SWTOR $1 million decrease in subscription

[Transcendent]

As I already said, that's on the assumption that the 1 million in revenue loss is solely referring to SWTOR, which it's not. That is a false assumption. The text says that it's primarily from SWTOR, which depending on how many games contribute to this total of 1 million could for example mean that the contribution from SWTOR might only be 20 or 30% and because the other sources may only contribute 10% or less each it then makes SWTOR the primary contributor even with 20 or 30% of the total. In which case we're talking 500-700k subs at best. Not that bad, but not anywhere near the 2 million people keep throwing around because they assume "primarily" means 90% or more, which it doesn't have to at all.

 

Hey! I only came up with the ~2m figure because I missed the part about all of the other subscription revenues being mixed into that total

 

I wonder if they include EA Access / Origin Access in that subscription figure? That's better value right there, above and beyond anything SWTOR provides entertainment wise. Maybe eventually SWTOR will get added into that model.

 

What was the figure that was mentioned near the start about subs required to maintain profit longer term? 500k wasn't it? If that figure doesn't include CM sales etc, then if the supposed figure is closer to the 500-600k mark, then the game should be generating enough revenue to reinvest some of that into the game itself, by producing new content. I know EA are very much risk averse currently, and developers have to be able to carry their own weight (so to speak), there should certainly be scope in that to at least buy more cheese strings for Eric.

[Andryah]

Yup, have to make too many assumptions to do any calculations. Which makes these reports all the more useless (to us), and not worth discussing, really.

 

Pretty much.

 

EA has NEVER broken down their revenue numbers in any manner that allows players of SWTOR to use it to predict current subs, much less future subs. But that has never stopped those who hate the game to try anyway. Anyone wanting to prosecute a negative narrative about the game will use or makeup whatever numbers appear to them to be convenient to their narrative... as exemplified in this very thread.

 

It's completely unclear exactly how EA rolls-up revenue, and consolidates/parses that revenue for reporting, and probably always will be. Only their auditors know for sure, and only to the degree that it matters for federal audit compliance laws. A lot of players for example, use game time codes, which are a completely separate revenue channel for EA and is sold as a product through major 3rd parties such as Amazon. So I doubt these get reported as game specific subscriber revenue in their quarterly rollup. Why? Because sale of a game time code =/= immediate active subscription for revenue recognition purposes. If you want the revenue immediately, then you have to treat game time codes as product purchases. There is no way to tell when a game time code purchased via a 3rd party is actually applied to a game account, until the code is actually applied. Hence for audit compliance purposes, and to avoid a complex deferred revenue process, they would be handled as a product revenue sale, even though the end result will be a player playing as subscribed to the game. And again... buried somewhere in the product revenue stream, it's not broken out by game, so there is simply no visibility to be had here.

 

Regardless, we have never seen their revenue splits from subs, CM, 3rd party sales of time codes, etc.... so there is simply no way to tell from quarterly reports exactly what the sub numbers are, much less how they are accessed and paid for.

Edited November 13, 2016 by Andryah

[Tsillah]

Hey! I only came up with the ~2m figure because I missed the part about all of the other subscription revenues being mixed into that total

 

Ohh I know but that mistake was made by the OP to begin with so I can't blame you for that. I had to do some research into it and found I had to change from my initial reaction, which I did. Of course after this was clarified someone else had to double that mistake all over again and the basic math I presented was too complicated apparently. It matters not.

 

All we really know is this: sub revenues were down for SWTOR in the quarter of July, August and September compared to the same period last year. Considering that last year KotFE was released in October and KotET now comes 6 weeks later than that, this could already explain the deficit at least in part. So the reality is that this report by itself is not a harbinger of doom.

 

As I already reasoned in other threads about 5.0 , the move towards sub-only endgame and gearing may not originate from panick over losing subs but rather confidence to make it work. Not all is well with 5.0 but if players like myself stop playing that won't kill the game as long as enough other players do buy into 5.0 (and I mean that as a neutral comment).

 

I have my opinions about what should have happened with this game, but I have no illusions that BWA will follow up on that, but sufficeth to say that the current quarter we're in will prove far more positive and then we'll see what happens after that. I have no crystal ball to say which way it's gonna going because 5.0 is rather a big change in the set up of the game and it's impossible to guage how that will work out for the game.

[denavin]

Here is a little perspective on the issue.

 

Yes 1 million dollars is a lot of money to loose. If you or I lost a million dollars is would be devastating.

 

But remember that both Bioware and Electronic Arts (EA) are multi BILLION dollar corporations. A 1 million dollar loss is like you loosing a Penny 1 cent. Not a huge problem.

 

The perspective for us and EA / BW is very different to them its NOTHING, to US its enormous.

 

Because EA made 1 million less this quarter than last quarter is not important to them other than for tax purposes. It will NOT be the demise of SWTOR by any means.

[Pietrastor]

1% decrease? That's it?

[Darkbloom]

Just so these quotes don't confuse people who are thinking in terms of the calendar year instead of the fiscal year, the "$1 million decrease in subscription" line that OP is talking about comes from the latest release: Quarter 2 of Fiscal Year 2017 (Q2 FY17). The "highest subscriber level in three years" quote Sarova and Quaker referenced is from a year ago: Q3 FY16 was October 2015 - December 2015.

 

That being said, the "highest subscriber level" quotes are pretty relevant to this discussion because the "$1 million decrease in subscription net revenue" was a year-over-year change. In July 2016 - September 2016 EA's subscription services brought in $83 million, while in July 2015 - September 2015, they had brought in $84 million.

 

What's significant is that July 2015 - September 2015 (Q2 FY16) had a large spike in subscriptions: SWTOR had a 31% increase in subscriptions from the lead-up to KotFE (and it then grew even more in Q3 FY 16). So the "$1 million decrease" is a dip relative to that large increase - seems like the subscriber numbers settled back down a bit after spiking.

 

Yes, exactly.

 

And contrary to other comments, I think this information does help us understand what's going on.

 

From outside the window looking in, it seems like producing content in the middle of an expansion cycle doesn't move the needle much in terms of keeping subscribers around. Bioware already figured out that unless it's a big expansion with a Blur trailer, operations don't bring in money, flashpoints don't, daily areas don't, mini-stories like Ziost don't, and new pvp maps don't bring in money.

 

And now, with KotFE, it looks like comic-book style monthly chapters don't bring in money either. That explains why they ditched the idea.

 

It also explains why we have the LvD event and Galactic Command. These types of things are probably exactly as good (or bad, depending on your point of view) at keeping subscribers around as new content. But they're massively less expensive to produce.

[phalczen]

Can you show me on this chart where they actually had a 31% increase in subscriptions .... I know they reported it, but those people either didn't stick around long or simply didn't log into the game.

 

It is demonstrably false and academically irresponsible for you to continue to push this particular graph as evidence that the game is dying.

 

First of all, the graph does not say anything about subscriptions or active players. It is the wrong graphical representation even for the data that it DOES reflect, since the proper way to describe data of this nature is as a bar graph, with %s of heavy/standard/light servers making up pieces of the whole bar. Second, the data does not extend beyond January 2016, which is important since the hype of TFA would have died down and monthly chapters were being released. Third, the data points represent polling at a certain point in time, which may not be so-called "prime time." Given that even North American servers cross various time zones and several NA server have strong British or APAC populations, the definition of "prime time" is further blurred. Finally, it isn't even a good way to monitor game playerbase size. If every single player in the game left every other server and everyone moved to Harbinger, the proportion of light servers would skyrocket, and in fact previously heavy servers would also appear light, and nothing would be standard. The graph would have a high percentage of light servers, nothing at standard, and nearly nothing at heavy, but the population wouldn't have changed one bit in that scenario, making the graph absolutely meaningless at predicting the size of the playerbase.

 

You and other people who have pointed to this graph as evidence have failed to account for 90 cc cartel coin transfers which likely resulted in consolidation of the playerbase across a handful of servers. That could be the reason why there are more servers at "light" during the timeframe of that graph. It is certainly just as plausible as the hypothesis that there are fewer subs, which is just that, a hypothesis.

 

So, in summary, this chart that you continue to purport is proof positive that "teh game iz dying" is just false. To directly address your question, if those 31% more subscribers were (correctly) guided to only a couple of the most populated servers, it would not be detectable on that graph.

 

Took me awhile but it's in a note on page 38 of their 10Q filing for their 2nd Quarter FY 2017:

"These increases are partially offset by a $1 million or 1 percent decrease in subscription net revenue primarily due to Star Wars: The Old Republic."

 

Let's assume a best-case scenario, and SWTOR only contributed 51% of the net revenue loss. In a best case scenario for SWTOR, that's only $500k less revenue in the quarter, or $167k/month roughly. That's about 11k subscriptions. So, roughly anywhere from 10-20 thousand fewer subs to SWTOR in the Jun 30-Sept 30 period. It's hard to know the significance of that number of sub losses though without knowing either a) how much SWTOR contributes to net sub revenue overall or b) how many subs there actually are. However, it is important to note that Chapter 16 was released on August 9 and the HK bonus chapter on Sept 7, so the number of people who have left since the conclusion of the major KOTFE content and subscriber bonus is probably not completely reflected in that estimate. In any event, likely before the actual end of the KOTFE content cycle, 10-20 thousand players said goodbye. This could be because of any combination of the following:

a) people simply gave up on SWTOR during those last few chapters before the end, not happy with the first 12 or so chapters

b) people who had 6 month subs and quit after being disappointed with the initial 9-chapter KOTFE update finally left

c) Star Wars Celebration Europe 2016 was in mid July, which is when KOTET was announced, and with the announcement of the expansion and some teasers that it would be story-focused, people quit

d) people were not enticed by the DvL event or the experience in KOTFE and ended their sub after giving the whole of KOTFE a full try

 

So its hard to tease out how many left because they didn't like the particular story being told versus the fact that we were getting even more story, versus the natural attrition rate of players who leave towards the end of a content cycle and come back after a new expansion.

 

The next quarter will be interesting, since it will reflect the expansion's impact (both positively and negatively) and Rogue One's impact.

[Aeneas_Falco]

In their defense, one voice actress went on record that she refused to come back to swtor. I forget who.

 

Wow, what was the story there? Did she give a reason?

 

Assuming companions ever were brought back however that isn't necessarily an insurmountable obstacle. Although it isn't ideal you can replace voice acting talent with a new actor. It has been done before, like with Tanno Vik (his original VA passed away) and Mordin Solus (dispute over pay, if I remember correctly) from Mass Effect.

Edited November 14, 2016 by Aeneas_Falco

[Kaisernick]

Yet WoW and FFXIV make the sub model work.

Wow is on the decline and while blizz wont tell us exact numbers anymore i can tell you subs are dropping legion their newest exp hasn't helped.

TBH i think EA has been horrible for star wars and games i mean what have we gotten since Disney gave them the gaming license a crappy cut and dry FPS.

 

If Disney were smart they would find a way to pull it from EA cause they are wasting an opportunity.

[Nightblazer]

Hey guys I have an idea of how they can fix their subscription problem

 

RNG gearing

 

Foolproof plan

 

"A common mistake that people make when trying to design something completely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools." - Douglas Adams

[MeNaCe-NZ]

We get this every single time EA announce their quarterly report. Armchair financial pundits scouring the report for any signs that the game is finally "dying" and they can turn round and say "I told you so." No-one specifically said the game was dying but it's heavily implied in the OP -

.

 

Funny that no one really have anything to the contrary though but endeavouring to belittle the OP must make it not true right?

[MeNaCe-NZ]

As I already said, that's on the assumption that the 1 million in revenue loss is solely referring to SWTOR, which it's not. That is a false assumption. The text says that it's primarily from SWTOR, which depending on how many games contribute to this total of 1 million could for example mean that the contribution from SWTOR might only be 20 or 30% and because the other sources may only contribute 10% or less each it then makes SWTOR the primary contributor even with 20 or 30% of the total. In which case we're talking 500-700k subs at best. Not that bad, but not anywhere near the 2 million people keep throwing around because they assume "primarily" means 90% or more, which it doesn't have to at all.

 

And if other games are up in revenue it could mean SWToR is more than 1 million down in revenue ideally ... any interpretation of that statement is going to be subjective at best.

 

All we know for sure is that it's certainly not a positive not matter how people seem to want to spin it into a "it's big thing".

Edited November 14, 2016 by MeNaCe-NZ

[FourPawnBenoni]

You can't deny SWTOR has lost subs in the last quarter. Their statement specifically pointed to the loss in sub revenue was most attributed to SWTOR.

 

We can question how much, but to be the most significant factor of a million dollars, where a sub is only $15 a month, means at minimum, THOUSANDS of people have unsubbed.

 

You can't argue this. Sorry.

[AllisonLightning]

You can't deny SWTOR has lost subs in the last quarter. Their statement specifically pointed to the loss in sub revenue was most attributed to SWTOR.

 

We can question how much, but to be the most significant factor of a million dollars, where a sub is only $15 a month, means at minimum, THOUSANDS of people have unsubbed.

 

You can't argue this. Sorry.

 

My issue is with anyone saying the game is dying (it's not on maintenance mode) or anyone saying that this game is doing so well that they're returning to Candy Mountain sub only land (yeah, that's why they are pulling desperate moves like gating content formerly accessible when a boost in sub numbers lets them have their cake and eat it too, and trying anything to extend subs).

 

The game isn't dying but it's not healthy and our sub base is fragile- it's so fragile that on the anyone can post board I frequent that's not here, people have said enough is enough, that this is decimating them and the players they play with and they can't see a reason to keep going.

 

I'd hope that people here wouldn't play with metrics to delude themselves that this isn't a short sighted move that if it backfires, the game will struggle to recover. There's no good will left, you can't go F2P twice and there are other science fiction RPGs contrary to one optimistic person on this thread, that do quite well. That's why this expansion releases so close to Rogue One, they know it might cause a massive quit moment and they're hoping that the film would be enough to ebb the exodus long enough to reverse their latest trick.

[Savej]

You can't deny SWTOR has lost subs in the last quarter. Their statement specifically pointed to the loss in sub revenue was most attributed to SWTOR.

 

We can question how much, but to be the most significant factor of a million dollars, where a sub is only $15 a month, means at minimum, THOUSANDS of people have unsubbed.

 

You can't argue this. Sorry.

 

You could even suppose they may have lost more than that if other EA games have increased their sub revenue over the same period but swtor's loss more than cancelled them out (we don't know that's the case but it could be). Considering BW's recent direction change and their change in management around the time of and since KotFE's release, and especially considering the dramatic drops in active player counts, I don't think there's any clearer case that this game is not meeting hopes/expectations. I actually like some of the recent design decisions made for 5.0 while understanding there's no way they would be at all popular with the crowds on message boards. And I sincerely hope that it's not too late for the changes to get a chance to work at bumping up player counts and retention.

Edited November 14, 2016 by Savej

[Rolodome]

You can't deny SWTOR has lost subs in the last quarter. Their statement specifically pointed to the loss in sub revenue was most attributed to SWTOR.

 

We can question how much, but to be the most significant factor of a million dollars, where a sub is only $15 a month, means at minimum, THOUSANDS of people have unsubbed.

 

You can't argue this. Sorry.

Like I said though, it's a pretty common sense thing to happen given the content drought period. The question is more a matter of, "Was the loss expected in those numbers?" And it seems they are already trying to address the content drought problem with the setup of 5.0.

[AllisonLightning]

Like I said though, it's a pretty common sense thing to happen given the content drought period. The question is more a matter of, "Was the loss expected in those numbers?" And it seems they are already trying to address the content drought problem with the setup of 5.0.

 

Except there were more people last year and the solution, not the uprisings themselves but the gearing is such a desperate move. Uprisings could actually do some good but it could get buried in issues with RNG gearing and scrapped, neglected like all other group content.

[Rolodome]

Except there were more people last year and the solution, not the uprisings themselves but the gearing is such a desperate move. Uprisings could actually do some good but it could get buried in issues with RNG gearing and scrapped, neglected like all other group content.

Is it any more desperate than committing to a chapter a month model? I don't know the pop numbers then and now, but I would call 5.0's gearing / GC system far less desperate than committing virtually all dev resources to making a chapter a month of story and having sub rewards designed to keep people subbing throughout the whole period.

 

People say they are going into maintenance mode, or rehashing old content, and far be it from me to defend them. The rehashing is real. But it seems to me they have enough leeway with 5.0 to try to set themselves up better for the future. 5.0 seems like its aim is to be the background framework to alleviate content lulls and then in the meantime, they can work on new stuff (e.g. the "group content refocusing" in January). The main question in my mind is, will they straight up make new PvP maps and new Ops, or will they take the same approach with them that they are taking with other content types? That approach being to try to set up things that have more replay value in them from the offset.

[AllisonLightning]

Is it any more desperate than committing to a chapter a month model? I don't know the pop numbers then and now, but I would call 5.0's gearing / GC system far less desperate than committing virtually all dev resources to making a chapter a month of story and having sub rewards designed to keep people subbing throughout the whole period.

 

People say they are going into maintenance mode, or rehashing old content, and far be it from me to defend them. The rehashing is real. But it seems to me they have enough leeway with 5.0 to try to set themselves up better for the future. 5.0 seems like its aim is to be the background framework to alleviate content lulls and then in the meantime, they can work on new stuff (e.g. the "group content refocusing" in January). The main question in my mind is, will they straight up make new PvP maps and new Ops, or will they take the same approach with them that they are taking with other content types? That approach being to try to set up things that have more replay value in them from the offset.

 

Honestly, if the KOTET chapters are fun and change- I will run them with alts, I won't replay them with the same characters unless there's some amazing Wrath/Quinn reunion... there isn't leeway which is the whole problem. When you're depending on stringing out gear that affects your means to engage in the group content that keeps people playing at endgame level PvP, Ops and flashpoints at the level they're accustomed to for months and with fewer characters- people stay subbed for warzones, they stay subbed for group content and if you deny that content to subs because they can't gear up a beloved character fast enough and can't play the level they want to fast enough... you're pretending they'll stay subbed simply while only being able to play solo content at endgame without issue...

 

I'd call that worse than monthly chapters and sub rewards. Monthly chapters only affected solo players and sub rewards are what they are, they don't keep people from running endgame content on characters they get to max level because gear is an RNG grindfest.

[Savej]

Honestly, if the KOTET chapters are fun and change- I will run them with alts, I won't replay them with the same characters unless there's some amazing Wrath/Quinn reunion... there isn't leeway which is the whole problem. When you're depending on stringing out gear that affects your means to engage in the group content that keeps people playing at endgame level PvP, Ops and flashpoints at the level they're accustomed to for months and with fewer characters- people stay subbed for warzones, they stay subbed for group content and if you deny that content to subs because they can't gear up a beloved character fast enough and can't play the level they want to fast enough... you're pretending they'll stay subbed simply while only being able to play solo content at endgame without issue...

 

I'd call that worse than monthly chapters and sub rewards. Monthly chapters only affected solo players and sub rewards are what they are, they don't keep people from running endgame content on characters they get to max level because gear is an RNG grindfest.

 

Who's being "denied" access to content? If you don't want to grind, buy gear on the GTN. Once you have one set, pass it around to alts via legacy. Why the drama? If your "beloved" character got a full set of the best new gear in <2 weeks how much more would you really play it between now and the next xpac?

[FourPawnBenoni]

Who's being "denied" access to content? If you don't want to grind, buy gear on the GTN. Once you have one set, pass it around to alts via legacy. Why the drama? If your "beloved" character got a full set of the best new gear in <2 weeks how much more would you really play it between now and the next xpac?

 

A lot more, because I'd be motivated to gear up my alts. As it is now, with such a grind it's turning me off from playing more than exciting me to play it.

 

Also, crafted gear doesn't have set bonuses so it's useless for pvp.

[Tsillah]

And if other games are up in revenue it could mean SWToR is more than 1 million down in revenue ideally ... any interpretation of that statement is going to be subjective at best.

 

Except in the scope of things we know that the overall loss was around 1 million and that it went from 84 to 83 million for the quarter and even though we have no exact numbers it's not reasonable to think that SWTOR has 2 million subs or more. Around 500k, considering the history, is a much more fair representation. Now it could be 450K, it could be 600K or even 700K but certainly not millions. We wouldn't have so few servers, including a number of pretty dead servers, if that was the case.

 

So really there is no way we would have that many subs. Considering the numbers that are there, there just is no way that SWTOR itself lost anywhere near 1 million or even more in sub revenue loss, because that would automatically mean there are millions of subs right now. I think we can all agree that that's not the case. In order for it to make sense in relation to the number of subs SWTOR cannot have lost more than 300-400K as their share of that and likely a bit less even.

 

Bottom line, the higher the amount you ascribe to the share of SWTOR the more millions of subs we would have. That's just not a reasonable assumption at all. If SWTOR had a 1.5 million loss then we would have around 3 million subs currently. Does that ring anywhere near the reality of things to you?

[ChainLighning]

Wow is on the decline and while blizz wont tell us exact numbers anymore i can tell you subs are dropping legion their newest exp hasn't helped.

TBH i think EA has been horrible for star wars and games i mean what have we gotten since Disney gave them the gaming license a crappy cut and dry FPS.

 

If Disney were smart they would find a way to pull it from EA cause they are wasting an opportunity.

 

I am sorry but you are incorrect. Legion had a very successful launch and as with any expac in any game there is always a rush and then a bit of drop.

 

However, Legion is doing very well.

http://www.polygon.com/2016/9/8/12851794/world-of-warcraft-legion-sales-launch-day-subscribers-record

 

Now Bilzzard did come out in early October to dispel the 10 million rumor or at least wouldn't confirm it. However, one doesn't need to be a statistician to realize the game population is very healthy.

 

Please stop trying to convince yourself WoW is on the decline. It just isn't true. It remains a very healthy game from a player population perspective even months after the release

 

You can try and argue it is a grind, or its gated, the RNG sucks, or all the other stuff people mention. The reality is no game can be everything to everyone. However, WoW has found a very strong model with Legion and it is working just fine. Having made the switch from this game I am incredibly surprised after hearing mostly negative things about it. I just stopped listening and tried it myself and I'm having a blast with it.

 

I just wish SWTOR could find a solid model that worked even half as well as clearly KOTFE wasn't it.

[MeNaCe-NZ]

The game isn't dying but it's not healthy and our sub base is fragile- it's so fragile that on the anyone can post board I frequent that's not here, people have said enough is enough, that this is decimating them and the players they play with and they can't see a reason to keep going.

 

I'd hope that people here wouldn't play with metrics to delude themselves that this isn't a short sighted move that if it backfires, the game will struggle to recover. There's no good will left, you can't go F2P twice and there are other science fiction RPGs contrary to one optimistic person on this thread, that do quite well. That's why this expansion releases so close to Rogue One, they know it might cause a massive quit moment and they're hoping that the film would be enough to ebb the exodus long enough to reverse their latest trick.

 

It's not dying but the concern is these next changes will be the straw that break the camels back. There has been nothing since the "highest subs in 3 years" to suggest this game has gone anywhere except downhill and based on popular opinion of the only mediums we have to work with ( forums/reddit/chat ) these are no popular changes and will hurt the game further.

 

Logic then dictates the questions of do they actually believe this will work long term or is it a last ditch effort as instructed to pull what revenue they can out of this game knowing full well a "maintenance mode" style system where it's just a few uprising and maybe a 9 chapter release every year could keep this game profitable for a long time - to the detriment of all of us who loved for what it was and could have been?

 

They've also banked a lot of their eggs in the basket of solo story play so competing games don't even ideally need be MMOs at all - their competition in that regard is players who will happily wait a year to pay $15 to do a ton of story content and in the mean time happily consume other games story content.

 

I don't see this even as a gamble at all like I did 4.0 - this is destined for failure.

[MeNaCe-NZ]

Like I said though, it's a pretty common sense thing to happen given the content drought period. The question is more a matter of, "Was the loss expected in those numbers?" And it seems they are already trying to address the content drought problem with the setup of 5.0.

 

Content drought? But we got an episode of story content every single month! Don't blame the lack of content blame they style of content they chose to single down on and/or the model used to deliver that content.

 

Free for sub was a stupid idea. $5 a chapter and banking on using that revenue to justify the development cost whilst still developing other mmo content for subs would have been a better direction imo.