After giving SWTOR it's fair shot I'm left wondering, what in gods great gullet did they spend all of their money on? They had, what, a 200 million dollar budget?
I'm not a GW2 fanboy, but after comparing the two videos I'm beginning to wonder how much money BioWare spent on Crack Cocaine and Heroin for their employees.
Dont think SWTOR cost nearly as much as they claim. Im guessing they just use that as another way to HYPE the game.
You know that all of the mega budget speculation came from analysts' guessing and anti BW/EA people, right? No other game had so much bullshit speculated about the budget as TOR had, with people stating with dry eyes figures of 7-10 times the budget of other AAA MMORPG's >.<
None of those claims were official, they only stated that the budget was a lot lower than the hyped exaggerations some were making.
This.
If Louse hadn't come out spouting the 300mil$ claim, no one would even care what TOR cost to make.
I actually remember people making budgets higher until louse claimed 300 million-ish
It ranged from 150 million to 500 million
"It has potential" -Second most used phrase on existence "It sucks" -Most used phrase on existence
After giving SWTOR it's fair shot I'm left wondering, what in gods great gullet did they spend all of their money on? They had, what, a 200 million dollar budget?
I'm not a GW2 fanboy, but after comparing the two videos I'm beginning to wonder how much money BioWare spent on Crack Cocaine and Heroin for their employees.
Dont think SWTOR cost nearly as much as they claim. Im guessing they just use that as another way to HYPE the game.
You know that all of the mega budget speculation came from analysts' guessing and anti BW/EA people, right? No other game had so much bullshit speculated about the budget as TOR had, with people stating with dry eyes figures of 7-10 times the budget of other AAA MMORPG's >.<
None of those claims were official, they only stated that the budget was a lot lower than the hyped exaggerations some were making.
This.
If Louse hadn't come out spouting the 300mil$ claim, no one would even care what TOR cost to make.
A couple of years ago there was this rant from a disgruntled ex-EA (Mythic I think) employee - it was a classic rant, and it talked specifically about SWTOR (keep in mind, this was a couple of years ago). I wish I could find a copy, as the original Wordpress blog has long since been taken down. It wasn't entirely accurate (the guy was pissed), but it did come ~fairly~ close to stating the actual budget of SWTOR, and claimed that voice acting was the one single facet of the game all the execs were pinning their hopes on. Hooray for Google and their privacy-sniffing search engine, I found a link: http://www.gamerevolution.com/manifesto/ea-artist-soon-to-be-laid-off-burns-ea-management-2803 There was another post, along a similar vein when the actual budget number was released, that detailed just exactly how much voice acting went into the game, and it's a staggering amount: 1,600 story hours, 1,000 Actors, 4,000 NPC's, 3 languages http://tor.zam.com/story.html?story=28811
I forgot EA louse ... It's scary how much he was accurate in the end
So we can assume that swtor ones not being perfect from the start, each one had between 1 and 2 monthes of work, and a lot of them being reknown (at least according to imdb). This pushes a gross estimate at 10k to 30k $ per actor (which is the usual 30% error margin, considering the dialog last minute changes, the actor changes over 5 years, etc).
10k x1000 = 10 to 30 millions. So I was wrong with the "half the budget" it seems ;-)
edit : oh and I forgot to multiply this estimate by 1.5-2, thanks to the social charges.
edit 2 : holy cow, I was wrong, you might want to double the estimated annual income above, as I did not see the article addendum :
Update: 2.10.2010 Excerpts from a Feb. 2008 article onVoiceOverTimes.com Actors Score $500K for Video Game Voice Overs:
According to Screen Actors Guild rules, union voice actors can expect to be paid $760 for one four-hour recording session.
Thats just the fee for a professional voice actor with union status.
Now, if you were to talk celebrity voice talent, that figure increases exponentially. Speaking to Reuters, Blindlight production company general manager Lev Chapelsky said that some stars have demanded $750,000 for an hours worth of work, and one voice actor actually received $500,000 for a single session. Chapelsky told Reuters that top talent commonly receives in the high five figures for a single session.
So in the end we might no be very far from that 50% budget ...
And this is JUST voice acting. You have to have the use of facility, sound editors, sound directors, and a host of other professions to "produce" the VOs.
It is easily going to be half of the budget. Don't forget there is also a 40-50M MMO beneath all the VO.
Kinda flawed reasoning here: the fact that maybe a Johnny Depp or an Angelina Jolie can get 20 million dollars for a movie, doesn't mean that all actors and actresses in that movie get the same amount, most of them get only a fraction of that money, nor does it mean that the main characters generally get 20 million dollars in all movies.
Annual income for most voice actors/actresses was estimated to be 30-70k. Regular fee for a 4 hour session, 500-800 dollars. As for the 1600 hours, heh, that's the 8*200 hours story content, right? The time it took to reach the end of the class story or level cap or such, that 200 hours? Everyone that has played the game KNOWS that's not 200 hours of VO/cutscenes, right? Only a small part of that is actually VO/cutscenes, the rest is normal gameplay. Seriously... >.<
I've said it when I first read the article, no sources or references are mentioned which to everyone using common sense and awareness of news articles and reporting (unless ofc someone believes that news always has the facts straight *cough* FOX news, WMD's in Iraq) makes this already doubtful esp with remarks in the article as 'the story runs 1600 hours'. Heart of the matter remains that it isn't BW/EA sources that are being quoted or referenced regarding the 200 million dollars.
The OP subtext is: If this game was so expensive why is endgame literally the End of the Game, and why is the game so broken and unfinished?
If anyone botherd to listen when they talked about this game. You can here them over and over saying that Rerolling was part of the endgame. They actually thought people would spend alot fo time making alts and rerolling... Funny fact is most people dont... Some do but its something people do when they have nothing better to do... Its a last resort.. Many try out a few classes find one they like and stick to it. People levling more then 3 charecters to max on the same server is not common....
Does the production budget influence your enjoyment of a game? Wether they blew a thousand million or a hundred dollars it is what it is. Would you have had more fun in SWTOR, or any other game had they made it for zero cost?
I think it's more a cautionary tale for future games. For so long, failed games (and I've been a part of a few of em!) have stated the reason it is tough is because "we don't have Warcraft like money." They've used funding not neccessarily as an excuse, but a crutch.
Bioware comes along and is a "AAA" because they have all this money behind them. Yet being a baseball fan, for me, when I hear AAA, I think minor leagues. And in reality, Bioware probably belongs in A ball. They've got some nice fundamentals, but they are in serious need of development honing their skills, and being able to "finish" properly.
When you elevate the stakes as highly as Bioware did, expect to be held to a higher standard. They got nobody to blame but themselves.
Seriously, I don't know what this guy Brown was smoking, "over 12 M subscribers in the west" alone ?
With such an attitude you have NO clue about this industry and the state the subscription based part is in at the moment.
And then we wonder why there is an economic crisis out there, based on such "specialists". Even yesterday I found a broker who stated that SW TOR could go to 6 million players in a few months time.
These guys have NO grasp of any reality.
Well that explains why they launched with 120 servers......
A massive budget doesn't equate to fun. I think there's a certain expectation at the consumer level where a game should reflect the budget spent on it, and when you look at SWTOR I think most people go "am I missing something?". SWTOR could've easily had half the costs that it did and the final product would've been the same, unless licensing is really that bad. I hope the mediocrity didn't leak through to Mass Effect 3.
Based on the demo...... prolly not.
It really seems like ME3 with a little bit (only a little!) of customization, and the graphics are cleaned up a bit.
That and Ashley Williams is incredibly sexualized now. I honestly was surprised they didn't give her high heels to go with the now long hair and face with tons of makeup.
After playing SWTOR for a solid 1.5 months and still have 1.5 monhts of sub left i just uninstalled the peice of shit.
The single player is nice with story telling.
But the PvP and the ability lag should have been fixed before release.
Where did BW spend their money on is a big riddle....iam curious what budget Bioware and Arenanet got to make their mmo.
As when you look at GW2 it destroys SWTOR in each department.
From character creation to story telling to Dynamic Events or even PvP...
I feel cheated once again..
I would say Arenanet reinvested the money they made on GW1. And put all their efforst into making a good GW2. ArenaNet loves their game. They are proud of it, they want to make a game for Gamers. Their not Hired by suits who know nothing about the gaming industry. I would say that anny Creative Ideas that Bioware had, probably got crushed by the MAN. That is what happens when you "SELL OUT". The leadership at Bioware made a shitload of money when they sold out to EA. Most of BIOWARE being older dudes they have long since stoped caring about gaming. Kepping their kidds in private schools and their Wifes/GFs happy is what drives their motivation for making games. Back in 1999 they had the spirit of ARENA net. But the years changes people.. 13 years later they are in a diffrent place, the visions of their youths are gone, replaced by Dollar Signs in their Eyes...
Bioware had no Interest in making a good game, there only reason was MONEY.. And that dosent mix well. Unless you were like Steve Jobs. And your focus in life was to Push the industry forward. But not all humans are made that way. All in all a sad day and we should maybe make a Memorial, sign on tombstone.
Rest in peace BIOWARE 1995-2007
Only the good die Young
If tears could build a stairway, and memories a lane,
I'd walk right up to heaven and bring you home again.
Depending on where in 2007, Mass Effect was on that list. Yet Mass Effect, ME2, DA:O, these were all good to great to outsanding games. DA2 was an unmitigated disaster. Then again, DA2 was the first Bioware product where EA was really ingained with BW.
They know how to make great games, and they still do. (Judging from the looks of it, ME3 will be a good to great game, if not outstanding like ME2, but sorta tough to clear that bar.
They really just don't know how to do an MMO, and they badly miscalculated on what people would like with Dragon Age.
I wanted to believe in this game, I ignored my gut. My gut and what feedback and info I could glean last fall had me concerned, never ignore your gut. Bioware totally managed to grift millions of players into buying this game, including me. What really bothered me is that for the months leading up to the release I had questions and concerns, fanboys made it impossible to have any serious talks about any aspect of the game.
It was "rah-rah! this game shall rule them all!" "STFU" and "Haterz gonna hate!" Any time anyone tried to voice concerns or questions that didn't come off as sheer joy at every and any aspect of this up coming mmorpg. I knew I shouldn't have ignored my gut feeling about this, but I wanted to beleive so I did the pre-order of the collectors edition and shoved to the side any mis-givings I had.
I even held hope for a bit that sure it was bad, but hey they could turn it around if they did X, Y and Z. Instead their PR blitz of up coming expansions etc etc etc, came off as sheer hot air blowing up my backside. They weren't really discussing the big issues, bugs and other short comings that needed to be addressed and handled. It was at this point that I removed my credit card info and thought, ok I'll just check back in six to eight months. But honestly I don't see myself even doing that now. I feel that Bioware owes an apology to all the gamers who bought into the smoke and mirrors that is SWTOR.
I wanted to believe in this game, I ignored my gut. My gut and what feedback and info I could glean last fall had me concerned, never ignore your gut. Bioware totally managed to grift millions of players into buying this game, including me. What really bothered me is that for the months leading up to the release I had questions and concerns, fanboys made it impossible to have any serious talks about any aspect of the game.
It was "rah-rah! this game shall rule them all!" "STFU" and "Haterz gonna hate!" Any time anyone tried to voice concerns or questions that didn't come off as sheer joy at every and any aspect of this up coming mmorpg. I knew I shouldn't have ignored my gut feeling about this, but I wanted to beleive so I did the pre-order of the collectors edition and shoved to the side any mis-givings I had.
I even held hope for a bit that sure it was bad, but hey they could turn it around if they did X, Y and Z. Instead their PR blitz of up coming expansions etc etc etc, came off as sheer hot air blowing up my backside. They weren't really discussing the big issues, bugs and other short comings that needed to be addressed and handled. It was at this point that I removed my credit card info and thought, ok I'll just check back in six to eight months. But honestly I don't see myself even doing that now. I feel that Bioware owes an apology to all the gamers who bought into the smoke and mirrors that is SWTOR.
Just like blizzard has its A team on Titan and its B team on MOP, so too did BW split up its people. The A team went to work on ME3 and they put the B team on SWTOR. It's now pretty obvious. Bioware Austin is the B team.
Just like blizzard has its A team on Titan and its B team on MOP, so too did BW split up its people. The A team went to work on ME3 and they put the B team on SWTOR. It's now pretty obvious. Bioware Austin is the B team.
I don't think they meant it to be that way. This was just one of the problems of a rookie MMO company. They probably didn't realize just what a different beast MMO's are from the way they do things. And lets be honest, I think most of us would wind up in the same boat.
Not saying it excuses putting out a bad product with the budget and resources they had, but one can at least understand it.
So far from what I've seen, the more money that goes into an MMO, the bigger the disappointment. Especially if theres a big ad campaign. AoC, WAR, SWTOR, all pathetic.
So far from what I've seen, the more money that goes into an MMO, the bigger the disappointment. Especially if theres a big ad campaign. AoC, WAR, SWTOR, all pathetic.
Even though I didn't like WoW, they put quite a bit of money into their marketing, but they also did it right.
It also didn't hurt having battle.net as really a free avenue of advertising. I really think a lot of people tend to forget what a big deal that was for Blizzard to have such an untapped customer base for an upcoming MMO staring them in the face.
So far from what I've seen, the more money that goes into an MMO, the bigger the disappointment. Especially if theres a big ad campaign. AoC, WAR, SWTOR, all pathetic.
Even though I didn't like WoW, they put quite a bit of money into their marketing, but they also did it right.
It also didn't hurt having battle.net as really a free avenue of advertising. I really think a lot of people tend to forget what a big deal that was for Blizzard to have such an untapped customer base for an upcoming MMO staring them in the face.
Well the primary reason for WoW's success is that they were the first MMO to have huge brand name recognition and a multi million dollar ad campaign a year before launch. They caught the casual audience first. Just like Nintendo with the Wii.
You, OP and all others who care about this crap, have no idea what it cost to make TOR. NONE.
So there, your speculation is based on ignorance.
Most expensive MMO ever made, yet one of the most unimpressive ones ever made. Teams with 3 million bucks and 30 people revolutionized the genre. A team like this could only churn out an even more singleplayer version of WoW.
Simple answer-They spend money on best mmorpg today , and when i say rpg i think about real rpg, because swtor is only real role p'laying game out there. And i think for now is in second place after wow with subscribers.Imagine only what will come now with Australia and China. I think OP you cant adopt to sf genre and you are not a fan of sw so you cant understand that. 1- Best story mmo. 2-Biggest lands in mmo world today. 3-Awesome graphic. 4-Movies and tons of movies. 5-Voice actors. 6-8 unique single players expiriences. 7-Smooth gameplay--and so many more things. You get for same money 8 games
You, OP and all others who care about this crap, have no idea what it cost to make TOR. NONE.
So there, your speculation is based on ignorance.
Most expensive MMO ever made, yet one of the most unimpressive ones ever made. Teams with 3 million bucks and 30 people revolutionized the genre. A team like this could only churn out an even more singleplayer version of WoW.
Do you like any mmo today? Cmon dude ,write here what is for you best mmo today? I am so excited to see that
Does the production budget influence your enjoyment of a game? Wether they blew a thousand million or a hundred dollars it is what it is. Would you have had more fun in SWTOR, or any other game had they made it for zero cost?
You clearly misinterpreted the point of the thread. I've spent the past month and a half playing a bland and subpar MMORPG, and when I compared SWTOR to Guild Wars 2 footage I was left puzzled as to what they spent all of their money on. I couldn't care less if BioWare had spent 25 dollars total on SWTOR, it would still be a failed game.
A failure by wht standards? I think it's unfair to compare SWTOR to a game you've only seen video footage of. By that logic, Final Fantasy XIV should be a bigger success than it is. The bottom line is, a lot of us are enjoying TOR and I don't think the game is a failure at all. But it's all going to ome down to how they handle the game from here on out. If they support it, there's no reason to think that the game won't get better and better? I think GW2 looks impressive but we really need to wait for the game to come out before we talk about how great it is. FFXIV sould have taught us that.
Comments
I actually remember people making budgets higher until louse claimed 300 million-ish
It ranged from 150 million to 500 million
"It has potential"
-Second most used phrase on existence
"It sucks"
-Most used phrase on existence
because game feels so cheap then maybe they saved 100,000,000$ for the next expansion!!
swtor burnin cataliing expansion
including
-Hutball 2 with 2 balls and feets!
-no server lag on gold member servers
-skills without delay on platinum member servers
-customizable UI with some extra (voice acting when customizing)
-character creation 2,can customisize your character (voice acted on platinum / gold)
and more!
Let's internet
http://herocomplex.latimes.com/2012/01/20/star-wars-the-old-republic-the-story-behind-a-galactic-gamble/#/0
I forgot EA louse ... It's scary how much he was accurate in the end
Also thanks for the VO numbers. Then 1.6 hours per actor. A good voice actor earns an average of 47k $ per year, far more if they're reknown ( http://voiceactors.wordpress.com/2009/04/27/how-much-do-voice-actors-earn/ ).
So we can assume that swtor ones not being perfect from the start, each one had between 1 and 2 monthes of work, and a lot of them being reknown (at least according to imdb). This pushes a gross estimate at 10k to 30k $ per actor (which is the usual 30% error margin, considering the dialog last minute changes, the actor changes over 5 years, etc).
10k x1000 = 10 to 30 millions. So I was wrong with the "half the budget" it seems ;-)
edit : oh and I forgot to multiply this estimate by 1.5-2, thanks to the social charges.
edit 2 : holy cow, I was wrong, you might want to double the estimated annual income above, as I did not see the article addendum :
Update: 2.10.2010 Excerpts from a Feb. 2008 article onVoiceOverTimes.com Actors Score $500K for Video Game Voice Overs:
So in the end we might no be very far from that 50% budget ...
And this is JUST voice acting. You have to have the use of facility, sound editors, sound directors, and a host of other professions to "produce" the VOs.
It is easily going to be half of the budget. Don't forget there is also a 40-50M MMO beneath all the VO.
Kinda flawed reasoning here: the fact that maybe a Johnny Depp or an Angelina Jolie can get 20 million dollars for a movie, doesn't mean that all actors and actresses in that movie get the same amount, most of them get only a fraction of that money, nor does it mean that the main characters generally get 20 million dollars in all movies.
Annual income for most voice actors/actresses was estimated to be 30-70k. Regular fee for a 4 hour session, 500-800 dollars.As for the 1600 hours, heh, that's the 8*200 hours story content, right? The time it took to reach the end of the class story or level cap or such, that 200 hours? Everyone that has played the game KNOWS that's not 200 hours of VO/cutscenes, right? Only a small part of that is actually VO/cutscenes, the rest is normal gameplay. Seriously... >.<
I've said it when I first read the article, no sources or references are mentioned which to everyone using common sense and awareness of news articles and reporting (unless ofc someone believes that news always has the facts straight *cough* FOX news, WMD's in Iraq) makes this already doubtful esp with remarks in the article as 'the story runs 1600 hours'. Heart of the matter remains that it isn't BW/EA sources that are being quoted or referenced regarding the 200 million dollars.The OP subtext is: If this game was so expensive why is endgame literally the End of the Game, and why is the game so broken and unfinished?
Survivor of the great MMORPG Famine of 2011
Well said.
If anyone botherd to listen when they talked about this game. You can here them over and over saying that Rerolling was part of the endgame. They actually thought people would spend alot fo time making alts and rerolling... Funny fact is most people dont... Some do but its something people do when they have nothing better to do... Its a last resort.. Many try out a few classes find one they like and stick to it. People levling more then 3 charecters to max on the same server is not common....
I think it's more a cautionary tale for future games. For so long, failed games (and I've been a part of a few of em!) have stated the reason it is tough is because "we don't have Warcraft like money." They've used funding not neccessarily as an excuse, but a crutch.
Bioware comes along and is a "AAA" because they have all this money behind them. Yet being a baseball fan, for me, when I hear AAA, I think minor leagues. And in reality, Bioware probably belongs in A ball. They've got some nice fundamentals, but they are in serious need of development honing their skills, and being able to "finish" properly.
When you elevate the stakes as highly as Bioware did, expect to be held to a higher standard. They got nobody to blame but themselves.
Well that explains why they launched with 120 servers......
Based on the demo...... prolly not.
It really seems like ME3 with a little bit (only a little!) of customization, and the graphics are cleaned up a bit.
That and Ashley Williams is incredibly sexualized now. I honestly was surprised they didn't give her high heels to go with the now long hair and face with tons of makeup.
Depending on where in 2007, Mass Effect was on that list. Yet Mass Effect, ME2, DA:O, these were all good to great to outsanding games. DA2 was an unmitigated disaster. Then again, DA2 was the first Bioware product where EA was really ingained with BW.
They know how to make great games, and they still do. (Judging from the looks of it, ME3 will be a good to great game, if not outstanding like ME2, but sorta tough to clear that bar.
They really just don't know how to do an MMO, and they badly miscalculated on what people would like with Dragon Age.
I wanted to believe in this game, I ignored my gut. My gut and what feedback and info I could glean last fall had me concerned, never ignore your gut. Bioware totally managed to grift millions of players into buying this game, including me. What really bothered me is that for the months leading up to the release I had questions and concerns, fanboys made it impossible to have any serious talks about any aspect of the game.
It was "rah-rah! this game shall rule them all!" "STFU" and "Haterz gonna hate!" Any time anyone tried to voice concerns or questions that didn't come off as sheer joy at every and any aspect of this up coming mmorpg. I knew I shouldn't have ignored my gut feeling about this, but I wanted to beleive so I did the pre-order of the collectors edition and shoved to the side any mis-givings I had.
I even held hope for a bit that sure it was bad, but hey they could turn it around if they did X, Y and Z. Instead their PR blitz of up coming expansions etc etc etc, came off as sheer hot air blowing up my backside. They weren't really discussing the big issues, bugs and other short comings that needed to be addressed and handled. It was at this point that I removed my credit card info and thought, ok I'll just check back in six to eight months. But honestly I don't see myself even doing that now. I feel that Bioware owes an apology to all the gamers who bought into the smoke and mirrors that is SWTOR.
A sad story that I can relate to.
All the major reviewers that rated this game 8 or higher should be ashamed. At best, swtor deserves a 7, and at it's worst a 4.
Just like blizzard has its A team on Titan and its B team on MOP, so too did BW split up its people. The A team went to work on ME3 and they put the B team on SWTOR. It's now pretty obvious. Bioware Austin is the B team.
I don't think they meant it to be that way. This was just one of the problems of a rookie MMO company. They probably didn't realize just what a different beast MMO's are from the way they do things. And lets be honest, I think most of us would wind up in the same boat.
Not saying it excuses putting out a bad product with the budget and resources they had, but one can at least understand it.
Their CGI movies and the Star Wars license.
So far from what I've seen, the more money that goes into an MMO, the bigger the disappointment. Especially if theres a big ad campaign. AoC, WAR, SWTOR, all pathetic.
Even though I didn't like WoW, they put quite a bit of money into their marketing, but they also did it right.
It also didn't hurt having battle.net as really a free avenue of advertising. I really think a lot of people tend to forget what a big deal that was for Blizzard to have such an untapped customer base for an upcoming MMO staring them in the face.
Whatever they spent their money on, it wasn't the maintenance team quality or numbers.
Is the site down again?
Well the primary reason for WoW's success is that they were the first MMO to have huge brand name recognition and a multi million dollar ad campaign a year before launch. They caught the casual audience first. Just like Nintendo with the Wii.
I'll just chime in here.
You, OP and all others who care about this crap, have no idea what it cost to make TOR. NONE.
So there, your speculation is based on ignorance.
Most expensive MMO ever made, yet one of the most unimpressive ones ever made. Teams with 3 million bucks and 30 people revolutionized the genre. A team like this could only churn out an even more singleplayer version of WoW.
Simple answer-They spend money on best mmorpg today , and when i say rpg i think about real rpg, because swtor is only real role p'laying game out there. And i think for now is in second place after wow with subscribers.Imagine only what will come now with Australia and China. I think OP you cant adopt to sf genre and you are not a fan of sw so you cant understand that. 1- Best story mmo. 2-Biggest lands in mmo world today. 3-Awesome graphic. 4-Movies and tons of movies. 5-Voice actors. 6-8 unique single players expiriences. 7-Smooth gameplay--and so many more things. You get for same money 8 games
Do you like any mmo today? Cmon dude ,write here what is for you best mmo today? I am so excited to see that
A failure by wht standards? I think it's unfair to compare SWTOR to a game you've only seen video footage of. By that logic, Final Fantasy XIV should be a bigger success than it is. The bottom line is, a lot of us are enjoying TOR and I don't think the game is a failure at all. But it's all going to ome down to how they handle the game from here on out. If they support it, there's no reason to think that the game won't get better and better? I think GW2 looks impressive but we really need to wait for the game to come out before we talk about how great it is. FFXIV sould have taught us that.