Interesting read: Storm Preparation

[Nyla]

I don't see what's the problem in what he said unless you like to have a distorted view of the reality.

 

From where do people think the money that was spent to create TOR come ?

[Rogozhi]

That's not what he's saying. He's saying that not all of the revenue generated from SWTOR (not including profit and overhead, I'm talking about BUDGETS) is being put back into SWTOR, which, IMO, is quite infuriating.

 

"The Old Republic is in EA’s top 10 franchises in terms of profitability, “but it’s not in our top five”. “So it’s a business contributor, while important, is not as important as Medal of Honor or Battlefield or FIFA or Madden or The Sims or SimCity..."

 

TOR doesn't make as much profit as the other games. That's what it says. Not that the money being made from TOR is redirected to other games, just that to shareholders, the success or failure of TOR isn't as important as the other games. From the information given in the article you cannot determine if 100% or 0% is being put back into TOR's ongoing development. But I think you could assume no further revenue is going to be funneled into it from other franchisees.

[Alavastre]

Wow, I can't believe that guy said that. Here I am, having finished ME3, and now still playing SWTOR, and it's not even the top priority? That kind of pisses me off.

 

I'm going next Tuesday to preorder Guild Wars 2, and will be giving that game a try even though it's below expectations of many. Still, there was no way it was going to meet expectations. I was planning on keeping an active sub during my play time with GW2, but I may be rethinking that now.

 

SWTOR is an expansion pack away from being really good, but the way BW is heading, it may be time to jump out of the boat before it sinks.

[Nyla]

Wow, I can't believe that guy said that. Here I am, having finished ME3, and now still playing SWTOR, and it's not even the top priority? That kind of pisses me off.

.....

 

I don't know why you are pissed of, they have different studios, they work on different games at the same time and yes of course, they prioritize projects and resources.

 

Or do you expected their 9k employees to work on TOR ?

[Celwinn]

I don't know why you are pissed of, they have different studios, they work on different games at the same time and yes of course, they prioritize projects and resources.

 

Or do you expected their 9k employees to work on TOR ?

 

If they had 9k employees working on TOR, it would be in a better state...

 

I would think anyways?

[Nyla]

If they had 9k employees working on TOR, it would be in a better state...

 

I would think anyways?

 

Yes and no, you can't just add more and more people to a software developement project and expect to have good result.

 

The point is to try to be realistic. You don't put all your employees on the same project, you make them work in parallel on different projects. That's why big companies have subdivisions and in case of game companies, studios under thoses.

It's common sense, we have a saying here which would be translated to something like "You don't put all your eggs in the same basket".

 

Maybe from a PR POV it was bad to say that, dunno, but that's the reality. They are working on different games, they are prioritizing money and resources based on what they will gain. That's how business works and btw, they seem to have notice they needed more resources on TOR as the DA3 team seems to have started to work/will work soon on TOR to help.

[NevesNET]

Wow, I can't believe that guy said that. Here I am, having finished ME3, and now still playing SWTOR, and it's not even the top priority? That kind of pisses me off.

 

I'm going next Tuesday to preorder Guild Wars 2, and will be giving that game a try even though it's below expectations of many. Still, there was no way it was going to meet expectations. I was planning on keeping an active sub during my play time with GW2, but I may be rethinking that now.

 

SWTOR is an expansion pack away from being really good, but the way BW is heading, it may be time to jump out of the boat before it sinks.

 

GW2 is below expectations? LOL! Perhaps you should buy it and be in the next beta event, you will soon realize what a huge FLOP TOR is...

 

That being said, The Sims / Madden, etc. were around BEFORE TOR and will still be around AFTER TOR. I haven't played BF3 in a few months, but FPS are always big money makers. This game is dead, only fanboys don't see it. I was in fleet last night prime time and had 10 people on. The fact they are placing it by a golf game should tell you something.

 

I seriously doubt the active subscriber base is anywhere near the 1M mark. Good luck to you all, I really hope they merge servers soon so you can continue to play the game you like. I already feel ripped off for purchasing the digital deluxe edition which gave me nothing of note only less money in my pocket. My 3 month sub + the free time they gave me must be near some end, so I bid you all farewell.

[Alavastre]

I don't know why you are pissed of, they have different studios, they work on different games at the same time and yes of course, they prioritize projects and resources.

 

Or do you expected their 9k employees to work on TOR ?

 

You apparently don't know business very well. You're always working on your clients project, and never tell them other projects have a higher priority. I thought that was discussed in the article?

[Alavastre]

GW2 is below expectations? LOL! Perhaps you should buy it and be in the next beta event, you will soon realize what a huge FLOP TOR is...

 

That being said, The Sims / Madden, etc. were around BEFORE TOR and will still be around AFTER TOR. I haven't played BF3 in a few months, but FPS are always big money makers. This game is dead, only fanboys don't see it. I was in fleet last night prime time and had 10 people on. The fact they are placing it by a golf game should tell you something.

 

I seriously doubt the active subscriber base is anywhere near the 1M mark. Good luck to you all, I really hope they merge servers soon so you can continue to play the game you like. I already feel ripped off for purchasing the digital deluxe edition which gave me nothing of note only less money in my pocket. My 3 month sub + the free time they gave me must be near some end, so I bid you all farewell.

 

I will be preordering GW2 pretty soon. So if there is a Beta I will check it out. Looks fun to me. But I'm not that hyper critical, I take games as they are. If I have fun I will pay, if not, I'll leave. Still having fun with SWTOR, but it's slowly running out for me.

[Lamech]

The guy's an idiot.

 

He talks about business 101, telling people they have investing priorities is not smart. Yet business 101 IS having investment priorities. If you spend as much time, effort and investment on something that makes a tenth of the profit of something else you go out of business.

 

Not only that there is an important quote that's hidden away. SWTOR is "very much in line with our original assumptions". Meaning all these quotes about priorities hasn't changed anything. They're still on the same business plan as they were a year ago. No shifting (as of yet at least) of funds or priorities.

 

If you thought EA were going to spend the same ad money on SWTOR that they do on football games and getting football stars to promote it you're misguided to say the least. The Sims has shipped 16 million units. The Sims 2 : Pets - expansion pack shipped 5.6 million units. That expansion alone. Seriously, if you think that a company shouldn't prioritise that cash cow you need to give your head a shake and look at the real world.

 

Oh, EA is the big bad. They're a business, not a charity. While I do disagree with them on plenty of things they keep themselves going by making plenty of money.

 

The article in essence is as bad as some of the whiny posts on this board. It in essence, if you read it properly shows that nothing has really changed, from EA's or Bioware's point of view. Yet has a list of personal wants for the devs to add to the game. Plus a list of hypothetical futures.

 

Sensationalist rubbish.

[Rabrac]

Seriously, when did people start believing what market people say? They never speak the truth their main attribute is lieing.

[Lamech]

You apparently don't know business very well. You're always working on your clients project, and never tell them other projects have a higher priority. I thought that was discussed in the article?

 

Apparently you can't differentiate between business very well. This is not the same as working on a clients project.

 

Using that analogy Bioware is the client NOT the consumer.

 

I can throw business analogies in too. I'm telling my client I'm not putting their product at the front of my store because they only have a tenth of the sales that another established brand has. The client understands because they are in business and not an idiot.

 

People seem to be confusing Bioware's priorities with that of EA's. Separate entities people.

[Razot]

You guys do get that Madden and The Sims have a WAY BIGGER potential player base than SW:TOR right? I'm sorry to break the news, but Star Wars still isn't really mainstream. Popular yes. Football popular, no.

 

Wrong!

Problem is its had 2 crappy MMO's..well one wasn't bad till the CU then the NGE.

 

"The Old Republic is in EA’s top 10 franchises in terms of profitability, “but it’s not in our top five”. “So it’s a business contributor, while important, is not as important as Medal of Honor or Battlefield or FIFA or Madden or The Sims or SimCity, but it’s more important than Tiger Woods PGA Golf.” “So while I understand there’s an enormous amount of interest, I don’t know that it warrants as much as what we’re seeing right now. But we love the franchise, we’re going to grow the franchise and just like we want to see Tiger Woods Golf grow or SSX grow, or Madden for that matter, we’re going to drive this one for growth.”

John Riccitiello (Electronic Arts Executive)

 

Hello Mr Lucas! this is the attitude that trashed the 2nd failed MMO of your wonderful franchise.

[Nyla]

You apparently don't know business very well. You're always working on your clients project, and never tell them other projects have a higher priority. I thought that was discussed in the article?

 

Well, somebody already answered, I will just add something, what Riccitiello said wasn't said for the customers but for shareholders. You have to tell them things that aren't made for the general public or for your customers.

 

Only someone stupid can think EA puts all their money and resources on one game at a time, it's obvious they share between projects and so they have to prioritize some projects before others.

Really, they are working on TOR since 2006 ? (don't remember) so how could they have released other games in the meantime ?

 

It's really funny, many people don't like EA and when a suit tells the truth instead of using PR talk, people jump on them and complain.

[Alavastre]

Well, somebody already answered, I will just add something, what Riccitiello said wasn't said for the customers but for shareholders. You have to tell them things that aren't made for the general public or for your customers.

 

Only someone stupid can think EA puts all their money and resources on one game at a time, it's obvious they share between projects and so they have to prioritize some projects before others.

Really, they are working on TOR since 2006 ? (don't remember) so how could they have released other games in the meantime ?

 

It's really funny, many people don't like EA and when a suit tells the truth instead of using PR talk, people jump on them and complain.

 

It's not complaining, it's sharing how I felt after reading it. Complaining would be asking why did he say it, I know why he did. You might love EA, and that's your thing, but you honestly think Madden should be put over SWTOR? Then you are crazy. 15 bucks a month for years, or 60 bucks every year for a game that hardly innovates. You can easily do the math there, the potential for SWTOR to make money is much more than a Football game that rarely changes.

 

This isn't the first problem with BW since becoming apart of EA. Bad reaction to Dragon Age 2, bad reaction to the end of Mass Effect 3, bad reaction to SWTOR. You would have to be blind to say they're doing a good job in terms of managing assets and their fans as a whole. It's very simple, you don't tell costumers they matter less than others even to your shareholders. These meetings have media invited to them, and what you say there is very public. Besides, a lot of share holders will be fans of the video games and a lot of them will be your customers.

 

So it's not complaining when you've finally reached that tipping point, and express your feelings. In fact, if you didn't respond twice, I wouldn't have talked about it at all.

[Kourage]

http://www.portfolio.com/views/blogs/the-tech-observer/2008/07/17/ea-to-play-in-knights-of-the-old-republic/

 

 

They want to compete with WoW, not run SWTOR into the ground.

Edited May 16, 2012 by Kourage

[Kourage]

Look at it this way..

 

You pay $15/month to play this game (maybe less if you buy in 3/6 month chunks). Well.. What does that money go to?

 

Right now, more if it goes to the development of Madden Football and The Sims than goes to TOR. Why? Because you pay EA $15/month to play TOR. EA distributes their income as they deem necessary.

 

Thread lock in 3.. 2.. 1..

 

Don't be so foolish...

 

Those games have priority because they generate the most revenue. They do not need to take money from SWTOR to finance them, they more than finance themselves + all the other games. You think they just like those games better?

[V-Serp]

Why do you think they made SWTOR in the first place, and made it an MMO? They looked over at ATVI and how much money WoW was making for them, and they figured they could get it on the easy money too. So that's what they were promising and hyping up. They bragged about the Star Wars IP and how surefire this would be. I would read posts about how obviously Star Wars is a bigger IP than fantasy orcs and swords all the time before release and a bit after.

 

Obviously they no longer think they can overthrow WoW. Good businesses are constantly allocating from a success to development of their next success. But also they don't throw good money into things that just aren't performing and they don't think they can turn around. Usually trying to turn around a failing product is wasted money, you're always more likely to try something new instead.

 

I don't know how much money it costs to maintain servers and keep a dev team in place for a game. From what I've read SWTOR is still profitable, so it's probably still less, considerably less, than not having any servers and pumping out a regular game without a monthly sub. EA and other companies will keep pumping out MMOs as long as they are profitable, regardless of quality. Like Uwe Bolle pumps out awful video game movies.

[Darth_Bond]

The MMO money is not in box sales. The money is in recurring subscriptions. SWTOR's subcriptions is akin to selling one million games every month.

 

no its not, 15$ a month =/ 60$ a month.

 

Badmathskills?

 

It would take 4 months of subs to equal 1 games worth of money.

 

Regardless, we've already shelled out box cost of 60$ anyway.

[Alavastre]

Apparently you can't differentiate between business very well. This is not the same as working on a clients project.

 

Using that analogy Bioware is the client NOT the consumer.

 

I can throw business analogies in too. I'm telling my client I'm not putting their product at the front of my store because they only have a tenth of the sales that another established brand has. The client understands because they are in business and not an idiot.

 

People seem to be confusing Bioware's priorities with that of EA's. Separate entities people.

 

I hope you go into business, you won't last long. You make profits off the big projects, but you pay the bills with the little ones. This analogy you're presenting is breaking down. Bioware is not the client, we are. We are paying them 15 bucks a month to provide us a product that is ongoing and updated. Then you're told, oh by the way, your product is not a high priority. That is just bad PR and bad business. It's pretty clear cut.

[Lord_Karsk]

People talk about other games like it matters, madden or what ever you call it in the US is a US game mostly.

Take a game like MW3 that has 80 mill players world wide,and FIFA i'm sure have even way more.

Cant compare MMO to those games.

Edited May 16, 2012 by Lord_Karsk

[V-Serp]

no its not, 15$ a month =/ 60$ a month.

 

Badmathskills?

 

It would take 4 months of subs to equal 1 games worth of money.

 

Regardless, we've already shelled out box cost of 60$ anyway.

 

No, you have poor perception skills.

 

There are more than 1m subscribers, so he accounted for part of the cost difference with using the 1m mark. Further, game sales actually have costs associated with them that reduce the amount of money the publisher actually gets for each sale. There are box costs in the case of physical, and then distribution costs etc. At best maybe for a $60 game a publisher i seeing around $25-30, but with the LA arrangement it's probably less. The online distribution from EA Origin they probably get a bigger cut, but they still won't get the full $60.

 

The subscription is a lower amount but they keep more of it, probably only splitting with LA according to the licensing deal.

 

Even so the 1m mark is likely too high, but it's not bad math because it'll be incorrect more because we don't actually know the numbers and the revenue percentages, and not because of just misapplying an equation or what not.

 

I wouldn't be surprised if it matched up to say 500k or a bit less in new game sales on comparison.

[Lamech]

Well, somebody already answered, I will just add something, what Riccitiello said wasn't said for the customers but for shareholders. You have to tell them things that aren't made for the general public or for your customers.

 

Only someone stupid can think EA puts all their money and resources on one game at a time, it's obvious they share between projects and so they have to prioritize some projects before others.

Really, they are working on TOR since 2006 ? (don't remember) so how could they have released other games in the meantime ?

 

It's really funny, many people don't like EA and when a suit tells the truth instead of using PR talk, people jump on them and complain.

 

Absolutely spot on.

This is my problem with the article. As if the average gamer spends time looking at financial reports. The article picks out a couple of bits for sensationalism. It's absurd.

 

The sims shipped 16 million copies on the PC alone. The sims 2 : Pets expansion pack sold 5.6 million copies . The expansion pack! on the PC! That's not even including all the other areas of the franchise.

 

Can you imagine if they told their shareholders "You know, actually we are going to put priority into SWTOR over the sims"? Insane.

 

As if they also wouldn't need to have priority for their sports franchises. Ones that are once again multi-platform. As of 2010 EA had made $3 billion in total sales on Madden. FIFA 11 sold 2.6 million copies in the first 5 days. They release FIFA every year AND every other year release 2 versions! Guaranteed money.

 

EA are continually going to make sure they have their revenue by using the well established guaranteed income.

Anything else would be foolhardy.

[Ddoandora]

Just a small point. Sims 3 has a cash shop. http://store.thesims3.com/ You and I might not spend that kind of money on shinys but a staggering number of Sim players do. Between the Store and expansions and stuff packs the average Sim player spends well over $20.00 per month. That works out to be more then the sub cost for Tor. At the end of the day companies want to make money. Lots of money, even if its on the short term.

[Lamech]

You would have to be blind to say they're doing a good job in terms of managing assets and their fans as a whole. It's very simple, you don't tell costumers they matter less than others even to your shareholders. These meetings have media invited to them, and what you say there is very public. Besides, a lot of share holders will be fans of the video games and a lot of them will be your customers.

 

Managing assets and their fans as a whole? $1.2 billion of digital revenue suggests it's not that bad. Or the total non-Generally Accepted Accounting Principles net revenue of $4.2 billion.

 

If they didn't tell their shareholders that their priorities are with the huge cash generators of other franchises there would be something terribly wrong.

 

Look at the numbers EA has made from certain franchises like the Sims or sports. It's staggering. That's what the shareholders want to hear.