 600-800 million EA wasted on Bioware.
Now take that 60 million and start subtracting off EA's costs that don't just magically stop the day the game goes GM and is sent off to retailers.
The EA/Bioware SWTOR team peaked at over 600 employees. Bottom rung,deadweight staff like associate producers are making about 60-70k a year, senior software engineers are in the 100-130k range, VPs are making even more. The actual cost to a company is roughly 1.5 times an employee's salary when you add in health insurance, benefits, and other overhead just to manage them.
That means that EA is burning through:
600 employees * 100k average salary * 1.5 = 90 million a year added costs to EA at the time SWTOR shipped
Cut the team size in half through layoffs and EA is still burning though 45 million a year just on the SWTOR team alone. Or even cut it in half again to 150 and EA is blowing through 22.5 million a year just for the SWTOR team.
That's just salary alone, now start adding in all the other ongoing operating costs, additional marketing, etc. and it should be perfectly clear why EA doesn't want to talk about SWTOR .
EA will never make back the money they wasted on the SWTOR fiasco. Ever.
Nor the money they blew buying that turd of a developer Bioware.
2 mil for box sales makes 100 million.
then lets say 6 months subscriptions $15 x 6 x 1.5 mil = 135 million
This is a very generous and easy estimate.
They even more than this in the 6 months from launch since they sold more than 2 million at launch and sold even more through out the game.
so they made around 250 million in the first 6 months of the game.
the server costs vary but lets say they 2 million per month to run servers which is a very high cost and could be a lot lower and under 100k. but lets say 2 mil since there is a lot of hearsay on these things. 2 million x 6 = 12
250 - 12 = 238 mil.
now thats 238 million to pay for wages, advertising, the cgi movies etc... that is a lot.
you made the assumtion of their salary is 100k on average which is high, but lets agree. 600 staff member x 100k x 4 years =
salary = 240 million.
That almost breaks even right there with your high estimation. we also know swtor as a team was hiring people and firing them with short term employess working on the project, whcih is why probably their engine has the problems that it does. So the salary is probably including minimum wage for university graduates level which would be around 30k a year but of par time.
So to properly guess how much they made you have to agree on what is the correct standard or normal scenario... my scenario i have included their worst case scenario and they almost break even not inlcuding other expenses... which would not be that high for the cgi movies, VO, and possibly advertising since ti was not that much. Maybe all that would be 50 million tops, which is too much, but it could go up there. so that would mean they are only 50 million short in the worst case scenario from 6 months of launch to breaking even.
that is a lot of money, but in terms of other projects and payback... that is really good. the problem with swtor was that it is not an mmo that has retaining power. So of course it did not continue to do as well as it could have if it launched as an actual tripple A MMO as it claimed to be.
However despite that, the fact is, within 6 months of launching their game they recovered a lot fo their investment.
At one point, I think they even stated at the 1 year point, they are not doing badly and broke even, but still need to turn a profit to make the game grow.
The game is doing well enough to have a large enough team work on it... but ti certainly could have done better if it had better ground work for an MMO.
Write bad things that are done to you in sand, but write the good things that happen to you on a piece of marble
People will keep correcting these silly claims about box sales.
The standard about of revenue, not profits, a company makes off of retail sales is about 30 percent of the shelf price. Sometimes even lower. Box sales, digital sales, any type of sales to consumer. Companies are getting about 30 percent.
Roughly 30 percent of 2.4 million is 50-60 million in revenue. Not profit.
Now start taking EA's costs out of those box revenues:
* The cost of the packaging
* The cost of the disc duplication
* The cost of shipping the product retailers
For the digital store sales just a couple of the major costs:
* The cost of running the online store data center
* The cost of the staff to run the online store
Now the game is live and EA is now having to pay for:
* 24/7 tech support call centers in both the US and Europe
* The data centers for both the US and Europe to run the game
* The data center staff to maintain, backup, patch, the game servers
All of these costs are coming out of those 50-60 million in game sales revenues.
The left over revenue from the box sales now has to pay for the hundreds of SWTOR staff that continue to work on the project for the two years after it shipped. And, yes, the average salary on EA project is going to be around 100k:
* Associate producers are going to be getting 60-70k
* Grunt work artists are getting about the same to a bit higher - 70-80k
* The non-junior artists are getting about 80-100k
* Senior artists and animators are getting 100-120k
* Software engineers are getting 80-100k
* Senior software engineers are getting 100-130k
* VPs and other senior staff are getting 150-200+k
* And the top level Bioware people are(or were now they've been fired) getting significantly more
The total cost to EA per employee each year is their base salary + insurance + benefits + overhead of managing them is going to be the industry standard of roughly 1.5 times their base salary.
600 employees * 100k average salary * 1.5 = 90 million a year
500 employees * 100k average salary * 1.5 = 75 million a year
400 employees * 100k average salary * 1.5 = 60 million a year
300 employees * 100k average salary * 1.5 = 45million a year
200 employees * 100k average salary * 1.5 = 30 million a year
Even if you want to continue to play the low ball the costs game, EA is spending a huge amount of money just on staff alone over the past two years.
And add on to the the salary+benefits for the remaining SWTOR team:
* The cost of maintaining and running the office space
* The cost of IT staff, HR staff , janitorial staff that EA needs to pay for
Won't even bother wasting time on the claims of 1 million or 1.5 million 'subscribers'...
* The cost of equipment and services for the ongoing SWTOR - computers, servers, software licences, repairs
It's a financial fiasco of gargantuan proportions. Only a game company of EA's financial resources combined with a garbage developer like Bioware could have create a disaster of this size.
All the senior Bioware staff have been fired, the game was force to shut down 80-90 percent of its servers, was forced in esperation to switch to free to play from lack of subscribers, but...yeah 'the game is doing just fine'
EA get 100% of the sale? Really. No sales taxes to pay.
This pretty much sums it up right here. Yeah if you don't understand what is wrong with what you said right there then you clearly are the most uninformed person here.
If you know what is wrong with it then you clearly lied.
Yes they made back their entire production budget back from the intial sales. It's amazing that someone is still trying to claim otherwise. But there you go not much sense in the "hater" group.
In the EU it is called Value Added Tax and is paid on games; typical rate is about 20%. In the Us it varies depending on state / city / how you buy the game (lived and worked in both parts of the world.) Pretty feeble attempt to deflect from your stupid "lie" that EA get 100% of online sales though.
facepalm... so you are willfully ignorant
VAT and sales tax are applied BEFORE the purchase. Sales tax is also not appled in the US to online sales in most states.
So saying that VAT and Sales tax takes money away from EA is WRONG
You are clearly not qualifed for this disscuion
Also they mentioned the budget being covered by the initial sales at GDC. So yeah its a fact
Yuur claim about EA getting 100% of online revenue was DRIVEL bobdole. First lets not forget the wages, security costs, money handling charges, insurance, electricity costs, building costs, server costs, cost of hosting GDC and so on.
As far as VAT goes so you admit (?) that VAT is included in the advertised price - by law - and collected by EA - by law - and then passed - by law - to the respective govrnments. Hence your EA get 100% of the money is DRIVEL. You cannot multiply copies x price and say this is what EA made in profit.
And - as we both said - in the U sit depends where you live.
And said at GDC? so what. GDC does not file with SEC. People at GDC may say something like revenue collected was more than the game cost. Unlike you however they know that you have to pay for wages, software licences and so on.
Your claim that EA get 100% of the online revenue was DRIVEL bobdole. And rather than admit it you have called me a liar.
So how about a link might help your pulling numbers out of thin air just a little. See the problem with posters like this who have hate for a video game and think they are experts on a certain subject is they never ever provide facts or links. Just a page of numbers that sound good to them. So here I will post one link to prove all the hater wrong. The title is Swtor is profitable! So I wish other mmos could have the financial disaster as you call it like Swtor has apparently. I bet other mmos with they could pull in the revenue and create a profit like Swtor does. Well enjoy the links and facts I know they may burst your hate bubble.
All ringbus said was that the game cost money to make. He was correcting the assumption that people seem to have that EA don't have any costs. If you want a link to average wage costs they are all over the web. $100k for direct + indirect wage costs like taxes, medical etc. is not high.
The link you posted - to the CFO's comments - supports him. Eric said that the expectations were very high in the first year and that they had to restructure as a result.
And his comment about it being a "profitable business" indicates that - last year when he said it - SWTOR was covering its costs. They have written off the development costs.
So people cannot do box sales x $$$ + 1.7M x $15. They would be double dipping.
JR clarified what he said in February at a conference he gave a month later when he spoke about people maybe misunderstanding what he said in the results!
So how about a link might help your pulling numbers out of thin air just a little. See the problem with posters like this who have hate for a video game and think they are experts on a certain subject is they never ever provide facts or links. Just a page of numbers that sound good to them. So here I will post one link to prove all the hater wrong. The title is Swtor is profitable! So I wish other mmos could have the financial disaster as you call it like Swtor has apparently. I bet other mmos with they could pull in the revenue and create a profit like Swtor does. Well enjoy the links and facts I know they may burst your hate bubble.
All ringbus said was that the game cost money to make. He was correcting the assumption that people seem to have that EA don't have any costs. If you want a link to average wage costs they are all over the web. $100k for direct + indirect wage costs like taxes, medical etc. is not high.
The link you posted - to the CFO's comments - supports him. Eric said that the expectations were very high in the first year and that they had to restructure as a result.
And his comment about it being a "profitable business" indicates that - last year when he said it - SWTOR was covering its costs. They have written off the development costs.
EA's results this year will be interesting.
Please provide a link where they stated they "have written off the development cost". I understand those still hating a video game almost three years in don't like facts, links and like to turn words around but the fact is it's generating a ton of revenue and profitable without any proof the haters have about writing crap off. Facts links not bias assumptions with some awkward obsession to take down a video game a lot of people enjoy.
what Company would actually link this? has anybody done it before?
the waitor at a 4 star restaurant wont tell the guests about the star chefs abscence, either
So how about a link might help your pulling numbers out of thin air just a little. See the problem with posters like this who have hate for a video game and think they are experts on a certain subject is they never ever provide facts or links. Just a page of numbers that sound good to them. So here I will post one link to prove all the hater wrong. The title is Swtor is profitable! So I wish other mmos could have the financial disaster as you call it like Swtor has apparently. I bet other mmos with they could pull in the revenue and create a profit like Swtor does. Well enjoy the links and facts I know they may burst your hate bubble.
All ringbus said was that the game cost money to make. He was correcting the assumption that people seem to have that EA don't have any costs. If you want a link to average wage costs they are all over the web. $100k for direct + indirect wage costs like taxes, medical etc. is not high.
The link you posted - to the CFO's comments - supports him. Eric said that the expectations were very high in the first year and that they had to restructure as a result.
And his comment about it being a "profitable business" indicates that - last year when he said it - SWTOR was covering its costs. They have written off the development costs.
EA's results this year will be interesting.
Please provide a link where they stated they "have written off the development cost". I understand those still hating a video game almost three years in don't like facts, links and like to turn words around but the fact is it's generating a ton of revenue and profitable without any proof the haters have about writing crap off. Facts links not bias assumptions with some awkward obsession to take down a video game a lot of people enjoy.
what Company would actually link this? has anybody done it before?
the waitor at a 4 star restaurant wont tell the guests about the star chefs abscence, either
theyll just wing it, and hope for the best
Here was the first one of many when I googled (crazy concept I know). If you need more links about companies writing off losses let me know.
Exactly when you have investors and shareholders you can't just hide this much money. But some of these posters are so desperate to continue their awkward crusade to take down Swtor they will say anything and of be sure they will not provide any facts or links to back up their desperate ideas.
This thread has been very entertaining. I see after my "haters" comment that a poster jumped all over it even though I never mentioned him by name. Then he proceeded to go on and on about how bad the game is when that isn't even the topic of discussion. These people just can't help themselves. I knew this bit of news would send some people off their rocker but man.
So people cannot do box sales x $$$ + 1.7M x $15. They would be double dipping.
JR clarified what he said in February at a conference he gave a month later when he spoke about people maybe misunderstanding what he said in the results!
Comments
2 mil for box sales makes 100 million.
then lets say 6 months subscriptions $15 x 6 x 1.5 mil = 135 million
This is a very generous and easy estimate.
They even more than this in the 6 months from launch since they sold more than 2 million at launch and sold even more through out the game.
so they made around 250 million in the first 6 months of the game.
the server costs vary but lets say they 2 million per month to run servers which is a very high cost and could be a lot lower and under 100k. but lets say 2 mil since there is a lot of hearsay on these things. 2 million x 6 = 12
250 - 12 = 238 mil.
now thats 238 million to pay for wages, advertising, the cgi movies etc... that is a lot.
you made the assumtion of their salary is 100k on average which is high, but lets agree. 600 staff member x 100k x 4 years =
salary = 240 million.
That almost breaks even right there with your high estimation. we also know swtor as a team was hiring people and firing them with short term employess working on the project, whcih is why probably their engine has the problems that it does. So the salary is probably including minimum wage for university graduates level which would be around 30k a year but of par time.
So to properly guess how much they made you have to agree on what is the correct standard or normal scenario... my scenario i have included their worst case scenario and they almost break even not inlcuding other expenses... which would not be that high for the cgi movies, VO, and possibly advertising since ti was not that much. Maybe all that would be 50 million tops, which is too much, but it could go up there. so that would mean they are only 50 million short in the worst case scenario from 6 months of launch to breaking even.
that is a lot of money, but in terms of other projects and payback... that is really good. the problem with swtor was that it is not an mmo that has retaining power. So of course it did not continue to do as well as it could have if it launched as an actual tripple A MMO as it claimed to be.
However despite that, the fact is, within 6 months of launching their game they recovered a lot fo their investment.
At one point, I think they even stated at the 1 year point, they are not doing badly and broke even, but still need to turn a profit to make the game grow.
The game is doing well enough to have a large enough team work on it... but ti certainly could have done better if it had better ground work for an MMO.
Write bad things that are done to you in sand, but write the good things that happen to you on a piece of marble
People will keep correcting these silly claims about box sales.
The standard about of revenue, not profits, a company makes off of retail sales is about 30 percent of the shelf price. Sometimes even lower. Box sales, digital sales, any type of sales to consumer. Companies are getting about 30 percent.
Roughly 30 percent of 2.4 million is 50-60 million in revenue. Not profit.
Now start taking EA's costs out of those box revenues:
* The cost of the packaging
* The cost of the disc duplication
* The cost of shipping the product retailers
For the digital store sales just a couple of the major costs:
* The cost of running the online store data center
* The cost of the staff to run the online store
Now the game is live and EA is now having to pay for:
* 24/7 tech support call centers in both the US and Europe
* The data centers for both the US and Europe to run the game
* The data center staff to maintain, backup, patch, the game servers
All of these costs are coming out of those 50-60 million in game sales revenues.
The left over revenue from the box sales now has to pay for the hundreds of SWTOR staff that continue to work on the project for the two years after it shipped. And, yes, the average salary on EA project is going to be around 100k:
* Associate producers are going to be getting 60-70k
* Grunt work artists are getting about the same to a bit higher - 70-80k
* The non-junior artists are getting about 80-100k
* Senior artists and animators are getting 100-120k
* Software engineers are getting 80-100k
* Senior software engineers are getting 100-130k
* VPs and other senior staff are getting 150-200+k
* And the top level Bioware people are(or were now they've been fired) getting significantly more
The total cost to EA per employee each year is their base salary + insurance + benefits + overhead of managing them is going to be the industry standard of roughly 1.5 times their base salary.
600 employees * 100k average salary * 1.5 = 90 million a year
500 employees * 100k average salary * 1.5 = 75 million a year
400 employees * 100k average salary * 1.5 = 60 million a year
300 employees * 100k average salary * 1.5 = 45million a year
200 employees * 100k average salary * 1.5 = 30 million a year
Even if you want to continue to play the low ball the costs game, EA is spending a huge amount of money just on staff alone over the past two years.
And add on to the the salary+benefits for the remaining SWTOR team:
* The cost of maintaining and running the office space
* The cost of IT staff, HR staff , janitorial staff that EA needs to pay for
Won't even bother wasting time on the claims of 1 million or 1.5 million 'subscribers'...
* The cost of equipment and services for the ongoing SWTOR - computers, servers, software licences, repairs
It's a financial fiasco of gargantuan proportions. Only a game company of EA's financial resources combined with a garbage developer like Bioware could have create a disaster of this size.
All the senior Bioware staff have been fired, the game was force to shut down 80-90 percent of its servers, was forced in esperation to switch to free to play from lack of subscribers, but...yeah 'the game is doing just fine'
Yuur claim about EA getting 100% of online revenue was DRIVEL bobdole. First lets not forget the wages, security costs, money handling charges, insurance, electricity costs, building costs, server costs, cost of hosting GDC and so on.
As far as VAT goes so you admit (?) that VAT is included in the advertised price - by law - and collected by EA - by law - and then passed - by law - to the respective govrnments. Hence your EA get 100% of the money is DRIVEL. You cannot multiply copies x price and say this is what EA made in profit.
And - as we both said - in the U sit depends where you live.
And said at GDC? so what. GDC does not file with SEC. People at GDC may say something like revenue collected was more than the game cost. Unlike you however they know that you have to pay for wages, software licences and so on.
Your claim that EA get 100% of the online revenue was DRIVEL bobdole. And rather than admit it you have called me a liar.
2 million box sales makes 100 million revenue. Not profit.
And the highest number of recurring subscribers that EA announced was c. 850k not 1.5M.
Now in the fantasy land .....
I had no idea Star Wars was pulling in that much. Good for them. It's a fun game.
They announced 1.7M subscribers very early in SWToR's life.
http://www.ign.com/articles/2012/02/01/star-wars-the-old-republic-has-17-million-subscribers
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
All ringbus said was that the game cost money to make. He was correcting the assumption that people seem to have that EA don't have any costs. If you want a link to average wage costs they are all over the web. $100k for direct + indirect wage costs like taxes, medical etc. is not high.
The link you posted - to the CFO's comments - supports him. Eric said that the expectations were very high in the first year and that they had to restructure as a result.
And his comment about it being a "profitable business" indicates that - last year when he said it - SWTOR was covering its costs. They have written off the development costs.
EA's results this year will be interesting.
Not recurring subscribers though.
So people cannot do box sales x $$$ + 1.7M x $15. They would be double dipping.
JR clarified what he said in February at a conference he gave a month later when he spoke about people maybe misunderstanding what he said in the results!
Good for SWTOR, that shows that theme park mmos with a good IP are far more profitable then this crap sandbox , pvp - full loot crap.
Hope all mmo devs see this numbers.
Step in the arena and break the wall down
what Company would actually link this? has anybody done it before?
the waitor at a 4 star restaurant wont tell the guests about the star chefs abscence, either
theyll just wing it, and hope for the best
can be sure if that kind of amount had been 'written off' then it would have made the news, its not something they would be able to keep quiet on.
This thread has been very entertaining. I see after my "haters" comment that a poster jumped all over it even though I never mentioned him by name. Then he proceeded to go on and on about how bad the game is when that isn't even the topic of discussion. These people just can't help themselves. I knew this bit of news would send some people off their rocker but man.
Currently Playing: World of Warcraft
Whatever. By May they still had 1.3M subscribers.
http://www.gameinformer.com/b/news/archive/2012/05/07/star-wars-the-old-republic-subscribers-drop.aspx
Just admit you made up a number that fit your view of the game and move on.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.