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[Industry Thread] Read the OP, or you'll see more red than 38 Studios.
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..to "be profitable." Which I strongly suspect means simply covering the cost of running the servers, providing customer services, patching, etc. There's still that gigantic $200 million debt to cover. If they really were happy with only 500K subscribers, they wouldn't be switching to emergency plan B.
Lucas reamed the Star Wars franchise so bad with all of his Episode 1-3 trash, and the mountains of related items that went along with them, that I'd written off the franchise entirely several years ago. Even then, hearing "The Old Republic" and "F2P" has me stroking my non-existent beard in consideration. So if they could get me to consider playing with the F2P model, there's a solid chance that they'll get a lot more people online.
Whether or not that pays off at all, well, guess we'll know in a couple years.
Ah HA!
PA Lets Play Archive - Twitter - Blog
so, right now all we can say is that it's "essentially a flop". in two years, we get to know for sure
none of that screams "success" to me
PA Lets Play Archive - Twitter - Blog
so far, the opportunity costs of the massive investment, the layoffs, the poor revenue for the last few quarters, and the drop of subscribers all point to either failure or mediocre
and that's now what you should be getting when you drop $100 million+
Don't get me wrong in all this, EA was stupid to set a high bar for the game. But the reason why I'm not so aggressive on EA over the issue is because of Bioware. Not out of blind fandom (I've only played like, three Bioware games ever), because they had a crazy idea and went for it. How often do you see that happen at all in the modern VG industry? That's why I give kudos and leeway on overnight success nonsense.
PA Lets Play Archive - Twitter - Blog
That's true. As long as the money coming in exceeds what the company would save in shutting it down, TOR might run for a decade and make a decent profit. Like Champions, Dungeons and Dragons, Lord of the Rings and whatever. But it's pretty obvious that's not what EA was shooting for when they sunk $200 million into this thing. They wanted TOR to be the new WoW and pull in fat subscription cash for years to come, and that's not going to happen.
Yeah. I wish I had the two articles on hand that ran back to back where Bioware responded, "No, we're not trying to topple WoW, we just want to make a great game," and then the next is EA going, "GONNA BEAT WOW YEP!" I would've paid good money to see the collective jaw dropping at Bioware.
PA Lets Play Archive - Twitter - Blog
Probably time for a lawsuit.
Say TOR has a functional run of only 4 years. Even if it does merely okay for the next 3 years, it should still turn a profit. Yeah, the mustache-twiddling EA corporate types will look at things and go "DOOOOOMED!" because the game wasn't the massive, impossible, WoW-toppling success they thought they could force just by throwing money at a project, but that won't mean the game was actually a failed product.
The way I see it, this whole first year for TOR had been like the first week of sales for a new regular game. It isn't DOA and it isn't a blockbuster success yet, but it's far too early to judge whether or not the whole thing is really a disaster.
I hope this bubble bursts and brings about a new type of MMO.
Basically. Most MMOs have a fairly normal or even low start up cost and then recoup that and cover all expenses with their subscriptions. EA thought they could throw money at it and dominate the MMO market. When the game isn't that good of an MMO and is a huge departure from what Bioware fans were used to, you've alienated your whole audience. As someone mentioned before, this is the industry thread. So if someone investing in the industry sees ToR didn't do so hot right off the bat while something like CoD did, where do you think their money is going to go? It's not an issue of Bioware/EA bouncing back, it's an issue of them luring back investors and shareholders after a year full of blunders while their rivals keep on trucking.
All signs point to their money would have been better spent elsewhere, and thus, it was a bad investment.
Me too, for sure. I hope Blizzard's Titan is super innovative and revolutionary. I'd like to see it not even have the typical tank, healer, dps system.
Not to keep harping on this, but will "merely okay" cover $200 million, plus day to day expenses?
It's not the fact that it's Bioware, or EA, or anti-MMO sentiment. It's the fact that it's quite possibly the most expensive video game ever made, and hinged on a risky revenue model to boot.
Diablo 1.
Given the number of retail/digital copies they sold at $60+, that $200 million is largely covered. It's keeping up with day to day expenses going forward. I really doubt they're going to spend $40+ million a year on developers even if it was hugely successful which means at some point either people need to be switched to a new project or let go.
Any publisher that likes to think they're "Big Shit" automatically aspire to be "The Biggest". If they try hard enough, sometimes one of them becomes, or like to call themselves anyway, "The Biggest".
Then a few years later, new challenges arise and the stuff that got them to "The Biggest" is on the decline. They need New Shit to re-establish their "Bigness". No matter in which fashion their Old Shit declines, all that matters is that their New Shit is Hot Shit and Better Than Your Shit.
Now, if the New Shit only starts to look like "Okay I Guess Shit", then it's gonna look like they once were "The Biggest", and now they're "Only Doing Okay". People start asking when the inevitable "Barely Doing Okay" is gonna happen, and when would be a good time to get off what is, by all indications, a sinking ship.
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/entertainmentnewsbuzz/2012/01/star-wars-old-republic-cost.html
Wii U and 3DS Codes
That's basically where games like Minecraft and DayZ come in (yeah I know, technically not MMO's etc. etc., but they have enough players where it counts). They're very different experiences from the traditional MMO. On the surface they're both also completely different, but one thing I'd argue that they have in common is this: They're not dependant on game "rules" making the gameplay, they're far more dependant on players and inter-player interactions, who make their own rules and gameplay in the context of the framework that those games provide. They're effectively sandbox settings where the players make their own fun. There's no such thing as "raiding" or similar in any formal sense, unless you want it and organise it yourself. No formalised "factions" who go to formalised "war" with each other for formalised level / loot gains and little else.
Most other MMO's just concentrate on grinding levels and gear.
It's alsop why something like EVE Online continues being succesful, even where tonnes of other MMO's fail. It's a smaller following, but it's certainly hardcore and dedicated.
Put it another way: Settings like EVE, DayZ and even Minecraft make for the most interesting stories, and they're collaborative ones. What's the most interesting stuff you hear from a WoW raid?
Well, assuming 2 million copies sold (which may be being generous), that's $120 million. Of course the real take is probably lower than that, what with manufacturing, shipping, and the ginormous advertising campaign. And, of course, the Star Wars license, which isn't cheap.
Of course, another rule of thumb is the stupid "have to sell 2 million to be profitable" model, which is generally applied to games with budgets of, say, $50 million and up. So, according to my crappy napkin map, there could still be a $150 million gap to be covered.
Though you bring up an interesting point... if it's not bringing in a ton of money, EA likely won't spend a huge amount keeping up. And EA/Bioware kind of painted themselves into a corner by voice acting the shit out of everything (which, according to the article, is a major part of the cost), meaning content expansions will have to be expensive by definition to make in order to fit in.
Thanks. I remember earlier material saying it was going to be a super-cheap MMO that only cost $1 or $2 mil, not a hundred times that.
http://massively.joystiq.com/2012/08/10/funcom-the-secret-world-metascores-to-blame-for-share-price-dro/
That's a shame; the game looks really interesting.
I've seen some gameplay, unless they improved it a lot, that game had the stiffest combat animations I've seen since the late nineties.
It's a great game, it just takes a bit to get used to.
I'm thinking it will be like EVE, where there will be a somewhat small population that always plays it. It isn't as hard or esoteric as EVE to get into, though.
The $200 million quote comes from "analysts" so marketing and everything could be included. It could be less it could be more. We don't know. Odds are it's wildly inaccurate if it's anything like the rest of stuff that comes out of analysts regarding the industry. The only thing we know is that EA believes they can make more money changing things, so they're changing.
Also, this entire discussion is based off of something that is factually and totally incorrect. The guy hasn't left Bioware.
Not that I don't believe you, but what's the source on that?
And as for TSW, the most damning thing isn't the lackluster-by-Funcom's-investors'-standards subscription numbers, but that people are going to be losing jobs over Metacritic scores. I'm not some torch-bearer for TSW or anything (I have no intention of ever playing it), but many of the TSW reviews were done in beta and not release, where Funcom managed to get out what was the closest to the mythical "miracle patch" that we'll probably ever see, improving the game on pretty much every level.
Steam | TF2 inventory
Just market analysts predicting it cost in the range of $150-200 million. That isn't to say it was super duper expensive or anything, but it's probably not worth taking as gospel either.
gamasutra.com/view/news/175775/
Basically he never even bothered to move his family since it was always planned as a temp job. Now he's back with Bioware Edmonton as planned.