Old Republic will probably make its money back based on the license alone.
Possible, but I think Lucas and EA are really overestimating the draw of the Star Wars franchise. Lucas has been wrecking the Star Wars license for so long that's it's not exactly uncommon knowledge that it sucks now. I used to love the Star Wars stuff, but Lucas has managed to turn all that enjoyment into complete disgust; if I had kids, I wouldn't even let them watch that awful CG series. Not even because of a crazy grudge, but because I expect shows to have quality standards above "pretty lights" and "writing for 5-year-olds".
And I'm not saying the Old Republic MMO will be necessarily terrible, but I haven't seen any developers out there who I think are capable of wresting even a reasonable fraction of people away from WoW. I'm not sure it's even possible for a Star Wars MMO to crater as badly as something like APB, but I doubt it'll ever come close to the expectations EA has for it. So even if the Old Republic doesn't end up bad (which I'm doubting), it's still not going to get EA what it wants.
Old Republic will probably make its money back based on the license alone.
If it did have a 300million budget, they would have to sell 6 million boxes just to break even. For a pc game.
WoW is only up to what, 12 million sold including expansions?
PROTIP: MMOs usually have rather pricey monthly fees that accompany them.
The fee is the easy part. The hard part is convincing people to either start paying it or keep paying it.
So even if Old Republic only sells, say, two million, it would have to keep all two million of those people playing for 3-4 months (using the WoW price scale) in order to break even. Hardly impossible, but WoW is still the main MMO super-saturating the market and Old Republic is going to have to be damned good to convince people to either give up on WoW or split time between the two. And by "damned good", I mean good enough to tempt the likes of myself despite alternating between indifference towards and contempt of MMOs in general. And right now, most people not playing WoW fit into those categories rather than the category of people just waiting for a better MMO to come out so they can join in.
Companies need to just stop right now with attempting to pull away people in any significant numbers from WoW with big-budget new releases. WoW is just so firmly entrenched now that the only thing which will kill it is time and a gradual loss of players, not the next killer MMO. It won't die, it will just fade away.
Old Republic will probably make its money back based on the license alone.
If it did have a 300million budget, they would have to sell 6 million boxes just to break even. For a pc game.
WoW is only up to what, 12 million sold including expansions?
PROTIP: MMOs usually have rather pricey monthly fees that accompany them.
Ok so lets put a more realistic spin to this;
Lets say they sell 1.5 million boxes in the first month at $50(Possibly a little low, SC2 sold 3 million in the first month, and people are fanbois about that game), they still have $225,000,000 to break even. If they got 750,000 subscribers after the free month they would need 20 months at $15 to break even.
Now with a probably more likely 400,000 subscribers at $15, they are making 6 million a month, and would need 37.5 months to break even. That is over 3 years; to break even.
Mind you they are still just paying back money they have already spent, this is not counting continued development/server costs which will just make this whole process take longer. Also none of this is taking into account decreased gains from monthly plan discounts, or further boxed sales/subscriptions if the game is a success.
If this game doesn't do amazingly out of the gate, I wouldn't be surprised to see dev support cut and the game kept on life support to wring as much money out of it as possible.
I am NOT saying "zomg tor is doomed!" I am just saying, this game has a ridiculously inflated budget.
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KlykaDO you have anySPARE BATTERIES?Registered Userregular
edited October 2010
They will release a glowing,force powered mount for 25$ and make all their money back in a day or two.
I can see ToR being really good, but with their focus on fully voiced multi branching storylines it seems like a very content pressured game.
It just seems like it will be a game that a month or two from release vast swathes of the playerbase will go "That was awesome, but I finished up my storyline for now so I cancelled my account, I might resub when some content patches come out or something" And with each bit of new content they get a sharp boost in subs followed by an equally sharp decline a week later.
I can see ToR being really good, but with their focus on fully voiced multi branching storylines it seems like a very content pressured game.
It just seems like it will be a game that a month or two from release vast swathes of the playerbase will go "That was awesome, but I finished up my storyline for now so I cancelled my account, I might resub when some content patches come out or something" And with each bit of new content they get a sharp boost in subs followed by an equally sharp decline a week later.
I agree, except I don't think the players will come back. If/when the sales dip after people finish the content, it's not going to get more funding to create more content to bring players back. They will just keep bleeding money that way.
It will get put on life support and squeezed for as much money as possible while providing as little as possible.
I think it will make it's money back fairly easily, but I doubt it's long term success will be anything more than middling. It depends at what cycle in WoW's life it's released. If it's anywhere around an expansion launch it's going to suffer greatly, but towards the end of an expansion cycle it can easily charm a few months out of burned out WoW-ers regardless of overall quality.
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reVerseAttack and Dethrone GodRegistered Userregular
I can see ToR being really good, but with their focus on fully voiced multi branching storylines it seems like a very content pressured game.
It just seems like it will be a game that a month or two from release vast swathes of the playerbase will go "That was awesome, but I finished up my storyline for now so I cancelled my account, I might resub when some content patches come out or something" And with each bit of new content they get a sharp boost in subs followed by an equally sharp decline a week later.
I agree, except I don't think the players will come back. If/when the sales dip after people finish the content, it's not going to get more funding to create more content to bring players back. They will just keep bleeding money that way.
It will get put on life support and squeezed for as much money as possible while providing as little as possible.
The thing that annoys me about this is that it's possibly going to be one of the best single-player RPGs ever. Assuming Bioware holds firm on not inserting time drains or repetitive quests between the real bits of content, we're talking about hundreds of hours of compelling adventuring with top-notch production values, across a multitude of different playstyles...until it eventually runs out.
At that point, everyone who was interested in the singleplayer-only content leaves, and they hope they've ensnared enough people to form a viable MMO community to continue paying the fee. And you have 1) a group of singleplayer-focused users who are both miffed at losing access to their singleplayer game (but not to the extent that they'll continue paying for something they're not using), and 2) a multiplayer community that will get restless when new content of comparable quality isn't forthcoming.
I'd also question Bioware's ability to maintain an MMO, specifically the technical side. It's one thing to build a house, it's another to keep the lights on. Blizzard for years was notorious for this. Everybody knows the horrors of "patch day", and even now they still haven't managed to master it.
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"The sausage of Green Earth explodes with flavor like the cannon of culinary delight."
All this TOR talk is making me sad, because I want it to be good, but of course I'll just have to wait and see. I was hoping FF XIV would blow me away too, but that took about three days of beta for me to lose interest.
Then again, there are a lot of FPS games out there, and a lot of them are tanking *Cough, MoH, cough*. He cites Grand Theft Auto. I hope he's talking about III, because that was a massive triumph of originality, and it founded the Sandbox. Then they cranked out sequels, and they were all awesome. And while people were feeling the franchise was going into decline, Rockstar turns around and makes Red Dead Redemption, and provides everyone with something fresh again.
I can see ToR being really good, but with their focus on fully voiced multi branching storylines it seems like a very content pressured game.
It just seems like it will be a game that a month or two from release vast swathes of the playerbase will go "That was awesome, but I finished up my storyline for now so I cancelled my account, I might resub when some content patches come out or something" And with each bit of new content they get a sharp boost in subs followed by an equally sharp decline a week later.
My understanding is that if people are playing the entire storyline to their character within a couple months they're one of those play-for-16-hours-a-day types.
I'm not joking. Like this shit is suppose to be lengthy.
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HenroidMexican kicked from Immigration ThreadCentrism is Racism :3Registered Userregular
I can see ToR being really good, but with their focus on fully voiced multi branching storylines it seems like a very content pressured game.
It just seems like it will be a game that a month or two from release vast swathes of the playerbase will go "That was awesome, but I finished up my storyline for now so I cancelled my account, I might resub when some content patches come out or something" And with each bit of new content they get a sharp boost in subs followed by an equally sharp decline a week later.
My understanding is that if people are playing the entire storyline to their character within a couple months they're one of those play-for-16-hours-a-day types.
I'm not joking. Like this shit is suppose to be lengthy.
I find that extremely hard to believe. I'd love to be wrong, though.
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reVerseAttack and Dethrone GodRegistered Userregular
I can see ToR being really good, but with their focus on fully voiced multi branching storylines it seems like a very content pressured game.
It just seems like it will be a game that a month or two from release vast swathes of the playerbase will go "That was awesome, but I finished up my storyline for now so I cancelled my account, I might resub when some content patches come out or something" And with each bit of new content they get a sharp boost in subs followed by an equally sharp decline a week later.
My understanding is that if people are playing the entire storyline to their character within a couple months they're one of those play-for-16-hours-a-day types.
I'm not joking. Like this shit is suppose to be lengthy.
The only way it's going to be that lengthy is because it's an MMO and it's going to be one big grind fest from start to finish. "Oh, want to see the next part of your personal storyline? Why won't you go grind on those womp rats for twenty levels, then we'll see if maybe you're worthy of advancing the story".
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KlykaDO you have anySPARE BATTERIES?Registered Userregular
edited October 2010
The only way the story can be "months long" is if the few story scenes are put in between ridiculously long grinds and fetch quests.
Then again, there are a lot of FPS games out there, and a lot of them are tanking *Cough, MoH, cough*. He cites Grand Theft Auto. I hope he's talking about III, because that was a massive triumph of originality, and it founded the Sandbox. Then they cranked out sequels, and they were all awesome. And while people were feeling the franchise was going into decline, Rockstar turns around and makes Red Dead Redemption, and provides everyone with something fresh again.
Seems rather ironic for Tim Schafer to be talking about success. Have any of his games not bombed commercially?
Then again, there are a lot of FPS games out there, and a lot of them are tanking *Cough, MoH, cough*. He cites Grand Theft Auto. I hope he's talking about III, because that was a massive triumph of originality, and it founded the Sandbox. Then they cranked out sequels, and they were all awesome. And while people were feeling the franchise was going into decline, Rockstar turns around and makes Red Dead Redemption, and provides everyone with something fresh again.
Seems rather ironic for Tim Schafer to be talking about success. Have any of his games not bombed commercially?
Full Throttle did fine, I think? Still his best work.
I bet you thought that Polyphony Digital was going to stick to the release date for the Playstation 3's Gran Turismo 5 unveiled at E3 earlier this year? Boy were you wrong.
Sony confirmed this morning that the game will not be available Nov. 2
We sincerely apologize to GT fans for the delay, however, creator Kazunori Yamauchi and the team at Polyphony Digital want to make certain they are creating the perfect racing experience, and we are confident that this ambitious game will exceed expectations when it launches.
We'll have more information for you in the near future.2, but said that it will be coming this "holiday season."
I bet you thought that Polyphony Digital was going to stick to the release date for the Playstation 3's Gran Turismo 5 unveiled at E3 earlier this year? Boy were you wrong.
Sony confirmed this morning that the game will not be available Nov. 2
We sincerely apologize to GT fans for the delay, however, creator Kazunori Yamauchi and the team at Polyphony Digital want to make certain they are creating the perfect racing experience, and we are confident that this ambitious game will exceed expectations when it launches.
We'll have more information for you in the near future.2, but said that it will be coming this "holiday season."
Hahahahahahaha.
Does anyone have any budget estimates for GT5? They must be astronomically high at this point.
The only way the story can be "months long" is if the few story scenes are put in between ridiculously long grinds and fetch quests.
They've apparently put in some ridiculously obscene amount of dialog, all spoken.
Going to be such a shame when nobody even reads it and clicks right through as with every other MMO.
"We require your aid! The imperials are making advancements towards our area, and we are running low on supplies of tauntaun hides to keep us warm. Go out and collect ten tauntaun hides. You may find them to the north of here."
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reVerseAttack and Dethrone GodRegistered Userregular
The only way the story can be "months long" is if the few story scenes are put in between ridiculously long grinds and fetch quests.
They've apparently put in some ridiculously obscene amount of dialog, all spoken.
Going to be such a shame when nobody even reads it and clicks right through as with every other MMO.
"We require your aid! The imperials are making advancements towards our area, and we are running low on supplies of tauntaun hides to keep us warm. Go out and collect ten tauntaun hides. You may find them to the north of here."
And once you get there you discover that only one out of eight tauntauns have a hide.
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And Aion
And Age of Conan
Ect ect
Possible, but I think Lucas and EA are really overestimating the draw of the Star Wars franchise. Lucas has been wrecking the Star Wars license for so long that's it's not exactly uncommon knowledge that it sucks now. I used to love the Star Wars stuff, but Lucas has managed to turn all that enjoyment into complete disgust; if I had kids, I wouldn't even let them watch that awful CG series. Not even because of a crazy grudge, but because I expect shows to have quality standards above "pretty lights" and "writing for 5-year-olds".
And I'm not saying the Old Republic MMO will be necessarily terrible, but I haven't seen any developers out there who I think are capable of wresting even a reasonable fraction of people away from WoW. I'm not sure it's even possible for a Star Wars MMO to crater as badly as something like APB, but I doubt it'll ever come close to the expectations EA has for it. So even if the Old Republic doesn't end up bad (which I'm doubting), it's still not going to get EA what it wants.
If it did have a 300million budget, they would have to sell 6 million boxes just to break even. For a pc game.
WoW is only up to what, 12 million sold including expansions, after 6 years?
PROTIP: MMOs usually have rather pricey monthly fees that accompany them.
The fee is the easy part. The hard part is convincing people to either start paying it or keep paying it.
So even if Old Republic only sells, say, two million, it would have to keep all two million of those people playing for 3-4 months (using the WoW price scale) in order to break even. Hardly impossible, but WoW is still the main MMO super-saturating the market and Old Republic is going to have to be damned good to convince people to either give up on WoW or split time between the two. And by "damned good", I mean good enough to tempt the likes of myself despite alternating between indifference towards and contempt of MMOs in general. And right now, most people not playing WoW fit into those categories rather than the category of people just waiting for a better MMO to come out so they can join in.
Companies need to just stop right now with attempting to pull away people in any significant numbers from WoW with big-budget new releases. WoW is just so firmly entrenched now that the only thing which will kill it is time and a gradual loss of players, not the next killer MMO. It won't die, it will just fade away.
Ok so lets put a more realistic spin to this;
Lets say they sell 1.5 million boxes in the first month at $50(Possibly a little low, SC2 sold 3 million in the first month, and people are fanbois about that game), they still have $225,000,000 to break even. If they got 750,000 subscribers after the free month they would need 20 months at $15 to break even.
Now with a probably more likely 400,000 subscribers at $15, they are making 6 million a month, and would need 37.5 months to break even. That is over 3 years; to break even.
Mind you they are still just paying back money they have already spent, this is not counting continued development/server costs which will just make this whole process take longer. Also none of this is taking into account decreased gains from monthly plan discounts, or further boxed sales/subscriptions if the game is a success.
If this game doesn't do amazingly out of the gate, I wouldn't be surprised to see dev support cut and the game kept on life support to wring as much money out of it as possible.
I am NOT saying "zomg tor is doomed!" I am just saying, this game has a ridiculously inflated budget.
It just seems like it will be a game that a month or two from release vast swathes of the playerbase will go "That was awesome, but I finished up my storyline for now so I cancelled my account, I might resub when some content patches come out or something" And with each bit of new content they get a sharp boost in subs followed by an equally sharp decline a week later.
I agree, except I don't think the players will come back. If/when the sales dip after people finish the content, it's not going to get more funding to create more content to bring players back. They will just keep bleeding money that way.
It will get put on life support and squeezed for as much money as possible while providing as little as possible.
It's actually 12 million active subscribers, not units sold.
The thing that annoys me about this is that it's possibly going to be one of the best single-player RPGs ever. Assuming Bioware holds firm on not inserting time drains or repetitive quests between the real bits of content, we're talking about hundreds of hours of compelling adventuring with top-notch production values, across a multitude of different playstyles...until it eventually runs out.
At that point, everyone who was interested in the singleplayer-only content leaves, and they hope they've ensnared enough people to form a viable MMO community to continue paying the fee. And you have 1) a group of singleplayer-focused users who are both miffed at losing access to their singleplayer game (but not to the extent that they'll continue paying for something they're not using), and 2) a multiplayer community that will get restless when new content of comparable quality isn't forthcoming.
Tim Schafer says Originality is the only way to success.
Then again, there are a lot of FPS games out there, and a lot of them are tanking *Cough, MoH, cough*. He cites Grand Theft Auto. I hope he's talking about III, because that was a massive triumph of originality, and it founded the Sandbox. Then they cranked out sequels, and they were all awesome. And while people were feeling the franchise was going into decline, Rockstar turns around and makes Red Dead Redemption, and provides everyone with something fresh again.
Wait, the PSPGo was 250 euros while it was 250 US Dollars? That's a crazy rip off.
I've got a bad case of lovin' you.
My understanding is that if people are playing the entire storyline to their character within a couple months they're one of those play-for-16-hours-a-day types.
I'm not joking. Like this shit is suppose to be lengthy.
It'd be nice if SCEA did the same thing. NOT COUNTING ON IT.
I find that extremely hard to believe. I'd love to be wrong, though.
The only way it's going to be that lengthy is because it's an MMO and it's going to be one big grind fest from start to finish. "Oh, want to see the next part of your personal storyline? Why won't you go grind on those womp rats for twenty levels, then we'll see if maybe you're worthy of advancing the story".
Seems rather ironic for Tim Schafer to be talking about success. Have any of his games not bombed commercially?
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Full Throttle did fine, I think? Still his best work.
They've apparently put in some ridiculously obscene amount of dialog, all spoken.
Going to be such a shame when nobody even reads it and clicks right through as with every other MMO.
Hahahaha.
I so called it.
The Mass Effect games have ridiculously obscene amount of dialog, all spoken, and it doesn't take months to beat them.
Gearbox is going to have to step in eventually I think.
Step 1: Announce game
Step 2: Release 40.00 demo
Step 3: Delay the game numerous times
Step 4: ???
Step 5: PROFIT!
Nintendo Network ID - Brainiac_8
PSN - Brainiac_8
Steam - http://steamcommunity.com/id/BRAINIAC8/
Add me!
Fixed that last step for you.
"We require your aid! The imperials are making advancements towards our area, and we are running low on supplies of tauntaun hides to keep us warm. Go out and collect ten tauntaun hides. You may find them to the north of here."
And once you get there you discover that only one out of eight tauntauns have a hide.
Nah. You don't have quests to kill those until you are around level 43.