If there was anyone that could accurately and consistently predict which products would be successful and to what degree, then they would be a multi-billionaire by virtue of stock investments.
But the reality is that no one can do this. Anything an analyst "predicts" is a guess. An educated guess maybe, but still a guess. People get paid tons of money a year to predict which stocks will be the most profitable, but they typically don't earn much more of a return than the market in general.
Three million subs seems rather optimistic by June, though certainly not impossible. Even if Bioware was selling "generic sci fi game," they'd do well because they have a legion of fans. The Mass Effect series has sold 7 million copies. Add the Star Wars name and you're going to attract huge numbers. What's working against them is the fact that not a lot of people like to invest in a subscription game much past the 2-3 month mark. That's been true of every MMO besides WOW. Even WOW struggles to keep 3 million subscribers in the Western market - most of their vaunted numbers come from Asia.
As you point out, there is a significant difference between people that play single player games, and subscription based games.
$60 for full game /= $60 + $15/mo to play game
People generall do not embrace the idea of paying 'more' for the same, nor do they find value in the 'mmo' aspect (which is why you have so many more gamers vs. MMO gamers).
Also, Star Wars Galaxies and Star Trek Online, as well as Lord of the Rings Online, have demonstrated that fans of the genre, do not mean they are customers for the subscription. All three of those genre have huge fan bases, that did not cross over to become long term customers of the game.
Originally posted by zymurgeist Market research isn't a hard science. This is a theory at best and a wild guess at worst. Then again so is what Kotick says, with a healthy dose of self interested spin on the side. I'm quite sure market researchers predicted Warhammer and AoC would be huge successes too. I think TOR will do quite well but I won't try to elevate that above the level of personal opinon.
Actually, the things I've found that analysts said about Warhammer were pretty spot on; professional analysis is not a 'wild guess'. Case in point:
Edge writes: "Publisher EA is targeting "around 250,000 subscribers" for Mythic's Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning, one analyst speculates, suggesting a substantial drop-off of users after the free month is up.
EA said it shipped 1.5 million copies of WAR to retail last week.
Arvind Bhatia at Stern Agee told Edge on Tuesday he came to the 250,000 subscriptions figure based on EA's goal to break even on the game.
"Over time, subscribers will drop off and level off at 250,000- 300,000," he said in a phone interview."
When EA announced eight months later at their investor conference call:
"As of May 5, 2009, Electronic Arts executives confirmed in an investor conference that they have 300,000 subscribers as of the end of March 2009.."
The analyst was correct because four months later, Warhammer had exactly 300k subs as verified.
Now the rebuttal SHOULD be "Yeah, but look at Warhammer NOW. They don't even have 100k subs." And to this I agree. But why?
The reason they don't have 250k-300k subs is that Warhammer (and AoC) had GLARING holes, lag and bugs, boring PvE and the PvP was a FTOM fest. Mythic never addressed any of that and Funcom addressed it too late for AoC, which is not what you'd expect a mmo to do to retain subs. If they had fixed those serious problems they'd still have them.
The analyst was basing his projections on the data he saw at the time and was spot on. So given that, one would have to figure that these analysts are in the ballpark too.
The only thing that would keep TOR from not retaining subs would be the same types of serious problems WAR or AoC had/has, of which it has none. It has bugs and some things people don't like but nothing near as bad as Warhammer. Plus, both of the games are rather population DEPENDANT (AoC for PvP side) but TOR isn't. As many critics say in mock, it's "single player", so if people drop off it doesn't affect people who are there mainly for the story.. just like WoW was.
I think they must be assuming that preorders will only be a fraction of the number of boxes they sell and subs they retain, as if they're completely ignorant of trends specific to MMOs. One thing I've noticed in recent years, preorders seem to account for the huge percentage of initial MMO sales. I figure it's because when people are sure they want to play an MMO, they all want the benefits like early access. This sort of thing isn't a factor in the latest shooters and the like, but its become a lot more of a mainstream attitude towards MMOs than it used to be.
Another thing to consider is that these days, everyone knows about open betas, and almost everyone that's interested in an MMO gives them a try. This is also very different from other genres - so not only do those people preorder, but there are a lot less people waiting on word-of-mouth to buy the game if the reviews are good, and all that. So its difficult for an MMO to accumulate subs faster than they lose subs, even when retention is good.
If retention is poor, OTOH, like so many have been, they wont even have half a million subs by June... and none of this is specific to TOR. I'm not even going to mention what I think will happen, given my own experience in the beta - if I were an analyst, it'd probably be important to be unbiased, and all bias aside, those are some seriously unlikely predictions. You'd have to be biased or ignorant to think otherwise.
Swtor is the 1st AAA MMO since WoW and when after 1 year of 24/7 beta the 95% of the terster still want to play the game at launch, i dont see a low retention rate. And the people quit when the game Fail at some point, Warhammer was an unfinished game, AION was a lie, Rift, lot of people was there for the PvP and again it was a lie, Same with AoC, Lotro, DC, STO. But BW did and amazing job with Swtor, they really learned form the mistakes of games like warhammer, etc, and BW can make new content and updates pretty fast, to dont let people get bored. And there is not competition for swto, D3 is not even a MMO, Gw2 is b2p and is a game who doesnt have the 10% of the content of swtor, TSW is a Funcom Game. And again swtor is an amazing game, 3 mill by june is really possible.
You were in a different beta than I. Most of the super positive people were beta testers that weren't playing a lot or weren't in the beta long. The long term adoption rate of SWTOR was very different for those that played the game for more than a few months and had gotten a 50. As for learning from mistakes, there isn't enough time to list all of them so how about world PvP objectives that don't matter, Trinity holding up groups, and too much CC to name a few.
D3 might not be a MMO but it is an MORPG and it will share a lot of the same customers. GW2 will have just as much content as SWTOR does and possibly more; 1500 dynamic events(easily on par with the number of quests SWTOR has INCLUDING class quests), story mode, World vs World, dungeons, etc. I seriously doubt you played SWTOR if you think it has a lot of content, IMO Vanilla WoW had more in terms of both quests, areas(variety), and instances.
First of all, 250k subscribers to offset server costs? Either those servers are made of pure gold or management for that part of the operation defecates into pure gold bowls.
Secondly, no chance in hell SWTOR will have 1.5 mil permanent subscribers 6 month down the road. 600k - likely, which will make it financially successful, still.
This is, of course, just a pathetic opinion of a pathetic citizen, but we'll see who's right.
80 million for operating costs is a big number for sure but that leaves a lot for on going development expenses I guess. My opinion is that this game will live or die on how much new content is added over time and it's quality. If they can keep a steady stream (like monthly) of new high quality voice acted content being added I can easily see it retaining millions of subs. If they can't than half a million may be a more realistic estimate.
I would think that EA/BIoware knows this but who can be sure they have the resolve to follow though. They might figure that they can get away with releasing content more like WoW does rather than like Rift does in which case I believe these estimates are way off on the high side.
Originally posted by Loekii $60 for full game /= $60 + $15/mo to play gamePeople generall do not embrace the idea of paying 'more' for the same, nor do they find value in the 'mmo' aspect (which is why you have so many more gamers vs. MMO gamers).
The problem with this theory/criticims is that you assume that TOR is = to single player, without acknowledging that there are MANY components to TOR than aren't available in single player games.. hence the "MMO" aspect. It's simply not honest.
You can't raid in single player KOTOR games, nor can you PvP in them. You can't even group with people in KOTOR. You can't craft in KOTOR or sell things to others with an auction house.
Most importantly, you don't SEE anyone else that real in KOTOR (meaning players).
Secondly, there is no real Co-Op Star Wars game out or more importantly.. none that has been released recently that you can play with many others. That simply doesn't exist so TOR fills that void for people who said "Man, I'd like to play a Star Wars game, but I'm tired of playing it by myself."
Saying (or comparing it as one)as if it's a "single player" or trying to compare it with one is a cheap ploy some people have used but it's totally realistic.
It's like saying "Well, a SUV is technically classified as a 'minivan' or a "truck" by many people, so why would anyone buy a those when they could just get a SUV?"
There isn't 6 months of content in the game unless you reroll or play all aspects of the game very slowly. From what I've experienced, I think PvE will be fine from start to finish, but if you enjoy a robust and interesting crafting experience or PvP system like I was hoping for, well, this might not be the game. And I suspect space combat will rarely be played by most subscribers.
Unless they release a lot of content patches post-release (and quickly), the gameplay systems are simply not good enough to keep people longterm versus some of the competition on the market.
Enter a whole new realm of challenge and adventure.
Originally posted by udon They might figure that they can get away with releasing content more like WoW does rather than like Rift does in which case I believe these estimates are way off on the high side.
I think this is a lie people put out.
I've played Rift for six months and MOST of the people I've been guilded with and/or grouped with had several alts.
Most of the time people spend making at minimum two or three alts to 50 because they were bored. They didn't want to experience the same story (which is what Rift makes you do) but had no choice; they just wanted to level another type of toon.
When someone does alts in ToR, this isn't the problem. The game in many respects is brand new because it's a new world and new choices. This is why WoW was so successful because it gave adventure with many storylines for different classes/races/areas that eventually boiled into one main one.
Rift is two dimensional game; you get one storyline for Guardians (half your classes) and you get one storyline for Defiants (the other half). That tends to add in boredom that leaves only grind raiding or lackluster PvP in arenas. Rifts weren't hardly even done anymore and had taken second/third fiddle to core grinding in dungeons and four arenas when I left.
I lean toward the fanboy camp when it comes to this game, and I don't think for a second that they'll have 3 million subs in 6 months...maybe 1 million. Sell 3 million boxes this month? Sure.
Originally posted by Torvaldr Originally posted by popinjay
Originally posted by jdnewell I think the game will be profitable for sure. But all these reports and what not mean nothing IMO.
Your private "citizen" opinion duly noted.
Professional opinions already stated. Arguing by "reason of expertise" or "expert opinion" is horrible logic and a fallacy.
Remember that the next time you talk to your accountant, your lawyer, your doctor, your bosses, etc.
I can't believe in this day/age, there are people trying to use as a bullet point "Well, you can't trust what all the experts agree on."
This sounds like the Herman Cain School of Philosphy with "ubecky becky becky stan" and not needed to know anything to be President. Of course we want experts and rely on what they say; we'd be foolish not to.
But again, you seem to have fallen short here just like everyone else due to no credible source on your side. Given how big this project has been over five years, you guys simply cannot produce [ii]one credible professional analyst[/i] who seems to think TOR won't hit it's numbers.
Please, just find ONE analyst in your camp so the conversation could be at least a little more even.
My honest opinion is that this game will do great out of the gate at launch for several months because there isn't crap-all new out there worth playing, but as more interesting games release, the population will be reduced down quite a bit. They will still keep a fairly high number of subs though. I'm sure it will be considered a successful game, but nothing to rival WoW's past success. It just isn't that interesting. Then again, maybe I am giving people's taste in gaming too much weight....
There is something very wrong when I look at TOR and think about how much "deeper" WoW is.
A sure sign that you are in an old, dying paradigm/mindset, is when you are scared of new ideas and new technology. Don't feel bad. The world is moving on without you, and you are welcome to yell "Get Off My Lawn!" all you want while it happens. You cannot, however, stop an idea whose time has come.
Originally posted by NaughtyP There isn't 6 months of content in the game unless you reroll or play all aspects of the game very slowly.
This is what WoW was at it's launch. The same exact thing. Plenty of WoW was based on re-rolling toons. Did you play WoW? If you did odds are, you had several maxed toons like most other people. That's that point.
This constant "there isnt enough content" simply isn't true.
Originally posted by MindTrigger There is something very wrong when I look at TOR and think about how much "deeper" WoW is.
Probably because you're comparing what WoW is now to what TOR will be in four weeks.
As said above, look at what WoW was at launch and you'll see TOR is following that model.. built-in replayability that will aid in longterm content production.
If someone is going to try and play TOR from 1-50 like they are on meth so they can be first with everything, sure.. they will run out of content. Every game does. But most people playing TOR aren't going to be having that focus and Bioware doesn't want that customer.
They want people NEW to mmos that want story and will be around for awhile, not people who will hit max in three weeks, gobble up all the raids and say "Finished! What's next?"
I am interested to see how my " citizen" opinion will stack up to the " professional " one
Time will tell.
Sorry I wasnt gushing over the positive spin. Maybe someone else will and you can post a happy face too.
But... you're opinion matches the opinion of the analysts... so... it will "stack up" the exact same way theirs "stacks up..." - yet they don't know what they are talking about?
This is what WoW was at it's launch. The same exact thing. Plenty of WoW was based on re-rolling toons. Did you play WoW? If you did odds are, you had several maxed toons like most other people. That's that point.
There is a significant differences between Wow out and SWTOR out. For example, the difference in decade.
I think the real wildcard months later will be GW2. If it turns out to be the really fun, high quality, beautiful game it looks like it is, along with being Buy-To-Play (no sub / cosmetic item store), then SWTOR may shed a lot of users. I personally believe SWTOR should have launched without a sub fee because frankly, it isn't all that worthy.
The Secret World is looking to be somewhat niche because it will require people to think, but will probably end up being the most interesting game out of all of them. This is the game I can't wait to see in six months.
A sure sign that you are in an old, dying paradigm/mindset, is when you are scared of new ideas and new technology. Don't feel bad. The world is moving on without you, and you are welcome to yell "Get Off My Lawn!" all you want while it happens. You cannot, however, stop an idea whose time has come.
This is what WoW was at it's launch. The same exact thing. Plenty of WoW was based on re-rolling toons. Did you play WoW? If you did odds are, you had several maxed toons like most other people. That's that point.
There is a significant differences between Wow out and SWTOR out. For example, the difference in decade.
Personally I'd expect more incentive to roll alts, rather than less than WoW at launch; SWTOR delivers on that front.
How is the pvp not gonna be robust. They have 11 pvp lakes. A persistant open world pvp planet with objectives. They have a ffa pvp lake on tatoine.
The thing to me is people see 3 warzones and dont even count the open world pvp tor will have even on pve servers. The truth is sure warzones in the end may not end up being the be all end all of pvp IN tor i dont htink its suppose to be.
I truly belive pvp in tor will be at its most robust and pvp centric in these open world pvp lakes and that said ive seen alot of positive reviews on the pvp in tor by hard core pvpers. and that was on teh warzones.
so i dont get this whole replayability factor.
Tor at end game has 2 raids 15 hard mode flashpoints, 3 warzones 11 pvp lakes illum as a pvp centric planet thats 24/7 persistant pvp, u got pve content on illum thats end game story for the solo player. Most players who hit 50 havent fnished there class story yet so ug otta finish that.
Then the real reason people will stick with tor. Alts. Oh i have run nagrand, stranglethron vale, hilsbrad foothills and others over 20 times in wow so if u thinki the world arc stories being the same for all 4 republic classes will stop people doing world arcs when they re roll alts u are crazy.
That and if u roll the empire class after a republic class u dont do any quests taht are the same. I truly belive tor has all kinds of replayability on alts alone. That and no one i mean no one knows how fast bioware will churn out new content.
The above stuff alone will keep me busy trying to max out all classes at least a yr or more. I dont charge to end and go finished. Tahts a stupid way to play mmos in my opinion.
Most MMOs require around 250,000 subscribers to cover the direct operating expense of the server farms.
are funny, some others make me worried a bit.
CEO John Riccitiello said 500,000 subscribers would make the game "substantially profitable, but it's not the sort of thing we would write home about".
500k subscribers isn't a small goal imo although the game is worthy of such player base, I am not sure there is such large demand though.
There isn't 6 months of content in the game unless you reroll or play all aspects of the game very slowly. From what I've experienced, I think PvE will be fine from start to finish, but if you enjoy a robust and interesting crafting experience or PvP system like I was hoping for, well, this might not be the game. And I suspect space combat will rarely be played by most subscribers.
Unless they release a lot of content patches post-release (and quickly), the gameplay systems are simply not good enough to keep people longterm versus some of the competition on the market.
Depend supon your game style and if anyone is going to power level in SWTOR he is certainly going to spoil his playing experince. Even if it takes one month to level a class to lvl 50 it will take me good 6 months to do so with every class. And i am sure i am not the only casual player here. SWTOR is meant to be played at relaxed pace and enjoy the storyline and characters. People who like to rush to level caps well they will certainly move on to next MMO soon. There is just never enough content for power gamers especially when MMO is just about to launch.
This game has 900k pre orders in us for box sales alone already how do u not see the demand? 500k subs should be easy to keep even if they only keept 30 pct of players that start on launch day thats still more then 500k
U take into account digital pre orders, European pre orders total and this game probably has 2 mil or more preorders al ready with 3 weeks to go till launch.
im just sayng the demand for tor is there. I cant predict how many will be there after 5 months but i expect more htne the haters who say this game iwll end up free 2 play . id expect at least a 50 pct retention rate as a worse case scenario. U always have those guys who rush to max go done finished who leave.
Then u got those that buy a game playt eh 30 days and quit. The majority of players though want to find a game they enjoy that they can play over an over and i think for many tor will be that game.
They might figure that they can get away with releasing content more like WoW does rather than like Rift does in which case I believe these estimates are way off on the high side.
I think this is a lie people put out.
I've played Rift for six months and MOST of the people I've been guilded with and/or grouped with had several alts.
Most of the time people spend making at minimum two or three alts to 50 because they were bored. They didn't want to experience the same story (which is what Rift makes you do) but had no choice; they just wanted to level another type of toon.
When someone does alts in ToR, this isn't the problem. The game in many respects is brand new because it's a new world and new choices. This is why WoW was so successful because it gave adventure with many storylines for different classes/races/areas that eventually boiled into one main one.
Rift is two dimensional game; you get one storyline for Guardians (half your classes) and you get one storyline for Defiants (the other half). That tends to add in boredom that leaves only grind raiding or lackluster PvP in arenas. Rifts weren't hardly even done anymore and had taken second/third fiddle to core grinding in dungeons and four arenas when I left.
My point was more that like or hate the content Rift puts out they do it at a much more regular interveal rhan WoW does and that for SW:TOR to be really successful (1 million subs +) it will need to do the same thing. WoW survives on momentum at this point and can get away with a slower content update pace (although they seem to have picked up the pace of late), new games don't have that advantage.
This is especially true for a Bioware game. I loved ME2, I played though it multple times even though the story was identical every time because it was just a good story worth doing more than once and if BIoware kept releasing DLC content that had that same deep meaninful (for a game anyway) level of story I am pretty sure I would be happy buying and playing that content even today. I think of SW:TOR's monthly sub mostly as prepaying for DLC content honestly. If they can keep new intertesting quality content coming my way I have no issue giving them $15 a month. If they can't than I probably won't continue to pay for it.
That's a different mind set than I take with my Rift or EQ2 subs for sure which I pay a monthly fee for more for the MMO features but maybe I'm just holding Bioware to a different standard than everyone else or maybe I am just not as willing to continue to pay $15 a month for a golified chat room in many of these games. Both my Rift and EQ2 subs are not currently setup to renew when they expire.
"Divnich pegged The Old Republic's potential user base a little higher than Pachter, predicting it will attract three million subscribers by next June.
"Taking into account multiple years in service and expansion packs, $500 million in total revenue is not a far stretch. If an MMO can't be profitable at $500m in revenue, than we are all doomed."
Another analyst says ToR only needs 400K subs to break even and will pull in 1.5 million subs:
Wedbush Morgan analyst Michael Pachter:
Pachter estimated that the MMO will pull in around 1.5 million subscribers, representing around $80 million a year in profit.
"On an ongoing basis, they will split revenue from running the subscription business. My best guess is that they will attract 1.5 million subscribers paying around $15 a month, so they should generate around $270 million in revenue. If LucasArts gets 35 per cent and if EA incurs around 35 per cent operating expense, they make 30 per cent, or around $80 million per year, in profit. That's not bad."
"Most MMOs require around 250,000 subscribers to cover the direct operating expense of the server farms. Given LucasArts' revenue split, SWTOR would require around 400,000 subscribers to break even. That means they make money at 500,000 subscribers."
So whether it's 1.5 million subs or 3 million subs by June, ToR fans should disregard any of the naysayers as far as the 'doom' projections on these or any other forums. There simply isn't any factual basis to it by any PROFESSIONAL estimates.
Even Blizzard CEO Kotick has been shown wrong by both analysts about ToR's ability to make a profit.
Kotick isnt the CEO of Blizzard, why do people like to spread false information?
"The great thing about human language is that it prevents us from sticking to the matter at hand." - Lewis Thomas
My honest opinion is that this game will do great out of the gate at launch for several months because there isn't crap-all new out there worth playing, but as more interesting games release, the population will be reduced down quite a bit. They will still keep a fairly high number of subs though. I'm sure it will be considered a successful game, but nothing to rival WoW's past success. It just isn't that interesting. Then again, maybe I am giving people's taste in gaming too much weight....
There is something very wrong when I look at TOR and think about how much "deeper" WoW is.
Wows depth? I was a crackhead raider for a long long time and I can tell you without a shadow of a doubt that wow's Depth is about 3 inches. FUN GAME don't get me wrong but depth.....please. I don't know the depth of STWOR yet nor do I care honestly I am gonna play it and hopefully it doesn't suck etc.
But to say WOW's depth...lol Please. Pick the highest item level available for xx slot on your character class and that is as DEEP as wow gets. Period. There is no other purpose to that game at all ..none. And dont bring up wows story and lore. You want the lore - read the books - the game lore is utterly trashed and broken at this point. Whats the lore story of your personal main in WoW????? I rest my case.
Depth.. play Ultima online or EvE and get involved in the politics of the game...thats Depth. You want a fun thempark rollercoaster ride play Wow or Tor or GW2 etc etc. Want a blend of the 2 try Archage when its released (hoping it doesn't suck myself) but WOW and DEPTH lol I blew a load of coffee out my nose when I read that.
As far as taste in gaming goes if wow is super DEEP for you , I think anything you say can be safely ignored.
Comments
If there was anyone that could accurately and consistently predict which products would be successful and to what degree, then they would be a multi-billionaire by virtue of stock investments.
But the reality is that no one can do this. Anything an analyst "predicts" is a guess. An educated guess maybe, but still a guess. People get paid tons of money a year to predict which stocks will be the most profitable, but they typically don't earn much more of a return than the market in general.
Are you team Azeroth, team Tyria, or team Jacob?
Did he go into detail what the 'Hook' will be for TOR?
By June, many people will be 'burned out' on the story -- as we are already seeing beta testers mention they are burned out simply from beta.
Almost every MMO sells a lot of boxes at release, but then fail to retain long term subscriptions.
So what is the 'hook' that TOR has to retain 3 million subscribers?
As you point out, there is a significant difference between people that play single player games, and subscription based games.
$60 for full game /= $60 + $15/mo to play game
People generall do not embrace the idea of paying 'more' for the same, nor do they find value in the 'mmo' aspect (which is why you have so many more gamers vs. MMO gamers).
Also, Star Wars Galaxies and Star Trek Online, as well as Lord of the Rings Online, have demonstrated that fans of the genre, do not mean they are customers for the subscription. All three of those genre have huge fan bases, that did not cross over to become long term customers of the game.
Analyst: WAR subscriptions will eventually settle around 250,000
When EA announced eight months later at their investor conference call:
The analyst was correct because four months later, Warhammer had exactly 300k subs as verified.
Now the rebuttal SHOULD be "Yeah, but look at Warhammer NOW. They don't even have 100k subs." And to this I agree. But why?
The reason they don't have 250k-300k subs is that Warhammer (and AoC) had GLARING holes, lag and bugs, boring PvE and the PvP was a FTOM fest. Mythic never addressed any of that and Funcom addressed it too late for AoC, which is not what you'd expect a mmo to do to retain subs. If they had fixed those serious problems they'd still have them.
The analyst was basing his projections on the data he saw at the time and was spot on. So given that, one would have to figure that these analysts are in the ballpark too.
The only thing that would keep TOR from not retaining subs would be the same types of serious problems WAR or AoC had/has, of which it has none. It has bugs and some things people don't like but nothing near as bad as Warhammer. Plus, both of the games are rather population DEPENDANT (AoC for PvP side) but TOR isn't. As many critics say in mock, it's "single player", so if people drop off it doesn't affect people who are there mainly for the story.. just like WoW was.
"TO MICHAEL!"
You were in a different beta than I. Most of the super positive people were beta testers that weren't playing a lot or weren't in the beta long. The long term adoption rate of SWTOR was very different for those that played the game for more than a few months and had gotten a 50. As for learning from mistakes, there isn't enough time to list all of them so how about world PvP objectives that don't matter, Trinity holding up groups, and too much CC to name a few.
D3 might not be a MMO but it is an MORPG and it will share a lot of the same customers. GW2 will have just as much content as SWTOR does and possibly more; 1500 dynamic events(easily on par with the number of quests SWTOR has INCLUDING class quests), story mode, World vs World, dungeons, etc. I seriously doubt you played SWTOR if you think it has a lot of content, IMO Vanilla WoW had more in terms of both quests, areas(variety), and instances.
80 million for operating costs is a big number for sure but that leaves a lot for on going development expenses I guess. My opinion is that this game will live or die on how much new content is added over time and it's quality. If they can keep a steady stream (like monthly) of new high quality voice acted content being added I can easily see it retaining millions of subs. If they can't than half a million may be a more realistic estimate.
I would think that EA/BIoware knows this but who can be sure they have the resolve to follow though. They might figure that they can get away with releasing content more like WoW does rather than like Rift does in which case I believe these estimates are way off on the high side.
You can't raid in single player KOTOR games, nor can you PvP in them.
You can't even group with people in KOTOR.
You can't craft in KOTOR or sell things to others with an auction house.
Most importantly, you don't SEE anyone else that real in KOTOR (meaning players).
Secondly, there is no real Co-Op Star Wars game out or more importantly.. none that has been released recently that you can play with many others. That simply doesn't exist so TOR fills that void for people who said "Man, I'd like to play a Star Wars game, but I'm tired of playing it by myself."
Saying (or comparing it as one)as if it's a "single player" or trying to compare it with one is a cheap ploy some people have used but it's totally realistic.
It's like saying "Well, a SUV is technically classified as a 'minivan' or a "truck" by many people, so why would anyone buy a those when they could just get a SUV?"
"TO MICHAEL!"
There isn't 6 months of content in the game unless you reroll or play all aspects of the game very slowly. From what I've experienced, I think PvE will be fine from start to finish, but if you enjoy a robust and interesting crafting experience or PvP system like I was hoping for, well, this might not be the game. And I suspect space combat will rarely be played by most subscribers.
Unless they release a lot of content patches post-release (and quickly), the gameplay systems are simply not good enough to keep people longterm versus some of the competition on the market.
Enter a whole new realm of challenge and adventure.
I've played Rift for six months and MOST of the people I've been guilded with and/or grouped with had several alts.
Most of the time people spend making at minimum two or three alts to 50 because they were bored. They didn't want to experience the same story (which is what Rift makes you do) but had no choice; they just wanted to level another type of toon.
When someone does alts in ToR, this isn't the problem. The game in many respects is brand new because it's a new world and new choices. This is why WoW was so successful because it gave adventure with many storylines for different classes/races/areas that eventually boiled into one main one.
Rift is two dimensional game; you get one storyline for Guardians (half your classes) and you get one storyline for Defiants (the other half). That tends to add in boredom that leaves only grind raiding or lackluster PvP in arenas. Rifts weren't hardly even done anymore and had taken second/third fiddle to core grinding in dungeons and four arenas when I left.
"TO MICHAEL!"
I lean toward the fanboy camp when it comes to this game, and I don't think for a second that they'll have 3 million subs in 6 months...maybe 1 million. Sell 3 million boxes this month? Sure.
Your private "citizen" opinion duly noted.
Professional opinions already stated.
Arguing by "reason of expertise" or "expert opinion" is horrible logic and a fallacy.
Remember that the next time you talk to your accountant, your lawyer, your doctor, your bosses, etc.
I can't believe in this day/age, there are people trying to use as a bullet point "Well, you can't trust what all the experts agree on."
This sounds like the Herman Cain School of Philosphy with "ubecky becky becky stan" and not needed to know anything to be President. Of course we want experts and rely on what they say; we'd be foolish not to.
But again, you seem to have fallen short here just like everyone else due to no credible source on your side. Given how big this project has been over five years, you guys simply cannot produce [ii]one credible professional analyst[/i] who seems to think TOR won't hit it's numbers.
Please, just find ONE analyst in your camp so the conversation could be at least a little more even.
"TO MICHAEL!"
My honest opinion is that this game will do great out of the gate at launch for several months because there isn't crap-all new out there worth playing, but as more interesting games release, the population will be reduced down quite a bit. They will still keep a fairly high number of subs though. I'm sure it will be considered a successful game, but nothing to rival WoW's past success. It just isn't that interesting. Then again, maybe I am giving people's taste in gaming too much weight....
There is something very wrong when I look at TOR and think about how much "deeper" WoW is.
A sure sign that you are in an old, dying paradigm/mindset, is when you are scared of new ideas and new technology. Don't feel bad. The world is moving on without you, and you are welcome to yell "Get Off My Lawn!" all you want while it happens. You cannot, however, stop an idea whose time has come.
This constant "there isnt enough content" simply isn't true.
Probably because you're comparing what WoW is now to what TOR will be in four weeks.
As said above, look at what WoW was at launch and you'll see TOR is following that model.. built-in replayability that will aid in longterm content production.
If someone is going to try and play TOR from 1-50 like they are on meth so they can be first with everything, sure.. they will run out of content. Every game does. But most people playing TOR aren't going to be having that focus and Bioware doesn't want that customer.
They want people NEW to mmos that want story and will be around for awhile, not people who will hit max in three weeks, gobble up all the raids and say "Finished! What's next?"
"TO MICHAEL!"
But... you're opinion matches the opinion of the analysts... so... it will "stack up" the exact same way theirs "stacks up..." - yet they don't know what they are talking about?
I'm confused.
There is a significant differences between Wow out and SWTOR out. For example, the difference in decade.
I think the real wildcard months later will be GW2. If it turns out to be the really fun, high quality, beautiful game it looks like it is, along with being Buy-To-Play (no sub / cosmetic item store), then SWTOR may shed a lot of users. I personally believe SWTOR should have launched without a sub fee because frankly, it isn't all that worthy.
The Secret World is looking to be somewhat niche because it will require people to think, but will probably end up being the most interesting game out of all of them. This is the game I can't wait to see in six months.
A sure sign that you are in an old, dying paradigm/mindset, is when you are scared of new ideas and new technology. Don't feel bad. The world is moving on without you, and you are welcome to yell "Get Off My Lawn!" all you want while it happens. You cannot, however, stop an idea whose time has come.
Personally I'd expect more incentive to roll alts, rather than less than WoW at launch; SWTOR delivers on that front.
How is the pvp not gonna be robust. They have 11 pvp lakes. A persistant open world pvp planet with objectives. They have a ffa pvp lake on tatoine.
The thing to me is people see 3 warzones and dont even count the open world pvp tor will have even on pve servers. The truth is sure warzones in the end may not end up being the be all end all of pvp IN tor i dont htink its suppose to be.
I truly belive pvp in tor will be at its most robust and pvp centric in these open world pvp lakes and that said ive seen alot of positive reviews on the pvp in tor by hard core pvpers. and that was on teh warzones.
so i dont get this whole replayability factor.
Tor at end game has 2 raids 15 hard mode flashpoints, 3 warzones 11 pvp lakes illum as a pvp centric planet thats 24/7 persistant pvp, u got pve content on illum thats end game story for the solo player. Most players who hit 50 havent fnished there class story yet so ug otta finish that.
Then the real reason people will stick with tor. Alts. Oh i have run nagrand, stranglethron vale, hilsbrad foothills and others over 20 times in wow so if u thinki the world arc stories being the same for all 4 republic classes will stop people doing world arcs when they re roll alts u are crazy.
That and if u roll the empire class after a republic class u dont do any quests taht are the same. I truly belive tor has all kinds of replayability on alts alone. That and no one i mean no one knows how fast bioware will churn out new content.
The above stuff alone will keep me busy trying to max out all classes at least a yr or more. I dont charge to end and go finished. Tahts a stupid way to play mmos in my opinion.
While some quotes likes this:
Most MMOs require around 250,000 subscribers to cover the direct operating expense of the server farms.
are funny, some others make me worried a bit.
CEO John Riccitiello said 500,000 subscribers would make the game "substantially
profitable, but it's not the sort of thing we would write home about".
500k subscribers isn't a small goal imo although the game is worthy of such player base, I am not sure there is such large demand though.
Depend supon your game style and if anyone is going to power level in SWTOR he is certainly going to spoil his playing experince. Even if it takes one month to level a class to lvl 50 it will take me good 6 months to do so with every class. And i am sure i am not the only casual player here. SWTOR is meant to be played at relaxed pace and enjoy the storyline and characters. People who like to rush to level caps well they will certainly move on to next MMO soon. There is just never enough content for power gamers especially when MMO is just about to launch.
This game has 900k pre orders in us for box sales alone already how do u not see the demand? 500k subs should be easy to keep even if they only keept 30 pct of players that start on launch day thats still more then 500k
U take into account digital pre orders, European pre orders total and this game probably has 2 mil or more preorders al ready with 3 weeks to go till launch.
im just sayng the demand for tor is there. I cant predict how many will be there after 5 months but i expect more htne the haters who say this game iwll end up free 2 play . id expect at least a 50 pct retention rate as a worse case scenario. U always have those guys who rush to max go done finished who leave.
Then u got those that buy a game playt eh 30 days and quit. The majority of players though want to find a game they enjoy that they can play over an over and i think for many tor will be that game.
My point was more that like or hate the content Rift puts out they do it at a much more regular interveal rhan WoW does and that for SW:TOR to be really successful (1 million subs +) it will need to do the same thing. WoW survives on momentum at this point and can get away with a slower content update pace (although they seem to have picked up the pace of late), new games don't have that advantage.
This is especially true for a Bioware game. I loved ME2, I played though it multple times even though the story was identical every time because it was just a good story worth doing more than once and if BIoware kept releasing DLC content that had that same deep meaninful (for a game anyway) level of story I am pretty sure I would be happy buying and playing that content even today. I think of SW:TOR's monthly sub mostly as prepaying for DLC content honestly. If they can keep new intertesting quality content coming my way I have no issue giving them $15 a month. If they can't than I probably won't continue to pay for it.
That's a different mind set than I take with my Rift or EQ2 subs for sure which I pay a monthly fee for more for the MMO features but maybe I'm just holding Bioware to a different standard than everyone else or maybe I am just not as willing to continue to pay $15 a month for a golified chat room in many of these games. Both my Rift and EQ2 subs are not currently setup to renew when they expire.
Pre-order and release sales are one thing and they are not that important. What matters is subscriber numbers in +6 months view.
Kotick isnt the CEO of Blizzard, why do people like to spread false information?
"The great thing about human language is that it prevents us from sticking to the matter at hand."
- Lewis Thomas
Wows depth? I was a crackhead raider for a long long time and I can tell you without a shadow of a doubt that wow's Depth is about 3 inches. FUN GAME don't get me wrong but depth.....please. I don't know the depth of STWOR yet nor do I care honestly I am gonna play it and hopefully it doesn't suck etc.
But to say WOW's depth...lol Please. Pick the highest item level available for xx slot on your character class and that is as DEEP as wow gets. Period. There is no other purpose to that game at all ..none. And dont bring up wows story and lore. You want the lore - read the books - the game lore is utterly trashed and broken at this point. Whats the lore story of your personal main in WoW????? I rest my case.
Depth.. play Ultima online or EvE and get involved in the politics of the game...thats Depth. You want a fun thempark rollercoaster ride play Wow or Tor or GW2 etc etc. Want a blend of the 2 try Archage when its released (hoping it doesn't suck myself) but WOW and DEPTH lol I blew a load of coffee out my nose when I read that.
As far as taste in gaming goes if wow is super DEEP for you , I think anything you say can be safely ignored.