From a Goldman Analyst Perspective on SWTOR

[bpzen]

Great Post

 

"make that first impression" is exactly what they have missed the boat on.

 

Your comment on hiring from Aion / Blizz is spot on, I am playing one of Bioware's console games and I can see a lot of SWTOR in it or vis a versa, they really needed an MMO talent on board to hit the home run with this, unfortunately they did not hit a home run they hit a foul ball, sadly.

 

I have a 50 also, and im done with that toon after trying PVP (awful experience) and FPs (hm are buggy and boaring) and have started a few alts now just to play out the story that I do enjoy, then i will be done with SWTOR unless they fix A LOT OF stuff. Shut it down fo r3 - 6 moths and rework alot of this woudl be a good idea.

 

This will be a 2 month game play for me. I have gone from 8 hours of playing a day to 2 hours and my interest is dwindling every day in thsi game.

 

Unfortunately as I was really looking for a replacement to play for a few years, to your analogy on the test drive, I will look for a different one to drive long term .......

Edited January 6, 2012 by bpzen

[Mr_Crueak]

all of that wasted space just for another post predicting doom and gloom as a fact of life for swtor based off of someones so call expertise. in the end was just another opinion from another anonymous user. It is easy to make yourself look legit if you can talk legit.

 

IF swtor fails then it will fail, those that say it will and the game is horrible good-bye, those that like it then a continous hello and will continue to play, other wise shut up your opinion does not matter no how important you think of yourself.

[Mormack]

There is no serious rebuttal because he is right. I also dont care about his background, but I am also a commerce professional and two things are clear

 

1) that this game failed at launch;

2) people who leave MMOs typically dont give them a second try.

 

SWTOR was released unfinished and essencially still in Beta. Instead of creating new endgame content which is badly needed, Bioware will now have to spend 6 months fixing the bugs and implementing basic features such a dungeon finder. I think at this point Bioware is aware that this game will not do well in the long term and I dont think they will invest the money that is needed to make this game acceptable.

 

Biggest mistakes in my opinion:

 

1) No serious PvP

2) Broken Endgame PvE content

3) A gameworld that feels empty even on full servers

4) No tool to help with group creation at all

5) Lack of basic game features (beyond the voice acting SWTOR is just skin and bones)

6) Terrible customer service

7) Game is basically still in Beta

 

Opinions are just that.

 

1) In the Pipeline. Read about it in the Blog at the top of the forum index

2) Early in the game. Happens in Most MMOs because Beta time is spent developing the leveling experience because power gamers are the minority

3) Opinion. I love the game world and it feels fine to me. I see people every now and then but they never get in the way I love it.

4) Doesn't bother me. LFD Killed community in a lot of ways in WoW anyway

5) A lot of these are in the pipeline.

6) Can't comment but I'm sure it'll get better when they aren't being bombarded because the game just launched

7) Opinion. I think the game is launch worthy. Its not without bugs but people who have done nothing but play mature MMOs for the past x years have forgotten what a launch feels like for them. Give them a chance. They've put out 2 going on three patches alone this week. They're working on things.

[Daeborn]

He bases his entire post and numbers around an assumption that subscription are bleeding daily without any proof to back it up.

 

You can't have facts based of assumptions kids.

 

You know, maybe he really is a Goldman Sachs analyst, isn't that what happened in 2008?

[Abriael]

It's not an assumption. Several watchdogs in the U.K. have reported this, and that's also an inference that can be made from the amount of "I quit/I cancelled my sub" posts on the forums.

 

 

THERE ARE PEOPLE QUITTING AND THEREBY SHRINKING THE COMMUNITY.

 

Any professsional analyst would know that a forum is no valid statistical source for a game's community.

 

But of course there's none here. And lol @ the "watchdogs".

 

This game isn't going anywhere, and all the data we have points up. Sorry if this bursts a bubble.

[BlackFx]

If anything, the OP is SOLICITING and SLANDEROUS.

[Malphas]

Brilliant, interesting post OP.

You've said everything and more of what i myself thought

(although my expertise stems more from the technical / game development side of things).

 

If you're still reading the thread i would like your outlook on another launch issue,

namely the green zone/red zone, the "we will not sell to half the globe, import if you like"

strategy that EA/Bioware seem to have employed for one reason or another.

 

I personally thought of it as a slap in the face and a terrible way to launch a game that

depends on attracting a large amount of players, but i might be wrong.

 

Your thoughts?

 

Hi, OP. I wonder how many other times you've posted here as someone else?

[KippTabor]

The only thing he's probably lieing about is who he is, and I really don't see why that matters since no one is going "OH MAN A FINANCIAL ANALYST THINKS THIS GAME IS GOING TO FAIL."

 

I happen to agree with a large chunk of his points and frankly I could give a **** if it was crazy eddy who spent the day out on his back porch eating possums he caught with his bare hands. The content of this thread is something worth looking at.

 

That's your opinion. Mine differs wildly. I think that this whole BS ruse has played out on nearly every single MMO forum. I've been around the industry a LONG time, and I have heard them all. People claiming to be lawyers, analysts, developers, and on and on. You'll have to live with that. Doomsayers lie to try to bolster their claims (it's called the Appeal to Emotion logical fallacy). If you don't understand this, you haven't been on the net long, or are willfully tuning it out to suit your narrow perspective.

 

It may not matter to you, but if someone lies to me right out of the gate, I distrust everything they say. You may be an enabler, I am not. No employee of a financial institution like Goldman would be on here making these claims, and those of you who don't grok why this is true need to quit being so naive.

 

Content? "I am <insert "impressive" profession here> smarter than an entire dev team/publishing house so you should listen to me!'? That's not content, that's just another method of e-peening from the safety of anonymity. Just doom-saying wrapped in a blanket of false authority. Some people buy into the BS, I don't.

 

*waves*

[Zeronifty]

I believe it is hard to judge a game and make a long term sustainability guess on only 3 weeks of it going live. IE: the first gen Iphone was plagued with problems the first couple weeks of its launch, yet is still a successful device long term due to developers making sure the bugs and problems were addressed. So far every week I have seen a patch addressing problems people are having obviously they are not able to wave a magic wand and fix everything, but these things take time.

 

I give the game 3 months, if serious bugs are not addressed by then, well then obviously we have our answer.

[youwillburn]

Like we're going to take the word of a Goldman Sachs employee? The same people that drove our economy into the ground and continue to do it? The same company that took huge amounts of tax payers dollars to keep their company afloat because of complete ineptitude and mismanagement of billions of dollars of investment money?

 

LOL! Right.

 

This is without a doubt the dumbest thing I have ever read on a gaming forum in my life. As a gamer I don't need some BS from a total BS'er that this game is in bad shape and is going to hemorrhage players in the next three months. Anyone that knows MMO's can see the writing on the wall and it is in big red letters.

 

They spell the word *FAIL*. The game will fail simply because Bioware *failed* to deliver a good product. Simple as that.

 

What does mismanagement and taking tax dollars have anything to do with analytic skill? They failed not because of analysts, but because of the high ups who are corrupt.

 

I don't even know why I'm answering this because this is a obvious strawman.

[TheHeadCapper]

That's how they make "predictions"

 

The assumption was on bleeding subscriptions which can't be assumed or verified, considering that people are also still buying the product.

 

A true prediction would start with some scientific data not a gut feeling. You cannot have an accurate predictiuon when you have no scientific data, it's that simple.

[Mormack]

Great Post

 

"make that first impression" is exactly what they have missed the boat on.

 

Your comment on hiring form Aion / Blizz is spot on, I am playing one of Bioware's console games and I can see a lot of SWTOR in it or vis a versa, they really needed an MMO talent on board to hit the home run with this, unfortunately they did not hit a home run they hit a foul ball, sadly.

 

I have a 50 also, and im done with that toon after tryign PVP and FPs (hm) and have started a few alts now just to play out the story that it then i will be done unless they fix stuff. This will be a 2 month game play for me. I have gone from 8 hours of playing a day to 2 hours and my interest is dwindling every day in thsi game.

 

Unfortunately as I was really looking for a replacement to play for a few years, to your analogy on the test drive, I will look for a different one to drive long term .......

 

Purely Opinion. I think they've hit exactly what the MMO market needs on the head. I love the immersion that happens through the single player Questing feel. Its exactly what I've been looking for in an MMORPG...They afterall RPGs and the MMO part is just as strong as it is in WoW.

[Bodypull]

A bunch of response.

 

Those saying "a fake" are either delusional or cannot afford to live in Manhattan :-)

 

Anyway,

 

Angel investors have no application here. You hedge on 50-100 investments hoping one pays out. These sums are a far cry from those it takes to start an MMO hoping to capture a significant world share.

 

Those of us the went to Harvard / Stern / Wharton / Columbia to do there JD/MBA's always have 1-2 people in class doing a project on this very topic, MMOs (and more recently MOBA)

 

What is routinely found is that most MMO's fail in the subscription Model and move to F2P and micro transactions.

 

Just Google F2P MMO's and you will see a list of more than 100.

 

Some started off Subs and moved to F2P (LOTRO for example.) Turbine adapted to make a profit and captured the LOTR audience.

 

Star Wars has a large following, however ...

 

How many Star Wars fans play MMO's?

 

Star Trek online failed because they banked on Brand Recognition and the mislead confidence that Star Trek fans play MMO's, most do not. (or simp;y those that do, opted for a better game.)

 

The option is what makes or breaks MMO's on a subscription basis.

 

How many of you are playing Diablo III when It comes out?

 

How many of you came from MOBA genre games (like LOL because you were bored of WOW?.)

 

How many of you are returning to DOTA2?

 

How many of you are leaving for GW2?

 

These are all forward prospects that WILL erode this games subscription base.

 

Further,

 

The game is not experiencing "Noticeable" growth,

 

Metrics for this company can be found on Capital IQ or any other decent business intelligence services website.

 

I have worked for many firms and happen to be at GS atm. Maybe next year I will step out to McKinney or another consulting firm (I won't make partner here.) Not because "I suck." but, because of the economy and my specialization is a niche one.

 

Needless to say, I have been successful in doing what I do ... and most ibankers in my area (like me) started off as analysts (was even an Intel Analyst for 6 years in the Army.) Past that, understanding "the why" is just as important as understanding "the how."

 

As stated, the company will put Profit trajectory first. This might seem "evil," but the reason corporations exist is to make profit.

 

This game is a product, this product took x dollars / x time / x resources on X budget.

 

After box / internet sales - licensing fees (which I suspect are very high) to the rights to produce this MMO using the Star Wars IP, Salary, marketing, support, supply, servers, maint, space and misc costs, you are left with two things:

 

1: Total Actual Cost

 

2: Total Opportunity Cost

 

Meaning -

 

The game will need to make cuts to keep with the projected profit curve based on the number of subscriptions active after factoring in total sales revenue. The subscription continuity and growth is what determines the success of an MMO.

 

The opportunity cost, is like saying we spent x hours and x dollars on this, and it failed, but if we went in another direction and invested the same capital and time, we might have made more of a profit.

 

I mentioned "talking to the people."

 

If Bioware came right out, listed all the things they are working on, and ETAs for the fixes, you get what is like "consumer confidence." Where people at least know they have been heard, and the issue will be resolved.

 

Opposite to this is what we call "Managing expectation."

 

This was not done well at start, and many people were let down. Now, if they said today, that we cannot fix combat animations for example, we will at least know what to expect in that regard. Some will leave, some will stay. People appreciate communication and viability.

 

This ties back to customer service / support and staffing.

 

Investing in this area (not cutting back on it.) is the difference between great and successful companies and mediocre ones.

 

I do not know what is going to be fixed, not do I know the ETA's on fixes going forward.

 

What I do know is what I posted, and I made it clear what was speculative and what was fact.

 

I do not know everything, nobody does. I am however well versed in this particular area because I make my living in this particular field. (Mostly on F2p start ups in SE Asia, but that is because micro transactions are currently more profitable than subscription models per opportunity.)

 

I can recall these same arguments being made on the Aion forums.

 

I can remember the same insults, defenses of and everything in between .. but in the end my posts were vindicated and what was said for the most part was true.

 

I make mistakes, and I hope my speculation is erroneous to a greater degree than I usually experience, because like I stated earlier, I like that game and want it to do well.

 

Subjectively, it does't seem to be the case, objectively, I am just unsure.

[cdstephen]

I'd trust in the OP's opinion more if he avoided spelling errors to be honest. Whether or not his credentials are valid, some of his opinions are sound.

 

All in all, I think this game will stay alive and turn a profit for Bioware and by extension EA, but won't be the huge financial success many had believed.

 

It may eventually go F2P to turn a greater profit, but when they will do this is unclear. If they pump out good content and maintain a healthy suscriber count, then perhaps it won't come for a few years.

 

What I think is true however is that this MMO will be one of the last subscription based MMOs

Edited January 6, 2012 by cdstephen

[TalonCarrade]

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

 

Excellent post. I agree with everything that is said here. Back to the drawing board BW, you FAILED on this game.

[Darth_Gao_Gao]

hey guys, i'm a master of using the dark side of the force. some would call me a sith lord, but i was never one for titles. over the years, i have generated a solid client base by successfully channeling the force to predict the future. many of my clients profited greatly by choosing not to invest in games such as rift, and aion, for instance.

 

for a small fee, i will use these natural talents of mine to consult the force about this game's future.

[Asuka]

if you were a investor would you invest in this game?

 

Indeed I would and have done just that.

[Daeborn]

A bunch of response.

 

Those saying "a fake" are either delusional or cannot afford to live in Manhattan :-)

 

Your bio also says you're a lawyer too not an analyst. And the little jab shows you're trolling.

 

No, you know as well as others here you're pedaling snakeoil. Good lure though.

Edited January 6, 2012 by Daeborn

[TheHeadCapper]

The basics of data analysis/analytics

 

 

•Data collection

•Data collation

•Summary measures of the data

•Conclusions based on the above

 

 

Data collection - no it's a gut feeling

Data collation - he doesn't have any data

Summary of data - no he doesn't hav any data

Conclusion based on data - impossible he doesn't have any data

 

Just like you can't have your pudding if you don't eat your meat, you can't have analytics if you don't have data.

Edited January 6, 2012 by TheHeadCapper

[Ikonik]

Game has been out for less than a month.

 

 

That is all.

 

 

Next topic please.

[Zmidponk]

It's not an assumption. Several watchdogs in the U.K. have reported this,

 

Who? Using what figures? From where?

 

and that's also an inference that can be made from the amount of "I quit/I cancelled my sub" posts on the forums.

 

Check the WoW forums some time. Even when the subscription numbers were skyrocketing (instead of declining, like they have been doing), there were quite a number of whiny 'I QUIT' posts. Nothing can be inferred from that, other than that some people like to whine.

[TheHeadCapper]

your bio also says you're a lawyer too not an analyst. and the little jab shows you're trolling.

 

No, you know as well as others here you're pedaling snakeoil. Good lure though.

 

pwned

[Calidge]

It's not an assumption. Several watchdogs in the U.K. have reported this...

 

And the source of their information was ...?

 

...and that's also an inference that can be made from the amount of "I quit/I cancelled my sub" posts on the forums.

 

Hmm, so exactly how many unique accounts have posted "I quit" on the forums? From my by-no-means-comprehensive skimming of posts I have seen many of the same names posting over and over again.

 

The OP wrote an interesting and thought-provoking post. But his/her conclusions are all based upon conjecture.

 

We won't actually know anything until Bioware's next 10Q filing and conference call.

[TheHeadCapper]

do you have proof of what you say you are?

 

 

His profile says he's an attorney. I'd say he should change it to fail troll.

[Daeborn]

pwned

 

He'll change it no doubt.