For those who are versed in the terms of art of business in the games industry, here is the job posting for the architect for F2P analysis for Bioware Austin. The shaper of things to come, as it were.

https://performancemanager4.successfactors.com/sfcareer/jobreqcareer?jobId=9327&company=EA

If you aren't versed in business terms of art, don't panic, none of this is really unusual in the industry, on a glance. The interesting thing I suppose is that they are advertising this and don't have a full complement in place. More attrition? Less preparation? Who knows.

There would be fewer rumors about this game if the EA(/Bioware) folks were just a bit more transparent. The only thing that has EVER gotten CCP in trouble are the few times they've been utter gits and held cards close. It's been over twenty years since the publication of the Cluetrain Manifesto, yet companies with online customer bases still haven't woken up.

If you haven't read Cory Doctorow's FTW, this might be a fun time to do so. Cory's site says "Download for free" but throw the chap some money, he's awesome. The book postulates (among other things) a near future where MMOs and Zynga-like social gaming marketing neuromarketing strategies have merged into drug-like cartels. You can see an article I wrote that got promoted to the front page of Gamasutra a couple years ago on this which although it didn't get much comment on that site, got me some really disturbing confessional emails from social gaming marketing people on the side...

Bioware is F2P but I assure you they will be finding ways into your pockets. The industry has recognized that F2P is the only way to get a steady revenue stream now that current fashions in MMO gaming are causing the collapse of subscription gaming. Pity really, but there it is. We've become the flavor of the month club and subs don't weather that.

And AAA budgets don't weather the migrating herds the ooo-shiny-what's-next (to put it charitably) hoard. So F2P will be what we deal with for the future, whatever anyone feels about it. That, and indy games that grow with genius and innovation (and damned strong loyal community) but not AAA launches or budget (say, Minecraft as an example).

Interesting times! If only there were a big studio that were good at creating innovative genius games with strong communities and great story. Oh...damn... That's right they sold out to the American Sith.

Return to the Light! It's not too late to revise your models!

Meh, didn't work on SOE either. Well, I'll ride this one out. They're still doing better at it than Sony, IMNSHO. But they have time to do worse.

I love job postings like this, lol... I used to be very intimidated by these types of ''job requirements'', untill I learned that they are pretty much bogus when they hired me to do one of these.

Read this and try to imagine the human being that has all these qualifications...

- 2+ years performing quantitative analysis in a metrics-driven, digital product management environment

- Experience in defining, developing, testing, and optimizing digital item catalog systems

- Experience with digital product campaign and promotion design and evaluation

- Proven ability to develop hypotheses, sift through and identify critical data, analyze, report and recommend

- Solid grasp of finance, economics and pricing models

So, basically, they want someone that is doing that job at another company and wants to join them... I would LOVE to talk to the person who actually gets this job to see how many of these things he actually did in the past...

And, in case there is any doubt, they WILL try to get the last cent out of you... listen to this person's job description (my emphasis)...

- Optimize catalog assortment (item mix/overlap) and maximize the efficiency (entry/exit timing) of the item portfolio

- Work with design and development to formulate strategies to enable individualized, player-behavior based offers

- Analyze and report spending behavior, buyer segmentation, and behavioral trends

It seems that they are really going to go all-out with their ''free''-to-play coin shop...

they pretty much have to, i still dont believe that F2P was in their plans

they hoped that the lightsabres and the lore would create a big community ,

that would cover for the games flaws

if they had designed the game accordingly,(autogrouping etc)

it might have worked

The industry has recognized that F2P is the only way to get a steady revenue stream now that current fashions in MMO gaming are causing the collapse of subscription gaming.

I strongly disagree there... There will always be a WoW... always be a type of EVE... simply because there will always be people that prefer topay 15$ a month for 20-30-40 hours of entertainement...

And yes, the new players (the current 15-year-old geeks) are looking for something else than the original MMO costumers (us, the 25-year-old-geeks). But that doesn't mean no one will pay 15$ a month anymore.

Also, in case you are following trends, the f2p revenue stream is very, very fluid. Typically, younger f2p players need to be ''milked'' as soon as possible, because they will move on to the next game very, very fast. There is certainly a place in the gaming world for half a dozen MMOs that do not follow that model and cater to the needs of people who prefer to stay in one (or two or three) places.

On top of that, I really wonder how long it will last, how long a 15-year-old will jump from game to game to game. At a certain point, even those type of people have to stay in one place, me think.

sub games will prolly last for a lot longer,, but only for quality products,,this is the

"blue stamp" in mmo,,eve has shown that it doesnt take big resources

wow has shown that if the content and availabiility is good enough, it

can even create the infinty machine

more content-more players-more money-more content

this game is so bad, that it wasnt worth the subs

giving it away will only victimize it to further people, not save it

That is such BS.

Nashville is the true live music capital of the world.

-Macheath.

sub games will prolly last for a lot longer,, but only for quality products,,this is the

 

"blue stamp" in mmo,,eve has shown that it doesnt take big resources

 

wow has shown that if the content and availabiility is good enough, it

 

can even create the infinty machine

 

more content-more players-more money-more content

 

this game is so bad, that it wasnt worth the subs

 

giving it away will only victimize it to further people, not save it

I had a long response but deleted it to ask, why do you still post here if you hate the game so much?

I regretted purchasing MOP but you don't see me on the WoW forums yapping about it.

I strongly disagree there... There will always be a WoW... always be a type of EVE... simply because there will always be people that prefer topay 15$ a month for 20-30-40 hours of entertainement...

.

While I agree with EVE, as its a niche game, and there will always be a place for niche and localised games, I dont believe for one second there will always be a WoW.

With so many new games getting released, and the frequency of those releases, you get a watering down effect.

A similar thing happened to a shooter called Counter Strike, took years to dethrone, and like you, some said they doubted whether it would ever be dethroned, but along came the Battlefield series, which took a huge chunk of players to become the new top dog, but then came the Call of Duty series, which took big chunks from both, add to this, a myriad of other great games being released, and what you have now is, no such thing as a "top dog" any more, it simply doesn't exist, all there is now, are viable/profitable/successful franchises, and many of them.

I have absolutely no doubt that this is the way the MMO is going, as in the next 12 months, 20 new franchises hit the shelf, and maybe 30 more the year after, and so on.

For those who are versed in the terms of art of business in the games industry, here is the job posting for the architect for F2P analysis for Bioware Austin. The shaper of things to come, as it were.

 

https://performancemanager4.successfactors.com/sfcareer/jobreqcareer?jobId=9327&company=EA

 

If you aren't versed in business terms of art, don't panic, none of this is really unusual in the industry, on a glance. The interesting thing I suppose is that they are advertising this and don't have a full complement in place. More attrition? Less preparation? Who knows.

 

There would be fewer rumors about this game if the EA(/Bioware) folks were just a bit more transparent. The only thing that has EVER gotten CCP in trouble are the few times they've been utter gits and held cards close. It's been over twenty years since the publication of the Cluetrain Manifesto, yet companies with online customer bases still haven't woken up.

 

If you haven't read Cory Doctorow's FTW, this might be a fun time to do so. Cory's site says "Download for free" but throw the chap some money, he's awesome. The book postulates (among other things) a near future where MMOs and Zynga-like social gaming marketing neuromarketing strategies have merged into drug-like cartels. You can see an article I wrote that got promoted to the front page of Gamasutra a couple years ago on this which although it didn't get much comment on that site, got me some really disturbing confessional emails from social gaming marketing people on the side...

 

Bioware is F2P but I assure you they will be finding ways into your pockets. The industry has recognized that F2P is the only way to get a steady revenue stream now that current fashions in MMO gaming are causing the collapse of subscription gaming. Pity really, but there it is. We've become the flavor of the month club and subs don't weather that.

 

And AAA budgets don't weather the migrating herds the ooo-shiny-what's-next (to put it charitably) hoard. So F2P will be what we deal with for the future, whatever anyone feels about it. That, and indy games that grow with genius and innovation (and damned strong loyal community) but not AAA launches or budget (say, Minecraft as an example).

 

Interesting times! If only there were a big studio that were good at creating innovative genius games with strong communities and great story. Oh...damn... That's right they sold out to the American Sith.

 

Return to the Light! It's not too late to revise your models!

 

Meh, didn't work on SOE either. Well, I'll ride this one out. They're still doing better at it than Sony, IMNSHO. But they have time to do worse.

Would you rather they ran SWTOR inefficiently and it went under for no particular other reason?

The game obviously needs to be funded, and subscriptions aren't cutting it. If selling digital trinkets, clothing, perks and the like and analyzing what works and what doesn't down to the last detail does, hopefully it will pay dividends to players in the form of new planets, game systems, etc.

It would have been better to be playing SWTOR as a subscription-based game. I'm sure everyone at BW would agree. It didn't work out, though.

What would you have them do instead?

Would you rather they ran SWTOR inefficiently and it went under for no particular other reason?

 

The game obviously needs to be funded, and subscriptions aren't cutting it. If selling digital trinkets, clothing, perks and the like and analyzing what works and what doesn't down to the last detail does, hopefully it will pay dividends to players in the form of new planets, game systems, etc.

 

It would have been better to be playing SWTOR as a subscription-based game. I'm sure everyone at BW would agree. It didn't work out, though.

 

What would you have them do instead?

Ran inefficiently ??? What do you think they are doing right now...look at 1.4 for further reference.

Look if a game is done right it can last ,i'll give you an example and no it's not WoW.

Answer me this....out of all the mmo's out there why is it that Ultima Online is still going strong with paid subscription and NO form of free to play type service what so ever? No free download trail , play till you master your skills to 50 or anything of that nature? sure it might be a very old mmo , but it's a sub based mmo that's going on it's 15th year..i think.

So there you go....oh and it's an EA game also...top that!!!

I strongly disagree there... There will always be a WoW... always be a type of EVE... simply because there will always be people that prefer topay 15$ a month for 20-30-40 hours of entertainement...

 

And yes, the new players (the current 15-year-old geeks) are looking for something else than the original MMO costumers (us, the 25-year-old-geeks). But that doesn't mean no one will pay 15$ a month anymore.

 

Also, in case you are following trends, the f2p revenue stream is very, very fluid. Typically, younger f2p players need to be ''milked'' as soon as possible, because they will move on to the next game very, very fast. There is certainly a place in the gaming world for half a dozen MMOs that do not follow that model and cater to the needs of people who prefer to stay in one (or two or three) places.

 

On top of that, I really wonder how long it will last, how long a 15-year-old will jump from game to game to game. At a certain point, even those type of people have to stay in one place, me think.

I don't see there ever being another WoW. It's still there because people are invested in it. I would love to see their numbers of new account over the past couple of years. Sadly the time of subscription based games is coming to an end. It's just too small and too unsteady of a market anymore. The attention span of gamers these day is just far too small.

I had a long response but deleted it to ask, why do you still post here if you hate the game so much?

 

I regretted purchasing MOP but you don't see me on the WoW forums yapping about it.

because i paid for a product , that is sub-standard, and worse , it has the STAR WARS name on it

sub standard, i can live with, but the NAME demands respect,,and the way, theyre treating it is a disgrace

they stole half the game from wow, but dont take the best parts?,,the parts , that made wow a success?

they cut so many corners, that its embarassing for an "experienced" dev team

yea im pissed,, and im not the only one

i have raged some against MOP too, but wow at least gave me more than 5 happy years

this one stopped after 2 months

For those who are versed in the terms of art of business in the games industry, here is the job posting for the architect for F2P analysis for Bioware Austin. The shaper of things to come, as it were.

 

https://performancemanager4.successfactors.com/sfcareer/jobreqcareer?jobId=9327&company=EA

 

If you aren't versed in business terms of art, don't panic, none of this is really unusual in the industry, on a glance. The interesting thing I suppose is that they are advertising this and don't have a full complement in place. More attrition? Less preparation? Who knows.

 

There would be fewer rumors about this game if the EA(/Bioware) folks were just a bit more transparent. The only thing that has EVER gotten CCP in trouble are the few times they've been utter gits and held cards close. It's been over twenty years since the publication of the Cluetrain Manifesto, yet companies with online customer bases still haven't woken up.

 

If you haven't read Cory Doctorow's FTW, this might be a fun time to do so. Cory's site says "Download for free" but throw the chap some money, he's awesome. The book postulates (among other things) a near future where MMOs and Zynga-like social gaming marketing neuromarketing strategies have merged into drug-like cartels. You can see an article I wrote that got promoted to the front page of Gamasutra a couple years ago on this which although it didn't get much comment on that site, got me some really disturbing confessional emails from social gaming marketing people on the side...

 

Bioware is F2P but I assure you they will be finding ways into your pockets. The industry has recognized that F2P is the only way to get a steady revenue stream now that current fashions in MMO gaming are causing the collapse of subscription gaming. Pity really, but there it is. We've become the flavor of the month club and subs don't weather that.

 

And AAA budgets don't weather the migrating herds the ooo-shiny-what's-next (to put it charitably) hoard. So F2P will be what we deal with for the future, whatever anyone feels about it. That, and indy games that grow with genius and innovation (and damned strong loyal community) but not AAA launches or budget (say, Minecraft as an example).

 

Interesting times! If only there were a big studio that were good at creating innovative genius games with strong communities and great story. Oh...damn... That's right they sold out to the American Sith.

 

Return to the Light! It's not too late to revise your models!

 

Meh, didn't work on SOE either. Well, I'll ride this one out. They're still doing better at it than Sony, IMNSHO. But they have time to do worse.

Yeah F2P or the Cashshop model is....... insidious, to say the least.

It might keep the game alive, but it won't give the same customer experience as subscription would (we can already see this by them nerfing chest and elite drops in order to make people buy stuff off the cashshop instead - selling stuff is the only tenenat to F2P/cashshop).

because i paid for a product , that is sub-standard, and worse , it has the STAR WARS name on it

 

sub standard, i can live with, but the NAME demands respect,,and the way, theyre treating it is a disgrace

 

they stole half the game from wow, but dont take the best parts?,,the parts , that made wow a success?

 

they cut so many corners, that its embarassing for an "experienced" dev team

 

yea im pissed,, and im not the only one

 

i have raged some against MOP too, but wow at least gave me more than 5 happy years

 

this one stopped after 2 months

To be fair, WoW's success has come largely from taking what ever the competition were doing and making it their own. But that alone hasn't been enough. MoP now adds Poke'mon and Farmville to the mix for added measure.

SWTOR suffers from an extreme lack of uniqueness. The VO work and cut-scenes are great but they just aren't enough. A point I think I've raised far too many times to count. >_>

I don't see there ever being another WoW. It's still there because people are invested in it. I would love to see their numbers of new account over the past couple of years. Sadly the time of subscription based games is coming to an end. It's just too small and too unsteady of a market anymore. The attention span of gamers these day is just far too small.

not the attention span, but we have seen in wow , what can be done with a mmo,,even an old one

usuall, more competition means better products, but here it seems to have the opposite effect

now they release games, when the marketing guys wants to,,not when the game is ready

so i buy a game , and have to wait 6-12 months , before its finished? NO!!

thats the real reason for game nomads,,who wants to sit in a game , that they cant play?

so we hear about "revolutionary new mmo", we go and check that out? same deal, only theyre

X months further back , than the first one..u get the picture right?

i know theres bound to be bugs,,CoX had them after 8 years,,wow too,,in a good game

we can "close our eyes" more for them,,thats why the core gameplay is so important

and this one fails in both,,buggy AND annoying,,not a good combination

To be fair, WoW's success has come largely from taking what ever the competition were doing and making it their own. But that alone hasn't been enough. MoP now adds Poke'mon and Farmville to the mix for added measure.

 

SWTOR suffers from an extreme lack of uniqueness. The VO work and cut-scenes are great but they just aren't enough. A point I think I've raised far too many times to count. >_>

yea the VOs are good,,im not sure how big part of budget they were?

what??blizzard stealing? LALALALALALLAAA I CAN NOT HEAR ANYTHING:rolleyes:

yea the VOs are good,,im not sure how big part of budget they were?

Unfortunately I'm not privy to the budget and distribution of cash for the project. However, the rumor mill suggests it was considerable.

Little to now way to validate that, that I'm aware of anyway.

u would need a sound studio,,at least 2 writers,,the actors( one at a time ofc)

seeing how many hours of VOs there are,,i would guess anything from 50-150 mio

those 50 mio would have been better spend on the actual game, VOs work better

in single player games, where there are no distractions. some VOs even drowned

in background noise from nearby combat etc

Unfortunately I'm not privy to the budget and distribution of cash for the project. However, the rumor mill suggests it was considerable.

 

Little to now way to validate that, that I'm aware of anyway.

Yeah, you've got to pay for the voices, you've got to develop the animations (and synch with the voices or vice versa) and then on top of that you've got the normal quest development.

So it can't be cheap (in money) or quick (in time) to develop............ which is the reason why prior MMORPGs used it much more sparingly (SWTOR isn't the first MMORPG to use VO and animations, it's just the first to use it so MUCH).

I really can't see the cashshop model supporting this kind of story development in the future, even if they sell everything as adventure packs, I can't see how they can keep the price reasonable AND include fully voiced and animated quests.

STO has started doing it too,,also a little in tera,,STO version is really bad,,

horrible clipping, glitchy animations,,i hope they stop doing that bullcrap,

it doesnt belong in MMO,,for obvious reasons, to quote another post

intelligence is knowing , that tomato is a fruit

wisdom is knowing, not to put it in fruit salad

I love job postings like this, lol... I used to be very intimidated by these types of ''job requirements'', untill I learned that they are pretty much bogus when they hired me to do one of these.

 

Read this and try to imagine the human being that has all these qualifications...

 

- 2+ years performing quantitative analysis in a metrics-driven, digital product management environment

- Experience in defining, developing, testing, and optimizing digital item catalog systems

- Experience with digital product campaign and promotion design and evaluation

- Proven ability to develop hypotheses, sift through and identify critical data, analyze, report and recommend

- Solid grasp of finance, economics and pricing models

 

So, basically, they want someone that is doing that job at another company and wants to join them... I would LOVE to talk to the person who actually gets this job to see how many of these things he actually did in the past...

 

 

And, in case there is any doubt, they WILL try to get the last cent out of you... listen to this person's job description (my emphasis)...

- Optimize catalog assortment (item mix/overlap) and maximize the efficiency (entry/exit timing) of the item portfolio

- Work with design and development to formulate strategies to enable individualized, player-behavior based offers

- Analyze and report spending behavior, buyer segmentation, and behavioral trends

 

It seems that they are really going to go all-out with their ''free''-to-play coin shop...

Guess we might end up seeing one of those pay to win guys there.

I don't mind the F2P model, I think it is nice if it is done reasonable. No pay to win, but with plenty of cosmetic stuff.

well the cosmetic stuff is working for wow, they've got subscribers who have been paying a monthly subscription for stretches of more than a year without any new content (between the icecrown citadel raid to cataclysm, and from the deathwing raid to mop) plus they keep buying shiny poneys and flying lions that cost the price of an expansion with little to no dev ressource used.

It's a winning model for Blizzard milking its player base who are happily shelling out the money...

Why wouldn't EA do the same when players are stupid enough to accomodate it?

Not only wow subscribers have been paying more than a year subscription for no new content, they're paying for the new expansion as well, so it's twice the money for blizzard...

well the cosmetic stuff is working for wow, they've got subscribers who have been paying a monthly subscription for stretches of more than a year without any new content (between the icecrown citadel raid to cataclysm, and from the deathwing raid to mop) plus they keep buying shiny poneys and flying lions that cost the price of an expansion with little to no dev ressource used.

It's a winning model for Blizzard milking its player base who are happily shelling out the money...

 

Why wouldn't EA do the same when players are stupid enough to accomodate it?

 

Not only wow subscribers have been paying more than a year subscription for no new content, they're paying for the new expansion as well, so it's twice the money for blizzard...

WoW players have massive investment in WoW and their toons - again (just like copying WoW playstyle) doing the same THING as WoW doesn't mean the same RESULTS as WoW.

the closest to wow playstyle ive seen was in STO and rift

STO,,,buggy as hell,,they went down,,better now

RIFT was so ugly compared to wow, and no where near wows epic music score

simply not a place i enjoyed to be in

this is also one of this games flaws,,they could have done so much better

well the cosmetic stuff is working for wow, they've got subscribers who have been paying a monthly subscription for stretches of more than a year without any new content (between the icecrown citadel raid to cataclysm, and from the deathwing raid to mop) plus they keep buying shiny poneys and flying lions that cost the price of an expansion with little to no dev ressource used.

It's a winning model for Blizzard milking its player base who are happily shelling out the money...

 

Why wouldn't EA do the same when players are stupid enough to accomodate it?

 

Not only wow subscribers have been paying more than a year subscription for no new content, they're paying for the new expansion as well, so it's twice the money for blizzard...

yea, but,,wow had a quality game to support it,,i dont see that here,,so who would buy?