The sky isn't falling. A numbers based view.

I honestly don't think it makes any difference.

What will help the game is what Bioware EA do (or don't do), which not coincidentally is the same thing responsible for where SWTOR is today.

However any anaylsis needs to be accurate and meaningful, which this broadly speaking is not.


As I meantioned above all the games used here have actually done many of the same (bad) things again and again, but they aren't mistakes that were made for some ephemeral reason that can't be tracked down, they basically made core design mistakes and released games far, far, far too early (they may have had no choice in that due to running out of money or parent companies - but that changes nothing when it comes to subscribers and success).

But again the costs before a profit they have mentioned are also much larger than ANY other MMORPG around including WoW (assuming they are still that high - something we have no idea about.

F2P account also need to be spending $15 a month to generate the same amount of cash as subscriber account (although again some of thier cost depends on how much or little they play).


So it's hard to tell, hopefully SWTOR will get over 1,000,000 FP2 active accounts which is going to put them nicely into the black income-wise, but equally it is possible with 1,000,000 F2P accounts they wouldn't be pulling in the same revenue as 500,000 subscription accounts.

But again this all depends on what Bioware EA do......... a Freelancer-esq space expansion and amazing SW based RvR (rivialling Planetside 2)......... and we'll be on 3,000,000 F2P active accounts IMO.

Conversly a bit of new gear in the cashshop and little new content and the game could be in dire trouble.

Nail on the head. Perception is EVERYTHING. Every time there is an article about TOR on another site the comments just show how the cool thing to do is bash this game with the intention to keep people away. It's even the cool thing to do on this forum and I suppose the reason for that would go way beyond the game itself and hint at that persons own personal issues or grievances that they want to air.

Word of mouth is important when there is an upfront cost to trying something yourself. Word of mouth generates buzz and drives sales. This is why all forms of advertising are important especially the advertising you can get for free from your own customers.

I can see the illogical doom brigade just replied to your post and said that word of mouth isn't important. It's true that Bioware has to deliver additional content and with 1.5 due out that's no problem. The issue is when someone comes here and reads this crap about 'zomg the game is going to die!' and figures they will stay away from it.

There are people that post solely with that motivation and there's a post on this front page that exists only to serve that purpose, I feel sorry for them.

I also thought maybe it would help to bring in a completely non biased industry analyst's view of the subject of long term growth.

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...s-says-wedbush

Believe it or not their job is to do the type of research that I did and make predictions based on that information. Many times they are correct and sometimes they are wrong but you should at least consider that they have a much better knowledge of the subject than you personally (even myself) possess and their opinion shouldn't be discounted.

Even if you disagree with the message Wedbush Securities is presenting it's pretty interesting to see that type of growth predicted from a business analysis perspective.

Whether or not they are non-biased, which is kinda up for grabs, pales in the face of whether they know what they are talking about. The fact they talk about numbers as high as the total population of certain european countries, five time higher than WoW in it's heydays, and the fact their only stated reasons for the game's current state is its price really lead me to believe that they do not have the faintest clue about this game (which they never, ever call anything other than Star Wars, not Star Wars: The Old Republic, or The Old Republic, just Star Wars) and mmorpgs in general.
For you to bring this already derided to death piece of garbage to the debate is not exactly wise.
The same way certain project leaders can run games after games into the ground and still get a job, analyst can run their mouths off and still not starve.

Interesting side note. Turbine just laid off a bunch of staff and their forums arent filled with posts about it. Why is this game different?

I'm presenting it as something for discussion. You've made your point clear you don't believe it but since it's stock advice it's not pulled out of a hat.

This is something to consider at least if you casually dismiss it as garbage then you aren't interested in debate or any view that might actually contradict your own. It's listed as Star Wars because it's not directed solely at the audience that might know what that is specifically, it's for investors.

For what it's worth the numbers they listed shock me but time will tell, and it's certainly something we can discuss objectively.

Tongue in cheek answer: Because SWTOR has cornered the market on people that enjoy paying to troll the game on forums.


Seriously though that's a good question and I bet it has something to do with the maturity of their forums members or an aggressive mod staff. Actually if you look at the data charts they lost about 200k players right when this game came out so it is conceivable that we inherited most of their malcontents already.

But my point is that it is pulled from a hat, and based on flawed assumptions. I am calling this thing garbage because that's it's actual worth. Not all arguments are equals. Those unsupported by solid proofs, and drawing farfetched, unrealistic conclusions very much deserve to be called trash.
Just filling this in and saying "that's something you brought up for debate" doesn't mean anything. Do you believe the expectations layed in this article realistic? In its entirety? Partially?
Regarding the name, sorry but that lacks punch as well. I mean, according to you, referring to the game only by the name of the licence it came from, said licence having spawned quite a lot of things, actually help investors to know what they are talking about, instead of giving the full name? By itself it would not be a problem, but when you connect it to flawed assumptions about the reasons players have quit, and ridiculous expectations, then it's pretty hard not to come to the conclusion the analyst spent all of five minutes coming up with those pearls of wisdom.

They are saying lowering the retial price and going F2P is likely to increase current revenues - it is (short term anyway - as with LOTRO and DDO a sustained boost to number and revenue is a different kettle of fish).

They aren't saying anything about retention or relative retention from peak subs (whatever that is supposed to be ), or really why SWTOR sold 2.5 million copies and end up with ~500,000 subscribers.




Edit - eep I missed this bit (this has been posted ages ago come to think of it, back in August):
With the best will in the world it's hard to see SWTOR getting 10,000,000 active accounts with F2P, 50,000,000 is just plain barmy numbers.