Swtor IS a success, at least financially

[Kanshan]

Rift recently announced that the game has generated a little more than $100 million in revenues to this point 10 months after release. And Rift is the most successful MMO in its first 10 months since Aion, which was the most successful in its first year since WoW.

 

That's about half of what TOR needs in the first 10 months just to justify its existance. $100 million in 10 months is awesome for a game that cost $50 million to make. Not so awesome for a game that cost $150+ million.

 

And by the way... Rift won't make nearly that much in its second year. If it makes half that much in its second year Trion will be doing cart-wheels.

 

Rift costed more then 50 mil first off.

I bet rift will do okay, imo i don't like it but some do, but i dont sit on rift forums and QQ all day like some of these people on these forums

[Viera]

http://massively.joystiq.com/2012/01/20/the-force-is-with-swtor-ea-stock-bounces-back-budget-revealed/

 

http://massively.joystiq.com/2012/01/17/analyst-believes-star-wars-the-old-republic-had-a-500-million/

 

 

That Analyst with the 500 million was full of crap, btw.

 

Jan. 22nd, SWTOR costed $200,000,000 to develop.

 

"Electronic Arts EA +1.63% saw its shares rise more than 2% Friday, gaining back some of the ground lost in the previous session after an analyst questioned the health of its highest profile videogame launch of late – “Star Wars: The Old Republic.”

 

The bounce-back came after three other brokers issued notes Friday morning disputing the concerns, saying in essence that the online multi-player game that hit the market on Dec. 20 is performing in line with expectations"

 

“We believe that these concerns are overblown, and that the company’s revenues are tracking ahead of the high end of guidance for the fiscal year,” wrote Michael Pachter of Wedbush Securities."

 

"Evan Wilson of Pacific Crest wrote Friday that he has raised his sales estimate for “Star Wars” to 2.2 million units from 1.5 million units for the quarter, and said he remains “comfortable” with his 800,000 subscriber target when the company’s fiscal year ends in late March."

[ObiQuixote]

Try this one instead.

 

Edit: See now that one of your links is basically the same article, never mind.

 

I think the 500m number comes from wall street guesstimates that are on the high side and include marketing and other costs not included in other estimates.

[Scoobings]

Really? You never had a boss drop no loot? I did :\ it freakin sucked

 

*edit*

Come to think of it, Ragnaros disappeared on us a few times too. He would submerge and then never come back. Had to get a GM to reset him (which admittedly happened that night whenever he got stuck. Much faster response time than here.)

 

That's not to say that I think these bugs are OK to exist. I've always been of the mindset that if a developer wants to compete they can't use the excuse "well WoW was bad 7 years ago." They aren't competing against WoW 7 years ago, they're competing against WoW today.

 

That said as far as MMOs go I feel like this was probably the smoothest launch I've seen in a long time. Still not as smooth as it needs to be though.

[Sarfux]

200-500 million this game took to make. 100k subs is terrible for a budget that big, and i know that EA and it's investors didn't plan on shelling out that much money for just 100k to even 1 million subs. The fact that I doubt it even breaks 500k as of today, is sad.

 

This game is a failure, like it or not.

 

i see...so it is a failure..because people like you go around saying it is a failure

 

It is IN FACT a success. Like it or not.

 

I remember you...you were a doomsdayer from your quotes you have said before. Admit it, nothing you say will capsize the game. Now just have fun

[Mannic]

Rift costed more then 50 mil first off.

I bet rift will do okay, imo i don't like it but some do, but i dont sit on rift forums and QQ all day like some of these people on these forums

 

Umm, no.

 

You guys really have no concept of the idea of how much $1 million is, do you?

 

$1 million is enough to pay 10 well-compensated designers for a year. It's enough to pay 100 people $100,000 a year for 5 years. And MMO can be created by 50 good designers. (Some MMO's that are F2P were literally made by less than 5 guys.)

 

$50 million is a ton of money, and it's about typical for a triple-A MMO. $200 million is a ludicrous amount of money.

 

And by the way, I didn't just make up $50 million. It came directly from Trion.

 

http://www.trionworlds.com/en/news/media-coverage/2011/05/gamasutra-rift-1m

Edited January 30, 2012 by Mannic

[vekkth]

Wait, what? Blizzard has consistently been very open with communication. All Bioware ever says is "It's something we would like to add! We have talked about it!"

 

dude stop making up crap really My personal story, believe it or not, 4 years ago i was stuck on to PVE server and i raised several threads on the suggestion forums and general forums of WoW about allowing people transfer from PVE to PVP if they have a max level toon on that PVP server - imagine i was trying to comply to their "LEVELING ON PVP IS HARDER THIS IS SRS SHT"

 

you know what happend? my threads got deleted. i reopened it, and you know what happend after? the thread got closed, with Blizzard official representative saying WE WILL NEVER ALLOW THIS. i swear to you this is exact meaning - NEVER ALLOW pve to pvp transfers. and you know what? i was forum banned for 2 days for reopening the thread. I quit wow at that time for half a year, it was the end of TBC, my server was dead, i missed my season 4 glad title because the only proper healing druid i 2vs2 with quit, so i just really grew tired with incompetent healers and got myself a break.

 

half! a year! forward they open Russian wow and you know what? they allow PvE to PvP with WOTK going out. Can you imagine the level of hypocrisy? They said numerous times they will NEVER allowed it, they forum banned me (and this is always annoying and pretty humiliating, dont you think), they in the end lost a paying customer for a half a year ONLY to fcking introduce this feature in less then a year, for everyone, just for money.

 

And you dare to say things like you've said? a hypocrite you are.

[Gazzzenn]

Umm, no.

 

You guys really have no concept of the idea of how much $1 million is, do you?

 

$1 million is enough to pay 10 well-compensated designers for a year. It's enough to pay 100 people $100,000 a year for 5 years.

 

$50 million is a ton of money, and it's about typical for a triple-A MMO. $200 million is a ludicrous amount of money.

 

And by the way, I didn't just make up $50 million. It came directly from Trion.

 

http://www.trionworlds.com/en/news/media-coverage/2011/05/gamasutra-rift-1m

 

it's ok buddy the budget for rift is common knowledge to those that can use google you don't need to defend that figure.

 

swtor used a colossal sum of money for the voice overs probably alot more than they should have as well by the sounds of things.

 

i'd be interested to know just how much was spent on the game compared to what was spent on voice overs...call me silly but i think they may have spent to much on vo's and not spent enough on the game.

[LordTyrantXerxis]

Assuming the game had a 200 million dollar budget and once again assuming that all copies in the first four weeks of sales were just the regular edition, at ~60$ per copy (these are hard copies mind you)

 

Then the math is

 

60x2.5 million which equals ...

 

 

150,000,000$ ... including recurring subscriptions I think its a safe bet that this game has turned a profit. No matter how small a profit is a profit.

[Mannic]

Assuming the game had a 200 million dollar budget and once again assuming that all copies in the first four weeks of sales were just the regular edition, at ~60$ per copy (these are hard copies mind you)

 

Then the math is

 

60x2.5 million which equals ...

 

 

150,000,000$ ... including recurring subscriptions I think its a safe bet that this game has turned a profit. No matter how small a profit is a profit.

 

EA doesn't make $60 per copy. Half that is more accurate.

 

And 2.5 million is also optimistic at this point. We haven't even heard 2 million as an official number yet. There is no way that this game has turned a profit yet. Even if it has sold 4 million units and has 2 million subscribers, it would barely be hitting $150 million in gross revenues. EA themselves said that 1 million subscriptions for a full year would = around $162 million in gross revenues.

Edited January 30, 2012 by Mannic

[Tsavis]

I started playing tor because I had friends playing the game, unlike them I never followed the game or it's development. But I have to say if it took them five years to develope this game they did great on the marauder story line, but the ui absolutely sucks, Rift did it far far better.

I know that it's a new mmo, but after spending five years making the game they should have a better end game for level 50, two heroics to grind over and over to get gear is well pretty crappy, after that length of time.

One of my friends who was absolutely in love with the game and played beta and was in a preguild for a couple years just hit 50 yesterday, and it was disheartening hearing the disappointment in his voice over the lack of endgame.

Right now I am strongly considering canceling unless bioware does something quickly to improve this. But they had all this time to get it right, and I don't think things are going to change any time soon.

Edited January 30, 2012 by Tsavis

[Knockerz]

Speaking of subs. I can't wait to see wow's February investor report and the next report after GW2 comes out.

 

Actually, I'm curious to see how swtor will fare in the future. Expansions don't require nearly as much work and are more profitable, than creating a new game. If you think about it. Creating a new game requires you to develop the game core mechanics, ai, and host of other essential mechanics, but in an expansion the developers don't have to worry as much about core mechanics and focus more on content. If BW and swtor can hold their ground, then the game will be successful with expansions that add more content.

Edited January 30, 2012 by Knockerz

[bsanayei]

They made a grave mistake with this voice acting...

 

They should have just voice acted the class quest story lines voice acting every little quest was a colossal waste of money..

 

Imagine the game we would have today if they used most of that voice acting budget on PVP and UI they would actually retain subs

 

Also remember when you spend $200 million there is a cost of using that money instead of it sitting around making interest or invested elsewhere its being spent so for the game to be successful it has to make significantly more then 200million back..

[Andryah]

I mean what does gameplay even matter honestly? SWTOR will forever be viewed as a success, because it broke even and then made profit.

 

That's all other companies will look at. The success of Swtor. How a product that was not even ready, a mountain of bugs and "it's not broken, it's feature" and still is making profits.

 

No matter what individuals think of it, as per the LA times Article SWTOR only now needs 100,000 people to keep making a profit, and it can do that easily.

 

 

So no matter what you or I might individually think of the game itself, SWTOR is officially a success.

 

I read this as a passive-aggressive attack on the game.

 

Why not just discuss what it is about the game you like or dislike?

[Scoobings]

They made a grave mistake with this voice acting...

 

They should have just voice acted the class quest story lines voice acting every little quest was a colossal waste of money..

 

Imagine the game we would have today if they used most of that voice acting budget on PVP and UI they would actually retain subs

 

Also remember when you spend $200 million there is a cost of using that money instead of it sitting around making interest or invested elsewhere its being spent so for the game to be successful it has to make significantly more then 200million back..

 

I disagree. If anything kills this game it's going to be the slow response time to fixing some game breaking bugs / mechanics. They're taking their sweet time responding to some pretty potentially serious problems with the game.

 

Not saying I think the game will die, but if it does that will be the reason.

[SamuraBob_Fl]

I read this as a passive-aggressive attack on the game.

 

Why not just discuss what it is about the game you like or dislike?

 

Forum tradition, mostly.

[JediKnightKillah]

Link?

 

http://www.gamespot.com/news/6348959.html?part=rss&tag=gs_news&subj=6348959

 

=========

 

UPDATE - FOUND A BETTER LINK::

 

http://www.vg247.com/2012/01/17/analyst-ea-has-invested-close-to-500-million-in-swtor/

 

If thie above is tru then things are alot different using my math below....

 

=========

 

 

It was 200 million if stories are true. However

 

So if they sell 2 million units (brick & morot or online) at 80$ (ea) - Accounts for higher priced boxes on average.

 

$160,000,000

 

Now I know that 80.00 may be high so let's just assume that throws in 1 $15.00 month as well to bake in 1st month subs.

 

Now at 15.00/month * 1 million (assuming 1 million stay) = 15,000,000 / month so essentially in 6 months they are at least recouping initial cost.

 

However...you have to also tick into that number ongoing development, server and infrastructure, marketing, PR, etc. So after 6 months if they settle at .5 million you are still raking in 7.5 million each month in subs alone.

 

Like I said in my earlier posts. Yes the game is medocore at best but it won't be failing or going F2P anytime soon.

 

Now....just imagine what Blizz/Activion execs are doing. Do you think they are really concerned they went from 12 to 9.5 million members. , yeah not really. That juggernaut makes more than alot of these 3rd world countries entire GDP.

Edited January 30, 2012 by JediKnightKillah
Better Link!!!

[bsanayei]

I disagree. If anything kills this game it's going to be the slow response time to fixing some game breaking bugs / mechanics. They're taking their sweet time responding to some pretty potentially serious problems with the game.

 

Not saying I think the game will die, but if it does that will be the reason.

Well we are kinda getting at the same thing...

 

They could have spent that voice acting budget on coding polish and released a game with far less bugs..

 

End of the day they had 200million to spend which is a MASSIVE budget and they blew a lot of it on voice acting and neglected aspects of the game which actually hold people and create growth..

 

I dunno about you guys but 90% of the people in my guild space bar their way through all the dialogue...

[PjPablo]

I thought the estimates were at least a million players subscribing for several years just to break even? Those were journalist estimates, though.

 

Here's a quote from EA's CEO:

 

"We previously described to folks that 500,000 subscribers saw the game as substantially profitable, but it's not the kind of thing that we would write home about," he said. "[but] anything north of 1 million subscribers is a very profitable business."

 

Keep in mind that quote is almost a year old, and not counting the delays that came after that.

 

Lies. Breakeven is 500,000. They have to pay $7.5 million a month just for upkeep and fees to LA. 500,000 subs allows them to breakeven.

[djsmileey]

http://www.gamespot.com/news/6348959.html?part=rss&tag=gs_news&subj=6348959

 

It was 200 million if stories are true. However

 

So if they sell 2 million units (brick & morot or online) at 80$ (ea) - Accounts for higher priced boxes on average.

 

$160,000,000

 

Now I know that 80.00 may be high so let's just assume that throws in 1 $15.00 month as well to bake in 1st month subs.

 

Now at 15.00/month * 1 million (assuming 1 million stay) = 15,000,000 / month so essentially in 6 months they are at least recouping initial cost.

 

However...you have to also tick into that number ongoing development, server and infrastructure, marketing, PR, etc. So after 6 months if they settle at .5 million you are still raking in 7.5 million each month in subs alone.

 

Like I said in my earlier posts. Yes the game is medocore at best but it won't be failing or going F2P anytime soon.

 

Now....just imagine what Blizz/Activion execs are doing. Do you think they are really concerned they went from 12 to 9.5 million members. , yeah not really. That juggernaut makes more than alot of these 3rd world countries entire GDP.

 

you had a fairly compelling argument going until you started citing blizzard numbers.

 

Shoulda quit while you were ahead.

 

Anyone who has done their research knows that is not the current subs by any stretch

[Scoobings]

Well we are kinda getting at the same thing...

 

They could have spent that voice acting budget on coding polish and released a game with far less bugs..

 

End of the day they had 200million to spend which is a MASSIVE budget and they blew a lot of it on voice acting and neglected aspects of the game which actually hold people and create growth..

 

I dunno about you guys but 90% of the people in my guild space bar their way through all the dialogue...

 

I don't think most people space barred through the dialogue while leveling, so I think you're wrong

 

Maybe you're right about the polish, but to be totally honest you don't need a 200 million dollar budget to actually get game polish. Those problems probably should have been caught with the budget that they had, and it's not like there's a voice acting budget getting in the way of them fixing it now. Voice acting didn't get in the way of fixing Ilum

 

The problem here is bad decisions made by BW. Things like Ilum are the direct result of poor decisions and incompitence.

[Malefactor]

Lies. Breakeven is 500,000. They have to pay $7.5 million a month just for upkeep and fees to LA. 500,000 subs allows them to breakeven.

 

Clearly you know more about the financials of a company than it's CEO. Never mind that he has, you know, real numbers and facts. You, some random MMO player, know the real score.

[barwnKesteven]

I'm not going to bother looking up the info for you, that's what google is for, units sold world wide 4.4 million 85% retention of accounts, this is from an EA quaterly fiscal report. Nearly all estimates put the production costs at $200 million. EA/Bioware have already earned their investment back, also, learn to do a little bit of research before you post such absurd numbers. Literally google it and read the first 5 links lol.

 

4.4 X .85 X 15 = $56.1 million from subs

4.4 X 60 264 $264 million from boxes, and that's not even including the extra from CE and DDE.

 

EA hasn't closed a quarter that includes subscriptions to retain. At best that 85% number is a projection from...I don't know what. They aren't reporting their latest quarter results until Feb 1 so how could they have reported 85% retention unless they are looking for a nasty old fine from the SEC?

[JediKnightKillah]

UPDATE - FOUND A BETTER LINK::

 

http://www.vg247.com/2012/01/17/anal...lion-in-swtor/

 

If the above is accurate then things become alot more tight. Essentially they would need to extend the .5 million subs throughout the year and maybe beyond.

 

Bear in mind that the initial sink of money doesn't accoun for KLO operations that are occuring. So you are looking at KLO coverage + Development + all the other jaz.

[Forsbacka]

Its still the best MMO ever. It already made back everything it cost.

 

No it didnt and wont do that in a year or 2.