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Star Wars: The Old Republic: EA Investors Not Betting on SWTOR
SBFord
Former Associate EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 33,129
Janco Partners analyst Mike Hickey is not betting on EA investors having a lot of confidence in Star Wars: The Old Republic. With the rocky launches of Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning and the less-than-successful launches of recent MMOs in what some call "unfinished" states of completion.
"We believe many investors are betting against SWTOR achieving market success, provided the company's (Warhammer Online from Mythic) and industry's track record at releasing successful new MMOs," suggests Hickey.
Other factors Hickey notices that might keep EA's shares a bit weighted include "a suspected subscription pricing model versus a market that is quickly transitioning to free to play, generally modest previews of the game and elevated development expense and suspected aggressive royalty to LucasArts."
Read more at Gamasutra.
Comments
I agree EA sucks you know what at pushing and forcing crap. But I disagree with the idea a company cannot release a quality mmo that has room for growth.........That said Yes there is a chance the market wil mold the game with hope it will not. F2P imo just sucks, I'd rather play a sub than a game such as runes of magic due to the huge investment to gear. I do expect pressure to be applied soon to force the investment to launch. Atleast it is not cryptic studios making it :O
They should just go for Turbine model.
It's only natural. MMORPG's haven't been good investments in a long time with all those failed titles. I suspect TOR will be a major influence in the future of MMORPG's due to it's enormous budget and their own expectations. Only time can tell whether it's influence will be for the good or bad...
Nevertheless, I'm looking forward to my TOR experience and I really hope it can bring some life back to this genre.
If they make money back from this game over time it'll be alright and then start to turn that into a profit should be ok. Heck I hope they do a collectors edition even if its priced at £80 i'd buy it, might grab a few just for collectings sake lol.
The force is strong with this one.
"He's no good to me dead."
MMORPG's are considered to be bad investments, that does not mean SWTOR will be rubbish, but rather that investing in any MMORPG is very risky and it usually means loss of money, because AAA title's tend to flop.
"EA's investors may not be ready to trust so easily," says one particular analyst in some kind of unreferred source.
Is this news?
My brand new bloggity blog.
I think it is a legitimate concern considering this is Bioware's first mmo and the fact they took Mythic on board with them. If I had money I wouldn't invest until I see proof that this mmo is not just a 3-6 month and done deal. I think Bioware will be ok though. There is too much at stake for them to fall into failure.
Exactly my thought as i saw the Title i was interested and expected some real information from actual investors instead all we got was the "opinion" of 1 person....
If something like that really qualifies as News than every single post on any Forums in the Inet stating a personal opinion is News worthy of an article as well.....
I'd have to say that this Mike Hickey guy
Because of a few reasons:
A) He mentions the rocky start of "the company's Warhammer Online," but fails to realize that Mythic made Warhammer Online long before they had ever been bought by EA and merged with Bioware.
C) He (rightly) lambastes the "unfinished" state of many MMOs at release that are currently on the market (actually, I can't find this in the original article,) but that's ignoring the fact that SWTOR has been in development for 6 years now, has been worked on by three studios concurrently (Bioware Edmonton, Bioware Austin, LucasArts,) has a large development team, and has the largest budget of any MMO yet made.
In other words, this so-called analyst knows nothing of the video game industry, nothing about MMOs, and nothing about SWTOR, yet he has decided that investors will "bet against it." Well, that sounds good to me, I'll buy up EA stock before SWTOR releases and is the huge success this guy didn't expect.
[mod edit]
As someone who has been around in the corporate world I can tell you one thing for sure about the gaming industry that I know not only from my professional experience but from my personal experiences as well.
Most of these "investors" do not play games. They are not gamers, they have never been gamers, they will never be gamers. That is also true of many of the "suits" or "shot callers" that work in big gaming companies. Shocked? Most of these people are brought in because they meet qualification X, Y, and Z and have a nice shiny resume to boast over, but have no knowledge or understanding when it comes to actual games, gamers, or the game industry in general.
These guys look at bottom lines. They are number crunchers. Yes they are savvy when it comes to business and "corporate know how" but unfortunately they have no idea when it comes down to making intelligent and educated decisions about products as they just simply do not understand them. These "investors" aren't any different. They won't look at things like Bioware's history and their track record when it comes to gaming. They won't look at Bioware's background when it comes to role playing games and their love of all things role playing in the spirit of Dungeons & Dragons. They as stated, only look at the bottom line.
It's a sad fact. If there were more gamers with a business sense, the gaming industry would certainly be a completely different place. Such a sheer pity.
Banegrivm
Leader of the 1st Fist of Light
www.1stfistoflight.com
I think this story is a crock of sh*t lol. They would not invest in a title or company that they didn't have faith would make them a whole lot of money, it's a business and therefor money and success are their 2 main goals. If they really felt reluctant about BioWare's MMO and were completely aware how much BioWare was putting on the table to make this game happen then they most likely would not have backed them. So I personally would choose to laugh off this guys opinion, and if you are really skeptical of the game then don't play it until you see the reviews and the aftermath of the launch.
Thank you for bringing up that point. One thing I know from my experiences in the financial world is that investors NEVER get involved with a project that they do not believe in. They're in it for one reason and one reason only.
Money.
If an investor even "thinks" that there is not going to be any money to be had, even remotely, they will not invest.
Investors want as much money as they can. There is a nice show on TV called Shark Tank I believe. You can see just how cutthroat investors really are. They make pirates look like honorable gentlemen.
Banegrivm
Leader of the 1st Fist of Light
www.1stfistoflight.com
Am pretty confident TOR will be a great sucess , why you ask simply because of the IP it's Star wars !
the fan base for star wars is huge , so yes tor will have big numbers at start and even with all the negative posts and news i will still buy it because i also believe in bioware .
It's good to turn a blinding eye to forums, news and any info on the internet and make your own judgement sometimes on games just by trying them .
Plus bioware are the only ones that even have a chance making a star wars franchise any good .
Bioware your our only hope !
Investors didn't bet on JK Rowling making a success either. Where is she now? oh right sitting on a mountain of cash with the harry potter books.
The investors see the problems in the past and that BW hasn't done this sort of thing before. It's natural, It's no sure bet. It's not really a doom sign either. It's just investors being how investors are. They want to make sure they will get their money back, and MMO releases haven't really shown to be a good source of it. This is more of a lack of confidence in MMOs in general then Biowares MMO.
Not one bit fazed, sorry that may disappoint some people
As for the guy who thinks they will bet against it? people have opinions and they are not always right. Interesting read though.
Edit: Fixed, Thanks.
Help me Bioware, you're my only hope.
Is ToR going to be good? Dude it's Bioware making a freaking star wars game, all signs point to awesome. -G4tv MMo report.
It's nit picky and small but it's fazed not phased.
Anyway heres to hoping these analysts help keep the EA stock depressed for a little while longer and are very wrong in the end. The main wildcard from my perspective is "suspected aggressive royalty to LucasArts".
i do not blame the investors at all, ill be buying this game day 1, alot of people will, the focused consumer base of bioware and starwars fans should help them break even, but to be a astounding success "more" should be added to the table.
that "more" has been snuffed out by a sea of bad launches, bad mismanagement of ip's and games themselves, hate to say it, investors do listen to their customers, for better or for worse; emphasis on the foundations of "consumer confidence".
on Bioware's side, as much as i like them, and be it a fan then and now, i am not ignorant to deny that their philosophy of "we'll talk about it when it is done" is part of the reasons why investors and consumers outside of the bioware/ea's fan base show pessimism.
The list clearly goes on, and SWTOR battle from the get go, no matter how cheerful or radiant it may be, is clearly uphill on all fronts.
If anyone is gonna put out a success it will be bioware. If it can sell over a million boxes and hold subscriptions above that for a few months it wins. Does not have to kill WoW, just do really good.
SWTOR would have to be a huge, huge, success to actually push EA's stock price higher. WoW-numbers big. Not saying it won't happen (hoping it will actually) but this one game isn't going to cause a major ripple without a resounding succes.
A flop isn't likely to drop the stock significantly either.
Have to agree with this, how many companies turned her down? And I guarantee the people involved were probably fired. I hope the same thing happens with TOR and everyone who didn't invest poos their khaki's when it does insanely well.
(Here's to hoping it does! Many friends and myself are buying.)
Wow you guys are just running with this one huh..
Ok we read the sub "EA Investors not betting on" .. yet thats not what they say .. its "We believe".. we believe does not = NOT BETTING...
We believe.. a were guessing.. we think .. yet they could be.. they might.. yawn..
That...is a good catch. Well done.
I must have skipped over that part.
Help me Bioware, you're my only hope.
Is ToR going to be good? Dude it's Bioware making a freaking star wars game, all signs point to awesome. -G4tv MMo report.
As a fan of MMORPG's I pray that Bioware hits one out of the park, because if SW:ToR does not do well, it will certainly hurt gaming design houses looking for investors in future MMORPG game development. Unfortunately from what I have seen so far...I think SW:ToR will start of strong and then like AoC and Warhammer - die pretty quickly. Unless Bioware does a banging job and add lots of fluff and end game to keep players playing, I see it being the FoTM until players figure out that it just doesn't have enough to it to keep them interested past the initial content the game is released with.
Bioware has to add enough to the end game to allow players to stay interested.
True endgame is important, we have to hope that the flashpoints, raids, pvp, crafting will be enough.
Help me Bioware, you're my only hope.
Is ToR going to be good? Dude it's Bioware making a freaking star wars game, all signs point to awesome. -G4tv MMo report.
They certainly won't look at the MMO community which, at a glance, is comprised entirely of whining children who find ways to rip apart or zealously defend every game in development, among a slew of other factors (unrealistic expectations, delusions of "living" in a breathing, virtual world, hype machine driven by the company itself, etc.) that all contribute to "failed" launches.
Or maybe they did this time. It's not smart to invest on an MMO being successful at launch. I certainly wouldn't put all my eggs in the "TOR will be a resounding success" basket, no matter how good the game turns out to be. A few eggs, though? Yeah, sure. Because of BioWare's history and their respected status, they deserve at least that much.