Has SWTOR "broken even" yet?

[Darth_Victus]

taking into account that we are playing in the paid beta test ... I wish they would go bankrupt

 

If you think about it, that is EVERY MMO. WoW still has bugs and glitches in its patches even now. So in your own words, those paying to play WoW are just paying to play in beta.

 

If this is your outlook, then I dont think MMOs are the right genre for you. Maybe go back to Call of Duty or something?

[Dhariq]

Hilarious if true.

 

It is actually true and yes I understand it must sound as a joke. They did some weird paraphrasing when they replied to my bug report which were alot more precise in stating 4 bugs I encountered in the last hm ev run. But anyway here is the email reply I got as a response.

 

Greetings Dhariq,

 

 

I am Protocol Droid S7-05, Human-Cyborg Relations.

 

I have received your transmission.

 

Thank you for contacting us with your feedback and suggestions on fixing the Eternity Vault's speeder at Gharj, fixing the floor on the second phase, lightning ball shocking players in long durations and SOA still switching target after mind traps.

 

We appreciate the time you took to send us your impressions and ideas, and we can assure you that our Development team is always interested in receiving constructive feedback from our players.

 

To ensure that your ideas are seen by the right people, we recommend posting them on our Suggestion Box forum at http://www.swtor.com/community/forumdisplay.php?f=349 so that they can be seen by the Development team. While our Developers may not post in every thread created there, they do read the forums on a regular basis, and are constantly looking for feedback from our players.

 

Thank you for your understanding, and we hope to see your ideas posted on the Suggestion Box soon.

 

If you have any questions about this, or encounter any other issues, please don’t hesitate to contact us again.

 

Galactic Support is our Specialty…

 

 

Sincerely,

 

Protocol Droid S7-05(aka Brix)

Star Wars: The Old Republic Customer Service.

[Eroex]

I hate people like you that buy an unfished and sloppy game THEN defend it so publishers can continue pushing out half finished bugged pieces of clone copied crap because idiots will still buy it and then not only accept the bugs but defend them.

 

And I hate people like you.

 

When I pay real money for a comerciel product, I EXPECT a perfect and propper working product!

 

If I buy a bike, a TV or radio ... it MUST be tested BEFORE I buy it. It's not "we used a wheel which MIGHT be stable enough" or "sometimes your picture might have artefacts with this TV" or "ignore this scratching noice from the radio, we'll fix it later".

 

I just paid 50€? NO! With the pay2play model we all pay MUCH more. If you still playing it's allready far over 100€ and if you play it till end of the year it's close to 200€.

 

For 200€ there is no "be happy with what you get". For 200€ the comerciel produc MUST BE FINISHED AND PERFECT!

 

Hell, you guys from the US, you call the Court for every braindead stupid stuff ... even people who put their Hamsters into a Microwave can win against the producer. WHY do you except bugged and unfinished software?????????

 

PS: and NO, software isn't more difficult to produce then a Radio (a good one from Bose or Löwe). The days where software was a mysterie are over since 1970!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C_%28programming_language%29

 

Looks like these 2 guys have never played any MMO at launch. No MMO in history has been bug free at launch. Expansions and non-MMO games are completely different animals. Dealing with much less content overall and can be tested much easier.

[Eroex]

Not gonna completely disagree... But people didn't really whine for Starcraft 2 and Diablo 3, and Starcraft 2 came out really fine.

 

Responsiveness is not a minor issue. And the real gripe people are having is the low variety of content they have at lv50. If the game was released early, but such that the devs were able to keep content released at the same pace of people's leveling then maybe there wouldn't be so much 'whining'. (For most players, it takes (only) a month to get to 50 and I'm sure they were aware of that).

 

D3 hasn't launched yet. also SC2 was 1/3 of a game. Nether are traditional MMORPGs.

 

You cant compare them to an MMORPG.

[kisharrr]

it cost 148 million to make not 200. With ~2 million copies of the game sold at an average of $60 a box, 120 million on upfront sales alone + at least 1.5 million return subscribers at 15 bucks a month and thats another 44 million at least... (1.5 million people X 15 bucks X 2 months = 44(ish) million)

 

Yes, they have broken even and then some.

 

 

 

P.S. It is impossible to take employee payroll into account so I refuse to even consider it. Most of those guys would be on EA/BW/LA payrolls regardless of this game existing or not.

 

You're not taking into account the royalties that go to Lucas - which are reported to be a very large chunk (I've heard numbers like 25% or 30%).

[TJHarmon]

Pointless thread is pointless, bunch of people pulling numbers out of their *** trying to guess something that only BioWare knows. Edited March 15, 2012 by TJHarmon

[PeacefulViolence]

taking into account that we are playing in the paid beta test ... I wish they would go bankrupt

 

They wouldn't go bankrupt if the game failed *******, the cashflow to maintain and improve the game would just disappear so the game would cease to exist, the company would simply move on to something else.

[iceperson]

few bugs????? no everyday I experience a bug and report it,it is what all of us should do.

 

this reminds of a joke that goes something like this:

 

Patient: Hey doc, it hurts when I do this.

Doc: So stop doing that.

 

Seriously, everyone knows the shipment is bugged, do you really need to go out there every day and check and then ask in general if it's still bugged?

[iceperson]

D3 hasn't launched yet. also SC2 was 1/3 of a game. Nether are traditional MMORPGs.

 

You cant compare them to an MMORPG.

 

not to mention D3 pvp is so bad it's going to ship without it. talk about an unfinished product!

[Arbeiten]

Just wanted to throw this out there... Bioware spent close to half a billion on SWTOR. ($500,000,000). Not $200k or the $148k I seen someone else post. A little research goes a long way. Here's one source I found within minutes.

 

http://fullnovazero.com/tag/how-much-did-swtor-cost/

 

So no, they are nowhere close to breaking even, not even with 1.7 million subscribers. Assuming 100% profit (which obviously it isn't) that would be roughly... 76,500,000 in subs over 3 months, plus 102,000,000 in box sales. So no, they have quite a long way to go. (Total 178.5k / 500k)

 

Again, that's a rough estimate assuming 1.7 million players who bought the box and paid for 3 months, assuming 100% profit at $60 a box and $15 per month. Even if I were off by several million, they still have a LONG way to go.

[Dayln]

Some games have been in beta for over a decade by the illogic of some folks here

[thegimble]

D3 hasn't launched yet. also SC2 was 1/3 of a game. Nether are traditional MMORPGs.

 

You cant compare them to an MMORPG.

 

 

Diablo 3 has an official launch date

 

15 May 2012

[StrykerOne]

They sold about 2 million boxes from what I've heard (maybe more now), so that would be $100 profit per box to break even. How long that will take is hard to say since it depends on profit margins... if I had to make a wild guess I'd assume $30 per box profit and maybe $7 a month for subs, so about 10 months by my guess, or more likely 15-20 months since MMOs generally have a significant drop in subs in the first months compared to total box sales.

 

Of course that's pure guesswork, and it assumes the game really did cost $200 million which I personally have trouble believing.

[Dayln]

I suspect the $200 mil is real, they will break even, they have not yet.

 

Particularly when you figure Lucas is taking a large cut for use of the IP

 

They have not broken even yet, but they are on track to do so within a couple of years

 

( just my opinion )

Edited March 15, 2012 by Dayln

[Krazed]

You could literally take cow manure, box it up in a display case, and sell it as "Bantha Fodder" and people would buy it.

 

Nope I play because I enjoy this game. Life long SW fan but did I play SWG when I stopped having fun? Nope. Do I play that crappy Clone Wars Online SOE put out? Hell no! Not all of us are mindless idiots tyvm.

[Dinadan]

yes way. the box was 50€ (which is roughly $75) ... and don't forget the CE (which was 150€, in dollar ~230)

 

You have to take into account the retailer's cut, a fairly significant cut of around 35%-40%. Of course this doesn't apply to digital sales, but a lot of the sales numbers only looks at boxed sales.

Edited March 15, 2012 by Dinadan

[RabidPopcorn]

Why do MMOs deserve to be in a special/exceptional class/category?

[WookieIsshe]

These threads crack me up.. Developers and the financial people sit back and laugh at all the BS that is spouted off in these threads.

 

It is a comedy of errors on both sides of the argument and is quite entertaining.

[LordBater]

Stop using pseudo-math.

 

Retailers don't just hand over 100% of sales to companies, that's dumb. In fact, retailers pay a large portion of the sale cost just to stock the game, and *shocknawe* keep the profits.

 

That's not even touching on publishing costs, costs of maintaining servers and support and development staff... It's gonna take a while before they "break even", if you can even measure that.

 

You are correct, Bioware/EA gets no where near $60 or even $50 per game sold. Manufacturing costs (mass production) would be relatively low, but logistical costs and profit margins from retailers knock down the number quite a bit. I really couldn't say to what point, but i would imagine to half the selling price ($30) might be a decent estimate.

As for measuring a break even point, it is very much something that can and is constantly done by companies on a whole and with projects. We as customers wouldn't be able to do it above a very rough estimate, but the company very much knows what their brake even point is and when they will reach it. A break even point, a desired profit margin, and an optimal customer retention (active subs) point has always been part of their economic model. No company would go into any project without that kind of basic anaylsis and would track it carefully. BUt yes, i would agree it will still take a while longer to hit the break even point for the project as a whole, which is quite different that meeting the 500k subs a month to maintain a WORKING profit.

[iceperson]

Diablo 3 has an official launch date

 

15 May 2012

 

and it officially won't include pvp at launch...

[Viera]

Assuming they sold 500,000 copies of the collectors edition that alone would have made them.

 

$100,000,000

 

Now assuming the other 1,500,000 people bought the standard edition.

 

$90,000,000

 

+ The first month fee from, oh, 1,700,000 people.

 

$25,500,000

 

We would have a grand total of :

 

$215,500,000

 

So, it's entirely possible.

[Dayfax]

Assuming they sold 500,000 copies of the collectors edition that alone would have made them.

 

$100,000,000

 

Now assuming the other 1,500,000 people bought the standard edition.

 

$90,000,000

 

+ The first month fee from, oh, 1,700,000 people.

 

$25,500,000

 

We would have a grand total of :

 

$215,500,000

 

So, it's entirely possible.

 

We're 8 pages in. Why are you repeating bad math and faulty assumptions?

[Sentanta]

Well they are saving quite a bit doing a universal server maintenance so they should be alright!

[kaboro]

Assuming they sold 500,000 copies of the collectors edition that alone would have made them.

 

$100,000,000

 

Now assuming the other 1,500,000 people bought the standard edition.

 

$90,000,000

 

+ The first month fee from, oh, 1,700,000 people.

 

$25,500,000

 

We would have a grand total of :

 

$215,500,000

 

So, it's entirely possible.

 

A few objections:

 

The collector edition cost $200?

 

First month fee from 1,700,000 people is 1,700,000 times zero, for a grand total of zero dollars.

[nooize]

I haven't seen anyone saying taxes, or do you all assume that every item sold is tax free? For your information the tax in Europe is 17.5% or 25.%, can't remember which. So if a game is sold for 50€ that is maybe 8-10€ in tax. Add that the company that buys in the huge stock for reselling to retailers takes a cut or do you think every company has personal delivery from EA? So they add 10-15% to the price that the retailers pay. The retailers then add another 10-15% ontop of that for the final costumer. So when people go and buy a game for 50€ the publisher of the game will most likely get less than 20-25€ or maybe even 30€ if we are being generous.

 

But lets not forget about the manufacturing and packaging of the item in question. That isn't free either. So that is maybe not that high of a price to do since it is done in a large quantity but it still affect the eventual profit made by the publisher.

 

Then we have the royalty. So lets assume that Lucas Arts wants 30% in royalty, I have no clue but I have seen that number in this thread so going to roll with it. Then if you take away 30% from those 20-25€ we are looking at an "impressive" 14-18€ per box sold via a retailer. Not even close to the 50€ I have seen people spewing out left and right.

 

But then some of you seem to think that it costs 0 to run a mmo and that every monthly fee that gets payed is 100% profit. First we still have TAXES that is withdrawn from what you are paying and that is the same as for the game. Then they have to pay for internet access to all those servers, support staff. Then we have the consumer relations department, PR, CEO, everything that a company needs to be able to run. Lets not forget that a big chunk of those monthly subscriptions fees goes towards employing people to make new content, add patches and everything that is required from a MMO to keep on going.