Electronic Arts is in a state of flux. The company that Markus “Notch” Persson, creator of Minecraft, called a “bunch of cynical bastards” that are “methodically destroying” video games is trying to find its place in a medium that is changing. EA is turning further away from massive productions that cost upward of $200 million to produce and on to smaller titles in the mobile and social spaces.
What EA game cost $200 million to produce? Star Wars: The Old Republic. The MMO took six years to develop, with a staff of 800 people working on four continents to see the game to completion. Was it worth the gamble? Back in February, 1.7 million players were exploring the galaxy together. These were active subscribers too, the players EA is banking on for revenue each month. That population is in steep decline though. EA announced during its fiscal year earnings report on Monday that Star Wars’ membership has fallen to 1.3 million.
By Electronic Arts’ estimation, that’s more than double the number of subscribers it needs to make The Old Republic profitable. The publisher claimed just after the game’s release in December that it needed to retain 500,000 subscribers to make Star Wars: The Old Republic profitable. EA has already lost 400,000 subscribers over the course of just two months though. Right now, profitability on the game means staunching the flow of blood.
When Star Wars: The Old Republic went into development, the business and art of MMOs was very different. World of Warcraft was still just ramping up in 2006, making Blizzard the face of online gaming success (not to mention an attractive acquisition target for Activision, who merged with Blizzard a year later.) There was no question of how to retain players willing to spend $15 per month to play the game, because there was no alternative at that point. Few online RPGs were free to play, and those that were partially free, like Sony Online Entertainment’s ailing Everquest II, were only open out of desperation.
World of Warcraft didn’t even hit its subscriber peak until December 2010, but in the nearly eighteen months since, its population has been slowly shrinking. Star Wars: The Old Republic released in an environment where, even if its Bioware-crafted narrative ambitions were new amongst MMOs, it looked like WoW, played like WoW, and more significantly, cost what WoW did back in 2006.
EA knows the writing is on the wall. If its game is going to survive beyond 2012, it needs to fundamentally change its business model. It needs to also accept the fact that The Old Republic will never, under any circumstances, reach the over 12 million subscribers Warcraft did at its height. The company has learned how to adapt though. Rest assured that Star Wars: The Old Republic will be a different game by 2013.
I would sincerely LOVE to see EA go out of business…
AE can save it by making KOTOR 3!
I started this game ona ‘standard populated server’
Then they moved me to a VERY HEAVY populated server.
Im paying to play,when i cant play most of the time because there are dozens of players all chasing the same targets at the same time. Adding insult to injury why cant free to players have their own ‘free to play’ server. Though the F2P players are not the real issue, YOU (swtor corp) are.
Im paying for goods/service that im not receiving, why dont you just stand in the street and hold a gun and say ‘give me your money’
Looking at outside forums they did exactly the same thing with dedicated SWG subscribers, then shafted them all into a small group of servers then closed down the game a year later. I see a pattern here….
Im not wasting any more time and money for you to shaft me any more.
So ive cancelled my sub.
And just to clarify this statement by me: Case and point: IA = Deathknights of SWTOR. The class is virutually useless now outside of heals spec… It has no DPS spec to speak of anymore. A product of 5 consecutive nerf’s in a row + a 6th one on the way in patch 1.3.
One of IA’s specs which does not include Sniper AC.
Concealment is the stealthy DPS spec of Operative AC. That spec is now worthless due to over nerfing.
TYVM Wow carebears for destroying my main.
That’s ok though… I made a jug dps and now destroy everything “without stealth”
And the wow carebears call it “Rebalancing” No it’s not “rebalancing” it was a blatent nerf because people didn’t know how to play their own class and refused to learn how to beat a bursty stealth class.
I would say IA – Concealment is close to a rogue but the fact is… it’s not even remotely close pre-nerf.
It had the damage of a current feral kitty with the stealth and utility of a rogue.
Now it’s not even considered a DPS class anymore by most of the current community.
SWTOR is fun for the first month or 2… After that it’s repetative. Aside from the obvious dev flaws… they also have taken on to become what blizzard is known for. Don’t fix what needs to be fixed break something else to make the pocket book happy.
Case and point: IA = Deathknights of SWTOR. The class is virutually useless now outside of heals spec… It has no DPS spec to speak of anymore. A product of 5 consecutive nerf’s in a row + a 6th one on the way in patch 1.3.
I was subscribed since beta until recently where I let my account lapse. I have no intention of returning to this game until BW realizes the way of blizzard isn’t the way… when your game is even remotely close to WOW’s sandbox playability.
SWG in my eyes is the best starwars game to date.
The crafting system in SWTOR is prepubescent by comparison that even a 5 year old can do it.
The PVE content surpasses SWG.
The PVP content doesn’t even come close to SWG/Wow/any MMO.
Then you have the wow carebears.
Here’s an analogy for people who aren’t as experienced with SWTOR compared to any other MMO and is a statement I made that got me banned on the forums for 3 days.
“What took BW 6 years to develop took blizzard 3 months to destroy.”
What do I mean by that?
The wow community destroyed SWTOR just like several other MMO’s I can name.
The wow community are a bunch of pussy footed retards who don’t want to work for anything, want to be spoon fed everything.
BW is taking this mentality to heart in it’s representation of becoming “Biowizard” – Guess where that term came from.
That game is great. But it is not unlike WOW at the core. Devs content fed into the devs world to run your little experience like rats in a maze..
‘Gamey’ focus is done already. WOW is the gamey mmo. Why stay here over WOW?
There is a formula for longevity but apeing the core ethos defined in WOW aint it. Defining the world is a better model for longevity. Player effort must be central to how world dynamics and player experience evolves, not devs, they should simply maintain the rules of the world.
The problem is… so what? They made another MMO just like every single other MMO. Nothing innovative. Nothing new. They went for the safe bet and their loosing their shirts.
@ KEVIN RYAN
I know where your coming from but if EA goes Bioware and dozens of other studios sink with it. “Necessary EVIL” .
Make the game more sandbox, the theme park MMO is great but once you run out of stuff to do you will find players getting bored and leaving because there isn’t enough to hold their interest. The smartest thing to do would be to start off with a theme park MMO to draw your players, then add many sandbox elements to hold your player base. Think about it, customizing your lightsaber from scratch, building houses, customizing your ships to your heart’s content. Allow players to build their own ships, not just be given one and that’s what you’re stuck with. If you make the players feel like they belong in the world, like they own a small portion of it, then players will stay. However if you keep it too linear and following a set path, then after 50…well…this happens.
This is what they should have done to begin with…
There’s an old saying that is not applicable to SWTOR.
“Day late and a dollar short.”
It’s to late now.
While BW isn’t making common mistakes of most devs… they are making all new ones that former devs of other MMO’s never made.
Sorry I meant the old saying is “NOW” applicable to SWTOR. damn typo
From the very beginning I was annoyed that EA and Bioware decided to make the new Old Republic an mmo. I personally don’t care for them and am more of a story driven single player gamer myself. (which is why I love Mass Effect so much, a more than adequate replacement for KOTOR) So they lost me, and about a dozen of my friends as potential players right from the get go. There reasoning? To make that monthly revenue, an idea which is failing them at the moment and will continue to do so. The people playing this game are mmo fans, not KOTOR fans and there just isn’t enough to keep and mmo gamer happy apparently. They should have just made another single player story mode with all the updated technology you see in Bioware’s Mass Effect and it would have cost a fraction of what it did and come out much quicker and they would be profitable. Hopefully, Bethesda will see this as a bad omen and not make the next Elder Scrolls an mmo because I can tell you none of my friends faithful to the series are at all interested.
Some how incorporate elves?
Make the game $5 a month and harder. Sorry but once you reached 50 it got boring. The only thing that made the game fun or enjoyable was reading the books from that time period and seeing how the story came out. After the story was over, end game, it got really boring. PVP was fun during early levels but sucked in the end game. The only thing fun about PVP was going to contested areas but even then their was nobody there. To many SITH players. It took me 6 servers to just find a server that was balanced or at least not one sided.
Agree with all points. I should have chosen Republic, everyone went Empire. And the game was way too easy IMO.
Totally agree. I got bored after hitting 50 too. When I hit 50, i thought crafting might keep me entertained for a bit, but that lasted about a week until i got maxed out there as well. Also, after maxing out on crafting skill, there still wasn’t really any “recipes” to be had to make. It was pretty boring.
I was really hoping at lvl 50 i could join up with some others and do PVP, but nothing was going on.
that be a serious ouch!
It’s annoying have mainly the same quests on every class :/ Class quests aren’t enough. Plus it’s very similar to wow but there’s this feeling you can’t explain, that would make you choose wow. SWTOR is lacking alot and compared to wow and isn’t unique :/
Not charge so much monthly
I left after reaching the level cap. They need to increase the level cap and make it harder to level in the first place. This is an amazing game with a good story, but they essentially cut out any grinding. They need to increase the caps for crafting too. I simply got bored after reaching level 50.
I also think it would be a good idea to share the auction houses across servers. There simply is not enough good stuff in there for sale.