But all these reports and what not mean nothing IMO. The masses of MMO players are a fickle bunch. Some "analyst" who probably does not even play MMOs cant possible predict sub numbers with any accuracy.
In any case it will be interesing to follow in the coming months when I am having slow days at work. Like today - where R U 5pm?-
If a market analyst can't predict sub numbers, then who can? Surely not players with their own in-built biases. "I don't think TOR will do well. Why? Because I like WoW better!!!"
In fact, the only people I trust to predict sub numbers better than a market analyst would be EA or LucasArts, and they probably have their own market analysts who do the predicting for them.
I think many people will be very surprised with the sheer amount of things to do upon release at lvl 50. After playing the beta for the past few months I can say the game is more than just a good storyline.
Currently Playing: GW2 Retired: Shadowbane, DAoC, WoW, FFXI, Eve Online, SWToR
This game has 900k pre orders in us for box sales alone already how do u not see the demand?
Pre-order and release sales are one thing and they are not that important. What matters is subscriber numbers in +6 months view.
Way to take just part of what i said. This person said he didnt see the demand that would get them 500 k . I see the demand in pre orders. I they have 3 mil at launch and keep 50 pct of which i expect them to keep more cause im not ahater who actually think tor should be buy to play or free 2 play gaem .
The demand is there and 3 mil is gonna be less then they have launch day. Between us and europe . This game has more then enough demand to hit there 500 k sub mark easya ftger 6 months.
Most of the people i ran into in tor beta loved it so i dont see people coming in and leaving in 2- 3 months like all the haters and pessimists.
Tor is gonna od so much better then the haters expect for multiple reasons but hey just post one bit of what i wrote if uw ant.
I think they must be assuming that preorders will only be a fraction of the number of boxes they sell and subs they retain, as if they're completely ignorant of trends specific to MMOs. One thing I've noticed in recent years, preorders seem to account for the huge percentage of initial MMO sales. I figure it's because when people are sure they want to play an MMO, they all want the benefits like early access. This sort of thing isn't a factor in the latest shooters and the like, but its become a lot more of a mainstream attitude towards MMOs than it used to be.
Another thing to consider is that these days, everyone knows about open betas, and almost everyone that's interested in an MMO gives them a try. This is also very different from other genres - so not only do those people preorder, but there are a lot less people waiting on word-of-mouth to buy the game if the reviews are good, and all that. So its difficult for an MMO to accumulate subs faster than they lose subs, even when retention is good, because they've already got most of thier potential playerbase, right out of the gate.
If retention is poor, OTOH, like so many have been, they wont even have half a million subs by June... and none of this is specific to TOR. I'm not even going to mention what I think will happen, given my own experience in the beta - if I were an analyst, it'd probably be important to be unbiased, and all bias aside, those are some seriously unlikely predictions. You'd have to be biased or ignorant to think otherwise.
Swtor is the 1st AAA MMO since WoW and when after 1 year of 24/7 beta the 95% of the terster still want to play the game at launch, i dont see a low retention rate. And the people quit when the game Fail at some point, Warhammer was an unfinished game, AION was a lie, Rift, lot of people was there for the PvP and again it was a lie, Same with AoC, Lotro, DC, STO. But BW did and amazing job with Swtor, they really learned form the mistakes of games like warhammer, etc, and BW can make new content and updates pretty fast, to dont let people get bored. And there is not competition for swto, D3 is not even a MMO, Gw2 is b2p and is a game who doesnt have the 10% of the content of swtor, TSW is a Funcom Game. And again swtor is an amazing game, 3 mill by june is really possible.
Setting aside my opinions on how those games compare to TOR, I'm just saying that even if three million subs by June is possible, it's not something investors should be betting on. It may be possible, but it isn't likely.
When I want a single-player story, I'll play a single-player game. When I play an MMO, I want a massively multiplayer world.
Originally posted by Grahor Originally posted by popinja
This is what WoW was at it's launch. The same exact thing. Plenty of WoW was based on re-rolling toons. Did you play WoW? If you did odds are, you had several maxed toons like most other people. That's that point.
There is a significant differences between Wow out and SWTOR out. For example, the difference in decade.
No argument here. Still doesn't change the point though.
ToR is based on story/lore like WoW was as the main component and has a focus on getting NEW players like WoW did vs every mmo since WoW that has tried to steal WoW's base.. Rift the latest on that train.
CEO John Riccitiello said 500,000 subscribers would make the game "substantially profitable, but it's not the sort of thing we would write home about".
500k subscribers isn't a small goal imo although the game is worthy of such player base, I am not sure there is such large demand though.
Compared to 3 millions sales, 500k is only 17% retention. If they sold 1.5 million, 500K would be less than 30% retention.
No need to worry at all. This retention rate, based on people's surveys and findings which analysts used, is easily obtainable.
Besides, they probably need only 400k, not 500k. 500K is to be "substantially profitable", not "break even".
I'm honestly tring to find something about SWTOR that will hold that many subs for that long. I'm not so sure they'll even hit that many, or if they do how they'll keep them past January or February.
Originally posted by popinjay Compared to 3 millions sales, 500k is only 17% retention. If they sold 1.5 million, 500K would be less than 30% retention. No need to worry at all. This retention rate, based on people's surveys and findings which analysts used, is easily obtainable. Besides, they probably need only 400k, not 500k. 500K is to be "substantially profitable", not "break even".
Again, initial sales means nothing. They will be high and have low retention rate. In now way they represent values and ratios in long term view.
I'm not sure you understand. Analysts are like.. lawyers or doctors or any other professional field. There are specialities. Trying to use what analysts have said about mortgages are not the same as using what analysts who are gaming industry experts have said. Apples and oranges.
Of course anyone can be wrong about anything, but its far easier to judge what a game will do than what a whole economy will do.
Negative analysis sells just as well. Suppose you were looking to buy EA stock (or dump it). If the rating said ToR was going to get only 100k subs, wouldn't you benefit from that intel? That information is just as valuable as positive review.
I understand that arguing with you is pointless, but I'm gonna do it anyways. Apples and oranges? No, an analyst for the gaming industry vs financial analyst is alot closer then comparing it to a doctor. With my degree in finance I could go out right now and apply for a job as an analyst in almost any industry and have a chance. I would have no chance in getting a position as a GP for a hospital.
And please provide some proof that negative analysis sells just as well. Do you know what short interest is? Go look up short interest vs long and tell me there is an equal market for bad news vs good. The bad information is far less valuable because there are far fewer people willing to pay and benefit from said information. Is it accurate, maybe, but were talking about dollar value here.
Finally, how does mortgage backed securities = the whole economy? Nice try; and once again you make a statement that is pure opinion as if it were fact. I can't say for sure what is harder to judge, but in my opinion it's just as easy to rate a mortgage backed security using fundamental and technical analysis as it is to estimate sales numbers for a game.
You can keep trying to convince others and yourself that analysts are some kind of unbiased demi-god, but anyone with some experience knows you're clueless.
These inflated sub expectations is a major problem for SWTOR. Now, anything less that those predictions are going to cause the game to be labeled a failure. People have different tastes in games but somehow in MMO's if everybody doesn't like the same flavor, eveyrthing less is fail.
There isn't 6 months of content in the game unless you reroll or play all aspects of the game very slowly.
This is what WoW was at it's launch. The same exact thing. Plenty of WoW was based on re-rolling toons. Did you play WoW? If you did odds are, you had several maxed toons like most other people. That's that point.
This constant "there isnt enough content" simply isn't true.
SWTOR isn't competing with the same competition WoW was at launch. F2P was unheard of when WoW launched. Most MMOs were in a broken, sorry state of affairs when WoW launched. The competition now is much much stiffer than it was back in 2004.
Enter a whole new realm of challenge and adventure.
Originally posted by MMOtoGO Originally posted by popinjay
Originally posted by Scalebane
Originally posted by popinjay
Even Blizzard CEO Kotick has been shown wrong by both analysts about ToR's ability to make a profit.
Kotick isnt the CEO of Blizzard, why do people like to spread false information?
My mistake:
Robert A. Kotick (born 1963), also known as Bobby Kotick, is the CEO, president, and a director of Activision Blizzard. Kotick pulls no strings at Blizzard. He's the activision guy. He's CEO by definition, but it's Mike Morheim that pulls the Blizzard strings.
I refer to his proper title. I'm pretty sure you nor I knows "who pulls the strings" at that company.
I apologized for the lack of one word in Kotick's title description, that should suffice.
I'm honestly tring to find something about SWTOR that will hold that many subs for that long. I'm not so sure they'll even hit that many, or if they do how they'll keep them past January or February.
Ok i cant type slowly unlike talking slowly it doesnt help people understand a thing. Listen up p lease
One alts. Tor has the best reason ever to roll alts. Wow has proven players love to roll alts dont belive me 7 yrs going at 10 mil plus subs . Class story alone will keep players in tor.
I know alot of people who intend to roll all the classes.
Then u got all the regular end game stuff plus he open world persistant pvp on illum the pvp lakes on 11 worlds i dont know if illum counts here or not.
U got flashpints 15 hard mode. 3 warzones, u have 2 operations at launch.
U got max level pve story on illum to do thats solo player experiance if u want.
Thet truth is in mmos the reason players stay is to roll alts and in tor there is the class story reasont o do so. If u think doing world quests over and over for 4 classes per side will bother people u are naive.
I dont know how many tiimes people have run nagrand, stranglethorn vale, hilsbrad the list goes on and one where they were doing the same thing over and over to get alts to max level.
U can space bar the cutscense to get to your choice to make then spacebar again . so u dont have to watch cutscenes over and over on stuff uve done more then once.
There are tons of reasont o play past 6 months not to mention bioware is working on new content already to add post launch and until u know how fast bioware releases content u wont know how the power players will be kept.
Power players by the way make up 1 pct or less of the population in wow. I day 75 or more of wows population takes there time and doesnt even do ene game much if at all and ust rolls a new alt.
Tor will have that same type of playerbase in my opinion. while the casuls like me will run flashpoints on hard mode and stuff ill even do raids . There are alot of mmo players who never touch raids and only toll alts and get into other aspects of the mmo tor has all that casual player mmo goodness.
Originally posted by zymurgeist Originally posted by popinjay
Originally posted by Scalebane
Originally posted by popinjay
Even Blizzard CEO Kotick has been shown wrong by both analysts about ToR's ability to make a profit.
Kotick isnt the CEO of Blizzard, why do people like to spread false information?
My mistake:
Robert A. Kotick (born 1963), also known as Bobby Kotick, is the CEO, president, and a director of Activision Blizzard. How can he have been proven to be wrong. TOR hasn't shown a profit, yet. Kotick's analysis on how he doesn't understand how TOR can possibly make a profit has been proven wrong by those analysts, not that they didn't make any profit yet.
I am interested to see how my " citizen" opinion will stack up to the " professional " one
Time will tell.
Sorry I wasnt gushing over the positive spin. Maybe someone else will and you can post a happy face too.
But... you're opinion matches the opinion of the analysts... so... it will "stack up" the exact same way theirs "stacks up..." - yet they don't know what they are talking about?
I'm confused.
Ok let me clear it up a bit.
this is my OPINION only on the subject.
TOR will do well I THINK.
I dont THINK the analysts projections are accurate and are inflated.
I hope TOR does that well even tho I am not going to play it.
I THINK the retention of subs will be well within profit margins but much less than the professional analysts predicts.
I WISH i got paid assloads of money to post what I THINK on the interwebz.
Even Blizzard CEO Kotick has been shown wrong by both analysts about ToR's ability to make a profit.
Kotick isnt the CEO of Blizzard, why do people like to spread false information?
My mistake:
Robert A. Kotick (born 1963), also known as Bobby Kotick, is the CEO, president, and a director of Activision Blizzard.
Kotick pulls no strings at Blizzard. He's the activision guy. He's CEO by definition, but it's Mike Morheim that pulls the Blizzard strings.
I refer to his proper title. I'm pretty sure you nor I knows "who pulls the strings" at that company.
I apologized for the lack of one word in Kotick's title description, that should suffice.
We know who pulls the strings because Blizzard is run completely seperately. Blizzard was owned by Vivendi and now is owned by Activison, which formed a merger. Both companies still run as seperate entities. It's not that complicated. Kotick doesn't run Blizzard and I think it's silly for people to think that that guy is in charge of WoW. He's not.
There isn't 6 months of content in the game unless you reroll or play all aspects of the game very slowly. From what I've experienced, I think PvE will be fine from start to finish, but if you enjoy a robust and interesting crafting experience or PvP system like I was hoping for, well, this might not be the game. And I suspect space combat will rarely be played by most subscribers.
Unless they release a lot of content patches post-release (and quickly), the gameplay systems are simply not good enough to keep people longterm versus some of the competition on the market.
Depend supon your game style and if anyone is going to power level in SWTOR he is certainly going to spoil his playing experince. Even if it takes one month to level a class to lvl 50 it will take me good 6 months to do so with every class. And i am sure i am not the only casual player here. SWTOR is meant to be played at relaxed pace and enjoy the storyline and characters. People who like to rush to level caps well they will certainly move on to next MMO soon. There is just never enough content for power gamers especially when MMO is just about to launch.
You're right, it certainly does depend on what you enjoy. If rerolling is your thing, you will certainly have a blast in this game if you don't remind repeating a good chunk of content.
Enter a whole new realm of challenge and adventure.
Originally posted by oubers I read a fiew reactions here and i wonder the following......analysts can be wrong. if the analysts where always right my friends.......there would be no bad investements lolz
No one said analysts are "always right". That's a strawman a few people have been bringing up.
What people are saying is that when MOST ANALYSTS agree, that usually means something is what they agree upon. Rarely do 100% of analysts agree on something and they all are wrong.
The more important point is that NO analyst has said TOR will fail, not do well, not retain subs, not sell boxes, etc.
When we can find one poster who can find one analyst who thinks that.. the thread MIGHT stop them.
Originally posted by MMOtoGO We know who pulls the strings because..
Sorry friend, but "who pulls strings" isn't really that important to this thread.
What is important is that the person who can't seem to understand how EA will make money from doing business with LucasArts has been shown how that's possible.
I'd hope he isn't pulling the strings for Blizzard because if he said that and he DOES control WoW, it would go a long way into explaining why it's now declining over the last year.
Originally posted by zymurgeist Would you like me to show you a marketing analysis that proves AIG can't fail? Analysis isn't proof. That's also not what Kotick said. He said buy recommendations of EA stock were grossly overinflated because the lions share of the profits will go to Lucas Arts, and they will.
I'm sorry but it seems you're not reading the links. Let me explain:
Following Activision boss Bobby Kotick's suggestion earlier this week that EA's game is unlikely to turn a significant profit thanks to its licensing agreement with LucasArts, Eurogamer canvassed opinion from a number of industry commentators about the publisher's chances.
I'm not discussing the financial markets analysis. We are discussing the MMO gaming genre's analysis. You're asking for strange things and clouding the point.
I'm wondering why you didn't ask me for an analysis of who's going to end up leading the NASCAR in points earned or the WWF in opponents pinned. Those analysts are experts in THEIR fields, not gaming. Why would I want analyst Billy Jo Kissmysister from NASCAR to give me an analysis on TOR or WoW? Analsysts have DIFFERENT specialities and ONLY look at data.
Analysis in this case was a rebuttal to show that Kotick's insinuation is flatly wrong. Kotick is wondering aloud exactly how EA is going to make money with this deal. If you cannot see that, I don't know what to say other than please read it again in context because it's pretty clear.
Even the author of the article linked on the first page (above) got that, and probably most everyone else.
Comments
If a market analyst can't predict sub numbers, then who can? Surely not players with their own in-built biases. "I don't think TOR will do well. Why? Because I like WoW better!!!"
In fact, the only people I trust to predict sub numbers better than a market analyst would be EA or LucasArts, and they probably have their own market analysts who do the predicting for them.
I think many people will be very surprised with the sheer amount of things to do upon release at lvl 50. After playing the beta for the past few months I can say the game is more than just a good storyline.
Currently Playing: GW2
Retired: Shadowbane, DAoC, WoW, FFXI, Eve Online, SWToR
The Aphelion MMO Blog - GW2 Initial Impressions
Way to take just part of what i said. This person said he didnt see the demand that would get them 500 k . I see the demand in pre orders. I they have 3 mil at launch and keep 50 pct of which i expect them to keep more cause im not ahater who actually think tor should be buy to play or free 2 play gaem .
The demand is there and 3 mil is gonna be less then they have launch day. Between us and europe . This game has more then enough demand to hit there 500 k sub mark easya ftger 6 months.
Most of the people i ran into in tor beta loved it so i dont see people coming in and leaving in 2- 3 months like all the haters and pessimists.
Tor is gonna od so much better then the haters expect for multiple reasons but hey just post one bit of what i wrote if uw ant.
Setting aside my opinions on how those games compare to TOR, I'm just saying that even if three million subs by June is possible, it's not something investors should be betting on. It may be possible, but it isn't likely.
When I want a single-player story, I'll play a single-player game. When I play an MMO, I want a massively multiplayer world.
No argument here. Still doesn't change the point though.
ToR is based on story/lore like WoW was as the main component and has a focus on getting NEW players like WoW did vs every mmo since WoW that has tried to steal WoW's base.. Rift the latest on that train.
"TO MICHAEL!"
It is the only relevant part in your post. Your retention rates are pulled out of the air, lacking any basis.
Initial sales represents hype rather than actual demand.
Compared to 3 millions sales, 500k is only 17% retention. If they sold 1.5 million, 500K would be less than 30% retention.
No need to worry at all. This retention rate, based on people's surveys and findings which analysts used, is easily obtainable.
Besides, they probably need only 400k, not 500k. 500K is to be "substantially profitable", not "break even".
"TO MICHAEL!"
I'm honestly tring to find something about SWTOR that will hold that many subs for that long. I'm not so sure they'll even hit that many, or if they do how they'll keep them past January or February.
Again, initial sales means nothing. They will be high and have low retention rate. In now way they represent values and ratios in long term view.
I understand that arguing with you is pointless, but I'm gonna do it anyways. Apples and oranges? No, an analyst for the gaming industry vs financial analyst is alot closer then comparing it to a doctor. With my degree in finance I could go out right now and apply for a job as an analyst in almost any industry and have a chance. I would have no chance in getting a position as a GP for a hospital.
And please provide some proof that negative analysis sells just as well. Do you know what short interest is? Go look up short interest vs long and tell me there is an equal market for bad news vs good. The bad information is far less valuable because there are far fewer people willing to pay and benefit from said information. Is it accurate, maybe, but were talking about dollar value here.
Finally, how does mortgage backed securities = the whole economy? Nice try; and once again you make a statement that is pure opinion as if it were fact. I can't say for sure what is harder to judge, but in my opinion it's just as easy to rate a mortgage backed security using fundamental and technical analysis as it is to estimate sales numbers for a game.
You can keep trying to convince others and yourself that analysts are some kind of unbiased demi-god, but anyone with some experience knows you're clueless.
My mistake:
Robert A. Kotick (born 1963), also known as Bobby Kotick, is the CEO, president, and a director of Activision Blizzard.
"TO MICHAEL!"
These inflated sub expectations is a major problem for SWTOR. Now, anything less that those predictions are going to cause the game to be labeled a failure. People have different tastes in games but somehow in MMO's if everybody doesn't like the same flavor, eveyrthing less is fail.
Kotick pulls no strings at Blizzard. He's the activision guy. He's CEO by definition, but it's Mike Morheim that pulls the Blizzard strings.
SWTOR isn't competing with the same competition WoW was at launch. F2P was unheard of when WoW launched. Most MMOs were in a broken, sorry state of affairs when WoW launched. The competition now is much much stiffer than it was back in 2004.
Enter a whole new realm of challenge and adventure.
I simply won't argue. Good luck!
"TO MICHAEL!"
Kotick isnt the CEO of Blizzard, why do people like to spread false information?
My mistake:
Robert A. Kotick (born 1963), also known as Bobby Kotick, is the CEO, president, and a director of Activision Blizzard.
Kotick pulls no strings at Blizzard. He's the activision guy. He's CEO by definition, but it's Mike Morheim that pulls the Blizzard strings.
I refer to his proper title. I'm pretty sure you nor I knows "who pulls the strings" at that company.
I apologized for the lack of one word in Kotick's title description, that should suffice.
"TO MICHAEL!"
Ok i cant type slowly unlike talking slowly it doesnt help people understand a thing. Listen up p lease
One alts. Tor has the best reason ever to roll alts. Wow has proven players love to roll alts dont belive me 7 yrs going at 10 mil plus subs . Class story alone will keep players in tor.
I know alot of people who intend to roll all the classes.
Then u got all the regular end game stuff plus he open world persistant pvp on illum the pvp lakes on 11 worlds i dont know if illum counts here or not.
U got flashpints 15 hard mode. 3 warzones, u have 2 operations at launch.
U got max level pve story on illum to do thats solo player experiance if u want.
Thet truth is in mmos the reason players stay is to roll alts and in tor there is the class story reasont o do so. If u think doing world quests over and over for 4 classes per side will bother people u are naive.
I dont know how many tiimes people have run nagrand, stranglethorn vale, hilsbrad the list goes on and one where they were doing the same thing over and over to get alts to max level.
U can space bar the cutscense to get to your choice to make then spacebar again . so u dont have to watch cutscenes over and over on stuff uve done more then once.
There are tons of reasont o play past 6 months not to mention bioware is working on new content already to add post launch and until u know how fast bioware releases content u wont know how the power players will be kept.
Power players by the way make up 1 pct or less of the population in wow. I day 75 or more of wows population takes there time and doesnt even do ene game much if at all and ust rolls a new alt.
Tor will have that same type of playerbase in my opinion. while the casuls like me will run flashpoints on hard mode and stuff ill even do raids . There are alot of mmo players who never touch raids and only toll alts and get into other aspects of the mmo tor has all that casual player mmo goodness.
Kotick isnt the CEO of Blizzard, why do people like to spread false information?
My mistake:
Robert A. Kotick (born 1963), also known as Bobby Kotick, is the CEO, president, and a director of Activision Blizzard.
How can he have been proven to be wrong. TOR hasn't shown a profit, yet.
Kotick's analysis on how he doesn't understand how TOR can possibly make a profit has been proven wrong by those analysts, not that they didn't make any profit yet.
"TO MICHAEL!"
I read a fiew reactions here and i wonder the following......analysts can be wrong.
if the analysts where always right my friends.......there would be no bad investements
lolz
Ok let me clear it up a bit.
this is my OPINION only on the subject.
TOR will do well I THINK.
I dont THINK the analysts projections are accurate and are inflated.
I hope TOR does that well even tho I am not going to play it.
I THINK the retention of subs will be well within profit margins but much less than the professional analysts predicts.
I WISH i got paid assloads of money to post what I THINK on the interwebz.
hope that clears it up
We know who pulls the strings because Blizzard is run completely seperately. Blizzard was owned by Vivendi and now is owned by Activison, which formed a merger. Both companies still run as seperate entities. It's not that complicated. Kotick doesn't run Blizzard and I think it's silly for people to think that that guy is in charge of WoW. He's not.
You're right, it certainly does depend on what you enjoy. If rerolling is your thing, you will certainly have a blast in this game if you don't remind repeating a good chunk of content.
Enter a whole new realm of challenge and adventure.
What people are saying is that when MOST ANALYSTS agree, that usually means something is what they agree upon. Rarely do 100% of analysts agree on something and they all are wrong.
The more important point is that NO analyst has said TOR will fail, not do well, not retain subs, not sell boxes, etc.
When we can find one poster who can find one analyst who thinks that.. the thread MIGHT stop them.
"TO MICHAEL!"
Sorry friend, but "who pulls strings" isn't really that important to this thread.
What is important is that the person who can't seem to understand how EA will make money from doing business with LucasArts has been shown how that's possible.
I'd hope he isn't pulling the strings for Blizzard because if he said that and he DOES control WoW, it would go a long way into explaining why it's now declining over the last year.
He simply "doesn't get it".
"TO MICHAEL!"
I'm sorry but it seems you're not reading the links. Let me explain:
I'm not discussing the financial markets analysis. We are discussing the MMO gaming genre's analysis. You're asking for strange things and clouding the point.
I'm wondering why you didn't ask me for an analysis of who's going to end up leading the NASCAR in points earned or the WWF in opponents pinned. Those analysts are experts in THEIR fields, not gaming. Why would I want analyst Billy Jo Kissmysister from NASCAR to give me an analysis on TOR or WoW? Analsysts have DIFFERENT specialities and ONLY look at data.
Analysis in this case was a rebuttal to show that Kotick's insinuation is flatly wrong. Kotick is wondering aloud exactly how EA is going to make money with this deal. If you cannot see that, I don't know what to say other than please read it again in context because it's pretty clear.
Even the author of the article linked on the first page (above) got that, and probably most everyone else.
"TO MICHAEL!"