If SWTOR lost 70% of its subs.....

[Urdnaxela]

I didn't say or imply that it was a good thing. As an analogy, let's say I spend $10 on peanut butter and bread and plan to make money selling peanut butter sandwiches. And let's say that I can make 10 sandwiches from that original expendature. In order to break even, I need to sell those 10 sandwiches for $1 each, but I want a small profit so I add $0.10 to each for an expected gross income of $11. $1 profit, YAY!!.

 

Now let's say that only three people show up to buy my sandwiches. Do I close up and go home, refusing to accept the $3.30 from the three people who showed up? That would be stupid, would accept the $3.30 and do what I can to ensure that those three people continue to buy more of my sandwiches, and the changes I make could very well bring me more customers.

 

Now let's say that those three people ask me to add jelly to my sandwiches. As long as those three people are willing to continue buying my sandwiches and it costs me less than $1.10 to make each one, I'll continue to make a profit above the CURRENT expense. I would hope to someday see my original $10, but it's already gone and future decisions should not take it into consideration AS LONG AS the amount of money I CURRENTLY bring in is not less than the amount of money I am CURRENTLY spending. My profit margin might be lower when I add jelly, but my net income could easily increase with more customers who like jelly AND my product would improve.

 

No one is saying that losing subscriptions is what BioWare was hoping for, but it would be asinine to scrap the whole thing and go home crying. Some people, not necessarly the individual whom I have quoted, are implying or openly stating that SWTOR is dead and BioWare should pack it in because only EIGHT HUNDRED THOUSAND subscription remain active four months after release. When the time comes to consolidate servers some will scream "FAIL!! SEE I TOLD YOU!!" But the game will go on and those of us who stay with it will get jelly to go with our peanut butter sandwiches

 

unfortunately, in the real world, this is not going to work.

 

as an example - imagine that someone lend you those 10 bucks, and asks to get 15 back in two weeks. pressure, pressure... you;d end up selling 3 sandwiches, the peanut butter at a lower price than what you bought it for, your knife, the bread and so on just to give back those 15 bucks

[ferroz]

And you would have a skeleton crew running the game (since it generates near no profit) with updates that would take a year to roll out and very little if any new content.

and basically none of the new content would have voiceover.

[rakuenCallisto]

and basically none of the new content would have voiceover.

 

I love that you love Penny-Arcade, cause I love Penny-Arcade.

 

Also wangs and come play Tera. We already have a huge guild setup (Official PA guild called: We Are Nice Guys).

Send me a PM if interested.

Edited May 8, 2012 by rakuenCallisto

[Urdnaxela]

and basically none of the new content would have voiceover.

 

well, they could voice it with internal people, so that would be just an inconvenience (or not, who knows what other talents those people hide )

[Goretzu]

All the more reason to never play that game. Ever.

 

Why? Because people play it?

[ferroz]

Why? Because people play it?

he's just upset because he didn't get a chance to get in on it before it was cool.

[Lularapio]

This game is not dead yet?!

[Zag_Stratos]

Right now my guild has 73 people. Let's say 50 with all the alts... half of them are rarely connecting, the other half connect, pvp a bit and log off. Another portion are having more Fun on Minecraft and a few like me have found that Fallen Earth is actually not a bad MMO if you look past the horrible animation lol. Results, there's about 1 or 2 people online at peak times.

 

Not saying that this is true for every guild out there but ours is greatly suffering lately

[CrunkShizzle]

people care about sub numbers WAY too much

 

exactly

[Terrankiller]

people care about sub numbers WAY too much

 

They should, it is an MMO after all.

[shegwood]

unfortunately, in the real world, this is not going to work.

 

as an example - imagine that someone lend you those 10 bucks, and asks to get 15 back in two weeks. pressure, pressure... you;d end up selling 3 sandwiches, the peanut butter at a lower price than what you bought it for, your knife, the bread and so on just to give back those 15 bucks

 

First, there's no such thing as a perfect analogy. Otherwise your analogy would be the real thing and you wouldn't need the analogy.

 

Secondly, this is the second of two posts that I have made in the thread (why I'm bothering is beyond me) as an attempt to explain, in simple terms, my first post. My original point was that money paid for development is gone and future decisions are not made based on money that is gone but instead on the promise of money to be made in the future. So I'll try one last time and then be done with it ...

 

Suppose I have a project budget of five million dollars. After spending three million I find that my total return only promises to be three million dollars after my initial investment of five million, for a total loss of two million. Do I continue the project? Spoiler alert ... yes.

 

Now the obvious question becomes "why continue to spend the additional 2 million for a net loss of 2 million?"

The first three million is gone and if I kill the project then I lose all 3 million. If, however, I spend an additional 2 million and finish the project then make back 3 million, then I only lose $2 million. Losing 2 million is not as bad as losing 3 million. In addition, I have a completed project that can possibly continue to generate a profit beyond the projected $3 million.

 

While a small company would need to find outside backers (to lone me money for bread and peanut butter), BioWare isn't a small company and they likely use internal funding sources for development projects. And again, this is an ANALOGY and there are no perfect analogies.

[rakuenCallisto]

exactly

 

M-rons. All of you.

 

People care about subs when they directly affect the game's condition and success.

 

When a game is already sinking because they won't prioritize something as simple and necessary as server population, subs matter.

 

Now people are not only leaving because there's not enough people to play with - now MORE people are leaving because other people are leaving BECAUSE there are STILL NO FIXES TO SERVER POPULATION!

 

Now that we have actual numbers of people leaving, you say "people care too much about subs."

 

The ignorance is staggering.

Edited May 8, 2012 by rakuenCallisto

[Urdnaxela]

First, there's no such thing as a perfect analogy. Otherwise your analogy would be the real thing and you wouldn't need the analogy.

 

Secondly, this is the second of two posts that I have made in the thread (why I'm bothering is beyond me) as an attempt to explain, in simple terms, my first post. My original point was that money paid for development is gone and future decisions are not made based on money that is gone but instead on the promise of money to be made in the future. So I'll try one last time and then be done with it ...

 

Suppose I have a project budget of five million dollars. After spending three million I find that my total return only promises to be three million dollars after my initial investment of five million, for a total loss of two million. Do I continue the project? Spoiler alert ... yes.

 

Now the obvious question becomes "why continue to spend the additional 2 million for a net loss of 2 million?"

The first three million is gone and if I kill the project then I lose all 3 million. If, however, I spend an additional 2 million and finish the project then make back 3 million, then I only lose $2 million. Losing 2 million is not as bad as losing 3 million. In addition, I have a completed project that can possibly continue to generate a profit beyond the projected $3 million.

 

While a small company would need to find outside backers (to lone me money for bread and peanut butter), BioWare isn't a small company and they likely use internal funding sources for development projects. And again, this is an ANALOGY and there are no perfect analogies.

 

reading that part... erm, what do you mean by having 5 millions? what i'm trying to say is that this is EA and EA has shareholders. They WILL cut their loses. Period. There is no certainty that you will get those 3M you speak of, especially since the project is.. well.. dead in the water.

 

many people do resort to cannibalism in this instance, and try to cut loses some other way. what if you could salvage 2.5M from those 3M already spent and have a total net loss of only 0.5M?

 

you got me wrong, i don't want to bash you or nothing, but we're both using here analogies and not facts. spoiler alert - we're both speculating. nobody's right.

[blazingg]

Bioware is already on a snails pace with the game they struggle to do anything pvp wise for the game it cost 200-300m to make and you think it would be better off with 500k subs .. there slow now and they have a full team still cant imagine how slow patches would come thru when they let half the dev team go. Not to mention every patch they release it brings 2-3 more good size bugs to deal with.

[Gibbzter]

If subs dropped to 500,000 you would have the fanboys in here saying "500,000 is still a good amount for a new mmo".

[Urdnaxela]

If subs dropped to 500,000 you would have the fanboys in here saying "500,000 is still a good amount for a new mmo".

 

nah, they won't. there's gonna be nobody to preach it to (all of them being fanboys)

 

on the other hand, maybe they;d just create threads like:

 

"SWTOR is great, 500k is perfect, post only if you agree" with tons of "/agree" replies

[rakuenCallisto]

nah, they won't. there's gonna be nobody to preach it to (all of them being fanboys)

 

on the other hand, maybe they;d just create threads like:

 

"SWTOR is great, 500k is perfect, post only if you agree" with tons of "/agree" replies

 

i lol'd.

 

/agreed.

Edited May 8, 2012 by rakuenCallisto

[rakuenCallisto]

If subs dropped to 500,000 you would have the fanboys in here saying "500,000 is still a good amount for a new mmo".

 

Quoted from other thread mere minutes ago:

 

1.3 million people disagree that bioware messed up.

 

LOL!

[Taorus]

Number of subs = more people to play with.

 

When all of those subs get cancelled for generally the same reason (Low population, no merges/transfers to fix said low population) it becomes a viscious cycle.

 

People tend to care about subs because it's a good indicator of what the company is doing right or wrong, but it also gives a clue to the population.

 

When a game such as SWTOR is having huge issues with the community about server(s) population, and then almost a million people unsub - what do you think that says about the game's current state?

 

So...this has to be the new math they tried after I left Collage...But, Let me get this Straight. 400k is close to a million? I guess you could say Mos Eisely is close to Dantooine:p

[Urdnaxela]

Quoted from other thread mere minutes ago:

 

 

 

LOL!

 

"lol" just doesn't fully describe what i just did not even "rofl"

[Urdnaxela]

So...this has to be the new math they tried after I left Collage...But, Let me get this Straight. 400k is close to a million? I guess you could say Mos Eisely is close to Dantooine:p

 

no, he was purposely exaggerating to underline a simple idea:

 

numbers do matter. the more people will unsub, the more will follow for various reasons, least the perception of a failed product.

 

at least that's what i get from his post...

[Gibbzter]

Quoted from other thread mere minutes ago:

 

 

 

LOL!

 

Haha oh man... /facepalm

[DorkTrooper]

Well, the hardcore raiders and about half the PvPers are gone. Get ready for the exodus of the lemmings...

 

I'll keep playing until a) the game shuts down, or b) I no longer like the game. And then I'll go find something else to do for fun.

[rakuenCallisto]

So...this has to be the new math they tried after I left Collage...But, Let me get this Straight. 400k is close to a million? I guess you could say Mos Eisely is close to Dantooine:p

 

You must have also learned the old version of English when you attended "Collage" (love the capitalization as well).

 

All kidding aside, I was just trying to make a point through exaggeration, like the above posted said.

 

I also liked your Mos Eisely and Dantooine reference

[ISDEnterprise]

If WSTOR lost 70% of it's subs there would be massive restructuring. Probably a move to F2P with lots of stupid microtransactions. Though terrible, evil and a game ruiner this usually increases profits by literally several times over.

 

At which point games usually stop doing decent updates. If you thought 1.2 was bad any updates while they focus on changing the system is 100x worse. Take Star Trek Online for example. They switched and it took them a year of focusing on the switch to actually DO IT. They didn't release a content patch for like a freakin' year. I'm not saying it would take that long (STar Trek Online also had the issue of switching ownership several times during it's lifetime) but I'd expect quality of patches and number of patches to slow down.

 

 

New content for this game probably costs too much money. I'd imagine it's because of the voice acting. This would also probably make it take longer to actually make that content. I'm wondering if it's worth it.