This is very true.

 

I feel like EA is trying to become Disney -- but is the incompetent younger sibling.

 

Disney made sucking money out of people an Art form. EA turned it into S&M.

That is probably the best comparison I've ever heard lol. Disney has it down to a science!!! They build your childhood memories, just to sell them back to you in the form of video games, entertainment and toys for your own children. It's brilliant!!!

Yikes!

 

If you think TOR offers "slower, less action-oriented and more strategic combat" then your brain would explode into a billion pieces if you tried EQ, Vanguard, CoH, or any other pre-WoW MMO. TOR is like Duke Nukem on 40 gallons of Red Bull compared to those.

I've played many turn-based games, where a single turn takes many minutes. I've played text-based MUDs, where you had to write commands to fight.

That doesn't make SWtOR combat crazy-fast. The point is, you don't have to constantly run around, jump and dodge, while face-rolling on your keyboard to spam all the skills you have, because theres no cooldowns, everything is AoE and it doesn't matter what order you launch your skills in. The combat in SWtOR has steady pace and it's neither to fast, nor to slow, for me.

Why not? They have more than made their money back. The game sold 2million copies at launch alone. At $60 each thats $120mill, not counting deluxe and collector's editions.

 

At 6 months in, the game was at somewhere between 500k-1mil subscribers. We'll lowball it and call it 500k, 500k x $15 x 6months= another $45mil. Again, this number is much lower than it would actually be, since this is the sub number at the end of the time period, there were several months where they were much much higher. If we took an average, call it 750k per month, that number rises to $67.5 mill. This number is probably still a significant lowball, but its closer.

 

That's $187.5mill made in the first 6 months alone, lowballed.

 

We are at over a year in now, and do you really think subs have decreased below 500k since then? Do you really think they aren't making a fortune off free to play? We aren't even counting additional box sales after launch here.

 

Why wouldn't you make that investment again?

1) EA didn't get $60 a copy. They got significantly less. Let's call it half for $60 mil.

2) Your average subscription is probably more accurate than your lowball, call it $70 mil for easy math.

That's $130 mil, but that doesn't count expenses post-launch or revenue beyond 6 months after launch.

The NYT and LAT reported in December 2011 and January 2012 respectively that wall street analysts believe the game cost between $150 and $200 million to develop.

Have they made their money back?

Actually, trying to do the math based on assumption and innuendo is a fool's errand. With companies like EA, it's much more enlightening to look at their actions.

Their action, in this case, is that they keep the servers open and continue to release features. Since this is EA, the money-grubbing "evil" games empire and not some gracious, generous charity, I think we can safely assume the game is profitable.

1) EA didn't get $60 a copy. They got significantly less. Let's call it half for $60 mil.

 

2) Your average subscription is probably more accurate than your lowball, call it $70 mil for easy math.

 

That's $130 mil, but that doesn't count expenses post-launch or revenue beyond 6 months after launch.

 

The NYT and LAT reported in December 2011 and January 2012 respectively that wall street analysts believe the game cost between $150 and $200 million to develop.

 

Have they made their money back?

 

Actually, trying to do the math based on assumption and innuendo is a fool's errand. With companies like EA, it's much more enlightening to look at their actions.

 

Their action, in this case, is that they keep the servers open and continue to release features. Since this is EA, the money-grubbing "evil" games empire and not some gracious, generous charity, I think we can safely assume the game is profitable.

With all MMO's, I think it comes down to if they can see a legitimate chance of making their development costs back, then they'll keep the lights on. Once they reach that point, the profit margin on an MMO (according to Blizzard) is 90% profit. If they make it to that point, it's all gravy.

I'm pretty sure this game sucking has more to do with Hero Engine than EA's money.

Bioware can't add guild flagships, every cool feature you've suggested, etc because of Hero Engine.

I'm pretty sure this game sucking has more to do with Hero Engine than EA's money.

Bioware can't add guild flagships, every cool feature you've suggested, etc because of Hero Engine.

Actually last I heard reading the Dev answers to customer questions they were looking to add such a feature. They have been steadily communicating with there player base and the expansion was a good deal for the price they sold it. Right now its quality of life issues they seem to be working on but I do look forward to the end of this year

With all MMO's, I think it comes down to if they can see a legitimate chance of making their development costs back, then they'll keep the lights on. Once they reach that point, the profit margin on an MMO (according to Blizzard) is 90% profit. If they make it to that point, it's all gravy.

edited for better info

With all BUSINESSES, sunk costs are irrelevant. At least in businesses run by intelligent managers. So it doesn't matter if they ever make their development costs back. Those dollars are spent and aside from deciding who to fire or promote based on profitability, they have no bearing on any go-forward plan.

The go-forward plan is based on the perceived ability to make a profit over the next period, whatever that period is, usually a fiscal quarter. You have to invest $X in that period to keep the game going. You'll make $Y. If $Y is sufficiently greater than $X, the game goes on.

So by way of example, let's say my sunk costs are $200,000,000, of which I've already recovered $100,000,000 so I'm "in the hole" $100,000,000. Not good. Gotta have a chat with whomever I put in charge of that project.

Now let's say I know with certainty I can make about $1,000,000 profit per month if I keep the service going. That's $3,000,000 profit per quarter.

At that rate, I break even on my development investment in about 2 years. Or I may not. Gaming is volatile. Any number of things can happen in 2 years time that may draw my players, and thus my revenue, away.

But honestly, that's irrelevant. Because I'm an intelligent business-runner, there's no way in hell I'm going to shut down an arm of my business that brings in $3,000,000 profit each quarter, regardless how much I've already spent to get there. That would be like lighting 10 bundles of $100 bills on fire each month, and not even our former, beloved CEO Johnny Rico is wealthy enough to do that!

edited for better info

 

With all BUSINESSES, sunk costs are irrelevant. At least in businesses run by intelligent managers. So it doesn't matter if they ever make their development costs back. Those dollars are spent and aside from deciding who to fire or promote based on profitability, they have no bearing on any go-forward plan.

 

The go-forward plan is based on the perceived ability to make a profit over the next period, whatever that period is, usually a fiscal quarter. You have to invest $X in that period to keep the game going. You'll make $Y. If $Y is sufficiently greater than $X, the game goes on.

 

So by way of example, let's say my sunk costs are $200,000,000, of which I've already recovered $100,000,000 so I'm "in the hole" $100,000,000. Not good. Gotta have a chat with whomever I put in charge of that project.

 

Now let's say I know with certainty I can make about $1,000,000 profit per month if I keep the service going. That's $3,000,000 profit per quarter.

 

At that rate, I break even on my development investment in about 2 years. Or I may not. Gaming is volatile. Any number of things can happen in 2 years time that may draw my players, and thus my revenue, away.

 

But honestly, that's irrelevant. Because I'm an intelligent business-runner, there's no way in hell I'm going to shut down an arm of my business that brings in $3,000,000 profit each quarter, regardless how much I've already spent to get there. That would be like lighting 10 bundles of $100 bills on fire each month, and not even our former, beloved CEO Johnny Rico is wealthy enough to do that!

I /approve of this post. Spoken like someone who actually understands how business works, which clearly you do.