Electronic Arts is planning on putting a cap on the amount of players that will be able to access Star Wars: The Old Republic at the launch of the MMORPG this fall. While no specific number has been announced, there is an exact target of player volume that can be reached with a combination of physical and digital sales of the game. Once that cap is reached, Electronic Arts will halt sales of digital copies and wait until server performance can be stabilized to continue selling the potentially popular title. Official reps for Electronic Arts didn’t indicate how long the server upgrade process would be between sale periods.
Since digital sales will be limited to the Origin store, it should be a simple procedure for Electronic Arts to halt sales of the game. It’s possible that this move will be perceived by the public as artificially limiting the supply of the Star Wars title to increase demand over time. Fans of the game could potentially become annoyed if the title is unavailable shortly after launch. In addition, this move could backfire on Electronic Arts if the game is heavily preordered, but falls prey to negative reviews from the gaming press which reduces the chances of future sales.
The launch date of the game is currently unannounced, but the game will be going into beta testing in September with selected weekends that will allow players to try out the MMORPG. Bioware and Electronic Arts are expected to announce a fall date for the launch of the game to take advantage of the lucrative holiday shopping season. Assuming physical copies aren’t limited from being activated like digital copies once a player cap is hit, it’s also possible that the price of physical copies could skyrocket on third party sites like eBay and Craigslist. If Electronic Arts does plan to cap all copies of the game until servers are capable of handling the load, copies that are purchased for the holidays may not work once received.
Over 2 years ago I heard about this from Bio-Ware they were designing this game for Lucas Arts that was until EA took over. EA has had an pathetic trend of non reliability In game management. They have destroyed many smaller firms and killed many good games in the past for games that tanked just as fast. Now enter very possibly the most anticipated game in history and there NOT ready for a full launch. Actually the blame has to be put on George Lucas for signing the rights over to EA so he could spend all his time rereleasing all the Star Wars films in 3D. Fans deserve his full attention to design and management of this game title. Years ago many of my friends and I played “Earth and Beyond” it was a Space MMORPG which was owned by West Wood Studios and EA bought them out absorbed much of there staff and shut down the game. To this day I refuse to play another EA game again.
and this article is the first of the negativity, otherwise the title would have read…”EA halts sales to promote long term stabillity for its new game community”
and your starting the negativity with this article…and if you weren’t the title would have been …”EA halts copies in order to have long term stability for its community.”
It’s not just a ploy to increase sales over time – about 1 million people straddling the line of Star Wars fans and players of MMOs just felt a bit queasy and then ran off to find out how to preorder.
Crappy game + low supply… Profit?