From a Goldman Analyst Perspective on SWTOR

[Jjix]

haha yep, and cue the frothing fanboys in jedi robes to pick apart and discuss everything except the points that were made. man I swear reading these forums is just like watching fox news.

 

But what points did he make? "The game should have been kept in beta longer"? Everyone always says that, personally I'm glad it was released so I can play it. "The combat is choppy"? Okay . . . maybe a bit, compared to what, bf3? . . . doesn't bother me. "Too many bugs?" People always say that . . . I'm having no meaningful problems.

 

You guys are just whiners, you probably complain about everything in life and want to bring down everyone around you. That is the only logical conclusion I can find, since certainly you aren't offering anything other than opinions pretending to be facts.

[Boundd]

I love how some people are going "Yeah great post OP I agree with everything you're so right"

 

Embarrassing they haven't realised it's a troll. And the other 'big shot' analyst (who is also a lawyer) is to.

[Mechavomit]

Sweet baby Jesus...

 

Why can't you guys RELAX, wait 6 month or so and see for yourself if this game fails or lives? Do you honestly have NOTHING to do but flame/defend it?

[Daeborn]

Extremely well written, OP, and I agree with absolutely everything.

 

I suspect a lot of peolpe are "disagreeing" with you, but because they are incapable of understanding what you are saying, and why you are saying it.

 

Nope but you go ahead and let him reinforce your beliefs. After all it's your reputation and his, not mine.

[WelbyWars]

First of all I hate people like you.

 

Second of all, I enjoyed your post, as it was way more mature than some.( not hard, btw)

 

Thirdly, all your experience and knowlege mean nothing to gamers, only to investors, as it's obvious MMO's like mentioned, Aion, War,..(hey, I dug Vanguard!) still get made despite you.

 

Forthly, I don't hate you.

 

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.

are you suggesting Bioware developed this game after Eastern models? If so,..they need a big bonk on the head.

 

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.)

 

I agree,..it's like they are resting on their laurels. I equate it to bad movies. They make quick garbage movies knowing full well it is garbage,( they know they will have an audience becasue it is a Sequel or has a big Name) but as long as the initial weekend days gross X amount + overseas, they don't care. It's like Candy on the impulse shelf.

 

 

 

. The point here is that, this game has potential that is being squandered daily,

Squandered is the best word here, imho.

 

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.

I am doing the same. I opted for a three month, I have not hit cap yet, and will give the game a run through to be fair.

 

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.

It must be a daunting task to go from SIngle-player Consoles to MMO, if they were the same people and not some imported B-team.

If we see a panic and a huge 'turnover' of management, I think that's a sure sign of trouble.

And it would be next to impossible to recover.

 

It's like the playerbase is a mob with torches and in the current vogue of Occupy protests, this game is their Wall St.

 

There is a possibility this is the Game that will be made an Example. ( oh,..I bet the Tabula Rasa devs are like,...Whewww!)

 

 

If Bioware decides to make another MMO, I hope they base it off ME or DA..

 

oh no! Stay away from Middle Earth! I draw the line there!!

 

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

Shut the game down? Now you know that would be the nail in the coffin. C'mon. Who has ever done that and suceeded? You are just paying lip service

A compliment sammich!

 

IF they did shut it down for repairs,...I say they reTitle it

Star Wars TOR: A New Hope

 

/cheers

 

Playing until I don't.

Edited January 6, 2012 by WelbyWars

[Jaxey]

OP - very well said.

 

Sadly, they missed an opportunity based on my first impression.

 

Had they simply looked at current successful MMOs and take the what players like from them, like UI/combat/LFG/Instance-PVE play, and added their own twist (Story / SW brand etc..) we all might be looking to invest time and money into this long term

 

 

I'm not bailing but ATM LVL 50 is laughable, FPs are buggy - real buggy, PVP is not worth my time.

 

I love the story lines, but not much more ATM. I hate to say it too, I wanted to play this for a long time.

[bbbmmmlll]

Well, I read the OP up to the point where he said that he 'predicted the demise of Vanguard, Aion, FF14 and Warhammer'. Each of those games have problems, but none have actually met any such 'demise'. The closest one is Vanguard, which has basically not been updated in two years, but the servers are still up, and you can go and open an account and play it, if you so choose. So, if the OP has predicted the 'demise' of four MMOGs that haven't actually happened, but he thinks they have, why should we actually listen to anything he has to say?

 

If you invest millions into a project you want a certain minimal level of return. These games failed to deliver that and have no hope of doing so in the future. So from a financial perspective they are dead and the companies probably would have been better off investing their money elsewhere.

[JediMasterShake]

3/10 for convincing-ness of actual analyst position

 

9/10 for content

[Bodypull]

I am not about to be specific and analyze data on the forum.

 

The post was ideological in nature, and broad, not specific and not a dissertation on data points.

 

Everyone with a college degree has had "introductory economics"

 

Everyone with an MBA has expounded upon this.

 

Everyone involved in qualitative and quantitative modeling (such as the guys at Blackstone for example.) have advanced degrees often in fields of Advanced science and math. Great, awesome .. most people on the forum will not know many of the terms and abbreviations or understand basic modeling ...

 

So why do it?

 

Put your egos aside, your insults as well.

 

Read the post for what I clearly stated it was and my responses. If you want to troll, feel free ...but you just sound like uniformed morons that want to be some thing they aren't, and I feel the brunt of your frustration in your nasty overaggressive posts.

 

That is fine, if you need to vent, and pick me as your scapegoat, as long as you don't beat your wives or your pet :-)

[JudiahSWTOR]

I wouldn't invest in gaming anyway. It has been on a decline in recent years if I remember correctly. Go invest in something else. Myself and others are here to stay at least for the next few months. WoW didn't grow to millions it has today overnight. And I don't want this game to turn into another 10 million+ MMO. I'm hoping we never have an MMO like that again. 3 to 5 million sounds good to me. I do agree that EA is something to say away from. Don't invest or bet on their games doing well. It is up to Bioware to make this game succeed long term. Edited January 6, 2012 by JudiahSWTOR

[Mackuss]

Oh great another know-it-all OP. This is surely new and original.

 

>butthurt at undeniable truth.

[Bodypull]

MMO's appeal to the same "audience" that comic books, video games, and other pop culture appeal to.

 

How many Star Wars fans play World of Warcraft? A lot.

 

 

 

Star Trek Online failed because:

 

1- Perpetual took money and wasted years of development time.

2- Cryptic Studios built the game on the engine that was initially designed for a super hero MMORPG (which was first for Marvel but then became Champions). They then were given 18 months to pump out the game.

3- They released it with one and a half factions and a terrible exploration system.

4- They then spent the next two years not developing the game's content properly. Case in point, they went the entirety of 2010 releasing only ONE featured episode arc.

5- Speaking of 2010, Atari ... wow what a mess.

 

The game failed because of poor development. Don't believe me? You ALL can play it for free on January 17.

 

 

You continually demonstrate a complete lack of experience with the genre that you claim to give analysis and advice about. Your expertise is lacking. You should probably be giving more investment advice on cars, as your car analogy (a classic and extremely weak internet talking point) was stronger and deeper than anything you've posted about MMORPGs.

 

Everything you stated is speculation and you are pawning it as fact.

 

I said in my post I think, I speculate, I assume.

 

You perceive the post wrong, that's on you. You post this, and you lose all credibility.

 

Of course many WOW players play this, it was stated. You are citing excerpts and examples of a broader message. I wasn't specific for a reason, and here you are knit picking.

 

Seriously man, get with the program please.

[Mackuss]

I'd be surprised to learn that the game is shrinking already.

 

Then you must honestly have your head in the sand, lol. Do you honestly think instancing and sharding is NOT stupid?

 

Sometimes when I'm on a planet I see that there's about 100 to 130 people on the planet - but I see 5 the entire run on the planet.

 

The game's just ****ed - it was a failure. The entire implementation of the game was just a bad idea - if they got rid of instancing, it would just expose the fact that the worlds are frickin tiny. And, well, they can't redo all the worlds..

[Mormack]

Everything you stated is speculation and you are pawning it as fact.

 

I said in my post I think, I speculate, I assume.

 

You perceive the post wrong, that's on you. You post this, and you lose all credibility.

 

Of course many WOW players play this, it was stated. You are citing excerpts and examples of a broader message. I wasn't specific for a reason, and here you are knit picking.

 

Seriously man, get with the program please.

 

lolwut? That is exactly what happened with STO......

[Palanor]

A quick trip Alexa shows that 25.23% of people coming to http://www.swtor.com go to the Accounts page, 15.66% go to buy.swtor.com. The traffic to http://www.swtor.com is .08% of that measured. Traffic to http://us.battle.net/wow/en/ is .18%. I also did the comparison to http://www.riftgame.com/en/ but it's numbers are so low it adds no value to the debate.

 

At no time over the last 6 months has the traffic to http://www.swtor.com been higher than http://us.battle.net/wow/en/.

 

What does this mean? Well as someone who was Director of Engineering for a web based entertainment product, it means that SWTOR is number 2, without a noticeable drop in traffic.

 

I'm assuming traffic to the website equals interest in game equals players in game, which is probably a fair assumption in absence of other data.

 

No one can say that there is a decrease in subscriptions when we haven't exited the free 30 days. Also for there to be a decrease in subscriptions means that unsubs must be higher than new players, and I seriously doubt that at this point in time.

 

It should also be noted that there has not been a broad reach marketing push, this marketing effort is probably already done and just waiting for the natural interest in the game to subside. When you see the marketing push, you'll know that EA/BW are after their second group of users. In the mmo space it's about two things: acquistion and retention. To claim a decrease in subscriptions you need to know how acquistion is going, and we know it really well for the first two weeks.

[Mackuss]

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.

 

/facepalm

[Bodypull]

The basics of data analysis/analytics, which he doesn't follow.

 

Nothing to do with liking or disliking the game, but you guys are clueless. I'm offended as an analyst not as an SWTOR player

 

•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

 

Metrics are limited and found on Capital IQ, this is where at cited and collected my data from. As stated, I won't model out on excel a detailed data finding because it was not the purpose of my post, and most would look at it like *** is this?

 

Good job on creating a Dragon to slay when there were none to slay to start with :-)

[Darkmagicxk]

Great to see another intelligent human being exists on these forums. Truly a 'diamond in the rough' thread. Hope bioware sees this thread. Edited January 6, 2012 by Darkmagicxk

[daddymoofle]

Stopped reading here...

 

"What Bioware failed to do was capitalize on there audience..."

 

...because if you were really a well paid financial analyst, you would know how to use a grammar check.

 

Fail.

[vekkth]

 

Read the post for what I clearly stated it was and my responses. If you want to troll, feel free ...but you just sound like uniformed morons that want to be some thing they aren't, and I feel the brunt of your frustration in your nasty overaggressive posts.

 

dude you now go for straight insult. who are you trying to fool, really? you are not an analyst not in Goldman, not a Lawyer, you look more and more like a looser with a huge ago with some understanding in modeling and analysis in general. the person who you are replying to is correct - you can not call that "analysis", because there is no data.

 

you could have called it "prediction" but you wanted it to look bold, to give yourself more credibility, and that actually inflates everything you say.

 

Some of your "guesses" are ok, i mean, you can be right, you can be wrong (i think you are wrong for once, because its too early to be so sure, its really undecided). But some of what you say clearly shows your incompetence - people already pointed that you suggest Bioware to stop the game for 2 months, this is rediculous on a level i wont even explain why.

 

If you want to be taken seriously by a serious people, not by those who believe in the same things you wrote (so you put more strength in them), but those who can argue with you - stop pretending.

[Mormack]

Then you must honestly have your head in the sand, lol. Do you honestly think instancing and sharding is NOT stupid?

 

Sometimes when I'm on a planet I see that there's about 100 to 130 people on the planet - but I see 5 the entire run on the planet.

 

The game's just ****ed - it was a failure. The entire implementation of the game was just a bad idea - if they got rid of instancing, it would just expose the fact that the worlds are frickin tiny. And, well, they can't redo all the worlds..

 

No its not stupid. Its amazing. I don't have to worry about 20 people camping my quest mobs. I can just go in and get it. I love it.

 

The game certainly isn't shrinking. There's not one Server (excluding PTR) that's at a light load right now in NA (EU doesn't count right now because its off peak for them). I don't call that shrinking.

 

 

This game has some bugs but it is far from failure. They've also said they're going to get rid of the sharding as more people hit 50. They did this to keep questing areas from being clogged down from people farming the crap out of things.

[Bodypull]

A quick trip Alexa shows that 25.23% of people coming to http://www.swtor.com go to the Accounts page, 15.66% go to buy.swtor.com. The traffic to http://www.swtor.com is .08% of that measured. Traffic to http://us.battle.net/wow/en/ is .18%. I also did the comparison to http://www.riftgame.com/en/ but it's numbers are so low it adds no value to the debate.

 

At no time over the last 6 months has the traffic to http://www.swtor.com been higher than http://us.battle.net/wow/en/.

 

What does this mean? Well as someone who was Director of Engineering for a web based entertainment product, it means that SWTOR is number 2, without a noticeable drop in traffic.

 

I'm assuming traffic to the website equals interest in game equals players in game, which is probably a fair assumption in absence of other data.

 

No one can say that there is a decrease in subscriptions when we haven't exited the free 30 days. Also for there to be a decrease in subscriptions means that unsubs must be higher than new players, and I seriously doubt that at this point in time.

 

It should also be noted that there has not been a broad reach marketing push, this marketing effort is probably already done and just waiting for the natural interest in the game to subside. When you see the marketing push, you'll know that EA/BW are after their second group of users. In the mmo space it's about two things: acquistion and retention. To claim a decrease in subscriptions you need to know how acquistion is going, and we know it really well for the first two weeks.

 

Assume

 

and

 

Do this for Aion and review at the 6 months and 1 year marks.

[KippTabor]

Sweet baby Jesus...

 

Why can't you guys RELAX, wait 6 month or so and see for yourself if this game fails or lives? Do you honestly have NOTHING to do but flame/defend it?

One probable reason: e-peen swinging is all the rage. I love WoW but man did it ever sour the MMO community. Everyone's a flippin' lead developer or an industry insider/analyst now.

 

What boggles my mind is why people obsess about subs and financials so much in the first place. Are they masochists? Are they trying to come off as uber? Are they so worried about their "hard-core" rep that they don't want to be seen as having fun because that might make them appear somewhat less hard-core? Just go play and have fun. If you're you're more worried about the financial viability of the game, or comparing it to WoW, you're missing the point...

Edited January 6, 2012 by KippTabor

[Daeborn]

I am not about to be specific and analyze data on the forum.

 

No, you'll just claim to be one yet show yourself as a lawyer in your bio. Probably as factual as your being a Goldman Sachs analyst too but whatever.

 

The post was ideological in nature, and broad, not specific and not a dissertation on data points.

 

ROFL ideological in nature? You made claims of being an expert and someone who supposedly gives advice in the gaming industry from time to time. ideological in nature? Come on BP people on average aren't that stupid.

 

Everyone with a college degree has had "introductory economics"

 

Yep, so?

 

Everyone with an MBA has expounded upon this.

 

Keep stretching this.

 

Everyone involved in qualitative and quantitative modeling (such as the guys at Blackstone for example.) have advanced degrees often in fields of Advanced science and math. Great, awesome .. most people on the forum will not know many of the terms and abbreviations or understand basic modeling ...

 

Nope, not true. People who are analyst use tools designed by those people. They aren't those people.

 

 

Put your egos aside, your insults as well.

 

Good lord. You first. You're the one claiming superiority or did you space that out?

 

You are neither a Goldman Sachs analyst or anything else important. You're an Internet Phish Monger.

[SnoggyMack]

Everything you stated is speculation and you are pawning it as fact.

 

What in the world?

 

Everything in my post is obvious. A lot of Star Wars do play World of Warcraft. They do read comic books. They do attend gaming conventions and comic book conventions and share many many interests with each other.

 

And everything I posted about Star Trek Online is truth and fact and you can double check it right there on the internet.

 

This is the kind of analysis you do?

 

You continually demonstrate no actual experience with the games you talk about.

 

Again, I bring this up for the third time ... You state this game has a boring "grind."

 

Yet World of Warcraft became immensely popular with one of the worst grinds in MMORPG history ... the initial system for PVP ranking.

 

Your analysis is shallow if you contend that this game can't make the cut because of it's dailies and flashpoints, while WoW got super duper successful with it's first take on PVP rank grinding.

 

In short, the meat of what you talk about fails to convince me you are qualified to analyze MMORPGs as investments. Because you are not familiar with the details of the games you talk about.

 

Nit-picking? That's what an analyst is supposed to do!