Analyst: EA's Spent $500 Million On The Old Republic

[ReinWeisserRitter]

Game certainly doesn't look or play like it cost that.

Glad it wasn't my money that got wasted.

 

[Frostbite3789]

then the eventual "episodes" or DLC/microtransactions that bioware is likely going to try to sell between expansions and

I won't comment on the quality of the game, but right there is one of the core reasons I'm waiting a while before I buy it. If I'm dropping $15 a month on the game, I shouldn't be paying extra for new content. That $15 a month is my pre-payment for new content, otherwise what am I paying for? To keep accessing a game I already paid full price to purchase?

When it boils down to it, BioWare is EA's ***** now and I can easily see them charging you extra for content on top of your subscription fee. Hopefully I'm wrong, cause microtransactions for actual content in a game that already has a monthly subscription fee is not going to go over well even for a game as big as SWTOR, and it could easily send people back to WoW.

Because WoW has never charged for extra content on top of the sub fee, right?

Except for those mounts that costed almost 100% more than the sub fee. Pets that cost $10. And the race changes, server changes and faction changes.

 

[TheDooD]

EA you need to fire your publicist and kill ya accounts because if a game is ran up a 500 MILLION dollar bill wouldn't that red flag months before release. SWTOR is a great game don't get me wrong it makes the movies look bad once again and I hope it really kicks blizzard in the nuts. Yet 500 mil stop lying because we aren't gonna buy the rest of your games now that this is out.

 

[FieryTrainwreck]

I'm sure the $500 million figure is exaggerated, but I'm positive the total running tally is north of $300 million. For what ended up being a complete WoW clone (only buggier) with the (by now) tired old Bioware dialogue/narrative bolted to the side, that seems like way, way, way too much money.

By the way, it's fucking funny as hell that they spent ridiculous amounts of time and resources on voice acting for hundreds of NPCs... and then clearly scraped the bottom of the barrel for writers. Yes, everyone is fully voiced. Shame they're all saying such stupid shit.

 

[Baresark]

Weird... and EA lost $500 Million dollars while Steam made $1 Billion last year. It's all starting to make sense now....

I'm sure the $500 million figure is exaggerated, but I'm positive the total running tally is north of $300 million. For what ended up being a complete WoW clone (only buggier) with the (by now) tired old Bioware dialogue/narrative bolted to the side, that seems like way, way, way too much money.

By the way, it's fucking funny as hell that they spent ridiculous amounts of time and resources on voice acting for hundreds of NPCs... and then clearly scraped the bottom of the barrel for writers. Yes, everyone is fully voiced. Shame they're all saying such stupid shit.

The fully voiced thing was what annoyed me for a while, till I figured out you could turn on subtitles. As it turns out, I read way faster than people speak, who would have guessed it. The menus of any MMO tend to be a mess. I too find it funny they spent so much for a clone. But it should be mentioned that they were not trying to make an innovative game, but to make a game as accessible as WoW, but with Star Wars IP.

 

[Baresark]

I'd like to know how he got to those numbers.

Same way they all do, he made them up. He looked at production time and manpower, then used a random multiplier and said what his opinion is as stated fact. They all do it, it's sickening because people listen to guys like this.

 

[Omnific One]

Hey, maybe if this fails and EA gets annoyed, they might try to sell Bioware. And you know a company with a ton of investment capital? Bethesda. That would be a dream come true.

you kidding me?
I'm keeping my fingers crossed for Valve.

I just want to see a collab, like open world ME.

 

[Omnific One]

Hey, maybe if this fails and EA gets annoyed, they might try to sell Bioware. And you know a company with a ton of investment capital? Bethesda. That would be a dream come true.

The only way you will get Bioware (with its current value) from EA is from their cold dead hands, i.e if the company descends into bankruptcy an is forcibly liquidated and to sell off all their assets before they are shut down.

That, or all the STAFF of Bioware quit in a mass exodus and effectively set up a clone company like Respawn Software from Infinity Ward. O of course Boware suddenly forget how to make good games, stop making profit but then it is more likely the studio will be liquidated than sold.

Well, obviously, but I'm just looking at more unlikely scenarios here.

 

[ASnogarD]

Most of that money must of been on the voice actors, executive payrises and the launch party... because the engine is cheap, the graphics is cheap , the mechanics in the game are cheap... and I bet Lucasarts gave them the audio package for a decent price.

If it wasnt for the voice acting and Star Wars trimmings, it would of been even lower than a generic F2P Asian MMO in terms of technical and quality asthetics.

 

[cynicalsaint1]

I wonder how many Bothans died to bring us this information.

NONE!
Because its not actual information - just some "analyst" pulling a number out of his ass, to make the shit he was saying sound impressive.

 

[Von Strimmer]

I can't even find it for sale here in Australia; EB, JB and Game all came up empty. If they threw up a few region servers then they might, might, break even in a few years. Otherwise it will be at least 10 years minimum and by then they new MMOs will be in full swing and ToR will have been long forgotten.

Is it even out down under yet? I thought they weren't kick starting it until later on in the year for Aus. I havent seen it around either.

 

[tehroc]

then the eventual "episodes" or DLC/microtransactions that bioware is likely going to try to sell between expansions and

I won't comment on the quality of the game, but right there is one of the core reasons I'm waiting a while before I buy it. If I'm dropping $15 a month on the game, I shouldn't be paying extra for new content. That $15 a month is my pre-payment for new content, otherwise what am I paying for? To keep accessing a game I already paid full price to purchase?

Well SWTOR is getting new content at no extra charge today (technically I haven't paid a sub fee yet) only a month after release, if that puts your mind at ease. Eventually some kind of shop will open though for sales. Blizzard's biggest cash cow is selling mounts, character transfers, etc not subscription fees.

 

[Orks da best]

Please let it fail, please let it fail, please let it fail.

what ye want swtor to flop. you do know what would happen if it did right?

 

[Durgiun]

Please let it fail, please let it fail, please let it fail.

what ye want swtor to flop. you do know what would happen if it did right?

I'm guessing a lot of people at EA and BioWare would be fired? I dunno, I'm not a businessman.

 

[Orks da best]

Please let it fail, please let it fail, please let it fail.

what ye want swtor to flop. you do know what would happen if it did right?

I'm guessing a lot of people at EA and BioWare would be fired? I dunno, I'm not a businessman.

It would also lead to further stagnation in the mmo industy, and likly in other parts too. and do we want further stagnation?

 

[LetalisK]

Some retarded analyst pulls numbers out of his ass and people start taking it as gospel.

Jesus Christ. >.<

 

[Zing]

Is it bad that I actually feel joy knowing that SWTOR is going to fail within a few months because it's a carbon copy of WoW with no/the worst end game I've ever seen?

Well fuck it, I don't feel bad. MMO developers need to get their head out and gain some fucking innovation and creativity.

Also EA suck.

Please let it fail, please let it fail, please let it fail.

what ye want swtor to flop. you do know what would happen if it did right?

I'm guessing a lot of people at EA and BioWare would be fired? I dunno, I'm not a businessman.

It would also lead to further stagnation in the mmo industy, and likly in other parts too. and do we want further stagnation?

What? It would do exactly the opposite of that. If a game like SWTOR, which is a bad WoW clone with a story attached, fails, it's going to send a clear message that players are sick of devs trying to recreate WoW. SWTOR is the very incarnation of stagnation in the MMO industry, just because it has voice chat 1-50 does not make it a good MMO.

MMOs live or die on end game, SWTOR will die.

edit: Hahaha, wtf? Did The Escapist just cite their own review as proof that the game is a success? Success out the gate does not mean anything for an MMO.

 

[cieply]

Hey, maybe if this fails and EA gets annoyed, they might try to sell Bioware. And you know a company with a ton of investment capital? Bethesda. That would be a dream come true.

The only way you will get Bioware (with its current value) from EA is from their cold dead hands, i.e if the company descends into bankruptcy and is forcibly liquidated and to sell off all their assets before they are shut down.

That, or all the STAFF of Bioware quit in a mass exodus and effectively set up a clone company like Respawn Software from Infinity Ward. Of course if Bioware suddenly forget how to make good games and stop making profit EA might sell, but then it is more likely the studio will be liquidated than sold.

You are aware that according to their financial report EA failed to generate profit for several consecutive years (at their lowest point, their loses were 25% bigger than their revenue)? Since the release of TOR and, despite of what all the paid reviews say (I will never forgive escapist Dragon Age 2 blunder and nighter should you), poor reception and tons of bugs, stocks of EA plummeted to the ground. Right now their executives are selling their own stock in EA en masse. Just interesting facts worth knowing.

I have no idea how escapist can say that this game has a positive lunch with statistics showing 30-40% drop in players during the FREE month (http://www.swtorarena.com/statistics/)

 

[BrotherRool]

500 million/2 million subscribers =$250 = what? £140... hmmm I guess if they can keep their subscriber base stable that'd begin edging into profit territory surprisingly quickly

Maybe. You forgot one thing, the supposed $500 million is a starting cost. What's the actual running cost SWTOR?

I actually didn't forget that, $500 million is all the wages of every person required to design and build a game from the ground up over multiple years. Lets say it took 4 years (it was first revealed to the public in 2008), then that's 125 million per year to fund everything from the ground up. You're only going to need a fraction of the staff to keep the gaming running than actually, you know build it. (For example, WoW's total upkeep over the 8 years it's been running is only $200 million, that's 25 million a year for a game with 5 times as many subscribers).

Now it costs $60 to buy TOR (ish) so they've already made $120 million of the base cost. So paid off a year of building the game. The monthly fee is $14,, which is $168 a year. $168 a year times two million is $336 million a year, which is already twice that of our way way way overestimated maintaining fee. If running the game costs a tenth of building it, it's 12.5 mill a year to run versus 336 mil profit. So every year they run the game, they pay off two and half years of building it. Ish

I hadn't done all these calculations before, so thanks for challenging me, but they turned out pretty much the way I'd assumed