Subs down 25%

[Dezzi]

Except EVE Online is not what I'd call a "big MMO". That would say it had even the funding that WoW did when it was first made, which is doubtful. Small MMO can cater to a small audience, but big MMOs cannot.

 

I guess what I'm really saying is that every MMO doesn't have to be that big blockbuster MMO, but it seems the industry can only measure success in terms of WoW.

Edited May 8, 2012 by Dezzi

[Tuscad]

Lessons that future MMOs can take away from SWTOR:

 

Don't release your product if it isn't ready, even if you've already dropped hundreds of millions and spent more than half a decade working on it. You can't undo a bad first impression, and most subs that are gone will stay gone.

 

Have the mechanics in place to support the initial rush during launch and the inevitable decline in the months to follow. This means having the systems in place to transfer characters and merge servers on day one. On top of that, you can't have meaningful PTS testing without players being able to copy over their characters.

 

Match making systems for Coop/PvE play is a necessity. I understand the arguments for community, and how the lack of a group finder fosters that community, but community won't save the majority of the servers that are ghost towns. In today's day and age, if you aren't grouping up your players, you're a dinosaur. Look at how TOR's dev team had to scramble and make the group finder a priority for the next major patch. The fact that there is empirical evidence to back this claim up moves it further away from opinion and more towards the realm of fact.

 

Don't promise what you can't deliver, especially highly anticipated features. Such as ranked Warzones and world PvP.

 

You left out pay attention to and keep your playerbase updated. (Twatter, Facebook, and other social networks don't count).

[mothermonterr]

hahaha twatter mang.

[Azander]

So, the beans have been spilled, and it's now official that SWTOR have lost around 400.000 players since last update. Well, that's not necessarily bad news, at least not for me. Actually, I have a feeling that the players that have now left, is the players that simply expected this game to be something that it wasn't. A WoW clone.

 

I still see a lot of whiners on the forums, but I have a feeling that most of them have now left, propably returning for WoW, and I am actually happy that it happened. BioWare should now focus on getting new players that can appreciate the game for what it is- a MMO, with a strong focus on story elements and character development. This is what makes SWTOR stand out from the rest of the MMOS, and this is where we need to evolve further.

 

I am looking forward to new updates for legacy and more content in the future. It is my assumption that subs will increase again now that it's more clear what the game is like, and what it's strong points, and weak points, are.

 

Let the rest of us turn this community into a friendly, helpful one, instead of the negative "gimme this gimme that" community that it has been so far.

[Muskaan]

So, the beans have been spilled, and it's now official that SWTOR have lost around 400.000 players since last update. Well, that's not necessarily bad news, at least not for me. Actually, I have a feeling that the players that have now left, is the players that simply expected this game to be something that it wasn't. A WoW clone.

 

I still see a lot of whiners on the forums, but I have a feeling that most of them have now left, propably returning for WoW, and I am actually happy that it happened. BioWare should now focus on getting new players that can appreciate the game for what it is- a MMO, with a strong focus on story elements and character development. This is what makes SWTOR stand out from the rest of the MMOS, and this is where we need to evolve further.

 

I am looking forward to new updates for legacy and more content in the future. It is my assumption that subs will increase again now that it's more clear what the game is like, and what it's strong points, and weak points, are.

 

Let the rest of us turn this community into a friendly, helpful one, instead of the negative "gimme this gimme that" community that it has been so far.

 

 

It doesn't really matter if the people who left are WoW fanbois or self-entitled whiners. From the perspective of EA exec, their game just lost 400K subscribers. That's a potential 6 mil USD revenue lost every month. So, the question that the EA ELT will ask themselves, is investing more on SWTOR worth it. Or should they funnel the resources to other products i.e. their top 5 money maker.

 

If they choose to reduce funding for TOR, it will hurt the game really hard. You will end up seeing a series of buggy, poorly developed content patches which will eventually p1ss off the die hard SWTOR fan boys as well .. result: more sub loss.

 

What EA needs to do is to ignore the hit and continue pouring more money in SWTOR. Continue supporting it openly and publicly. More features and better content may ultimately drive SWTOR back. It's a tricky situation for them.

 

Unfortunately, in most cases, publishers usually end up taking the safer route. This is going to doom the game.

[mothermonterr]

Simcity is going to be more on their priority list, we're inline with tiger wood's golf. l0l:rak_03:

[Jedi_Alli]

here's a small idea that would sure help retain alot of the asia pacifics customers.... STOP having maint at the same time ever day that goes prime time for them.... like 5pm to 9pm atleast once a week???? and now because of the bug with yesterdays patch 2 days in a row with maint at same time of day for 4 hours of prime after work playtime....

people are paying to play a game... not play a game 5 days out of 7 like they have since update 1.2.... if they insist on continuing to do this to their "valued" asia pacific customers they will loose alot of them to games that have downtimes set up either rotating or different times for different servers it only makes sense....

[Tuscad]

hahaha twatter mang.

 

What's funny is it was intentional.

[Dokar]

It doesn't really matter if the people who left are WoW fanbois or self-entitled whiners. From the perspective of EA exec, their game just lost 400K subscribers. That's a potential 6 mil USD revenue lost every month. So, the question that the EA ELT will ask themselves, is investing more on SWTOR worth it. Or should they funnel the resources to other products i.e. their top 5 money maker.

 

If they choose to reduce funding for TOR, it will hurt the game really hard. You will end up seeing a series of buggy, poorly developed content patches which will eventually p1ss off the die hard SWTOR fan boys as well .. result: more sub loss.

 

What EA needs to do is to ignore the hit and continue pouring more money in SWTOR. Continue supporting it openly and publicly. More features and better content may ultimately drive SWTOR back. It's a tricky situation for them.

 

Unfortunately, in most cases, publishers usually end up taking the safer route. This is going to doom the game.

 

They had a net Loss of 400K subscribers. Taking into account that they also reported another 400K units sold in the same time that means they have lost as many as 800K subscribers during this time frame and as many 1.1 million since December.

[Darchaos]

The game isn`t even on the top 5 list on EA:s priority list of games anymore. Think that says alot.

[HavenAE]

400,000 subs in just 2 moths, that's an ENORMOUS loss..

 

I see posts like "it's still 1.3m SWTOR aint dying"

 

Heaven help some of you people if you were aboard the Titanic, you wouldn't have even had the good sense to abandon ship.

 

Have fun with your sinking ship you mindless fanboy zombies.

[Goretzu]

The game isn`t even on the top 5 list on EA:s priority list of games anymore. Think that says alot.

 

That's what worries me most.

 

EA have shown with Warhammer Online that they'll happily mothball an MMORPG if they don't think its worth inventing more money in it.

[GutPunch]

 

Here's how they can (in my honest opinion):

 

Give the next "big" MMO more of a sandbox.

 

Give the next "big" MMO player housing.

 

Give the next "big" MMO player housing that is decorated by items created by player professions.

 

Give the next "big" MMO world PvP based on gear ONLY made by player professions.

 

Give the next "big" MMO world PvP that allows corpse looting after a successful kill.

 

Give the next "big" MMO an insurance option to insure the items lost when being killed in PvP. (Thus keeping said items upon death).

 

Give the next "big" MMO bosses that can be attacked in the open world (no instances).

 

Give the next "big" MMO bosses that can be killed by one guild or stolen by another guild by overtaking the boss encounter and successfully killing the boss AND the players that first attempted to kill said boss (PvP servers only).

 

Give the next "big" MMO no faction alignment. Kill or be killed openly and freely in the open world. (for example: A Sith who kills both Republic AND Empire players anywhere outside of major cities/planets, etc.

 

 

 

I can go on and on ... but MMO's, to me, need to feel more like an MMO. Not this linear crap we've seen since 2004.

 

This.

 

Now ask the question why this didn't occur (and continues to not occur in the development processes of the major game devs). The answer is simple: EVE has been around for almost a decade. We all know the development costs aren't a 1/100th of the costs of TOR. But the plan at CCP is long term profit making. NOTHING about SWTOR is geared for that long. The end game is only "make more alts". That might as well mean play the game once or twice and walk away. EA was looking for short term gains. Selling 2.4 million boxes is a huge amount of money and it appears they have already broken even in development costs. But because they didn't want to make a game for the long haul SWTOR will continue to decline as a long term revenue source.

 

The truth is that investors want short term massive gains. This isn't a bash on capitalism. It is the market realilty. My hope is the continued souring of the market done by these quick hit MMOs will allow the next EVE Online to become a reality.

[AislingKerrigan]

I'd bet a ton of money that the 1.3 mil figure is including the free months subscription they gave out....

That 1.3 figure is also BEFORE DIablo 3 and Guild Wars 2 are released.

 

They'll be lucky to have 1 mil subscribers by the end of the month.

 

Yea I assume a significant chunk of the subs they're going to lose will come from the 30-day free playtime and 6-month subs. It's really sad that a game that took 6+ years to create lasted only 6 months.

[Aramyth]

It's funny how people can post saying a game can survive with 200,000 subscribers, yet SWTOR is the Titantic with 1.3 million. Just saying.

 

If they counted the subscribers who are still active due to their free month then we will still see another big drop in subs within the next month. But you can expect that the numbers will start to steady soon. If SWTOR loses another 400,000 subscribers in the same time frame, then it will have around 900,000 subscribers in September, and still havel a healthy population for an MMO.

 

However, it's not a healthy population for an MMO with this many servers. They need to just merge them already and admit to the mistake of opening up too many in the first couple of weeks of launch,

Edited May 8, 2012 by Aramyth

[Tuscad]

It's funny how people can post saying a game can survive with 200,000 subscribers, yet SWTOR is the Titantic with 1.3 million. Just saying.

 

If they counted the subscribers who are still active due to their free month then we will still see another big drop in subs within the next month. But you can expect that the numbers will start to steady soon. If SWTOR loses another 400,000 subscribers in the same time frame, then it will have around 900,000 subscribers in September, and still havel a healthy population for an MMO.

 

However, it's not a healthy population for an MMO with this many servers. They need to just merge them already and admit to the mistake of opening up too many in the first couple of weeks of launch,

 

I found it funny how you call SWTOR the Titanic, we all know what happened to the Titanic.

[Goretzu]

It's funny how people can post saying a game can survive with 200,000 subscribers, yet SWTOR is the Titantic with 1.3 million. Just saying.

 

If they counted the subscribers who are still active due to their free month then we will still see another big drop in subs within the next month. But you can expect that the numbers will start to steady soon. If SWTOR loses another 400,000 subscribers in the same time frame, then it will have around 900,000 subscribers in September, and still havel a healthy population for an MMO.

 

However, it's not a healthy population for an MMO with this many servers. They need to just merge them already and admit to the mistake of opening up too many in the first couple of weeks of launch,

 

 

 

I don't think a MMORPG like SWTOR can be in anything but maintance mode with 200,000 subs. The older games were profitable with less than that, but they never had the investment to start with nor the licensing issues.

 

I'd guess that SWTOR needs to be around 1,000,000 if we want to see regular investment for expansions and such.

[kiddynomite]

LOL No way they have 1.3 milliom subs. I bet its not even over 600k

[kiddynomite]

Well if they cut about 35% of the servers down(look and count the freaking listing its huge.) It would increase the "high population feeling" for most people. Then they can all go back to fighting for spawns and World bosses.

 

Yup, and every 5 months cut another 35% of the servers because that seems to be the speed at wich the lifeblood is draining from this train wreck of a game.

[Fallensbane]

I think D3 and GW2 will impact player activity more than subscriptions.

 

Spot on IMO. I played the BWE a few weekends ago and omg it was a blast. I still enjoy TOR but check this out. I can have TOR and GW2 and pay one sub fee. Yes, I will play both for sure, but for a few months you are right, I will be playing GW2 like a maniac, it delivered to my expectations in the beta weekend alone. TOR still has not.

[Slurmez]

That's what worries me most.

 

EA have shown with Warhammer Online that they'll happily mothball an MMORPG if they don't think its worth inventing more money in it.

 

The biggest issue is they will mothball it but will not let it go. WAR has been losing money for a long time but EA wont let it go because they will lose the license and it could go to a competitor who may do something useful with it. They see keeping a dying game on life support as one less competitor and an acceptable overhead.

[MasterKayote]

Erm ... just a quick FYI ... WoW had approximately the SAME exact amount of subs at the same time after its release.

 

source:

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/5145/World_of_Warcraft_Reaches_15_Million_Subscribers_Worldwide.php

 

For the "Math's is Hard People":

500k in Europe

800k in NA

=1.3 million

 

End of March 2005 WoW was released for 4 months. End of April 2012 SWTOR has been released for 4 months.

 

TOR isnt breaking records, but its sure as hell keeping up with them.

 

Im going to sing the doom song now .... Doom.Doom.Doom.Doom.Doom.Doom.Doom.Doom.Doom. D-d-d-dooooom! Doom! Doom.Doom.Doom.Doom.

 

P.S: If its true that the quarterly reports ended in March ... then that means that the 1.3 million isnt accounting for the Asia releases, the 38 extra countries it just released in, and the increase in subs we got from 1.2 ... so ...

 

WHYYYYY!!! ... I loveded you piggy! I loveded you-u-uuuu :'(

Edited May 8, 2012 by MasterKayote

[MikelGoff]

I guess what I'm really saying is that every MMO doesn't have to be that big blockbuster MMO, but it seems the industry can only measure success in terms of WoW.

 

A game can be a success and still be a small game. I was simply saying that the "next big MMO" won't be one that caters to a small crowd. Think about it logically. If you had 100 million dollars, which would you choose: A game that will get an audience of 200k people or a game that will have over 1 million?

 

Be honest.

[MrSIlverSurfing]

LOL No way they have 1.3 milliom subs. I bet its not even over 600k

 

Honestly I wouldn't be supprised if this is where they are at. Once you take out all of the free subscriptions and all of the first month trials.

[WrentheFaceless]

I dont understand this, if you all hate the game and want it to die; why do you continue to post here? Why even bother?

 

Just move along your way and jump to the next bandwagon, and leave those that actually enjoy the game alone.