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

[mxfox408]

well even World of warcraft didnt have 12 million subscribers till a couple years ago, they started out with probly the same numbers as TOR, EA cant expect world of warcraft like numbers at launch or prior to launch. but 1.5 million is a nice number at start just release the damn game already.

 

[mechanixis]

EA you're going to have to pull off a DRM-free miracle if you want me to play it.


And have no subscription fee, which for an MMO usually means it dies in a few months when server maintenance money dries up.

"And you better send me a cake in the mail. Every week. And you better use overnight shipping, I don't want that shit getting stale."

 

[mechanixis]

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.

I think you're missing his point. He's just talking about playing the entire game as a singleplayer experience, not hacking it to boost his character and then taking it back online. Because TOR basically looks like Mass Effect dipped in Star Wars and then multiplied by six.

 

[Vaccine]

Lol'd

Too bad I hate Star Wars, so good luck getting me playing.
Titan will be the game to get my money most likely.

 

[Catalyst6]

Hrm, maybe their budget requires them to have a ton of people playing in order to recoup their costs?

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/107477-Star-Wars-The-Old-Republic-Profitable-With-500-000-Subs

Oh wait.

 

[rsvp42]

Saying it to investors and saying it to press is insane, and i mean in order for them to guarantee they will abandon WoW characters to pay 15 a month for a new game. I quit WoW several times and i can guarantee from experience that the odds of of the numbers they want abandoning Warcraft and pay monthly to start anew is slim to none.(and forgive me for this but slim is out of town)

You seem to be operating under a few misconceptions. I'll see what I can do.

- WoW does not have the entire MMO market as subscribers. The 12 million number in this article refers to the total number of potential subscribers in the western market (note that The Old Republic will not be launching in Asia yet, a market that makes up a significant portion of WoW's subscriptions)

- A great many players have already left WoW in its lifetime. WoW maintains over 12 million subscribers, but not all of them have been playing since launch.

- TOR has at least 1.5 million people signed up to try the beta. EA has already stated that 1 million subscriptions is "very profitable" and the 500,000 is enough to maintain it (ignore this article. The "not good enough" statement is the writer's and no one from EA has said anything of the sort).

- Many people are willing to play more than one MMO or are willing to try others.

EA is looking at TOR's whole potential market because they have every reason to. They can't make the assumption that WoW players will never switch because not only is that false, it would make them timid and less likely to make a risk. TOR is a big game and EA has confidence in it.

 

[geizr]

All I can say is "Good luck with that, EA".

WoW is not something any game is just going to measure up to over-night in terms of subscription numbers or appeal. That particular community and market is something that Blizzard has spent years building and cultivating. Further, people have gotten spoiled to the level of polish that exists in WoW today. Unless your MMO offers something mind-blowingly compelling such gamers are willing to suffer through the initial bugs and growing pains, expect your MMO to have a beginning explosion of subscriptions from initial interest followed 3-6 months later by a sudden collapse into niche. That's what I've seen with every MMO that tries to grab or compete with the WoW market.

Also, MMOs have a hideous time commitment requirement, and the ongoing subscription can prove a drain on discretionary spending for some. I don't know of too many people that can manage playing multiple MMOs simultaneously. Honestly, it can be difficult just playing any other game, period, if you are engaged in an MMO. Because of this, I would think the MMO market is an extremely high competition market with little mobility.

Honestly, until WoW finally dies(only two things will kill that beast, Blizzard and time), freeing up gamers' lives to actually play something else, I just don't really see any other MMO ever being more than a niche.

Of course, I could be wrong.

 

[Littlee300]

Meh. At least they're ambitious.

Napoleon was ambitious

 

[kael013]

Man, was that article misleading. Inflammatory title followed by twisting quotes to say something they don't. Didn't you guys (The Escapist) say earlier that TOR would survive if it only had 500,000 subs?
Oh, wait: http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/105946-EA-Old-Republic-Doesnt-Need-a-Million-Subscribers

*sigh* Between this and the "Dragon Age 2 Scandal" article on the front page, I'm seriously wondering whether The Escapist is getting paid to bash BioWare or something.

 

[Skratt]

You can't supplant WoW. It can't be done. Build a base and go from there. Will be fun to watch this one burn, but hey, SWG was around a long time right? (and that game sucked!)

 

[VladG]

Frankly it's not the Star Wars franchise that determines me to give it a try, but rather the fact that it's a BioWare RPG. As for it getting over 12 million subscribers, that's pretty much aimed at overthrowing WoW, and while that's a very worthwhile goal (I love WoW, and any game that surpasses it is certainly worth playing) I doubt they will make it. Blizzard has a major head start with MMO games experience (I know BioWare has some great RPGs there too, but will their experience with single player games translate well into the MMO market?), a huge fan base, is constantly adding new content to WoW, even improving the experience for new player to draw them in. And there's also Titan on the horizon. The problem I see is that MMOs require more time, commitment and money than regular games, and so people can't or won't really commit to more than 1-2 MMOs. There just isn't enough time to play more... damned 24 hour days.

 

[bushwhacker2k]

12 Million? Isn't that how much WoW has...

Ohhh, I see what you did there, oh competitive gaming corporations

 

[TeeBs]

This seems relevant

 

[John Funk]

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.

Yes, well, I've written articles where it's clear that people only read the title and first paragraph too, so forgive me if appealing to popularity doesn't really hold much water

There is no misinterpretation. Everything Scott said is true; a company wouldn't identify a potential market of 12+ million if it didn't have at least hopes of hitting that market. If you think that EA isn't hoping for more than the 1.5 million beta signups it has now, I don't know what to tell you.

EA is dreaming big with this one. That's been obvious from the beginning. You are reading tone and intent in this article that is not there. That's why I suggested people dial the sensitivity down.

 

[WolfEdge]

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

Quoted for truth. Took the words right outta my mouth.

Anybody looking to produce ANYTHING of value should NEVER just "be satisfied", MMOs especially. The only way a game like this is profitable is if it remains so for the long haul, and that means a healthy, upward-trending player base. I don't know what the original poster's deal is with this mindset, but the spin he's got going in this article has goddamn RPM.

 

[rsvp42]

Alright. But i hope they don't actually count on getting every subscriber that signed onto the beta. They seem to be acting like everyone that requested a beta invitation is going to join.

Well all they said is that the 1.5 million indicates a healthy interest. I'm sure they don't expect every beta tester to join (you always lose testers who decide they don't like it), but they're hoping those that do will spread the word and get others to play. I know they're confident enough in the game to expect at least a million, with a goal of being competitive with WoW. The don't want to be a distant second, but I don't think they're expecting to be first any time soon.

Man, was that article misleading. Inflammatory title followed by twisting quotes to say something they don't. Didn't you guys (The Escapist) say earlier that TOR would survive if it only had 500,000 subs?
Oh, wait: http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/105946-EA-Old-Republic-Doesnt-Need-a-Million-Subscribers

*sigh* Between this and the "Dragon Age 2 Scandal" article on the front page, I'm seriously wondering whether The Escapist is getting paid to bash BioWare or something.

I kinda wish they'd at least change the title. It's using emotional language to paint fans as undernourished and EA as an uncaring and greedy entity. And this after the exaggerated "scandal" headlines you mentioned and the overblown claim of "WoW-bashing" in the last TOR aticle.

 

[fierydemise]

I'm sorry but I really don't buy there is some vast untapped MMO playerbase out there who isn't already playing an MMO and even if there was making a game that is gameplaywise very similar to WoW doesn't help in courting that demographic.

First thing with MMOs is simply the $15 dollars a month, its not a huge sum for most and as far as I'm concerned MMOs offer you better value (in terms of $/unit time) then just about any other kind of gaming but when pressed a lot of people object on principle. Second thing are the assumptions people tend to have about MMOs, the word MMO conjures up a whole lot of unpleasant images that while barely applicable now-a-days still weigh heavy on people's minds. Also people don't typically play multiple MMOs because MMOs tend to be very heavily based around time commitment and multiple monthly subscriptions is a little harder to justify.

Are there some people out there who might be interested in an MMO based on the setting? Sure but its hard for me to believe we're talking in the millions here. Figure SWG only peaked in the 300K range at release, yes Bioware and the KOTOR setting add interest but realizing that SWG was pre-WoW is important as well. I have little doubt TOR will do better then SWG did but I don't see a 5 fold increase in subscribers. 1.5 million at launch would be well beyond the largest non-WoW release in a long time.