From a Goldman Analyst Perspective on SWTOR

[Yowfatto]

Greetings,

 

Before I start …

 

1) I am level 50 (Jedi Knight / Sentinel)

 

2) I have PvP'd to Valor rank 38

 

3) I have my professions maxed, all datacrons found and most quests in game completed

 

With that said …

 

We all know this game has many bugs and many things that feel / seem unpolished and unfinished. Conversely, what seems unfinished to one person might seem perfectly fine to another (Hardcore vs Casual perspective as one example of contrast.)

 

My post is about the universal functionality that causes most Western market MMO's to fail. I make a great salary predicting this, as most games are initially supported by VC funds, PE funds and other sources of investment, all of which I consult and broker.

 

I have a great track record dating back to World of Warcraft (for successful bets,) predicted the demise of Vanguard, Aion, FF14 and Warhammer. (For advising not to invest.) Some of the reasons were, of course, Western gamers “dislike” grinds and Eastern specific functionality inherent in Korean and Japanese titles attempting to monetize Western markets. That which is commonplace in the East is moderately tolerable in the West, but ultimately rejected, when it comes to certain aspects of the gaming culture.

 

That aside …

 

As an investor, I look at 3 metrics (in MMO's and MOBA genre titles.)

 

1: Audience

 

2: Market Share

 

3: Long term sustainability (after initial growth.)

 

Audience: When you lease an automobile, you either return to the dealer 12-36 months later to buy or lease again (or go elsewhere,) this is called "lease loyalty" and is often identified with the Brand, salesperson or financial constraint. The connotations of the first two are positive in nature, the second, neutral and not applicable to this discussion. Companies such as Blizzard (for example) are successful because they "know how to talk to the people." They have an audience and cater to that audience.

 

What Bioware failed to do was capitalize on there audience and relied on Brand recognition (which is questionable.) This was countered by the negative association of the Electronic Arts brand and clustered by the involvement of Lucas Arts. (a too many Chiefs and not enough Indians syndrome.)

 

So what was left in this wake were Star Wars fans, KOTOR fans, and people curious to start a new game (MMO) from the on start. Unfortunately, most of these "New" players have played Polished MMO's, and have come from other titles to give this one a chance.

 

Like the test drive, if you have the money, you need to be sold from the start. (And most have the money to purchase multiple games and pay the subscription for the one they ultimately settle on.) The salesperson, the test drive ... it all needs to make that first impression, or for the most part, people will return to what they know and like, and reject the new endeavor for reasons such as those found all over the SWTOR forums and this post.

 

We were sold on Star Wars, but the test drive (and lets be honest) is lackluster at best. The audience has spoken on the Forums – about things we dislike and want changed immediately. (Would you settle on a car that had a bad test drive if you could afford something better?) Bioware runs into two problems here

 

1: Engineer talent (are they talented and efficient enough to overhaul and change what’s needed to be changed?)

 

2: Budget (Are enough funds committed to make the changes happen, or are they hedging there losses and preparing for the worst case scenario already?)

 

I suspect it is a bit of both, I advised all my clients to divest of anything to do with EA and Bioware for this vary reason. They needed to attract more talent from the star, BETA test at least another 5-6 months. They should have overstaffed to deal with forum moderation, customer service and bug stomping, among other issues.

 

These issues, listed above, are only the tip of the iceberg; there are some major flaws in this game that are causing droves of customers to leave.

 

Some of them, but not limited to …

 

Combat: In both PVP and PVE, the non fluid ability delay is game breaking in design. It’s workable albeit annoying and needs to be changed. The game will not be successful long term in its current state. The lack of auto attack is one thing, but the ability delay is too much to swallow.

 

Grind: At 50, HM's, PVP ect all become long grinds ... this will cause some to stop playing or eventually lose interest, not due to the grind, but thru faction imbalance, class imbalance and gear disparity in warzones that get boring fairly quickly. (The same maps can be fun if the issues states are resolved, which all link to root and main caused, such as slow combat.) This issue is further compounded by non 50’s facing 50’s in WZ’s.

 

Lack of Community: No server forums, sharding and lag in non-sharded areas ... well, this is a problem … a very huge problem. Community is a huge part of any MMO, the excuse of (“we cannot moderate separate server forums” and “we don’t want to build community on the forums,” is a load of BS, and as an investor question the companies availably of resources, fund and confidence in product.)

 

Lack of Customer support and service: Auto Droid ticket response after 3-4 days is unacceptable. Not being able to speak to a GM, a human being or call into the call center is very problematic, and brings for the concerns of the previous item.

 

Ambiguity: What abilities do, lack of metrics and logs to analyze what occurs in game, no visibility on the future outside secretive of the cuff comments made by some developers ... sorry, learn to talk to the people please, the current state in this respect again, is not acceptable in today’s MMO market.

 

Questions?

 

How do we get white and purple crystal fragments? Are they in game? Do we need to reverse engineer for them? Questions like these should have answers, even if the answer is "sorry, they are not implemented in game yet."

 

End game Ops bugged, Heroic FP's (some encounters) overturned for 2 weeks now - this is unacceptable, sorry. These are the initial OPS, not newly implemented expansions or patches. No excuse.

 

I could go on about the negative niche and non universal things, but that becomes somewhat ideological in essence. The point here is that, this game has potential that is being squandered daily, and people are responding by leaving the game. Most will not return, and this is proven by 10 years of MMO's failing and the habitual patterns of the market / MMO audience, which is about 24-28 million world over.

 

On a personal note; I am willing to give the game a chance, I am staying to see / hope they make these changes and improvements.

 

On a professional note: The damage has already been done, and the chance to monetize on this game / company is long gone.

 

I think Bioware knows this, and it wouldn’t be justified by a company / business to allocate funds to a project that doesn’t have long term growth and sustainability.

 

WOW grew to 11 million. It started at much less. Aion started with 3.5 million, shrunk to under 350k. SWTOR 4-5 million, and is shrinking daily. This shift alone is problematic and often spells doom and gloom for an MMO title. (Just something else to also keep in mind.)

 

The number of subs that are required to sustain this title and the number of subs required to allocate funds for further development is unknown. I assume they will make a profit, but at the cost of quality in customer service and support, delaying game changes and fixes and also delays in other areas.

 

This wasn't as "bad" a launch as many other titles that have been released, but they didn’t get it right either. There are plenty of other options for current customers and even more on the horizon. I hope other companions look at what happened with this game and learn from the errors. Bioware needs to stick to games they do reasonably well, such as Dragon Age. This game would have been better if they consulted with Aion's engine / combat team and hired some folks from Blizzard or other like companies. The current talent pool and experience level of key people it seems is lacking, and the management team pushed the game in a direction that many dislike.

 

If Bioware decides to make another MMO, I hope they base it off ME or DA. If they think they can save the game, then they need to allocate the funds, take the game off line for 1-2 months and relaunch it. Otherwise, we all need to learn to enjoy mediocrity and a game that might have been.

 

Good day and see you all later.

 

Sinius

 

How did WoW survive with so many game breaking bugs when it launched? When it launched it was simply impossible to play at times, in fact so bad that many players couldn't go to new zones because the zone was pinged as water to them. Interesting that you point out bugs in this game which are no where even near the level of nightmare that WoW had. What was your analysis of WoW, that it would fail terribly due to it's horrific launch and horrific aftermath? Based on what you said of SWTOR you most surely would have said the same of WoW when it launched since it was exponentially worse.

 

In addition, have you gotten to end game already? How does an analyst have that much time on their hands?

Edited January 6, 2012 by Yowfatto

[Uhuru]

You lost me at "greetings".

[Yowfatto]

Any investor who is willing to take forum responses and the customer service experience of one person (himself) as valid reasons to dictate the value of an MMO in the short/long term is a *********** muppet.

 

This is the kind of amateur **** that got people to invest in HD-DVDs.

 

Exactly, basing his analysis based on what he sees in the forums?

[WaitinForDthree]

I agree with many points.

 

Combat ability lag is the #1 priority to make this game a success. Shutting down the game for any period of time more than regularly scheduled maintenance is a very bad idea in my opinion.

 

I think players will stick around for a 2nd or 3rd month, but if improvements are not made by 4-6 months at the latest, it will suffer the consequences.

 

Story quests for me are fantastic, but that is pretty much the only part of the game that interests me at the moment. My 3 characters are all ~Lv30 and are all stuck in Act 2 because I can't hit the mobs in quests because of level difference (35+). I just do space dailies and craft a bit now; not really interested in questing general anymore. Crafting is somewhat entertaining still as well, but I don't really feel like there is any money to be made because of quest rewards and pvp and commendations vendors. I still make some income, but it is tapering off as more people undercut. Not much to go on imo. Feels an awful lot like another game I used to play.

[Yowfatto]

This game launched well, but the problem is, its a crap game overall. WoW's launch was terrible but it was worth sticking around because it was a good game.

 

Sure, it's end game was nill and it was bugged to hell for months, it was a nightmare compared to SWTOR. The only reason WoW lasted is because no one knew any better and the MMO market at that time was far more mature and patient, knowing it would grow. It luckily cornered the MMO market. The current MMO market is completely different, filled with immature, snotty brats who want instant gratification and non-stop content that is given to them on a silver platter on a daily basis.

 

This is why WoW is now slowly dying, they lost millions of subs last year and will lose millions more this year. No MMO exists or will exist that can satisfy the current MMO market which is continually getting worse, no developer can deliver enough content in such short time spans. The MMO market in the end may die altogether and be destroyed by it's own idiot customers who can never be satisfied, until some program comes out that can make new content on the fly, which probably won't be around for many, many many years.

[Yowfatto]

if he were a goldman analyst, he wouldn't have time to be level 50.

 

exactly.

[SaltAU]

Very good post OP, well written and in my mind, absolutely correct.

[Cancrizans]

Very briefly:

 

A) WoW had a lot more infuriating problems at launch in all of the categories you mentioned than SWTOR does.

 

B) While you seem to know in general how investing in online games works, I think you are being less than honest about working for Goldman. They can pretty much pick the cream of the crop...and I hope our major universities are not letting people who can't even be bothered to proofread a forum post graduate these days.

 

If you presented me with a prospectus written like your forum post I would get up and leave right away.

 

In internet lingo, pics or it didn't happen.

[potsherds]

The OP is definitely insulting the intelligence of a lot of folks here, insisting he holds a position he obviously does not, I am curious what percentage of folks who post on the forums (so an unrepresentative subset of players, of course) think BioWare ought not to have released the game so soon? I knew from the moment I read the release date that they were pushing it out for the holidays and was worried; and playing the betas only confirmed that the game was to be released lacking some amount or other of polish. The farther I've gotten into the game, and the consistent level of bugs and graphical errors has caused my opinion on the early release to go from 'not a very good idea' to 'perhaps incredibly foolish and damaging at least to the short-term success of the game'. WoW is a great success after what I've heard was an awful launch, and the launch of SWTOR went off much more smoothly, but with higher expectations, I worry whether BioWare has the resources and people necessary to overcome the obstacles here.

 

I also, having a great deal of dislike for EA, wonder how much the decision to launch so soon was EA's and how much was BW's.

Edited January 6, 2012 by potsherds

[Motb]

I agree with OP, have played AoC and WAR from start, and lots of scary similarities between the games. The non responsiveness of abilities, the bad customer support, the bad design of the game, questions unandswered. And ultimately I have the same feeling: First everything is amazing and better then WoW, then 1 week later its good, it ahs its plusses and negatives, but it is still new and interesting, 2 weeks later: Its getting broing, you look up and see only the flaws as the good things have just lost their "newiness", their excitement value.

 

To be perfectly honest the only reason I log on each day is because of the IP, I listen to the audiobooks atm (The Old Republic: Fallen Alliance) and it makes me want to join the fray, but after an hour or two it is jsut boring and a grind even with the cutscenes.

 

Im mostly sad because I had my hopes on SWTOR, and I dragged my friends away from WoW...

[busca]

All i can say is i've played almost ever AAA mmo from SWG on.

And this is the most fun i've had playing a mmo to date.

yes i hope they can fix the bugs and gave me some more HOTBARS PLZZZZZZZZZ.

[slaogwerk]

I read it. It's all psychobabble BS from someone who shouldn't be claiming victory or knowledge.

 

This.

[SaltAU]

The OP is definitely insulting the intelligence of a lot of folks here, insisting he holds a position he obviously does not, I am curious what percentage of folks who post on the forums (so an unrepresentative subset of players, of course) think BioWare ought not to have released the game so soon? I knew from the moment I read the release date that they were pushing it out for the holidays and was worried; and playing the betas only confirmed that the game was to be released lacking some amount or other of polish. The farther I've gotten into the game, and the consistent level of bugs and graphical errors has caused my opinion on the early release to go from 'not a very good idea' to 'perhaps incredibly foolish and damaging at least to the short-term success of the game'. WoW is a great success after what I've heard was an awful launch, and the launch of SWTOR went off much more smoothly, but with higher expectations, I worry whether BioWare has the resources and people necessary to overcome the obstacles here.

 

I also, having a great deal of dislike for EA, wonder how much the decision to launch so soon was EA's and how much was BW's.

 

 

Agreed. Well said.

[Yowfatto]

The OP is definitely insulting the intelligence of a lot of folks here, insisting he holds a position he obviously does not, but I am curious what percentage of folks who post on the forums (so an unrepresentative subset of players, of course) think BioWare ought not to have released the game so soon? I knew from the moment I read the release date that they were pushing it out for the holidays and was worried; and playing the betas only confirmed that the game was to be released lacking some amount or other of polish. The farther I've gotten into the game, and the consistent level of bugs and graphical errors has caused my opinion on the early release to go from 'not a very good idea' to 'perhaps incredibly foolish and damaging at least to the short-term success of the game'. WoW is a great success after what I've heard was an awful launch, and the launch of SWTOR went off much more smoothly, but with higher expectations, I worry whether BioWare has the resources and people necessary to overcome the obstacles here.

 

I also, having a great deal of dislike for EA, wonder how much the decision to launch so soon was EA's and how much was BW's.

 

WoW was simply a nightmare at launch, the fact that it succeeded was because people didn't know any better at the time and was willing to give the game some time. The MMO market is not nearly as mature as it was then. After WoW everyone compared everything to current WoW and it never compared. This game has true potential, I think that most will give this game a chance, even many WoW players, who were around at launch of WoW and know how horrific it was have said the same in these very forums about SWTOR, give it time it's only been 2 WEEKS.

 

What will this game look like 6m-year from now. Probably far different and even better. As things go, this game for me, and I've played all the crop of current MMOs, has more content and more to offer than AoC, Aion, STO, Rift, Warhammer etc. Those games had some big flaws, this game has some flaws but it's in far better shape than any of those games when they launched.

 

Of course EA dictates when the game launches, BW was probably the one to push it out as far as they did and probably asked for more time and EA said no Dec. 20th. Regardless give the game time to grow and work out the kinks.

Edited January 6, 2012 by Yowfatto

[Monsata]

Still loving the game. OP is no analyst, or at least not a very good one. He doesn't like the game, and he hopes to make you feel the same. Misery loves company, that is why all these people post unproductive and negative posts.

 

Blizzard employee ? Possibly. WoW Fanboy who is never going to give this game a chance, and is hoping he can convince all his friends to go back? Possibly. With the exception of a few minor bugs, I see people happily playing all day long. I read these horror stories about how bad the game is or how broken it is and I think " Are we playing the same game ?"

Edited January 6, 2012 by Monsata

[JefferyClark]

Nice try, WoW's beta was 2 years.

 

Nice try... Shillen, get your facts straight.

 

Starting before March of 2004, Blizzard started signing up Closed Beta Test testers from an unknown pool of people using an undisclosed method of selection. The Closed Beta Trial ran for about 7 months ending in more widely available stress test and then an open beta before final release around the end of November 2004.

 

under 9 months of testing before launch... total... with who knows how many testers... gamebreaking bugs up the wazoo and server and client crashes to rival early Windows Vista...

[Yowfatto]

No goldman analyst has the time to play MMO's endlessly as this OP does. Heck, 90% of people don't have the time to get to lvl 50 in 2 weeks, I'm only 40 and it will probably take me another month to get to 50. This OP is not an analyst and anyone who thinks so is truly naive and ignorant.

[Hanzohasashi]

A analyst who listens to whiners on forums and decides to post his expertise (which he is paid for usually BTW) for free on a general forum...

 

Now I have seen everything.

 

OR

 

It could be someone who got sick of having his arguments undermined by people who have a lot more experience than him and decided to take the higher road and lying about who he is.

 

Just sayin'...

[Leporello]

The OP is definitely insulting the intelligence of a lot of folks here, insisting he holds a position he obviously does not, I am curious what percentage of folks who post on the forums (so an unrepresentative subset of players, of course) think BioWare ought not to have released the game so soon? I knew from the moment I read the release date that they were pushing it out for the holidays and was worried; and playing the betas only confirmed that the game was to be released lacking some amount or other of polish. The farther I've gotten into the game, and the consistent level of bugs and graphical errors has caused my opinion on the early release to go from 'not a very good idea' to 'perhaps incredibly foolish and damaging at least to the short-term success of the game'. WoW is a great success after what I've heard was an awful launch, and the launch of SWTOR went off much more smoothly, but with higher expectations, I worry whether BioWare has the resources and people necessary to overcome the obstacles here.

 

I also, having a great deal of dislike for EA, wonder how much the decision to launch so soon was EA's and how much was BW's.

 

Well said, but it is easy to criticize EA's decision to push the release of this game when you aren't the one responsible to the accounting department and to the investors who were clamoring over this game for all of 2011. EA did gives this game a lot of time and money. They eventually have to push the button.

 

But yes, definitely it was a mistake. I wanted this game out, too, but I didn't know it needed as much work as it does. I figured certain functions, like raid frames, UI customization, would be the first things nailed down and polished. I was wrong.

[Yowfatto]

I agree with OP, have played AoC and WAR from start, and lots of scary similarities between the games. The non responsiveness of abilities, the bad customer support, the bad design of the game, questions unandswered. And ultimately I have the same feeling: First everything is amazing and better then WoW, then 1 week later its good, it ahs its plusses and negatives, but it is still new and interesting, 2 weeks later: Its getting broing, you look up and see only the flaws as the good things have just lost their "newiness", their excitement value.

 

To be perfectly honest the only reason I log on each day is because of the IP, I listen to the audiobooks atm (The Old Republic: Fallen Alliance) and it makes me want to join the fray, but after an hour or two it is jsut boring and a grind even with the cutscenes.

 

Im mostly sad because I had my hopes on SWTOR, and I dragged my friends away from WoW...

 

WoW is a dying game, lost millions last year and will lose just as many if not more this year, pretty soon all that will be left are the millions of chinese gold farmers spamming each other.

Edited January 6, 2012 by Yowfatto

[Abriael]

No goldman analyst has the time to play MMO's endlessly as this OP does. Heck, 90% of people don't have the time to get to lvl 50 in 2 weeks, I'm only 40 and it will probably take me another month to get to 50. This OP is not an analyst and anyone who thinks so is truly naive and ignorant.

 

No goldman analyst (or any industry professional of any kind or affiliation) would ever post this kind of analysis on a forum, would ever go ahed and identify himself as such with this kind of arrogance, and even more than that, would ever say that this game has or ever had 4-5 million subscribers.

 

Analysts are often wrong, but at the very least they have their basic numbers right, and this dude simply does not. 4-5 million subscribers for this game exist only in the wet dreams of the developers and every EA executive still able to dream.

 

I don't think even the most rabid and blind fanboy would go ahead and throw such a ridiculously random number.

 

His posts are full of opinionated dribble and thinly veiled misinformation, and that's pretty evident to anyone that has even a finger (not even a full foot) into the door of this industry.

 

This guy discredited himself with his first post, and I'm actually having a laugh seeing that people are still here while I had the time to record a whole podcast and interview a perspective writer.

 

Good times

Edited January 6, 2012 by Abriael

[dyves]

Meh, another opinion with a nice ribbon around it by someone who claims to be an investor who has never been wrong, never seen that one before... Oh wait, actually I have all the time

 

Well, only some comments on his subjective story:

- Aion made something like over 200 million dollars a year or so ago worldwide in revenues, so they must be doing something right, I guess.

- so far, player activity in various tools show an increase instead of a decline.

- OP is another guy who thinks how he regards things and his tastes are representative for the whole MMO playerbase, which it's clearly not as everyone using their brains and common sense would know

- Bioware hasn't squandered their brand name only building on the SW name, it should be obvious that there are far more people who were inclined to give SWTOR a chance because it's BW doing it than because it's Star Wars. Those who doubt only have to look at how many players started playing the other SW MMO SWG, or how many players started playing an equally big IP MMO, LotrO, and then compare it with the numbers that SWTOR gained. That is as clear the BW effect and brand as can be determined by process of elimination the other factors.

[dyves]

No goldman analyst would ever post this kind of analysis on a forum, would ever go ahed and identify himself as such, and even more than that, would ever say that this game has or ever had 4-5 million subscribers.

 

This guy discredited himself with his first post

 

This.

[Blackwater]

+1 i agree...

 

 

 

Also, thank the rest of Goldman Sachs for ruining our economy and buying our politicians

[Liquidacid]

I am Emperor God of the Milky way Galaxy, true story btw, and I say the OP is full of ****...

 

it's on the internet therefor it must be true... now I'm off the update my own Wikipedia page