Star Wars: The Old Republic Profitable With 500,000 Subs

[jackknife402]

I believe it will meet and exceed 500k easily. Think of the star wars fanbase, think of how long they kept Galaxies going with waaay more than that many subscribers.

Not to mention Bioware is the best at story telling, best at immersion, and best at utilizing the graphics and resources it has at it's disposal.

I think people are claiming it'll fail just because of the juggernaut WoW always lurking in the shadows.

The only problem with MMO's these days is they STRIVE to be WoW killers, instead of just existing in the market, they want to take it over. Hell, a game as complicated as EVE online meets these expectations everyday and no one whines that it hasn't killed WoW yet.

But WoW does need to die, it's become to soft, and it's made blizzard too soft. They have limitless resources now and they spew forth crap like SC2, so dumbed down that a 4 year old with autism could play and excel in it.

Personally I'm gonna want to stick to games like Salem, a game where they make you think, because if you screw up, you're dead. End of story. No replays. No checkpoints. Yeah you'll lose everything you had and worked for, but what is a game without a risk involved?

A dumbed down 21st century idiotic weak faced world, that's what it is.

 

[Super Toast]

I'd be genuinely surprised if it doesn't succeed.

 

[Yoshisummons]

After seeing some of the walkthrough I am disappointed. The rape and abuse of iconic star wars imagery solely because of compensation for the lack of star wars feel otherwise. The uniforms of the people at the bridge of the sith space ship, the empire icon instead of a circle is now a hexagon, the title grand moff, the bridge looks nothing like a bridge of a space station; it is designed like the throne room for the emperor on the second death star, the republic soldiers looking like clone troopers,they then use the holo-table and the screen wall things which were both used at command stations in the rebel hoth base and the Geonosian hq in order to give a sense that it is in fact a bridge.

After watching GC 2009: The Old Republic Video Walkthrough Part 3 at 3:40 afer only a few second after the rage inducing bridge shown we get the most stupid second in command officer. The delayed reaction of the potential loss of control of engineering just boggles the mind.

If I go further I'll just go deeper into sadness.

 

[Nova Helix]

Normal RPG = GOOD
Pay per month RPG = BAD

I refuse to pay for a game I already bought.

 

[Callate]

Half a million subscribers in achievable. I hope Bioware succeeds. This is beginning to look a little like the Spider-Man musical.

 

[Realist]

Even if the venerable EA louse [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/104345-Alleged-Insider-Airs-EAs-Dirty-Laundry]'s unsubstantiated comments that give Old Republic a $300 million budget are true, EA has said the game is on a 10-year plan.

In short, EALouse's claims aren't true: in the most recent meeting, the same as in which the CFO Brown was present, the EA people commented upon the budget claim statements that were roaming around end of last year like EALouse's and they mentioned they've had a really good chuckle about it. 100-150m dollar budget is far more realistic.

Besides, NO company will work on a 10 year plan for becoming profitable, that's insane, and certainly huge corporations for an MMO game don't think like that, that's just bad business. Such estimations are mostly made for a 1 or 2 yr time period.

 

[Vanaron]

I'm ignoring a powerful urge to go nuts as a superhero in DCUO for TOR's sake. Looking forward to it.

Go nuts dude, it's going to be a while.

Its going to be a copy of War hammer crash, Only wow has perfected the MMO style game.


1 year after its out there will be 100,000 people playing maximum

One of the general problems with Warhammer Online was that it just wasn't all that interesting beyond Warhammer fans. To a lot of people(including me), it just looked like another Medieval MMORPG trying to move in on WoW's success.

This has a lot more going for it.

like what? being for star wars fans?

Hmm... Let's see...

Mass Effect 2 sold 2 million copies on its first week, DA:O toped 4 mil last I checked and within a year of its release Star Wars Galaxies had sold more than a million copies, in a time where MMOs weren't even that popular this side of the Atlantic. The same can be said about more recent MMOs without powerhouse names like Star Wars or Bioware behind them...

So 500k copies... Not a stretch...

In fact I would be surprised if the game didn't break the million mark on its first few months.

 

[Killerbunny001]

500k on lunch date will be easy, still having 500k after 6 months is the trick. Personally I don`t think it will hold for that long. Server merges will happen within the year and we all know what that means...

10 year life span is just plain ol` lulz. The game looks like shit now and it`s not even ready, content wise and game play mechanics won`t be something groundbreaking either. Keep dreaming EA.

 

[Condemned]

500.000 people is quite a lot. Lets hope it can live up to all expectations.

 

[Realist]

500k on lunch date will be easy, still having 500k after 6 months is the trick. Personally I don`t think it will hold for that long. Server merges will happen within the year and we all know what that means...

10 year life span is just plain ol` lulz. The game looks like shit now and it`s not even ready, content wise and game play mechanics won`t be something groundbreaking either. Keep dreaming EA.

Eh, 10 yr lifespan is regular business among MMORPG's: UO and EQ are also still around after 12-14 years, EQ is even opening a new server this February.

Whether BW will be successful to maintain 500k subs for SWTOR for longer than a year, that's the real question: they have the strong reputation and know how to make interesting games, they have the brand name Star Wars and they got the budget (while 300m has proven to be false, 100-150m is still a lot), but whether that all will be enough for that goal remains to be seen.
In the end the gameplay and amount of content past the first months of playing will be the deciding factor for its success.

 

[seditary]

After seeing some of the walkthrough I am disappointed. The rape and abuse of iconic star wars imagery solely because of compensation for the lack of star wars feel otherwise. The uniforms of the people at the bridge of the sith space ship, the empire icon instead of a circle is now a hexagon, the title grand moff, the bridge looks nothing like a bridge of a space station; it is designed like the throne room for the emperor on the second death star, the republic soldiers looking like clone troopers,they then use the holo-table and the screen wall things which were both used at command stations in the rebel hoth base and the Geonosian hq in order to give a sense that it is in fact a bridge.

After watching GC 2009: The Old Republic Video Walkthrough Part 3 at 3:40 afer only a few second after the rage inducing bridge shown we get the most stupid second in command officer. The delayed reaction of the potential loss of control of engineering just boggles the mind.

If I go further I'll just go deeper into sadness.

Are you serious? Look at the name of the game again, stare at it for half an hour since it might take that long for it to sink in for you.

 

[Sonicron]

Sadly, I can't deny that this game will take off. Not sure about it being sustainable for 10 years, but it will be big.
And cast a crushingly large shadow over Dark Millennium.
40k is big, but Star Wars is bigger, and I fear that TOR might already be putting the final nail in the coffin of my long-awaited 40k MMO long before it even hits shelves.

 

[mad825]

easily achievable, knowing how people are very gullible when it comes to a name of an franchise.

This game should fail, one evil empire is no substitute for another to take over.

 

[superbatranger]

I can see myself playing this. Man, I hope it's good.

 

[Zer_]

After seeing some of the walkthrough I am disappointed. The rape and abuse of iconic star wars imagery solely because of compensation for the lack of star wars feel otherwise. The uniforms of the people at the bridge of the sith space ship, the empire icon instead of a circle is now a hexagon, the title grand moff, the bridge looks nothing like a bridge of a space station; it is designed like the throne room for the emperor on the second death star, the republic soldiers looking like clone troopers,they then use the holo-table and the screen wall things which were both used at command stations in the rebel hoth base and the Geonosian hq in order to give a sense that it is in fact a bridge.

After watching GC 2009: The Old Republic Video Walkthrough Part 3 at 3:40 afer only a few second after the rage inducing bridge shown we get the most stupid second in command officer. The delayed reaction of the potential loss of control of engineering just boggles the mind.

If I go further I'll just go deeper into sadness.

Actually a lot of the decisions they made make sense. A throne room on the bridge of a capital ship makes sense. There are many more Sith in the past than there are during the original trilogy. There was only the Emperor and Vader in the originals. This takes place 10,000 years before where you have many Sith Lords. Each would want his own throne room from which to command his minions.

 

[Keava]

500k subs is not that hard in MMO environment actually. If the product is polished and lacks bug on first 3 months of release it can easily keep up with the numbers.
The reason both WAR and AoC failed was that the games were unifished and untested at the start, they offered nothing above first 15-20 lvls of gameplay and even that was buggy.

In comparison look at Rift, which despite being yet another fantasy MMO, they showed with their beta they are able to deliver relatively smooth experience and can react to sudden emergencies within 30 minutes rather than 30 days.

If BioWare/EA can do the same with TOR they will have much easier time keeping up above 500k subs. Especially after 6 years of WoW reign when people do start to look at something that isn't WoW but still feels familiar.

 

[Danpascooch]

Its going to be a copy of War hammer crash, Only wow has perfected the MMO style game.


1 year after its out there will be 100,000 people playing maximum

I saw the game play, its stiff and unnatural, not like the smooth game play WoW has, even though wow is a bad game this wont make people turn over

When did you see the gameplay?

You know it's NOT OUT YET right?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SzAo7fWBn1Y&feature=channel

looks generic right?

It looks like a cooler version of WoW, you know, that MMO with over 10 million subscribers? That's pretty fucking impressive for something that isn't even done yet. Throw in the voice acting and story, and that makes for an MMO significantly better than WoW given what you just showed me.

If you think that's going to fail because it's "generic" based on that video than I'm sorry your expectations of having the game allow you to control each limb as you fly through the air hacking enemies apart through special "orgasmo-vision" didn't pan out.