Theres just way tooo big of a Bioware/Star Wars fanbase for it to fail flattt......they would have to do something really REALLY extreme to not make a profit off this
Oh how true! They are still helping SOE keep SWG alive. Which, as a side note; you'd think they (SOE) would be bright enough to see the dedication of the fanbase and revamp the game. It's all over forums everywhere how people would go back. To update a game and have an instant playerbase? I don't see why a business wouldn't do it. But NOW...they have competition. They derailed and abandoned their gravy train.
But I digress. You KNOW us SW fans will at least have to check it out! Since the OTHER sci-fi based mmo seems to be flailing about...
How big is Star Wars in Asia? Lets face it thats where about half of WOW's 11-12 million subs are. If your going to launch and be big in Asia you need a different payscale than your traditional Wertern $15 a month.
How many Star Wars fans or KoTOR fans don't play an MMO or have never played an MMO? How many of them can you convince that $15 a month is just like buying $15 worth of DLC every month that they are probably used to by now. Thats where your going to see growth in the new to MMO's playerbase.
How many are now playing WOW but would like the same experiance with light sabre's/sabers? Will the change of setting be enough to get them to switch completly or maybe cancel a extra account so they can play 2 MMO's?
Will the game work seemlessly enough that the general lack of patients for the inevitable bugs and unforscene hiccups that plague new release MMO's not cause mass exodus of accounts and general forum bashings?
Will they be overly optimistic or conservitive in their predictions on how many people will pick the game up right away and how will that affect the number of servers they have available? Too many servers and people will believe the game doesn't have enough people playing and stop playing themselves. Too few and people will get upset over queue's to get on the servers massive amounts of lag and stop playing because it's "unplayable".
Whats the timeframe to make back the initial investment of over 100 million? 6 months 12 months 18 months. It's not as simple as they get $50 per box so they need half a million box sales. That $50 gets split between 3 layers of government sales tax (In America there is local state and fedral sales tax pity the poor fools the rest of you), the retailer takes a cut, the shipping company takes a cut, the importers take a cut, the wharehouses take a cut. EA gets whats left probably somewhere between 20 and 30 dollars per box. Thats why they want you to digitally download the stuff they get to cut out the 5 or 6 middle men in there making them an extra 10 bucks a box or so.
Anyway thats just a few of the questions that need answers to determine the answer to the simple question and really all we have to go on at the moment is best guess senerios. Sure it would appear that they have made a game that not many of members of MMORPG would seem to be interested in but face it the total membership is just a little over 1 million most of whom seem to be stuck in a weird timeloop of wanting to play 10 year old versions of games with a graphical update.
The lesser of two evils is still evil.
There is nothing more dangerous than a true believer.
This is not supposed to be a trollbait question but I am wondering by what specific P&L criteria Bioware and Lucas Arts will judge this game to be a success or failure?
We know that a major investment has gone into the game - some say as much as $100 million.
That means it would have to sell two million boxes at fifty bucks a piece to break even immediately. That's not inconceivable at all - and is probably very likely. But I wonder what longterm subscriber figures LA and Bioware need to break even on a longterm basis and to bring in the profits that they have planned for? I also wonder what sub figures/revenue figures they would consider to be a failure - and what they would do in response to that failure - reengineer the game, remodel its revenue base or even close it down?
This game will get back all the cash that went into developing in 1 or 2 months after releasing,
Allways there is alot of people playing an new mmo thats been promoted as hell like with Warhammer they anticipated 300k subscribers and had 1,5 mil in the first 3 months .
That made the servers crash and most of u heard about it so i spare the rest but u can do the math how much cash u can get out of an mmo with so many subs ..
I am the punishment of God... If you had not committed great sins, God would not have sent a punishment like me upon you Genghis Khan
This is not supposed to be a trollbait question but I am wondering by what specific P&L criteria Bioware and Lucas Arts will judge this game to be a success or failure?
We know that a major investment has gone into the game - some say as much as $100 million.
That means it would have to sell two million boxes at fifty bucks a piece to break even immediately. That's not inconceivable at all - and is probably very likely. But I wonder what longterm subscriber figures LA and Bioware need to break even on a longterm basis and to bring in the profits that they have planned for? I also wonder what sub figures/revenue figures they would consider to be a failure - and what they would do in response to that failure - reengineer the game, remodel its revenue base or even close it down?
This game will get back all the cash that went into developing in 1 or 2 months after releasing,
Allways there is alot of people playing an new mmo thats been promoted as hell like with Warhammer they anticipated 300k subscribers and had 1,5 mil in the first 3 months .
That made the servers crash and most of u heard about it so i spare the rest but u can do the math how much cash u can get out of an mmo with so many subs ..
That doesn't make it successful, that doesn't even make a single player game successful. They have to turn a profit and keep subs up by making the customer happy, If they just cover the cost of making the game and buying out Bioware, there still right where they were before they bought out Bioware. And WAR was a total failure.
It's as good as impossible to fail at box sales for a game like this, Kotor being close to legendary status, it being Star Wars, BioWare's recent games selling millions in their first week and the hype it has compared to other (less anticipated) MMO's of the past like AoC or Aion that also shipped great numbers of boxes.
As for lasting power... No one can tell you that at this point, the few beta testers out there might be able to speculate a bit on that, but even they can not give a final say in it; the game is still 9 months or more away from release and they only got to see the smallest portion of the game.
Feel free to use my referral link for SW:TOR if you want to test out the game. You'll get some special unlocks!
really the game has no long term gameplay people will play it for the first month or two get bored and go back to a better game. bioware so far isn't showing any end game content sadly we all know it's going to be wow raids. the whole story thing is just one of the biggest cop outs in mmo history. i don't want to be told a story i want to make my own story! that's what made swg pre-cu so good! it even said it on the box tell the greatest star wars story ever told, yours.
bioware just isn't doing anything to keep people into the game. and if you look at biowares other games they are not doing too well in the long term. mass effect 2 dlc and dragon age dlc isn't all that fun or long and it takes far too long for bioware to come out with anything.
yeah it will make it big in the short term. but the long term? no.
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
I believe there was a transcript of an EA or Bioware stockholder conference call that was posted a while back where they had a target of something like 1-2 subscriptions by the end of the 1st year after launch. If what I'm remembering was correct, then that would be a pretty clear indicator of what EA/BW will consider a success.
I personally think that they will fall short of 1 million subs by the end of the 1st year, but not by much. With so many people hyped about tthis game and the number of SW fans out there, I can see the game selling 1.5 - 2 million boxes in a year. The problem is that TOR will draw a lot of non-MMO gamers who will play for a few months and quit, as well as MMO gamers who are willing to give it a chance but it won't be for them, so they'll return to their old game.
After a year, I would guess that the game will have sold just over 1.5 million boxes and hold roughly 800k subscriptions. It'll be interesting to see if EA/BW consider that a success, should that estimate be correct or even close.
If they don't, you'll know it by the end of the year, as they will no doubt start tweaking and making changes to the systems and areas of the game recieving negative feedback.
I believe there was a transcript of an EA or Bioware stockholder conference call that was posted a while back where they had a target of something like 1-2 subscriptions by the end of the 1st year after launch. If what I'm remembering was correct, then that would be a pretty clear indicator of what EA/BW will consider a success.
Thats probably doable....
"When people don't know much about something, they tend to fill in the blanks the way they want them to be filled in. They are almost always disappointed." - Will Wright
Comments
Oh how true! They are still helping SOE keep SWG alive. Which, as a side note; you'd think they (SOE) would be bright enough to see the dedication of the fanbase and revamp the game. It's all over forums everywhere how people would go back. To update a game and have an instant playerbase? I don't see why a business wouldn't do it. But NOW...they have competition. They derailed and abandoned their gravy train.
But I digress. You KNOW us SW fans will at least have to check it out! Since the OTHER sci-fi based mmo seems to be flailing about...
Depends on alot of things.
How big is Star Wars in Asia? Lets face it thats where about half of WOW's 11-12 million subs are. If your going to launch and be big in Asia you need a different payscale than your traditional Wertern $15 a month.
How many Star Wars fans or KoTOR fans don't play an MMO or have never played an MMO? How many of them can you convince that $15 a month is just like buying $15 worth of DLC every month that they are probably used to by now. Thats where your going to see growth in the new to MMO's playerbase.
How many are now playing WOW but would like the same experiance with light sabre's/sabers? Will the change of setting be enough to get them to switch completly or maybe cancel a extra account so they can play 2 MMO's?
Will the game work seemlessly enough that the general lack of patients for the inevitable bugs and unforscene hiccups that plague new release MMO's not cause mass exodus of accounts and general forum bashings?
Will they be overly optimistic or conservitive in their predictions on how many people will pick the game up right away and how will that affect the number of servers they have available? Too many servers and people will believe the game doesn't have enough people playing and stop playing themselves. Too few and people will get upset over queue's to get on the servers massive amounts of lag and stop playing because it's "unplayable".
Whats the timeframe to make back the initial investment of over 100 million? 6 months 12 months 18 months. It's not as simple as they get $50 per box so they need half a million box sales. That $50 gets split between 3 layers of government sales tax (In America there is local state and fedral sales tax pity the poor fools the rest of you), the retailer takes a cut, the shipping company takes a cut, the importers take a cut, the wharehouses take a cut. EA gets whats left probably somewhere between 20 and 30 dollars per box. Thats why they want you to digitally download the stuff they get to cut out the 5 or 6 middle men in there making them an extra 10 bucks a box or so.
Anyway thats just a few of the questions that need answers to determine the answer to the simple question and really all we have to go on at the moment is best guess senerios. Sure it would appear that they have made a game that not many of members of MMORPG would seem to be interested in but face it the total membership is just a little over 1 million most of whom seem to be stuck in a weird timeloop of wanting to play 10 year old versions of games with a graphical update.
The lesser of two evils is still evil.
There is nothing more dangerous than a true believer.
Fail to make a profit -- unlikely.
Fail to meet people's expectations -- very likely.
This game will get back all the cash that went into developing in 1 or 2 months after releasing,
Allways there is alot of people playing an new mmo thats been promoted as hell like with Warhammer they anticipated 300k subscribers and had 1,5 mil in the first 3 months .
That made the servers crash and most of u heard about it so i spare the rest but u can do the math how much cash u can get out of an mmo with so many subs ..
I am the punishment of God...
If you had not committed great sins,
God would not have sent a punishment like me upon you
Genghis Khan
That doesn't make it successful, that doesn't even make a single player game successful. They have to turn a profit and keep subs up by making the customer happy, If they just cover the cost of making the game and buying out Bioware, there still right where they were before they bought out Bioware. And WAR was a total failure.
It's as good as impossible to fail at box sales for a game like this, Kotor being close to legendary status, it being Star Wars, BioWare's recent games selling millions in their first week and the hype it has compared to other (less anticipated) MMO's of the past like AoC or Aion that also shipped great numbers of boxes.
As for lasting power... No one can tell you that at this point, the few beta testers out there might be able to speculate a bit on that, but even they can not give a final say in it; the game is still 9 months or more away from release and they only got to see the smallest portion of the game.
Feel free to use my referral link for SW:TOR if you want to test out the game. You'll get some special unlocks!
i foresee tor failing.
really the game has no long term gameplay people will play it for the first month or two get bored and go back to a better game. bioware so far isn't showing any end game content sadly we all know it's going to be wow raids. the whole story thing is just one of the biggest cop outs in mmo history. i don't want to be told a story i want to make my own story! that's what made swg pre-cu so good! it even said it on the box tell the greatest star wars story ever told, yours.
bioware just isn't doing anything to keep people into the game. and if you look at biowares other games they are not doing too well in the long term. mass effect 2 dlc and dragon age dlc isn't all that fun or long and it takes far too long for bioware to come out with anything.
yeah it will make it big in the short term. but the long term? no.
If you mean will it beat out WOW's sub numbers, then yes, it could
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
I believe there was a transcript of an EA or Bioware stockholder conference call that was posted a while back where they had a target of something like 1-2 subscriptions by the end of the 1st year after launch. If what I'm remembering was correct, then that would be a pretty clear indicator of what EA/BW will consider a success.
I personally think that they will fall short of 1 million subs by the end of the 1st year, but not by much. With so many people hyped about tthis game and the number of SW fans out there, I can see the game selling 1.5 - 2 million boxes in a year. The problem is that TOR will draw a lot of non-MMO gamers who will play for a few months and quit, as well as MMO gamers who are willing to give it a chance but it won't be for them, so they'll return to their old game.
After a year, I would guess that the game will have sold just over 1.5 million boxes and hold roughly 800k subscriptions. It'll be interesting to see if EA/BW consider that a success, should that estimate be correct or even close.
If they don't, you'll know it by the end of the year, as they will no doubt start tweaking and making changes to the systems and areas of the game recieving negative feedback.
Thats probably doable....
"When people don't know much about something, they tend to fill in the blanks the way they want them to be filled in. They are almost always disappointed." - Will Wright