Star Wars: The Old Republic: Subscriptions Declining Says Analyst

Teala

SWTOR doesn't have 1.7 million subs, doesn't have 1.2 million, they are sitting on about 650k subs right now and it continues to drop.   After the 6 month subs run out, and games like D3, TERA, GW2 and Secret World release SWTOR will be lucky to hold onto 300k subs.

TruthXHurts

Originally posted by Jaedor

Originally posted by gaeanprayer

we believe it is prudent to adopt a more conservative forecast on subscribers at this time."

 

Should have done that from the beginning. Companies keep thinking it's better to boast, but it isn't. It's far better to understate and have people think you're growing, than to over-state and appear to be bleeding profit.

Public companies use hype to get investors to buy their stock. Emotional volatility is the mana supply of the stock market...

 

With 1.7 subs for six months, they made $153MM and got back all the development costs plus free marketing from the hype. Box sales and other revenue paid for salaries and the gravy train. People will now be cut loose as they move into maintenance mode on a smaller scale... and that's the money cycle of projects in gaming. (imo)

If you look into it Subscriptions only make up 5% of EA's income. I really think that this is the new trend to make a single player game with little replayability and milk it for a year or two then either shut it down or go to F2P. This way people will move on to their next title, and they will make their profits in box sales all over again.

Nevulus

Originally posted by Paragus1

Originally posted by Obidom

Originally posted by Paragus1

It's a shame that 1000 people are going to lose their jobs who had probably nothing to do with the poor decisions made at the drawing board for this game.  The entire concept that someone thought one-time consumable story content which can't be produced nearly as fast as it consumed would keep people paying a monthly fee over the long-term is silly.  They should have just made a single-player RPG or used the bloated budget to make a full length motion picture.

is there a source for the 1000 job losses?

Sure.

http://www.gamespot.com/news/ea-laying-off-up-to-1000-report-6371851

So we have an article that links ANOTHER website article as its source of info where the guy says it will happen on 4/9, then all of a sudden was pushed back? unreal.

It is my job to search facts. After numerous requests by my office, EA has responded by brushing it off as rumors, they did however acknowledge that they are not renewing quite a few contract jobs, but assured us it is standard operating procedure in software production. Supposedly after release the staff always sees a cut on contract employees. They did not state the number of contract jobs that they are not renewing.

Now the response I recieved was very vague in certain areas, and I believe it was part of a press package they sent out to a variety of business analyst and media outlets, yet I have to take into account they are not attempting to drive website traffic by this answer, whereas startupgrind.com IS trying to generate web traffic by their article.

 

uller30

It mad me angry with the ammount of time wasted raiding to get no loot with a bugged instance. They need a lfg or something. The ip is so fantastic but when it came down to the end content it was a BW game 90% on single/group play and not where your money comes from ie maxed level chars. There needs to be either slower lvling and more things to make ke want to p2p

Phry

Originally posted by orbitxo

the next big title for FTP.

 

<.<                                                         

You are clearly unfamiliar with EA's business practices then, if your unsure, look up a previous MMO from EA (Westwood) called Earth and Beyond, because EA don't do F2P, if SW;TOR should become unprofitable, which is something thats far from clear at this time, then EA will close it, taking a gamble that it might pay off in F2P mode would be .. unlikely.

dontadow

Originally posted by TruthXHurts

Originally posted by Jaedor

Originally posted by gaeanprayer

we believe it is prudent to adopt a more conservative forecast on subscribers at this time."

 

Should have done that from the beginning. Companies keep thinking it's better to boast, but it isn't. It's far better to understate and have people think you're growing, than to over-state and appear to be bleeding profit.

Public companies use hype to get investors to buy their stock. Emotional volatility is the mana supply of the stock market...

 

With 1.7 subs for six months, they made $153MM and got back all the development costs plus free marketing from the hype. Box sales and other revenue paid for salaries and the gravy train. People will now be cut loose as they move into maintenance mode on a smaller scale... and that's the money cycle of projects in gaming. (imo)

If you look into it Subscriptions only make up 5% of EA's income. I really think that this is the new trend to make a single player game with little replayability and milk it for a year or two then either shut it down or go to F2P. This way people will move on to their next title, and they will make their profits in box sales all over again.

But EA is already in the whole 250 million on this game.  I"m sure that they probably had forcast 5 million (half of wow at least) or maybe even a quarter 2.5, to get their money back in a reasonable 5 year span. AT this rate, they are looking at at least double the time of whatever they forecast, and that equals 1k + jobs.  All of the cuts weren't from swtor, which means they still think it will make money for them, just not in a reasonable amount of time to keep that 250 million sitting alone on the books. 

Endgame wasn't their only problem, their entire system needed to be reworked.

Legacy should have been designed to include friends characters, creating a more multiplayer atmosphere.  Instead, they insisted on players to lay more than one player and exhaust through their content.  I liked instances in some parts, but they went int oinstance overload.  And every quest didnt need a voice actor, that makes it harder and more expensive to add mother quests.  Finally, they should have really done something with the combat.  In the movies, there is no tank, healer and dps.  I'm not saying copy GW2's approach, but make an approach that better resembled the KOTR games and the actual Star Wars lore.  In the end the game felt like they squeezed a great IP into a cookie cutter model, released it years before it should have been released and added a cheap system to force players to play the game a half dozen time to experience any new content. 

Lowfer69

Sorry but it doesn't take an analyst to figure that one out :-)

Nevulus

If I was a "blogger" or "journalist" and went around declaring a rumor as "fact", I would be ashamed of myself. I may dislike EA, but when I speak of the lay-offs I make sure it is clear that it is a rumor as of right now. I do not go around stating it as "fact" 

 

"EA is growing and looking to hire hundreds of people for our digital, console, mobile and social games. Like all game companies, we make occasional adjustments to resize teams as projects are completed and new priorities are established. Overall, we expect that headcount will be up at the end of this year."

Ice-Queen

Originally posted by tuppe99

They should have made sure that David Gaider is on the development team (don't think he was). At least he knows what a MMO is, since he played DAoC since launch.

Thinking that players would like to do elaborate, voiced over quests for every alt they might want to roll, and that it would be sufficient to keep them subscribed seems very shortsighted to me and shows just how inexperienced the designers are.

And then they decided to use the Hero engine on top of it all

I remember them pushing the VO bad and expecting people to just reroll and play all the classes too. I'm one of those people I don't like a lot of alts. I usually stick to one main chararcter, but have a few lowbie alts I use for other things like gathering, auction house mules, or just muling my stuff if there's no housing in a game. I may however  end up making a few different classes in GW2 though because they all seem so unique, but I'm sure to find that one character I love so that I can stick with it.

Distopia

I'm actually surprised the loss isn't projected to be more, 1.2 mil wouldn't be a bad number by any stretch IMO. Compared to the last few years of releases, that's actually pretty damn healthy.

Beyorn

With the licensing agreement with Lucas Arts could EA even shutdown the game?

LrdHades

I stand by my original SWTOR Guildmaster's Review!

 

Less than 1 million subs after the 6 month mark if they don't get some new content and tools in the game soon.  Lots of PVP people cancelled due to the failure of rate warzones with Patch 1.2 as well.

bakabröd

at the meeting*

-they want more pvp things, dungeon finder and more races.

-ok lets give them a party hat.

-why?

-becouse noone asked for it.

-brilliant !

 

meh... anyways good game. sad about the community. its totally blocked by trolls.

DeaconX

I'm sorry I couldn't resist myself

Zaltark

I love you man. But yeah. SWTOR is not going to be a 'leading' mmo. WoW/Rift have that, and Eve for sandbox. GW2 is coming. And its bringing a storm!

Abdar

Add to the fact that there's how many new MMO's coming out this year plus the likes of such games as D3.. I think 500K at the end of the year is about right. 

joocheese

Originally posted by Zaltark

I love you man. But yeah. SWTOR is not going to be a 'leading' mmo. WoW/Rift have that, and Eve for sandbox. GW2 is coming. And its bringing a storm!

Agreed. If NCSOFT brings ArchAge to the US and if it is developed/executed well enough it also has the chance of being a massive competitor to the other AAA games.

QSatu

2013? I think he misstyped 2012. =P

Konfess

Originally posted by Phry

Originally posted by orbitxo

the next big title for FTP.

 

<.<                                                         

You are clearly unfamiliar with EA's business practices then, if your unsure, look up a previous MMO from EA (Westwood) called Earth and Beyond, because EA don't do F2P, if SW;TOR should become unprofitable, which is something thats far from clear at this time, then EA will close it, taking a gamble that it might pay off in F2P mode would be .. unlikely.

Take a look at EA's Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning, it has gone F2P.  Battlefield: Heroes is refered to as a F2P from EA game.

Distopia

Originally posted by Konfess

 

Take a look at EA's Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning, it has gone F2P.  Battlefield: Heroes is refered to as a F2P from EA game.

WAR didn't go F2P, the closest it has to that is a free tier 1 trial. You might be thinking of the spinoff WAR: Wrath of Heroes MOBA.

Terranah

Originally posted by mmoDAD

This game will continue to lose subscriptions. It's not worth subscribing to. It's a great single player PC game with a nice co'op. However, calling it a MMORPG is simply wrong.

This game has no player-generated content, no social realm, and absolutely no sustain.

If this game wasn't a Star Wars title, it would've already converted over to FTP.

 

First post says it all.  In making SWTOR, they did not play to the strengths of the genre.  Instead, they created a single player/co op game.

 

The MMO genre has amazing potential.  It should stop trying to be something else and play to it's strengths, things single player and co op games can not do.

Nevulus

Originally posted by dontadow

But EA is already in the whole 250 million on this game. And where did you get this magical 250 million figure from, do you work in their accounting department? Oh you made it up, i see  I"m sure that they probably had forcast 5 million (half of wow at least) or maybe even a quarter 2.5, to get their money back in a reasonable 5 year span Once again who is your accountant? Which analyst firm do you work for? Where are you getting these off-the-wall numbers from? Oh I see you made it up. AT this rate, they are looking at at least double the time of whatever they forecast, and that equals 1k + jobs More made up math? And the 1k jobs you are referring to, that is the rumor correct? You know the rumor broadcasted by some site trying to drive in web traffic.  All of the cuts weren't from swtor, which means they still think it will make money for them, just not in a reasonable amount of time to keep that 250 million sitting alone on the books. There goes that 250 mill number again. Where is your official documentation stating the exact costs of SWTOR and show me the math and your accounting background to qualify you as an official spokesman for EA Accounting Department, because I have quite a few questions for you. Oh I see you just made all this up for forum fighting.

 

answers in red

Myria

Analyst pulls a bunch of uniformed crap out of their arse -- only EA knows the number of subs -- and, other than that it fits the dominant narrative here, this is news? [edited post]

Player_420

Originally posted by Tellax

their problem is that they are trying to make this into a business....  (don't get me wrong).. 

 

Like..  their main goal seems to have been (from the start) "ohh, we're gonna be epic, we're gonna have x-set of features and it's gonna be (guess what) epic..."  and they've been spazzing over those damn sub perscriptions forever...

 

it's like the same principle as being a kid and having a birthday party and trying to predict how many presents you are going to get, then.. being a retard you publish alk loudly about it to everyone.. then when the party comes.. you end up getting jack ****....

 

I swear... EA and now Bioware.. are just a bunch of greedy nogood tards that have lost all sense from their starting point....    it's pathetic and sad.... 

 

I am still currentlyu subscribed, I think the only reason being is that I do two things: I play with my friend exclusivley (we dont play our chars without each other) making the sometimes annoying quests with walls of text and minutes of waiting more enjoyable, and then I also dont overplay it, I am level 36 and have been playing since day one, just taking my time.

The quote I used seems to be the most realistic, they really acted like the whole story thing was leaps and bounds beyond anything we had seen, when in reality it was just a bit better than lotros idea...or guild wars' idea.....or wait....I guess lots of MMOs have had similar story, perhaps not with as much dialoge options but hey..

TOR is a decent game, but its not cut out for the MMO community, it will take a smart f2p overhaul and some GOOD solid (rabid wow fan style) raiding to keep it alive.

Also on a third note.....the game engine they used to build the game was a terrible mistake, considering the numerous MMO's coming out this year alone, with their own unique, self created, and NEXT GEN game engines.

Ambros123

Originally posted by Valentina

Um, a game launching with 1.7 mil and having over 1 million at all this close after launch is pretty fantastic. Considering WoW had 350k during it's first year entirely, this is still impressive. The numbers have actually been increasing over the last  2-3 weeks, you can see it in the server selection there's more servers being populated again  when there had been a decline before.

 

Also, this is hearsay/rumor and an "analyst". Funny how when analysts say good things, nobody believes them, but when they say negative things, everyone believes them...Hahaha..

Except you left out the fact that at the time of WoWs release there was a SHIT TON less people playing MMOs, a mere fraction of the number playing now.  WoW opened up the market astronomically and if there was one thing WoW can claim being the most influencial in the MMO market it is that.

 

Any wats as for the fanboism vs hater pissing contest, wasn't it revealed that 250 mill was the cost of production or was that some anaylst or guru piping their guess in?