You might be right, but "Free-to-Play –The first 50 levels will be free-to-play, with some restrictions on access to new content and advanced player features. Some restrictions can be “unlocked” with Cartel Coins." seems to imply to me that the basics of 1-50 will be completely free and things like Legacy and >49 warzones would be the only things they might have transactions for under 50.

Right, but.. at least from what I've read... the 1-50 is going to be completely free. The only part BW/EA is making money on is the end game with the F2P people. It just doesn't seem very viable that a lot of those people are going to shell out money for the end game when they get there as it is not the strength of the game. Right, exactly my point... but BW/EA won't be making money off of them from 1-50. If most of those players are not going to pay for things in the end game when they get there how are revenues being added?

Sorry, maybe I wasn't clear in what i was saying... I'm saying if people who are F2P are getting the best part of the game, the story, for free how is the game going to make any money? My assumption is that the majority of them won't spend much money on the end game because, well there isn't much there and it isn't a strength of the game.

I'm a little confused about the F2P through level 50 plan. It seems to me that the really good part about this game is the level 1-50 character stories, which are going to be free. The part of the game that is on shaky ground is what you do once you reach the level cap. There just isn't much to do. This is the part of the game F2Pers will start paying for things. It just doesn't seem logical that people are going to pay for the worst parts of the game... not for long anyway. I would think they would either roll another character (free) or go play a game with better end game content. What am I missing here?

I thought about this a lot recently. My thought was that you could set up a forum and grant voting rights to paying subscribers. The forum would talk about all the little details we want and eventually vote on implementing those. The subscription money would be pooled until there was enough there to start spending it on parts of the game. I dunno... would you subscribe to a game that doesn't exist at say $10 a month in order to try to make it? I would.

Perhaps all the discontent gamers out there (not just for this game) should start our own company and produce our own MMO.

Ha, yes... I think if any of the players were CEO things would be a lot different. What a waste of a great IP. I guess it will be 5-7 years before we can hope to hear any word of someone else trying to make a SW MMO.

EA is talking to investors who have heard subscription numbers fall by half every reporting quarter. They said that SWTOR would have sent the stock into the red, but that luckily BF3 did well enough that they are still in the green. You are the CEO of EA and in a few months you have to have another of these calls when you know 6 month subscribers will be falling off, the trend is already losing half the player base every 3 months,and there are other major games being released that will peel away a portion of those subscribers. Are you more likely to tell those investors over the quarter you have invested a lot more money in the game making new content in the hopes of winning back subscribers and F2P accounts or that you redirected the money that was going to be spent there to new titles like BF3?

Maybe, but I don't think so. I think that is probably for content they already have in the pipe like HK, the new flashpoint, planet, warzone, etc that were already announced. I think that stuff is still coming and most of it would need VO for finishing touches. I think though that will be the last of that type of content, at least for the foreseeable future. Space combat, future planets, fixing Illum are off the table now is my guess.

I agree completely. The numbers they are sort of reporting are inflated with the subscription numbers of people who went with 6 months on launch still too... and at least some of those will be dropping off here soon. It is a sad day that I think most of us here have seen coming for months. EA is writing this game off as a loss. If only Bioware was still Bioware and they had made the game...

I think it probably means that any content that isn't already in the pipe isn't going to happen unless there is some way to make a micro transaction out of it. Basically the death of any major future content for the game.

http://www.darthhater.com/articles/swtor-news/21125-electronic-arts-q1-fy13-earnings-call So EA considers SWTOR a flop, we can assume they have lost a little less than half their sub numbers from the last call (Maybe around 700k right now), and they announce F2P today. Ramifications? My thoughts are that since EA considers SWTOR a drag on the company they have decided to completely change their strategy going forward with them game. I think this will mean a focus on items they can sell in the F2P model, with much less focus on expanding things like space, minigames, warzones etc. I think they have basically said "Let try to get whatever money we can out of it at this point without really investing any more resources than we have to." I think they have gone from trying trying to make the best MMO ever to lets find a way to make money off this when it goes below 500K subscribers.

I didn't make up any rumors he was going to be fired, that is what investors were hearing. EA's stock is down 50% in less than a year of course shareholders are wondering if changes need to be made.

He must have taken down the page since there was no news... It said John Riccitiello's presentation did not mention SWTOR and it was not brought up in the Q&A that followed. Based on other sites reporting of the meeting the Q&A revolved around (at least in part) if Riccitiello would be keeping his job amid investor rumors that there would be a change.

http://www.mcvuk.com/news/read/ea-chairman-absolutely-no-plan-to-replace-riccitiello/0100199 From today's EA Investor call... Isn't this what they always say right before they can someone? Of note... No information on SWTOR during the meeting. Next chance for information on SWTOR and maybe sub numbers is July 31st during the conference call.