SWTOR "looking at free-to-play"?

[GalacticKegger]

I have a question, and I think this is a legitimate, and fair question.

 

If this 'news' was about any other MMO, imagine that this was not about TOR.

 

How would you guys feel? The same? Or different.

 

I'm curious to find out.

 

The news woul be insignificant either way for me. The only possible news of significance (and I would probably send Bioware a nastygram for it) would be if microtransactions offered access to stuff that a paying subscription didn't. Otherwise ... meh. Edited June 15, 2012 by GalacticKegger

[Urael]

Well... if you want to read the original article... google cached it...

 

Google cache of : http://www.gamestm.co.uk/discuss/star-wars-the-old-republic-we-are-looking-at-free-to-play-says-lead-designer

 

Here is the text:

 

The Old Republic lead designer discusses the competitive MMO marketplace and how The Old Republic might use a free-to-play model.

BioWare’s Star Wars: The Old Republic has faced some hard times since launching at the tail-end of 2011. Lead designer Emmanuel Lusinchi discusses the effects of losing over 400,000 subscribers earlier in the year and facing off increasingly stiff competition from free-to-play competitors.

 

“I think it’s more than the free-to-play model – it’s more that there is a lot of competitive offers,” suggests Lusinchi. “If it was just free-to-play games and they weren’t very good it wouldn’t even be a question but there are definitely good games out there and good games coming out, so of course all of this competition impacts your plan with what you want to do.”

 

Still, the advantages of free-to-play haven’t gone unnoticed by the developer. Asked whether it would be feasible to adapt The Old Republic to a free-to-play model, Lusinchi coyly suggests that the wheels may be in motion for a drastic change.

 

“The MMO market is very dynamic and we need to be dynamic as well,” he says. “Unless people are happy with what they have, they are constantly demanding updates, new modes and situations. So we are looking at free-to-play but I can’t tell you in much detail. We have to be flexible and adapt to what is going on.”

 

Read the full interview with Emmanuel Lusinchi in games™ issue 124 out 5 July. Subscribe to games™ in print or digitally.

[Valkirus]

no i doubt they will be below that. My guess is between 750k and 1 million. The 6 month subs don't end until what late August? They have the 2 free months plus 6 months.

 

Good point. I forgot they may not count subs like WoW does. Which is the active accounts for the last 30 days of a reporting cycle.

[ratfanatic]

if any mmo is heading towards f2p its wow

 

SWTORS ip is strong enough to keep it subscription game for years

 

...can't tell if serious...

[Durasturan]

I see your "flawless" logic, a game with 9-10mil subscribers going f2p model because 15$ per month from 10mil players (150mil $ per month) is not a good profit from p2p model... However a game with 1mil subscribers (SWTOR) have not even thinking about going f2p because... well, i don't... common sense lost me here... maybe becasue you hate wow and like swtor? (but as a news for you, global market and game company strategies does't based only on your humble opinion )

 

WoW doesnt have 10mil people paying $15/MO they have maybe 5-6. Last quarter they only made 90Mil/mo in online revenue, that includes subs, server transfers and other paid services. Assuming it was ALL coming from subs, which it's not, that would equal 6mil paid subs. I wouldn't criticize anyone about their opinion considering you couldn't be bothered to know or look up the actual financial stats you're trying to work with.

 

As far as NA/EU subs, which, if we're honest, is all any of us care about because those are the people we'll be playing with, I'd be willing to bet WoW only has 3.5MIL active paying subscribers... the rest are Asian subs.

 

http://investor.activision.com/secfiling.cfm?filingID=1104659-12-35264&CIK=718877

pp 22--23

Edited June 15, 2012 by Durasturan

[Claymaniac]

A lot of us have tried F2P and hate it. It has nothing to do with "closing our eyes and blah blah blah". We've played both and prefer the sub model.

 

In that case, I hope you are ready to exit the genre soon. The sub model is unsustainable. When EA, Activision, Bethesda, Warner Bros, NCSoft plus many many many more are all in the same field, they all want a piece of the pie. People are not going to pay a sub for many MMO's at the same time. If there's a 100 people, each company would rather have 50 people playing their game non-exclusively than have 20 people playing their exclusively.

 

You wanna bury your head in the sand and go , "NO F2P SUXORS" go ahead. Its gonna happen. And when there is competition, the quality always gets better.

[EcrirTwyLar]

I disagree with you that they NEED to tell everyone their plans right now. Its better to wait till its closer to coming out. If the new space combat and other features are good enough then it doesn't matter if they lose another 200k subscribers as if they are good enough people will come back.

 

I disagree. I for one would be willing to wait it out and keep supporting this game if I saw a light at the end of the tunnel. But, if things don't look like they are going to improve... I'm not going to throw my money away much longer. I'll just move on to another game.

[Muskaan]

WoW doesnt have 10mil people paying $15/MO they have maybe 5-6. Last quarter they only made 90Mil/mo in online revenue, that includes subs, server transfers and other paid services. Assuming it was ALL coming from subs, which it's not, that would equal 6mil paid subs. I wouldn't criticize anyone about their opinion considering you couldn't be bothered to know or look up the actual financial stats you're trying to work with.

 

http://investor.activision.com/secfiling.cfm?filingID=1104659-12-35264&CIK=718877

pp 22--23

 

I like the "only 90mil/mo last quarter" part. If my business was making that much revenue a quarter w/o coming up with any new content for the last 6 months, then I am seriously doing something right.

[Valkirus]

WoW doesnt have 10mil people paying $15/MO they have maybe 5-6. Last quarter they only made 90Mil/mo in online revenue, that includes subs, server transfers and other paid services. Assuming it was ALL coming from subs, which it's not, that would equal 6mil paid subs. I wouldn't criticize anyone about their opinion considering you couldn't be bothered to know or look up the actual financial stats you're trying to work with.

 

http://investor.activision.com/secfiling.cfm?filingID=1104659-12-35264&CIK=718877

pp 22--23

 

"Only" 5 - 6 million? Lol! Lets compare that to other MMO's "only" 15$ per month subbers. Even if the remaining 4 - 5 million subs are not paying 15 dollars each month, they are still paying some price and that results in income. I would not say WoW will never go FTP, but at this point in time, they have no need to. That is a important part.

[Durasturan]

I like the "only 90mil/mo last quarter" part. If my business was making that much revenue a quarter w/o coming up with any new content for the last 6 months, then I am seriously doing something right.

 

Can't even quote me correctly... last quarter they made 90M/Mo, that's 270M a quarter, and that's revenue, not profit. Their net was good, but not that high, they have incredibly high operating expenses. The point isn't "do they make lots of money" the point is "do they have lots of people I can play with?" WoW misleads people in how many subs it actually has that you could play with, I'd be willing to bet they only have about 3-4M active NA and EU subs right now.

[EcrirTwyLar]

WoW doesnt have 10mil people paying $15/MO they have maybe 5-6. Last quarter they only made 90Mil/mo in online revenue, that includes subs, server transfers and other paid services. Assuming it was ALL coming from subs, which it's not, that would equal 6mil paid subs. I wouldn't criticize anyone about their opinion considering you couldn't be bothered to know or look up the actual financial stats you're trying to work with.

 

As far as NA/EU subs, which, if we're honest, is all any of us care about because those are the people we'll be playing with, I'd be willing to bet WoW only has 3.5MIL active paying subscribers... the rest are Asian subs.

 

http://investor.activision.com/secfiling.cfm?filingID=1104659-12-35264&CIK=718877

pp 22--23

 

http://wow.joystiq.com/2012/02/09/world-of-warcraft-subscriber-numbers/

 

They've dropped that many subscribers since this article? Why would you not count Asian subs? They are paying too right?

[belizar]

no i doubt they will be below that. My guess is between 750k and 1 million. The 6 month subs don't end until what late August? They have the 2 free months plus 6 months.

 

have u noticed all the eu pve english servers are being transfered into just 1 server right 1 server for all eu english and u think 750k-1mil subs still....

[Durasturan]

"Only" 5 - 6 million? Lol! Lets compare that to other MMO's "only" 15$ per month subbers. Even if the remaining 4 - 5 million subs are not paying 15 dollars each month, they are still paying some price and that results in income. I would not say WoW will never go FTP, but at this point in time, they have no need to. That is a important part.

 

No, it's not. The important part was me correcting someone on their completely and absurdly wrong financial reporting. How you think that in any way insinuates they should/shouldn't be free to play is beyond me... Did you even read my first post?

[Galbatorrix]

In that case, I hope you are ready to exit the genre soon. The sub model is unsustainable. When EA, Activision, Bethesda, Warner Bros, NCSoft plus many many many more are all in the same field, they all want a piece of the pie. People are not going to pay a sub for many MMO's at the same time. If there's a 100 people, each company would rather have 50 people playing their game non-exclusively than have 20 people playing their exclusively.

 

You wanna bury your head in the sand and go , "NO F2P SUXORS" go ahead. Its gonna happen. And when there is competition, the quality always gets better.

 

 

I normally never play but one MMO at a time anyway. Even if the craptastic F2P model is what most games do in the future, I'll just go back to WOW and be happy. You have fun being a cash mule.

[Postalz]

B2P is not a bad thing at all. GW2 is being released as B2P and its a great game with a large following. Most new MMOs will be released B2P in the future. Because lets be honest whats the point of charging a monthly fee if that same MMO will go F2P a few months after release.

 

As long as BW only offers vanity items and expansions via payment I'm more than fine with that.

[Muskaan]

Let me rephrase--

 

Patch 4.3.0, "Hour of Twilight", went live on November 29, 2011. That's the last major content release by Blizzard in WoW. So, it's been more than 6 months without new content.

 

In that time frame, SWTOR did the following--

 

1. Game released in Dec

2. Sold >2 mil copies

3. Released patch 1.1 (large content patch)

4. Reported sub lost of 700K (down to 1.3m)

5. Released patch 1.2

6. Introduced Server transfer

7. Ready to release 1.3 soon.

 

So, tell me why SWTOR is losing sub, while WoW is not (in spite of being stagnant for the last 6 months)?

[Durasturan]

http://wow.joystiq.com/2012/02/09/world-of-warcraft-subscriber-numbers/

 

They've dropped that many subscribers since this article? Why would you not count Asian subs? They are paying too right?

 

Did you even read my post? I mean at all? Did you even read it at all? Person A said they had "10Million people paying $15/mo."

 

I said "That's impossible based on their financial reporting, they might have 10M people, but they don't pay 15/mo, they probably only have 4M subs paying $15/mo."

 

L2R

[Galbatorrix]

B2P is not a bad thing at all. GW2 is being released as B2P and its a great game with a large following. Most new MMOs will be released B2P in the future. Because lets be honest whats the point of charging a monthly fee if that same MMO will go F2P a few months after release.

 

As long as BW only offers vanity items and expansions via payment I'm more than fine with that.

 

 

F2P games don't only offer vanity items and expansions. P2P games do, like WOW, but F2P makes you pay for virtually everything. They strip down the features in the game and then make you pay money to unlock them.

 

Not very legend.... wait for it..... dary at all.

Edited June 15, 2012 by Galbatorrix

[Claymaniac]

I normally never play but one MMO at a time anyway. Even if the craptastic F2P model is what most games do in the future, I'll just go back to WOW and be happy. You have fun being a cash mule.

 

I totally will. I will enjoy a diverse variety of games while you for some reason will limit yourself to just one. Oh well.

[Jandi]

In that case, I hope you are ready to exit the genre soon. The sub model is unsustainable. When EA, Activision, Bethesda, Warner Bros, NCSoft plus many many many more are all in the same field, they all want a piece of the pie. People are not going to pay a sub for many MMO's at the same time. If there's a 100 people, each company would rather have 50 people playing their game non-exclusively than have 20 people playing their exclusively.

 

You wanna bury your head in the sand and go , "NO F2P SUXORS" go ahead. Its gonna happen. And when there is competition, the quality always gets better.

 

And in 2 years they will ALL wonder why their servers are completely EMPTY. F2P breeds mediocrity. Every single game that has gone F2P is a mediocre pile of junk with no future whatsoever. They are played by diehard fans of the game and no one else, that's not a successful model, that's a last resort to bleed as much money out of the product as possible. They will never again have quality content added to the game. They will never have new features unless those features can be exploited for more cash.

 

The ONLY reason it had any wind under the model was because it was enticing, like those mobile phones deals with no monthly costs. Yeah, great, just hope to god you never have to call anywhere, ever. DDO is so super awesome! You can choose 1/3 of the available races, some of the classes and if you don't wish to grind the starter dungeon for a few weeks, you need to buy an experience pack. Yeah, that's like so free to play. No, that's free to log into the game, everything else costs money.

[Postalz]

Let me rephrase--

 

Patch 4.3.0, "Hour of Twilight", went live on November 29, 2011. That's the last major content release by Blizzard in WoW. So, it's been more than 6 months without new content.

 

In that time frame, SWTOR did the following--

 

1. Game released in Dec

2. Sold >2 mil copies

3. Released patch 1.1 (large content patch)

4. Reported sub lost of 700K (down to 1.3m)

5. Released patch 1.2

6. Introduced Server transfer

7. Ready to release 1.3 soon.

 

So, tell me why SWTOR is losing sub, while WoW is not (in spite of being stagnant for the last 6 months)?

 

Every single MMO released post WoW has seen an intial surge of players followed by a large drop in numbers. Every single one, from AoC to SWTOR. They can't all be bad and swtor definitely is not a bad game.

 

I wish I could answer your question as to why WoW players always go back to WoW, but I can't.

[Muskaan]

Can't even quote me correctly... last quarter they made 90M/Mo, that's 270M a quarter, and that's revenue, not profit. Their net was good, but not that high, they have incredibly high operating expenses. The point isn't "do they make lots of money" the point is "do they have lots of people I can play with?" WoW misleads people in how many subs it actually has that you could play with, I'd be willing to bet they only have about 3-4M active NA and EU subs right now.

 

That's exactly what I said. Learn to read and/or gain some basic comprehension skills.

 

Legally, neither Blizzard nor EA/bioware can "mislead" people with sub numbers. Their definitions might be different for what they consider as active subs. But their reporting has to satisfy their definition. They cannot knowingly mislead their investors.

[belizar]

And in 2 years they will ALL wonder why their servers are completely EMPTY. F2P breeds mediocrity. Every single game that has gone F2P is a mediocre pile of junk with no future whatsoever. They are played by diehard fans of the game and no one else, that's not a successful model, that's a last resort to bleed as much money out of the product as possible. They will never again have quality content added to the game. They will never have new features unless those features can be exploited for more cash.

 

The ONLY reason it had any wind under the model was because it was enticing, like those mobile phones deals with no monthly costs. Yeah, great, just hope to god you never have to call anywhere, ever. DDO is so super awesome! You can choose 1/3 of the available races, some of the classes and if you don't wish to grind the starter dungeon for a few weeks, you need to buy an experience pack. Yeah, that's like so free to play. No, that's free to log into the game, everything else costs money.

 

what is swtor atm if not mediocre and we pay for it ?

[Galbatorrix]

I totally will. I will enjoy a diverse variety of games while you for some reason will limit yourself to just one. Oh well.

 

 

A diverse variety that constantly reminds you that "You can't do this content yet! Pay me about Tree-fiddy and you can unlock it!".

 

Besides... MMOs are time sinks. You'll never get any where if you're trying to play a bunch of different one's at the same time.

Edited June 15, 2012 by Galbatorrix

[Oronoco]

I will, if given the option, always pay to play this game.

 

SWTOR hasnt been perfect, and I stopped playing for a while. But I've come back, and so has a group of my friends IRL, we want to level and regear before 1.3 hits. So as an on and off player and a huge Star Wars fan, Let me keep paying my subscription!

Without it I get stuck buying $60 console games with a lesser replay value. Most of wich can be beaten relatively quickly.

 

If people want to buy, with real money:

• some vanity pet
  
• sellout title
  
• or customizable guild space yacht
  

that has no affect on my game or their ability to kill bosses/other players... let them.

 

But I just want to play the game, and I will pay the subscription to do it.

(if those vain money tossing players spend enough money sniffing spice off twilek strippers ...

well maybe a lower subscription fee would be cool)

Just dont stop making end game content, that I can defeat by Playing the game, and not Paying the game.