EA: Old Republic Doesn't Need a Million Subscribers

[John Funk]

EA: Old Republic Doesn't Need a Million Subscribers

Star Wars: The Old Republic doesn't need WoW-level subscriptions in order to make money, says EA's CFO, it just needs to run for a decade.

BioWare's The Old Republic is easily one of the biggest names on the horizon as far as videogames are concerned - if only for the monumental financial figures that publisher EA is putting behind it. Even ignoring the the most expensive project [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/104345-Alleged-Insider-Airs-EAs-Dirty-Laundry] in the publishing giant's history.

And yet, according to EA's chief financial officer Eric Brown, BioWare's MMO doesn't need ridiculous multi-million subscription numbers in order to turn a profit. The publisher is viewing the game as a long-term investment, he said at the UBS Annual Media and Communications Conference in New York, reports Eurogamer [http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2010-12-07-star-wars-tor-is-a-10-year-opportunity]. "We view this as a 10 year opportunity," said Brown.

"Our assumptions for break-even and profitability are not seven digit subscribers. We think we can run and operate a very successful and profitable MMO at different levels ... the key thing here is to really perfect the product. We're shooting for an extremely high quality game experience."

While I have no doubt that BioWare's The Old Republic will see itself with rather impressive subscriber numbers out of the gate, the test of the game will be whether or not it can keep levels high - or even grow them. Other games like Age of Conan and Warhammer Online launched strong but quickly dwindled, whereas titles like EVE Online or industry kingpin World of Warcraft have been growing steadily since release.

TOR needs to be the latter, and not the former. Playing the long game is probably a wise move for EA, but it's still not without risk.

(Eurogamer [http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2010-12-07-star-wars-tor-is-a-10-year-opportunity])

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[Polock]

I don't really like Starwars stuff -besides the movies-, but this does sound promising. I hope it does well. Wonder what classes there are.

 

[Daystar Clarion]

Goddamn I'm torn between playing this game and paying a ridiculous amount of money on subscriptions...

 

[Toasty Virus]

I'm very interested in this, I'm not expecting it to kill WoW (Nothing can, face it guys) but it certainly looks good.

I don't really like Starwars stuff -besides the movies-, but this does sound promising. I hope it does well. Wonder what classes there are.

All the classes have been announced, you can see them on the official site.

 

[Buizel91]

Well i will be picking this up, i'll be waiting a while to see if it will stay open though.

And i know nothing can kill WoW (not even this game), but i believe this will be the first MMO in a while to be able to compete with Wow.

 

[thethingthatlurks]

Ok...so instead of a borderline unfeasible number of players, the game just needs to maintain a number of players for a borderline unfeasible period of time. Regardless, I'm probably still going to give it a shot. Probably.

 

[Spencer Petersen]

Well keep in mind that the upkeep for an MMO is probably the more expensive part of the project, the less subscribers, the less content. Remember that keeping WoW's servers running just from a power standpoint costs $140,000 a day. 1 million paying 15 a month is 15 million, and keep in mind the upkeep for designers, moderators and other jobs, especially considering how big of a project this is, there might not be much left in terms of profits.

 

[deth2munkies]

The announcement it would be subscription based rather than F2P plus microtransactions killed it for me and a huge number of other people. Other than the built in Star Wars/KotOR fanbase that'll buy the game, I doubt they'll get very many subscribers.

 

[JediMB]

Ok...so instead of a borderline unfeasible number of players, the game just needs to maintain a number of players for a borderline unfeasible period of time. Regardless, I'm probably still going to give it a shot. Probably.

Final Fantasy XI has been running for over 7½ years, and doesn't seem like it's going to quit even after the "sequel" has been released.

 

[Aerowaves]

*Whew* I won't feel guilty for betraying Bioware/KotOR and playing Guild Wars 2 instead then.

 

[Ralen-Sharr]

Hopefully they won't release this with a crapload of different servers. I've grown to like the "single massive server" that EVE uses. Even if they can't do a single server I think they should try to keep the # of servers to a minimum to make sure they don't get people wondering "where is everyone?"

 

[TaboriHK]

Ten years is a looooooooooooooooooooooooong time. That said, if it consistently offers a storytelling experience worth being a part of, I'm in.

 

[Daselthechaz]

Either way, TOR seems to be a big hitter, lets hope it will last, I don't want EA to suffer from this.

I don't want to see Bioware suffer, but if by some miracle they were to come out flush/ahead while EA twisted in the wind, I'd be ecstatic, and I'm actually planning on playing this game. There just so little I can say about EA that isn't outright hateful by now that I wouldn't mind the Star Wars universe further sullying itself to harm the publisher.

 

[rsvp42]

The announcement it would be subscription based rather than F2P plus microtransactions killed it for me and a huge number of other people. Other than the built in Star Wars/KotOR fanbase that'll buy the game, I doubt they'll get very many subscribers.

I don't get this line of reasoning. Are there really that many people unwilling to pay a monthly fee? Millions upon millions already do it for WoW, so it's not a financial problem and it's not a stretch to believe that a sizable portion of WoW's subscribers are simply waiting for something better. The question is simply if the game will be good enough to pull away some of WoW's subscribers and keep them, which has nothing to do with their pricing model and everything to do with the quality of the experience and the community.

If a game is good people will pay for it. It's just wait-and-see at this point.

 

[rsvp42]

Let's just hope they're not telling themselves this to calm their fears or something. Optimism, guys! Let's focus on how great it could be, not on worst-case-scenarios. I have high hopes, myself and I'm not just some WoW hater. I feel like a lot of folks are looking forward to this.

 

[John Funk]

Hopefully they won't release this with a crapload of different servers. I've grown to like the "single massive server" that EVE uses. Even if they can't do a single server I think they should try to keep the # of servers to a minimum to make sure they don't get people wondering "where is everyone?"

EVE also has theoretical infinite space that the developers can keep expanding without much effort.

 

[Antari]

If they are shooting for a high quality game experience they should completely remove the space combat element from the game. Because what they have prepared so far is enough to turn me away from the game.

 

[rsvp42]

If they are shooting for a high quality game experience they should completely remove the space combat element from the game. Because what they have prepared so far is enough to turn me away from the game.

I agree that they should have tried for something a little more robust with that. Seems a shame to include it, but not make it reach its potential. That being said, space combat was never a focus of the game. If that was the only thing about TOR that potentially interested you, then I imagine you're not exactly the target audience. It is an MMORPG after all.

This seems to me to be the biggest part of WoWs popularity. Yes the game is polished and well designed but it wasn't always so. What WoW really offers players is the security of knowing that it's not going anywhere and is therefore worth the time investment. Players also trust that Blizzard will continue to expand and improve the experience, thus rewarding their investment even further.

Community doesn't build overnight.

A great point. Players hope to spend lots of time in these games, so getting a sense that the game isn't just an experiment or a long shot is important. No one wants to invest time in a new MMO, only to have it all flushed away because the devs weren't committed enough or never intended to see it through. That's why I think optimism in these kinds of press releases or statements is so important. They need to be confident without sounding arrogant. A story like this is probably okay because it can alleviate fears about the vitality of the game while simultaneously projecting a long life span, but if they start giving out a "well, we can still get by with less if we have to" kind of vibe, it might look like a lack of confidence. Even if they feel great about it internally at BioWare and EA, they need to err on the side of confidence with the P.R. stuff. I'd rather have them be too confident now and tone it back after release (if they have to), then to be timid and shoot themselves in the foot (in terms of customer confidence) before anyone has a chance to even play it.