The sales rate has slowed down yes, since it was insane at the start that doesn't really come off as something negative though. Bottom line is that the free month players most likely make up a relatively small portion of the 1.7 million subscribers announced, despite you trying to make it seem otherwise.

Soo, you saying that relatively small portion? how much is that, 20% are on free month? so they sold 400k boxes in past 30 days? I would describe that sale rate with more stronger word than "slowed down".

I'm really going to be curious to see what the numbers are when Guild Wars 2 gets released. Not many people that I have talked to online seem interested in making SWTOR their long term MMORPG home. And maybe the day and age of "This is the game I play with my guild!" is over with, and maybe we'll see MMO gamers jumping from one new release or expansion pack to the next. The future is hard to predict, except for the part where I know I won't be paying for another month of this game.

Guild Wars, as a B2P game, is not in the same market. It's in the same market as a single player game in terms of shelling out the cash, because there is no sub.

How can you be certain of that ? It's a fairly ambiguous term to use in a situation like this.

Are you saying that when you say most in regards to something you sometimes actually mean less than half? You must confuse people left and right.

I'm really going to be curious to see what the numbers are when Guild Wars 2 gets released. Not many people that I have talked to online seem interested in making SWTOR their long term MMORPG home. And maybe the day and age of "This is the game I play with my guild!" is over with, and maybe we'll see MMO gamers jumping from one new release or expansion pack to the next. The future is hard to predict, except for the part where I know I won't be paying for another month of this game.

Many of the people I talk to wont even consider GW2 an mmo nor even think about buying it.

I'm really going to be curious to see what the numbers are when Guild Wars 2 gets released. Not many people that I have talked to online seem interested in making SWTOR their long term MMORPG home. And maybe the day and age of "This is the game I play with my guild!" is over with, and maybe we'll see MMO gamers jumping from one new release or expansion pack to the next. The future is hard to predict, except for the part where I know I won't be paying for another month of this game.

Considering all the social network numbers of GW2 compared to those of SWTOR (which is really all we have) GW2's hype is quite low in comparison.

The hardcore MMO players and PVPers (which are pretty much the only ones hyped for GW2) are nothing compared to the mainstream.

Hey guys.......not so quick

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/ea-beats-targets-on-sales-gain-forecast-off-2012-02-01?link=MW_story_featstor

He was asked to break that down on the earnings call -- listen to it.

As a chartered accountant (Canadian CPA equivalent) that works in financial reporting.

 

Whenever a company releases information into the public domain such as subscribers etc. it has to be supportable by hard data and has been vetted through several layers of review. The penalties for releasing misleading or false information into the public domain is severe, thus public companies (especially one as large as EA) has a lot to lose by slipping up.

 

HOWEVER, a company will only choose to release information that will give them the best light possible (unless its compulsory by law). Any information that you're getting has already been spun, but you can rest assured that the spun information would be supportable by hard data.

 

You also typically have to take spun data with a grain of salt and try and read between the lines as others have done (i.e. the 1.7 figure is composed of free first monthers and credit card accounts)

While you're partially right, you're partially wrong. These people that "read between the lines", forgot to read everything INCLUDING the things on the lines. It clearly states that "MOST of those 1.7m are paying at this point.", so while of course companies (unless the laws requires it) only release data that helps them, that does not mean that the data that is beneficial is necessarily incorrect. If that was what you intended to mean, then that is a non sequitur.

Are you saying that when you say most in regards to something you sometimes actually mean less than half? You must confuse people left and right.

No about it being significantly more than 51%. Could mean 60%, 80%, etc. Fair amount of wiggle room using that word.

Yeah, you do know that quite a bit of that 7.5 million per month will get eaten up by other things like LucasArts' share of the licensing agreement, overhead, operating expenses, etc. right?

Yeah, but i dont get how they will break even with 500k subs unless they ment get eaven with monthly costs. They gotten about 60 mil from box sales and game cost 120-200 mil to make on many sources, some are even higher or a bit lower.

Hey guys.......not so quick

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/ea-beats-targets-on-sales-gain-forecast-off-2012-02-01?link=MW_story_featstor

Unless we have all the numbers such as how many pre-orders and how many bought the game after Dec 20, 2011 it's all a guessing game.. Either way I don't see a lot of people buying the game during Jan as anyone who wanted to play it right away would of pre-ordered it... So jan sales were maybe around 100k or so... I've yet to talk to anyone in game who didn't pre-order the game. I imagine with all the recent good ratings from magazines and gaming sites that Feb/March will have some pretty decent sale numbers for SWTOR...

Soo, you saying that relatively small portion? how much is that, 20% are on free month? so they sold 400k boxes in past 30 days? I would describe that sale rate with more stronger word than "slowed down".

I bet you would.

Btw you do realise that last month was January? As in the month that follows Christmas and New Years? Also known as the poorest month of the year.

you sure about that ?

 

http://www.nasdaq.com/symbol/ea/after-hours

 

try harder

Dang, higher than I expected in after-hours. The real test will be tomorrow- I said earlier it'll close between 19 and 20 tomorrow, but getting there will be one wild ride.

Yeah, but i dont get how they will break even with 500k subs unless they ment get eaven with monthly costs. They gotten about 60 mil from box sales and game cost 120-200 mil to make on many sources, some are even higher or a bit lower.

I don't know either. We don't know the monthly expenses Bioware puts out. What we do know is:

1. 500 000 subs as the minimum number needed to break even is a number they've used for quite some time now.

2. They've officially and unambiguously said that the worst case scenario of 500 000 subs is now off the table, thanks to these "current" sub numbers.

here is an article about ea http://finance.yahoo.com/news/EA-sells-2-million-units-Star-rb-2435005071.html?x=0

Looks like a great time to invest imo

No about it being significantly more than 51%. Could mean 60%, 80%, etc. Fair amount of wiggle room using that word.

True, but since the majority of the sales to date were made before the 31st of Dec it is extremely unlikely to be 51% or even 60%. Honestly I have no idea of the actual number, none of us do, taking the initial sales rate into account though makes it more likely that "most" is far above 51%.

Man can no one give props to BioWare for this? The first replies were negative :-)

Listen , I never ever believed in paid "haters" , My first MMO was UO , never ever have I seen the amount of vitriol towards an inanimate object like seen here against this game and BIO/EA .

Theres no question in my mind that there has been a lot money thrown in to destroying the community and discouraging people from playing/re-subbing the game.

call me crazy. (I would have, then I had the misfortune of reading this forums)

Actual quotes that are relevant here... the data is actually quite clear:

To date, we have sold through more than 2 million units. Our sell through success to date is not as apparent to the public because nearly 40% of the December sell through went through Origin, which is not recorded by third party data services. This was achieved with a level of Q3 marketing well below that of a AAA holiday quarter launch.

 

--Eric Brown

Let me offer some metrics on purchase and subscription that will help you understand this business. As John stated, we have sold through two million units of the game since December. We currently have a little over 1.7 million active subscribers. The rest have either not started playing yet or have opted out.

 

This is an outstanding start for an MMO and the metrics on engagement suggests players are loving this game: unique log-ins are averaging about one million per day and their average play time is approximately four hours per day.

 

I want to take a second to correct the reports which speculated that a lack of congestion was a sign of slow participation. Shortly after launch, we doubled the efficiency of each server, allowing us to handle twice as many players and remove the waiting lines. The lack of congestion is a function of great engineering.

 

In summary: we nailed the launch. Adoption and daily usage among core MMO users are trending very favorably.

 

--Frank Gibeau

From the Q&A:

Q: When we will start to see the effect of the 1.7 million subscribers? What’s the impact of on-going R&D for providing the new content?

A: It's still very early. It is hard to extrapolate where those 1.7 million subscribers lead or mean, but it’s a great start. We have huge plans. Lots of end-game content and even expansion packs. It will involve R&D post launch and we took care of some of it pre-launch. It’s a little early to identify what those all will specifically be and what our goals will be. as mentioned, we will be increasing marketing support.

Q: Are these 1.7 subscribers paying?

A: Active subscribers means anyone paying or in their trial period. Most of those 1.7m are paying at this point.

******

It's pretty clear that they are talking about numbers today, or from a few days ago, if most of the 1.7m are "paying at this point."

Quotes are from the EA prepared comments, available here:

http://files.shareholder.com/downloads/ERTS/1670728299x0x539144/d895626f-e715-4f00-bd50-31bf095027fd/Q3_Script_-_20_2112_1251pm.pdf

Q&A from the conference call are transcribed by Darth Hater. They did all the work to pull together the relevant points... I'm just quoting them to stop the rampant nonsense claims by desperate naysayers.

Darth Hater's summary (with more details) is available here:

http://www.darthhater.com/articles/swtor-news/19915-electronic-arts-q3-fy12-earnings-call

I don't know either. We don't know the monthly expenses Bioware puts out. What we do know is:

 

1. 500 000 subs as the minimum number needed to break even is a number they've used for quite some time now.

2. They've officially and unambiguously said that the worst case scenario of 500 000 subs is now off the table, thanks to these "current" sub numbers.

1. Incorrect, they said 500,000 would be enough for it to be, "substantially profitable" in their words. Substantially profitable, breaking even, two very different things. Now, we don't know how long they needed to retain those numbers, but that's what was actually said.

2. Can you please give me a link? I don't doubt you at all, don't take it that way. I'm just curious to see for myself.

I'm not necessarily disagreeing with your whole point, I'm just saying that 500k being bare minimum is incorrect.

SWTOR ftw

WOW ftl

Nuff said

SWTOR ftw

WOW ftl

 

Nuff said

I doubt they are on the same league yet. But who knows, maybe in few years.

Well, seems like this article from marketwatch seems to be different, strange...because they talk about that these subscribtion are mixed, payed ones but also subs where no paid plans kicked in.

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/ea-beats-targets-on-sales-gain-forecast-off-2012-02-01?link=MW_story_featstor

Whatever....Salute Swtor and I wish the best for the next months.

Listen , I never ever believed in paid "haters" , My first MMO was UO , never ever have I seen the amount of vitriol towards an inanimate object like seen here against this game and BIO/EA .

 

Theres no question in my mind that there has been a lot money thrown in to destroying the community and discouraging people from playing/re-subbing the game.

 

call me crazy. (I would have, then I had the misfortune of reading this forums)

That does sound pretty crazy to think that there's some vast conspiracy against TOR. As opposed to the usual mix of trolls, people with valid issues, etc. that almost every game ends up with.

the game is totally going f2p in two months.... /cough

/facepalm

True, but since the majority of the sales to date were made before the 31st of Dec it is extremely unlikely to be 51% or even 60%. Honestly I have no idea of the actual number, none of us do, taking the initial sales rate into account though makes it more likely that "most" is far above 51%.

He did explicitly state that 2M units were sold; while he didn't say how many active subscriptions there were, he also said explicitly that 1.7M of the 2M units sold have been activated.

Of those 2M units sold, he said that approximately 40% of them were sold online through Origin.

Anyway, something about "1.7M units activated" reminds me of "millions of jobs created or saved." That is to say, there's something telling about turning to a new metric, namely that the old, established metric doesn't provide the positive spin you're looking for.

I'm looking for the next quarterly earnings report. It'll give a more accurate assessment of SWTORs retention rate. A non-mention would indicate complete failure, but I expect them to report anything above 300K, which surely the game can sustain through then.