EA Controlling Old Republic Player Population for Launch

[Logan Westbrook]

EA Controlling Old Republic Player Population for Launch

The publisher wants The Old Republic's launch to be as smooth as possible.

EA and BioWare have decided to limit the number of copies of Star Wars: The Old Republic that will be available ahead of the game's launch in order to ensure that the game starts out on a good footing. This limited stock will apply both to physical copies, and to digital copies bought through online distributors.

EA said that it didn't want to be in a situation where people had to queue to get into the game, or where the servers couldn't handle the numbers. EA said that it would rather provide a good experience for a smaller number of people, than a bad one for a larger group, and that there was a cutoff point for digital sales. If it hit this limit, EA would then start working to expand server capacity as quickly as possible.

This isn't the first measure that EA and BioWare have taken to ensure a smooth launch for the game; the Old Republic's director, James Ohlen, said [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/112041-BioWare-Keeping-Old-Republic-Release-Date-Under-Wraps-to-Work-on-Launch] that the reason that BioWare hadn't revealed the game's release date yet was so that it could work on a smooth launch without a specific date looming over its head.

Star Wars: The Old Republic comes out for PC later this year, although if you want to play it at launch, you might want to get your pre-order in sooner rather than later.

Source: Game Informer [http://www.gameinformer.com/b/news/archive/2011/08/18/star-wars-the-old-republic-launch-copies-limited-for-retail-and-digital.aspx]


Permalink

 

[Sgt Pepper]

The cynic in me wants to say this is a marketing ploy - "Best get your copy now or you might not be able to play come launch day".

 

[CoffeeOfDoom]

Good thing I pre-ordered then!
I'm glad that they're doing this though to be honest, launch day queues are mega lame; I remember the queues for Rift were about 3 days long, and when I finally did get in it was laggy as hell.
Glad to see this (hopefully) won't be the case with SWTOR.

 

[XT inc]

It's sad to see such a poor indie developer struggle for years and having to cut back players so their wee servers can handle the load.

And maybe if it sells well they can take one for the team profit wise and expand into more serve....

If anyone can buy servers, it's EA. This is just pitiful.

 

[Shameless]

Sorry Bioware, I love you guys but my money will go to Guild Wars 2.

 

[Outlaw Torn]

Why don't they just have more servers available at launch and sell more copies? Given that they are competing with WoW, I'd have thought they would want to accommodate for as many willing players as possible. Although given that it is EA we are talking about then common sense doesn't really apply. The whole Origin-not-Steam palava with Battlefield 3 isn't going to help much with their ambitions of beating Modern Warefare #, it seems like they're doing something similar here.

Sure it means gambling more money and there might not be enough demand for the game, but then at least the few players who do want to play will get better service until a few superfluous servers get cut to save money. And in the event that it is a super smash hit then you'll have fewer people peeved that they weren't allowed to play at all for the sake of a few folks getting to grind on Jawas without lag.

The cynic in me wants to say this is a marketing ploy - "Best get your copy now or you might not be able to play come launch day".

I can imagine that as a precaution, digital stocks will be limited to 10 billion units.

 

[Jandau]

This is actually pretty smart. EVERY major MMO has launch problems. Servers get crowded, new servers are opened up, it takes a long while to settle. This way, they can have some idea of the population they will be facing and will be able to plan for it. They can release new copies at a predetermined rate as well, ensuring that the growth of their userbase doesn't outpace their server capacity.

But leave it to the jaded people of the internet to find some way to spin this into a bad thing...

 

[PingoBlack]

First ever publisher too greedy to take a launch risk? Yes they are!

This way they create a false "get it while it lasts" feeling, but don't have to sell off 50% of all server and bandwidth capacity after first month is up and people don't sub further ...

To be honest, I suspected they would do it, but will it work? They will keep their cost low for launch, it's almost like they are expecting to fail. They will most likely get exactly what they are asking.

Next time, they should spend half of their hype budget on actual hardware and people.

 

[PingoBlack]

Star Wars: The Old Republic comes out for PC later this year, although if you want to play it at launch, you might want to get your pre-order in sooner rather than later.

You might wanna not pre-order at all, with EA being as they are.
I suggest you wait till you hear first reviews ...

If their game doesn't suck you see, it will run for years, so no rush really. If its actually a bad game being marketed hook-and-sinker, you really might not wanna bite. Hooks hurt, ask any fish.

 

[moose49408]

The cynic in me wants to say this is a marketing ploy - "Best get your copy now or you might not be able to play come launch day".

This was my immediate reaction as well. I'd like to believe them on this one, but given EA's recent history I have a real hard time believing that this is anything other than controlling supply to increase demand... (See that? The physics teacher knows how to use marketing terms )

 

[Crimsane]

The cynic in me wants to say this is a marketing ploy - "Best get your copy now or you might not be able to play come launch day".

Pretty much. It is EA though, so who's surprised?

 

[rembrandtqeinstein]

They should auction launch slots and anything over retail goes to charity (childs play?).

That would be a publicity win for the company and a win for the charity.

 

[PingoBlack]

They should auction launch slots and anything over retail goes to charity (childs play?).

That would be a publicity win for the company and a win for the charity.

Yeah, because abusing charity to promote sales is good?
I'm sure there are better ways for charity to happen without abusing gullible Star Wars fans ...

 

[Sixcess]

Silly EA.

It's an MMO. There will be launch issues. There always are, and MMO players expect it. Doing this is just reducing the number of excuses they can make.

(Not to mention if word-of-mouth turns out to be bad for this game they've really shot themselves in the foot by limiting their day one numbers.)

I dunno, but between this, the region lock outs and the fact that they still haven't named a date for this game - it all just makes me feel that there's a severe lack of confidence somewhere about TOR.

 

[Aiddon_v1legacy]

uh, hasn't this been known for WEEKS? It's not exactly surprising either; WoW did this same tactic, but only after launch when they realized that limiting the number of players was the best tacic

 

[Hagi]

No matter what they do they'll lose....

Limit the number of launch players = FAIL!
Potentially allowing more people in then the servers can handle = FAIL!
Buying so many servers that they will be handle the traffic and then merging them 2 months later = FAIL!

Seriously people, stop being so melodramatic. All they're doing is making very sure there's as smooth a launch as possible and preventing a hype-driven after-launch failure, like for example WAR and AoC had.

They're confident enough to count on people still buying their game after the initial launch hype has died down, how is that anything but a good thing? There's too much hype and crazy already in MMO-land. Nothing wrong with taking it a bit slower and going for the long-term, isn't that what MMOs are all about?

 

[Kingsnake661]

The cynic in me wants to say this is a marketing ploy - "Best get your copy now or you might not be able to play come launch day".

I'm thinking this may be the case too, but, I should be good, i preordered the day they announced it. Think i was one of the first on at my local gamestop to do it, cause my first recipt didn't have the eairly access code on it, i had to go back later and get a reprint. LOL.

 

[Vakz]

The cynic in me wants to say this is a marketing ploy - "Best get your copy now or you might not be able to play come launch day".

Possibly, but considering how rocky MMO-launches usually are (the only good one I've been with was RIFT, but there they also had the "double-launch", where pre-orders got to start three days early, making the population on each day not as much as it would have been with all people on a single day), it's not that unlikely that they really have limited the supply to make sure there are not too much strain on their servers.

 

[Zipa]

Silly EA.

It's an MMO. There will be launch issues. There always are, and MMO players expect it. Doing this is just reducing the number of excuses they can make.

(Not to mention if word-of-mouth turns out to be bad for this game they've really shot themselves in the foot by limiting their day one numbers.)

I dunno, but between this, the region lock outs and the fact that they still haven't named a date for this game - it all just makes me feel that there's a severe lack of confidence somewhere about TOR.

Rift had no launch issues Fyi, though admittedly its the only MMO that hasn't as far as I can remember.

 

[Neonit]

i can safely say from my own experience. DONT preorder mmo's. and seeing as they charge "preorder fee".... well, lets just say they made my decision that little extra easy.

yeah, im looking forward to this game, im just not willing to pay for something as stupid as "preorder fee" and limited digital copies, and tbh, explaining it with "we dont want that too many ppl screw up our servers" does not really sounds to me as a good sign. why? because it means that even they have little faith in their own product. if they truly believed that old republic would be a huge success they would invest in robust servers.

im waiting at least 3 months before i decide to try it out. unless they will offer some kind of trial.