Really?!!!

[DOHboy]

Youre missing the point. A subscription to a game used to mean that everything that game has to offer, you have full and immediate access to. Now everyone tries to nickel and dime you with 'cosmetic' crap that they spend the majority of their development time on.

 

if dont' think the subscription is worth the price don't pay it, and feel free to enjoy the f2p/preferred model. CM offers nothing that is required for playing the game and is 100% optional. Ontop of the subscription they also give you free CC for things like unlocks or new species if you choose to want them, again all is optional and not required.

 

wait 2 days and you can buy anything you want of the GTN and not have to spend a dime extra beyond your subscription.

 

so does being a sub preclude them from charging for expansions?

its not like you have to pay for any sort of additional DLC that you get with other games.

 

This game stopped being a "subscritpion only game" about 4 years ago when the industry itself started to shift. Now just about every game is behind some kind of pay window or other enticements to get you to part with your money.

 

news flash, game development is expensive and companies want a return on investment. The CM saved this game and IMO has been one of the best things it could have done. the armors, speeders, weapons, and other items are so much better when they know they can charge for them. Otherwise stuck doing missions for 1 of 5 different colored speeders. It has added variety and live into a game what was for the most part stagnant shortly after launch.

[adormitul]

if dont' think the subscription is worth the price don't pay it, and feel free to enjoy the f2p/preferred model. CM offers nothing that is required for playing the game and is 100% optional. Ontop of the subscription they also give you free CC for things like unlocks or new species if you choose to want them, again all is optional and not required.

 

wait 2 days and you can buy anything you want of the GTN and not have to spend a dime extra beyond your subscription.

 

so does being a sub preclude them from charging for expansions?

its not like you have to pay for any sort of additional DLC that you get with other games.

 

This game stopped being a "subscritpion only game" about 4 years ago when the industry itself started to shift. Now just about every game is behind some kind of pay window or other enticements to get you to part with your money.

 

news flash, game development is expensive and companies want a return on investment. The CM saved this game and IMO has been one of the best things it could have done. the armors, speeders, weapons, and other items are so much better when they know they can charge for them. Otherwise stuck doing missions for 1 of 5 different colored speeders. It has added variety and live into a game what was for the most part stagnant shortly after launch.

 

I really want to see the proof that what you said its true. I can not believe that they not recovered the money to make this game several time over and I include marketing.

[Shwarzchild]

I really want to see the proof that what you said its true. I can not believe that they not recovered the money to make this game several time over and I include marketing.

 

Swtor cost like 200 million to develop. Last year it was reported in maybe October or September that revenue from the game was 100 million. 2013 yielded about 140 million. 2012 was the great exodus where the game lost like 400 million accounts or something astronomical. Your assertion that this game has made so much money that they could have made the thing over and over again is incorrect. Now, you also have to factor in the cost of overhead and this game isn't some 200 million dollar cash drinking machine.

[DOHboy]

Swtor cost like 200 million to develop. Last year it was reported in maybe October or September that revenue from the game was 100 million. 2013 yielded about 140 million. 2012 was the great exodus where the game lost like 400 million accounts or something astronomical. Your assertion that this game has made so much money that they could have made the thing over and over again is incorrect. Now, you also have to factor in the cost of overhead and this game isn't some 200 million dollar cash drinking machine.

 

and just like hollywood where 1 or 2 movies will pay the budgets for every other movie made during that year or two.

 

some games get made that maybe recover their costs or make small profit..once. great they got a 5-10% ROE not great and wont keep the company open long if costs change even a little.

 

now a game that costs 2-300 million to make and can bring in 100 million a year for 10 years THAT will keep a company afloat and allow them to keep doing other stuff.

[Nightblazer]

I can not argue with that but damn it Wookiee are the most iconic race in the Star Wars universe they should have been a priority above all other races. Damn Biowate iconic the most iconic no playable race comes close to their popularity none. Give people what they like and they will give you money in exchange.

 

Your missing the point. They've already said that if the species doesn't speak basic, they won't be a playable race, Wookiees don't speak basic. Boundaries have been set and that won't change..

 

And no they aren't going to just give some random English speaking voice actor to do a Wookiee voice. That would just be ridiculous and take away from an iconic character.

[adormitul]

Swtor cost like 200 million to develop. Last year it was reported in maybe October or September that revenue from the game was 100 million. 2013 yielded about 140 million. 2012 was the great exodus where the game lost like 400 million accounts or something astronomical. Your assertion that this game has made so much money that they could have made the thing over and over again is incorrect. Now, you also have to factor in the cost of overhead and this game isn't some 200 million dollar cash drinking machine.

 

This game appeared in december 2011 so how much they made in 2012? I bet that its 3 times more then they made in the next years.

They made 102 million dollars just by selling the copies of the game in 2012 then we add another 105 million from subscription until July so in total they made in half a year 207 million dollars. Then after that and for this is guess work they gained around 100 million in my opinion so in the first year they had 307 million so they recovered their investment. and in 2013 and 2014 they gained 240 million dollars. So in total not including this year they have a profit of 547 million recovering their investment 2 times over. Basically they recovered their investment in the first year now they have profit, profit, profit.

Edited July 23, 2015 by adormitul

[Icestar]

Thanks for wasting our time

 

They are not wasting my time, I have loads of fun in this game

[tavrinDosa]

So, i have to pay cartel coins to get the new race?

 

I have to deactivate a place to purchase the new Yavin place, if i have all the others?

 

It will cost 2.5 mil to even buy it?

 

 

You need to remove the limit restrictions on how many places you can have.

You need to make the new race selectable without cartel coins.

You need to reduce the purchase price of the new place.

 

Thanks for wasting our time, also, wasting your programmers time.

 

BTW....Yavin is dumbest place for a house. Rishii makes more sense, as it already

has npc cities. Nothing is on Yavin, except Giant stone buildings.

 

The new race is just a more colorful version of twilek. Why not something more interesting

or iconic, like a Wookie, or a Gormak, or a hundred other different races in star wars.

 

This path you have chosen leads down a dark path.

 

As in WRONG.

 

 

Just go away...

[Arma_Dolus]

So, i have to pay cartel coins to get the new race?

 

I have to deactivate a place to purchase the new Yavin place, if i have all the others?

 

It will cost 2.5 mil to even buy it?

 

 

You need to remove the limit restrictions on how many places you can have.

You need to make the new race selectable without cartel coins.

You need to reduce the purchase price of the new place.

 

Thanks for wasting our time, also, wasting your programmers time.

 

BTW....Yavin is dumbest place for a house. Rishii makes more sense, as it already

has npc cities. Nothing is on Yavin, except Giant stone buildings.

 

The new race is just a more colorful version of twilek. Why not something more interesting

or iconic, like a Wookie, or a Gormak, or a hundred other different races in star wars.

 

This path you have chosen leads down a dark path.

 

As in WRONG.

 

 

If you think 2.5m is expensive for a Yavin SH for personal use, be very glad youre not a guild leader. The cost for purchasing a GSH on Yavin is 15m. To unlock it fully? Approximately 40m. Species unlocks have always cost CCs unless you buy them from the GTN. 600CCs isn't that much. I had reservations about the Togruta race but now that I see it, its actually kind of awesome.

[DarthOvertone]

So, i have to pay cartel coins to get the new race?

You need to make the new race selectable without cartel coins.

 

Pretty sure peeps paid CC to unlock the Cat race also. Why would needing CC to unlock the new race be a surprise?

 

Also pretty sure you can buy the race without Cartel Coins. Just wait till someone puts the race unlock up on the GTN and buy it with credits.

 

However, I didn't unlock, and have no desire to unlock either of the new races, so I could be wrong on that point.

 

I have to deactivate a place to purchase the new Yavin place, if i have all the others?

 

I think this is stupid as well.

 

It will cost 2.5 mil to even buy it?

 

It costs credits to unlock all the other Strongholds, unless you received the Sky Palace as a sub reward for free. Why wouldn't the new Stronghold cost credits/CC to unlock? Pretty sure Tatooine cost in the millions of credits to unlock.

 

The new race is just a more colorful version of twilek. Why not something more interesting

or iconic, like a Wookie, or a Gormak, or a hundred other different races in star wars.

 

While I would love to see a Jawa race, (a Jawa Sniper is my dream toon), Bee-Dubya has already stated the more non-conventional races will not be made playable for technical reasons.

 

And at this point, I think the Togruta (sp?) race is fairly iconic. One of the main characters from the popular Clone Wars series, Asoka (sp?), was Togruta if I'm not mistaken.

Edited July 23, 2015 by DarthOvertone

[Darth-Obvious]

the OP is right on one thing, Yavin 4 is one of the dumbest choices for a stronghold in the galaxy, Rishi would make way more sense

 

Manaan has been the far more requested stronghold. People seem to be aware that them doing a Manaan stronghold would force their hand to produce something fairly different than what they've done before.

 

As soon as you mention "Manaan Stronghold" I think everyone immediately has the same image in their head of basically a stronghold with aquarium walls. Someone in another thread mentioned that they could even make it multi level, ie the top part being on the surface of Manaan and lower part being underwater.

 

The other benefit of doing Manaan would be that the planet has a bunch of really nice/great looking art assets that are completely going to waste since there's really no reason to visit the planet.

 

Youre missing the point. A subscription to a game used to mean that everything that game has to offer, you have full and immediate access to.

 

No it didn't, given that you always had to pay for expansion packs.

 

Your missing the point. They've already said that if the species doesn't speak basic, they won't be a playable race, Wookiees don't speak basic. Boundaries have been set and that won't change..

 

And no they aren't going to just give some random English speaking voice actor to do a Wookiee voice. That would just be ridiculous and take away from an iconic character.

 

Wookies not speaking Basic/English really has nothing to do with why they aren't playable. The reasons why they aren't playable are more complicated, however it's always been easier for Bioware to just say "because they don't speak Basic" to justify it because stating the actual reason(s) why they aren't playable is a very wordy process.

[dlcman]

2012 was the great exodus where the game lost like 400 million accounts or something astronomical.

 

This sentence gave me my laugh of the day.

[Darth-Obvious]

So in total not including this year they have a profit of 547 million recovering their investment 2 times over. Basically they recovered their investment in the first year now they have profit, profit, profit.

 

No, that's not the case.

 

The money that SWTOR makes gets used to pay employee salaries, server fees, R&D costs, annual budgets, marketing budgets, etc. It also goes towards making new games like Battlefront and numerous other EA titles.

 

The money that SWTOR makes is spread back out through all of EA.

 

Also if SWTOR is profitable as is all that says to EA is that they don't need to spend any more money on it. For instance if SWTOR's annual budget is 10 million or whatever. EA is never going to increase their annual budget because they see no reason to if the game is making a profit at a 10 million annual budget.

[wangxiuming]

^^ what they said. The hundreds of millions dollars reported were revenues, not profits. They don't include the costs of operating the business.

[DOHboy]

This game appeared in december 2011 so how much they made in 2012? I bet that its 3 times more then they made in the next years.

They made 102 million dollars just by selling the copies of the game in 2012 then we add another 105 million from subscription until July so in total they made in half a year 207 million dollars. Then after that and for this is guess work they gained around 100 million in my opinion so in the first year they had 307 million so they recovered their investment. and in 2013 and 2014 they gained 240 million dollars. So in total not including this year they have a profit of 547 million recovering their investment 2 times over. Basically they recovered their investment in the first year now they have profit, profit, profit.

 

ummm revenue != profit. if we have to explain that to you...we're going to be here awhile and wasting everyones time.

[adormitul]

No, that's not the case.

 

The money that SWTOR makes gets used to pay employee salaries, server fees, R&D costs, annual budgets, marketing budgets, etc. It also goes towards making new games like Battlefront and numerous other EA titles.

 

The money that SWTOR makes is spread back out through all of EA.

 

Also if SWTOR is profitable as is all that says to EA is that they don't need to spend any more money on it. For instance if SWTOR's annual budget is 10 million or whatever. EA is never going to increase their annual budget because they see no reason to if the game is making a profit at a 10 million annual budget.

 

Okay why would SWTOR pay for games like Battlefront do those franchises do not have enough profit to pay for the next game?

By do you have a rough idea how much the employee salaries, server fee, R&D cost, marketing budget etc? I would have included them if I knew how much they cost.

WOW upkeep is only 200 million http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/09/18/world_of_warcraft_upkeep_200m/ a year.

Now its estimated that 75% of the cost is the server fee http://www.quora.com/How-much-does-a-single-WoW-server-cost-to-operate-each-month I have no better proof for it. So since SWTOR is 10% the size of WOW can I assume that the upkeep is 20 million per year assuming that everything is 10% the size of WOW?

Edited July 23, 2015 by adormitul

[DOHboy]

Okay why would SWTOR pay for games like Battlefront do those franchises do not have enough profit to pay for the next game?

By do you have a rough idea how much the employee salaries, server fee, R&D cost, marketing budget etc? I would have included them if I knew how much they cost.

 

its called investments. Where does the money come from to develop the 100 million dollar game? if they havn't created it yet and havn't sold it yet? They just go get a loan and hope it sells?

 

they take profits from previous games, invest a portion of that into new products which they sell to then use those profits/revenue to make more games, and so forth.

[adormitul]

its called investments. Where does the money come from to develop the 100 million dollar game? if they havn't created it yet and havn't sold it yet? They just go get a loan and hope it sells?

 

they take profits from previous games, invest a portion of that into new products which they sell to then use those profits/revenue to make more games, and so forth.

 

Battlefront is franchise at its 4-th or 5-th game can the profits from the sales for those games not pay for the next game?

The same with dragon age and mass effect and Fiffa especially Fiffa since they seem to use the same assets from the previous games with little modification.

Also only MMO cost over 100 million dollars to make with marketing included.

http://n4g.com/news/1739556/the-witcher-3-cost-32m-to-make-35m-spent-on-marketing a game that appeared this year and one of the best AAA titles cost only 35 million to make.

Edited July 23, 2015 by adormitul

[DOHboy]

Battlefront is franchise at its 4-th or 5-th game can the profits from the sales for those games not pay for the next game?

The same with dragon age and mass effect and Fiffa especially Fiffa since they seem to use the same assets from the previous games with little modification.

Also only MMO cost over 100 million dollars to make with marketing included.

http://n4g.com/news/1739556/the-witcher-3-cost-32m-to-make-35m-spent-on-marketing a game that appeared this year and one of the best AAA titles cost only 35 million to make.

 

apparently you have no concept of business, growth, ROE, etc. nor on how long it may take to recover those costs or how long it takes to actually develop new games.

 

A game could take a year or more to get a return on investment, yet take 2 or 3 years to actually develop. during those years, there is no income from that game so they take revenue from other games to fuel that one. Then when it does eventually make money, they use that money to make other games since they used its money to help make that game.

 

that is why games divest and make multiple games on different platforms and time frames.

[SithKoriandr]

Manaan has been the far more requested stronghold. People seem to be aware that them doing a Manaan stronghold would force their hand to produce something fairly different than what they've done before.

 

As soon as you mention "Manaan Stronghold" I think everyone immediately has the same image in their head of basically a stronghold with aquarium walls. Someone in another thread mentioned that they could even make it multi level, ie the top part being on the surface of Manaan and lower part being underwater.

 

The other benefit of doing Manaan would be that the planet has a bunch of really nice/great looking art assets that are completely going to waste since there's really no reason to visit the planet.

 

I'd settle for a big floating city, no going under water, and I have a place on it But to be fair, I imagine my main coming from a world of mostly water, but not made up of water life forms like other water worlds.

[adormitul]

apparently you have no concept of business, growth, ROE, etc. nor on how long it may take to recover those costs or how long it takes to actually develop new games.

 

A game could take a year or more to get a return on investment, yet take 2 or 3 years to actually develop. during those years, there is no income from that game so they take revenue from other games to fuel that one. Then when it does eventually make money, they use that money to make other games since they used its money to help make that game.

 

that is why games divest and make multiple games on different platforms and time frames.

 

Could they not use the profits from the previous games to develop the next game? Example the witcher 3 sold 4 million copies and had a profit of 240 million. So they take 50 million of those for the creation of the next game the rest they will spend on whatever the want maybe to create other francises maybe to spend them on drugs and cars.

Why do they have to take profit from other games to create the next one in the franchise?

If you wanna explain explain trough proofs that you are right not theory.

Edited July 23, 2015 by adormitul

[Jeweledleah]

Manaan has been the far more requested stronghold. People seem to be aware that them doing a Manaan stronghold would force their hand to produce something fairly different than what they've done before.

 

As soon as you mention "Manaan Stronghold" I think everyone immediately has the same image in their head of basically a stronghold with aquarium walls. Someone in another thread mentioned that they could even make it multi level, ie the top part being on the surface of Manaan and lower part being underwater.

 

The other benefit of doing Manaan would be that the planet has a bunch of really nice/great looking art assets that are completely going to waste since there's really no reason to visit the planet.

 

 

Maker, Manaan stronghold would have been fabulous. in terms of looks anyways, in terms of lore, aren't Selkath super reclusive and not to happy about having strangers on their planet? like... they do it cause industry and commerce, but that's about it.

 

of course you could still solve that and I'm just trying to talk myself out of dreaming about Manaan stronghold really :/

 

anyways... I'm still liking Yavin stronghold. personally

[DOHboy]

Could they not use the profits from the previous games to develop the next game? Example the witcher 3 sold 4 million copies and had a profit of 240 million. So they take 50 million of those for the creation of the next game the rest they will spend on whatever the want maybe to create other francises maybe to spend them on drugs and cars.

Why do they have to take profit from other games to create the next one in the franchise?

If you wanna explain explain trough proofs that you are right not theory.

 

ok, lets put it in simple terms. Lets say it takes 2-3 years to make a game and costs 50 million dollars to develop and market. where that came from is irrelevant we'll just assume we have it in the bank. That game sells 1 million units @$50 in the first few weeks so you get $50 million dollars recovering the initial costs. over the next few months you get a few 10,000 sales here and there over next few months you start to build some profit. At which point you are roughly $5-10 million dollars in the black on the game.

 

now you need to start thinking about the squeal and start production on the next game so it can be out within 2-3 years before people go stale on the IP. And you start to budget for you game over the next two years. however because its now expected to be bigger, better you need to hire more people to keep the same schedule, you had to give all your employees raises, costs have gone up to new computers, new technologies. so instead of $50 its now expected to cost $75 million to produce on the same time frame, you CAN push it a bit but for the most part you want to keep 2 year time frame.

 

where does THAT money come from? if another game that was expected to make $50million only made $40 million and ended up costing them $10million now as a company you are at 0 profit, and need to pay off investors, show a profit somehow and start doing other things to "grow'

 

it may take years for a game to recover its costs or make a profit. it may take years to make a game. Additionally how do you make a game with new IP (swtor didnt' exist before money came from somewhere) when you create new IP you take revenue from other IP role it into R&D and make new stuff. thats called growth.

[Pscyon]

Species unlocks have always cost CCs unless you buy them from the GTN.

Technically species unlocks, with the exception of Cathar, have always been free even, if one can be bothered spending a weekend leveling a 50 of said species.

Maker, Manaan stronghold would have been fabulous. in terms of looks anyways, in terms of lore, aren't Selkath super reclusive and not to happy about having strangers on their planet? like... they do it cause industry and commerce, but that's about it.

 

of course you could still solve that

Lore and Manaan doesn't seem to be a big issue for Bioware. I mean kolto is supposed to be super important, rare and limited, hence why Manaan managed to keep neutral in the events of KotOR. Yet it's also suddenly commonly available enough that we can put it in grenades and guns and cybernetic suits and tanks all over the place. Bacta on the other hand, is curiously almost absent.

[adormitul]

ok, lets put it in simple terms. Lets say it takes 2-3 years to make a game and costs 50 million dollars to develop and market. where that came from is irrelevant we'll just assume we have it in the bank. That game sells 1 million units @$50 in the first few weeks so you get $50 million dollars recovering the initial costs. over the next few months you get a few 10,000 sales here and there over next few months you start to build some profit. At which point you are roughly $5-10 million dollars in the black on the game.

 

now you need to start thinking about the squeal and start production on the next game so it can be out within 2-3 years before people go stale on the IP. And you start to budget for you game over the next two years. however because its now expected to be bigger, better you need to hire more people to keep the same schedule, you had to give all your employees raises, costs have gone up to new computers, new technologies. so instead of $50 its now expected to cost $75 million to produce on the same time frame, you CAN push it a bit but for the most part you want to keep 2 year time frame.

 

where does THAT money come from? if another game that was expected to make $50million only made $40 million and ended up costing them $10million now as a company you are at 0 profit, and need to pay off investors, show a profit somehow and start doing other things to "grow'

 

it may take years for a game to recover its costs or make a profit. it may take years to make a game. Additionally how do you make a game with new IP (swtor didnt' exist before money came from somewhere) when you create new IP you take revenue from other IP role it into R&D and make new stuff. thats called growth.

 

 

 

Ok but you assume that they will hardley get any profit in sales. But is that true in EA games case. For example in the witcher 3 in a little over then a month they got over 200 million euro from a investment of 35 million and I did say that the next game will cost 50 million so they take 50 million from the 200 million euro profit and the rest they do what they want.

Edited July 23, 2015 by adormitul