From a Goldman Analyst Perspective on SWTOR

OP is just a spreadsheet jockey. Entry-level kid trying to name drop Goldman Sachs. If he mattered at GS he wouldn't have time to do everything he brags about doing in-game within the short amount of time it's been available. More importantly he wouldn't WANT to. No matter how much "stuff" he may or may not put up his nose.

Don't feed the troll, people.

what market knowledge? what because he predicted games would die ? wow thats amazing.
Studied all these years to make a 50/50 bet lol.
Ok ill be fair i predicted the same things and i was correct to! .. so now i will think off a salesman like story(slick storys go really well with real sellers)and you will all believe me...

Im not saying the OP is not a smart person or that he does not have the knowledge, But the basis he claimes it on is so ez to say on the internet lol.

LOL He's not even that. If he was he would understand that you can not invest in a game. That is like telling someone to invest in a specific type model of car, as opposed to the company that produces it. Or telling someone to invest specifically in the I-Phone 4 instead of Apple.

Basic, MASSIVE, glaring error that anyone in the business he claims to be in would never make.

Thats the only analasys of his post you need, you don't even have to move on to the groundless assumptions, incorrect comparisons, spelling and gramatical errors.

The sad thing is all the nay-sayers rushing to him to champion his cause like he is their white knight.

While there are some key things that I do agree with I dont completely agree with you. The biggest thing that hit home was I am in the same boat with the sub for another month or two to see if they get their **** together before i cancel.

Right now I am having fun enough but with the lack of some major features that should be mandatory for a MMO at this point I really dont see myself subbing past a month or two....which sucks cause I REALLY wanted to commit to this MMO

In the current MMO climate companies have at most one to three months to get an MMO on stable ground after launch. This isn't 2004 and people aren't going to sub and sit idly by for 6 months while they wait for a game to get it's act together.

This game will undoubtedly lose a lot of subs after the initial 30 day sub that came with the game, that's to be expected with any MMO. Some of those will be from people that don't gel with the game regardless of bugs, but they will also lose subs from people who are not willing to stick around while they sift through the hundreds of bugs that are in-game.

Even people who are patient and are willing to give Bioware a chance to rectify things will likely only hang around for 2 or 3 months more before they become completely fed up with things and totally lose faith in Bioware's ability to manage an MMO.

I have to be honest when I say this game's launch is starting to feel more and more like what happened with DC Universe Online. They had a similar problem with poor customer support, bad UI, gamebreaking bugs, and not enough communication. I initially thought that game was a blast and enjoyed leveling up, but once I hit end-game I quickly began to realize that there wasn't enough substance to warrant maintaining a sub. I never even bothered to renew my sub for DCUO after the initial 30 days.

Yeah this game had some cool things going for it. I did enjoy leveling up and some of the stories were very cool. Really though, some of the dialogs can become a bit tedious especially when you've run through the same flashpoint 10 times or you're just doing a basic mission that really doesn't tie into a bigger chain as a whole. I find myself spamming my spacebar more than actually listening to the voiceovers.

There just seems to be a lot that was overlooked and it's very unfortunate.

Not only this, but even a "dying" MMO can be an insanely profitable venture for the company. Half-a-million *$15/month is a lot of cashflow, even without microtransactions. SWTOR today is over a million subs, even if a good amount are just initial or curious.

Would the OP have told whether to invest in EA or Bioware before SWTOR came out? That'd be useful information, and he'd likely have been wrong if he based his conclusions on beta testing; his experience wouold be similar but with more bugs and less polish.

While WoW has the advantage of polish, both Bioware and the Star Wars franchise bring a hardcore fandom that will be hard to shake without royal screwups, and talking up the game going forward. Even if SWTOR doesn't "grow", it will still be profitable.

Real investors don't look at five people posting on a forum every day and call that the audience speaking. Basic maths is a prerequisite of getting involved in investing. Lost credibility at that point. Now if I see this piece on an actual investor's site about EA & Bioware, with some real numbers, I'll pay attention. Somehow I suspect I won't.

Also, investing in EA & Bioware != investing in TOR. When you buy the game & pay subscription, you invest in TOR. When you buy EA shares, you invest in EA. A real investor would also know this distinction.

Put simply, Goldman Sachs are much better at investing than this.

Indeed.

elsehwere in this thread someone claimed all responses to this threat only concern the OP's credentials and not his points. Whatever, most of his points are based entirely on his "credentials", or more over the fact of what he says he is. When you remove all of the "statistics" he throws around his actual post regarding the problems with SWTOR is near non-existent. But he has some good points in there that deserve attention.

But I'll throw my hat into the ring and tear this interesting traipse into fiction apart just the same.

Before I start first let me say no one cares about your "credentials." Who you anonymously claim to be on an internet forum means absolutely nothing without proof to back it up. Saying you are an analyst for Goldman Sachs impresses me just about as much as the self-proclaimed Emperor of Austrailia earlier in this thread.

That said, here are the tidbits of info you provided that I have issue with. These things really simply prove you are not who you claim to be, not that it matters but you turn into a troll after you're outed so here we go..

First of all this. these weren't hard predictions. Anyone could have predicted Vanguard was going to flop once SOE took over publishing. FF14 you really only needed to play the beta to realize what was going to happen here.

Aion I wouldn't largely call a failure, as of late 2011 MMOdata shows that it has dropped to just under 3 million users. (Yet another figure you got wrong, it also topped out at 4 million,. not 3.5)

Warhammer I also predicted as a failure because of the version of the IP used. Had Mythic went with Warhammer 40k I think things might have turned out a whole lot differently.

This is all irrelevant however. All 4 of these games are STILL running. Vanguard is no gem, but Aion is still rather strong, and FFXIV has worked a lot to turn things around and plan to start charging their monthly sub this month in fact.

EA has also been interviewed saying they will finally begin butting forth effort to develop Warhammer further, though I do believe it's far too late to save that game.

WoW grew to 12 nearly 13 million subscriptions in mid 2008 and again in late 2010.

An analyst I would think would know his numbers and use them appropriately especially if he is to be taken seriously, considering WoW's total subscription numbers are pretty common knowledge in this industry.

In terms of relevance you also fail to make recognition that WoW, or any other MMO for that matter had just as many if not more issues at launch than SWTOR does currently. You point out that WoW built itself up to the millions it has but also fail to acknowledge that it did this by massive developments post launch, just like every other MMO out there. You also fail to make the connection that SWTOR is no different in this regard.


Now you are pulling numbers out of thin air. Unles you have a source this entire statement can be completely disregarded as "BS". The last word from Bioware was SWTOR say over 1 million players.

But lets break this down anyway.

World of Warcraft is a game that is literally split in two markets. It has a western market that includes North America and the European Union. It's Eastern martk includes, well Asian. It's asian market makes up over half of it's total player base, roughly 6 million of the older number of 12 million subs. That leaves 6 million in it';s western market divided among Europe, North America and Latin America.

For SWTOR to have 4-5 million players just a few weeks after launch would mean THIS GAME, is very much so the most successful MMO launch ever in the history of the genre. Because SWTOR only has a western market. 4-5 million would more than cover their initial investment in development and make any subsequent earnings total profit.

Also, for a game to launch with just one or two million players under the ranking king of MMOs in a related market would be a HUGE deal. And for this game to have very little to ZERO server issues taking on that kind of load, Bioware should be considered deities in the MMO genre from this moment forth.

4-5 million and shrinking daily is simply absurd.


This is likewise partially wrong, and again if you were truly an analyst you would know better than that.

300 million, even 150 million development costs were debunked. I'd estimate at most this game costs roughly 80 million to produce, give or take a few. So there's that to consider. By estimated reports the game sold 900,000 copies in digital downloads in North America alone. Not counting hard copies or the European Union.

In their October earnings call I believe it was, EA stated 500,000 subscribers would make this game successful, now true the give no time frame for what kind of longevity would be required at 500,000 subcribers but if gives you a round about idea.

See your problem is the same as many people on this forum. You're under the impression that any new MMO has to either kill or match World of Warcraft or it just isn't successful, which is ridiculous at best. Success is variable, more factors are figured into a game's success than just what the competition does.

Which by the way competition in the MMO market isn't like it is everywhere else. Multiple games can and do exist alongside each other while not really affecting one another to a large degree, often because different games offer different things to different people. I myself have had upwards of 5 subscriptions going at the same time because I enjoyed different aspects of each game. I almost ALWAYS have at least two. This idiotic concept that MMO players can only choose one is exactly that, idiotic.

That's a matter of opinion really. I've thoroughly enjoyed the test drive. I can honestly say I haven't felt this level of addiction to an MMO since World of Warcraft, and I've played plenty over 30 to be exact over the course of 17 years. I might even go so far as to say that even the addiction I felt to WoW doesn't hold a candle to my addiction to SWTOR once the ball really starts rolling and new features and content are added.

But let's be honest the forums appear one sided because most people who are enjoying the game, aren't here trolling threads and looking for a fight. They are in the game playing, having a good time. So saying "the forums have spoken" is like talking smack about someone when they aren't even around, then telling your friends how you sure showed him.

These forums, as if the case with ANY game are a very small representation of a playerbase and are subjective at best. Of course a lot of people are here complaining, they don't like the game and don't want to play but don't have anything better to go do.

I'm not upset that there are people who don't like this game. It's to be expected. There are people who don't like WoW. Big deal, it's their opinion.


Bioware just launched this MMO a little more than three weeks ago. They have millions of dollars wrapped up into the game and their reputation for further continuing in this gaming genre on the line.

I highly doubt they are ready to throw in the towel just yet, since the freebies haven't even flown the coop yet. Not to mention that there's plenty of money to throw behind this game if EA so chooses.

As for the rest of you post, which is small once all of this **** is out of the way.

It's mostly the bugs. Well bugs are to be expected in an MMO even ones out for years or even decades. It's especially expected, or at least should be from a newly launched one.

As is stated in every thread defending this game, you can ask for immediate changes all you want. But no one has the magic to snap their fingers and insta-fix anything. These bugs will take time to solve, Bioware has actually been doing a very decent job considering the time frame of getting patches out and fixing what they could off the bat. Now we are told their focus is entirely on the major bugs first and we'll see updates to content, PvP, and combat this very month. It's a matter of patience. If patience is something you or anyone else on this forum doesn't have, then you're in the wrong damn genre of gaming.

You also mentioned grind. Okay, this is an MMO, MMOs have grind it's just a part of their nature. Older games like Everquest, FFXI, Ultima Online were kings of grind, it was arguably terrible. Games like WoW, Rift, part of AoC, ect... have done a lot of work to reduce grind and make the leveling process more enjoyable. SWTOR has taken this a slight step forward by adding a highly developed engaging story into the mix.

But I find it interesting that you seem to tote WoW as a pinnacle of success when it's end game is possibly more so the rat race than any other. So what exactly is the problem here?

Seems to me it doesn't matter what is done people are going to complain.

This very forum lkast night was proof. We say people complain about downtime but if there was no downtime they'd complain that there's no patches being applied.


EU players complain that the downtime was during their prime time, yet if they split the maintenance and did NA, then EU, EU players would compalin that they weren't first and vice versa.

It's an endless struggle and you're not going to please everyone.

Your only truly legitimate points are nothing that hasn't already been brought up.

Combat delay-

I personally do not experience this much, and I think it's been blown entirely out of proportion. However, it is still an issue and needs to be adjusted to ensure a smoother method of gameplay. But it's far from game breaking.

Customer service-

I will agree with this with anyone, Bioware's CS needs to step it up and stop acting stupid. I've had a couple situations myself where I've dealt with customer service that really didn't even comprehend the problem much less offer any solution to fix it.

I could argue that they are overwhelmed at the moment, and the sheer volume of issues just isn't conducive to answering everyone in a timely or coherent fashion, but I can't really excuse it so i won't disagree with you there. But Blizzard customer service liekwise is terrible, as is Rift's, FFXI's was non existent, and any SOE game you're really love to reach through your monitor and strangle someone.

Bioware DOES need to be much more interactive with it's playerbase and explain more in detail what is going on. this secretive garbage was okay in development, they wanted to keep a lid on things. But the cloak an dagger is pointless now. So again I'll agree.

But neither of these issues necessarily mark a game for destruction at least not on the level you want to manifest.

Lack of Community-

This made me laugh. I can count on one hand the number of times I visited a server forum in an MMO. Communities in MMOs aren't created on forums they are created in game. This point is utterly ridiculous.

Ambiguity -

Combat log, yes it would be nice to have one. However, it isn't a necessity and not something thqat couldn't be added relatively easily. Honestly I check a combat log very rarely. often just to find out what killed me.

Abilities? I know all of my abilities in game do, I know how they work. I read tooltips, all the information you need is right there.


Overall I'm glad you of sound enough mind to actually be patient and give the game a chance, because that's what needs to happen, this game needs time to develop post launch like every other MMO in the past and future does, it's simply how MMos work.

I've said on this forum countless times, a launch build is just a foundation, everything else is built from there. this is true for SWTOR, it was true for WoW, Everquest, Rift. it will be true for GW2, Warhammer 40k, Blizzard's Titan, and so forth.

The main reason MMOs fail at launch post-WoW is because of the MMO community as a whole. There are so many people now in this genre that don't have a single clue about how a launched MMO is, be cause most of them didn't even exist in this genre until long after WoW had developed into a powerhouse, they'd never even seen a launched MMO before they began playing WoW.

Then they ventured to a new game thinking well WoW is a standard for me so this new game should have everything WoW has plus more right? Well it won't because that's not how it works, and even those that did a very good job as photocopying WoW like Rift still failed.

So basically the MMO gets black-balled right out of launch and they fail before they were even ever given a chance to succeed.

And that rings so true on this forum. Just days after launch people were expecting perfection. Perfection doesn't even exist in single player titles, it sure as hell doesn't exist in the MMO market.

Short of it is, if people don't want to play the game in the state it's in. Fine, don't.. give the game a month or two and come back, see how it is then. I'm sure it'll have a free trial or an email asking you to retry it. If it still fails your heavy expectations you've lost nothing.

Conversely if you're not willing to give the game a 2nd chance after continued development then to hell with you, we're better off without needy impatient people anyway.

/thread.

Goldman...


HAHAHAHAHAHA

I know why don't you start offering mortages to people who have no credit, no stable income and are vastly under-qualified just make sure your hit your quota. Then package those up and sell those to other banks. Then when those people can't pay and your projections are wrong, go crying to Washington that you need money.