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SWTOR - a success.
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Here is another one: http://massively.joystiq.com/2011/02/10/bioware-wow-is-the-touchstone-for-the-old-republic/
"It [World of Warcraft] is a touchstone. It has established standards, it's established how you play an MMO. Every MMO that comes out, I play and look at it. And if they break any of the WoW rules, in my book that's pretty dumb," Zeschuk said.
Star Trek Online - Best Free MMORPG of 2012
They were thinking:
~ we have STAR WARS
~ we have 300mln from EA
~ EA will invest in advertisment another 200mln
~ This game is almost WoW clone and we have Voice Acting
~ WE ARE BIOWARE
~ WE CANNOT FAIL
Reality shows that whatever the money, whatever IP you will fail if you can't make good game. I would love to see what ArenaNet would do with 300 milions, 5 years, advertisment like that and Star Wars IP. They could kick WoW ass so hard that no one would ever look at pandas.
So you think....TOR was a critical darling just like GW2 is, so don't go getting yourself all excited there.
Sooo Ea and Bioware's goal was to make the most expensive mmorpg in history only to keep enough subs to make a profit?
"Don't tell me what to do! , you're not my mod"
Saying invented by me.
They were in DIRECT competition with WoW. I'm not going to link you directly to the interview where they constantly spouted this nonsense as that means i'd be allowing you to continue to be lazy.
In short, they claimed SWTOR was going to be the best MMORPG ever created by the best talent ever assembled. Trying to refute this simply because they didn't outright say "We will beat WoW!" is ignorant and childish.
How about using some logic and watching all their pre-launch interviews again as it is horribly obvious they were after WoW from the start.
The Theory of Conservative Conservation of Ignorant Stupidity:
Having a different opinion must mean you're a troll.
All depends what measures you want to use to define success.
By some, yes, the game did succeed, but if you narrow it down to a few specific ones like most sub retention or something, probably not so much.
But I think it would be fair to say EA really did have hopes of providing a strong challenge to WOW and being able to retain several million ongoing subs at least, because they were so sure the SWTOR IP was a guaranteed path to glory.
I'm positive the results of SWTOR have disappointed many who helped bring it about.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
I dont give a crap if it tried to beat wow, made millions, ppl quit management, or whatever. SWTOR is a success because Im still playing it and enjoying the game. Thats all that matters to me.
All my opinions are just that..opinions. If you like my opinions..coolness.If you dont like my opinion....I really dont care.
Playing: ESO, WOT, Smite, and Marvel Heroes
The bottom line is that SWTOR might have made a profit, but the profit is not enough for it to be warranted as a "success".
Thats why its been downscaled, and thats why the doctors are out. Plain and simple.
That's business.
I'm callin a big stinky fliy infested pile oh crap on this one mate. Why you ask? Well you are lying about one thing or another. You CAN'T be playing SWTOR as it says right under your picture Rabbids CAN'T play MMOs. That or you've been lying to us all along and Rabbids CAN indeed play MMOs and now our games have become secretly infested with the floppy eared, plungergun toting bastards. You know now that I think about it I've yet to ever see you dance a single step. Your whole life has been a tissue of lies HASN'T IT!!!!!????
I rest my case.
"Gypsies, tramps, and thieves, we were called by the Admin of the site . . . "
You didn't even read my post properly did you? because when you quote two or three posts together i assume you read everything before hitting reply button.
It was more of rehotorical question because according to OP any MMO which fails to beat WOW and is holding a second spot is a failure. That is why the question 'why single out SWTOR'. It had nothing to do with what Bioware claimed but a general statement on how people twist meaning of success on these forums.
So before you call me childish and ignorant atleast be agrown up yourelf and read properly please? thank you.
+1 you caught me...now I cant let you live! meet your doom by the soiled plunger!!!! DDDDDDDDDDAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!!!!
All my opinions are just that..opinions. If you like my opinions..coolness.If you dont like my opinion....I really dont care.
Playing: ESO, WOT, Smite, and Marvel Heroes
Many people ask what is the definition of a MMO'e success, for SWTOR it's actually pretty easy to frame. Bioware is a division of EA. EA is a publically traded company. The definition of success for a project of a publically traded company who's shares are owned by investors is the projects Return on Investment.
Whether you rosy up SWTOR's sales and retention numbers, or paint them in a grim light, the game is either close to breaking even, or millions in the red. (Exact figures are unkonwn.) One thing is certain, the retention rate of the subscribers (the game's primary revenue stream) is low, thus the switch to the Freemium business model.
So any way you look at the numbers, the ROI is either negative or very low. From an investors point of view, this is not good, not good at all. What's worse, is that this project was huge in both moneis and time invested. This was a six to seven year project which cost anywhere between $200-$500 million in development and marketing. (Yeah I know, the exact number is unpinnable, that doesn't really ease investors' doubts.)
With a project that long and expensive in scope, the game isn't just sunject to review of ROI, but on oppurtunity costs as well (To be honest, a project taking so long is subject to correction of true cost factoring in inflation).
Although EA is a multi-billion dollar company, even its resources are limited. Those 800+ employees could have been working on other smaller, more profitable projects. (Not to mention SWTOR's very exsistence pretty much precludes any KOTOR3). The money invested in SWTOR for a negative or paltry ROI could have been invested elsewhere. Investors have put money into EA to convert money invested in video game developer talent to create games which in turn create a good ROI. If the games produce a small to negative ROI, the investors think that they would be better off investing their money in other industries and commodities, several of which offer less risky and better expected returns.
This game received even more attention then most MMOs because its success or failure represented a huge gamble and risk for EA. EA's stock and overall fiscal performance has been underperforming as of late. Investors were keenly aware of this game because it represented a huge amount of money invested. From an investor's perspective, SWTOR's performance represented even more then just money spent on SWTOR, but also the money EA invested in acquiring Bioware in the first place. (SWTOR was deemed to be one of the major lures for EA buying BW.)
From the investor's prespective, SWTOR's performance was the metric to measure the wisdom in investing $800 million to acquire Bioware, the $200-$500 million to develope and market SWTOR. After SWTOR's initial mediocre to dismal performance, EA's stock price dropped significantly. To combat the stock price drop (and prevent risk of a coporate take over) EA announced a $500 million stock buy back to prop up EA's share price.
From an investor's point of view, adding up funds invested due to SWTOR were $800 million BW buyout, lets say $500 million for SWTOR's development and marketing (I'm painting a nervous investor's mindset), and $500 million in a stock buyout due to SWTOR's poor performance. That's a total of $1.8 billion dollars sunk into a game that has either lost money or barely made any over the course of 7 years. A game which was so unsustainable financially it had to switch to FTP.
From an investor's point of view, which is what matters most since SWTOR is a property owned by Bioware a division of publically traded EA, is an unmitigated disaster. In an attempt to appease these dissappointed investor's, EA has decimated Bioware Austin's staff and project leaders. Furthermore, EA has begun to gut Bioware overall in general.
Anyway, that's my take on it. If people want to keep talking about, "well if you factor in collector's editions", "digital downloads from Origin make more money then boxes", "FTP is the future, look at LOTRO, Facebook, and Zynga", "by my math SWTOR has already made $10 million", "It was never intended to compete with WoW", "the game may make back its initial investment.", well that's their prerogative; I just think they are missing the bigger picture.
They haven't made up for the budget they spent on the game yet. It was something crazy like 3-4million box sales and something around 6 months of subscribers to break even.
There was an article on it somewhere, but it was so long ago I can't remember where. Maybe Kotaku.
"In the immediate future, we have this one, and then weve got another one that is actually going to be so were going to have, what we want to do, is in January, what were targeting to do, this may or may not happen, so you cant hold me to it. But what were targeting to do, is have a fun anniversary to the Ilum shenanigans that happened. An alien race might invade, and they might crash into Ilum and there might be some new activities that happen on the planet." ~Gabe Amatangelo
Well it was only just millions of through sales, 2.4M was the last announced number. And financially - as mentioned above - this means little unless conpared to the cost of the game.
And in this regard JR, CEO of EA said that SWTOR needed 1M (long term) subs if it was to "show a profit but nothing to write home about". Sure analysts estimated that 2M copies sold would result in $60M profit but SWTOR cost more. (You may have also seen a 500k subs number, that was how many subs were needed to cover their operating costs - it will be less than that now of course following the cut-backs.)
I also agree with the above posters who question whether the number of subs is stable.
If 20% of the 2.4M through sales took out a 6 month sub then that would be 480k subs coming up for renewal in August and September. EA would know the exact number and the renewal rate but they clearly expected a pretty huge drop off given the sub number they announced - something between 500k and 1M. A pretty big margin of error! So 1.7M in Feb, 1.3M somethings in May, no more than 1M in July and expecting a fall towards 500k. Not good especially when you needed 1M to make a profit and were planning on 1.2M when they bought Bioware (as stated by EA CEO JR to the media).
The burden of proof lies with the person making the assertion (you). He's not being lazy by not rushing out to prove your point for you, you are for not supplying proof in the first place.
That being said, I agree with you that they were in direct competition for the same customers. I disagree that "not beating WoW" makes them a failure.
If WoW is so great then why are we wanting all games to beat WoW's butt and take over their #1 spot. By the way, not all of us like GW2. Does that make us a failure for not seeing what you see?
Langsdorff
have they made their money back on this game?
This does not look to me being successful thread :-) but for me SWTOR is best game ever of any genre. Not joking. But of course this is my taste and I'm not blind to see have lost numbers. But after joining servers nearly all areas were full, mailny starting can confirm as I have starded to build next 4 empire builds (now have 4 maxed out rep. and 4 emp.). And I'm big lover of WOW, which have been moved to 2nd place after long years being 1st. But they are close. On 3rd i see Rift. Great game ... but still for me wow and swtor are more to my taste.
On the other hand could look to so many wow and swtor haters impossible, that I love every day more and more GW2, TSW also (even if I have stopped short of free time expired) hope stay among us, CO is very fun but only from time to time, liked a lot once Aoc and War (but too many bugs and zero support), ....
Up to lv. 20 even loved Aion despite many problems ... after that this game is permanently dead for me. Same as Rappelz and some other "free". But never hated them. If so many enjoy them, good for them. Hope this game stays. I would never go to their forums and bash their loved games as many do as full job occupation with wow, swtor, ... and few others. I can mantion them as bad examples, but that's all. It is not bashing.
We?? Do not count me. I just want to play more and more of good games and last thing that would cross my mind is wanting for that any game to kill any other game. This is main problem not only in gaming. Troubled people just wanting failure of one thing because of another. And if eventually this happen they will try to find another traget. Really sick way of enjyoing life.
TOR is far from a success we all know it, It's more the biggest failure in MMO history.
Within 6 months this massive would be beast did server merges, huge exodus of players and turned into f2p, if that's not a failure then I don't know what is.
If it's not broken, you are not innovating.
SWTOR would be a success if it were developed by a small company with a budget up to 40-50 mil top. That would mean that the 2 mil box sales would pay off the development.
Which obviously isn't the case. SWTOR is considered by many the most expensive game in a gaming history costing anywhere between 150-500 mil.
The 2 milion sales and low of retention (currently between 200-400k) is NOT EVEN close to pay off the investment.
REALITY CHECK
Failure as an investment.
Failure as an MMO.
Failure as a game.
I guess this makes you happy and sleeping better at night.
I remember you from the Euro-Chim boards...nice to see familiar posters from back in the day...
Happy trails dude
/lick
Driz