Wow, EA must really want to keep subs for SW:TOR...

[Frostbite3789]

No offense to Swtor but I feel like they're doing this because of another big MMO coming out. Guild Wars 2. They're probably scared shitless that it will take a chunck of their players. Sure it's not p2p and so you COULD play both. But why pay for a lesser quality mmo when the other one has only a one time fee?

Higher quality. Hasn't been released yet.

Does anyone remember actual Guild Wars or does everyone remember what they wish Guild Wars had been? Because going back and playing it recently, it's pretty infuriating to play.

 

[Woodsey]

At this point it doesnt really matter anyway. Unless EA finish the cosmic mind control laser they are working on and convince every single person in the universe they desperately want to buy TOR, they will not turn a profit on that game anyway.

I mean, seriously. How does one spend 600 million on marketing and expect the game to make the money back?

The figure they spent on the game increases by 10 million every time someone brings it up. And they said that they'd turn a profit with 500,000 subs.

I just went and looked for a source through google. Unfortunately I only found outdated stuff, but here an article brought out in 2010 which says the money spent on the game at that point was 300 million: http://www.1up.com/news/ea-louse-blows-lid-old-republic-budget-warhammer-failure

Add another year of development, server costs and marketing costs to that and the 500-600 million number doesnt seem so outlandish.

I know about that, but the most that was revealed about him was that he was a disgruntled former artist. I can't imagine many artists get a look at the financial books of a project they've not even worked on.

Likewise, that's a year before release, they'd already been working on it for 4 or 5 before that. Even if you're ramping up in the final year (with initial development time only consisting of much smaller teams), it would seem overblown that it'd double in cost.

And from observation, it had a big marketing campaign but not abnormally so.

I don't doubt that it could quite easily qualify as the most expensive development project, but I do doubt that it cost six times as much as the second most expensive project. (And like I said, that figure escalates randomly whenever it's brought up.)

(And the mention of George Lucas is just... weird.)

 

[lokicdn]

The reason for the free month is because they promised rated pvp in patch 1.2 and where not able to deliver.

 

[The Human Torch]

Well, WoW also gave out plenty of rewards to loyal subscribers, since their start in 2004 was anything but smooth. Some people couldn't play at all. Plus, Blizzard gives out mini-pets every year as a celebration.

I am not complaining, I am getting another free month, and I am still enjoy SWTOR. Only problem is that it's so poorly optimized that no gaming rig seems to be able to run it properly.

 

[gmaverick019_v1legacy]

ai yai yai...was going to say "in b4 gw2 elitism over tor" but i guess i was too slow for that there..


OT: while this is nice and all, from what i saw at a friends house they should've taken a few things in different directions (obvious ones, mind you) and it's probably too late to win back some of the people who dropped it in the first two months. i doubt i'll be getting the game anytime soon (probably until it's f2p) but this is nice for the people who've stuck it out and are really enjoying the patched update for content.

 

[Aircross]

EA is a sinking ship, and Bioware is going to be thrown off sooner or later so they will sink just a little slower.

That or all the EA execs will jump ship with all their money and all the life boats leaving everyone else to go down with the ship.

 

[Emiscary]

Too little too late. Then again that's kind of EA's mission statement these days...

 

[Silvianoshei]

"Currently subbed account"

Oh well, I doubt I'd get back into it. Can't do the whole hotkey MMO thing anymore...

 

[RJ 17]

Anyone else seeing this as the first stumbling step to EA saying "fuck it" as another WoW competitor gives up and goes free-to-play? Not that it matters since TOR servers will be shut down within a year.

 

[Epona]

It does seem a bit desperate to be throwing free time out so soon. I mean, it's been less than a year and they're already rewarding the high level players? Just seems... odd.

It's been less than 6 months, more like 4 months and this is desperate.

 

[Nimcha]

I find the thread title hilarious. Do you think they actually prefer people stopping their subscribtions?

 

[Korten12]

No offense to Swtor but I feel like they're doing this because of another big MMO coming out. Guild Wars 2. They're probably scared shitless that it will take a chunck of their players. Sure it's not p2p and so you COULD play both. But why pay for a lesser quality mmo when the other one has only a one time fee?

Higher quality. Hasn't been released yet.

Does anyone remember actual Guild Wars or does everyone remember what they wish Guild Wars had been? Because going back and playing it recently, it's pretty infuriating to play.

No, they are stuck in a rather wierd form of Nostalgia, even though Guild Wars isn't all that old. The original game sucked, the developers say they are fixing it and now the players are all "OH MY! BEST GAME EVAR! (even though we haven't played it at all!". I will say that it does look interesting, but every time I see someone saying "Guild Wars 2 is the superior game!" I want to knock them on their idiotic asses.

Play the game first, after a few months then decide. Christ it shouldn't be this hard to understand.

I love how you state that the original sucks like it's a fact. GW had it's problems, it wasn't the greatest, but it wasn't anywhere near horrible.

No offense to Swtor but I feel like they're doing this because of another big MMO coming out. Guild Wars 2. They're probably scared shitless that it will take a chunck of their players. Sure it's not p2p and so you COULD play both. But why pay for a lesser quality mmo when the other one has only a one time fee?

Lovely, saying a game that you haven't played and hasn't even come out yet is the superior game.

I hate the months before an MMO launch.

Get to play the game tomorrow, and hell, so far the game hasn't gotten a single bad PR. Hell when it first started to allow people to play it, most people said it played better then most MMO's at launch and they were playing the alpha build.

So calm down, you seem to be acting like if someone personally insulted you.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

Anyone else seeing this as the first stumbling step to EA saying "fuck it" as another WoW competitor gives up and goes free-to-play? Not that it matters since TOR servers will be shut down within a year.

Oh for...

GOING FREE TO PLAY IS NOT GIVING UP.

"Free to Play" is a goddam gold mine. League of Legends is "free to play" and it's like a license to print money. Almost all the MMOs that went FTP saw a huge spike in profits. It's a different business model, not a surrender. It's actually a pretty INSIDIOUS business model too, if it's done right. You can get people spending a LOT more than a monthly sub, for more aggressively gated content.

Play the game first, after a few months then decide. Christ it shouldn't be this hard to understand.

Can I say it's a more promising looking MMO? It was certainly marketed better than TOR, in terms of scratching me where I itch. Whether it's *actually* better remains to be seen of course. I'll have an inkling after this weekend.

And yes, the original GW was a game of...questionable merit. But the sequel bears little resemblance to its forebearer, which wasn't even an actual MMO. It was a co-op game with some very basic and bland MMO mechanics.

 

[not_you]

Does anyone remember actual Guild Wars or does everyone remember what they wish Guild Wars had been? Because going back and playing it recently, it's pretty infuriating to play.

It's only infuriating to play because it's still running basically the exact same game from 2005(?)....

Only seems bad because of how old it was, rewind back to when it was first released and I'm sure it wouldn't be so horrid...
Although I am in the same boat as you in this case, having played TOR then gone back to GW1 was painful to say the least, but, GW2 is on the horizons now...

OT: Honestly, I really hope TOR helps EA... Sure, they're spineless zombies who don't know much about... well, anything really... But without EA, what other major devs are there?
Bethesda? (Countless Elder Scrolls/boring FPS clones)
Rockstar? (Endless GTA's... actually, that's not so bad)
Blizzard/Activision? (I personally hate blizzard, and Activision are worse than EA for milking franchises to death)

Honestly, I don't think EA are the bad guys anymore... Origin needs some work, but, let's face it, if EA didn't exist, who would we throw the rest of the flack on?

 

[RJ 17]

Anyone else seeing this as the first stumbling step to EA saying "fuck it" as another WoW competitor gives up and goes free-to-play? Not that it matters since TOR servers will be shut down within a year.

Oh for...

GOING FREE TO PLAY IS NOT GIVING UP.

"Free to Play" is a goddam gold mine. League of Legends is "free to play" and it's like a license to print money. Almost all the MMOs that went FTP saw a huge spike in profits. It's a different business model, not a surrender. It's actually a pretty INSIDIOUS business model too, if it's done right. You can get people spending a LOT more than a monthly sub, for more aggressively gated content.

Nah, they're quitters, surrendering to the juggernaut that is WoW. You said quite specifically it's a good business model if done correctly, well when was the last time EA did something correctly? Their shares are down and only got a recent boost because apparently there's rumors that a Japanese company is planning on buying them out.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

Nah, they're quitters, surrendering to the juggernaut that is WoW. You said quite specifically it's a good business model if done correctly, well when was the last time EA did something correctly? Their shares are down and only got a recent boost because apparently there's rumors that a Japanese company is planning on buying them out.

The "juggernaut of WoW" has been bleeding subscribers for some time now. As more and more AAA quality FTP games hit the net, it's going to be difficult to keep a subscription based game afloat unless you offer tremendous content and value, and that's going to be next to impossible for newly launched games. I suspect TOR and possibly The Secret World will be the last big sub games, and as the latter is double-dipping with micro-transactions I half suspect it's going to fall hard on its face.

 

[RJ 17]

Nah, they're quitters, surrendering to the juggernaut that is WoW. You said quite specifically it's a good business model if done correctly, well when was the last time EA did something correctly? Their shares are down and only got a recent boost because apparently there's rumors that a Japanese company is planning on buying them out.

The "juggernaut of WoW" has been bleeding subscribers for some time now. As more and more AAA quality FTP games hit the net, it's going to be difficult to keep a subscription based game afloat unless you offer tremendous content and value, and that's going to be next to impossible for newly launched games. I suspect TOR and possibly The Secret World will be the last big sub games, and as the latter is double-dipping with micro-transactions I half suspect it's going to fall hard on its face.

Alright, fair enough.

....what? Don't look at me like that just because I actually refused to argue back. I'm not going to continue arguing a case I was half joking about to begin with.