EA Statement on Subscriber Numbers

[DarthBandeth]

50 million players by next year sounds perfectly reasonable.

 

Lol, love sarcasm.

 

Sorry, 50 million is never going to happen, that's how many people watched the first Presidential Debate in America, there's no way that many will be playing SWTOR.

 

The hero engine can't even handle 20 people in the same place.

[Deewe]

I like the "AAA" comment, as if WoW was triple A when it came out. If WoW were released today, in the condition it was when it hit the streets, it would flop. It had no end game content, no PvP content except world which sucked bad, no group finder or any of those other "AAA" features.

 

WoW had timing most of all, at the time it's compitition was was UO and EQ, UO was self destructing and people were bored with EQ.

Totally wrong Sir.

 

At the time Wow had something none other MMO had: quality and polish.

 

While not perfect Wow was and will stay as the MMO who set new quality standard in the MMO world.

Before that all the studios delivered half baked MMO, because it was supposedly impossible to make such complex games without many major bugs.

 

Now if you look at other games: SWG set the highest standard for socialization in terms of tools and incentives. And for Rift it was for the speed of the content publishing. Lotro had the smoothest launch.

[LogicalPremise]

Just so we are staying clear here, the OP has two parts to it.

 

1) what EA said about paid subscriptions.

 

2) What an investment analyst said about the upside estimates about the F2P model shift.

 

It is number 2 where the claims about total active accounts comes from, not from EA. It from a stock investment analyst named Michael Patcher.

 

But, don't take my word for it.. here is the actual analyst comments from an August 1 feed (sans the TORwars packaging): http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2012-08-01-star-wars-the-old-republic-could-attract-upwards-of-50-million-monthly-players-says-wedbush

 

I think the idiotic analysis is driven in large part by EA's claims of what drove people away.

 

Throwaway analysis : asked 15 old guildmates why they quit SWTOR. 10 of 15 said "content wasn't worth the money or time", 2 stated "cost too much" and 3 said "too many bugs (random BW bashing).

 

My analysis is no more accurate or applicable than the one by EA. I can probably find 15 people who quit WoW for SWTOR for the EXACT same reasons and percentages.

 

Banking on achieving solid growth solely on going F2P is only really viable if the underlying game can

 

1) attract new players

2) convince new players to either subscribe or buy store content

 

We know it's not one -- if the price is the problem, none of the F2P people will want to sub. That implies they feel they can drive profit from the cash store.

 

Now, companies like Perfect World are excellent at this. They know what to sell, that people will want, and buy in droves. EA has no such experience. So they think they can go F2P and make up tons of money from the cash shop. But what drives such sales that doesn't enter into P2W?

 

Lots and lots of cosmetic options? Respecs? Paid transfers?

 

In the end, aside from what (ridiculous) comments made by the stock analysts who probably have the stock shorted anyway, what people need to examine is BW contention that 40% left for sub prices, but why did the other 60% leave? Do we have any insight into that?

[Andryah]

I think the idiotic analysis is driven in large part by EA's claims of what drove people away.

 

Throwaway analysis : asked 15 old guildmates why they quit SWTOR. 10 of 15 said "content wasn't worth the money or time", 2 stated "cost too much" and 3 said "too many bugs (random BW bashing).

 

My analysis is no more accurate or applicable than the one by EA. I can probably find 15 people who quit WoW for SWTOR for the EXACT same reasons and percentages.

 

 

Once again... and I'll say it sllllllooooooowwwwlllly..... IT IS NOT AN EA ANALYST.... IT'S AN INDEPENDENT ANALYST at Wedbush.

 

Read that actual linked article. It has nothing to do with any claims by EA. It's an industry analyst who tracks and comments on EA to the investment communty.

Edited October 6, 2012 by Andryah

[LogicalPremise]

 

Once again... and I'll say it sllllllooooooowwwwlllly..... IT IS NOT AN EA ANALYST.... IT'S AN INDEPENDENT ANALYST at Wedbush.

 

Read that actual linked article. It has nothing to do with any claims by EA. It's an industry analyst who tracks and comments on EA to the investment communty.

 

To clarify ( and I admit I was unclear) I'm talking about EA's analysis saying that F2P would fix everything since 40% of the people cited cost as a reason, not the moronic Wedbush garbage.

[Foobert]

The idea of F2P is to not have free players but to have players that will pay for content. The barrier for that content is still money. When they release new content, for F2P people, it will be no different then what you just said. You will have to drop coin on that just like MoP.

 

Even still, 50 million people is more then ambitious guestimate

 

Perhaps you ought to look into studies on behavioral and market psychology or game theory. People are way willing to be nickel and dimed because it's easier to believe that the chunk of content they are buying for the lower cost is a better value for amount of stuff they are buying. It's why so many people play the lottery, single dollars at a time, and how shoppers tend to spend more total money buying more units of an item on sale than they might rationally need because their brains says they are saving per unit. The real question is: what is the optimum length of time that the behavior remains sustained? At some point, the lowered-perceived-cost-reward cycle no longer provides as much perceived reward due to the dwindling remaining unsampled content and the player will lose interest in shelling more out for less and less desirable things they haven't bought yet. This is the leapfrog strategy that F2P games strive for: drive the MT purchase behavior until satiation and then introduce enough new content to drive another cycle of consumption.

Edited October 6, 2012 by Foobert

[Andryah]

Perhaps you ought to look into studies on behavioral and market psychology or game theory. People are way willing to be nickel and dimed because it's easier to believe that the chunk of content they are buying for the lower cost is more equivalent to the perceived worth of the smaller amount of stuff they are getting.

 

Yep. It's a transactional mindset, and it is a growing mindset in the broader consumer base. Successful companies exploit this mindset by creating many small things that trigger a transaction response. It's low hanging fruit in the customer base (and it is silly for companies not to harvest it). If it wasn't there would be no persistent surge in free/freemium game proliferation in smart phones and personal computers.

 

TL;DR: consumers like microtransactions.... microtransactions are gratifying..... they want more (not less).

Edited October 6, 2012 by Andryah

[Andryah]

To clarify ( and I admit I was unclear) I'm talking about EA's analysis saying that F2P would fix everything since 40% of the people cited cost as a reason, not the moronic Wedbush garbage.

 

OK.... got it.

 

I'm less certain then you about EAs analysis on F2P brining back prior players. We have players coming back every day now without it.... so who knows. Regardless.... there is always a strong upside for sub-2-freemium moves for the more popular MMOs.... so there is no downside to going that way and lots of upside.

[Nemmar]

This post is so full of mistruths that I dont even know where to start.

 

Seriously, i dont know how you get off with posts like these.

 

If you have nothing to say, dont say anything. There is no mistruth in my post. But there is twisting in the arguments that demand this game to be perfect cause it cost alot to develop. Link me to when they told you this game was gonna be the perfect WoW sucessor. They never said that. They said, that they were gonna make an MMO out of KOTOR.

 

Its the facts here. Mistruth is making poor posts like that that hint at something else.

 

Since when, in this world has price = quality? What makes this game any different? At least we got a good game, but the expectations of the perfect MMO, were a bit off the realm of the reasonable and what we were promised the game would be.

 

Hey bub I'm not back in the game, I just have an active sub due to a game card, the reason I'm not in game is because I can't handle the crappy *** graphics on my new i7 that I bought FOR the game. So.... Where does that leave me. Most likely in another game that doesn't have the issues that the Dev team doesn't want to fix. Because obviously like me and the rest of the people who can't play because of the crap graphic flaws. It's not there game...... Lol...../slit wrists hrmm no blood omg EA sucked it out of me.....

 

I dont know what your issue is, but i doubt its related to the processor. I have a less powerful processor and my game runs fine. I dont know what kind of setup you made for this game, but i dont know anyone that has had graphics problems with this game aside obvious graphics glitches. Including people with an i7. I'm more inclined to think those are because of poorly put together systems, or not properly setup options.

 

I think people in this game are quick to blame bioware for everything that doesnt run perfectly on their machine because of the fame the game got for beeing glitchy. Try everything on your side. I doubt there isnt a way to solve your problem that you can use. Also, im more inclined to believe that your problem might be elsewhere in the system.

Edited October 6, 2012 by Nemmar

[Darth_Bond]

50 million players by next year sounds perfectly reasonable.

 

lol...

[Mowermanx]

Its also the EA "analysts" that think people left the game because it wasnt free.

 

You do know, when unsubscribing, a textbox pops up in your face so you can say why you are leaving?

[Mowermanx]

Yep. It's a transactional mindset, and it is a growing mindset in the broader consumer base. Successful companies exploit this mindset by creating many small things that trigger a transaction response. It's low hanging fruit in the customer base (and it is silly for companies not to harvest it). If it wasn't there would be no persistent surge in free/freemium game proliferation in smart phones and personal computers.

 

TL;DR: consumers like microtransactions.... microtransactions are gratifying..... they want more (not less).

 

Indeed, one only has to look at Zynga's figures to see how well nickle and diming works.

The only way I can see EA failing in this, is to not offer thousands of things to buy.

[Durasturan]

Hey bub I'm not back in the game, I just have an active sub due to a game card, the reason I'm not in game is because I can't handle the crappy *** graphics on my new i7 that I bought FOR the game. So.... Where does that leave me. Most likely in another game that doesn't have the issues that the Dev team doesn't want to fix. Because obviously like me and the rest of the people who can't play because of the crap graphic flaws. It's not there game...... Lol...../slit wrists hrmm no blood omg EA sucked it out of me.....

 

i7 don't mean jack if you have a 256MB gpu, which since you didn't give us a model i'm guessing is the case. or if you're running 2GB of ram. I have 3.2 GHZ i7 2GB sli gpu(s) 8GB ram. I can have one monitor open with all sorts of apps, winamp, browsers, skype, word docs all going at once and still get 60fps (I have it limited) with all max settings and shadows.

 

If the rest of your rig is decent, then you're probably loaded down with a bunch of viruses or background programs that are draining your system resources.

[SiXXXX]

lack of patience is sad. I dont remember WoW being the perfect MMO model during its first year. In fact when I tried it early on I thought it sucked. I never did give it another chance because the time frame didn't appeal to me. This game sure isn't perfect, but you know what? It has potential. If it didn't there wouldn't be people coming on the forums and going on the FB page complaining. Unless they are trolls, in which case they have to worth to the real world let alone in this game. The worst thing that could possibly happen is if nobody says anything and they all leave and ignore the games existence.

 

That being said, this game is 10 months old. It can improve. In my opinion the single player elements alone make it worth 15 a month. I enjoy all my different characters. They have until I beat all 8 class stories to hook me. And by then there should be an expansion, a new level cap, and majority of the issues fixed. If by year 2 this game isn't fixed I will call it a lost cause. Patience young ones, this game can go from Padawan to Master. Just give it a break, and some freaking time.

 

That is all

[Soluss]

Perhaps you ought to look into studies on behavioral and market psychology or game theory. People are way willing to be nickel and dimed because it's easier to believe that the chunk of content they are buying for the lower cost is a better value for amount of stuff they are buying. It's why so many people play the lottery, single dollars at a time, and how shoppers tend to spend more total money buying more units of an item on sale than they might rationally need because their brains says they are saving per unit. The real question is: what is the optimum length of time that the behavior remains sustained? At some point, the lowered-perceived-cost-reward cycle no longer provides as much perceived reward due to the dwindling remaining unsampled content and the player will lose interest in shelling more out for less and less desirable things they haven't bought yet. This is the leapfrog strategy that F2P games strive for: drive the MT purchase behavior until satiation and then introduce enough new content to drive another cycle of consumption.

 

I dont disagree that people can fooled into being stupid.

[Soluss]

You do know, when unsubscribing, a textbox pops up in your face so you can say why you are leaving?

 

Do you really belive that most people left because of 15 bucks a month? Is it not more likely that they didnt believe the game was worth 15 bucks a month? Those are 2 different things. The way the textbox pop up reads, you cannot distinguish between the two.

 

Do you like apple pie? No

Do you like pumpkin pie? No

Analyst: people dont like pie.

[Soluss]

OK.... got it.

 

I'm less certain then you about EAs analysis on F2P brining back prior players. We have players coming back every day now without it.... so who knows. Regardless.... there is always a strong upside for sub-2-freemium moves for the more popular MMOs.... so there is no downside to going that way and lots of upside.

 

For the most part there is no downside. How about losing customers while most of your staff is working on F2P instead of content. How about they got laggy servers now. They have people complaining about standing in line for quest updates now... If a ton of free players come in... that only gets worse. Im sure there are more downsides.

 

Im not trying to say you are wrong, in general, but there are some downsides. There is a strong upside though, if it works for them. If it doesnt expect a maintanance mode game with little to no updating. They are pretty much at the bottom. There is no place to go but up or dead.

[Mowermanx]

Do you really belive that most people left because of 15 bucks a month? Is it not more likely that they didnt believe the game was worth 15 bucks a month? Those are 2 different things. The way the textbox pop up reads, you cannot distinguish between the two.

 

Do you like apple pie? No

Do you like pumpkin pie? No

Analyst: people dont like pie.

 

I understand what you're saying, but that's not the point of my post. When going through this thread, people would have you believe that no data was even used in making the decision to go the F2P format.

Also, you may be confused as to what you're presented with at unsubscrption, you are presented a page with the check-button/boxes, and you also have a text box, where you can write down your grievance if none of the check box/buttons apply to your reasons for leaving.

My argument is, we don't know how they correlated this information to conclude the outcome for the decision to go to the F2P route, and people on an internet forum shouldn't act as if they know.

Edited October 6, 2012 by Mowermanx

[Digimanbyte_ID]

Currently the model for SWTOR is not bringing in enough customers or cash. So F2play would fix that by attracting new customers, throw in cool looking items you can only purchase with money and bam you have an income revenue.

 

Believe me when I say most people will pay through the nose for cool looking gear that gives them a robotic voice or black colour crystals or a riding tauntaun. Not only that but more players playing the game for free means more bug reports and suggestions to improve the game.

 

The idea here is a loyalty system for subs to make them feel a little more appreciated for paying to play their game rather then feel like the company only cares about their money and wants you to pay more for extra items.

[Trenter]

See the OP

 

Ooookay... I think you should read it again.

[TheronFett]

The message from players exiting the game is clear – 40 percent say they were turned off by the monthly subscription. And many indicated they would come back if we offered a free-to-play model

 

EA has interpreted the exiting players incorrectly. They're saying:

"This game isn't worth paying for."

 

Yeah, some people who left the game will come back with a F2P option. Most won't. Most of the ones who left already have level 50 characters who are interested in more content, PvP, bug fixes, and better overall gameplay. F2P does not address those concerns.

Edited October 6, 2012 by TheronFett

[Goretzu]

50 million players by next year sounds perfectly reasonable.

 

Yup, almost bound to happen.

[Goretzu]

I agree with your position here. Completely, utterly, and forever.

 

And Swtor is doing the same thing.

 

My position is they are doing it at the WRONG time, and with the WRONG game.

 

The game simply is NOT ready for FTP. The engine/system/servers is garbage, they cannot fix it soon.

 

We will bounce to 1-3 million, if we are lucky, then all the bugs will drive away the same ratio of peeps as the original number. We will wind up with 300k to 500k(extra) in 6-8 months, and then slowly drop further. Word of mouth will kill us.

 

Best gambit is to NOT go ftp now, but when the game engine/system can handle more peeps, who can log-in, play for hours, log out and then say they had a dam good time(the story my friend, always the story).

 

And win8 is bigger than u think now, all the little kiddies who like ftp WILL be getting it, it is dirt cheap(until January 2013) and the "next best thing" for lots of moms and kiddies.

 

You might want to look at what I'm really saying, not what you think I'm saying.

 

 

Yeah LOTRO was back to the same number of active accounts just before the last expansion (which would have been less profitable that those active accounts all being subs), F2P gives a short-term boost, but longevity? Totally unproven at the moment.

[Bloodstealer]

EA needs new analysts. Their theory is wrong. There is no way in high hell that this game will get 50 million subscribers, EVER. They predict that by next year. LMAO.

 

Sure some people will come back... including myself. Only to finish the stories and never pay a penny for it. I wont be paying for new Ops. I wont be paying for new warzones. I wont be buying any garbage fluff from the store.

 

People didnt leave over 15 bucks a month. They left because it wasnt worth paying 15 bucks a month for. Most of those people are not likely to pay much money in the store either.

 

50 million people ROFL. Do they expect that everyone playing farmville is going to all of a sudden play this game?

 

Sure 50mill sounds a wee bit on the over inflated side.. but that said F2P allows for numbers to be measured in many different ways, other than how many players have paod their sub this month/this quarter...

Anyone that has taken a trial or joins F2P count as a number on the active player lists because there is no clear defined point at which you are no longer considered active. F2P simply requires you to open an account, not spend anything or achieve anything. So as far fetched as it sounds (and yes I agree it sounds silly, especially in a 12-18 month timeframe), an increase in "player numbers" will likely occur even though the server activity might not support the theory.

 

Now if they measure player numbers by a way of who spends money in the cash shop / subs - then that might be where silly season becomes more noticeable in their visions.. just depends on the metrics they use within the model I guess.

Edited October 6, 2012 by Bloodstealer

[simplius]

50 million players by next year sounds perfectly reasonable.

 

oh yea,,50 mio players,,,btw, what other games have 50 mio players? checkers? fish?