Forbes thinks TOR is a financial disaster for EA. Your thoughts

[Ensquire]

you should really stop insulting peeps and go read the investors call that states they had an increase in active subscribers to 1.3 mil.

 

That investor call was back in april, when they Extended everyone subscription by one month, and your right about the insults, however, when you've got proof of what I'm saying and then I get it isn't good enough, lol, so I was being cocky when i went and found it.

 

As of right now, electronics Arts stock has bottom out days before the shareholders meeting, my forecast is there's nothing good to be said during that meeting. I honestly can tell you though they'll say they can turn things around, Look at the blackberry RIM, they're bottoming out too and saying the same thing

Edited July 28, 2012 by Ensquire

[Aricus]

A market that supports 20+ million players is not niche, gearing isnt limited to mmos, fps have them too, rpgs. And mmos are not like stand alone games. MMO's are living breathing beasts always moving forwards, always developing and its the mmos that do not develope after release that go stagnent. The ones that push forward in development hit a peak and stay there and the rough guide for that peak is 1 year old.

 

Yes FPS, RPGs have gear grinds too but the level of acquiring them is pretty much instant rather than weeks or months long grind, two different things really. In fact a huge difference. Also you're not blocked completely if you don't get the next best tier of gear unlike in MMOs you are.

 

All mmos get a slight dip after release simply by people who buy it to try it and are predominantly hoppers. These boards and ingame chat is full of people who left and then came back, WoW suffered from the exact same thing but got a leg up from the soe fallout espec in terms of the MXO debacle.

 

Yes all MMOs do get a slight dip, however, I am not talking about a slight dip I am talking about the exodus.. Lost 400k subs out of 1.7 mill in a few months IS NOT A SLIGHT DIP. Also WoW did not suffer the same thing, WoW increase subs since day one. It never NEVER experienced a huge dip until recently. The jury is out on if they can recover the nearly 2 million lost subs.

 

Its also unjust to state that these passed months are anything but fluctating violently. We have MOP throw its doors open for beta, gw2 threw its doors open for beta, TWS threw its doors open for beta and D3 was givven away to wow players. Everything i just stated there was free gaming directed straight at the mmo market so obviously your gonna have huge migrations of mmo players moving from one to the other.

 

SO... WoW had like what tons of new MMOs that came out and none of them shocked it's player base at all. Not until recently but we don't know if that's due to boredom or other MMO release. According to Blizz most of them were from Asia and since SWTOR didn't have Asia release at the time can't quite put the blame on it for Blizz's lost subs.

 

You have wow players who are locked into annual passes, They bought this game with a few months subs but they are mainly in mop beta and are going todo mop. The fact they bought this is a sign they arnt to pleased with wow anymore and want something fresh.

 

Okay... So doesn't SWTOR have players locked in a 6 month pass? What's your point? Besides these people knew fully well what they were getting into.

 

So in this market temprement the 1st few months mean nothing beyond the fact that there is alot of free things todo.

 

Uhh yes it does. WoW didn't decline in it's first moth, but games like Warhammer, AoC, STO and etc did and did they ever regain their subs? No. This one more than likely won't either.

Edited July 28, 2012 by Aricus

[Shingara]

That investor call was back in april, when they Extended everyone subscription by one month

 

Im sure you have a point in that somewhere, mind getting to it, cos as you agree that it was an increase to 1.3 and not a lose to 1.3 do you mind getting to it.

[Ensquire]

Im sure you have a point in that somewhere, mind getting to it, cos as you agree that it was an increase to 1.3 and not a lose to 1.3 do you mind getting to it.

 

That number was actually a drop from 1.7 million to 1.3 million, the trend currently is not looking like that number is rising, and the point was that the three month players, who were ready to leave got an extended month of active subscription prior to the shareholders meeting inflating that number of active subs to 1.3 million, how much inflation? I don't know

Edited July 28, 2012 by Ensquire

[jarjarloves]

Uhh yes it does. WoW didn't decline in it's first moth, but games like Warhammer, AoC, STO and etc did and did they ever regain their subs? No. This one more than likely won't either.

 

big big difference betwene those three games and this one.

 

This game was never shipped incomplete like those ones.

 

STO. Do I really need to go into detail on how bad that game was at launch? It was Tabula Rasa bad.

 

AoC. Levels 1-20 where great. After that the game was empty for the next 60 levels. Not to mention it had several game breaking bugs like the PVP bug where you couldn't target the other team but they could target and kill you.

 

WAR...... don't even need to go into how bad this game was.

 

 

This game has lost a lot of players but no where near what those ones have. This game has also been very good at fixing bugs. The other three games would go weeks or months with out fixing game breaking bugs.

 

Now will SWTOR ever get back up to 1.7 million? I wouldn't say it's impossible but unlikely at least until they add some time of SWG style space combat.

 

Most likely it will stabalize between 500k and 750k players which btw is no way a failure.

[jarjarloves]

That number was actually a drop from 1.7 million to 1.3 million, the trend currently is not looking like that number is rising, and the point was that the three month players, who were ready to leave got an extended month for that prior forecast inflating that number of active subs by however how much I don't know

 

it takes more then 2 numbers to have a trend.

[Lt_Latency]

They don't spend 200 million on games for niche genres. WoW was the most played game for years and years and is till in the top 5 with games like cod and lol

[Shingara]

Yes

FPS, RPGs have gear grinds too but the level of acquiring them is pretty much instant rather than weeks or months long grind, two different things really. In fact a huge difference. Also you're not blocked completely if you don't get the next best tier of gear unlike in MMOs you are.

 

 

 

Yes all MMOs do get a slight dip, however, I am not talking about a slight dip I am talking about the exodus.. Lost 400k subs out of 1.7 mill in a few months IS NOT A SLIGHT DIP. Also WoW did no suffer the same thing, WoW increase subs since day way. It never NEVER experienced a huge dip until recently. The jury is out on if they can recover the nearly 2 million lost subs.

 

 

 

SO... WoW had like what tons of new MMOs that came out and none of them shocked it's player base at all. Not until recently but we don't know if that's due to boredom or other MMO release. According to Blizz most of them were from Asia and since SWTOR didn't have Asia release at the time can't quite put the blame on it for Blizz's lost subs.

 

 

 

Okay... So doesn't SWTOR have players locked in a 6 month pass? What's your point? Besides these people knew fully well what they were getting into.

 

 

 

Uhh yes it does. WoW didn't decline in it's first moth, but games like Warhammer, AoC, STO and etc did and did they ever regain their subs? No. This one more than likely won't either

.

 

1st they didnt have a lose from 1.7 to 1.3, they never had 1.7 mil subs, they had 1.7 mil active accounts, the 400k never subscribed which covers basically everything you said. WoW was rocked by other mmos but in true wow style they simply hijacked the features from those and implanted them into wow and pulled there players back.

 

To your other bits Warhammer suffered from terrible server stability directly responsible to GOA and wow nicked most of the ideas didnt help, STO was flawed from the start, a 2 sided mmo with only 1 side having content and then a takeover. AOC i never played so have no idea about.

 

SWTOR is in a turbulant market, and like i said all the betas floating about especially with wow where the bulk of any new players to here are going to come from are tied into MOP and the annual pass so the bulk of them will not move until mop is out and played.

 

Alot of players are waiting for space, mini games, they were witing for ranked and others waiting for the new content and the game to be fleshed out. And they have plenty of other things todo until that is done.

 

With what Bioware has in development for SWTOR what we have now isnt going to be anything like we have a year from now.

Edited July 28, 2012 by Shingara

[Arlbo_Nabbins]

I agree, Blizzard has made some layoffs not to long ago, plus their stock is hoovering around the same price as EA's.

I just think the gaming industry is declining. It'll be worst if the new console systems that come out banns the use of pre-own copies.

 

Won't be so bad in the EU as doing that would be illegal, a recent ruling even says it would be illegal to do that with a digital download that is resold.

[Shingara]

That number was actually a drop from 1.7 million to 1.3 million, the trend currently is not looking like that number is rising, and the point was that the three month players, who were ready to leave got an extended month of active subscription prior to the shareholders meeting inflating that number of active subs to 1.3 million, how much inflation? I don't know

 

Actually no, the 1.7 was all people playing and the suggested subscribers is around 800k at that point and the rest were in there free month. The 1.3 was active subscribers discounting the free month you got with the game.

[Lt_Latency]

!st they didnt have a lose from 1.7 to 1.3, they never had 1.7 mil subs, they had 1.7 mil active accounts, the 400k never subscribed which covers basically everything you said. WoW was rocked by other mmos but in true wow style they simply hijacked the features from those and implanted them into wow and pulled there players back.

 

To your other bits Warhammer suffered from terrible server stability directly responsible to GOA and wow nicked most of the ideas didnt help, STO was flawed from the start, a 2 sided mmo with only 1 side having content and then a takeover. AOC i never played so have no idea about.

 

SWTOR is in a turbulant market, and like i said all the betas floating about especially with wow where the bulk of any new players to here are going to come from are tied into MOP and the annual pass so the bulk of them will not move until mop is out and played.

 

Alot of players are waiting for space, mini games, they were witing for ranked and others waiting for the new content and the game to be fleshed out. And they have plenty of other things todo until that is done.

 

With what Bioware has in development for SWTOR what we have now isnt going to be anything like we have a year from now.

 

What do they have?? Another planet and some extra levels??

 

they have not talked about anything new or mind blowing, yet

[Aricus]

big big difference betwene those three games and this one.

 

This game was never shipped incomplete like those ones.

 

STO. Do I really need to go into detail on how bad that game was at launch? It was Tabula Rasa bad.

 

AoC. Levels 1-20 where great. After that the game was empty for the next 60 levels. Not to mention it had several game breaking bugs like the PVP bug where you couldn't target the other team but they could target and kill you.

 

WAR...... don't even need to go into how bad this game was.

 

 

This game has lost a lot of players but no where near what those ones have. This game has also been very good at fixing bugs. The other three games would go weeks or months with out fixing game breaking bugs.

 

Now will SWTOR ever get back up to 1.7 million? I wouldn't say it's impossible but unlikely at least until they add some time of SWG style space combat.

 

Most likely it will stabalize between 500k and 750k players which btw is no way a failure.

 

OH I SEE.. So your'e trying to Say that SWTOR is a complete game (when compared to the others you listed) but yet it still managed to lose 400k subs.. So in order words the game sucks then?

[Luxidenstore]

I really want to keep playing and do my part in getting the game back on track, but they need to get their act together. They can't just go silent all the time - layoffs or not. In fact, communicating after all this would do at lot to calm some of the people down. I say some because there's a group who will always be negative.

 

I personally want clarification of upcomming features - what can we expect? The community seems to have no idea, with some people thinking we get makeb, level increase etc. Next patch, while others think that's not going to happen. I'm in last group. But how about an answer so that when people get the patch they aren't massively dissapointed? And then start talking about 1.4, because with the lack of info around this next patch the most likely conclusion is that it's still far away. I don't think this game can hold it's own that long without fresh, new content. A new event during this patch would have helped, but nothing yet.

 

Or just give a time frame. I mean, last time we got the announcement days before the patch itself. Why is that? To me it seems a bit strange.

Edited July 28, 2012 by Luxidenstore

[Shingara]

What do they have?? Another planet and some extra levels??

 

they have not talked about anything new or mind blowing, yet

 

Well we have space which is the biggest project i would think, we have minigames coming and they are addapting aspects of the game to more roleplaying features. But this is the key a tiny feature can make a great difference. Take arenas for example in wow. On the face of it a simply idea, team deathmatch pvp. Yet look what it has done for wow, made it an e-sport and basically proped up wow in its content draughts.

 

If they made a spectator mode and let out huttball for e-sports with set teams or even put arenas here. bezinga.

Edited July 28, 2012 by Shingara

[jarjarloves]

What do they have?? Another planet and some extra levels??

 

they have not talked about anything new or mind blowing, yet

 

except of course

New Operation

New Flashpoint

New Warzone

New Space Missions

Something "big" to Space Missions

Guild Capital Ships

New Playable Race

 

Just that

 

Of course most of that is going to be in 1.4 with the new planet and new levels in 1.5

[Ensquire]

Actually no, the 1.7 was all people playing and the suggested subscribers is around 800k at that point and the rest were in there free month. The 1.3 was active subscribers discounting the free month you got with the game.

 

That information Your using is dated back to February

http://www.joystiq.com/2012/02/01/swtor-sales-feb-2012/

Updated information for may says active subscribers are around 1.3 million,

http://articles.marketwatch.com/2012-05-07/industries/31606454_1_ea-sales-active-subscribers-colin-sebastian

 

what i'm saying for that 1.3 million number was released that number was inflated because of the one month free they gave out prior to the shareholder meeting

Edited July 28, 2012 by Ensquire

[Lt_Latency]

Well we have space which is the biggest project i would think, we have minigames coming and they are addapting aspects of the game to more roleplaying features. But this is the key a tiny feature can make a great difference. Take arenas for example in wow. On the face of it a simply idea, team deathmatch pvp. Yet look what it has done for wow, made it an e-sport and basically proped up wow in its content draughts.

 

I'm not holding my breath on this space thing, Remember when they said. Illum is a massive epic PvP that the players don't know anything about but will be very surprised at how good it is.

 

Until they show us something concrete it could just be some and mirrors. I don't even get why they would work on space?? Who plays the current one. Space is not a popular genre of game play.

 

 

I didn't know about the other stuff though, maybe that will be good

Edited July 28, 2012 by Lt_Latency

[jarjarloves]

OH I SEE.. So your'e trying to Say that SWTOR is a complete game (when compared to the others you listed) but yet it still managed to lose 400k subs.. So in order words the game sucks then?

 

yeah 400k subs so? WoW has lost several million.

 

The point is percetnages. The 3 games mentioned lost 75% of their subs by the third month.

 

SWTIOR lost what 20% by month 3 and 40% month 6? That's pretty damn good. We will have to see what the subs stablize at. No MMO has ever been able to have 100% Retention. Not even WoW.

[Shingara]

That information Your using is dated back to February

http://www.joystiq.com/2012/02/01/swtor-sales-feb-2012/

Updated information for may says active subscribers are around 1.3 million

http://articles.marketwatch.com/2012-05-07/industries/31606454_1_ea-sales-active-subscribers-colin-sebastian

 

No that info i am going from is the horses mouth, http://investor.ea.com/

[Lt_Latency]

except of course

New Operation

New Flashpoint

New Warzone

New Space Missions

Something "big" to Space Missions

Guild Capital Ships

New Playable Race

 

Just that

 

Of course most of that is going to be in 1.4 with the new planet and new levels in 1.5

 

Yes, that is more of what we have which is what i would expect. They were talking about the game looking very different from the game we play to day.

[jarjarloves]

I'm not holding my breath on this space thing, Remember when they said. Illum is a massive epic PvP that the players don't know anything about but will be very surprised at how good it is.

 

Until they show us something concrete it could just be some and mirrors. I don't even get why they would work on space?? Who plays the current one. Space is not a popular genre of game play.

 

 

I didn't know about the other stuff though, maybe that will be good

 

don't kid yourself SWG style Space Combat or even X-wing vs Tie Fighter would be HUGE for this game. It would give people a big reason on why they should play this instead of WoW.

[Shingara]

I'm not holding my breath on this space thing, Remember when they said. Illum is a massive epic PvP that the players don't know anything about but will be very surprised at how good it is.

 

Until they show us something concrete it could just be some and mirrors. I don't even get why they would work on space?? Who plays the current one. Space is not a popular genre of game play.

 

 

I didn't know about the other stuff though, maybe that will be good

 

The exact same can be said about any mmo company, illum was a bit defunked but it was a flawed conept and i happy they atleast tried something. But look at bliz, path of the titans you remember that, smoke and mirrors to keep us playing, Titan been known about for how long as the saviour of blizzard..................... vivienda wanting to sell them and mop which just looks pants.

 

Ill put my eggs in the bioware basket. And space done right will be a game changer, if done right its a game in its own right.

Edited July 28, 2012 by Shingara

[TheRealCandyMan]

They made up their investment already. How is making a slight profit, a disaster? Is it a resounding hit/success? That's debatable. But is is it a disaster? Certainly not/

 

I'm sure you're way more in tune with all the fine details related to the financials of this game than the people over at Forbes:rolleyes:

 

 

Maybe EA should have realized that voice overs for everything doesn't cover up a bad MMO.

Edited July 28, 2012 by TheRealCandyMan

[Aricus]

1st they didnt have a lose from 1.7 to 1.3, they never had 1.7 mil subs, they had 1.7 mil active accounts, the 400k never subscribed which covers basically everything you said. WoW was rocked by other mmos but in true wow style they simply hijacked the features from those and implanted them into wow and pulled there players back.

 

To your other bits Warhammer suffered from terrible server stability directly responsible to GOA and wow nicked most of the ideas didnt help, STO was flawed from the start, a 2 sided mmo with only 1 side having content and then a takeover. AOC i never played so have no idea about.

 

SWTOR is in a turbulant market, and like i said all the betas floating about especially with wow where the bulk of any new players to here are going to come from are tied into MOP and the annual pass so the bulk of them will not move until mop is out and played.

 

Alot of players are waiting for space, mini games, they were witing for ranked and others waiting for the new content and the game to be fleshed out. And they have plenty of other things todo until that is done.

 

With what Bioware has in development for SWTOR what we have now isnt going to be anything like we have a year from now.

 

Lol... You're making up a lot of excuses... Ok lets go back some. If the game was good I don't think players would of hit the cancel button of their account before they were charged. Second WoW wasn't rocked by other MMOs because they never experienced a decline in subs until 2011, how many times do I have to say that. Hell here's a link that will help with visualization, maybe you're not a good listen and need demonstrations. http://users.telenet.be/mmodata/Charts/Subs-1.png

 

BW development has slowed down progressively. You really think they're going to change all that much besides getting a new companion, more FPs and Raids, and more legacy crap? You're only fooling yourself. Sure we may get a new class quest but that's not until next year, according to their Comic-Con statement.

[Lt_Latency]

don't kid yourself SWG style Space Combat or even X-wing vs Tie Fighter would be HUGE for this game. It would give people a big reason on why they should play this instead of WoW.

 

They genere as a whole is on death door way.

 

That don't even bother making these types of games anymore with any sort of budget. It would be different but i think it's over a bad place to spend a lot of time and resourses