From a Goldman Analyst Perspective on SWTOR

[helekdeleon]

Defaintely worth reading.

[falkerman]

elsehwere in this thread someone claimed all responses to this threat only concern the OP's credentials and not his points. Whatever, most of his points are based entirely on his "credentials", or more over the fact of what he says he is. When you remove all of the "statistics" he throws around his actual post regarding the problems with SWTOR is near non-existent. But he has some good points in there that deserve attention.

 

But I'll throw my hat into the ring and tear this interesting traipse into fiction apart just the same.

 

Before I start first let me say no one cares about your "credentials." Who you anonymously claim to be on an internet forum means absolutely nothing without proof to back it up. Saying you are an analyst for Goldman Sachs impresses me just about as much as the self-proclaimed Emperor of Austrailia earlier in this thread.

 

That said, here are the tidbits of info you provided that I have issue with. These things really simply prove you are not who you claim to be, not that it matters but you turn into a troll after you're outed so here we go..

 

 

 

First of all this. these weren't hard predictions. Anyone could have predicted Vanguard was going to flop once SOE took over publishing. FF14 you really only needed to play the beta to realize what was going to happen here.

 

Aion I wouldn't largely call a failure, as of late 2011 MMOdata shows that it has dropped to just under 3 million users. (Yet another figure you got wrong, it also topped out at 4 million,. not 3.5)

 

Warhammer I also predicted as a failure because of the version of the IP used. Had Mythic went with Warhammer 40k I think things might have turned out a whole lot differently.

 

This is all irrelevant however. All 4 of these games are STILL running. Vanguard is no gem, but Aion is still rather strong, and FFXIV has worked a lot to turn things around and plan to start charging their monthly sub this month in fact.

 

EA has also been interviewed saying they will finally begin butting forth effort to develop Warhammer further, though I do believe it's far too late to save that game.

 

 

 

WoW grew to 12 nearly 13 million subscriptions in mid 2008 and again in late 2010.

 

An analyst I would think would know his numbers and use them appropriately especially if he is to be taken seriously, considering WoW's total subscription numbers are pretty common knowledge in this industry.

 

In terms of relevance you also fail to make recognition that WoW, or any other MMO for that matter had just as many if not more issues at launch than SWTOR does currently. You point out that WoW built itself up to the millions it has but also fail to acknowledge that it did this by massive developments post launch, just like every other MMO out there. You also fail to make the connection that SWTOR is no different in this regard.

 

 

 

 

Now you are pulling numbers out of thin air. Unles you have a source this entire statement can be completely disregarded as "BS". The last word from Bioware was SWTOR say over 1 million players.

 

But lets break this down anyway.

 

World of Warcraft is a game that is literally split in two markets. It has a western market that includes North America and the European Union. It's Eastern martk includes, well Asian. It's asian market makes up over half of it's total player base, roughly 6 million of the older number of 12 million subs. That leaves 6 million in it';s western market divided among Europe, North America and Latin America.

 

For SWTOR to have 4-5 million players just a few weeks after launch would mean THIS GAME, is very much so the most successful MMO launch ever in the history of the genre. Because SWTOR only has a western market. 4-5 million would more than cover their initial investment in development and make any subsequent earnings total profit.

 

Also, for a game to launch with just one or two million players under the ranking king of MMOs in a related market would be a HUGE deal. And for this game to have very little to ZERO server issues taking on that kind of load, Bioware should be considered deities in the MMO genre from this moment forth.

 

4-5 million and shrinking daily is simply absurd.

 

 

 

 

This is likewise partially wrong, and again if you were truly an analyst you would know better than that.

 

300 million, even 150 million development costs were debunked. I'd estimate at most this game costs roughly 80 million to produce, give or take a few. So there's that to consider. By estimated reports the game sold 900,000 copies in digital downloads in North America alone. Not counting hard copies or the European Union.

 

In their October earnings call I believe it was, EA stated 500,000 subscribers would make this game successful, now true the give no time frame for what kind of longevity would be required at 500,000 subcribers but if gives you a round about idea.

 

See your problem is the same as many people on this forum. You're under the impression that any new MMO has to either kill or match World of Warcraft or it just isn't successful, which is ridiculous at best. Success is variable, more factors are figured into a game's success than just what the competition does.

 

Which by the way competition in the MMO market isn't like it is everywhere else. Multiple games can and do exist alongside each other while not really affecting one another to a large degree, often because different games offer different things to different people. I myself have had upwards of 5 subscriptions going at the same time because I enjoyed different aspects of each game. I almost ALWAYS have at least two. This idiotic concept that MMO players can only choose one is exactly that, idiotic.

 

 

 

That's a matter of opinion really. I've thoroughly enjoyed the test drive. I can honestly say I haven't felt this level of addiction to an MMO since World of Warcraft, and I've played plenty over 30 to be exact over the course of 17 years. I might even go so far as to say that even the addiction I felt to WoW doesn't hold a candle to my addiction to SWTOR once the ball really starts rolling and new features and content are added.

 

But let's be honest the forums appear one sided because most people who are enjoying the game, aren't here trolling threads and looking for a fight. They are in the game playing, having a good time. So saying "the forums have spoken" is like talking smack about someone when they aren't even around, then telling your friends how you sure showed him.

 

These forums, as if the case with ANY game are a very small representation of a playerbase and are subjective at best. Of course a lot of people are here complaining, they don't like the game and don't want to play but don't have anything better to go do.

 

I'm not upset that there are people who don't like this game. It's to be expected. There are people who don't like WoW. Big deal, it's their opinion.

 

 

 

 

Bioware just launched this MMO a little more than three weeks ago. They have millions of dollars wrapped up into the game and their reputation for further continuing in this gaming genre on the line.

 

I highly doubt they are ready to throw in the towel just yet, since the freebies haven't even flown the coop yet. Not to mention that there's plenty of money to throw behind this game if EA so chooses.

 

As for the rest of you post, which is small once all of this **** is out of the way.

 

It's mostly the bugs. Well bugs are to be expected in an MMO even ones out for years or even decades. It's especially expected, or at least should be from a newly launched one.

 

As is stated in every thread defending this game, you can ask for immediate changes all you want. But no one has the magic to snap their fingers and insta-fix anything. These bugs will take time to solve, Bioware has actually been doing a very decent job considering the time frame of getting patches out and fixing what they could off the bat. Now we are told their focus is entirely on the major bugs first and we'll see updates to content, PvP, and combat this very month. It's a matter of patience. If patience is something you or anyone else on this forum doesn't have, then you're in the wrong damn genre of gaming.

 

You also mentioned grind. Okay, this is an MMO, MMOs have grind it's just a part of their nature. Older games like Everquest, FFXI, Ultima Online were kings of grind, it was arguably terrible. Games like WoW, Rift, part of AoC, ect... have done a lot of work to reduce grind and make the leveling process more enjoyable. SWTOR has taken this a slight step forward by adding a highly developed engaging story into the mix.

 

But I find it interesting that you seem to tote WoW as a pinnacle of success when it's end game is possibly more so the rat race than any other. So what exactly is the problem here?

 

Seems to me it doesn't matter what is done people are going to complain.

 

This very forum lkast night was proof. We say people complain about downtime but if there was no downtime they'd complain that there's no patches being applied.

 

 

EU players complain that the downtime was during their prime time, yet if they split the maintenance and did NA, then EU, EU players would compalin that they weren't first and vice versa.

 

It's an endless struggle and you're not going to please everyone.

 

Your only truly legitimate points are nothing that hasn't already been brought up.

 

Combat delay-

 

I personally do not experience this much, and I think it's been blown entirely out of proportion. However, it is still an issue and needs to be adjusted to ensure a smoother method of gameplay. But it's far from game breaking.

 

Customer service-

 

I will agree with this with anyone, Bioware's CS needs to step it up and stop acting stupid. I've had a couple situations myself where I've dealt with customer service that really didn't even comprehend the problem much less offer any solution to fix it.

 

I could argue that they are overwhelmed at the moment, and the sheer volume of issues just isn't conducive to answering everyone in a timely or coherent fashion, but I can't really excuse it so i won't disagree with you there. But Blizzard customer service liekwise is terrible, as is Rift's, FFXI's was non existent, and any SOE game you're really love to reach through your monitor and strangle someone.

 

Bioware DOES need to be much more interactive with it's playerbase and explain more in detail what is going on. this secretive garbage was okay in development, they wanted to keep a lid on things. But the cloak an dagger is pointless now. So again I'll agree.

 

But neither of these issues necessarily mark a game for destruction at least not on the level you want to manifest.

 

Lack of Community-

 

This made me laugh. I can count on one hand the number of times I visited a server forum in an MMO. Communities in MMOs aren't created on forums they are created in game. This point is utterly ridiculous.

 

Ambiguity -

 

Combat log, yes it would be nice to have one. However, it isn't a necessity and not something thqat couldn't be added relatively easily. Honestly I check a combat log very rarely. often just to find out what killed me.

 

Abilities? I know all of my abilities in game do, I know how they work. I read tooltips, all the information you need is right there.

 

 

Overall I'm glad you of sound enough mind to actually be patient and give the game a chance, because that's what needs to happen, this game needs time to develop post launch like every other MMO in the past and future does, it's simply how MMos work.

 

I've said on this forum countless times, a launch build is just a foundation, everything else is built from there. this is true for SWTOR, it was true for WoW, Everquest, Rift. it will be true for GW2, Warhammer 40k, Blizzard's Titan, and so forth.

 

The main reason MMOs fail at launch post-WoW is because of the MMO community as a whole. There are so many people now in this genre that don't have a single clue about how a launched MMO is, be cause most of them didn't even exist in this genre until long after WoW had developed into a powerhouse, they'd never even seen a launched MMO before they began playing WoW.

 

Then they ventured to a new game thinking well WoW is a standard for me so this new game should have everything WoW has plus more right? Well it won't because that's not how it works, and even those that did a very good job as photocopying WoW like Rift still failed.

 

So basically the MMO gets black-balled right out of launch and they fail before they were even ever given a chance to succeed.

 

And that rings so true on this forum. Just days after launch people were expecting perfection. Perfection doesn't even exist in single player titles, it sure as hell doesn't exist in the MMO market.

 

Short of it is, if people don't want to play the game in the state it's in. Fine, don't.. give the game a month or two and come back, see how it is then. I'm sure it'll have a free trial or an email asking you to retry it. If it still fails your heavy expectations you've lost nothing.

 

Conversely if you're not willing to give the game a 2nd chance after continued development then to hell with you, we're better off without needy impatient people anyway.

 

/thread.

 

 

 

This is the greatest post on this thread, and probably on the forums.

 

Concise, makes sense, and is devoid of any complaining, trolling, or flaming. Well worth a read.

 

 

Thumbs up, sir.

[Godsfear]

The OP's write up is pretty spot on.

 

He nailed all the key points involved in the financing of this game.

 

The fact is BW WILL probably hedge their losses seeing as how EA has handled itself so far cutting corners I see no reason to believe they will do anything different now.

 

If you really think the management at EA BW is now going to throw more money at this game when the safe bet is to break even and try to make as much profit as possible now then I hope you're right.

 

If the managers at BW can convince their bosses that the game is salvageable that's one thing but knowing how money minded people think it's unlikely.

Edited January 6, 2012 by Godsfear

[Gazerot]

Server forum would be damn nice!!

[Red_Vs_Blue]

oh look, a nobody investor who is telling us what is wrong with this game. How about you look at what this game has. This game is miles better than WoW. Also you used "there" instead of "their", any weight you had is gone.

[merissa]

He is not responsible for the collective failure of Goldman as a whole. Goldman Sachs has a lot of talented people in their company, which is why they have a VERY HIGH revenue.

 

 

they have a high revenue because they lobbied the crap out of taking peoples mortgages and bundling a majority of the lowest rated and gave it the highest rate, rolled it over rinse and repeated it until the bubble burst. I can sell you a sack of c r a p and tell you it's gold, but when you open it, it will still be a sack of c r a p...

 

They played the stock market they lost, they took our money again, not once not twice but so many times it is not even funny. You cry baby rejects need to quit with this oh this game I could do better syndrome, play the game don't play the game otherwise s t f u and go back to your "other" games.

[Abriael]

He is not responsible for the collective failure of Goldman as a whole. Goldman Sachs has a lot of talented people in their company, which is why they have a VERY HIGH revenue.

 

No. he's not responsible for the collective failure of Goldman simply because he's not part of it. No professional analyst would be so clueless to claim that this game has or ever had 4-5 million subscribers (and most would be very, very careful before even hinting at the possibility of it ever getting that far), without even delving in the shalemess theorycrafting, the ludicrous namedropping and the completely weak suggestions (close for months and then reopen? Just lol. Someone needs a clue) without any kind of solid data to base this all on, and actually going against ALL the little data we have, that shows the game on the raise and definitely not declining.

 

An actual analyst would send his report where it'd make him money. A concern troll with an agenda would post his ludicrous delirium here impersonating someone he's not to try and give himself a credibility his theories don't earn.

Edited January 6, 2012 by Abriael

[ntheory]

I agree with what you're stating Bodypull. I think one of the primary issues is that in order to maintain a steady growth a gaming company can't slack on the industry standards that exist. Bioware swung and completely missed on the interface responsiveness. That alone makes wow more appealing to some and makes me sit on the fence. I personally like the idea of no auto attack because it forces the player to work harder but in general I think more people won't like it.

 

When a gaming company sets the bar higher, i.e. WoW the rest have to scramble to both identify A) what's been set higher and B) how to compete with it.

 

I'm disappointed in some aspects of SWTOR that you didn't mention and I think are important issues. Crafting is not as good as other games. It's a money sink with virtually no return. There's no in-game economy stimulated by crafting. This is a direct problem for a lot of players I know personally. Former SWG players loved the original SWG concept of crafting then Sony went and butchered it and players left SWG in throngs. Bioware completely ignored the past and instead of creating a thriving economy where crafting was important they made a complex crafting system that doesn't really feel like it benefits players in any way. Sure it's more immersive than say wow's crafting but immersiveness doesn't = fun.

 

I realize some of what I'm saying is biased but I don't think I'm wrong either. Anyhow, good post and it was a great read.

[Abriael]

When a gaming company sets the bar higher, i.e. WoW the rest have to scramble to both identify A) what's been set higher and B) how to compete with it.

 

Actually WoW set the bar lower, especially in terms of balance between innovation and iteration.

 

I'm disappointed in some aspects of SWTOR that you didn't mention and I think are important issues. Crafting is not as good as other games. It's a money sink with virtually no return. There's no in-game economy stimulated by crafting.

 

i'm making quite a lot of money both with artifice and synthweaving. I'min contact with plenty people that do the same with other crafts (especially Biochem). Any chance you may consider the possibility that you're just playing the market wrong?

Edited January 6, 2012 by Abriael

[MartyMacGraves]

Way too many misspelled words in the OP for me to believe you are a Goldman analyst ("there" instead of "their", "vary" instead of "very"). If you really are a Goldman analyst, that firm may be in trouble.

[Dakien]

I call Bravo Sierra on this whole OP. This guy cannot be as well educated as he claims with all the misspelled words and improperly structured sentences. A couple I could see but the whole thing smacks of a desperate attempt to mimic a subject matter expert. Big words and attempts at legalese do not bring any sort of authority to your rehashed argument of doom.

 

This is just lame.

[LizardSF]

Dear OP:

 

I'm not a professional investment analyst. I am, however, a professional writer.

 

You may wish to engage my services when dealing with your clients. I assure you, my rates are very cheap (I live in flyover country, I can afford to charge less), and the payoff from being able to appear more professional, and thus, more convincing, when communicating to clients will be considerable. If you're a success now, writing so poorly, imagine how successful you'd be if you had someone making a few corrections to your work?

 

As it is, it's difficult to take your claims of professional knowledge seriously when you present your argument so sloppily. You may be all you claim to be, but you do not convey that knowledge very well. Argument from authority is only effective when people recognize and trust said authority.

 

(For example, consider the thread title:"From A Goldman Analyst Perspective on SWTOR"? What does that mean? You probably meant "From a Goldman-Sachs Analyst: A Perspective on TOR", or "A Goldman-Sachs analyst offers his perspective on TOR" or a dozen other variants. How many potential clients of yours never even read your mail because the first sentence or two turns them off? I could make a little extra money, and some useful connections, helping you out; you could make a lot of extra money by having more clients. A good investment, wouldn't you say?)

 

Contact me privately and we can discuss rates, turnaround time, and so on.

[Slapsgiving]

He is not responsible for the collective failure of Goldman as a whole. Goldman Sachs has a lot of talented people in their company, which is why they have a VERY HIGH revenue.

 

None of which would be allowed to share their analysis or insites into a company's sucess or failuers for free. And if he is a GS analyst, then I'll be suing the guy for everything he's worth if I quit, and this game ends up blowing up and taking down WoW after all. This guy is a joke.

 

Also....

 

Good car illustrations..except when I buy and test drive a car, I expect a finished product because:

 

1. I'm about to drop thousands of dollars on it.

 

2. I know they won't be rolling out upgrades to it weekly/monthly to fix it as they go. (Which by the way if they did, I would expect the Bat Mobile a year or two after buying an old VW Beetle.

 

To be honest, anyone with a college degree in marketing/information systems/business could throw out guesses, and terms like this guy.

 

And if I am wrong, I do apologize, but you are worth at the minimum 45 dollars an hour, considering avg salery for a GS analyst is around 75,000 a year according to salery.com and glassdoor.com, and you probably have better things to be doing than playing MMOs, or giving out advice/predictions for free.

 

That is all.

[jayderyu]

Well written up, but with many analysis the same poor assumption is made. The market is what's established not about the market is created.

 

As a professional your applying your personal play and interest style. While you make a linking correlation between KOTOR players. You assume that most gamers are already familiar playing polished MMO's. This is already inaccurate.

 

Let's take a step back to 7 years ago to Video Game console company. Struggling with the smallest market share. they made a bet on a console system that in many ways was inferior to the competition. The system had unfamiliar controls, delayed response(complained), poor hardware, software line up that wasn't liked by the established market.

 

The company I'm talking about of course is Nintendo. ALL analysis made the claim that the Wii would once again be the worst market share. This was based on the establishment of only comparing the product with current market values. Nintendo hired Regis File Aime for the purpose of applying the Blue Ocean strategy. Create a non competition market.

 

Our analyses here only really uses Red ocean strategy values that are from an already established elite market. Now Nintendo's history with the Wii is not that old. So we all know what the Wii AND the Nintendo DS success. Such vastly overwhelming success that defied all analysis.

 

So as my suggestion. Don't listen to the OP. He's spouting a far better formed version of the same Elitist argument. He comes from the MMO gamer who wants more. Rather than the Blue Ocean New market that Bioware is aiming for in regards bring NEW story to the MMO market.

 

Take two different products and create a new experience.

 

I can't say if Bioware will succeed, but I know the OP post is already fail for being short sighted.

[Anzel]

LOL... "Goldman Analyst"? Ummm OK.

 

 

• Is this the same "Goldman" that just laid off 1,000 employees in order to cut expenses by $1.2 billion?
   
  
• Is this the same "Goldman" that had to settle a $60,000,000 settlement for sub-prime mortgages?
   
  
• Is this the same "Goldman" that was sued by the SEC for FRAUD?
  

 

You guys don't have a good track record predicting the stuff you're supposed to be good at predicting... so now you're going to lend such expertise to something you know nothing about???

Edited January 6, 2012 by Anzel

[Lowenblade]

yeah.

 

Nope.

[Lowenblade]

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.

 

The OP had some great points on SWTOR business model and the BioWare project management team. The Devs didn't even know enough about MMOs to have a /roll feature. Really brings into question if the Devs played much MMOs in the first place.

[Lowenblade]

A real GS analyst would never call themselves a 'goldman analyst'

 

Says the expert in what job title people should call themselves.

[al_giordino]

If this guy really worked for Goldman Sachs he would be fired instantly for misrepresenting the firm in a public forum without compliance approval.

[TheHeadCapper]

Says the expert in what job title people should call themselves.

 

It would have been one thing if he would have made the post with just his observations but he tried to pass it off as analysis while not actually using real analytics.

[TheHeadCapper]

If this guy really worked for Goldman Sachs he would be fired instantly for misrepresenting the firm in a public forum without compliance approval.

 

There's that as well,.......

[louisfriend]

not that i don't take the word of an internet stranger at face value on his "market research" position.

 

but honestly. the game is LESS THAN A MONTH OLD.

 

any speculation or assertion that the game is growing, deflating, whatever is impossible to gauge.

 

 

give it 6mo. or see where Sw-tor is once GW2 comes out. Or make an assessment after they release a major content update. ...or don't make a content update for that matter.

 

as far as that goes. game came out on the cusp of the holiday. was majorly hyped. so it was launched perfectly. launched smoothly enough to be within norms.

 

servers... are full. and populations are advancing. game has plenty of release content to justify release lvl content.

 

sure it has flaws. but also has pros.

 

 

since when have the geniuses of Wallstreet proven their merit based superiority on anything.

[Inhalcator]

If this guy really worked for Goldman Sachs he would be fired instantly for misrepresenting the firm in a public forum without compliance approval.

 

This should have been the second post of the thread.

[Demonix]

All that text and time to say ''lolz swtor will fail''.

 

Simplify your life my friend.

[GraunKrynn]

If this guy really worked for Goldman Sachs he would be fired instantly for misrepresenting the firm in a public forum without compliance approval.

 

This and I could care less what GS has to say about this game. Hell they're part of the problem with today's economy.