1.5 Million People Begging to Play Old Republic Isn't Good Enough for EA

[Scott Bullock]

1.5 Million People Begging to Play Old Republic Isn't Good Enough for EA

EA execs won't be happy until the entire PC-owning population is playing Star Wars: The Old Republic.

At an EA investor event, CFO Eric Brown announced that over 1.5 million people had signed up for the Star Wars: The Old Republic beta. He called the number "a great indicator in the interest level in the franchise," but that "We're not that concerned about generating initial demand." Considering that the game has a pre-built audience of Star Wars fans supplemented by BioWare's popularity and the sea of MMO gamers out there, I can begin to see why EA might be able to yawn at 1.5 million people.

1.5 million just isn't enough. But 12 million? Yeah, 12 million sounds about right.

"For us it's about creating the right experience for expanding from tier one and the tier two users to getting people who have never played an MMO before, but are interested in Star Wars, to engage and give it a try. If we do that, our addressable market is well beyond 12 million people... into more of a general gamer population, pretty much anyone that has a minimum spec personal computer."

So that's why EA wasn't excited about the 1.5 million beta requests: its only a small part of the global population of computer owners. EA just won't be happy with SWTOR's performance unless it is installed on every computer capable of running it.

Brown also mentioned that it was "reasonable to infer" that the game will be out between July and December of this year. How very noncommittal of him.

Source: Eurogamer [http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2011-03-16-ea-1-5m-register-swtor-beta-interest]


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[Bags159]

I don't think their expectations are going to be met. I like Star Wars but certainly not enough to buy a game just because of the franchise. I think they're grossly overestimating the number of people whom are both a gamer and Star Wars fanatic.

Will be interesting to see if the game is good enough to surpass WoW.

 

[Aethren]

First DA2 and now this'll flop.

Bioware's digging its own grave with this.

 

[GeorgW]

I'm not surprised, imagine how much this game must have cost to develop!!
I'm hoping it goes well for them, but I doubt it.

 

[Bags159]

does that mean its probably gonna be a crappy game with 0 support since it wont steal all blizzard's population?

I don't see how they could believe this would steal anywhere near a sizable chunk of WoW's population. They're two completely different settings; fantasy steam punk vs. futuristic.

 

[Traun]

So...no one had the brilliant idea NOT to target the WoW demographic? You know guys, it worked for Eve?

 

[spectrenihlus]

Anyone else have this image pop into their head?

only instead of dollars it was players.

 

[Sabazios]

Breaking News: EA wants short term gain and doesn't believe in long term investments.

 

[The Rockerfly]

Have they not heard that people will join a MMORPG if it generate real life money for other players and that word of mouth advertising makes people join.
EA, you are trying to penetrate a market with many other contenders and WoW, getting 1.5 million people wanting to play it before it's even released is amazing. If it's of a good quality then more people will join it, I know many people who hate MMOs who like the look of the old republic and the star wars fanbase to back you up.

Really you are doing well, now just release the game and let Bioware do it's damn job rather than have the share holders interfere

 

[Thyunda]

Meh. At least they're ambitious.

 

[Woodsey]

This is the second arse-y, borderline mis-representative post concerning TOR in 2 days.

" "a great indicator in the interest level in the franchise," but that "We're not that concerned about generating initial demand.""

Yeah, I think that means they're more interested in having their player population steadily rise, instead of blowing their load all at once, not they think 1.5 million is a pathetic amount of beta testers.

""For us it's about creating the right experience for expanding from tier one and the tier two users to getting people who have never played an MMO before, but are interested in Star Wars, to engage and give it a try. If we do that, our addressable market is well beyond 12 million people... into more of a general gamer population, pretty much anyone that has a minimum spec personal computer.""

They want to catch a piece of the market that doesn't find current MMO offerings appealing (waves hand), as well as supply something for Star Wars fans (waves hand again).

"Brown also mentioned that it was "reasonable to infer" that the game will be out between July and December of this year. How very noncommittal of him."

Don't tell me gamer-entitlement has even leaked onto gaming publications?

I'm all for news articles with a bit of the writer's opinion in, but this is just snide, whilst Greg Tito's post yesterday was spent accusing EA of doing something it hadn't (throwing shit at Blizzard).

They've even said before that the game is quite sustainable on not even a million subs:

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/105946-EA-Old-Republic-Doesnt-Need-a-Million-Subscribers

 

[sleepyperson]

I don't get why companies think people will just jump right into a MMO with out first trying it.

 

[Impluse_101]

See also, Extra Credits Rant on how EA is being completely STUPID with their marketing campaign.

OT: See also....

I'm concerned weither or not EA will continue to have this behavior.

 

[Sennz0r]

First DA2 and now this'll flop.

Bioware's digging its own grave with this.

Umm, EA's the one who calls the shots on this.

I do agree 12 million is too large a number to be expecting to sign up for a beta.

 

[ZombieGenesis]

As I've said before, Star Wars isn't a popular brand any more in gaming- its actually pretty infamous by this point. Best choice they made was to call it 'Old Republic' which of course reminds us of the only good star wars games. And not the LAST MMO that Star Wars tried...

Sadly though, for reasons we all know, they aren't going to hit big numbers. Sorry EA, sorry Bioware, but you'll have to settle for a bit of loss with this one.

 

[Sir Ollie]

Here's a idea.

Let me into the GOD DAMN BETA!

 

[Therumancer]

Well, so much for is seeing the game soonish. We're looking at another 4 months at least it seems. I was kind of hoping that the release would be fairly soon after the release date that is supposed to be being announced next month.

If EA is concerned about the current lack of interest in their product, I think the problem is that they burned a lot of people out by announcing it so early, and then pushing it back again and again. I am all for taking the time that is needed, but if you generate the anticipation that early it's understandable that people are going to get burned out and take a more laid back attitude about it.

What's more, when dealing with a Beta, a lot of people nowadays increasingly don't want to deal with the frustration. Beta Testers are increasingly treated like freeloading dregs, are ignored when they find problems (even signifigant ones, I've seen notable issues in MMO known for months in Beta not only remain until launch, but for months afterwards), and also get a bit burned out in many cases when a game doesn't have that much content and they feel like they have already seen everything a game has to offer, especially when the game releases in pretty much the same shape it was in during Beta from a user perspective.

I signed up for the Beta for this on my old computer quite a while ago, but gave up on waiting, especially seeing as I find it frustrating to test seriously and not have anyone care. There was a time when companies wanted their testers to find obvious bugs so they can fix them, now it seems we're all just stress testing lemmings who get to see the game under the most laggy conditions that can be created.

I *DO* however wish EA luck with getting a huge player base, the game looks quite interesting, and I plan to try it at least, it's up to the game itself to drag me in for the long term, and make it so I actually won't eventually go "I'm burned, if I'm going to be burned I might as well go back to WoW... more to do". In the end no amount of promotional hype can garner a long term committment, all that can do that is a *LOT* of well designed content at all levels of play, and an involved and long-lasting endgame that isn't totally boring is perhaps the most important piece since that is the actual "game" since it's where everyone winds up if your planning for the long term. The rest of the content is sort of a lengthy tutorial and intro sequence, and I think a lot of developers who think "long term" just don't get that.

Also I admit that their philsophy seems like the kind of detached attitude of someone from a board room looking at numbers, and not that of someone looking to build a successful MMORPG. See the idea is to maintain the game for years, and have people who are going to play constantly and thus wind up paying a membership fee EVERY MONTH. The thing is that if you draw in casual gamers, by getting them to committ to that in a little while they aren't going to be casual gamers anymore. Thus for things to work, the focus has to be on catering to the established MMORPG base, because that is where everyone winds up, whether you create those users yourself, or steal them from somewhere else, the type of content you need is the same, if an MMO works, then even if you drew casual people in, it means those people aren't casual anymore.

At any rate, we'll see what happens, they will at least have me (and I think a lot of MMORPG gamers) looking into it. Let's see if they manage to keep us.

I'll also be honest in saying that I do respect their ambition, they are at least aiming big, and truthfully I think that gives them an edge on a lot of other MMORPGs that have been developed. It's not just an attitude, but the money and development power to go along with it. While I do hear things that give me pause, there is no denying that EA does have a chance of pulling this one off.

 

[JediMB]

This is the second arse-y, borderline mis-representative post concerning TOR in 2 days.

I just keep getting disappointed by The Escapist's "journalism" these days. It's like reading a fragging video game tabloid.

 

[Woodsey]

First DA2 and now this'll flop.

Bioware's digging its own grave with this.

Umm, EA's the one who calls the shots on this.

I do agree 12 million is too large a number to be expecting to sign up for a beta.

That's not what they're saying!

They're saying that if everything was done properly, that their potential audience for the full game release could reach 12 million over time.

Ignore the article author's pissy comments, read what EA have actually said:

He called the number "a great indicator in the interest level in the franchise," but that "We're not that concerned about generating initial demand."

As in, they're interested in generating more interest over time, and are not expecting an immediate boom of players.

"For us it's about creating the right experience for expanding from tier one and the tier two users to getting people who have never played an MMO before, but are interested in Star Wars, to engage and give it a try. If we do that, our addressable market is well beyond 12 million people... into more of a general gamer population, pretty much anyone that has a minimum spec personal computer."

As in, they believe there are enough people who:

a) Like current MMOs
b) Don't like MMOs because of the way they handle (or rather don't handle) story
c) Are Star Wars fans

to add up to 12 million people. POTENTIALLY.

This is the second arse-y, borderline mis-representative post concerning TOR in 2 days.

I just keep getting disappointed by The Escapist's "journalism" these days. It's like reading a fragging video game tabloid.

I thought Greg Tito's yesterday was a one-off. Apparently not.

Its rather appalling to be honest. And now look at the comments on this thread, from people who have rather obviously not read what EA have actually be saying.

 

[Natdaprat]

This whole thing will be hilarious when this game flops like all the other MMOs. A shame, I hate the current MMO market. It's either theme park or gtfo.