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EA Statement on Subscriber Numbers


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Found this on TORWARS (http://torwars.com/2012/08/06/torwars-podcast-93-subscription-numbers-and-free-to-play/)

 

EA Statement on Subscriber Numbers

 

 

“First, the game many of you have been tracking closely, Star Wars: The Old Republic. Although it launched well, subscriptions have been on a declining trajectory and have now slipped below one million. Last year we announced that the breakeven point was roughly 500,000 subscribers. And while we are well above that today, that’s not good enough. The message from players exiting the game is clear – 40 percent say they were turned off by the monthly subscription. And many indicated they would come back if we offered a free-to-play model. Our plan now is to pivot and provide a two-tiered pricing plan which will make the game more accessible and grow the audience. The new pricing will go into effect in November.”

 

MMORPG Interview with Jeff Hickman and Matthew Bromberg – Source

 

“They plan on releasing these every six weeks, and they’ll include different sorts of content each time: warzones, operations, public events, and so on (even a mix of all three might be possible). And while there’s no set price point for each update, they plan to break it down into different options enough so that PVP folks can focus on buying the content they want, and dungeon folks can focus on what they want, while others can buy everything in one package if they want as well. They also have a brand new event for all subscribers coming in August which is a public world event like the Rhakgoul Invasion.”

 

Game Analysts Predict that F2P could bring 50 million Monthly Users to SWTOR

 

Wedbush currently has a 12-month price target of $29 and a rating of “Outperform” for EA. The market is reacting positively to EA’s fiscal news, which involved making Star Wars: The Old Republic free. EA’s stock closed up almost six percent at $11.68.

 

Wedbush Securities analyst Michael Pachter:

 

“We believe the free-to-play option and lower retail price will combine to significantly increase the number of Star Wars players by the end of the year as the two largest barriers to entry for potential Star Wars gamers (apart from an appreciation for the franchise and PC gaming) have been significantly reduced or eliminated. We expect the network effect to augment the number of gamers further. In the long-term, we believe the adjustments will result in incremental revenue and earnings growth as high-margin Cartel Coin purchases by a much larger pool of gamers and additional advertising generate more revenue than was lost through declining subscription fees and the lower MSRP.”

 

Ultimately, Pachter believes that Star Wars now has the potential to “attract at least 10 million Monthly Active Users indefinitely, with upside to perhaps 50 million.” He added, “Thus, we believe that contribution from the model shift could be significant for years to come.”

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Old article.

 

The result the first time it appeared on these forums was a firestorm. Please use search. :cool:

 

The salient take away was that EA says *WE* the players left SWTOR because of the subscription instead of the lack of content and features that many AAA MMORPGs have and which we have grown accustomed.

 

If you want to ADD to that the recient craptastic Patch 1.4, I would be surprised if EAware keeps 500K subscribers if they don't fix many of the errors introduced and REintroduced with this patch. :rolleyes:

Edited by Urael
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Turned off by the subscription? No.. I thought they were leaving because of the game-breaking bugs that were never fixed.

This!!! No one is mentioning that ToR is most bugged game to date. Every patch breaks up something. Game is not final product, it is a beta test version. And we actually paying to be a beta testers. :rolleyes:

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Turned off by the subscription? No.. I thought they were leaving because of the game-breaking bugs that were never fixed.

 

That and lack of end game content. The sub wasn't the issue. Soon that reality will hit Bioware too.

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EA needs new analysts. Their theory is wrong. There is no way in high hell that this game will get 50 million subscribers, EVER. They predict that by next year. LMAO.

 

Sure some people will come back... including myself. Only to finish the stories and never pay a penny for it. I wont be paying for new Ops. I wont be paying for new warzones. I wont be buying any garbage fluff from the store.

 

People didnt leave over 15 bucks a month. They left because it wasnt worth paying 15 bucks a month for. Most of those people are not likely to pay much money in the store either.

 

50 million people ROFL. Do they expect that everyone playing farmville is going to all of a sudden play this game?

Edited by Soluss
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I agree and so do most of those in the MMO community. No way will it happen.

 

I do think SWTOR could get back up to that 2 million mark IF they make some significant changes. I think F2P is the only way to inflate the numbers, but I think the true value is if they start listening to feedback.

 

Granted, some feedback is reviewed and acted on (not sure how, but it's happening).

 

That 1000 Papercuts is an excellent example of a model they should look into. A focus group working alongside with BW to develop a better product for everyone. Heck I'd jump onboard to help make it a better product and so would many others that love the game, but hate it's death spiral that it's begun. Signing NDA's and such would be in order, but it's worth it to BW to get engaged with customers. I don't think DEV's play this game themselves or more would be fixed prior to deployment.

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At the end of the day the elephant in the room is still revolving around the subscription fees though. I'm pretty sure if you didn't have to pay the monthly fee, you'd try to work your way through the bugs because hey, you're "not paying anything". I've seen more "I'm going to F2P as soon as it launches" posts on the forums here than "I'm unsubbing and never coming back ever" posts. You can probably be sure that a fair amount of the currently unsubbed-in-dissatisfaction players are going to log in after F2P launches even if just to check it out because perceptionwise, free gets equivocated to risk-free.
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I agree and so do most of those in the MMO community. No way will it happen.

 

I do think SWTOR could get back up to that 2 million mark IF they make some significant changes. I think F2P is the only way to inflate the numbers, but I think the true value is if they start listening to feedback.

 

Granted, some feedback is reviewed and acted on (not sure how, but it's happening).

 

That 1000 Papercuts is an excellent example of a model they should look into. A focus group working alongside with BW to develop a better product for everyone. Heck I'd jump onboard to help make it a better product and so would many others that love the game, but hate it's death spiral that it's begun. Signing NDA's and such would be in order, but it's worth it to BW to get engaged with customers. I don't think DEV's play this game themselves or more would be fixed prior to deployment.

 

Unfortunately, Bioware has always worked with "focus groups". They called them "internal testers". I say this is unfortunate... because its the internal testers they have been listening to all along. Bad decision after bad decision, was made in beta and currently, due to listening to these internal testers and not the people playing the game.

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50 million people ROFL. Do they expect that everyone playing farmville is going to all of a sudden play this game?

 

Of course, because when it goes F2P, the price and risk barrier to entry is even going to be lower than WoW's. I'm suffering through some of the same annoying bugs as the rest of you but I'm still hesitant to drop the coin on MoP because that's an extra $30 initial entry fee to start it (since I'm not getting this month's swtor $15 back even if I unsubbed today).

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Old article.

 

The result the first time it appeared on these forums was a firestorm. Please use search. :cool:

 

The salient take away was that EA says *WE* the players left SWTOR because of the subscription instead of the lack of content and features that many AAA MMORPGs have and which we have grown accustomed.

 

If you want to ADD to that the recient craptastic Patch 1.4, I would be surprised if EAware keeps 500K subscribers if they don't fix many of the errors introduced and REintroduced with this patch. :rolleyes:

 

Agreed. What they didn't elaborate on the 40% not wanting to pay the sub fee, was the words before that, which was "game is not worth....".

 

Free or sub, nobody wants a broken game, with subpar development. Period.

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Because I believe the issue for people is playing and paying for two MMO's. I think the FTP option will bring in more people in to the game but I do not think it will be as high as they suspect. It is still really hard free or not to have the time in your day to play two different MMO's. You got to draw the line and let one go.

 

Thats what happend here with SWToR. People went back to the other MMO they have played for years because of the time invested and the people they have there. They are attached! It was never because this game is bad. This game is awesome. FTP or not this game will be the one game I pay a sub for each month because for me it is worth it. I just had to let myself move on from the other MMO I played for over 7yrs also say goodbye to a great many good people..

 

One day EA and Bioware realize that factor. They will understand that this game isn't fail and a success in its own way. One that with some effort and hard work could infact one day be king of all MMO's despite the limitation so many put on it from the Hero engine.

Edited by Gryphandor
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Turned off by the subscription? No.. I thought they were leaving because of the game-breaking bugs that were never fixed.

 

Just for the record - what game-breaking bugs are we talking about?

 

Please ... give me a list of 10 or so and not a rant. It's just that, while I've come across the occasional annoying snafu ... I can't pinpoint anything that's stopped me playing the game.

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Of course, because when it goes F2P, the price and risk barrier to entry is even going to be lower than WoW's. I'm suffering through some of the same annoying bugs as the rest of you but I'm still hesitant to drop the coin on MoP because that's an extra $30 initial entry fee to start it (since I'm not getting this month's swtor $15 back even if I unsubbed today).

 

The idea of F2P is to not have free players but to have players that will pay for content. The barrier for that content is still money. When they release new content, for F2P people, it will be no different then what you just said. You will have to drop coin on that just like MoP.

 

Even still, 50 million people is more then ambitious guestimate

Edited by Soluss
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Just for the record - what game-breaking bugs are we talking about?

 

Please ... give me a list of 10 or so and not a rant. It's just that, while I've come across the occasional annoying snafu ... I can't pinpoint anything that's stopped me playing the game.

 

Ill give you 2 AMD and nvidia graphic issues since launch. I Still have problems after doing everything possible my end, currently I'm reinstalling after a couple months break during that time I've been playing wow with no issues on any of my systems, if I get the slightest blurp here I'm gone, had enough of it. They can't fix a graphic issues like tearing and fractling. Then I can't be bothered to keep playing.

Edited by ckjawa
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Just for the record - what game-breaking bugs are we talking about?

 

Please ... give me a list of 10 or so and not a rant. It's just that, while I've come across the occasional annoying snafu ... I can't pinpoint anything that's stopped me playing the game.

 

I have a guildmate who's game worked fine until 1.4.. now if there is anything more than 1 NPC around her, her frame rate drops to around 1 frame a minute. Try raiding with that. The only answer she's gotten from CS is "We're aware of the issue and are working on it". Why should she keep paying $15 a month for a game she can't even play?

 

I have a 7850 Radeon card and I see "shivering" with text in my chat window constantly. It gives me a headache to try reading anything there. I usually just SS and then alt-tab out to go look at the screenshot to read it.

 

Schematics vanish from your inventory if you've learned them and try to learn them again. As I understand, this was an old bug that was fixed and is now back.

 

The False Emperor FP - clicking the glowie during the second boss fight often does nothing, allowing the ship to build to 400% damage and wipe the team.

 

Several of my guildies have had this one: Upon attempting to board your ship, the loading screen freezes, turns black, then the game crashes with no error windows. When trying to log back in, you get the message that the toon is already logged in. It can be up to 5 days before CS gets around to unlocking it for you. One of my guildmates has had this happen 3 times on the same toon.

 

And those are just a few I've seen first hand.

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The sad reality is that no one at EA appears to even have a clue. Like many others have said, the issue is not $15 a month, it's lack of content and fixes. When you add that to the fact that their "increased communication" ended two days after they announced it, and this pathetic excuse for a patch, the future looks bleak. This problem goes all the way back to beta, and EA/BW refusing to accept or even allow negative feedback, or criticism. What we need is an entire new team to work with. Unfortunately, I'm not sure that EA is willing to invest, what would be needed, to get this game on track. Possibly, the biggest hurdle, is the outdated game engine, and the overwhelming reliance on cut-scenes and voice-overs. These things make adding good amounts of content in a timely and efficient manner, very difficult. Again, something they were told in beta. Edited by Darvus
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