Had it been the other way and people complained about a lack of voice acting, citing voice acting in Oblivion and Skyrim as something that has helped define the series, the author would have argued that devoting resources to voice acting was taking those resources away from other areas of the game, and that he'd rather see this, that, and the other thing than voice acting (even though they are budgeted separately). Because that's what fanboys do.
You do know it is possible for someone to actually think voice acting adds to games, not simply be a "Fanboy," right? I for one wouldn't defend any game choosing not to have voice acting. I may say it is worth playing despite that flaw, but I would still characterize it as a flaw. Does something in the column author's prior history point to uncritical fanboyism, or is that just an assumption on your part?
Peace is a lie, there is only passion. Through passion, I gain strength. Through strength, I gain power. Through power, I gain victory. Through victory, my chains are broken. The Force shall free me.
Voice acting can add alot to your game. I am not sure it needs to be expensive voice actors though. The harpies in GW2 sound kinda awful like some guy in the office just filled in after discovering that that they forgot to the harpies. It's still hilarious though.
What games don't need is long boring speeches that you will only hear once. What they do need is little phrases from the NPCs and little discussions to make the game feel alive.
I like voice-overs, personally. I don't care if it is a high profile celeb or not. The voice quests in SW:ToR were great and let me become more immersed in the game. Personal preference I guess. You either like them or don't.
Oh wait... am I supposed to tell people that don't like voice quests that they are stupid or something to that effect? I'm new here.
The author never really made an argument why notable voice acting makes sense. They threw out a weak premise why early budgeting won't affect other systems and leveraged that to say the user should just accept it.
Poor budgeting decisions early on in the process don't excuse poor budgeting decisions. It's that simple. If a poor budget decision was made from the get go and the money could have been better spent elsewhere, then that decision is still open for criticism.
Then the author infers that notable voice acting will mean a quality experience and the lack of it a poor experience. That's not true.
So I think voice acting is good (my opinion). I like it in Neverwinter and TOR. I don't think this is about voice acting adding to the immersion and polish of the experience. I think this is about touting notable names to sell game copies. Zeni should start being honest about their game. Notable voice acting is a marketing scheme. P2P + cash shop isn't about a fair "no nickel dime" experience, it's about maximizing revenue through marketing appeal. Just be honest for once Zeni and Firor.
I think this is more of an adverising piece than an actual discussion article.
The voice acting is something that was going to happen because this is an Elder Scrolls game.
Right just like no race or faction locks was going to happen in a completely open world environment with no class skill locks right? Sorry, we were told a long time ago that sacrifices had to be made to make TES into an MMO yet they changed the things that didn't need to be changed and kept voice overs, which is completely wasted in MMOs.
This is like reading the SWTOR forums during beta all over again. People blindly defending bad ideas to for the sake of it.
And now TOR is the second most successful MMO with a subscription option. Lots of blind hate for that game that hasn't stopped it from being extremely successful, hopefully the blind hate for this game will have a similar level of non-impact.
There is no information showing how many people are still subscribed to SWTOR, with EA combining its numbers with other games states otherwise because they only do that with games not meeting expectations. Blind fanboys destroyed that game, and continues to keep it in the trash where it is. No other game lost that many subscribers in such a short amount of time.
You could guesstimate the number of player by torstatus.net and would probably be under 300k(could be a lot less depending on the eu servers) and then you could have a go at subs if you have any idea on other games with a hybrid model.
Originally posted by EndoRoboto Cazneerg if you say TOR is the 2nd most successful MMO of all time again im going to throw up. Where did you read that EA's facebook? Lol
All time would require looking at all the revenue over a product's lifetime. It is *currently* the second most successful game with a sub option. The math isn't hard. 139 million in cash shop revenue for 2013, and a claimed subscriber amount of just under half a million. No subscription game other than TOR or WoW had enough cash shop revenue to even make the top ten chart, and there aren't any games out there (other than WoW and TOR) claiming to have more than half a million subscribers.
Apparently the math is that hard:).
Just a point of fact as it could be relevant to the topic. The 139mil comes from a marketing site that has essentially multiplied one random number with another and could bear no resemblance to how much tors revenue actually is. The 500k subs comes from when they released their first expansion and with the way it was done is more like copies sold and highly unlikely to be close to the actual number of subs pre/post expansion. Eve has more than 500k subs and it think there are still some asain games also.
For me the problem is thus: The costs associated with celebrity peerage dont make sense when voicing an RPG - I would rather see that work go to unknowns that dont even own a home as opposed to buying a hollywood actor another house. Buying your gross and Celebrity Peerage are two things directly associated with low quality entertainment.
It is undoubtable that having a higher quantity of unknown voice actors and spending less on hype generation allows one to develop a world with MORE voices and content, making the world we may live in for years so much more realised and immersive.
Still, no point trying to talk sense to the horde of gawpers come to see the emperors new clothes.
When I read the title, the first thing I thought was that "This has got to be the biggest post ever." First of all SWTOR had a ton of voice acting and that game is a failure. Secondly FFXIV has almost no voice acting, and as it got game of the year 2013 from this very site!
Lastly, in the last page of the article you mention that the gameplay of the MMO should be judged separately from the voice acting. This basically negates your entire article by acknowledging what we already know. That voice acting doesn't really contribute anything to the quality of the MMO's gameplay.
I know SWTOR is highly criticized by many , was not at ALL what I expected (but still occasionally enjoy) and has gone F2P...but making $129 million last year can hardly be called "failure" financially. It may have failed to feed our expectations. It may have failed Bioware's intent to satisfy our appetites. It definitely failed EA 's intense desire to gorge on the "feast" of cash. But no one is exactly starving.
* I'm sure this is old news but I did receive an email from Ubisoft for pre-purchase *
-> Imperial Edition =$79.99 for a bunch of virtual fluff + 5 days early access +30days after launch + free copy of Assassins Creed Black Flag.
-> Standard Edition = $59.99 for a little less virtual fluff + 3 days early access + 30days after launch + free copy of Assassins Creed III.
There is no information showing how many people are still subscribed to SWTOR, with EA combining its numbers with other games states otherwise because they only do that with games not meeting expectations. Blind fanboys destroyed that game, and continues to keep it in the trash where it is. No other game lost that many subscribers in such a short amount of time.
You could guesstimate the number of player by torstatus.net and would probably be under 300k(could be a lot less depending on the eu servers) and then you could have a go at subs if you have any idea on other games with a hybrid model.
And I would go by those numbers as they are low enough to make EA want to hide them as well as place the games subs far below what some would dare claim it is at.
"People who tell you youre awesome are useless. No, dangerous.
They are worse than useless because you want to believe them. They will defend you against critiques that are valid. They will seduce you into believing you are done learning, or into thinking that your work is better than it actually is." ~Raph Koster http://www.raphkoster.com/2013/10/14/on-getting-criticism/
Just a point of fact as it could be relevant to the topic. The 139mil comes from a marketing site that has essentially multiplied one random number with another and could bear no resemblance to how much tors revenue actually is. The 500k subs comes from when they released their first expansion and with the way it was done is more like copies sold and highly unlikely to be close to the actual number of subs pre/post expansion. Eve has more than 500k subs and it think there are still some asain games also.
Their report may not be the exact number, but it is the best publicly available data, and it is a company which is valued enough in the industry to have made a successful business out of providing these reports. It's true that we haven't had any official comment on the number of subs recently, but we do have the circumstantial evidence that the servers now appear to be just as busy, if not busier, than they were at the time they did announce that number. As for EvE, it's been even longer since they made any official announcement of their numbers than TOR. Last but not least, Asian "subs" don't work the same as western ones, so it's hard to compare the two.
It is theoretically possible that TOR isn't actually the current second banana in games offering subs, but none of the publicly available data would portray that theory as very likely to be accurate.
Peace is a lie, there is only passion. Through passion, I gain strength. Through strength, I gain power. Through power, I gain victory. Through victory, my chains are broken. The Force shall free me.
Their report may not be the exact number, but it is the best publicly available data, and it is a company which is valued enough in the industry to have made a successful business out of providing these reports. It's true that we haven't had any official comment on the number of subs recently, but we do have the circumstantial evidence that the servers now appear to be just as busy, if not busier, than they were at the time they did announce that number. As for EvE, it's been even longer since they made any official announcement of their numbers than TOR. Last but not least, Asian "subs" don't work the same as western ones, so it's hard to compare the two.
It is theoretically possible that TOR isn't actually the current second banana in games offering subs, but none of the publicly available data would portray that theory as very likely to be accurate.
1. best publicly available data does not = reliable or remotely accurate.
2. Circumstantial evidence is worthless, ask any court of law.
3. Amount of people on a server in a game with a F2P option does not indicate how many are subscribers.
4. You have based your opinion off of worthless information, for what reason? Are you really that hard up to make the game look good? There is zero point in doing this at all. Say you like the game, move on, forming such an opinion makes you look bad.
Those hating have justification, EA does not mingle a games numbers with those of another unless the game is not meeting expectations, this is verifiable with their public data. And as YOU said yourself, this outside company is providing the best data the public has, which speaks volumes that the parent company isn't telling you. Yet jump at the chance to gloat about games doing well.
"People who tell you youre awesome are useless. No, dangerous.
They are worse than useless because you want to believe them. They will defend you against critiques that are valid. They will seduce you into believing you are done learning, or into thinking that your work is better than it actually is." ~Raph Koster http://www.raphkoster.com/2013/10/14/on-getting-criticism/
You guys are approaching this from an entirely negative standpoint. Has it occurred to you that not everyone is focused on end game? I know this is not your typical ES game, but it's still in that universe with a similar combat/progression system. When you playing Morrowing/Oblivion/Skyrim, did you go 'CAN'T WAIT TO GET TO END GAME', or were you enjoying your travels? Same could be said of TESO, right? Also, why not make it more immersive with voice, like you have in a traditional game... Seriously, don't be so dense.
Originally posted by BatCakez You guys are approaching this from an entirely negative standpoint. Has it occurred to you that not everyone is focused on end game?
It doesn't matter if YOU are not focused on end game or not. The game is.
Its entire BASE design is around 3 faction PvP in a central area. The WORLD ITSELF is built around it. Closed off faction lands, closed off central PvP area. Having to be max level to unlock an instanced version of another faction land to play in.
You, you can be focused on never fighting a single mob. The game is what it is. An MMO. A long term game built to try to last for 10s of thousands of hours. Not the perhaps 200 hours of questing content that voice-overs are a part of.
"People who tell you youre awesome are useless. No, dangerous.
They are worse than useless because you want to believe them. They will defend you against critiques that are valid. They will seduce you into believing you are done learning, or into thinking that your work is better than it actually is." ~Raph Koster http://www.raphkoster.com/2013/10/14/on-getting-criticism/
Good voice acting is great. It really elevates a game. But using named actors was a mistake in my opinion. That's money that could go into game development, and what happens when they want to add new content and the actor demands more money or isn't available.
1. best publicly available data does not = reliable or remotely accurate.
2. Circumstantial evidence is worthless, ask any court of law.
3. Amount of people on a server in a game with a F2P option does not indicate how many are subscribers.
4. You have based your opinion off of worthless information, for what reason? Are you really that hard up to make the game look good? There is zero point in doing this at all. Say you like the game, move on, forming such an opinion makes you look bad.
Those hating have justification, EA does not mingle a games numbers with those of another unless the game is not meeting expectations, this is verifiable with their public data. And as YOU said yourself, this outside company is providing the best data the public has, which speaks volumes that the parent company isn't telling you. Yet jump at the chance to gloat about games doing well.
1. It's more reliable and accurate than no data at all.
2. We aren't in a court of law.
3. True.
4. I've based my opinion on the information that is available. By definition I can't base it on information I don't have. When people state that, in their opinion, the game sucks, I don't respond because that is just an opinion and everybody has different tastes. Generally speaking, I only "defend" the game when somebody tries to state that it is an abject failure.
There is no outward sign that that view is in any way consistent with reality, and it tends to push my buttons when people keep stating that something has failed as a matter of fact, without a shred of evidence, just because they personally *wish* it had failed.
Peace is a lie, there is only passion. Through passion, I gain strength. Through strength, I gain power. Through power, I gain victory. Through victory, my chains are broken. The Force shall free me.
I know SWTOR is highly criticized by many , was not at ALL what I expected (but still occasionally enjoy) and has gone F2P...but making $129 million last year can hardly be called "failure" financially. It may have failed to feed our expectations. It may have failed Bioware's intent to satisfy our appetites. It definitely failed EA 's intense desire to gorge on the "feast" of cash. But no one is exactly starving.
* I'm sure this is old news but I did receive an email from Ubisoft for pre-purchase *
-> Imperial Edition =$79.99 for a bunch of virtual fluff + 5 days early access +30days after launch + free copy of Assassins Creed Black Flag.
-> Standard Edition = $59.99 for a little less virtual fluff + 3 days early access + 30days after launch + free copy of Assassins Creed III.
Digital downloads only as far as I could find.
It could be qualified as a failure if you spent over a couple hundred million to develop it.
1. best publicly available data does not = reliable or remotely accurate.
2. Circumstantial evidence is worthless, ask any court of law.
3. Amount of people on a server in a game with a F2P option does not indicate how many are subscribers.
4. You have based your opinion off of worthless information, for what reason? Are you really that hard up to make the game look good? There is zero point in doing this at all. Say you like the game, move on, forming such an opinion makes you look bad.
Those hating have justification, EA does not mingle a games numbers with those of another unless the game is not meeting expectations, this is verifiable with their public data. And as YOU said yourself, this outside company is providing the best data the public has, which speaks volumes that the parent company isn't telling you. Yet jump at the chance to gloat about games doing well.
1. It's more reliable and accurate than no data at all.
2. We aren't in a court of law.
3. True.
4. I've based my opinion on the information that is available. By definition I can't base it on information I don't have. When people state that, in their opinion, the game sucks, I don't respond because that is just an opinion and everybody has different tastes. Generally speaking, I only "defend" the game when somebody tries to state that it is an abject failure.
There is no outward sign that that view is in any way consistent with reality, and it tends to push my buttons when people keep stating that something has failed as a matter of fact, without a shred of evidence, just because they personally *wish* it had failed.
1. Having inaccurate data on hand is not BETTER than no data, wrong information is wrong. No information is telling, it means the company is not bragging like they ALWAYS do when things are going good.
2. Yet we don't send people to prison based on it because its WORTHLESS AND PROVES NOTHING!
3. Yep.
4. So you base opinions on inaccurate information to have an uninformed opinion. Wow, I hope you don't vote.......
The best evidence is that EA, the COMPANY THAT MADE AND RUNS THE GAME, treats SWTOR like it treats all of its games that are not meeting expectations, combining its numbers with those of other games, something it does NOT do with successful games, which they BRAG ABOUT.
THE ONLY PROOF ANYONE NEEDS.
"People who tell you youre awesome are useless. No, dangerous.
They are worse than useless because you want to believe them. They will defend you against critiques that are valid. They will seduce you into believing you are done learning, or into thinking that your work is better than it actually is." ~Raph Koster http://www.raphkoster.com/2013/10/14/on-getting-criticism/
1. Having inaccurate data on hand is not BETTER than no data, wrong information is wrong. No information is telling, it means the company is not bragging like they ALWAYS do when things are going good.
...
4. So you base opinions on inaccurate information to have an uninformed opinion. Wow, I hope you don't vote.......
The best evidence is that EA, the COMPANY THAT MADE AND RUNS THE GAME, treats SWTOR like it treats all of its games that are not meeting expectations, combining its numbers with those of other games, something it does NOT do with successful games, which they BRAG ABOUT.
THE ONLY PROOF ANYONE NEEDS.
If it had made 138 million instead of 139 on the cash shop last year, that would mean the data was inaccurate. There are degrees of accuracy. Without an alternative data source, the only measure we have is the credibility and reputation of the company that provided the only one we do have. It does appear to be reputable.
And I asked you for a citation before on your claims about how EA is reporting the numbers. Did you have that yet?
Peace is a lie, there is only passion. Through passion, I gain strength. Through strength, I gain power. Through power, I gain victory. Through victory, my chains are broken. The Force shall free me.
If it had made 138 million instead of 139 on the cash shop last year, that would mean the data was inaccurate. There are degrees of accuracy. Without an alternative data source, the only measure we have is the credibility and reputation of the company that provided the only one we do have. It does appear to be reputable.
And I asked you for a citation before on your claims about how EA is reporting the numbers. Did you have that yet?
You have no proof it made 139 million, that's what was shown to you. The company is using bogus information gathering methods, and averages to come to conclusions.
And you keep asking for proof from EA over how many threads now? How many more times do people have to post the link to EAs financial reports?!? It will never matter, because you are either trolling or don't care. You keep using the same arguments over and over hoping for a different result.
"People who tell you youre awesome are useless. No, dangerous.
They are worse than useless because you want to believe them. They will defend you against critiques that are valid. They will seduce you into believing you are done learning, or into thinking that your work is better than it actually is." ~Raph Koster http://www.raphkoster.com/2013/10/14/on-getting-criticism/
You have no proof it made 139 million, that's what was shown to you. The company is using bogus information gathering methods, and averages to come to conclusions.
And you keep asking for proof from EA over how many threads now? How many more times do people have to post the link to EAs financial reports?!? It will never matter, because you are either trolling or don't care. You keep using the same arguments over and over hoping for a different result.
How many times? Exactly once would be enough for me. I haven't participated in any threads where such a link was included. I keep using the same argument, because nobody has provided any data source which would lead me to believe the argument is flawed. What reason do I have to assume your characterization of superdataresearch's methods as "bogus" is accurate?
Peace is a lie, there is only passion. Through passion, I gain strength. Through strength, I gain power. Through power, I gain victory. Through victory, my chains are broken. The Force shall free me.
You have no proof it made 139 million, that's what was shown to you. The company is using bogus information gathering methods, and averages to come to conclusions.
And you keep asking for proof from EA over how many threads now? How many more times do people have to post the link to EAs financial reports?!? It will never matter, because you are either trolling or don't care. You keep using the same arguments over and over hoping for a different result.
How many times? Exactly once would be enough for me. I haven't participated in any threads where such a link was included. I keep using the same argument, because nobody has provided any data source which would lead me to believe the argument is flawed. What reason do I have to assume your characterization of superdataresearch's methods as "bogus" is accurate?
Read to your hearts content, which wont matter the next time this is brought up.
"People who tell you youre awesome are useless. No, dangerous.
They are worse than useless because you want to believe them. They will defend you against critiques that are valid. They will seduce you into believing you are done learning, or into thinking that your work is better than it actually is." ~Raph Koster http://www.raphkoster.com/2013/10/14/on-getting-criticism/
"First, extra content and PC free-to-play contributed $213 million, up 15% over the prior year, led by the continued growth in FIFA Ultimate Team, FIFA Online 3, and Star Wars: The Old Republic. "
It does mention two FIFA titles along with TOR, but it makes no comment on the relative weight between them, and gives a number of $213 million. Do we have some specific reason to believe it couldn't be $139 million from TOR, with the remainder split between the two FIFA titles?
Also from that link:
"And finally, subscriptions, advertising, and other digital revenue totaled $66 million, down 16% over the same period last year. This was driven by a decline in POGO subscription and advertising revenue, and a decline in Star Wars: The Old Republic subscription revenue, as the free-to-play offering continues to grow. "
Obviously TOR did not maintain an average of 500,000 subs for the whole year of 2013, as even if this POGO thing weren't included, the revenue amount is less than would be received from an average of 370,000.
Even with that reduced outlook on subscriptions, combined with the cash shop revenue the game is still clearly highly successful for a western MMO with a subscription in 2013, very likely still the second most successful, and still not a bad product to emulate if your goal is to make money and you don't have the nonsensical goal of competing with WoW.
EDIT: I misread the report, those were just the numbers for the quarter. So TOR's cash shop revenue could easily be way more than 139 million, and their subs could be far higher than 500k.
Peace is a lie, there is only passion. Through passion, I gain strength. Through strength, I gain power. Through power, I gain victory. Through victory, my chains are broken. The Force shall free me.
Comments
You do know it is possible for someone to actually think voice acting adds to games, not simply be a "Fanboy," right? I for one wouldn't defend any game choosing not to have voice acting. I may say it is worth playing despite that flaw, but I would still characterize it as a flaw. Does something in the column author's prior history point to uncritical fanboyism, or is that just an assumption on your part?
Peace is a lie, there is only passion.
Through passion, I gain strength.
Through strength, I gain power.
Through power, I gain victory.
Through victory, my chains are broken.
The Force shall free me.
Voice acting can add alot to your game. I am not sure it needs to be expensive voice actors though. The harpies in GW2 sound kinda awful like some guy in the office just filled in after discovering that that they forgot to the harpies. It's still hilarious though.
What games don't need is long boring speeches that you will only hear once. What they do need is little phrases from the NPCs and little discussions to make the game feel alive.
I like voice-overs, personally. I don't care if it is a high profile celeb or not. The voice quests in SW:ToR were great and let me become more immersed in the game. Personal preference I guess. You either like them or don't.
Oh wait... am I supposed to tell people that don't like voice quests that they are stupid or something to that effect? I'm new here.
I think this is more of an adverising piece than an actual discussion article.
You could guesstimate the number of player by torstatus.net and would probably be under 300k(could be a lot less depending on the eu servers) and then you could have a go at subs if you have any idea on other games with a hybrid model.
Apparently the math is that hard:).
Just a point of fact as it could be relevant to the topic. The 139mil comes from a marketing site that has essentially multiplied one random number with another and could bear no resemblance to how much tors revenue actually is. The 500k subs comes from when they released their first expansion and with the way it was done is more like copies sold and highly unlikely to be close to the actual number of subs pre/post expansion. Eve has more than 500k subs and it think there are still some asain games also.
For me the problem is thus: The costs associated with celebrity peerage dont make sense when voicing an RPG - I would rather see that work go to unknowns that dont even own a home as opposed to buying a hollywood actor another house. Buying your gross and Celebrity Peerage are two things directly associated with low quality entertainment.
It is undoubtable that having a higher quantity of unknown voice actors and spending less on hype generation allows one to develop a world with MORE voices and content, making the world we may live in for years so much more realised and immersive.
Still, no point trying to talk sense to the horde of gawpers come to see the emperors new clothes.
When I read the title, the first thing I thought was that "This has got to be the biggest post ever." First of all SWTOR had a ton of voice acting and that game is a failure. Secondly FFXIV has almost no voice acting, and as it got game of the year 2013 from this very site!
Lastly, in the last page of the article you mention that the gameplay of the MMO should be judged separately from the voice acting. This basically negates your entire article by acknowledging what we already know. That voice acting doesn't really contribute anything to the quality of the MMO's gameplay.
I know SWTOR is highly criticized by many , was not at ALL what I expected (but still occasionally enjoy) and has gone F2P...but making $129 million last year can hardly be called "failure" financially. It may have failed to feed our expectations. It may have failed Bioware's intent to satisfy our appetites. It definitely failed EA 's intense desire to gorge on the "feast" of cash. But no one is exactly starving.
* I'm sure this is old news but I did receive an email from Ubisoft for pre-purchase *
-> Imperial Edition =$79.99 for a bunch of virtual fluff + 5 days early access +30days after launch + free copy of Assassins Creed Black Flag.
-> Standard Edition = $59.99 for a little less virtual fluff + 3 days early access + 30days after launch + free copy of Assassins Creed III.
Digital downloads only as far as I could find.
And I would go by those numbers as they are low enough to make EA want to hide them as well as place the games subs far below what some would dare claim it is at.
"People who tell you youre awesome are useless. No, dangerous.
They are worse than useless because you want to believe them. They will defend you against critiques that are valid. They will seduce you into believing you are done learning, or into thinking that your work is better than it actually is." ~Raph Koster
http://www.raphkoster.com/2013/10/14/on-getting-criticism/
Their report may not be the exact number, but it is the best publicly available data, and it is a company which is valued enough in the industry to have made a successful business out of providing these reports. It's true that we haven't had any official comment on the number of subs recently, but we do have the circumstantial evidence that the servers now appear to be just as busy, if not busier, than they were at the time they did announce that number. As for EvE, it's been even longer since they made any official announcement of their numbers than TOR. Last but not least, Asian "subs" don't work the same as western ones, so it's hard to compare the two.
It is theoretically possible that TOR isn't actually the current second banana in games offering subs, but none of the publicly available data would portray that theory as very likely to be accurate.
Peace is a lie, there is only passion.
Through passion, I gain strength.
Through strength, I gain power.
Through power, I gain victory.
Through victory, my chains are broken.
The Force shall free me.
1. best publicly available data does not = reliable or remotely accurate.
2. Circumstantial evidence is worthless, ask any court of law.
3. Amount of people on a server in a game with a F2P option does not indicate how many are subscribers.
4. You have based your opinion off of worthless information, for what reason? Are you really that hard up to make the game look good? There is zero point in doing this at all. Say you like the game, move on, forming such an opinion makes you look bad.
Those hating have justification, EA does not mingle a games numbers with those of another unless the game is not meeting expectations, this is verifiable with their public data. And as YOU said yourself, this outside company is providing the best data the public has, which speaks volumes that the parent company isn't telling you. Yet jump at the chance to gloat about games doing well.
"People who tell you youre awesome are useless. No, dangerous.
They are worse than useless because you want to believe them. They will defend you against critiques that are valid. They will seduce you into believing you are done learning, or into thinking that your work is better than it actually is." ~Raph Koster
http://www.raphkoster.com/2013/10/14/on-getting-criticism/
It doesn't matter if YOU are not focused on end game or not. The game is.
Its entire BASE design is around 3 faction PvP in a central area. The WORLD ITSELF is built around it. Closed off faction lands, closed off central PvP area. Having to be max level to unlock an instanced version of another faction land to play in.
You, you can be focused on never fighting a single mob. The game is what it is. An MMO. A long term game built to try to last for 10s of thousands of hours. Not the perhaps 200 hours of questing content that voice-overs are a part of.
"People who tell you youre awesome are useless. No, dangerous.
They are worse than useless because you want to believe them. They will defend you against critiques that are valid. They will seduce you into believing you are done learning, or into thinking that your work is better than it actually is." ~Raph Koster
http://www.raphkoster.com/2013/10/14/on-getting-criticism/
Good voice acting is great. It really elevates a game. But using named actors was a mistake in my opinion. That's money that could go into game development, and what happens when they want to add new content and the actor demands more money or isn't available.
This is like SWTOR all over again. Yeah...
1. It's more reliable and accurate than no data at all.
2. We aren't in a court of law.
3. True.
4. I've based my opinion on the information that is available. By definition I can't base it on information I don't have. When people state that, in their opinion, the game sucks, I don't respond because that is just an opinion and everybody has different tastes. Generally speaking, I only "defend" the game when somebody tries to state that it is an abject failure.
There is no outward sign that that view is in any way consistent with reality, and it tends to push my buttons when people keep stating that something has failed as a matter of fact, without a shred of evidence, just because they personally *wish* it had failed.
Peace is a lie, there is only passion.
Through passion, I gain strength.
Through strength, I gain power.
Through power, I gain victory.
Through victory, my chains are broken.
The Force shall free me.
It could be qualified as a failure if you spent over a couple hundred million to develop it.
There's a reason the NDA is STILL being used for sure..
1. Having inaccurate data on hand is not BETTER than no data, wrong information is wrong. No information is telling, it means the company is not bragging like they ALWAYS do when things are going good.
2. Yet we don't send people to prison based on it because its WORTHLESS AND PROVES NOTHING!
3. Yep.
4. So you base opinions on inaccurate information to have an uninformed opinion. Wow, I hope you don't vote.......
The best evidence is that EA, the COMPANY THAT MADE AND RUNS THE GAME, treats SWTOR like it treats all of its games that are not meeting expectations, combining its numbers with those of other games, something it does NOT do with successful games, which they BRAG ABOUT.
THE ONLY PROOF ANYONE NEEDS.
"People who tell you youre awesome are useless. No, dangerous.
They are worse than useless because you want to believe them. They will defend you against critiques that are valid. They will seduce you into believing you are done learning, or into thinking that your work is better than it actually is." ~Raph Koster
http://www.raphkoster.com/2013/10/14/on-getting-criticism/
If it had made 138 million instead of 139 on the cash shop last year, that would mean the data was inaccurate. There are degrees of accuracy. Without an alternative data source, the only measure we have is the credibility and reputation of the company that provided the only one we do have. It does appear to be reputable.
And I asked you for a citation before on your claims about how EA is reporting the numbers. Did you have that yet?
Peace is a lie, there is only passion.
Through passion, I gain strength.
Through strength, I gain power.
Through power, I gain victory.
Through victory, my chains are broken.
The Force shall free me.
You have no proof it made 139 million, that's what was shown to you. The company is using bogus information gathering methods, and averages to come to conclusions.
And you keep asking for proof from EA over how many threads now? How many more times do people have to post the link to EAs financial reports?!? It will never matter, because you are either trolling or don't care. You keep using the same arguments over and over hoping for a different result.
"People who tell you youre awesome are useless. No, dangerous.
They are worse than useless because you want to believe them. They will defend you against critiques that are valid. They will seduce you into believing you are done learning, or into thinking that your work is better than it actually is." ~Raph Koster
http://www.raphkoster.com/2013/10/14/on-getting-criticism/
How many times? Exactly once would be enough for me. I haven't participated in any threads where such a link was included. I keep using the same argument, because nobody has provided any data source which would lead me to believe the argument is flawed. What reason do I have to assume your characterization of superdataresearch's methods as "bogus" is accurate?
Peace is a lie, there is only passion.
Through passion, I gain strength.
Through strength, I gain power.
Through power, I gain victory.
Through victory, my chains are broken.
The Force shall free me.
Read to your hearts content, which wont matter the next time this is brought up.
http://investor.ea.com/results.cfm
"People who tell you youre awesome are useless. No, dangerous.
They are worse than useless because you want to believe them. They will defend you against critiques that are valid. They will seduce you into believing you are done learning, or into thinking that your work is better than it actually is." ~Raph Koster
http://www.raphkoster.com/2013/10/14/on-getting-criticism/
Thank you, I'll dig into that.
EDIT: Gone through it now, thanks again.
From your link:
"First, extra content and PC free-to-play contributed $213 million, up 15% over the prior year, led by the continued growth in FIFA Ultimate Team, FIFA Online 3, and Star Wars: The Old Republic. "
It does mention two FIFA titles along with TOR, but it makes no comment on the relative weight between them, and gives a number of $213 million. Do we have some specific reason to believe it couldn't be $139 million from TOR, with the remainder split between the two FIFA titles?
Also from that link:
"And finally, subscriptions, advertising, and other digital revenue totaled $66 million, down 16% over the same period last year. This was driven by a decline in POGO subscription and advertising revenue, and a decline in Star Wars: The Old Republic subscription revenue, as the free-to-play offering continues to grow. "
Obviously TOR did not maintain an average of 500,000 subs for the whole year of 2013, as even if this POGO thing weren't included, the revenue amount is less than would be received from an average of 370,000.
Even with that reduced outlook on subscriptions, combined with the cash shop revenue the game is still clearly highly successful for a western MMO with a subscription in 2013, very likely still the second most successful, and still not a bad product to emulate if your goal is to make money and you don't have the nonsensical goal of competing with WoW.
EDIT: I misread the report, those were just the numbers for the quarter. So TOR's cash shop revenue could easily be way more than 139 million, and their subs could be far higher than 500k.
Peace is a lie, there is only passion.
Through passion, I gain strength.
Through strength, I gain power.
Through power, I gain victory.
Through victory, my chains are broken.
The Force shall free me.