Andryah Posted July 31, 2012 Share Posted July 31, 2012 (edited) I've heard the CEO say the same thing, you know why he says that it not in there top ten products? BECAUSE ITS NOT PERFORMING and their stock been dropping because of it Even if it was performing, (as in still had 1.2M subs) it would still not make their top product list. Why you ask? Because the burst of box sales is over. At EA box sales (or digital sales) ARE KING. Box sales is the one and only time SWTOR warranted attention at the EA investor level. Montly subs of an MMO is not a notable item in the financials of a company like EA. I know some folks here wish it was, but it isnt. At a million subs a month (and I am not saying the game has 1M at this point), it's $45Min revenue a quarter (against an operations cost of probably $30M). That's a $15M revenue contribution per quarter. It's chump change to the EA financials by any measure. Edited July 31, 2012 by Andryah Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Saltydogg Posted July 31, 2012 Share Posted July 31, 2012 Actually if they are smart, they DON'T invest in individual stocks with their 401K. 401K are strategic long term investments. They are best invested in Mutual Funds to spread and manage the risk of their investments, and leverage the skils of the fund managers. Most of all, they don't micro-manage their 401K by stock flipping. Individual stock investing with a 401K is a poor decision in almost all cases. No Mutual Funds are not a very good investment for long term. You can manage risk better but the overall return shorts your 401k. You can diversify your stocks in a 401k, spreading out your risk over a larger area. My company has many 401k options but by far the best is straight stocks with some mutual funds investment. Stock flipping is something that needs to be done in a volitile market such as this. Mutual Funds also feel the strain of a busted economy and take longer to recover. Anyway I really hoped they had thier act together after the whole Warhammer debacle. Its very apparent that they overlooked that disaster. Well that and they took a bunch of Devs from the Hammer project and put them on TOR. I said a few years ago in the Warhammer forums that with this move TOR was destined to fail. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Saltydogg Posted July 31, 2012 Share Posted July 31, 2012 Even if it was performing, (as in still had 1.2M subs) it would still not make their top product list. Why you ask? Because the burst of box sales is over. At EA box sales (or digital sales) ARE KING. Box sales is the one and only time SWTOR warranted attention at the EA investor level. Montly subs of an MMO is not a notable item in the financials of a company like EA. I know some folks here wish it was, but it isnt. At a million subs a month (and I am not saying the game has 1M at this point), it's $45Min revenue a quarter (against an operations cost of probably $30M). That's a $15M revenue contribution per quarter. It's chump change to the EA financials by any measure. Ask Blizzard how notable monthly subs are. Just saying. If this game was good enough to keep 1 million subs for the first 8 months that would be 128 million dollars in income. I really wouldnt call that chump change. Now I am not sure exactally what the totals are for WoW now but lets just take a average of 4 million active subs over 8 years. Lets also take the lowest end sub costs of 155.88 dollars per year. That is a total of 4,988,160,000 US dollars in eight years. I would say almost 5 billion dollars is no where near chump change whould you? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blattan Posted July 31, 2012 Share Posted July 31, 2012 Does EA plan on rolling a "Freemium" model to SWTOR in Fiscal Year 2012? Just a note, you probably mean FY 2013. (In case I am mistaken, and you do not understand.) Interesting, so does that mean that he expects 500,000 to be the subs level at the end of the 2013 financial year i.e. by March 2014? Possible... But likely it is a prediction for First Quarter 2013 (in other words, current subscriptions) because the information is meant to be used by investors. But since I don't invest, I have nothing to really back up that idea. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Comstrike Posted July 31, 2012 Share Posted July 31, 2012 I think we all could agree that if EA is going to be in the MMORPG business, they should consider learning how to better engage their community. No game of this type is able to tell players as much as they would like. Yet the utter denial of reality is a joke here. Nobody buys it. I'm not expecting them to throw themselves off a bridge, or cry in a video. But these silly, coy, condescending, flip comments about "yeah, we get it," with a smile and jazzy edits and music, just doesn't do it. I'm used to LOTRO where the community mods, even the devs, managed to establish a pretty solid relationship with the community. Sure, we have the same inability to be totally open about future plans, etc. However, they kept things real from the start, and didn't have this suspension of reality going on. I'm truly not worried about the short term, as much as the long term now. SOE would have milked SWG until the end of the earth, so long as it made dollar one. EA likes cutting old stuff, because some marketing dork took some classes about keeping the product line trim and "fresh." I worry that this game sinks further, can't get escape volocity, and is dumped at some point in the next three years. Impossible? Lots of folks swore this game would never be Freemium. I didn't take that bet, and I figure to be a winner. But until we finally get some solid idea of what they plan, people are going to fester here in the forums, in the blogs, in the financial articles, and more. If they are going to do some of these blogger and guild leader rah rah events, I might suggest they have a few closed door, off-the-record talks. They might not like what they hear, but they need to hear it, from rational, level-headed folks who can sum what is sometimes overly beaten to death here. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Antar-Bavarick Posted July 31, 2012 Share Posted July 31, 2012 My thoughts are this.....A HA HA HAAA HAAAA HA HA HAAAA!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Comstrike Posted July 31, 2012 Share Posted July 31, 2012 My thoughts are this.....A HA HA HAAA HAAAA HA HA HAAAA!!! Deeper than many posts on this forum. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Comstrike Posted July 31, 2012 Share Posted July 31, 2012 Here was another article that caught my eye: http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/118786-Electronic-Arts-Says-the-Future-is-Freemium Combine that with the "new ways to play" comment in EA's press release on the layoffs, you can color us "Freemium" pretty soon. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VegaPhone Posted July 31, 2012 Share Posted July 31, 2012 That would be a bigger disaster then the race into social gaming on mobile devices that they are currently focused on. There is no room in consumer products for more operating systems. It's one of the fundamental elements of Nokias rapid demise in the smart phone market (and RIM as well). The only room in consumer products today for a new OS is a proprietary piece of hardware called a "game console". And that market is pretty well closed as well, being owned by just a handful of mega players. I appreciate your opinion, but you need to look at the market and also the practicality of things. Market: Consoles have not been updated recently, and there is room for PC gaming to become more popular Practicality: PCs serve multiple purposes - gaming, work, or social media. New consoles would be extremely powerful that they would become more like PCs without the practicality of something versatile. So instead of turning a console into a PC, turn the PC into a console. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
boobaffet Posted July 31, 2012 Share Posted July 31, 2012 Freemium sounds like free and premium. Top quality and free? Yes please! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andryah Posted July 31, 2012 Share Posted July 31, 2012 (edited) Ask Blizzard how notable monthly subs are. Just saying. If this game was good enough to keep 1 million subs for the first 8 months that would be 128 million dollars in income. I really wouldnt call that chump change. Now I am not sure exactally what the totals are for WoW now but lets just take a average of 4 million active subs over 8 years. Lets also take the lowest end sub costs of 155.88 dollars per year. That is a total of 4,988,160,000 US dollars in eight years. I would say almost 5 billion dollars is no where near chump change whould you? We are talking about EA and EAs business, not Blizzard, so stop with the nonsequiturs already. As I said, $15M per quarter in net revenue for EA, in the total business portfolio of EA (~$1.4B per quarter), is chump change (1% of revenue). Edited July 31, 2012 by Andryah Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Skidrowbro Posted July 31, 2012 Share Posted July 31, 2012 The fact that this thread has made it to 89 pages shows exactly what Bioware truly thinks Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jarlgon Posted July 31, 2012 Share Posted July 31, 2012 The fact that this thread has made it to 89 pages shows exactly what Bioware truly thinks It isn't truly BioWare any more. EA have made mistakes over and over again with this game. Instead of making content for players and fixing bugs they have done very little with the overall game. They have basically only worked on graphics for the latest patches. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vandana_ Posted July 31, 2012 Share Posted July 31, 2012 (edited) They have basically only worked on graphics for the latest patches. If only that was true. I'll believe in that when the engine can handle Ilum 2.0, swimming, night and day and space combat/exploration (proper one). Going back to the OP - transition to free-to-play will not be just embarrassing - it will be absolutely humiliating. I will never buy any EA product again if they do it - I won't support a company that gives up that easily and thinks only about milking me off my money. Free-to-play/subscription is where men are separated from the boys in the gaming industry. Edited July 31, 2012 by vandana_ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Saltydogg Posted July 31, 2012 Share Posted July 31, 2012 We are talking about EA and EAs business, not Blizzard, so stop with the nonsequiturs already. As I said, $15M per quarter in net revenue for EA, in the total business portfolio of EA (~$1.4B per quarter), is chump change (1% of revenue). LOL sorry but you are so so so wrong. You are talking about a easy hundred million in profit per year lost because they can get things right. I dont think any CEO in the world would turn down a 100 million profit margin. You just cant come to grips with whats going on with your beloved game. There is one in every group. Oh and that stat for blizzard is just in subs, i didnt even include box sales. Failed logic is Fail Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Goretzu Posted July 31, 2012 Share Posted July 31, 2012 We are talking about EA and EAs business, not Blizzard, so stop with the nonsequiturs already. As I said, $15M per quarter in net revenue for EA, in the total business portfolio of EA (~$1.4B per quarter), is chump change (1% of revenue). No business throws away 1% of it's revenue........ well no business that wants to survive. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FattyMcElbows Posted July 31, 2012 Share Posted July 31, 2012 Even if it was performing, (as in still had 1.2M subs) it would still not make their top product list. Why you ask? Because the burst of box sales is over. At EA box sales (or digital sales) ARE KING. Box sales is the one and only time SWTOR warranted attention at the EA investor level. Montly subs of an MMO is not a notable item in the financials of a company like EA. Whoahwhoahwhoah. Let me stop you right here. This makes no sense at all. I mean, seriously, zero sense. No one makes and sustains large-scale, subscription-based MMOs based solely on boxed sales. Take away the subscription-model and you have Madden. So, if you're going that route, why not just turn KotOR into Madden? Or Call of Duty? If they mean so little, why integrate a subscription model at all? I know some folks here wish it was, but it isnt. At a million subs a month (and I am not saying the game has 1M at this point), it's $45Min revenue a quarter (against an operations cost of probably $30M). That's a $15M revenue contribution per quarter. It's chump change to the EA financials by any measure. $30 million for operating costs?? PER QUARTER??? That seems . . . a liiiiiiittle high. I mean, the rumor is that TOR cost $200m over four years to make. That's $12.5m/quarter building an MMO from scratch. Unless the licensing fees are astronomical, there's no way operating costs are $30m/quarter. That seems high even over the course of a full year. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WickedDjinn Posted July 31, 2012 Share Posted July 31, 2012 Amazing. A thread this long and so very many posters completely miss the point. Forbes gives you a window into what investors THINK of TOR and what it's done to EA. What does this mean in practical terms? Simple. EA's stock, like most companies stock, is affected primarily by what investors THINK. In other words, if the business world looks at the performance of TOR and decide that it's bombed, than it has, in fact, bombed, because it will directly affect their value as a company. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Arkerus Posted July 31, 2012 Share Posted July 31, 2012 Amazing. A thread this long and so very many posters completely miss the point. Forbes gives you a window into what investors THINK of TOR and what it's done to EA. What does this mean in practical terms? Simple. EA's stock, like most companies stock, is affected primarily by what investors THINK. In other words, if the business world looks at the performance of TOR and decide that it's bombed, than it has, in fact, bombed, because it will directly affect their value as a company. Stocks are irrational. EA's stock price does not reflect reality. Welcome to real life. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
_Corew Posted July 31, 2012 Share Posted July 31, 2012 (edited) Amazing. A thread this long and so very many posters completely miss the point. Forbes gives you a window into what investors THINK of TOR and what it's done to EA. What does this mean in practical terms? Simple. EA's stock, like most companies stock, is affected primarily by what investors THINK. In other words, if the business world looks at the performance of TOR and decide that it's bombed, than it has, in fact, bombed, because it will directly affect their value as a company. No, what's amazing is that after all these pages people still don't get that this has nothing to do with Forbes other than it's published on their site Edited July 31, 2012 by _Corew Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Witnezz Posted July 31, 2012 Share Posted July 31, 2012 are you sticking with game past the six month mark? Almost at the 11 month mark actually, so ummm yes Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ensquire Posted July 31, 2012 Author Share Posted July 31, 2012 (edited) i'LL UPDATE THIS POST AS INFORMATION COMES Edited July 31, 2012 by Ensquire Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hunny_Bun Posted July 31, 2012 Share Posted July 31, 2012 1,3 million is the official number EA is giving as the current subscriber base One thing you should note that should not be encouraging, is the number is reflected by April numbers and it now July, this 1.3 million is not a current number. The fact that they didn't give a current number suggests a dive in numbers of Olympic proportions The fact that the CEO has down played this games importance to EA success also suggest the game is not performing as well http://files.shareholder.com/downloads/ERTS/1998143795x0x566984/c10f605c-3487-488e-ad86-b5bb74fe2408/Q4_FY12_Script.pdf It's a transcript of a call made in May 2012. The April numbers are the most recent Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Daethorz Posted July 31, 2012 Share Posted July 31, 2012 (edited) The Bigger the buisness the more ignorant and money hungry it gets. EA is so large, they dont fcking care about anything, they had numbers from WoW they could have researched, and they dident, instead they researched WoW and copied it. Swtors endgame is the same as WoW's. Most people who came here wanted to get away from WoW. Thats why everyone is leaving now. If they want to save swtor they need to start implementing a entirely new unique endgame, such as swoop racing, pazzak, dejark, better space battles, space exploration, non-linear alternate questhubs on planets, the list goes on and on all of this plus the current endgame would make it amusing and worth sticking around for. The Real question is, What has EA done to Swtor. Edited July 31, 2012 by Daethorz Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ensquire Posted July 31, 2012 Author Share Posted July 31, 2012 It's a transcript of a call made in May 2012. The April numbers are the most recent TY, typically they put a date next to the pda when its released this one had no date so I thought it was recent as of today Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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