SWTOR $1 million decrease in subscription

[MeNaCe-NZ]

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.

 

Except they are removing the concept of progression for any future content with this model so it basically encourages a "sub, beat it, unsub" instead of adding a few months of your sub gearing by solely doing the new content that awards it by which time there is hopefully something a little more - hell people would sub extra time just knowing these is something more coming a month or 2 down the track.

 

Progression model worked well for a reason, it's a good idea - they could have added GC to that sure but removing progression is a stupid idea.

[MeNaCe-NZ]

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?

 

Sorry before I tried respond to the rest of your reply this bit sticks out for clarification and maybe I'm missing something.

 

To lose 1.5 million in sub revenue over 3 months it's ideally 33,333 subs over that period missing ( 33,333 * $15 * 3 )

so where does the 3 million current subs come from?

 

I'm just not quite understand your math I believe?

[JattaGin]

It's not dying but the concern is these next changes will be the straw that break the camels back.

 

That straw has been predicted since 2012 again and again and again. And I will now repeat what I have said here again and again and again, because I know what I am talking about:

 

This game will NEVER make it beyond December 2013. I guarantee you all and I am 100% convinced that they will shut off all their servers on 31.12.2013. There is absolutely no possibility for them to continue beyond this date.

 

Mark my words, folks. 31.12.2013 RIP Swtor.

Edited November 14, 2016 by JattaGin

[Tsillah]

Sorry before I tried respond to the rest of your reply this bit sticks out for clarification and maybe I'm missing something.

 

To lose 1.5 million in sub revenue over 3 months it's ideally 33,333 subs over that period missing ( 33,333 * $15 * 3 )

so where does the 3 million current subs come from?

 

I'm just not quite understand your math I believe?

 

Your example is essentially correct, however, that's just step one. Step 2 is this: The 33.3K you refer to are the loss and therefore 1% of the total subs, therefore 100% of the subs is 33.3K * 100 = 3.33 milion

[DarthDymond]

The 33.3K you refer to are the loss and therefore 1% of the total subs, therefore 100% of the subs is 33.3K * 100 = 3.33 milion

The "1%" is the decline of EA's total sub revenue for all its games as compared to last year (i.e. the decline from $84 million to $83 million) - not necessarily a 1% decline in SWTOR sub revenue specifically.

[Tsillah]

The "1%" is the decline of EA's total sub revenue for all its games as compared to last year (i.e. the decline from $84 million to $83 million) - not necessarily a 1% decline in SWTOR sub revenue specifically.

 

Which is exactly what I am explaining with this calculation, because clearly the game doesn't have the millions of subs that would come out of the calculation then.

 

Read a few more posts and you will see.

[Docthebutcher]

Which is exactly what I am explaining with this calculation, because clearly the game doesn't have the millions of subs that would come out of the calculation then.

 

Read a few more posts and you will see.

 

YES we do have millions of subs how do I know you ask because James Olwin or however it is spelled it seems to be different on him when dealing with EA at

HE SAID MILLIONS and MILLIONS of SUBS to swtor...

[Tsillah]

YES we do have millions of subs how do I know you ask because James Olwin or however it is spelled it seems to be different on him when dealing with EA at

HE SAID MILLIONS and MILLIONS of SUBS to swtor...

 

No, he didn't.

 

He said millions of players, not subs. Also he didn't specify there are millions of players today, he may as well have meant over the course of the game just like that little poster they made with all the big numbers of players, characters created etc.

[Rolodome]

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.

Huh? Are we not talking about the latest financial quarter? A good half of which was after KOTFE ended?

 

Edit: Looks like I'm not understanding the dates of quarters. It looks like the latest quarter was for April, May, and June.

 

So it would seem the chapter a month plus sub rewards possibly helped their revenue out in Q1. But after that, revenue went down overall, compared to prior quarter (or quarters, not sure which).

Edited November 14, 2016 by Rolodome

[PlasmaJohn]

Back when I was working for a publicly traded company we used to say: There's bad and then there's quarterly report bad. Never be quarterly report bad.

 

They got called out. This is a big black mark for Austin's management. Worse they were on the hook to increase subs and they lost even more ground. Seems like their strategy to ignore retention blew up in their faces. Sadly they still don't seem to grasp that.

 

RNG gearing, especially now with the news that right side drops may not be set pieces, is just going to cheese off even more folks. Way to foster retention! Not.

[Ruskaeth]

Back when I was working for a publicly traded company we used to say: There's bad and then there's quarterly report bad. Never be quarterly report bad.

 

They got called out. This is a big black mark for Austin's management. Worse they were on the hook to increase subs and they lost even more ground. Seems like their strategy to ignore retention blew up in their faces. Sadly they still don't seem to grasp that.

 

RNG gearing, especially now with the news that right side drops may not be set pieces, is just going to cheese off even more folks. Way to foster retention! Not.

My thoughts almost exactly. However, I don't think they were in a hook as you say. They experimented and that blew on their faces. Monthly releasing did just not work as they expected and they have admitted as much. In other words they just were hooked instead of already having been there in serious fashion. 5.0 content is a major let down. If I were an active investor I would be surprised to see how bad their sales efforts are on their website. Nothing is up to date for a knowledgeable and comparing MMO player. It's almost as if they are putting their efforts to single customer segment and that is all fine as long as they don't forget existing customers and maintaining other segments and basic external service to those.

[TUXs]

Back when I was working for a publicly traded company we used to say: There's bad and then there's quarterly report bad. Never be quarterly report bad.

 

They got called out. This is a big black mark for Austin's management. Worse they were on the hook to increase subs and they lost even more ground. Seems like their strategy to ignore retention blew up in their faces. Sadly they still don't seem to grasp that.

 

RNG gearing, especially now with the news that right side drops may not be set pieces, is just going to cheese off even more folks. Way to foster retention! Not.

Imagine that...by ignoring their customers and doing whatever they wanted, they actually lost money?! They should double down imo...make MORE story and screw those who don't want RNG gearing...obviously they know better than us what we want to pay for.

 

The stupidity involved in ALL of this is absolutely mind boggling.

[Spockendil]

It simply isn't possible to tell from the 10-Q how well SWTOR is doing for the company financially. Game subscription revenue is down slightly, due "primarily" to SWTOR. Additional digital sales are growing, and nothing in the 10-Q suggests how much of this, if any, is due to SWTOR.

 

Nor is it possible to tell how their projections of future revenues factor into their decisions. Maybe they project that the changes, when implemented and marketed, will result in more new subscriptions than losses. Maybe they project that it will result in more overall digital sales and they don't care what the impact is on subscription revenue. Maybe they have a long-term plan to roll SWTOR subscriptions into their relatively new overall subscription model, which if it continues on the current trend, will be significantly profitable for them. Maybe they view the overall strategic plan for SWTOR as something that needs to fit differently with their other Star Wars products, and perhaps capture a portion of the market that may or may not result in greater cross-selling and/or less cannibalization. Or maybe the entire product really is headed down the drain.

 

Who knows? I don't, and neither does anybody else relying on the 10-Q for their inferences. Perhaps some people posting in this thread are relying on inside information. But to the extent that hard-line conclusions are being drawn from a single line in the 10-Q, taken out of context from the overall financial picture presented in the document, seems to me to be a bit of a stretch.

[TUXs]

It simply isn't possible to tell from the 10-Q how well SWTOR is doing for the company financially.

What? They specifically state that SWTOR is the PRIME reason for a $1 million loss...SWTOR is losing them money! What more do you want to hear? SWTOR is on the chopping block dude...EA is a brutal company. If you aren't adding to their bottom line, they are more than happy to chop you.

[Costello]

The major problem I see, is that Kotfe was build on a lot of hope.

 

It was Bioware returning to Story! Each chapter was said to be the best ever! Choices would really matter!

 

Sadly anyone that played it found that choices really didn't matter, most chapters were dull and little better than filler while the return to story telling fell a long way short of what players hoped from Bioware, with one story fits all and lets face it telling Arcann's story not the Players.

 

Then there was the companion issue, each month people asked which companions were coming back and each month people were lead on. They know exactly which ones they had done the VO for but rather than tell people that kept being evasive.

 

Group, repeatable, Space and PvP content are probably best ignored, we all know the devs did.

 

So then Kotet comes along and what can we look forward to, choices that really don't matter, dull content telling Senya, Arcann or Vaylins story no doubt full of plot holes and forced.

 

Though not to forget random loot boxes, coms and crystals traded in for less credits than in my soak draw and group content that is skytroopers falling in waves in ever more annoying numbers.

 

And that is before we hit the class nerfs etc.

 

Whoever is making these decisions has to wonder why would people pay for that. Lets be realistic this is meant to be entertainment and I think you would be hard pressed to say the game is delivering at the moment.

[Alssaran]

Looks like I'm not understanding the dates of quarters. It looks like the latest quarter was for April, May, and June.

 

No. The quarter report we are talking about right now (Q2 2016) is for the period of July - September this year. The period ended with September 30th. The report for said period is out now. They usually take between three ot four weeks to accumulate and write down the necessary investment data, and then present it a month into the next quarter.

 

What? They specifically state that SWTOR is the PRIME reason for a $1 million loss...SWTOR is losing them money!

 

Tux, you know that this statement is plain out wrong and is presenting the information we have in a way to fit your narrative of this story, seemingly to support your nonsensical attack here.

 

SWTOR is not losing them money. SWTOR would lose them money if they didn't get their initial investment back from the content development and release. If they'd invest ten million into the game per quarter, and they only got nine million back, that would mean they are losing money due to SWTOR.

 

The fact that subscriber revenue has decreased by a fraction of 1% in total due to SWTOR losing some subscribers (which could be as low as 10k, and as high as 21k based on different variables and percentages within said 1%) does not mean the company is losing money on the project. Espescially since you have to consider that a majority of this game's revenue is coming from the CM. If the game makes 50 million per quarter (an estimated base of the top grossing MMO list earlier this year), and they lose out on half a million of that, the remaining 49.5 million dollars might still be profitable for EA in the long run - even if the revenue decreased, it doesn't mean they are losing money. If the investment is only ten million per quarter, and they get 49.5 million in return, the game still makes money.

 

Tux, you are obfuscating facts here, and you're twisting the semantics into a simple base. One that is neither applicable nor infered with the presented data - mainly that SWTOR is losing them money and that it is on the chopping block. This would be like saying that WoW lost Blizzard money when it changed from twelve million to nine million subscribers. Obviously, the game wasn't making as much as it was during WotLK and it's prime, but WoW is still a major part of their overall income. One that returns a lot of money in the process. It was still printing money - even with a subscriber decrease of 25%.

 

The fact that subscriber revenue decreased by 4% does not mean that SWTOR isn't making them money. It's a stupid, nonsensical, plainly wrongly presented argument. I'm not sure whether you made a semantical error, you misswrote/didn't make your statement clear, or you obfuscated and used such an easily missunderstood meaning on purpose, but I really expected better.

Edited November 14, 2016 by Alssaran

[PlasmaJohn]

What? They specifically state that SWTOR is the PRIME reason for a $1 million loss...SWTOR is losing them money! What more do you want to hear?

Eh, I doubt the game is unprofitable but the trend is in the wrong direction. That's just subscriber revenue. CM revenue is likely keeping it in the black.

 

Worse the failing metric is something that BINO management was called out on by EA's CFO prior to KotFE's release. It worked in the short term (which I suspect what got KotET greenlit) but failed miserably in the long term.

 

Speculatively I think the RNG gear and anti-preferred features of 5.0 are a panic reaction in a (naive) attempt to pull them out of their nosedive. If that's the case I'd say that would be one of the more inept management decisions yet.

 

A more chilling speculation on why would be the observation on how well SW:GOH is doing and they're restructuring towards that model. *shudders*

[Alssaran]

A more chilling speculation on why would be the observation on how well SW:GOH is doing and they're restructuring towards that model. *shudders*

 

I think this is the more applicable reason for the change in direction. EA and Bioware are probably predicting a change in costumer behaviour. Back away from the MMO aspect that was prevalent around the market a decade ago, and towards a very "money out the window" approach when accelerating certain grinds and aspects of the game. It's a very unfavourable approach for the MMO market as a whole, but it seems multiple games are going to head into that direction.

 

I suspect the reason to double down on group content and to implement the new subscriber approach is an attempt of Bioware to offset the damage that KotFE's non-group content release did. As we know now, a loss of roughly 15k subscribers during the past three months. If we assume a total playerbase of 500k, that's certainly nothing that's going to kill the game or it's profit, but it's nothing to be proud of either.

 

I suspect that digital revenue and subscription for the game will be up for the Q3 2017 (October 1st until December 30th), seeing we get new subscriber rewards and the expansion hits, but the more surprising and telling report will be Q4 2017 from January to March. It'll show whether the newly announced group content in January can keep people around.

[TUXs]

The fact that subscriber revenue has decreased by a fraction of 1% in total due to SWTOR losing some subscribers (which could be as low as 10k, and as high as 21k based on different variables and percentages within said 1%) does not mean the company is losing money on the project.

That's not what they said though...they specifically call out SWTOR as being primarily responsible for their loss of 1 million dollars - or 1% of their total revenue.

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.

SWTOR is the MAIN reason for a one million dollar decrease (which is a loss of $1 mil).

[PlasmaJohn]

I think this is the more applicable reason for the change in direction. EA and Bioware are probably predicting a change in costumer behaviour. Back away from the MMO aspect that was prevalent around the market a decade ago, and towards a very "money out the window" approach when accelerating certain grinds and aspects of the game. It's a very unfavourable approach for the MMO market as a whole, but it seems multiple games are going to head into that direction.

*rubs temples* Wall Street needs to get out of the business of making games.

 

SW:GOH, like all the other phone games, is designed to get into and out of quickly. It's great if you want to kill a few minutes here and there. I takes longer for SW:TOR to load than it does to finish SW:GOH dailies. But hey, BINO's business model seems to be sacrifice current demographic for whatever is trendy right now.

 

It's the business version of "The Weird People you meet in Group Finder"

[RuthSimpson]

That's not what they said though...they specifically call out SWTOR as being primarily responsible for their loss of 1 million dollars - or 1% of their total revenue.

SWTOR is the MAIN reason for a one million dollar decrease (which is a loss of $1 mil).

 

That's not a loss. They aren't losing money. Their profits for the same quarter last year were 1 % higher. Primarily simply mains the biggest share of lower revenue i.e could be about 20 %. It makes sense that Q3 is down in this game this year as the expac is being released later than last year and expacs bring a surge in numbers. You know this, the above poster who replied to you was clear and easy to understand. Stop being hyperbolic

[TUXs]

That's not a loss. They aren't losing money. Their profits for the same quarter last year were 1 % higher. Primarily simply mains the biggest share of lower revenue i.e could be about 20 %. It makes sense that Q3 is down in this game this year as the expac is being released later than last year and expacs bring a surge in numbers. You know this, the above poster who replied to you was clear and easy to understand. Stop being hyperbolic

No. Stop downplaying it. SWTOR is the main reason EA lost ONE million dollars. It's named, by name, and attributed with the decrease of ONE million in revenue.

 

It's right there, in black and white. Half of my previous post was their exact quote.

[Rolodome]

No. The quarter report we are talking about right now (Q2 2016) is for the period of July - September this year. The period ended with September 30th. The report for said period is out now. They usually take between three ot four weeks to accumulate and write down the necessary investment data, and then present it a month into the next quarter.

Hmm. I got confused somewhere, but I'm seeing now that Q2 says the submission date was November, so that makes sense with July to September.

 

Edit: Most of the dropoff was probably late august through september then.

Edited November 14, 2016 by Rolodome

[Wayshuba]

Regardless, there is something strange and I would point to two things.

 

1.) When a company that is doing over $1 billion a quarter is pointing out a decline of $1 million, this is usually foreshadowing some much worse news coming in the near future. When you think about how minuscule $1 million is to them, there is no reason to point it out unless much worse news is coming. Does anyone remember how they did a similar thing during the "Tortanic" period?

 

2.) Being singled out in a report from a large company for declining performance is never a good thing. It means the eyes of the big boys are starting to look into your little neck in the woods.

 

Now, this would begin to explain the CXP system and locking content behind a paywall for subscribers. But I will still stick to my opinion that I think the boys in Austin are going to ultimately find that what they are doing, and want to achieve with this system, is going to have the complete opposite effect (i.e., it is going to cost them more subs and revenue than it will gain them) than they think is going to happen. It is starting to look like the CxP system is a desperation move.

[RuthSimpson]

No. Stop downplaying it. SWTOR is the main reason EA lost ONE million dollars. It's named, by name, and attributed with the decrease of ONE million in revenue.

 

It's right there, in black and white. Half of my previous post was their exact quote.

They didn't make a loss. they still made a profit on SWTOR. And 1 million dollars is nothing to EA. So you can stop with the ONE captitalization already. Seriously do you even like the game? You find any reason to bad mouth it.