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

[Xaio30]

The game will look like shit if every computer available has to be able to run it.

 

[John Funk]

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.

It's ridiculous. They're completely misrepresenting what's being said here. NOWHERE DID THEY SAY THEY EXPECT 12 MILLION PLAYERS. THEY'RE JUST TALKING ABOUT POTENTIAL MARKET SIZE. Nowhere in that quote did he say 1.5 million players "isn't good enough." In fact, he was boasting that there was that much interest already. They just said that there's a potential market of 12 million players. That potential exists for any MMO.

Jesus, Escapist, who's putting you up to this? This kind of journalism is sloppy. If you have an axe to grind, please let us know before you continue misrepresenting what companies and studios are saying. I'm as gung ho as the next guy about calling companies out on their shit, but this is just dishonest of you.

I'm sure Scott's deeply sorry that they haven't invented a [humor]text[/humor] font yet. There wasn't any "calling EA out" in that post at all, just rightly pointing out that EA/Bioware are looking to hit it big. If you're talking about a potential market size of 12+ million, you obviously want to hit as much of that market as you can.

I suggest you dial down the sensitivity.

 

[Bobbity]

EA's grossly exaggerating its chances here. I love Star, love Bioware, loved KotOR, and I'm still not getting this game. I was even into WoW for a couple of years, so I'm cool with MMOs and subscription, but I still have no intention of buying this. EA's really pushing its luck if it thinks that it's going to be able to haul in massive numbers of non gaming Star Wars fans...

Also:

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.

It's ridiculous. They're completely misrepresenting what's being said here. NOWHERE DID THEY SAY THEY EXPECT 12 MILLION PLAYERS. THEY'RE JUST TALKING ABOUT POTENTIAL MARKET SIZE. Nowhere in that quote did he say 1.5 million players "isn't good enough." In fact, he was boasting that there was that much interest already. They just said that there's a potential market of 12 million players. That potential exists for any MMO.

Jesus, Escapist, who's putting you up to this? This kind of journalism is sloppy. If you have an axe to grind, please let us know before you continue misrepresenting what companies and studios are saying. I'm as gung ho as the next guy about calling companies out on their shit, but this is just dishonest of you.

^What's been said here is pretty much right; the articles here have been becoming more warped and exaggerated as time goes on.

 

[Hatchet90]

First DA2 and now this'll flop.

Bioware's digging its own grave with this.

Because of two games, one that hasn't come out yet and one that received moderate success, you think that's going to bring down the entire company? You sir, are an idiot.

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.

Well, I'm going to have to disagree here to some extent. For all the criticism they have gotten the "Force Unleashed" games *DID* manage to get a bit of a following, Starkiller became iconic enough to be recognized at cons, and have people cosplaying as him and such. While it wasn't an "OMG" success, it was by no means a failure either.

The "Old Republic" games were of course excellent, but don't forget the "Battlefront" series had a decent following. "Lego Star Wars" was enough of a success to see the idea spun into a variety of lego titles.

I think it's just that there are a lot of bad games that stick in people's minds.

Star Wars "Galaxies" was also hardly a failure. It did a lot wrong, but it's run for a long time and seen numerous expansions. It's also an MMO that nearly everyone in the MMO community seems to have played in one of it's iterations, which is why so many people can use it for examples. Saying that it didn't hold interest, and that there have been better games would be fair, but calling it a disaster is going too far.

It's also noteworthy that "Galaxies" can be considered a part of gaming meta-history, if for no other reason because it saw the first real *successful* MMORPG protest march. Since then safeguards have been put into a lot of games (along with draconian GMing policies when pushed) to prevent similar things. During it's heyday when it had a lot of players, there was an issue with Wookies not being able to use armor, in the original set of mechanics armor pretty much WAS your combat since your abillity to take damage was all important, if you weren't armored you got shredded like tissue paper. All these big, strong, wookies walking around naked like in the movies basically meant that they were unplayable even for fans because they would die if sneezed on by just about any monster of note. The player base pretty much conspired to all congregate at the same shuttle port on all servers and spam to bring them down and get attention. It actually worked, and shortly thereafter we DID see
the armor designed and put into the game.

It was a bigger deal at the time, sort of like the first real massive ISK heists in "EVE Online", however for good or ill it had an influance on how MMOs are managed, and is one of the few cases where we've seen something akin to player solidarity on an issue

The very fact that most serious online gamers at least know what "Holocron Grinding" is and what it refers to sort of shows that SWG wasn't that much of a failure. It just didn't inspire long term love from a huge group of people, and wound up poisoning it's own player base due to going through a total game overhaul that was worse than the broken system it was replacing (and SoE just did not seem to get that).

There are some things in SWG that it did extremely well. Joining the Rebellion or Empire, being able to create ENTIRE CITIES, being able to change your class at any time, and the Jedi grind which while it was lengthy, it actually made you feel like you accomplished something. Not just collecting 10 boar hides. You could go up in space, fly around in a Millennium Falcon with your friends and reach the unexplored regions of space. It wasn't perfect, it had glitches, but I recall at least 20 people being in the Mos Eisely Cantina at all times. I remember the Guild I was in and when the Empire found us out and attacked it. I remember joining Luke Skywalker in the taking over of Naboo from the Empire, and I remember flying my first hunk of junk space ship. Anyone who says that SWG wasn't fun clearly didn't try it when it was popular.

 

[Tjoubou]

ah well, the games probably gonna fail anyway.
and don't get me wrong, i like star wars and i absolutely love bioware, but the ods of this game actually hitting big aint good.

 

[LogicNProportion]

Ahhh, I love it when Escapist-writers, and then users either are trolling, or talking about stuff they have NO idea about. I was going to quote a bunch of people, and fight tooth and nail, but then this post would probably fill the whole page.

Also, because I'm confident this will be AT LEAST a better WoW. And from what I've recently seen, it's not much like WoW at all!

 

[Vrach]

"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."

Umm mate. I really hate to do this and I'm kinda expecting a ban for this, but what the hell:

This is a useless article based on a quote pulled out of context. Not sure if you've read the whole thing or were just working from a few quotes (not saying you're to blame in either case, just feel it really needs to be pointed out), but you're really spinning false information here.

Brown was addressing the fact that the Western MMO market counts roughly 12 million people. The part you quoted makes a hell of a lot more sense with that in mind because it illustrates his actual point. Due to their intent of pulling in the single player market, the MMO market, the one they're targeting, expands beyond the limited 12 million capacity and into those currently uninterested in MMOs, but interested in other kinds of games (train of thought being those players wouldn't try a traditional MMO, but they would try one that advertises itself as one possessing KOTOR's 3-11 or whatever). The "on any computer" part is there due to the nature of the MMO and BioWare's WoW-like stance of not requiring really powerful computers to run, thus the game being runnable on "any computer".

Also, he's talking about the people beyond those 12 million as now-possible, previously uninterested parties. Not in the sense of "all of them are gonna buy our game", but in the sense of "past those 12 million are people who say no to an MMO as their default answer. By adding singleplayer qualities/components to the game, those other people aren't disinterested in SWTOR by that same default".

If you want, read it for yourself, this is from the part this article is about (the whole thing is available here - http://darthhater.com/2011/03/15/release-date-window-moved-after-july-1st/):

We're really focused on providing a great user experience, because not only do we want to retain, kind of the core tier 1 users. We want word of mouth reference ability to bring in tiers 2, 3 and 4. In terms of addressable market, MMO's are a growth segment. If you look at the western worlds, again North America plus Europe only, we'd estimate there about 12 million people or so playing one or more MMOs. Roughly half are playing World of Warcraft.

I believe Activision sites about a 6 million western world subscriber stat. So there's 12 million people to go after, 6 of whom are playing one game, another 6 of whom are playing some combination of other games. And then there's an opportunity in Asia, not necessarily the same RPU characteristics. So we think that's 10-12 million people to go after, that's a great addressable market right there. Like I said, we've got well north of a million, million and a half ready to test for free. We're not that concerned about generating initial demand. For us it's about creating the right experience, expanded beyond the tier 1 and the tier 2 users. You've got people that have never played an MMO before but are interested in Star Wars, to engage and give it a try. What's really important to us is striking the right balance so that we serve the needs and demands, requirements of the core, pre-existing MMO subscribers.

They demand a lot of content, a lot of community, guilds are very important, special group activities, raids and things like that are real important inside an MMO. But then at the same time we want to make it accessible, so someone can pick it up and play it for the first time, recognize the Star Wars fiction, build a character and get into the game without feeling overwhelmed or intimidated by the hardcore experienced MMO player. If we're successful in doing that, our addressable market is well beyond 12 million people, you know current MMO players and the western market expands into more of a general gamer population. Basically anyone that has certain minimum spec personal computer. That's a very large potential addressable market. We look at it as a tiered opportunity but starting with an addressable market of at least 12 million.

 

[DaHero]

Wow, they think PC users are as dumb as console users. No, most PC people wait for a game and read reviews, especially when it comes to MMO's. If 1.5 million isn't enough to start, then don't bother. I am gonna wait to read some reviews on this game before I buy. Most MMO players have been bitten by an awaited MMO that sucks.

edit: Stop with the comparisons to WoW please, you are sounding extra stupid at this point.

Respectfully speaking, now is as perfect a time as ever to compare it to WoW since that's clearly who they're trying to take down.

Me? I'm going to take off my hat in respect...for the dead. If 1.5 mill isn't enough, better just kill the whole thing now.

 

[Nautical Honors Society]

Has anyone ever thought that maybe the reason SWTOR won't beat WoW is not just because it isn't unreasonable, but maybe that a lore based on a finished movie franchise could get exhausted rather quickly?

The lore they're drawing from is pre-movie stuff. Because it's a less-defined era, BioWare has a lot of freedom to write whatever stories and lore they need (after conferring with LucasArts of course).

Yea, but I feel as though something like WoW can hit a more general/generic fanbase than something like Star Wars can. Everybody likes the original trilogy, but not everyone likes it enough to invest time and money into it. If you know what i mean.

 

[Drake_Dercon]

I won't sign on to anything until I get to play it. On my badass mac screen with better resolution than any TV known to man.

GLOATGLOATGLOAT (especially since the moment I get off my ass I can run a PC virtually)

With 1/10 of your maximum possible audience already fairly committed ('zit reasonable to assume half of the maximum desired number will probably sign on. Probably not, but let's say they have a quarter of their total players already).

1/4 of the total players, I think that's enough, don't you? Well, depends how much of a WoW clone it is.

Aw well. I'm not really sure where I was going with this anyway.

 

[rsvp42]

I'm sure Scott's deeply sorry that they haven't invented a [humor]text[/humor] font yet. There wasn't any "calling EA out" in that post at all, just rightly pointing out that EA/Bioware are looking to hit it big. If you're talking about a potential market size of 12+ million, you obviously want to hit as much of that market as you can.

I suggest you dial down the sensitivity.

I'm not the only one pointing out the misinterpretation in this article. Even the title is meant to suggest hubris and ungratefulness on the part of EA and it's currently plastered prominently on the front page. Perhaps you're right and the article was meant to be humorous, but I read it as ill-spirited and judging by other comments, both agreeing and disagreeing, I suspect most everyone else missed the humor as well.

I don't mind a little creative license on the part of the writers here (and it's usually why this is my game news website of choice), but this struck me as particularly inaccurate. So I stand by the message of my post, but apologize for the heavy-handed demeanor.

 

[K Graphite]

I know it's an important stage in game development, but I don't care about Beta. I'm more interested in the finished product and will let others deal with the beta.

 

[RejjeN]

Seriously with so much PvE and solo quests why not have an "Offline" mode in MMOs? Or I suppose I could just play KOTOR.

I'm going to hope you're being sarcastic with this, but let me just say why having offline mode for an MMO wouldn't work: Offline mode = everything is client based, in other words it would be ridiculously easy to edit game files on your computer and if cleverly done no form of online checks could detect it. It would be Diablo 2 Open BNET all over again, except worse.

 

[Verlander]

Yeah, well, good luck with that. I personally don't see me leaving anything to play it

 

[ImprovizoR]

If I had the time to play MMO's I would play this one. But I avoid them because I'm afraid of them. I'm afraid they will consume me like WoW consumed some of my friends.

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

Standby.
Standby.


See ya.

 

[rsvp42]

Also. Can we stop giving them publicity for this? EA is the last thing i want to see on headlines & supporting them as they stir up shit storms is a bad idea. All this does is promote the bad behavior of the idiots at EA.

Check out the article in the link. The actual quote is a perfectly reasonable thing to say to investors and is not "bad behavior." He was just talking about the size of the market, which is the sort of thing investors love to hear about.

Not to mention the fact that PEOPLE WILL NOT COMPLETELY ABANDON THEIR WOW CHARACTERS! To kill wow they need to give a damn good reason for people to abandon so many years of work.

I did. Plenty of people do it every day. I think people overestimate investment in WoW characters. Characters only matter if the game they're in matters to you. If you've lost the motivation to play WoW, then the characters cease to matter.

 

[reggiejames]

i was so excited about this game when it was first announced but now i think i've lost interest.