E3: Star Wars: The Old Republic

[fundayz]

You forget to substract server upkeep, marketing, distribution, etc.

500k*60$ is not pure profit, id be surprised if their box sales have more than 25% profit margin and thats rather optimistic.

Not to forget that the 15$/month need to cover updates also that need to be fully voice acted and the same quality as the launch game, else the game is going to be dead after the first 6 months.

Additionally I'd like to point out a small fact in the entertainment industry that earning as much as you invested = failure. A movie breaks even at double the investment cost, and so do games. Profit would be generated at >2x X, while X being the initial investment.

But we are speculating, i'm not an EA exec, nor do i know all the facts, but it seems unreasonable for SWTOR to be profitable at 500k subs based on the promised quality.

No I did not forget about any of that. That's why I said REVENUE, not profits; that's also why I said a couple of years, not 1. The point I was trying to get across is that it is absolutely ridiculous to claim that SWTOR will not be profitable until it's 11th year.

500k subs = 90 million/year. The cost of server upkeep, support, etc is minimal compared to the revenue created. Even with mediocre success this game will make multiple times its investment within 4 years. The only way SWTOR won't be profitable is if it flops.

Simply put, you are overestimating the cost of maintaining an MMO. This is why I'm so vehemently opposed to $15 subscription fees ($5 is much more reasonable).

That being said, I fully expect SWTOR to have fewer content patches than average due to it's two biggest selling points:

1. Voice over is quite expensive yet it is required for literally ALL content. Whether it be more quests, flashpoints, operations, etc the devs will HAVE TO spend more than other MMO's to develop the same amount of content. This will result in either lower quantity and/or lower quality of content.

2. The fact that Class Story makes a large portion of the games storyline means that any additional story content will have to be created 8-fold in order for all classes to have their own personal storyline. This compounds with the above issue as it also means they will need 8 times the voice acting for ANY class quests they add.

Together, the two main features of SWTOR work are an incredibly inefficient use of resources.

 

[adamtm]

snip

fair enough, ill concede to that. 10 years might have been an extreme overstatement.

PS: although "a couple of years" would still lead to the danger of the game possibly dying midway through. Thats why i find the "we need X subscribers to be profitable" to be senseless statements. X subscribers for how long? Would X-Y subs for Z time make you still profitable? Thats why i think the statement was pure spin, it was said like you would be selling boxes and that 500k box-sales would make it profitable.

 

[rsvp42]

Sorry but replacing quest text with voiced cutscenes is NOT a significant departure simply because it doesn't directly affect gameplay. The questing in SWTOR is the same old tired questing as WoW and other EQ-based MMO's, it's just got better storytelling and immersion.

Is this a good thing? Of course. Is it enough to stand out? For now it is, but there's already plenty of MMO on the horizon that are also giving story real attention in addition to actually trying to come up with something new. When those games come out SWTOR is going to look almost as outdated as WoW.

But it affects the experience. Everyone harps on combat like it's the only thing that determines if a game succeeds, while forgetting everything else that matters. Things like having a large, fleshed-out world and solid lore.

It reminds me of Starcraft 2's development when everyone bashed it for being too traditional and not adapting to new game mechanics in the RTS genre. Yet the game released, it was well-made, had a decent story and unique gameplay scenarios. I think it's safe to call that game a solid success, despite being in the same mold as as its 1998 predecessor. As a equal to that game, it really stood out.

Seeing as how TOR is a sequel of sorts to the KoTORs, I don't think it's going the wrong route to use the traditional MMO combat model since it more closely resembles the combat of those games (for the record, it's more fun than the KoTOR combat).

I don't expect everyone to like it, but I don't agree that it's a bad choice in and of itself.

 

[rsvp42]

TORs success would be bad for the MMO-industry, it would signal exactly the wrong thing. Like James Camerons Avatar's success signaled to the whole movie industry that stereoscopic 3D is apparently THE SHIT now and that we should have it in every movie ever made.

If TOR succeeds we will get another 10 years of stale hotkey gameplay MMOs, possibly on licenses, but this time with voice-overs and dialogue-wheels. And while i might be wrong, my opinion is its not where this industry should be going towards.

You're sort of edging into a slippery-slope fallacy here. There are already games coming out that TOR haters laud as being the "proper" direction for MMOs, games like GW2. TOR being successful would only mean that there's still a market for traditional MMOs, which is already obvious because of how many subs WoW still has. There's no doubt that a large portion of the MMO community will be enamored with newer approaches to combat, but it doesn't make a game like TOR obsolete.

 

[adamtm]

TORs success would be bad for the MMO-industry, it would signal exactly the wrong thing. Like James Camerons Avatar's success signaled to the whole movie industry that stereoscopic 3D is apparently THE SHIT now and that we should have it in every movie ever made.

If TOR succeeds we will get another 10 years of stale hotkey gameplay MMOs, possibly on licenses, but this time with voice-overs and dialogue-wheels. And while i might be wrong, my opinion is its not where this industry should be going towards.

You're sort of edging into a slippery-slope fallacy here. There are already games coming out that TOR haters laud as being the "proper" direction for MMOs, games like GW2. TOR being successful would only mean that there's still a market for traditional MMOs, which is already obvious because of how many subs WoW still has. There's no doubt that a large portion of the MMO community will be enamored with newer approaches to combat, but it doesn't make a game like TOR obsolete.

Its only a fallacy if you are on top of the slope, we are already halfway down on it.

I do not see any MMO out there as the "proper" direction, its like evolution, there is no clear goal. TOR is at the moment like a fish with three eyes, is it bad for the fish? Nope. Is it beneficial to its survival? Nope. Its a neutral mutation, it doesnt itself harm, but neither is it beneficial.

Also take into consideration that an IP like Star Wars, a dev like Bioware and a publisher like EA carry an environmental pressure (to keep my evolution-analogy intact). Why do you think there are so many WoW clones out there? Because Blizzard and WoW carry an evolutionary pressure.

"If it worked for them, why not for us?"

Similarly a successful TOR will have a pressure on the market to make similar things.
And that creates an evolutionary stalemate, nobody takes any risk and our games become rehashes of rehashes. Look at the success of games like Halo, suddenly shooters had regenerating health. Gears of War lead to a wave of chest-high walls in TPS, etc. pp.

This is not a slippery-slope fallacy, its already happened so many times over and over and over again.

I'll tell you a secret, with all my love for Blizzard and WoW i want them to kill it, I want WoW gone.
Its a too big pressure on the market creating a stagnant landscape of same old mechanics and concepts.

Id rather have a thousand unique, fun, niche-mmos at 300k subs than one "king" to rule them all and to dictate the philosophy.

TOR is not "Next Gen" its "this-gen.5" and from my observation i gather that this gen is slowly dieing.

 

[rsvp42]

snip

Fair enough, I'm understanding your viewpoint a little more clearly.

I think if we're going to use an evolution metaphor, we should remember the concept of fitness (in terms of evolutionary survival). If TOR's traditional approach is not appealing to enough people to allow it to survive and prosper, then it won't. If it does succeed, that's not a bad thing for the market because its success is based on the market. It's only successful if consumers make it so, so all TOR's success will mean for the market is that people still like to play this style of MMO.

I think regardless of our opinions, one thing is certain: TOR will not be as big as WoW in terms of subscribers. I do agree that a certain portion of MMO players are no longer enamored with its style of play and will only be satisfied with newer or riskier approaches. I think we're moving towards an MMO market split among several high-profile and high-quality titles instead of being dominated by one title. I do want TOR to succeed because I think it will offer a different experience from other new titles on the horizon, but I don't want it to become the size of WoW. It honestly never even needs to get that big. A million steady subscribers would be great, more would just be icing on the cake.

 

[adamtm]

I think if we're going to use an evolution metaphor, we should remember the concept of fitness (in terms of evolutionary survival). If TOR's traditional approach is not appealing to enough people to allow it to survive and prosper, then it won't. If it does succeed, that's not a bad thing for the market because its success is based on the market. It's only successful if consumers make it so, so all TOR's success will mean for the market is that people still like to play this style of MMO.

I think you are confusing "the market" with "the industry". Of course making Transformers 3 is good for the market, after all Transformers 1+2 made a shit-ton of money.
Ask any movie critic if they find Transformers 3 to be beneficial to the industry, they will say the same thing i said about TOR.

If your goal is to make money, a successful TOR is a great thing, that will mean that Blizz can milk their cow some more, and that they do not need to worry about competition like TSW, GW2 or EVE. And as a publisher its exactly what you are aiming at.

But as a consumer, what incentive do i have to hope that TOR is successful?

Furthermore, i think even the most conservative economist will tell you that the free market only works with a healthy competition and new ideas. Once you reach stagnation, your market is going to suffer creating (idea) monopolies (WoW, MW2, etc.) and then the consumer suffers.

 

[rsvp42]

I think you are confusing "the market" with "the industry". Of course making Transformers 3 is good for the market, after all Transformers 1+2 made a shit-ton of money.
Ask any movie critic if they find Transformers 3 to be beneficial to the industry, they will say the same thing i said about TOR.

If your goal is to make money, a successful TOR is a great thing, that will mean that Blizz can milk their cow some more, and that they do not need to worry about competition like TSW, GW2 or EVE. And as a publisher its exactly what you are aiming at.

But as a consumer, what incentive do i have to hope that TOR is successful?

Furthermore, i think even the most conservative economist will tell you that the free market only works with a healthy competition and new ideas. Once you reach stagnation, your market is going to suffer creating (idea) monopolies (WoW, MW2, etc.) and then the consumer suffers.

Unless you're one of the millions of consumers that love those games. They didn't use mind control to become popular, they have a genuine appeal that drew players in before reaching the tipping point where people joined just to be with friends. I think taking the artistic high ground is a good thing because it encourages developers to do the same, but even the snootiest critics can't stop franchises like Fast & the Furious or Transformers from raking in the cash.

My point is that there are other games out there that offer different experiences and there always will be. As long as there's a market for it, they will get made. The trend is moving away from a single game as king. WoW will not become more successful if TOR succeeds, it will suffer. And games like GW2 will draw even more players away, I suspect. We were already in a place of stagnation. What we now have with TOR, GW2, TERA, TSW, and other titles is dynamism. New and competing titles taking the center stage as WoW starts a downward trend. TOR will not stagnate the industry because it won't be as big as WoW and too many other games are coming out that will spread out subscribers. With at least a million people excited to play TOR, it seems strange to root for its failure, as if you were trying to save people from their own "bad taste." It's just another choice among several new options on the horizon

 

[adamtm]

Unless you're one of the millions of consumers that love those games. They didn't use mind control to become popular, they have a genuine appeal that drew players in before reaching the tipping point where people joined just to be with friends. I think taking the artistic high ground is a good thing because it encourages developers to do the same, but even the snootiest critics can't stop franchises like Fast & the Furious or Transformers from raking in the cash.

My point is that there are other games out there that offer different experiences and there always will be. As long as there's a market for it, they will get made. The trend is moving away from a single game as king. WoW will not become more successful if TOR succeeds, it will suffer. And games like GW2 will draw even more players away, I suspect. We were already in a place of stagnation. What we now have with TOR, GW2, TERA, TSW, and other titles is dynamism. New and competing titles taking the center stage as WoW starts a downward trend. TOR will not stagnate the industry because it won't be as big as WoW and too many other games are coming out that will spread out subscribers. With at least a million people excited to play TOR, it seems strange to root for its failure, as if you were trying to save people from their own "bad taste." It's just another choice among several new options on the horizon

I root for its failure out of the reasons i named above.
You say TOR will not stagnate the industry, i say it will if it succeeds. Both our opinions are rooted in speculation, i presented my case long enough here.

I cant stop EA from making money with The Fast And The Old Republic, but i do not have to like it.

And i wont even address the bold part because thats a completely different discussion.