"$60 (I’m rolling in CE, DCE and regular boxes all in here) - that means $102 million in BioWare’s pockets at the get-go."
Fanboi or just stupid? Hard to say.
40% of that goes to LA right off the bat.
Incorrect. Only after EA has achieved break even point and recouped its investment costs.
Originally posted by JoeyMMO
Originally posted by Praetalus
Originally posted by JoeyMMO
I guess it's convenient to forget that the game cost well over $200M to develop. Nearer to 200M than to 300M, but considerably more than 200M, at least if the guys running TOR know what they're talking about. Let's take a rough estimate of 230M. I doubt they're out of the woods just yet. It brings in more money than it costs to keep it going. And then you still factor in $0 of the huge BW acquisition cost into TOR.
And we also assume LA doesn't get a cent until EA breaks even. Even the current reduced dev team + the grossly overpaid leads + the marketing campaign still costs them money, quite a lot of money too. They have to bring in considerably more than $230M, easily around $350M, before they really break even.
They'll have a turn a profit first, before it could be called a success. I don't see that happening just yet, if ever.
Can you post where you read those numbers from Bioware? You seem very sure about them, so surely you have some sort of information that the rest of us do not have. You seem to know the salaries of the employees now also...lol. You make a lot of assumptions with absolutely no evidence to back this shit up. Nice internets win.
Thanks,
I'm sure about the numbers, my memory is just fine with numbers. The name of the guy giving the interview however. Was it Ohlen, Dickinson, Riccitiello or the CFO that quit a week after he claimed SWTOR was a success? Dunno, don't care, not even relevant.
The budget was $150M, before they ran into some unexpected problems, taking it over $200 but nowhere near the $300M speculation that was going around at the time. That's the gist of what he said on SWTOR cost.
If you want to find them and they're still there you'll find them. If your job is to take those numbers offline, I'm not going to help you do your job for you. So do what you must about this 'shit'.
? Never heard of those figures in official format, merely guesses and blogs. Unless the numbers come from reliable and preferrably official sources, this all sounds like hearsays to me, no offense.
So, you do not know what they spent to make the game and....
You do not know how much they made, leaving out several factors that influence the "profit".
Leaving your summary on the success of a game and/or its profitability a total SWAG and not based on anything concrete or even remotely concrete. Are you perhaps a Statistician?
I haven't seen any formal statement about costs - lots of discussion about 800+ people employed etc. but we don't know for how long.
As i posted above however financially EA have said:
Cover running costs at 500k subscibers.
Make a profit, but nothing to write home about, with 1M subs for some - unspecified - time. Debate in articles suggested 1 to 2 years depending on advertising, sales, level of subs etc. etc. EA were talking "long term" at the time.
As for what it cost however you can get an idea. If you are really keen there are actually 3 different costs: the absolute cost; what it cost EA and what it cost EA shareholders.
First we know how long it took to develop, we know that staff ramps up and we know that e.g. WAR had 430 people when it launched (we were told), 250 people by year 2 and so forth - there were the usual 'most expensive game' type statements. We know that Funcom had got the AoC team down to 250 after 6 months - they shifted people faster.
1. Ignore all the huge numbers being mentioned, how many people were involved etc. and make a stab at a staff profile. Tis is a guess so be conservative say 100 man years in year 1, 200 in year 2, 300 in year 3 and 400 in years 4 and 5. Man years so you may have some part time staff etc. Put your own numbers in.
2. Add up the man years: 100+200+300+400+400 = 1400.
3. Pick a cost per man year. Say $100k to keep the calcs simple. $100k covering wages, taxes, dental, medical, all taxes and all expences including software costs, servers, travel costs, marketing costs for a marketeer etc. You can check the average salary costs of a software developer type person working in Austin but I doubt anyone will claim that $100k is to big a number. Way to small probably.
4. 1400 x $100k = $140M
5. EA paid $620M cash for Bioware/Pamdemic - it is in their SEC filings. They have published 13 games (could be 14 now) but $620/13 is $45-$50M. That is assuming that all the titles published had 'equal weight' - they didn't SWTOR was a bigger title than some but lets keep it conservative.
6. If you are/were an EA shareholder - and analyst reports are done for shareholders - then EA also "paid" c. $260M in stock options - hard to say what they are worth and not really a cost to EA so I am ignoring these. (However $260/13 would be another $20M).
7. Did EA pay LucasArts upfront? As an example of possible costs reports in the last few days suggest that Activision will not be renewing their $30M licence for NBA - and that is basically only of value in the US. SW is a worldwide IP.
Conslusion: articles suggesting that SWTOR cost $80M - very suspect; articles suggesting that SWTOR cost $200M look feasible; and at $300-$500m - possible given the staff numbers thrown around but less likely.
At the end of the day though we just have to look at what EA have said: 500k break even; 1M for the long term - make a profit but nothing to write home about.
Way, waaay too much speculation with fuzzy numbers. For example, why the 500 man in the 5th year? Are we talking about fulltimers? What is the source for this estimation? Should we assume that other MMO companies have a sortlike cost and amount of people working? If not, why not? Where's the proof that this doesn't apply to other MMO companies? But let's assume they have half the manpower, that those MMO's had merely 200-250 fulltimers, does this mean that those other MMO's had a minimal development cost of 70-80+ million dollars?
The only given is the statement about having a profit with 1 million subs. Reason seems to suggest 1 year trajectory (imo the likeliest), 2 year trajectory at most. In the end though, we simply don't know what length of time they were talking about.
I'm very sceptical towards any amount above 100-120 million dollars, for the bare simple fact that so far in all those years no MMO's passed the 60 million dollar total cost. Well, except for Tabula Rasa, but as Gariott and other sources admitted, they basically blew 2 full years through the drain by differences of vision and because they radically changed the game design and gameplay mid project.
Anyway, it's all speculation of course. But the figures used have a very, very high degree of fuzziness and ghost hunting, imo.
a success at launch, yes. a success at growth no. That's not opinion that's facts.
wow launched with a smaller sub base and grew. ToR launched witha high sub base and has shrunk , that's the difference.
You don't fire people if it's a "success" no matter how you twist the words. EA/Bioware has managed to make people think that losing subs is somehow growth, and that layoffs are somehow going to make the game better.
This game, is the best leveling experience i have ever played in an mmo, but it ends there. The people know it, the devs know it, the investors know it and EA knows it. Let it die , or let it keep its swg population for 10 years. Either way, its not an mmo, and it's not a "growing success", im sorry.
ps. if you think 1mil people are playing this game , have your head checked. i would be suprised at 20k concurrent users on a rare night. i havent paid in months for this game yet my sub is still active.
Too bad that in real life economics there is something called opportunity cost.
If i take 5 million dollars, invest them in X company's stock and in 10 years liquidate them for 5.1million (lets ignore inflation for the sake of ease) if am not going to come out to say i was successfull because i made profit, especially when i could have earned say 500k in profit from a 5 year investement. Essentially i would be looking at a -400k Opportunity cost more so if i extrapolated for the remaining 5 years.
Too bad that in real life economics there is something called opportunity cost.
If i take 5 million dollars, invest them in X company's stock and in 10 years liquidate them for 5.1million (lets ignore inflation for the sake of ease) if am not going to come out to say i was successfull because i made profit, especially when i could have earned say 500k in profit from a 5 year investement. Essentially i would be looking at a -400k Opportunity cost more so if i extrapolated for the remaining 5 years.
Dont complicate it too much, scope of aerage fanboi is:
"they sold 2m boxes at 60$ so they already got 120m back"
Implications of investing 200m 5 years ago and all the stuff thats invloved in it would probably overheat something...or someone ;P
<p><blockquote><i>Originally posted by mikahr</i><br><br><b><p>Uhm.</p><p>EA said what succes IS themselves:</p><p>1+m subs (emphasis on +)</p><p>500k is "acceptable result" but FAILURE</p><p>below 500k is EPIC FAIL, means free months, laying off people, and, if below enough, maintanance mode.</p><p> </p><p>Its pretty irrelevant what is "success to you", if game is losing money and needs to go to maintanance mode, even if it has "one full server " lol.</p></b></blockquote>
Wow...you couldn't be more wrong...
Here people.. Since everyone has different memories of what was said I'll show you.
500k subscribers to be "substantially profitable". Not "epic fail" lol.
You obviously forgot to check date on that article.
Anyway, from THAT article, more than 1 1/2 years ago:
"At half a million subscribers, the game is substantially profitable, but it's not the kind of thing we would write home about," EA CEO John Riccitiello said in a Gamasutra-attended conference call accompanying EA's third quarter fiscal earnings report today. "Anything north of a million subscribers, it's a very profitable business."
You dont get to change what he said even back then, im afraid, you are just have to accept it, and you will have to lear to read WHOLE sentences in the future instead of first few words only.
And i suggest you learn a bit about PR speech.
Let me translate that article without sugar-coated phrases:
"At 500k subs you will get your money back, dont expect anyting more, to get you some money we need AT LEAST 1 million. "
I just love how, when anyone presents a dissenting viewpoint, and even when they present evidence for their case, they are automatically called a troll.
Seriously now, if one person says it, you dismiss it. If two people say it, you dismiss it. But when a meme is created because of it, perhaps there is some kernel of truth to the dissent.
Also I ask, which is worse, a troll, or a fanboy who can't see the truth plastered plainly on the wall.
Comments
Incorrect. Only after EA has achieved break even point and recouped its investment costs.
? Never heard of those figures in official format, merely guesses and blogs. Unless the numbers come from reliable and preferrably official sources, this all sounds like hearsays to me, no offense.
I haven't seen any formal statement about costs - lots of discussion about 800+ people employed etc. but we don't know for how long.
As i posted above however financially EA have said:
Cover running costs at 500k subscibers.
Make a profit, but nothing to write home about, with 1M subs for some - unspecified - time. Debate in articles suggested 1 to 2 years depending on advertising, sales, level of subs etc. etc. EA were talking "long term" at the time.
As for what it cost however you can get an idea. If you are really keen there are actually 3 different costs: the absolute cost; what it cost EA and what it cost EA shareholders.
First we know how long it took to develop, we know that staff ramps up and we know that e.g. WAR had 430 people when it launched (we were told), 250 people by year 2 and so forth - there were the usual 'most expensive game' type statements. We know that Funcom had got the AoC team down to 250 after 6 months - they shifted people faster.
1. Ignore all the huge numbers being mentioned, how many people were involved etc. and make a stab at a staff profile. Tis is a guess so be conservative say 100 man years in year 1, 200 in year 2, 300 in year 3 and 400 in years 4 and 5. Man years so you may have some part time staff etc. Put your own numbers in.
2. Add up the man years: 100+200+300+400+400 = 1400.
3. Pick a cost per man year. Say $100k to keep the calcs simple. $100k covering wages, taxes, dental, medical, all taxes and all expences including software costs, servers, travel costs, marketing costs for a marketeer etc. You can check the average salary costs of a software developer type person working in Austin but I doubt anyone will claim that $100k is to big a number. Way to small probably.
4. 1400 x $100k = $140M
5. EA paid $620M cash for Bioware/Pamdemic - it is in their SEC filings. They have published 13 games (could be 14 now) but $620/13 is $45-$50M. That is assuming that all the titles published had 'equal weight' - they didn't SWTOR was a bigger title than some but lets keep it conservative.
6. If you are/were an EA shareholder - and analyst reports are done for shareholders - then EA also "paid" c. $260M in stock options - hard to say what they are worth and not really a cost to EA so I am ignoring these. (However $260/13 would be another $20M).
7. Did EA pay LucasArts upfront? As an example of possible costs reports in the last few days suggest that Activision will not be renewing their $30M licence for NBA - and that is basically only of value in the US. SW is a worldwide IP.
Conslusion: articles suggesting that SWTOR cost $80M - very suspect; articles suggesting that SWTOR cost $200M look feasible; and at $300-$500m - possible given the staff numbers thrown around but less likely.
At the end of the day though we just have to look at what EA have said: 500k break even; 1M for the long term - make a profit but nothing to write home about.
Way, waaay too much speculation with fuzzy numbers. For example, why the 500 man in the 5th year? Are we talking about fulltimers? What is the source for this estimation? Should we assume that other MMO companies have a sortlike cost and amount of people working? If not, why not? Where's the proof that this doesn't apply to other MMO companies? But let's assume they have half the manpower, that those MMO's had merely 200-250 fulltimers, does this mean that those other MMO's had a minimal development cost of 70-80+ million dollars?
The only given is the statement about having a profit with 1 million subs. Reason seems to suggest 1 year trajectory (imo the likeliest), 2 year trajectory at most. In the end though, we simply don't know what length of time they were talking about.
I'm very sceptical towards any amount above 100-120 million dollars, for the bare simple fact that so far in all those years no MMO's passed the 60 million dollar total cost. Well, except for Tabula Rasa, but as Gariott and other sources admitted, they basically blew 2 full years through the drain by differences of vision and because they radically changed the game design and gameplay mid project.
Anyway, it's all speculation of course. But the figures used have a very, very high degree of fuzziness and ghost hunting, imo.
a success at launch, yes. a success at growth no. That's not opinion that's facts.
wow launched with a smaller sub base and grew. ToR launched witha high sub base and has shrunk , that's the difference.
You don't fire people if it's a "success" no matter how you twist the words. EA/Bioware has managed to make people think that losing subs is somehow growth, and that layoffs are somehow going to make the game better.
This game, is the best leveling experience i have ever played in an mmo, but it ends there. The people know it, the devs know it, the investors know it and EA knows it. Let it die , or let it keep its swg population for 10 years. Either way, its not an mmo, and it's not a "growing success", im sorry.
ps. if you think 1mil people are playing this game , have your head checked. i would be suprised at 20k concurrent users on a rare night. i havent paid in months for this game yet my sub is still active.
it will have the same fate as AoC:
Uhm.
EA said what succes IS themselves:
1+m subs (emphasis on +)
500k is "acceptable result" but FAILURE
below 500k is EPIC FAIL, means free months, laying off people, and, if below enough, maintanance mode.
Its pretty irrelevant what is "success to you", if game is losing money and needs to go to maintanance mode, even if it has "one full server " lol.
In fanboy economics profit = success.
Too bad that in real life economics there is something called opportunity cost.
If i take 5 million dollars, invest them in X company's stock and in 10 years liquidate them for 5.1million (lets ignore inflation for the sake of ease) if am not going to come out to say i was successfull because i made profit, especially when i could have earned say 500k in profit from a 5 year investement. Essentially i would be looking at a -400k Opportunity cost more so if i extrapolated for the remaining 5 years.
Dont complicate it too much, scope of aerage fanboi is:
"they sold 2m boxes at 60$ so they already got 120m back"
Implications of investing 200m 5 years ago and all the stuff thats invloved in it would probably overheat something...or someone ;P
<p><blockquote><i>Originally posted by mikahr</i><br><br><b><p>Uhm.</p><p>EA said what succes IS themselves:</p><p>1+m subs (emphasis on +)</p><p>500k is "acceptable result" but FAILURE</p><p>below 500k is EPIC FAIL, means free months, laying off people, and, if below enough, maintanance mode.</p><p> </p><p>Its pretty irrelevant what is "success to you", if game is losing money and needs to go to maintanance mode, even if it has "one full server " lol.</p></b></blockquote>
Wow...you couldn't be more wrong...
Here people.. Since everyone has different memories of what was said I'll show you.
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/107477-Star-Wars-The-Old-Republic-Profitable-With-500-000-Subs
500k subscribers to be "substantially profitable". Not "epic fail" lol.</p>
You obviously forgot to check date on that article.
Anyway, from THAT article, more than 1 1/2 years ago:
"At half a million subscribers, the game is substantially profitable, but it's not the kind of thing we would write home about," EA CEO John Riccitiello said in a Gamasutra-attended conference call accompanying EA's third quarter fiscal earnings report today. "Anything north of a million subscribers, it's a very profitable business."
You dont get to change what he said even back then, im afraid, you are just have to accept it, and you will have to lear to read WHOLE sentences in the future instead of first few words only.
And i suggest you learn a bit about PR speech.
Let me translate that article without sugar-coated phrases:
"At 500k subs you will get your money back, dont expect anyting more, to get you some money we need AT LEAST 1 million. "
I imagine if it holds 500k --> paying <-- subscribers for 2 years, then it will break even.
I just love how, when anyone presents a dissenting viewpoint, and even when they present evidence for their case, they are automatically called a troll.
Seriously now, if one person says it, you dismiss it. If two people say it, you dismiss it. But when a meme is created because of it, perhaps there is some kernel of truth to the dissent.
Also I ask, which is worse, a troll, or a fanboy who can't see the truth plastered plainly on the wall.
swtor is a turd in a toilet waiting to be flushed.