1.5 Million People Begging to Play Old Republic Isn't Good Enough for EA
- Thread starter Scott Bullock
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GTFOBaresark said:
OT: I think EA's expectations for this are a little high. Isn't it enough for it to be a good game with a decent sized fan base. It doesn't have to overtake every MMO out there for it to be a success.
Yeah I'm not playing this game no matter how much EA pushes. Sorry guys. Maybe you should be happy with your 1.5 million, or at least thankful.
Well true, he does mention it, but I don't really see him being very enthusiastic about it. I guess it's just odd to me that they're going to set their sights so high. They have a hell of a lot of players, and I guess if you're EA making a Star Wars game it's easy to not be overly excited about that, but do they really expect everyone with a computer to play it? The entire world plays WoW and Minecraft and so on because of a fluke, but you can't seriously expect something like that to happen to your game in advance. I guess that's what I'm looking at, is why aren't they content with the number they have right now, instead of saying `this isn't enough, we need the whole damn universe to play our shit'? But I don't know, maybe I am misreading itawsome117 said:
"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."DarthFennec said:Well true, he does mention it, but I don't really see him being very enthusiastic about it. I guess it's just odd to me that they're going to set their sights so high. They have a hell of a lot of players, and I guess if you're EA making a Star Wars game it's easy to not be overly excited about that, but do they really expect everyone with a computer to play it? The entire world plays WoW and Minecraft and so on because of a fluke, but you can't seriously expect something like that to happen to your game in advance. I guess that's what I'm looking at, is why aren't they content with the number they have right now, instead of saying `this isn't enough, we need the whole damn universe to play our shit'? But I don't know, maybe I am misreading itawsome117 said:
Basically he is saying that they hope to make enjoyable for everyone who plays it. If they do that, it is far beyond having 12 million players, but having a great gaming experience for everyone, even those with "less than great" (my words) computer specs
... maybe. To me it just sounds like his goal is for everyone to play it, and sorry but that's just not going to happen without some incredibly lucky break.awsome117 said:
I guess it makes sense that he might have some intention other than just more subscribers, but I doubt it. I mean, it's fucking Star Wars, the entire purpose of the franchise for almost thirty years has been to make money, so I guess it's hard to see this as being much different.
What is it that he's promoting, then? What makes this so good that it will provide a `great gaming experience' for `pretty much anyone'? You quote him about minimum spec, but I don't see how that would be much different than WoW's minimum spec. WoW isn't much of a resource hog, from what I've seen of the graphics, and frankly neither are most other MMO's, so that can't be it.
All he hints at is that he wants to get the Star Wars fans into MMOs, in order to address a larger market. That tells me that he doesn't think the current userbase is big enough.
Not that interested in generating initial demand, eh? Who do they think is (are?) going to sell their game for them? MMOs spread mainly by word of mouth.
Off topic, when did the captchas get numbers?
Off topic, when did the captchas get numbers?
Lemme make a small pseudo-diagram for everyone to get here (heads up, talking Western market only):DarthFennec said:
[General Gaming Population] divides into two groups:
[Gaming Population Interested in MMOs = 12 million people] [Gaming Population Not Interested in MMOs = General Gaming Population - 12 million people]
Any other MMO targets [Gaming Population Interested in MMOs] - a market that's 12 million total. That's not something anyone (even WoW) can reach, but it's the market that can be addressed, that theoretically MIGHT have an interest in it because they have an interest in MMOs.
Like an ice cream salesman can address the entire ice cream eating population, which doesn't mean he's hoping to sell an ice cream to that entire group, but that someone that does like ice cream MIGHT be interested in his particular ice cream.
TOR - is trying to target outside that. It's trying to target the [General Gaming Population]. It's trying to surpass the de facto no, that anyone who's not interested in MMOs will say to any other MMO. It's trying to bring people from [Gaming Population Not Interested in MMOs] into the [Gaming Population Interested in MMOs] (the way it hopes to accomplish that is by adding triple A singleplayer game qualities - mainly the story element that has been completely neglected in MMOs to date)
To use the previous example, it's like if the ice cream salesman developed a non-dairy ice cream and is now targeting a larger market because he can target those who have lactose intolerance. That doesn't mean that every lactose intolerant person is gonna buy his ice cream or that he's hoping for it, but now that market is open to be targeted and they MAY now have an interest in his ice cream because he removed the de facto no on a lactose intolerant person saying "I don't want to have painful diarrhea over the course of next several hours just because I wanna taste some fucking ice cream".
In the same fashion, TOR isn't hoping to get everyone to play their game, but merely to get around that initial no and have the genre function like any other, rather than being isolated to a single group because "it's an MMO, I don't care about MMOs, so I won't care about that one".
The purpose of any business is to make money. And I don't know about you, but I don't give half a shit what the intention of the makers is considering the "payoff" for me has been the initial trilogy, some gems in the new trilogy, KOTOR 1&2, Jedi Knight games, SW: Battlefront, TIE Fighter etc.. If I enjoyed those products, why would I care that someone made them for money? I enjoy my KitKat too, but I don't think there's a ************ out there saying "oh I get out of bed every morning knowing I'm gonna make someone smile out there when they take a bite out of my chocolate bar", he's getting out of bed knowing he's got a profitable product that makes him money.DarthFennec said:
Story. That's their theory anyway, you can disagree with it, but don't call him out on planning world domination when that's just bollox. The idea is that by the addition of story (something I think we can agree most, if not all of the gaming population mainly plays singleplayer games for) that has atrophied in the MMO genre, they can make a game that appeals not just to the people who like MMOs, but to the rest of the population as well.DarthFennec said:
People who would say "oh fuck that, it's an MMO, I don't want to sit there grinding all day" now lose that argument (assuming TOR is successful in removing and masking the grind with story) and might be interested in the game. They might just buy the game to play with the SW universe, BioWare story, KOTOR era or something similar and figure out "hey, this is a fun game, I think I'll keep playing it". That's the idea, getting over that first (and biggest) obstacle.
Of course it's not enough. Dude, you realise how small a 12 million market is, especially considering a SINGLE game holds HALF of that? They REALISE the fact they're not alone in that market and that they have no chance at being the biggest fish from the get-go. That's (one of the reasons, others being simple good business sense and a wish to get more people to try MMOs) why they're targeting outside it. He's not saying "12 million people playing our game is not enough". Anyone who sees that from what he said (and has read his full statement) is being ludicrously stupid and needs to look up what the words "market" and specifically "addressable market" mean. Let me try to explain it for you quick:DarthFennec said:
A fisherman's addressable market is all the fishes in whatever area he's fishing in, let's say it's a lake, all the fishes in the lake being the entire gaming population. Now, depending on what bait he uses, he's gonna catch different kinds of fish. Now, I'm not a big fishing person, so I'm just gonna use numbers here. Imagine a bait that catches only a single type of fish - the MMO fish. You throw an MMO as bait and only the MMO fishies are biting. That's what your typical MMO fisherman is doing.
Now, TOR is trying to be smarter than that. He knows there's very few fish (in comparison to the entire fish population inside the lake) who bite the MMO bait. Only 12 of them in the entire lake and there's a guy out there who's already got 6 of them and several other fisherman fighting over the remaining 6. So the TOR fisherman says "screw that, I'm gonna use a different bait". So on top of his MMO bait he puts another, general bait that most if not all other fishies are interested in. Now he's not just fishing for the MMO fishies, he's fishing for other fish too.
It still doesn't mean the TOR fisherman hopes to fish out an entire lake. It doesn't even mean he hopes to catch more than 12 fish that he could previously target with his MMO bait. But now, he has more fish that MIGHT bite his bait.
edit: corrected the final analogy.
Yes, I understand what an addressable market is, thanks. But this game won't change anything, and I don't see how anyone can expect it to. People who dislike MMOs dislike them because they're MMOs, not because they neglect AAA game qualities. I dislike MMOs because they're multiplayer, because of the monthly subscription, etc, not because of a lack of story. And plenty of games (Minecraft for example) lack story and they still appeal to the non-MMO market. I'm saying that he shouldn't be counting his eggs before they hatch, because they're probably not going to unless EA gets incredibly lucky somehow.Vrach said:
Kit Kats don't taste like advertisements for themselves, they taste like chocolate bars. It wouldn't matter what the intention of Star Wars had been if it didn't show through so blatantly and unforgivably in the product. If the Star Wars universe didn't scream `manufactured for the sole purpose of making more money' no matter how much I tried to ignore it, then I would be perfectly happy with that being the intention. As it stands, I'm hard-pressed to find something outside the original trilogy without that `manufactured' atmosphere, and I would be extremely surprised if EA broke this cycle with TOR. Maybe they will, but if not, it's just going to feel like they slapped the Star Wars logo on an MMO in order to reel in more subscribers, which would be the hopelessly hardcore fans and the collectors.Vrach said:
I love grind. I still despise MMOs. I know I can't speak for everyone, but I'm pretty sure lack of story and too much grind is not the reason people don't play those games. He says he's looking to make the addressable market `anyone that has a minimum spec personal computer', which is just bullshit. Most of the people with that minimum spec have never played games on their computers, or if they have it's farmville or whatever. Nobody, except the existing MMO user base and the Star Wars fanatics, are going to pay a monthly fee to play this game, and that's a very small addressable market compared to their stated `anyone with a PC'. What I'm saying is that they should be happy with their two target groups, instead of preaching that their adding a story-driven element will be such a significant innovation that anyone with a computer might play it. They have set their expectations way too high.Vrach said:
Yeah, I get your fish analogy. I understand that they're going for a bigger audience. I understand what an addressable market is. What I don't understand is how he expects this game to appeal to everyone. MMOs are a niche market, which has pretty much been filled already. If they're going for the non-MMO crowd, they shouldn't make an MMO, because no matter what innovations they add, they won't draw in anyone outside that crowd. If the non-MMO fish are turned off by the MMO bait, why would they go for bait that's both MMO and general? Especially when there are hundreds of other fishermen with lots of other genres of bait that don't have MMO in them?Vrach said:
If you're saying KOTOR screams "made for money" out of every pore well, sucks for you, but considering a large portion of the gaming population considers it to be one of the best parts of SW fiction and one of (if not) the best RPGs of all time, this is really more a personal grievance of yours than an actual argument. Same goes for everything else I mentioned up there and even with the new trilogy (being the pinnacle of "made for money"), people don't hate it as much as hardcore original trilogy fans would like them to.DarthFennec said:
You've said you understand what the words addressable market is. Why are you still acting like their expectation is for everyone with a PC to play it? And yeah, next to being afraid of addiction/the time commitment, grind is usually the number one reason most people hate MMOs. Even the anti-multiplayer crowd will have reason to buy the game, what with 8 different stories in it. I think their idea is to draw in the singleplayer crowd with those stories and then let them feel for themselves whether they're comfortable with everything else in the game. You'd be surprised how many people get into MMOs once they give them a chance. Speaking from personal experience thereDarthFennec said:
(not that my opinion is solely or even largely based on it alone)Personally speaking here, it took my best mate some time to force me into my first MMO (and then again some to get me to switch to another). In both cases, if he had the luxury of saying I've got a "springboard" of completely soloable story with BioWare behind it, that time would've been wittled down to nearly nothing. If next to that he said the words "Star Wars" and "huge, huge, HUGE open spaces" (seriously, it's not even funny how physically big this game is looking like it's gonna be), I'd have probably spontaneously teleported to the nearest game shop
As for the monthly fee thing, I don't see that being an obstacle. Assuming a constant stream of patches (without which any MMO is a de facto failure imo, ppm or otherwise), paying for a full game once every 4 months is really not that big of an expenditure. In fact, with good content updates, it's generally a really, really good deal considering you can blow some 60 bucks on a game these days and finish it in a day or two.
First off, he's not expecting the game to appeal to "everyone". Merely more people than just those interested in MMOs.Second, hundreds of other fishermen? You wanna step back and reconsider that? No? Ok, let's pick it apart:DarthFennec said:
1. When's the last time you saw a good Star Wars game? If you mention TFU, you get slapped on the wrist
2. How many triple A titles come out per year? I'm counting some 15 at most (and that's being generous) this year and 2011 is one HELL of a good year for gaming imo. That's not to take into account the fact a lot of those games have very different tastes and will appeal to completely different crowds. In other words, you're gonna be interested in maybe 5 triple A titles per year.
3. Story not enough? Hmm. Why was (the initial) Modern Warfare so awesome again? Why did it draw in the crowd that normally hates the living hell out of shooters? Drawing people into a different genre with story and polish is far beyond impossible.
That said, story isn't the only thing that might draw you in obviously, there's other aspects too. Personally, I'm really looking forward to exploring the environments. I love huge open spaces in games and what they're promising (and have shown) so far is beyond amazing in sheer size (further impressive when you couple it with the fact the worlds are hand-crafted rather than just generated). There's a lot of other qualities to the game too, but I'm not really here to advertise it
Again, I can't speak for everyone. But there are games I'm addicted to, games I commit a fuck of a lot of my life to, games I grind in, etc, but when it comes down to it, I hate MMOs. The reason I hate MMOs is because I consistently try to get into them and I consistently can't because I hate the experience. I can't stand the multiplayer aspect. All of the people I know who also hate MMOs have told me the same thing, so I assumed it was a widespread reason to hate them. So these eight stories are going to be single player then? And then the MMO aspect comes in later, or what? I'm not sure I understand completely how this will attract anti-multiplayers.Vrach said:You've said you understand what the words addressable market is. Why are you still acting like their expectation is for everyone with a PC to play it? And yeah, next to being afraid of addiction/the time commitment, grind is usually the number one reason most people hate MMOs. Even the anti-multiplayer crowd will have reason to buy the game, what with 8 different stories in it. I think their idea is to draw in the singleplayer crowd with those stories and then let them feel for themselves whether they're comfortable with everything else in the game. You'd be surprised how many people get into MMOs once they give them a chance. Speaking from personal experience there
I'm not used to paying for a game more than once. I think it's a stupid idea. Even with the patches. Most games patch for free.Vrach said:
He thinks it will expand the addressable market to include `anyone that has a minimum spec personal computer'. That's a lot more people than just beyond the MMO market, as it includes everyone with a PC.Vrach said:First off, he's not expecting the game to appeal to "everyone". Merely more people than just those interested in MMOs.Second, hundreds of other fishermen? You wanna step back and reconsider that? No? Ok, let's pick it apart:
1. When's the last time you saw a good Star Wars game? If you mention TFU, you get slapped on the wrist
2. How many triple A titles come out per year? I'm counting some 15 at most (and that's being generous) this year and 2011 is one HELL of a good year for gaming imo. That's not to take into account the fact a lot of those games have very different tastes and will appeal to completely different crowds. In other words, you're gonna be interested in maybe 5 triple A titles per year.
3. Story not enough? Hmm. Why was (the initial) Modern Warfare so awesome again? Why did it draw in the crowd that normally hates the living hell out of shooters? Drawing people into a different genre with story and polish is far beyond impossible.
And yes, hundreds of other fishermen. Considering you used one fisherman as an analogy for WoW, and a few other fishermen as the other MMOs, I expect there would be hundreds of other fishermen there, considering there are hundreds of other games in the world. I never said anything about Star Wars games, AAA titles, or titles this year specifically, because I couldn't tell that you were limiting your metaphor to those, because you never specified, and because there's no reason for you to do so, that I can see. As for COD4, I can't really say, seeing as I didn't particularly like that game any more than I liked any other shooter clone.
Well I've obviously never played it so I don't really know one way or the other. I'm here to be skeptical, and since the only thing they seem to be advertising is the story element, I wouldn't be able to say much about other things that would draw someone in.Vrach said:That said, story isn't the only thing that might draw you in obviously, there's other aspects too. Personally, I'm really looking forward to exploring the environments. I love huge open spaces in games and what they're promising (and have shown) so far is beyond amazing in sheer size (further impressive when you couple it with the fact the worlds are hand-crafted rather than just generated). There's a lot of other qualities to the game too, but I'm not really here to advertise it
You wanna play a SW/BioWare story, you buy TOR, you play through a class. Even if you just play through one single class and do nothing else but side quests, that's still 200 hours of gameplay right there. Not bad for 60 bucks if you ask me. That's the lure anyway, the idea of course is retention, which is why he's talking about putting more emphasis on that and not being as worried about initial sales.DarthFennec said:
Care to name a few? Cause I can't remember the last time I've seen a game add additional content for free. Mostly I see DLCs that cost you some 5-15 bucks that generally offer a LOT less than what a content patch does in an MMO (I'm using WoW's frequency/quality of patches as a reference here as I believe TOR guys are aware they need to either match or beat that in order to compete, it is, as they say one of the "WoW rules" they adhere to).DarthFennec said:
Aye, that's still addressable market though. Number of people actually interested in games and concretely what TOR will have to offer is obviously a lot smaller. But that's very obviously a soundbite and clinging to it to support an entire argument is kinda silly.DarthFennec said:
My point was that there aren't that many games of the quality TOR aims for, especially within the parameters it's strong on (story, MMO, multiplayer, BioWare games, huge worlds, Star Wars etc.).DarthFennec said:
I wasn't saying you liked it, but a LOT of other people have. My point was that it's another great example of how you can bring in a pile of people uninterested in a genre into a genre with nothing but story and polish. It birthed the greatest shooter giant in the industry at the moment (regardless of personal feelings for it that you, me or anyone else may have towards it - fact is, it's a major success and the initial CoD4 was objectively a very good game).DarthFennec said:
Aye, well that's what sets them apart the most... but yeah, it's somewhat of an inside joke among TOR fans, "our game has story!"DarthFennec said:
If you are actually interested in the game though, there's plenty of footage around of just about everything aside from raiding now (they're still keeping that cookie on the super-unreachable shelf away from fans :< ). There's dialogue, multiplayer dialogue, flashpoint (dungeon) footage, panoramic views of Hoth/Tatooine, combat, warzones (battlegrounds), space combat, most of the stuff is available if you just look for it a bit. But if you're dead set on your opinion, I doubt any of it will shake you, the game is by no means super-revolutionary, merely adds a few things to the formula. It's just that those things can make all the difference most people need.
That all said, I'm not here to advocate how good the game is or will be, that's a matter of prediction and opinion. I'm merely annoyed by the article, and consequently a number of people who've read it, taking words out of context. Anyone who actually thinks EA, BioWare, LucasArts or anyone involved is thinking they'll get 12 million subscriptions or anything similar is just being stupid. Calling EA out on that just shows you didn't read their actual statement, but just words pulled out of context. Which, sadly, is something I can't blame the Escapist users for, though I wish I could say the same for the article itself.
Ya know if it wasn't a complete pain in the ass to get in the beta maybe more people would sign up.
Also what was up the journalists ass when he wrote this?
Also what was up the journalists ass when he wrote this?
I don't have a problem with EA being ambitious, but they better have the product to back it up. If the initial offering is solid, I can definitely see membership increasing at a steady clip.
In any event, I think a lot of people are going to take the following approach: wait a few months and see what the initial reaction is like. People who are on the fence with this one, or with MMOs in general, aren't going to dive in without doing their research and determining whether this is the game for them.
In any event, I think a lot of people are going to take the following approach: wait a few months and see what the initial reaction is like. People who are on the fence with this one, or with MMOs in general, aren't going to dive in without doing their research and determining whether this is the game for them.