The trick here is that there is no need to "justify 7.0" in any sense except to say that it was development work done by a studio working under the auspices of a publisher. Whether that work is called a "content patch" or an "expansion" is marketing. People trying to justify it as part of a "Should I subscribe?" decision will just have to read up on what 7.0 provides. For those who are already subscribed, you fall into the "idle revenue" category and you've already justified it whenever your last subscription payment was. You would never be able to deduce from this what funding did or did not go into the project at any give time because publishers and game studios often agree to revenue shares. Some percentage of gross profit is what gets distributed among cost centers. This is different from net revenue as a general rule. A trick here is that profit share is generally evaluated on a quarterly basis and then distributed at least one quarter after it has actually been earned. So to look at 7.0 "funding", you would actually have to look back at the last distribution with that timescale in mind. And, saving everyone the trouble, they don't make that kind of information available. For a public company, you can know profits (just from earnings calls), but you can't know the distribution of profits. Essentially profit and loss go to the publishers but budgets are allocated to studios. That budgeting is often predicated on some notion of development costs over actual and projected net revenue. So, much like in movies, the money you are allocated is the money that you are expecting to make as a result of actions. Thus it's all about the promises you make (or assume) and that money is already spent by the time the actual results are known. And, again, those kinds of details are very rarely revealed since the only thing public companies have to report are the net losses and gains that, in total, make up profitability (or lack thereof).

Yep, this falls under data privacy and you have to specifically call out "Right to be Forgotten." This is a bit different than even the "permanent" delete of the account. With the delete, you can still recover the account and sometimes the data. With the RTBF, you can still recover the account but the data should be irretrievably lost.

For what it's worth, you can have an account permanently closed ("deleted") versus just temporarily closed ("deactivated"). They do sometimes use the same wording ("deleted") for both, which is confusing. The reason they don't make this easy is because if you do permanently delete your account, it removes everything associated with it. That includes anything you might have set up on other platforms with the account. You lose access to any games that you purchased / downloaded with the account: not just the one you might be upset with. Basically: everything goes. Which can be fine, if that's what you want. But sometimes people don't want all that so they make it a bit more of a process to truly delete your account. Even accounts that are deleted can be restored but they use an obfuscation mechanism that essentially decouples all of your information from the account upon full deletion. You can recover that account -- but you will still have lost most things. They run a reconciliation script to try and get you back what you lost but, as they also tell you, there's no guarantee at all. So, for example, you delete your EA account and your SWTOR account will go with it. You change your mind and want to recover your "permanently" deleted account. You might -- and it is a might -- get your SWTOR account back, but only the setup that shows you had an account. Any history with that account or anything associated with that account will be gone, although this is time-dependent. As another example, you will get purchase history information back from a restored deleted account: but it will be absent any information about what was purchased, how it was purchased, what was associated with the purchase (such as DLC), etc. Again, this is time-dependent.

Exactly right as a general rule. In the game development/studio industry, MMO players in general are known as "treadmill gamers." By which is meant you can keep them on the treadmill and, no matter how angry they get, they'll either stay or come back. And they'll keep spending money. This particular MMO is interesting in that it is (1) Star Wars and (2) heavily story-focused. What that means is the "traditional" MMO player can't necessarily be assumed since brand loyalty (or at least investment) can play a large part and the story can trump all for a lot of people, as long as there's enough of it to do. Particularly for new players who will be experiencing all of the story from the start.

Yep, fair point. But there were also known licensing requirements around The Mandalorian and The Book of Boba Fett. Just because something is Star Wars, doesn't necessarily mean that content can be used everywhere that the brand is used. In fact, it's often the case that it can't. It all factors into potential brand diminution. (I don't actually believe that's the case here, but just stating the possibilities.) But -- to your point -- it may not be that at all. It could just be that the Bioware team didn't bother to engage enough with the license to work something out. Or maybe they did but there was a time delay wherein they were allowed to exercise cross-media content inclusion. Or maybe any such requests are making their way through Disney's relatively baroque cross-media group. And that's my point: absent internal studio knowledge, we don't know which of those it is. Or it can be some combination of factors that we're not aware of. Or it could be something else entirely.

In terms of "not the time to stay silent" ... First, I agree that, as usual, Bioware is taking the wrong approach. The lack of community management has always been an issue, however, with the game. Granted, that's an opinion and painting with a broad brush. That said ... the "right approach" is tricky if, in fact, any feedback received would actually go nowhere. Breaking this down ... One of the hardest aspects of community management is that you have to (1) be empathetic, (2) stay invested and engaged but (3) you must not -- indeed, cannot -- bad-mouth your own game or be seen as agreeing that the studio made horrible decisions. Whether the studio did or didn't make horrible decisions is beside the point; it's simply that community managers can actively empathize but only up to a point. So that's a challenge. So what do you do when at least a vocal forum-based portion of your community is up in arms but you can't really promise anything? Or disagree with design decisions? Or, in fact, have any influence on those design decisions in the first place? You can't justify what may or may not have been taken as feedback from PTS. You can't state what product or development pressures were operative. You can't reveal internal details about team size or resource allocation. Yet you have to communicate ... something. But ... what? From a community management side, what they generally do is act as a conduit to the product developers. It's those product developers who ultimately will be the conduit to the application developers. And the product developers are beholden to the product managers (they may, in fact, be the same person) who are beholden to some aspect of revenue generation or competitive acceleration. (The latter meaning: make your game accelerate in its competitiveness with others.) And, of course, everyone is beholden to the Holy Cost Center, which is whatever aspect of your budget exists that is allocated for development of the game itself (as opposed to operating studio costs, etc). I think someone upthread said it well. The best Bioware can do at this point is acknowledge the obvious: there is a great deal of divisiveness over the 7.0 implementation plus content. That's at least letting your player base know you aren't tone deaf or oblivious. It doesn't solve anything, however, because what Bioware can't tell you (generally) is why they had to go down a certain path since that's tied to internal business initiatives that (again, generally) they won't -- and can't -- reveal.

A game like this would only be on its "death bed" in two ways. One is if people entirely stopped subscribing for it or, alternatively, entirely stopped spending money related to it. If that happened in one shot, the death would be relatively quick. Otherwise, it can be a slow drip and prolonged. The other way, of course, is if a studio had made an active decision to shut down a game. Whether that was public knowledge or not, if the decision was made -- then the game would certainly be on its death bed. Absent internal studio knowledge, the only way to answer this question is individually: do YOU feel the game is on its death bed and thus no longer worth supporting? How enough people answer that question for themselves -- and what action they take based on that -- will likely determine the future to a very large extent.

Isn't there a contradiction here? Yes, I realize it's also said: "That is where we discovered a pretty substantial issue with how Companions were built which is causing this to happen." So really the issue comes down to discovering these issues in the first place; which obviously has to happen before any fixing can begin. It's also said: "became more noticeable with that update." I want to be cautious here because we have to be supportive of these kinds of posts that are honest about what is going on. But we also have to consider how what's going on might impact the future. Case in point, the above kind of thing has to be scary to the developers. If something like this can go this long -- and, as a bit of history, this was reported internally very long ago, when discussions about using orchestrators for testing occurred -- it can lead you to wonder what else is lurking around. We already know there are many long-standing bugs that are visible. If there are also many long-standing bugs that are invisible -- or at least only selectively visible based on updates -- that's a scary situation. That goes to this point: "We thank you for all of the reports around these issues as they were very helpful in isolating the root causes to work towards addressing them." Absolutely. Kudos to the community for being able to help. But a better discussion might be around how testing is improving on Bioware's end to make sure that users aren't the primary testers who have to help you find long-standing (previously reported or otherwise) bugs and then ferreting out root causes. I hope this was not seen as an overly negative post. So I'll state again: this communication is very welcome. But it will also obviously lead to many more questions by critical thinking players. Given that SWTOR development continues and given that it's clearly being built over a platform over many existing bugs (that we know of and likely many others that we don't), I think bringing this concern front and center is worth it.

False advertising means someone is publicly distributing an advertisement (key word there! it's not just text) that contains an untrue, misleading, or deceptive representation or statement. That statement must have been made knowingly or recklessly and -- this part is crucial -- with the intent to promote the sale of property, goods, or services to a consumer base. None of that requires too much legal acumen to even look up, to be honest. So the answer is clearly no; this does not constitute false advertising. From what you quoted you can even see the text "...that’s our plan." Well, the plan apparently didn't go through. But a "plan" does not count as an "advertisement." Same thing later when it is said "I will plan to deliver an updated roadmap each quarter." Again, there was a plan to do something. Clearly somewhere the plan changed or was derailed. But, also clearly, the original wording can in no way be construed as an advertisement in the sense that would fall afoul of the legal definition of false advertising.

A large part of this has to be answered in the context of what it is perceived that influencers have done for the game. A large reason studios use this approach is because the influencers are perceived to be personalities that will positively sway a larger community to either try out a game or continue playing it. Influencers are a promotional mechanism. But over reliance on them has proven to be somewhat counter-productive in the industry. Beyond that, influencers can drive content decisions. How much and to what extent that happens is much more opaque whereas the above is a bit more visible as a general rule. So people have to ask: has the impact of influencers been felt on this game? Have you seen the game being talked about more widely and more broadly? Has it been reviewed consistently by many outlets as a result of influencers making sure the game is being noted for what it provides? Or have you seen the reverse? Have you seen more positive word of mouth rather than the reverse? Have various decisions made by the studio seemed to resonate well or not so well with the broader audience? That last point helps understand how "in touch" the so-called influencers are but it also leaves open how much the influencers are actually listened to as well. (When everything is closed off, we have no idea which is the case. Which can make both sides look bad.) There are tons of case studies out there about the impact (or lack thereof) of influencers. Two good ones: https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2017-01-26-working-with-influencers-the-internet-can-smell-disingenuity-a-mile-off https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2018-02-08-why-non-gaming-influencers-may-be-the-most-fit-for-your-game So the general answer as to whether "preferential treatment" should be accorded to so-called influencers has to be predicated around the perceived and actual impact of those influencers on the game itself. "Influence" is a concept that is measurable but the more opaque the influencer mechanism is, the less that measure is useful.

But you have to combine that with the fact that BIoWare Austin is still listed as an asset of EA and Star Wars: The Old Republic is listed as an asset of BioWare Austin. Those are part of overall revenue earnings statements as well as investment assets. So if they were lying about this, they are doing it in full violation of the law in terms of reporting purposes. (The fact that SWTOR hasn't been specifically mentioned in earnings reports lately does not indicate that somehow it has been shifted away.) They are also using branding for the game that would be in violation of the law for representation since the game and the site use the logos of BioWare and EA. They would also be distributing an End User Access and License Agreement under false pretenses (i.e., stating the license is with EA), which is also against the law. Combine that with them also providing a Terms of Service for Electronic Arts specifically. Combine that with the people who do respond internally from the studio (Eric, Chris, etc) are BioWare Austin employees, as seen by their LinkedIn profiles. I'll certainly grant that it's possible to believe that everyone just decided to violate the law across a broad array of fronts, hoping no one would discover this (from the government, to shareholders, to customers), and that BioWare Austin employees are all agreeing to keep up the front. But it's also possible to believe the situation is exactly as it appears.

Of much bigger impact on this particular game will be how Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order does. That is going to be a barometer of how Star Wars as a license within EA will continue to work. Of impact to BioWare itself (i.e., as a studio), yeah definitely Anthem will have some impact. I just wouldn't worry that it's going to be an outsized impact (as in "Studio Shuts Down!") If Anthem proves to have more downside risk than upside risk, that would be two such situations in a row: Mass Effect: Andromeda and Anthem. One based on an existing franchise, one entirely new. (Note that a game can sell very well but not actually turn a profit, thus having more downside risk.) That would not necessarily have to impact this game at all since the revenues of one don't directly impact the other. But it would, of course, be concerning from a studio perspective. And most likely they would pin their hopes on the next Dragon Age to turn things around while also trying to continue Anthem, as opposed to abandoning it, as they did with Andromeda. So there's two questions regarding the health of BioWare itself and the health of SWTOR. Obviously if BioWare closed its doors, SWTOR would go with it. But even an unhealthy BioWare could still sustain SWTOR for some time to come. Whether that would be a good thing or not, of course, depends on people's perceptions of what "sustain" means.

Valid points, sure. Yeah, Disney has to be aware that if the perceived (or actual) cost of being a licensee for the franchise is too onerous, people will be less likely to take it on, even given that it's the Star Wars franchise. This is particularly so as the fan base at large has been very vocal about concerns that Disney might want to go with, particularly in terms of concerns of oversaturation. Entirely. Granted, there are reasons for those cancellations -- whether good or bad, of course, is a matter of dispute -- but a lot if has to do with a combined focus on what Disney wants for Star Wars combined with what a publishing house like EA can do to be profitable with whatever gets produced. That's tricky with a licensed franchise and that's the case whether it's EA, BioWare, or any other publisher and/or studio. I don't think it's the case that Disney hasn't thought some things out but they, like any business, are learning. Barring a crystal ball that tells the future, companies sometimes just have to try things and see what works. That's going to involve some mis-steps here and there but that's also where the best learning opportunities tend to manifest.

Probably rightfully so. I could have been a little less dogmatic there, I guess. I more just meant that any lessons that SWTOR had to teach were learned awhile ago and that mainly centered on the distinction of MMO, single-player RPG, or with additional multiplayer elements. What has taught EA a bit more about Star Wars is Disney's desire to have everything canon, the shuttering of Star Wars 1313, the problems with the two Battlefront games, and the rationale behind the disbanding of Visceral's game and the reboot of that game attempted internally. When a given game stops appearing on earnings reports, that tends to mean that it's not as important in terms of revenue structure going forward (at least for now) and that any lessons it might be teaching about where to invest dollars have been learned (again, at least for now).

That part is likely closest to the truth. Or, rather, plans are in a holding pattern right now. We've seen that in the last couple of earnings calls for sure. Little to no mention of SWTOR at all. And, again, a large part of that does have to do with Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order. It's by another studio entirely but it is an attempt at a course correct, over a broad series of Star Wars games (some released, some not). I don't mean to imply that it's going to "replace" this game. I simply mean that it is clearly an attempt to respond to a variety of feedback about current Star Wars games as well as to meet Disney's mandate that all active content going forward needs to be part of canon. But, to be fair, they can't say anything negative of that sort. There is a disparagement clause that teams are under. For many, the bone has been thrown. And they have left. Some recently, some long ago. Subscription-based games are a gamble in a very real sense. You are gambling your money against what you hope to be the continued success of the game that justifies your continued expense. For others, however, there is not necessarily a bone that needs to be thrown. Some are okay with the game as it is. Others are newer people coming to the game for the first time, thus subscribing, and still having a lot of content to get through. Yet others are more here for the single player ("story") experience only and don't care about a lot of the issues having to do with gearing or end game. They do presumably care about the bugs but that also depends on how aware they are of them and how tolerant they are of them. Long-time players of a game that has seen its ups and downs often have a parallax effect in terms of perception that doesn't impact many other players. So what some see as the twilight hours of a game are not perceived as such by others, who don't have the same expectations of the game or the same longevity with it.

There have been rumors swirling that EA feels it might actually be better off without the Star Wars license because it does provide some cost overheads that they may not want to incur. That being said, those cost overheads often come from how well (or not) the games do. If they underperform, the costs outweigh the revenues. That being said, publically, of course, both EA and Disney tout confidence in their relationship. It does, yes. But that's not to say that EA, as a publisher, couldn't add to the funding of that cost center since it's a studio they own. It's kind of like how, say, Sony Pictures can fund Columbia Studios (whom they acquired) for certain projects. But Columbia can also do its own funding as well. Sony will take a cut of revenue because that's part of what owning them means: Sony provides certain things like operations and marketing that Columbia does not have to do. The basic dynamic is that the product team for a studio -- and for each game within that studio -- will deliver projections of future revenue based on what they plan to deliver to customers. The projections are based on the traditional triple play: reducing costs, increasing revenue, or sustaining revenue. EA, as publisher, will have a stake in those revenue projections. Just as Sony would with Columbia, for example. So EA really wants BioWare Austin projections to be accurate because they are more likely to be reached. And if they are reached, that means other plans based on those projections can go forward. Often that money is spent before it actually comes in. EA's part of that stake will go to whatever they want to do as a wider company. They can distribute that as they see fit. Part of that could, of course, be distributed right back to SWTOR. If it's not -- because they want to fund something else -- then someone could claim that SWTOR is being "underfunded" even though those funds were never guaranteed to go back into their cost center. The part of the stake that BioWare gets, however, is entirely theirs. This is part of how contracts are drawn up between studios and publishers. And, again, it's actually very similar to how the movie and television industry works. So whatever BioWare makes it can utilize as it sees fit. Obviously the more profitable they are, the more they get (and the more EA gets as their percentage of the revenue). I bring all that up because if SWTOR performs poorly from a monetary perspective, then, yes, the game will be "underfunded" in the sense that they didn't make as much money as they hoped and thus have less to spend, when they factor in the various other aspects of their business, such as operating costs, employee salary, etc. Also of note, it's often not how much money you make; it's how under your projections you were. That's where cost centers get hit. It's kind of odd, really, but again the movie industry works the same way. Internally the success of movies is not based on the box office returns; it's based on how those returns compare to the initial projections. Because it's those projections (often made years before a movie comes out) that were the basis of current spending. Consider an oft-cited and accurate example. The biopic movie Steve Jobs cost about $40 million to make. However, it would have to have made $100 just to break even in terms revenue. To get back just half off those initial costs -- i.e., a profit of $20 million -- the movie would have to make close to $140 million. As another example, consider The Amazing Spider-Man 2. This cost $260 million to make. It grossed over $700 million. Yet it's profit was only $20 million for the studio, due to projections that the movie would actually make $900 million at least. This may seem like a huge distraction and that I'm wasting electrons here, but the game industry and its projections work very similarly. The community team for SWTOR could never -- or, rather, should never -- confirm or deny any sort of funding questions or even internal health issues, perceived of otherwise. That would fall afoul of the disparagement clause.

if it helps clear things up, that's not accurate. Were that the case, at minimum, all of the branding done around SWTOR, including on the web site, would be in violation of the law due to misrepresentation. (You can't claim your game is affiliated with a studio or a publisher, including the use of imagery, if it's not.) Where much of the speculation has come from is the entire absence of SWTOR being absent from the last couple of earnings reports and shareholder calls. (That said, most people weren't making the distinctions between the 10-Q and the 8-K reports.) What Eric was referring to in his post is SWTOR being a separate cost center; he just didn't word it that way. That cost center is influenced by the fact that it's a licensed product (i.e., Star Wars) which makes some of the logistics of that cost center unique among the other cost centers.

As a point of interest, these are totally different cost centers. The funding between them is entirely different. Funding for SWTOR is based upon projections and how those projections hit revenue targets for that cost center. The same will be true of Anthem. I'm not so much dismissing your point because, yes, Bioware Austin does get funding. So does Anthem. (Anthem has been getting funding from 2012 on.) The cost centers, however, are entirely different and that means just saying "we get funding" is not, by itself, meaningful. If I get (relative measures) one dollar of funding while someone else gets twenty dollars of funding, that obviously will have an impact on what I can do. There is truth to this, I think, but I realize it's an arguable point for many. While a lot of people put so much stock in Anthem -- and admittedly, it's a big thing for BioWare -- in the context of Star Wars people seem to be really underestimating how much is riding on Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order. A game that is going to be in canon (which matters to some) and is trying to correct for some of the mistakes made by this game (as an MMO) and the Star Wars: Battlefront games. On the broader point: SWTOR is currently not being used as a barometer at all regarding the success or failure of Star Wars games. It simply isn't. From an industry standpoint right now, it barely rates a mention. That even includes in earnings reports and future revenue projections as released during shareholder calls. SWTOR is serving only as a very limited sort of learning experience because it ultimately doesn't (at least right now) matter all that much. The Battlefront series was a lot of learning because it showed a few missteps. The first didn't have a single-player campaign at all. The second focused initially on transactions but did have the story elements (including a tie-in novel). Another learning experience came with the shutting down of Visceral's Star Wars game and then the shutting down of the "reboot" of that game by EA Vancouver. Some of those decisions, arguably, were driven at least in part by the perceived lack of success of SWTOR. But that's complicated by the fact that SWTOR started before EA took acquisition and it was based on a past series (Knights of the Old Republic) that fans generally did like. So the only part of SWTOR that is being taken as a learning experience is the notion of a single-player game versus a more traditional MMO game (and perhaps versus a single-player game with some multiplayer elements). Now consider the type of game that Fallen Order is purported to be and you'll see why whether it succeeds or fails will have a large impact on whether a model like that of SWTOR is viable. Largely correct. Different cost centers. Different development teams. That being said, the alpha team tends to be dispersed after launch of a big game. That happened with SWTOR, for example. So that team from Anthem most certainly could be brought into SWTOR. Or they could more likely be moved into something like the next Dragon Age. A large part of that will be determined by those projections being made by product teams. I also think this is largely correct. A "failure" an Anthem -- and failure is very relative, just like it is for movie studios with box office figures -- would definitely cause some internal shifting of resources and a re-alignment of assets. Regardless of what does or does not happen with Anthem, the "worst" that would happen is SWTOR's cost center stays the same for the duration. That definitely won't happen unless they lay off the staff and stop any active development on this game. The cost centers generally don't cross boundaries. The revenues taken in are what are used for further projections to determine future revenue targets. That informs the hiring of staff (who then, of course, have to be regularly paid), retaining current staff (who also like to be paid regularly), what those staff are assigned to do, work on graphical updates (such as what happened with KOTFE/KOTET), etc.

Indeed so. ArenaNet actually has the ability to allow members of the development team to participate because their community team uses a means of filtering information to developers that allow them to pinpoint where responses would likely be most helpful. (Behind the scenes it's called a "buzz community" process.) The delivery team can, of course, engage on social media with the player base as they want; this, of course, can have some setbacks in their communication policy, as was seen with the Jessica Price and Peter Fries firing. But, yes, in general ArenaNet succeeds fairly well in this because of how their community team allows the delivery team (usually the designers and developers) to have a more focused experience with the user base. Their community team also liaises very closely with their customer support team and does very good social media monitoring. A good example of how in tune their community team handles this was seen early on with this article. So the key thing to note is the very engagement you like by the wider team there is entirely due to how the community team is working behind the scenes to facilitate that engagement.

I get what you're saying here but realistically this is just not how game studios can generally work. There is an asymmetry between the number of developers and the number of players, of course. Plus developers generally have a job to do. Looking at forums and ferreting out the signal from the noise is not one of those jobs. It would also be counter-productive, in many cases, due to the anchor bias that tends to happen. This is exactly why you have specialists in community management. It's an abstraction layer between the developers and the consumers of what those developers produce. It's also a layer between designers and producers. This is what helps communicate between varying levels of knowledge and technical skill but also working to distill common sentiments of the player base while also not overly focusing on outliers. This is very true. We don't know. But we do know other areas where community outreach has faltered. I provided one of those above. While that is by no means any sort of proof, we do start to see common patterns being applied of communication that is sporadic, at best, ineffective as a middle-ground, or entirely absent at worst. We do see where the player base has to often prod to get information that really should have just been provided in the first place. This is a good point. When you work in game studios you generally sign a "non-disparagement contract" as part of your employment. This basically means you can't go out there bad-mouthing your game or the team that produces it. Depending on the strength of the wording -- and it's usually very strong -- you can't even give a hint that things aren't entirely rosy. That is an important context to realize. That being said, community managers are trained to deal with these kinds of situations. It's basically learning how to convey bad news but without actually giving away internal dynamics or, in fact, making it seem like entirely bad news. One is just being anticipatory. Meaning, try to anticipate what is likely going to be a problem and then respond as much as you can to at least show that you recognize the problem and that you are engaging with the delivery team (producers, designers, developers) about this. Let's say there's something the producers want to do -- such as a type of "gear grind" that they feel is necessary for whatever reason. Let's say the community manager knows this is unpopular to at least some vocal segment of the player base. Let's say the community manager has made this clear to the product team but the product team has made it equally clear that this is going to happen. Sounds like a bad spot to be in, right? And it is! This is where you have to work with the product team to convey a message about why this is being done, an understanding that this might be unpopular (so people don't just think the team is oblivious), and what specifically the product team is hoping to see as this is rolled out, along with a demonstrable -- key word there! -- sustained -- another key word! -- feedback mechanism. Key to this also is a willingness of the delivery team to change, or at least course-correct, based on that feedback. This latter point is something that a community manager can in no way do anything about. So if that community manager is backed by a product team that is going a certain direction regardless of player feedback, yes, there isn't much that can be done about that. There are, however, still ways to communicate with the player base to make the situation less unpalatable or to convey a rationale. Generally people will be less unhappy if they feel they understand some reasoning -- even if they disagree with the reasoning. Those same people will be even less unhappy if they see progress in other areas, such as better communication about whether logging in and doing activities will have some impact on, say, companion influence that seems to be getting lost. That's probably my final point. Communication is an aggregate. So community management is about making sure that, on average, the player base feels more communicated with rather than less. Even if what has to be communicated is not stellar news, the fact that there is engagement and that there is substantive engagement can go a long way towards reducing player antipathy and apathy.

Agreed. To put this in further context -- and I do realize I can be coming off very negative here -- consider: BioWare has a five day schedule with your generally standard eight hour work day. That means 40 hours per week. I'm not being pedantic here but that context is interesting. Interesting because ... think about what a community manager's job is. Then think about what you see with this game. And ask yourself: what is truly being done over that 40 hour work week as part of the community management function? As just one example, think of how little "Jedi Under Siege" was actually reviewed by outside venues. It barely made a blip anywhere. Running a data algorithm with some web sc****** on the aggregate of announcements shows a huge skew towards VULKK.com. In fact, it's the dominant skew. Next would be MMORPG.com. Then Fantha Tracks. But then look at reviews of any expansion for, say, World of Warcraft. You see skews toward GameSpot, PC Gamer, GameInformer, Polygon, App Trigger, The Escapist, IGN, VenutreBeat, Ars Technica, Digital Trends, and so on. I'm not trying to compare one game to another nor the content of one expansion to another. Those venues will review things that are popular, to be sure. But they will also review things if prodded and assuming they feel it's worth the time given the interests of their readers. So a point here is that a community manager (or community team, if such exists) will also make sure the word gets out to those venues: "Hey all, we have a cool new update to our game. Check out 'Jedi Under Siege' as we take the story back to its roots, introducing new characters, etc, etc." So clearly there was not a lot of outreach to other venues. Or there was and they didn't care enough to actually do anything. (Which is the worse situation I'll leave up to personal opinion). That's one data point. There is clearly a mixed bag of outreach to the community of players. Another data point. That's two arenas of what is arguably great import that are being communicated with quite poorly. We see that Eric still has to be "shamed" a bit into actually doing his job in a substantive way. Consider this initial response by Eric and then consider his revised response. This is just one of many examples where prodding was necessary to get something useful. So, in some cases, it's not "More Funding, Resources and Manpower"; sometimes it's just looking at how your resources and manpower are utilizing time and effort right now. This is another reason why people should probably realize this game, and its studio, isn't being micro-managed at all. If anything, there is a laxness to this studio that suggests they have little to no oversight whatsoever and very little impetus (whether in the form of encouragement or threat) to change. Again, I know I can seem overly negative here but this is one area where I feel very strongly because I've seen so many situations where active (and anticipatory) community management could have made a difference in terms of potentially heading off a lot of ill-will and negativity about the direction of the game or decisions being made or feedback being (seemingly) ignored.

This is where, generally, a community manager would step in and help explain the rationale of the design and development team to the user base and, equally, convey the concerns of the community to the design and development team. So part of the problem is what feedback reaches the internal team and to what extent it does so is very unknown. A lot of people will assume the "developers must be aware" but it's important to note that most developers in these companies do not frequent the forums. It would take too long to sort of the signal from the noise. Which is, again, why a community management function usually exists. I've seen this many times in game studios where the community management function is lacking, due to various factors: inattention, inexperience, etc. Thus, at the very least, if the perception is that feedback is negative about certain things but those certain things seem to get doubled down on with each update, you have to question whether that feedback is even being recognized and received. The idea that this is handled so poorly is obviously not good but the alternative is that the feedback is simply being outright ignored. Which would seem to be an even worse situation. Again, however, an effective community management function could go a long way towards providing some insight.

The main thing to note is the conference call transcript. There is more mention of Star Wars there, of course, but you'll notice that none of it is for SWTOR. Obviously there are reasons for that. Internally there is a lot riding on the upcoming Star Wars: Fallen Order in terms of how successful EA feels a Star Wars franchise will be for it, in terms of licensing. That's because the game is going to be considered part of the new canon, which is part of establishing the relationship between Disney's new efforts and EA's license.

The earnings calls were basically more about saying they (Disney) planned to continue a licensing model rather than develop games themselves. Yes, there was a vote of support for EA but the full earnings call could easily be taken as meaning "happy with the idea of licensing with a company, in the current case EA." There was not necessarily a statement that EA would continue forevermore. That may very well be what happens, but it's not a fait accompli of the call itself. There was a statement about how "we're probably going to continue to stay on that side of the business and put our capital elsewhere" -- but "that side of the business" was referring to providing the license for others to develop games. Yes, that's currently EA and while there was no indication that they were abandoning EA, there was also not a firm statement that EA would be it forever. When we'll know for sure is in 2023, when the license has to be renewed and what both parties do at that time. From a purely business side of things, EA is generally a good bet for Disney. And that's the case regardless of the fan backlash because, in most cases, that backlash doesn't turn into enough of a financial hit to really matter. And even then, the financial hit will more be to EA, not to Disney. Disney still gets their revenue from the licensing costs regardless of what EA, as publisher, puts out. So then what comes into play is whether what is being put out tarnishes the intellectual property enough that Disney would have to worry if the license is sitting in the right place. But consider that a very vocal group of fans feels that Disney has already tarnished the intellectual property, with The Last Jedi and Solo. Whether anyone individually agrees with that or not, the perception is certainly out there. So Disney is quite a bit more concerned and focused on the film franchise right now than the gaming side.

If you login on the SWTOR site, click on "My Account" under your name (from the top right). Then look at the "Facebook Connect" tab. It should indicate if you have previously linked your SWTOR and Facebook accounts. If you have linked your accounts, that would likely be why this is happening.