I doubt the retention, when player have run out of content, 1-6 month, quite wide estimate, but there about...
This is nonsense.
Why?
Because in order to make a meaningful prediction about this subject you need to know
a) How much content will be available at launch
b) How fast the average player will take to go from 1 to 50. Of course there are going to be fanatic players that tear through all or most of the available content before more is released- but there's nothing you can do about that.
c) what endgame content looks like. We just don't know.
d) The schedule for release of post-launch content. Zero info on this as well.
No one in the fan community has suffiecient information to make a meaningful prediction about this sort of thing at this point.
And even regardless of the features of the game, there's no way to say if this games hits a 'sweet spot' of market conditions with players like WoW did, or if it for some reason just doesn't hit as big as they expected.
6 months, a lot of game is needed, 1 month the intial box time... Time used to play content < Time used to create content. Also how meaningfull content is? Also, what sort of players it draws outside MMO-crowd? End game, how large part of players are ready to once again do same content over and over again? How soon part of population get tired with game?
I'm not a fan of either Star Wars or Bioware or expect the SWTOR to be something next-gen. I belive it's single player game, made to MMO with added whistles and such...
Even with good retention, in order to meet the initial requirements of sales this is highly possible
I predict they open way to many servers than they need to.
Same statement as above really, one is a result of the other and they are both a result of high initial sales
I predict a voice over accidently using a word that some parent over-hears and complains/sues the company.
Someone, somewhere will find a reason to compain about anything.
I predict massive complaining by a number of people.
As said this is almost certain of anything, there were complaints about several aspects of WoW of all things.
I predict people defending this IP with fire and brimstone.
As with any game, the people playing a game will defend it against those attacking it, same as every mmo ever released
I predict that people will predict that most of my predictions will be predicted as half true.
Well whatdoya know.
This made my brain hurt.
Also- predicting 'massive complaining by a number of people' with ANYTHING related to an MMO is kind of like saying 'I predict that if I drop this safe on your head, you will die.' It's not really a prediction at all, because that's what everyone knows will happen.
Fair enough. But how would you know each servers numbers. Did you go to each server and check, also did you have info on server population caps to come to that conclusion. Seems very vague to just say 99 busy servers and active. That link even says on the left in the graph cumulative sales, which means of all sales digital and boxed. Cumulative means of all sources. It's not impossible that Rift only had 127k sales first week, and as Rift became shot down more and more you can see how sales fell off quickly. That site is pretty well known and can be trusted btw.
It is the only site that has that sort of information, but the simple observation that that site didn't include 1 million sales for CATA and was nowhere near the figures that Blizzard provided themselves already shows that it's far less accurate than people tend to believe.
Aion was a more premier Asian game first, it had more Asian sales then NA sales. Asians went nuts over that crap. War was over hyped and most WOW users bought War to try thinking it be just like WOW and they would have a cooler experience but failed. As far as AoC I don't know anything about on numbers as I have not researched that one yet. And a couple these had press releases suggesting they had more sales then they had by also using the accounts made trick vs actually sold. So I guess we wait and see nonetheless.
No, we're talking actual sales figures here that got reported with the launch of those MMO's: close to a million sales, and that's western sales for Aion that I'm talking about.
Like said, if those companies can reach those figures, I don't expect SWTOR with BW to do less.
Originally posted by Ekaros
Originally posted by Theomastus
Because in order to make a meaningful prediction about this subject you need to know
a) How much content will be available at launch
b) How fast the average player will take to go from 1 to 50. Of course there are going to be fanatic players that tear through all or most of the available content before more is released- but there's nothing you can do about that.
No one in the fan community has suffiecient information to make a meaningful prediction about this sort of thing at this point.
6 months, a lot of game is needed, 1 month the intial box time... Time used to play content < Time used to create content. Also how meaningfull content is? Also, what sort of players it draws outside MMO-crowd? End game, how large part of players are ready to once again do same content over and over again? How soon part of population get tired with game?
Believe it or not, there has actually been research about this, iirc the average numbers spent MMO gaming was for the average MMO gamer 25 hours a week, hardcore MMO gamers 40 hours a week and casual MMO gamers 20hrs and less.
Also, we know from figures that BW devs mentioned that reaching level cap was found to be about 200 hours on average, and reaching the end of the final third chapter of a class story would take 'hundreds of hours' (reaching level cap doesn't mean that also the end of the class story has been reached). I think it was Erickson who compared the length of the 3 chapters of an SWTOR class story with KOTOR, and it was about 6 times the length it would take to finish KOTOR when it was the first time someone'd play it.
So that'd mean that on average it'd take probably something like 2-3 months for most of the MMO gamers to finish the 3 chapters of a class story. That is excluding doing War zones, crafting, flash points, World Arcs, open world pvp and other activities that aren't necessary for doing the class story, but that you can also do in an MMORPG.
And that's just for 1 of the 8 very different and unique class stories and only part of the available features.
I don't think that the availability of content will be a problem for the first 3-6 months at the least.
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums: Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
Even with good retention, in order to meet the initial requirements of sales this is highly possible
I predict they open way to many servers than they need to.
Same statement as above really, one is a result of the other and they are both a result of high initial sales
I predict a voice over accidently using a word that some parent over-hears and complains/sues the company.
Someone, somewhere will find a reason to compain about anything.
I predict massive complaining by a number of people.
As said this is almost certain of anything, there were complaints about several aspects of WoW of all things.
I predict people defending this IP with fire and brimstone.
As with any game, the people playing a game will defend it against those attacking it, same as every mmo ever released
I predict that people will predict that most of my predictions will be predicted as half true.
Well whatdoya know.
This made my brain hurt.
Also- predicting 'massive complaining by a number of people' with ANYTHING related to an MMO is kind of like saying 'I predict that if I drop this safe on your head, you will die.' It's not really a prediction at all, because that's what everyone knows will happen.
Hook, line and sinker. LOL
What about the Rod and copy of Angling Times?
----- The person who is certain, and who claims divine warrant for his certainty, belongs now to the infancy of our species.
Even with good retention, in order to meet the initial requirements of sales this is highly possible
I predict they open way to many servers than they need to.
Same statement as above really, one is a result of the other and they are both a result of high initial sales
I predict a voice over accidently using a word that some parent over-hears and complains/sues the company.
Someone, somewhere will find a reason to compain about anything.
I predict massive complaining by a number of people.
As said this is almost certain of anything, there were complaints about several aspects of WoW of all things.
I predict people defending this IP with fire and brimstone.
As with any game, the people playing a game will defend it against those attacking it, same as every mmo ever released
I predict that people will predict that most of my predictions will be predicted as half true.
Well whatdoya know.
This made my brain hurt.
Also- predicting 'massive complaining by a number of people' with ANYTHING related to an MMO is kind of like saying 'I predict that if I drop this safe on your head, you will die.' It's not really a prediction at all, because that's what everyone knows will happen.
Hook, line and sinker. LOL
What about the Rod and copy of Angling Times?
Sigh.
That too.
/facepalm
The recipe for perpetual ignorance is: Be satisfied with your opinions and content with your knowledge. -Elbert Hubbard
Were you even around when SWG launched? To say TOR wont outsell SWG at launch is a joke.
Fact: When SWG launched, the biggest NA game was EQ(which held the title till WOW). MMORPG gaming hadnt even taken off with the masses. Not to mention the internet wasnt as common in homes like today.
Fact: SWG was heavily lambasted before launch. Folks like myself intended on buying it until word got around prior to launch. Even then the SW fans saw to it that many boxes were purchased, bringing in a fresh group to MMO gaming. Most of them dropped SWG like a hot cake as well. I would reckon TOR will be more apt to tickle their SW fancy.
Fact: Not only does TOR have the SW IP, this time around it will get a boost from the established BW fanbase in much the same way WoW got from Blizzard.
Fact: It would take a train wreck of massive proportions to get the negative press SWG did after launch. I am not talking NGE in Nov 05....I am talking immediately post launch. There wasnt a damn thing to do, and many things were broken.
I say within 3 months TOR will have sold more boxes than SWG ever sold in its entire existence. That includes their expansions. In numbers, I am saying 3M plus boxes in 3 months.
Asking Devs to make AAA sandbox titles is like trying to get fine dining on a McDonalds dollar menu budget.
I predict SW:ToR is infested with fanboys who are over hyping another game (yet again) and then cry a day after it comes out because the game doesn't meet there crazy fanatical delusional expectations. It's an MMO people, not the second coming of Raptor Jesus.
I think the initial sales will be of epic proportions. Then...I think the folks going back to the MMO that they quit to try out ToR will be epic as well. At the end of the day, I think ToR will be a huge success. But, it won't permanently keep the massive amount of fantasy genre players.
I predict 3 millions boxes sold with roughly half staying with the game. After that short term fall off that all MMOs have, I predict the game will slowly grow over the years before reaching a peak. Predicting a peak number is a much more difficult thing, but I would say around 3 to 5 million subscribers at it's peak. I don't really think any other MMO will ever reach the numbers that WoW reached unless the number of MMO players grow significantly. In short I think WoW was an anomoly of which we'll never see the like again. Especially since competition in the MMO market continues to grow.
It's a nobrainer that the game will have an insane sale rate for a MMO and it will set new records.
Now the question is how many will stay subscribed?
Easily, just like Rift it will sell like hotcakes. However, it's impossible to predict the sub rate. If it's the same old tired formula then it will drop off like Rift has. It will be hot until GW2 comes out.
i am not sure why you guys keep brining up rift in this thread selling well, and being sucessful, i didnt belive this, so i went to check the seller charts & the fact is that it's only sold;
as for the thread about predictions i have been reading for a while here, i think that it will sell many boxes at launch (millions), like many of you have been saying, however i feel it will keep the majority of those initial sales, if those people who purchased the game actually like the mmo format to begin with. such as subsciption/mmos in general.
i think sw tor will be the best example of a mmo 'done right' which we have all been yearning so long for, and sadly let down too often.
all of the ingredients are right this time, and if bioware cant do it, then frankly... no one can?
It's a nobrainer that the game will have an insane sale rate for a MMO and it will set new records.
Now the question is how many will stay subscribed?
Easily, just like Rift it will sell like hotcakes. However, it's impossible to predict the sub rate. If it's the same old tired formula then it will drop off like Rift has. It will be hot until GW2 comes out.
i am not sure why you guys keep brining up rift in this thread selling well, and being sucessful, i didnt belive this, so i went to check the seller charts & the fact is that it's only sold;
as for the thread about predictions i have been reading for a while here, i think that it will sell many boxes at launch (millions), like many of you have been saying, however i feel it will keep the majority of those initial sales, if those people who purchased the game actually like the mmo format to begin with. such as subsciption/mmos in general.
i think sw tor will be the best example of a mmo 'done right' which we have all been yearning so long for, and sadly let down too often.
all of the ingredients are right this time, and if bioware cant do it, then frankly... no one can?
You can think that, sure.
But I think everything you just claimed about TOR won't happen. And that you're wrong.
i am not sure why you guys keep brining up rift in this thread selling well, and being sucessful, i didnt belive this, so i went to check the seller charts & the fact is that it's only sold;
Ok, this is going offtopic, so I'm going to leave it at just this post. That site reported 1.5 million off with their Cataclysm figures compared to Blizzard's own reported figures.
Besides that, look at the stats. The site shows 20k sales for everything outside of America. 20k sales. Europe had 41 servers at launch, the numbers that were in queue ranked in the thousands yet somehow according to that site there were only 500 max players per server? Not logged in simultaneously but on 500 people in total per Rift server. That's even less than low populated MMO servers have online at peak time.
So no, I wouldn't believe the figures that site reported just like that.
Anyway,
/offtopic
Originally posted by CujoSWAoA
Its never going to happen.
This is just a Bioware game.
And its undoubhtedly the most unattractive Bioware game to come out for its period of gaming graphics.
"Star Wars" doesn't alone sell a game. You're just basing this off of your own personal hype and its sad.
And you're basing things off your own personal dislike for the game, which has the same effect
Star Wars + Bioware as combination is certainly the strongest combination of IP+developer seen so far when it comes to MMORPG's.
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums: Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
Were you even around when SWG launched? To say TOR wont outsell SWG at launch is a joke.
Fact: When SWG launched, the biggest NA game was EQ(which held the title till WOW). MMORPG gaming hadnt even taken off with the masses. Not to mention the internet wasnt as common in homes like today.
Fact: SWG was heavily lambasted before launch. Folks like myself intended on buying it until word got around prior to launch. Even then the SW fans saw to it that many boxes were purchased, bringing in a fresh group to MMO gaming. Most of them dropped SWG like a hot cake as well. I would reckon TOR will be more apt to tickle their SW fancy.
Yep. Many of them went to World of Warcraft as did players of other games. Why pay a monthly fee for a game that is broken, even if it is Star Wars? From what I've seen, TOR has far more interesting things to do than SWG ever did.
Fact: Not only does TOR have the SW IP, this time around it will get a boost from the established BW fanbase in much the same way WoW got from Blizzard.
Not to mention that Bioware has already succeeded before when given the Star Wars IP. Back then they had the choice to make a Episode 2 game or one based on the unkown Old Republic Era. There are many fans of that game,myself included,who can't wait to take that franchise to the next step.
Fact: It would take a train wreck of massive proportions to get the negative press SWG did after launch. I am not talking NGE in Nov 05....I am talking immediately post launch. There wasnt a damn thing to do, and many things were broken.
No kidding. If TOR just simply works at launch it will acomplish more that SWG did at launch. NPCs would have to not speak, or show up in water. Waypoints would have to direct you inside walls and missions would have to be broken. With the amount of time that Bioware has spent developing and testing this game I doubt that will happen.
I say within 3 months TOR will have sold more boxes than SWG ever sold in its entire existence. That includes their expansions. In numbers, I am saying 3M plus boxes in 3 months.
I'm going to be cautiously optimistic and say about two million within that time frame. Maybe less. There has been an oversaturation of Star Wars games this last decade and many of them have frankly sucked. I think gamers are going to be a litle tighter with their dollars when it comes to future Star Wars games. But if the game is even half as good as it looks then it will do really well. And as I've stated repeatedly, I could care less if it tops WOW. If it keeps a million subscribers then it will do better than the majority of MMORPGs are doing right now.
Every year that goes by the MMO gaming world becomes more and more splintered as there are so many choices that didn't exist before. I don't think we will ever see a WOW subsriber base ever again because of this (I could be wrong). I think the game will have a huge number of box purchases because regardless of whatever game people are playing, most are going to want to see what all the fuss is about. I don't know if this game will have 500K subs after 3 months or 5 million. What I do know is that based on the continued improvement I continue to see, I expect the game to be successful for quite some time.
It's amazing how dumb comments can get when you assume that everyone shares the same opinion of games that you do. The pre-conceptions of the game being single player, or co-op, come on now, drop it already, it's inaccurate, and saying it over and over doesnt make it true.
There are definitely a few things to look at:
Star Wars is an iconic IP that is known across the world. This doesnt mean everyone plays it, just that people know it, and that means potentially more people are exposed to it.
Rift sold 1 million boxes early on. I'm not saying word one about how I feel about the game, but EA has a much larger marketing arm than Trion, and when they flex the muscle, people hear about it. They'll reach a ton of people.People who are signing up for Beta are usually the harder core folks, many casual players wont have their first exposure to TOR until release when they have friends who are playing. So usually beta has less people than purchase the game at release. If you are posting here, you are arent a casual player. Bioware does have an audience of their own who they will introduce.
Looking at those things, I would not be surprised with a 2.5-3 million box sales at release, with the game settling in between 1 million and 1.5 million at the end of a year.
On the other hand:
I would not be surprised if the game hit 2 million box sales, and settled in at the end of a year with around 650k subscribers.
To anyone who doesnt think that SWTOR is not going to sell the most games that any MMO has ever sold should watch this, and get pwnd for being a non believer. Even if the game is 1/10 as badass as this trailer then the game will do amazing in sales. You cant tell me that anyone that is interested in MMOs wont like this game after seeing this. Bioware is going to spend a couple more million in advertising. You will see a cut down verson of this trailer on tv almost everyday once we begin getting closer. Everyone talks about the sales of other MMOs....But you talk about games like Aion, Conan, Guild Wars, Warhammer, Lineage...those are all horible games that was thrown out there like most preteen games. No one hears about them and have horrible bugs, nothing great they bring to the table, repetive, no great end game content. From what is promised at least this game will blow all the others away. It has the most epic trailer i have ever seen and it loosk liek Bioware is not messing around. Take a look at the trailer and begin to be amazed.
It's a nobrainer that the game will have an insane sale rate for a MMO and it will set new records.
Now the question is how many will stay subscribed?
Yep. STO sold boxes well I believe. Look where they are at now.
parrotpholk-Because we all know the miracle patch fairy shows up the night before release and sprinkles magic dust on the server to make it allllll better.
It's a nobrainer that the game will have an insane sale rate for a MMO and it will set new records.
Now the question is how many will stay subscribed?
I agree with that and would be surprised if sales were not at least 1.5 million. However as you have already stated the question remains if it will be able to retain those subscribers, either way the box sells alone will cover development.
All I am looking for is a Knights of the Old Republic roleplaying game with multiplayer features so it's a given I will be buying it for the story more so than the MMO side of it as I am kind of burned out on MMOs in general, maybe that will change by the time World of Darkness releases.
Because flying a Minmatar ship is like going down a flight of stairs on an office chair while firing an Uzi.
It might be that SWTOR will evidence the decline of the MMO genre in general. Meaning it will have less sales than expected for a game this big.
There is always that possibility, but concidering that every year more and more people are getting computers than ever before, it only stands to reason that there are more people that want to play MMOs. Still, anything is possible, I just don't think your theory is very probable.
"If half of what you tell me is a lie, how can I believe any of it?"
Considering the fact that DA:O sold ~3.500.000 boxes then it's safe to presume that TOR's initial sales will be around this number. I know a dozen of people who are extra casual MMO players but played everything Bioware has released so far. All of them state that they are going to buy TOR.
I don't think its safe to assume that. I mean, SWTOR could sell more than that for all I know but probably for different reasons. Alot of those customers would not have bought DA:O if it was going to have a subscription fee. I'm just saying that many people who buy single player RPG's would never pay for a sub.
Edit: I didnt get to the bottom of the thread, looks like its already been commented on.
Sticking with my 2 milions, it's already a damn huge number for a monthly fee based MMO, especially considering Diablo3 and GW2 are around the corner.
I agree with you. I was just saying that DA:O is not a good indicator because its a very different product (even if gameplay is very similar)
Diablo 3 will post bigger sales numbers. However, Bioware fans are pretty strong in buying habits. What people forget is the level for Kotor sales was 6 million plus. Dragon Age and Mass Effect are in the three million plus range. The sub may be hard for those Kotor fans to handle thou. Two million initial box sales is reasonable given the above numbers. However, I know quite a few Bioware / Star Wars that are interested despite never having played a MMO.
It might be that SWTOR will evidence the decline of the MMO genre in general. Meaning it will have less sales than expected for a game this big.
There is always that possibility, but concidering that every year more and more people are getting computers than ever before, it only stands to reason that there are more people that want to play MMOs. Still, anything is possible, I just don't think your theory is very probable.
Add to this a Star Wars decline too. The two combined might affect sales. But this is just my gut feeling and after all a major Bioware game will always attract the media attention and many gamers, me included
Comments
6 months, a lot of game is needed, 1 month the intial box time... Time used to play content < Time used to create content. Also how meaningfull content is? Also, what sort of players it draws outside MMO-crowd? End game, how large part of players are ready to once again do same content over and over again? How soon part of population get tired with game?
I'm not a fan of either Star Wars or Bioware or expect the SWTOR to be something next-gen. I belive it's single player game, made to MMO with added whistles and such...
Hook, line and sinker. LOL
No, we're talking actual sales figures here that got reported with the launch of those MMO's: close to a million sales, and that's western sales for Aion that I'm talking about.
Like said, if those companies can reach those figures, I don't expect SWTOR with BW to do less.
Believe it or not, there has actually been research about this, iirc the average numbers spent MMO gaming was for the average MMO gamer 25 hours a week, hardcore MMO gamers 40 hours a week and casual MMO gamers 20hrs and less.
Also, we know from figures that BW devs mentioned that reaching level cap was found to be about 200 hours on average, and reaching the end of the final third chapter of a class story would take 'hundreds of hours' (reaching level cap doesn't mean that also the end of the class story has been reached). I think it was Erickson who compared the length of the 3 chapters of an SWTOR class story with KOTOR, and it was about 6 times the length it would take to finish KOTOR when it was the first time someone'd play it.
So that'd mean that on average it'd take probably something like 2-3 months for most of the MMO gamers to finish the 3 chapters of a class story. That is excluding doing War zones, crafting, flash points, World Arcs, open world pvp and other activities that aren't necessary for doing the class story, but that you can also do in an MMORPG.
And that's just for 1 of the 8 very different and unique class stories and only part of the available features.
I don't think that the availability of content will be a problem for the first 3-6 months at the least.
The ACTUAL size of MMORPG worlds: a comparison list between MMO's
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums:
Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
What about the Rod and copy of Angling Times?
-----
The person who is certain, and who claims divine warrant for his certainty, belongs now to the infancy of our species.
Sigh.
That too.
/facepalm
The recipe for perpetual ignorance is: Be satisfied with your opinions and content with your knowledge.
-Elbert Hubbard
Bezado
Were you even around when SWG launched? To say TOR wont outsell SWG at launch is a joke.
Fact: When SWG launched, the biggest NA game was EQ(which held the title till WOW). MMORPG gaming hadnt even taken off with the masses. Not to mention the internet wasnt as common in homes like today.
Fact: SWG was heavily lambasted before launch. Folks like myself intended on buying it until word got around prior to launch. Even then the SW fans saw to it that many boxes were purchased, bringing in a fresh group to MMO gaming. Most of them dropped SWG like a hot cake as well. I would reckon TOR will be more apt to tickle their SW fancy.
Fact: Not only does TOR have the SW IP, this time around it will get a boost from the established BW fanbase in much the same way WoW got from Blizzard.
Fact: It would take a train wreck of massive proportions to get the negative press SWG did after launch. I am not talking NGE in Nov 05....I am talking immediately post launch. There wasnt a damn thing to do, and many things were broken.
I say within 3 months TOR will have sold more boxes than SWG ever sold in its entire existence. That includes their expansions. In numbers, I am saying 3M plus boxes in 3 months.
Asking Devs to make AAA sandbox titles is like trying to get fine dining on a McDonalds dollar menu budget.
I predict SW:ToR is infested with fanboys who are over hyping another game (yet again) and then cry a day after it comes out because the game doesn't meet there crazy fanatical delusional expectations. It's an MMO people, not the second coming of Raptor Jesus.
AoC
Darkfail
Mortal Online
Fallen Earth
etc
etc
etc
When are people going to learn, I swear.
When did you start playing "old school" MMO's. World Of Warcraft?
Its never going to happen.
This is just a Bioware game.
And its undoubhtedly the most unattractive Bioware game to come out for its period of gaming graphics.
"Star Wars" doesn't alone sell a game. You're just basing this off of your own personal hype and its sad.
I think the initial sales will be of epic proportions. Then...I think the folks going back to the MMO that they quit to try out ToR will be epic as well. At the end of the day, I think ToR will be a huge success. But, it won't permanently keep the massive amount of fantasy genre players.
I predict 3 millions boxes sold with roughly half staying with the game. After that short term fall off that all MMOs have, I predict the game will slowly grow over the years before reaching a peak. Predicting a peak number is a much more difficult thing, but I would say around 3 to 5 million subscribers at it's peak. I don't really think any other MMO will ever reach the numbers that WoW reached unless the number of MMO players grow significantly. In short I think WoW was an anomoly of which we'll never see the like again. Especially since competition in the MMO market continues to grow.
i am not sure why you guys keep brining up rift in this thread selling well, and being sucessful, i didnt belive this, so i went to check the seller charts & the fact is that it's only sold;
Lifetime Totals:
250,778
0
120,124
370,902
370,902 copies since it launched. http://gamrreview.vgchartz.com/sales/49494/rift/
---
as for the thread about predictions i have been reading for a while here, i think that it will sell many boxes at launch (millions), like many of you have been saying, however i feel it will keep the majority of those initial sales, if those people who purchased the game actually like the mmo format to begin with. such as subsciption/mmos in general.
i think sw tor will be the best example of a mmo 'done right' which we have all been yearning so long for, and sadly let down too often.
all of the ingredients are right this time, and if bioware cant do it, then frankly... no one can?
You can think that, sure.
But I think everything you just claimed about TOR won't happen. And that you're wrong.
So, there you go.
Ok, this is going offtopic, so I'm going to leave it at just this post. That site reported 1.5 million off with their Cataclysm figures compared to Blizzard's own reported figures.
Besides that, look at the stats. The site shows 20k sales for everything outside of America. 20k sales. Europe had 41 servers at launch, the numbers that were in queue ranked in the thousands yet somehow according to that site there were only 500 max players per server? Not logged in simultaneously but on 500 people in total per Rift server. That's even less than low populated MMO servers have online at peak time.
So no, I wouldn't believe the figures that site reported just like that.
Anyway,
/offtopic
And you're basing things off your own personal dislike for the game, which has the same effect
Star Wars + Bioware as combination is certainly the strongest combination of IP+developer seen so far when it comes to MMORPG's.
The ACTUAL size of MMORPG worlds: a comparison list between MMO's
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums:
Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
Currently Playing: World of Warcraft
Every year that goes by the MMO gaming world becomes more and more splintered as there are so many choices that didn't exist before. I don't think we will ever see a WOW subsriber base ever again because of this (I could be wrong). I think the game will have a huge number of box purchases because regardless of whatever game people are playing, most are going to want to see what all the fuss is about. I don't know if this game will have 500K subs after 3 months or 5 million. What I do know is that based on the continued improvement I continue to see, I expect the game to be successful for quite some time.
There Is Always Hope!
Exactly.
I should have precised that launch window (for me) is the first month.
you realize this many people have already signed up for beta?
moar.
It's amazing how dumb comments can get when you assume that everyone shares the same opinion of games that you do. The pre-conceptions of the game being single player, or co-op, come on now, drop it already, it's inaccurate, and saying it over and over doesnt make it true.
There are definitely a few things to look at:
Looking at those things, I would not be surprised with a 2.5-3 million box sales at release, with the game settling in between 1 million and 1.5 million at the end of a year.
On the other hand:
I would not be surprised if the game hit 2 million box sales, and settled in at the end of a year with around 650k subscribers.
To anyone who doesnt think that SWTOR is not going to sell the most games that any MMO has ever sold should watch this, and get pwnd for being a non believer. Even if the game is 1/10 as badass as this trailer then the game will do amazing in sales. You cant tell me that anyone that is interested in MMOs wont like this game after seeing this. Bioware is going to spend a couple more million in advertising. You will see a cut down verson of this trailer on tv almost everyday once we begin getting closer. Everyone talks about the sales of other MMOs....But you talk about games like Aion, Conan, Guild Wars, Warhammer, Lineage...those are all horible games that was thrown out there like most preteen games. No one hears about them and have horrible bugs, nothing great they bring to the table, repetive, no great end game content. From what is promised at least this game will blow all the others away. It has the most epic trailer i have ever seen and it loosk liek Bioware is not messing around. Take a look at the trailer and begin to be amazed.
http://www.swtor.com/media/trailers/return?sourceid=eag3006
Yep. STO sold boxes well I believe. Look where they are at now.
parrotpholk-Because we all know the miracle patch fairy shows up the night before release and sprinkles magic dust on the server to make it allllll better.
I agree with that and would be surprised if sales were not at least 1.5 million. However as you have already stated the question remains if it will be able to retain those subscribers, either way the box sells alone will cover development.
All I am looking for is a Knights of the Old Republic roleplaying game with multiplayer features so it's a given I will be buying it for the story more so than the MMO side of it as I am kind of burned out on MMOs in general, maybe that will change by the time World of Darkness releases.
Because flying a Minmatar ship is like going down a flight of stairs on an office chair while firing an Uzi.
It might be that SWTOR will evidence the decline of the MMO genre in general. Meaning it will have less sales than expected for a game this big.
An honest review of SW:TOR 6/10 (Danny Wojcicki)
There is always that possibility, but concidering that every year more and more people are getting computers than ever before, it only stands to reason that there are more people that want to play MMOs. Still, anything is possible, I just don't think your theory is very probable.
"If half of what you tell me is a lie, how can I believe any of it?"
Diablo 3 will post bigger sales numbers. However, Bioware fans are pretty strong in buying habits. What people forget is the level for Kotor sales was 6 million plus. Dragon Age and Mass Effect are in the three million plus range. The sub may be hard for those Kotor fans to handle thou. Two million initial box sales is reasonable given the above numbers. However, I know quite a few Bioware / Star Wars that are interested despite never having played a MMO.
Add to this a Star Wars decline too. The two combined might affect sales. But this is just my gut feeling and after all a major Bioware game will always attract the media attention and many gamers, me included
An honest review of SW:TOR 6/10 (Danny Wojcicki)