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Why is this game considered a failure?
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Exactly! Using that logic, Elder Scrolls Online is going to have about 100 people playing it because they only have one server, lol.
500k subscribers isn't bad! Why do we celebrate and eat cake when EVE reaches 500k subscribers, but because SWTOR dips to 500K subscribers it's failing? Lol.
Crazkanuk
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From what I saw being posted online, the game cost at least $200 million to make and with a development timeframe of 6 years. If it isn't a blockbuster, it's a failure. A lot of people talk about profitability, but what you really need to be focused on is return on investment and cash flow.
Judging from everything that has come out of EA, this game can really only be classified as a failure. It has covered its costs at this point and is generating money. With that kind of development time, you are really looking for a very high rate of return. I think that the game is probably doing fairly well at this point. I think that F2P's ability to exploit players goes beyond the wildest dreams of any game company.
This is one of the dumbest things I've ever heard anyone say.
While I don't consider it an outright failure.... anytime a game goes from sub to f2p that can't be looked upon as a good thing.
Although that change may have saved the game it ran myself and my network of friends off. Not immediately mind you.. but after they started nickle and diming the subs (not just f2p) with the cash shop that was the nail in the coffin.
7 months after launch swtor executive producer was removed. He lost his job because the game failed to live up to expectations, and it wasn't due to players complaining about the game, it was EA's financial expectations of the game.
It's clothing,swords guns I swear walk around and inspect every person you meet and see the huge variety of vehicles,outfits,weapons and know that they are minting on the shop. Almost all cosmetic and anything else you can craft or earn,the point is the sheer diversity the shop has created makes you weep that as a subbed game alone that creativity hardly showed itself. The cash shop however has I am sure a whole team on it .Plus just follow the chat on Fleet and see the deals and trades and know that people truly are looking for the items . This is where they succeeded.
Same with League of Legends people buy the outfits and looks. This stuff sells.
Once housing goes in they will make another killing.
It is also the partly the whole romance of Star Wars. People discuss the extended universe and talk about outfits and guns and want to play Zabrak and all these things. The race and the look everything is a potential revenue which they are cleverly capitalizing on.
yea... obviously some issues with their orgnanization as a new bw studio and making bad decisions and then trying different things instead of progressing their development fluidly. For example thinking that killing companions in an mmo is a good thing. Restricting races to only humaniods. Having the tube space shooter instead of swoop racing. No bounty hunting. No pazaak. No day/night cycles. End game is very limited for pve'ers and for pvpers.
The best quality of the game imo is the combat and the story. The environments are nice and so is the art style of the game. Companions was a good inclusion as well.
However, for a budget that they had and it being an mmo... it did fall short.
Also to use post it notes as how businesses adjust... well post it notes was 1 inventor on his own time without using millions of other ppls money to make a product which already existed to understand expecations to begin with. For some of the reasons mentioned including how they did not develop their engine to handly open world pvp admittedly by them are bad signs of their management ... but despite that... its a good game for a little while... but its stuck being average or broken in other regards due to the engine whcih is very unfortunate for a huge investment in an mmo that is a SW IP.
Write bad things that are done to you in sand, but write the good things that happen to you on a piece of marble
They made the 2 most common new MMO mistakes. They had NO idea how quickly players would chew through the story content. If I recall, they expected about 3 months before a good chunk of the pop was maxed, and it turned out to be barely that many weeks. 2nd was that absurd claim that they'd be throwing new content at us every month which of course fizzled and died after the next update went 20 days long. I'm sure there was a day when the whole shop crapped themselves in unison when they put those two issues together and spelled it out...
That said, it seems they've stabilized. I drop in just for the halibut from time to time and it seems to be moderately active. Yet another WoW-killer that wasn't, but it seems to be making money.
To be fair, the players who got through that fast did so not because the story went more quickly than BW anticipated, but because they were the players who hit spacebar at every opportunity. It's no surprise for people to finish a game "early" when they are making no effort to play it as it was intended to be played.
Peace is a lie, there is only passion.
Through passion, I gain strength.
Through strength, I gain power.
Through power, I gain victory.
Through victory, my chains are broken.
The Force shall free me.
They made a choice between making more money by going F2P versus making less money by staying with P2P. Why would they choose to make less money? That's not failure, that's making a rational business decision.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
This will answer the OP also, because full movie scenes in a MMO just doesn't work! The worst idea ever for a game.
OP instead of me mentioning a full list of things i'll ask these simple questions...
Explain to me the Enemy Ai,how it works and reacts?
Then explain to me how many choices you have for your combat ?
Another question,how are the quests,linear railroad or open ended game?
How much is the MMO factor built into the game,example how often or is there any incentive to group doing normal content?
When you are grouped is there any combos,in other words player >player interaction,after all it is a group you should work as a group right?
Zones:...How are they laid out,do they offer anything aside from a place to store the mobs you need for those linear quests?
XP:Is there CHOICE?Can you kill mobs to get "viable" XP or is the best and really only viable option to play connect the dots with quests?
The Story:IS the story a MMO story or a single player game story,in other words is it open to the MMO world or does it lockout individuals into a single player design?
As you can see my point is quite simple,just like MOST developers,they created a single player atmosphere with no choice in game play but to follow the linear rail road design.
I can't speak for anyone else,but i want to play a game the way i want,open ended,i don't like linear game design that makes me follow the developers path.In other words following the developers path is NOT a ROLE playing game.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
Regardless of financials and cash shop extortion, it's considered a failure because the game ends when you finish the story. There is no 'end game' (well, the end game is utter trash.) There was really no reason not to make the game a single player one though. A KotOR 3 (though they could even have made 2-3 games in the same time frame/ with the same budget) would've been far more successful, both critically and financially, than TOR.
This is a pointless exercise.. Despite the OP asking why people consider SWTOR a failure, you are going to consistently get replies along the lines of...
....That's like your opinion man.
....SWTOR is the #2 MMORPG in the West that isn't EVE that has a subscription, but also is FTP, that doesn't release sub numbers, etc.
.... SWTOR is doing great, it's just a bunch of bitter SWG vets who are raging a smear campaign against the millions of happy SWTOR players. (Also, SWG was a huge failure, and only a few thousand were playing it.) Seems contradictory, but whatever.
....Bioware laying off the majority of its staff in a series of layoffs 6 months after launch (despite specifically stating it was going to be the first MMO to not lay anyone off following launch) was not a sign of failure, but both SOP and incredibly shrewd.
...SWTOR's entire senior management being fired is somehow normal. The new management is great! (Look what he did for WAR!)
...Bioware's founders resigning. Bioware Ireland being reassigned to EA, Bioware Austin being taken over by an EA vet, EA's CFO and CEO resigning, EA stock plummeting, EA buying back $500 million of its own stock, all normal and signs of success.
...SWTOR's numbers either unreported or lumped together with other games. (EA stating it wasn't a priority of theirs.
...Content teased, previewed, and announced as part of the subscriber's experience; withheld for nearly a year and repackaged and sold as a mini-expansion.
...ILUM !
....Announcing the switch to FTP 6 months following release, when previously avowing that they never would.
...The fact that BW Austin's severely reduced staff's announcement that they are reassigns staff to work on something besides SWTOR as proof that SWTOR is doing great!
...etc, etc. It becomes dead horse beating.
What SWTOR is successful at is preventing from total disaster.
SWTOR plugs along, doing a great job at spending as small an amount of resources to maintain the appearance that it is doing well; to say otherwise is ignoring both the expected and needed return on investment this project had.
What SWTOR is successful at is because of its "Too Big to Fail" status, is perpetuating the "fact" that all of a sudden the entire industry will now be FTP as opposed to PTP. Buit then if you point out that SWTOR's FTP model is overly restrictive, BW and its fans state that is because FTP is only a demo.
So what is it? Is FTP the future, or not.
SWTOR's freemium, although impressive in preventing total disaster, its greatest success is in disguising EA's financial and PR nightmare, and proving that it is possible to sustain an MMO (sustain, not develop) with a small core of whales.
Currently SWTOR is in effect the MMO consumer's nightmare.
Although "FTP", the developer itself states that FTP is only a demo, you essentially need a sub to play.
Even if you are a sub, the cash shop requires cash. Micro-transactions abound.
If that weren't enough, not only are there microtransactions, but there are gambling packs as well.
On top of that, major new content is released as DLC mini-expansions.
As a consumer, EA is counting on you to subscribe, buy stuff in the cash shop, pay money on gambling packs, and pay additional money every frew months on DLC expansion.
It is essentially the consumer worst case scenario from a few years ago.
Defenders of this business model will state that people don't have to pay for all that crap, but it is in my view this new business model which "saved" the game is not really making up for the ROI loss and development costs of the game, is pretty gross from a consumer point of view, and not really sustainable long term.
Yea, success.
So... it failed in your eyes. That's fine. Still doesn't make it a failure. The goal of a game being made is for it to generate revenue. SWTOR is turning a profit. By definition, it is a success.
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If it was a success the first design team wouldn't have been fired.
Or the second design team.
It also wouldn't have gone F2P, it would have stayed sub based.
And the CEO of EA wouldn't have been fired and talked badly about the mis-handling of the game.
Then add in that 35% of everything goes to Lucasarts.
The game failed at the corporate and business levels, you liking it or 100000000000000000000 people playing it doesn't matter.
Now factor in that the game can fail for a player who was dislikes the game for what it is. Personal opinion can play a factor for the person making the statement.
That's highly doubtful. TOR's metacritic average is an 85, so while it is possible to be more successful critically, there isn't room there for it to be "far" more successful. And financially, the game is pulling in somewhere in the neighborhood of 200 million a year. No single player KotOR game was ever going to match that, not even close, no matter how good it was.
Because, of course, TOR is the only product EA made in that time period, and there wasn't a huge controversy over the Mass Effect 3 ending several months closer to the time the founders resigned. It's all about TOR!Peace is a lie, there is only passion.
Through passion, I gain strength.
Through strength, I gain power.
Through power, I gain victory.
Through victory, my chains are broken.
The Force shall free me.
Ask yourself which is more likely a thorn in EA's side, a bad ending to the third installment of a decent selling console video game; or the spectacular failure of the world's most expensive video game. Mind you, Bioware's landing the licesnce from LA to make SWTOR was the main reason EA spent nearly a billion dollars in acquiring Bioware in the first place.
This is moronic. If something is profitable, that has absolutely nothing to do with whether or not it is a success or failure. Let's say you have a game that took 10 years to make and a billion dollars. It ends up breaking even in year ten and makes $100 million a year. That's an epic failure.
SWTOR looks like it didn't start turning a profit until almost two years after release. That right there alone should tell you all you need to know about whether or not the game was successful.
The goal of a game is not to generate revenue. The goal of business is to make money. This does not necessarily require profits, although it would be abnormal to see a game company be successful without positive net profits.
The game itself was pretty bad. That doesn't make it a failure though. I played for about a year and a half or two and had the most fun I've had in a game in a long time once I rerolled on another server. I ended up playing on a RP-PvP server and created a PvP guild that dominated WZs and open world PvP while mock roleplaying.
$200 million a year is a failure? How can I fail like that?!?! Seriously, look up the definition of success. You are just wrong. That's all there is to it.
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7 day subscriber level access
Returning players get 1 free server transfer
Leveling assistance items given to new player!
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They conceded failure on the P2P model... hence if they had not went f2p the game probably would not be around today.
That my friend is a failure.... in the original business model they chose..... of course it is a rational business decision, a decision to save them from the failure.....
I mean Coke made a rational business decision to go back to original Coke b/c NEW Coke was bombing.... that was a rational business decision based off a failed business model.
It happens... the good thing for SWTOR just like Coke... they rebounded!
Ask yourself which is more likely something that BioWare's founders would feel badly about; massive outcry about the creative failure of their company's flagship series, produced at the studio that they actually live near and work out of, or a product made at the Austin studio being less profitable than it was hoped it would be, with no real outcry of any kind beyond a few forum dwelling neckbeards who wanted a sandbox?
As for spectacular failure, lol. They were explicit about the number of subscribers they needed to turn a profit. Prior to adding the free option, they had never actually dropped below that number. Even if they have dropped below it now, they haven't dropped below it by much, and have the cash shop revenue which (if the superdataresearch numbers are correct) is equivalent to more than 750k annual subscriptions. So, effectively, the game is making the equivalent revenue to a sub only game with 1.25 million players. Not too shabby.
Peace is a lie, there is only passion.
Through passion, I gain strength.
Through strength, I gain power.
Through power, I gain victory.
Through victory, my chains are broken.
The Force shall free me.
The failure was in not getting the monetization system right when they released the game, or not being ready to switch over fast enough when the money stopped pouring in from box sales and a sub. If every game were judged based on a single point in the game's history, rather than the current state of the game, then every game, except maybe WoW, would be a failure. Maybe even WoW, since WoW, like nearly every MMORPG releases to a lot of issues, server queues, etc.
Eve Online - received horrible reviews, garnered very few players and lost money for years. Must be a failure, except they turned it around.
SWToR - sold three million copies of the game, but soon after launch the player population dropped dramatically and the people running the game knew if they continued down the same path, the game would be shutdown. Must be a failure, except they turned it around.
See how that works?
Every game is series of successes and failures. No one thing makes the game a success or failure. The current team at EA got to manage SWToR, in whatever state it was in, and have turned it into a profitable and popular game. That is a success. It may not always be that way*, but right now, SWToR is one of the most successful MMORPGs running. They've gotten a ten year contract based on the performance of SWToR as well. That is also a success. Right now, the people on the SWToR team can say they have made a successful game. What have you done this year, besides rant about a successful game on the internet?
**
* In fact, it almost certainly won't be that way. It's just not possible.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
At the time SWTOR was believed to be the most expensive game developed to date by basically every media source and outlet across the world.
GTA V came out well after SWTOR, and as the "Examiner" points out, it (may) have cost a bit more than SWTOR. (It also sold a ton more.)
I'm not sure what your point or gloating are for.
EA/BW stated that 1 million subs over an extended period of time would be nothing to write home about. They also stated 500k subs over an extended period of time was there break even point.
Despite 2 large rounds of lay-offs, SWTOR still went FTP due to dropping sub #'s.
Regardless of your uber hypothetical cash shop numbers, I don't understand your line of reasoning about SWTOR's sub 3's (which EA stated was under 500k) show how the projectis not a failure.
Lucas has a royalty. Royalties come out of revenue which is huge. I'd be amazed if the royalty is anything less than 30%. And where do you get an extra $61 million in revenue? I'm pretty sure the sub numbers aren't given and the total subscription revenue for all EA games was $66 million if I remember correctly.
Most estimates I've seen put MMO operating expenses at around $5 a player a month. That's a huge, huge chunk of that $140 million (take out 30% for Lucas). So yea...