In your educated opinion, what's the fate of this game?

[AshenK]

I get that you are an unhappy customer, but please provide some insight as to why this game will be gone by early next year or even this year. I can still log into other EA owned MMOs today which had far fewer players than SWTOR. Do you have any facts to support this statement?

There's been a heavy sub loss of about 85% of the subs. Also look at the forums along with all the social media about TOR and that will tell you something. Know what it tells me? Everyone is unhappy with the game even the 'core' game people dislike big time. Oh and how many players are going to be gone in the next few hours? Believe me it's not going to be a small number.

 

Oh but how about those other two MMO's UO and WAR they are still up and running. Don't forget that UO doesn't cost a whole lot to run now. And Warhammer the same thing. This game? 300 to 500 million dollars. It hasn't made that back and at this point I get the feeling that there's more money lost then what's coming in.

[Rafael_Peres]

Will be a success.

[Soluss]

A primary point in his post was F2P won't help the game... followed by the usual repetative and subjective yada yada negative game commentary.

 

Rather then target the repetative yada yada, as you acuse me of so often doing , I provided a contrast on the matter of F2P.

 

Please don't tell me how to post, or what to post.

 

How does anything you wrote, describe how F2P will help this game?

[Andryah]

From what I read, AshenK was not debating the pros and cons of F2P, HE WAS DISCUSSING WHY F2P WON'T HELP THE GAME.

 

You went on to simply discuss the pros of F2P (not that I am arguing them... F2P can help inject revenue), but you did not address the post you were replying to.

 

No my friend, I presented a actual contrast that shows F2P actually improves the business success of MMOs, and sited evidence to support the claim, rather they hyperbolic opinion.

 

Once again, please stop telling me what to post or how to post.

[Draekos]

Logging in and getting updates to a thriving game are two different things. If this game does not make enough money then it will look the same, as it does now, at this time next year.

 

I agree, but my experience with LOTRO doesn't have me afraid of F2P. It will bring in money which will help with keeping the game going. Also my response was not about lively updates but rather a poster saying the game would be shut down by early next year. Based on the MMO industry and even EAs past practices that isnt very likely at all.

[Rafael_Peres]

There's been a heavy sub loss of about 85% of the subs. Also look at the forums along with all the social media about TOR and that will tell you something. Know what it tells me? Everyone is unhappy with the game even the 'core' game people dislike big time. Oh and how many players are going to be gone in the next few hours? Believe me it's not going to be a small number.

 

Oh but how about those other two MMO's UO and WAR they are still up and running. Don't forget that UO doesn't cost a whole lot to run now. And Warhammer the same thing. This game? 300 to 500 million dollars. It hasn't made that back and at this point I get the feeling that there's more money lost then what's coming in.

Closing the servers will not give em profit as well.

Shopping centers when build take lot's of years to get all the money back and start profiting. Companies like EA have lot of financial health to support the game for the long run and it's just insane to just shut off something you put lot of investment into.

I don't know what doomsayers have in their heads at all, it's all nonsense.

[Soluss]

I agree, but my experience with LOTRO doesn't have me afraid of F2P. It will bring in money which will help with keeping the game going. Also my response was not about lively updates but rather a poster saying the game would be shut down by early next year. Based on the MMO industry and even EAs past practices that isnt very likely at all.

 

LoTRo had 3 years of content for new people to go through. ToR has no new content. Even new people will finish it in a couple months max. The people that are playing, just to finish story lines, are unlikely to purchase anything.

 

Yes, they may not shut it down completely but it will look like warhammer, if F2P doesnt work out. In the case of ToR, what difference does it make if the game is playable? Once you finish the stories, you are done. Does it matter that you can still play Kotor? Most people, I would think, would say no.

[Andryah]

How does anything you wrote, describe how F2P will help this game?

 

Freemium access models are not only popular among players, they are healthy for the MMO because they inject significant additional revenue, which results in a companies ability to increase their operations plan costs (read: investment into new content) while maintaining their profit contributions to the company.

 

Source: http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2012/08/good-riddance-the-death-of-online-gamings-monthly-subscription-model

 

And to extend the thought...the same MMOs referenced as thriving from a revenue standpoint from F2P also continued to thrive and grow in player base. By any objective measure, this is good for the game. You being unhappy with the game, does not negate the fact (except for you personally).

[Soluss]

Closing the servers will not give em profit as well.

Shopping centers when build take lot's of years to get all the money back and start profiting. Companies like EA have lot of financial health to support the game for the long run and it's just insane to just shut off something you put lot of investment into.

I don't know what doomsayers have in their heads at all, it's all nonsense.

 

Again, it doesnt matter. They may not shut the game down but they wont support it either. You dont continue to pump money in to a product that loses money.

[Draekos]

There's been a heavy sub loss of about 85% of the subs. Also look at the forums along with all the social media about TOR and that will tell you something. Know what it tells me? Everyone is unhappy with the game even the 'core' game people dislike big time. Oh and how many players are going to be gone in the next few hours? Believe me it's not going to be a small number.

 

Oh but how about those other two MMO's UO and WAR they are still up and running. Don't forget that UO doesn't cost a whole lot to run now. And Warhammer the same thing. This game? 300 to 500 million dollars. It hasn't made that back and at this point I get the feeling that there's more money lost then what's coming in.

 

85% of the subs? I don't at all dispute that this game has had a horrible retention rate post the 1.2 patch, but if we take worst case subs of 500k that would require nearly 6 million subs which is not at all close to reality. Also regarding the cost to develop Ive heard a bit lower numbers, but keep in mind that is spent money. Even at say 300k subs that is still 4.5 mil a month in cash flow, add in f2p income and I doubt they pull they plug anytime soon.

[SpazCats]

No my friend, I presented a actual contrast that shows F2P actually improves the business success of MMOs, and sited evidence to support the claim, rather they hyperbolic opinion.

 

Once again, please stop telling me what to post or how to post.

 

From what I gathered easily from Ashenk's post was that F2P won't help the game because the game's faults are still present that made the original massive loss of subscriptions happen.

 

His post was not a debate on what F2P is or isn't... only that he believes it won't help.

 

Anyway, I am sorry if we are splitting hairs here. This is an interesting thread and I don't want to derail it, so I am sorry if we have a misunderstanding.

[Soluss]

And to extend the thought...the same MMOs referenced as thriving from a revenue standpoint from F2P also continued to thrive and grow in player base. By any objective measure, this is good for the game. You being unhappy with the game, does not negate the fact (except for you personally).

 

IF it injects a significant amount of money into the game. Thats a big IF. Lotro/DDO may have been succesful but that doesnt really mean anything. Facebook and cell phone games dont mean anything. Lotro had 3 years of content into it. Half of the sub base was not really sub base. They were lifetime... non paying subscribers. Of course it had additional money injected into it... noone was really paying at that point anyways.

 

ToR is a different breed. It has a few months worth of content. Most people, that quit, will not be seeing anything new except finishing off class stories. If they couldnt bring themselves to pay 15 bucks a month, do you really see them spending atleast that much buying xp potions and fluffernutter gear? I dont. I could be wrong but my opinion is its not going to help. The game has too many flaws. 2 million people did not quit because of 15 bucks a month. They quit because it wasnt WORTH 15 bucks a month. Theres a big difference.

 

If people are suckered into spending tons of money on xp pots, fluffernutter gear, mounts and things of the sort... all the power too them. I dont think that will be the case in this game though. The problem with the game is the lack of leadership and direction. Noone on the staff knows what the hell they are doing. They dont even know what content is comming next, when it will be ready etc.... When you design an MMO you kind of need a plan in place for future content. They dont even have that. They may have a half *** plan but it seems to me that this staff is just winging it.

[Draekos]

IF it injects a significant amount of money into the game. Thats a big IF. Lotro/DDO may have been succesful but that doesnt really mean anything. Facebook and cell phone games dont mean anything. Lotro had 3 years of content into it. Half of the sub base was not really sub base. They were lifetime... non paying subscribers. Of course it had additional money injected into it... noone was really paying at that point anyways.

 

ToR is a different breed. It has a few months worth of content. Most people, that quit, will not be seeing anything new except finishing off class stories. If they couldnt bring themselves to pay 15 bucks a month, do you really see them spending atleast that much buying xp potions and fluffernutter gear? I dont. I could be wrong but my opinion is its not going to help. The game has too many flaws. 2 million people did not quit because of 15 bucks a month. They quit because it wasnt WORTH 15 bucks a month. Theres a big difference.

 

If people are suckered into spending tons of money on xp pots, fluffernutter gear, mounts and things of the sort... all the power too them. I dont think that will be the case in this game though. The problem with the game is the lack of leadership and direction. Noone on the staff knows what the hell they are doing. They dont even know what content is comming next, when it will be ready etc.... When you design an MMO you kind of need a plan in place for future content. They dont even have that. They may have a half *** plan but it seems to me that this staff is just winging it.

 

You bring up DDO which is a good example to support F2P. I was a LOTRO player at the time but being another Turbine game I decided to try it and play some. Over the course of a year of occasional play I spent like $80 on content packs(alot of which were part of the launch game not new), character slots, bank upgrades, etc. as a very casual player. Turbine basically picked up extra revenue on content they developed years ago that they would have never seen under a sub model.

[Soluss]

You bring up DDO which is a good example to support F2P. I was a LOTRO player at the time but being another Turbine game I decided to try it and play some. Over the course of a year of occasional play I spent like $80 on content packs(alot of which were part of the launch game not new), character slots, bank upgrades, etc. as a very casual player. Turbine basically picked up extra revenue on content they developed years ago that they would have never seen under a sub model.

 

Thats fine but that doesnt mean it will be the norm here. Im not saying that F2P wont work. Im just saying that I dont believe it will.

 

Put it this way.... Lets say that 20% of the people that quit come back. Do you think they are going to pay money for EV/KP/EC? I doubt it... most of the people have already been there done that. The problem is that these people are not comming back to anything new. They've already done it all. If they didnt then they arent the type of players that would do them anyways. The only thing left is the class stories.... which are free.

 

Ok, they may inject some new people into the game, that didnt try it before. Most of those people are not MMO players and didnt play the game because its an MMO. Many of them wont be buying ops/warzones and stuff either.

 

*disclaimer* these are only my opinions.. if the game does well, Im happy for it.

[SpazCats]

I disagree with you... and thats fine. Time will tell.

 

Obviously we're all just giving our opinions here... but I think the quote above hits the nail on the head.

 

In the meantime, I am curious as to what others opinions are, as the OP asked "In your educated opinion, what's the fate of this game?".

 

It is an interesting question... and this post will be really interesting to revisit in about 6 months to a year from now, just like the guy who seemed to have predicted F2P early this year in a post.

 

Let's hear what people have to say!

[Vandicus]

Well my particular field (financial analysis) is only tangentially related to operations of an MMO but I'll give reading the future here a crack.

 

My first belief is that the MMO is unlikely to shut down until the point when a new Star Wars MMO is prepared to enter the market and Lucas Arts forces the closure of this game. The only way this could change is if the population dipped low enough so that it is impossible to pay for a server for those players based on their subscriptions. This would require a 95%+ drop in population from its current point. As long as the company is making a single cent in profit by keeping the servers up they will. Also development costs for new content and the original start up cost of the game have NO relevance on whether the company will keep the servers up. High start up costs do not change cost/benefit analysis for whether staying in operation makes sense after those high start up costs have been paid, and development costs can be zero'd by eliminating the development team. So the game will undoubtedly be around until the next Star Wars MMO.

 

My second belief is that F2P hybrd model will be much more profitable than the subscription model they're with now. That is not to stay that f2p is itself a good or bad thing for the game, but simply that the f2p model they're employing has had much previous success in reviving dead MMO populations and making the games fairly profitable for the designers. Moreover, there are many "f2p" games out today that make a good deal of profit through the use of Microtransactions. Guild Wars 2 for example hopes to produce revenue through a combination of their cash shop and selling x-pacs.

 

My third belief is that we will not see true p2win any sooner than 6 months after f2p. They will need at least 2 months to analyze the result from the 1-49 blues, take another 2 months with internal debate, and spend the last 2 months preparing to implement the sale of p2win items. This is not to say that it will occur, but that the minimum amount of time in which they can execute a shift to p2win will be 6 months after their cash shop is implemented.

 

I strongly despise p2win and would likely quit playing the game if it became p2win, and it is my hope that they do not do so.However,

 

My fourth belief is that it is impossible to ascertain with any reasonable degree of certainty which direction the game will take regarding p2win vs Freemium. No person external to EA knows the people who makes these decisions personally, and no one knows how much money the freemium model will make and what their own analysts will tell them will be more profitable. I will point out that p2win would greatly tarnish Bioware's brand name and lower the value of the company to EA and its potential future earnings, and models such as DDO have shown that f2p, or rather b2p(in which one buys access to content) can work without becoming p2win, so there's a chance for either.

 

SWTOR F2P the player population and profit margins will bounce back. The game will likely continue to improve unless it goes p2win, the question is merely at what rate.

[Cordelia]

SWTOR F2P the player population and profit margins will bounce back. The game will likely continue to improve unless it goes p2win, the question is merely at what rate.

 

I agree with your assessment there but would add the caveat that I believe the 'bounce' will be temporary. I think we will then see population decline slowly but then steady out at <500k. I can't honestly see population being in the millions a year after it goes F2P. I certainly don't think TOR is going to disappear anytime soon but it may have to accept that the 2 million subs it had just after launch was the highest population it will ever reach and just be happy with the niche it has filled.

Edited August 25, 2012 by Cordelia

[jarjarloves]

Oh I so wish I was! But it seems that Bioware/EA (and it's mainly EA I feel) that has been making some pretty serious snap decisions on this game. So it would not surprise me if they continued on that path, and as soon as F2P does not carry the hope they thought it did, that they just might make another snap decision and shut the game down.

 

To be sure, this is, of course, my opinion. And, as I stated before, I hope I am wrong. And yeah, no one knows what will happen here... even Bioware/EA at this point.

 

seeing as DCUO was able to increase it's sales by 700% by going F2P and DDO and LOTRO had similar success I wouldn't count on it happening for a long time.

 

Again EA is still running WAR as a P2P game.

[Noobishlord]

Personally, I have no idea what the fate of the game is. I gave up my Psychic Prediction classes months ago. Too many headaches. If this game fails spectacularly or suddenly finds a second life with the Free-to-Play model, won't know which until it happens.

 

If this game fails, I will enjoy the fact that I got to play my KoTOR 3, and move on to something else.

 

If it finds its second life, I will enjoy playing with a surging community, and continue to enjoy another game set in the Old Republic era.

 

TL,DR (though how, I don't know...)

Predictions are for psychics and frauds. Enjoy the now, deal with the future when it gets here.

Edited August 25, 2012 by Noobishlord

[SpazCats]

seeing as DCUO was able to increase it's sales by 700% by going F2P and DDO and LOTRO had similar success I wouldn't count on it happening for a long time.

 

Again EA is still running WAR as a P2P game.

 

The difference I see though is that DDO and LOTRO were all very established games, with years worth of updates put into the game already to keep the new players happy.

 

This is not the case with SWTOR.

 

Although I do agree, with DCUO still going strong, that is a good sign, as that was a pretty new game too when it went F2P (I think it was anyway... I might be mis-remembering that).

[Vandicus]

I agree with your assessment there but would add the caveat that I believe the 'bounce' will be temporary. I think we will then see population decline slowly but then steady out at <500k. I can't honestly see population being in the millions a year after it goes F2P. I certainly don't think TOR is going to disappear anytime soon but it may have to accept that the 2 million subs it had just after launch was the highest population it will ever reach and just be happy with the niche it has filled.

 

When you say population are you referring to subs only or do you include f2p? I personally believe that subs+f2pers will end up exceeding 1.7 million(the highest subs the game has had) by a good amount and stay beyond that point. As for subscribers, well I've got no clue there, as this all depends on their unreleased f2p hybrid model and how good at encouraging people to sub it is.

Edited August 25, 2012 by Vandicus

[Fornix]

I personally foresee the fate of this game as rather positive. Prior to launch I was already of opinion that a subscription model to this game would not work out, the mark is simply too saturated, no new subscription title will ever retain millions of subs again. But with the rapid action by EA/BioWare in that to make the switch to a freemium model I foresee a rather positive outlook.

 

I know many people here feel otherwise and have their own personal gripes with the freemium model. But for the quality this game has to offer in terms of story and the kotor experience the game has to offer we'll for one see a continuous stream of players just for that. Their presence will stimulate the ingame economy, it'll stimulate party formation, etc. As that improves, it'll have a positive effect on players willing to subscribe or unlock the higher level group content.

 

Additionally as the game matures more and more players will gain the regular attachment to their characters, and become less and less likely to simply move off.

 

This game will remain around for years to come, and with a regular income of patches (so far once every 2 - 3 months; even if they fail to make their desire to speed that up to once every 6 weeks, will mean that after about 2 - 3 years there's a high amount of content available already).

[Cordelia]

When you say population are you referring to subs only or do you include f2p? I personally believe that subs+f2pers will end up exceeding 1.7 million(the highest subs the game has had) by a good amount and stay beyond that point. As for subscribers, well I've got no clue there, as this all depends on their unreleased f2p hybrid model and how good at encouraging people to sub it is.

 

I mean overall population. After the initial burst from F2P excitement and people trying the game out, I think we will see population steadily fall again. I certainly don't see it sustaining population above 1.7 million. There is too much competition now and to be honest, 60% of those who answered the survey when they quit cited reasons other than cost for leaving.

[Cordelia]

This thread has got me wondering how many of us are loyal to one game now. I'd be interested to hear. I suspect many people are like me, in that in the past they might have had one MMO they played almost exclusively, but now we might have a couple on the go.

[AscendantOps]

If the developers don't address the problems they're having with the game and pay little to zero attention to the requests of the community, I fear SWTOR will be a mere shadow of what is was three-four months back. Content updates should be more frequent. Trying to maximize income from the game while spending as little as possible time and money on the community's content requests and patches is, assuredly, the end of every major MMO.