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MMO's Do Not Die.


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DarthTHC's Avatar


DarthTHC
07.25.2012 , 02:12 PM | #61
Quote: Originally Posted by jarjarloves View Post
they said they made their budget back from the first month box sales in the first EA quarterly call. You are correct that it has been SUGGESTED that it MIGHT cost up to 200 million but there has been no actual proof of that.


edit: the 200 million price tag came from a New York times investigation where they also said the game had 800 people on four continents with an additional 1,000 voice actors making the game.

Their numbers are way off they included everything ie stuff Bioware outsourced as a payed employee or cost of the game.

They said that, eh? Good.

Hopefully they can find a way to keep the service running profitably.

WickedDjinn's Avatar


WickedDjinn
07.25.2012 , 02:15 PM | #62
Quote: Originally Posted by Arasys View Post
Are you kidding or being sarcastic ?

UO is still one of the top games with (imo) widest range of sandbox options, those who love sandbox elements & RP are still playing it ( including me). Besides, even after EA purchased UO, since game has solid systems, of course it will not easily die because no matter how "good" you get in that game, there's always something to do.

Asheron's Call is by far my favorite MMO, and by comparing SWTOR with it I realized how SWTOR feels super static. Think of AC's map, dynamism, sandbox elements and furthermore; even after all those years that game still has live events every month, with new updates. Did they change the graphics ? no . Are they really working hard to please their loyal customers ? Absolutely. This is also one of the major differences, here Devs knew they were going to get lots of negative feedback and it probably scared them, but closing your eyes and running away from such loyal player base is not acceptable.

Continuing with the same example, why do you think AC 2 failed ? I think It was more like SWTOR compared to AC 1. In other words, the game was not really dynamic and had no depth.

If you really enjoy the game, I am happy for you but if you look around you'll see the game is almost in coma now. I have been playing MMOs since 1999, and must say I have never seen such lack of management in any mmos.

Not once have I brought my personal feelings into this discussion as far as how much I like TOR. If anything I'm more often then not posting negatively about various issues with the game.

But once again, all that is besides the point.

And the point is that the age old big three, the founding fathers of the genre, still live! You know how long they've been around. You've been MMOing for that long. Despite the fact that they've had niche audiences for YEARS, they live on. I wasn't being sarcastic. You assume so because you apparently find the mere mention of TOR and Asherons Call in the same post offensive.

Again, this isn't rocket science. Look at how many MMOs have been released since Everquest. Few have ever completely gone away. Those that have were affected by issues unique to them in most cases. SWG is a fine example. Even after Sony came along and wrecked that game and drove off many of its players, if TOR hadnt come along it would Still be running.

Startrek online. Panned as a horrible game right out of the game. It survives and is still being updated.

Look, you are an intelligent person. I'm not going to go down a list, breaking this down like you're a child. MMOs... Regardless of population. Regardless of Metcritic score. Regardless of age or even game quality, very rarely shut down.

AFKGCWBOT's Avatar


AFKGCWBOT
07.25.2012 , 02:15 PM | #63
All the doomsdaying needs to stop tbh. Bioware is probably working on 1.4 hurr. With massive layoffs it's kind of obvious they all need to work on 1.4 instead of twittering and facebooking to reassure and comfort all the WOW kiddos.

jarjarloves's Avatar


jarjarloves
07.25.2012 , 02:23 PM | #64
Quote: Originally Posted by DarthTHC View Post
They said that, eh? Good.

Hopefully they can find a way to keep the service running profitably.
yeah it was an interesting read. They say that it far exceeded their expectations and with that they decided to increase spending for the next quarter. So my guess is they increased spending then when people left they had a loss of subcribers and increased spending so they had to cut a lot of personal. So that leaves us where we are now.

"General Forums you will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy, we must use caution"

Fireswraith's Avatar


Fireswraith
07.25.2012 , 02:26 PM | #65
Quote: Originally Posted by WickedDjinn View Post
Whatever the future holds, rest assured of one thing. The chance of this game no longer being supported even years from now is almost nonexistent.
When this game goes completely F2P I will consider it unsupported........... because BW wasn't good enough to support it up to that point. That's only if it happens though.

Blondesolid's Avatar


Blondesolid
07.25.2012 , 02:27 PM | #66
Its true, this old slug will be in the garden for many years to come.

Fornix's Avatar


Fornix
07.25.2012 , 02:33 PM | #67
Quote: Originally Posted by Fireswraith View Post
When this game goes completely F2P I will consider it unsupported........... because BW wasn't good enough to support it up to that point. That's only if it happens though.
Well, may be true to the F2P haters, but if EA makes the change it may also just be that they believe they can make even more money by means of a F2P model instead.

After all, what's more lucrative than having people pay monthlies, on top of additional fees for fluff objects and legacy perks / unlocks. In addition to pulling in new people to do the same by offering them a free full time trial with no real limit anymore in terms of level.
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Sporin's Avatar


Sporin
07.25.2012 , 02:38 PM | #68
Did they make their money back though? The stocks would have you thinking things are in a bad way. (Asking an honest question btw).

Cause if they haven't and they are dumping staff, though J.O. said they were "keeping their full team" to work on content, does that mean that the new content will be a bought (£30) expansion to cover it and the sub loss?

Was all the VO done before release? One lump sum contract per actor for x-amount of VO work? Can they afford to throw good money after bad if not? Expansion delays? ...There is so many questions and fears.
Of all the things I've lost I miss my mind the most!

jarjarloves's Avatar


jarjarloves
07.25.2012 , 02:46 PM | #69
Quote: Originally Posted by Sporin View Post
Did they make their money back though? The stocks would have you thinking things are in a bad way. (Asking an honest question btw).

Cause if they haven't and they are dumping staff, though J.O. said they were "keeping their full team" to work on content, does that mean that the new content will be a bought (£30) expansion to cover it and the sub loss?

Was all the VO done before release? One lump sum contract per actor for x-amount of VO work? Can they afford to throw good money after bad if not? Expansion delays? ...There is so many questions and fears.
they said they made their budget back in the first earnings call and if you remember the stocks DID go up after that first earning call. They went back down after and after the losses.

As for the voices and content we have no idea on how much they have or how much they can reuse. I do remember them saying they have enough content for the next year or so when they launched the question is how much is actually done, how long does it take to make it fully ready, and how many people do you need working on that.

They have also said MANY TIMES that the Makeb and the level cap increase will be FREE.

Don't bother worrying about the game just play it and have fun. If the game is going to be shut down tommorow is there anything you could do to stop it? no so just play and enjoy

"General Forums you will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy, we must use caution"

Fornix's Avatar


Fornix
07.25.2012 , 02:50 PM | #70
Quote: Originally Posted by Sporin View Post
Did they make their money back though? The stocks would have you thinking things are in a bad way. (Asking an honest question btw).

Cause if they haven't and they are dumping staff, though J.O. said they were "keeping their full team" to work on content, does that mean that the new content will be a bought (£30) expansion to cover it and the sub loss?

Was all the VO done before release? One lump sum contract per actor for x-amount of VO work? Can they afford to throw good money after bad if not? Expansion delays? ...There is so many questions and fears.
Their stocks are bad yes, but keep in mind, it's EA stock, not SWTOR stock.

And not just EA, but the entire market has done bad when it comes to the video gaming industry, looking at the last 5 year results:

THQ - 298.24 (-98.33%)
EA - 40.36 (-77.81%)
Take-Two Interactive - 11.12 (-55.47%)
Activision/Blizzard + 2.64 (+29.08%)
Ubisoft - 16.26 (-74.95%)

Out of the big 5 the majority made major losses, THQ in particular. The only one which increased in stock value is Activision/Blizzard, but also their stock isn't worth that much.

The problem of the past years is investors don't understand the changes currently going on in the market. Sales are going digital, games are going free, profit is gained more and more by means of DLC, item malls, etc. Digital sales are also taking in profit. All of this isn't grasped by investors, they fail to understand how lowering prices or giving away products for free leads to increased profits. Also they fail to understand the concept of digital sales.

So all they look at is profit from store sales, that decreases, they lose faith and start ditching their stock, result, stock values keep dropping.
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