Predictions: Will SWTOR Last As Long as SWG?

[Wayshuba]

Also, killing SWG (and Warhammer to some extent) was done to clear space for SWTOR, so that no SW MMO from EA compete with each other at as the same time. If SWTOR was never introduced, I would not be surprised if SWG would still be around now.

 

FYI. This game launched in December 2011. Warhammer wasn't shut down until December 2013. So closing Warhammer had nothing to do with SWTOR.

 

Here is the big question. EA has said repeatedly they need to game to have a least 200,000 subs to turn a profit. Does anyone believe that SWTOR still has that many active subs?

[Vego_Mohenjo]

It can, and SHOULD. This game still has VAST untapped potential. It needs two things.

 

1. More sandbox. Downtime activities and open sandbox world attributes allow the players to entertain themselves without a need for development time (beyond that needed to implement the sandbox in the first place...). This can take many forms...

• Crafting
  
• Housing
  
• Music
  
• Pazaak
  
• Sabaac
  
• Swoop racing
  
• Gambling ON games like these
  
• large, unexplored areas to explore and perhaps put down houses and towns (one of Galaxies' greatest strengths)
  
• Etc
  

 

2. Less screwing around with things that are not broken. I've been lamenting the 5.0 changes to the classes, because they were entirely unnecessary, and have actually diminished the game. Stop wasting development time on changing things that don't need changing, and focus on ADDING things to the fabric of the game.

 

The game could be the most fantastic MMO ever made, the foundation is still there, if only they would STOP eroding it with ill considered changes.

[Damedius]

The game has brought in over 100 million dollars in revenue for the past three years.

 

I'm sure EA is just dying to throw away this cash cow.

[TUXs]

The game has brought in over 100 million dollars in revenue for the past three years.

 

I'm sure EA is just dying to throw away this cash cow.

It should have been 5x's that much if it weren't so poorly managed. Lately SWTOR has been costing them money. They attributed this game, by name, with a 1-million dollar decline in revenue.

[kodrac]

Again, a guess, I do not think the current BW Austin team, given the resources, can produce content that would increase the sub count. They lack the competence to do so.

 

Honestly, I don't know how much to blame the studio and devs for 5.0. It could be the EA suits stepped in and said make them to sub. Make us a system that enforces profit for us, and this is what we got. Rarely do the people at the top understand how systems work.

 

This whole mess reminds me of a job I had where the *******s up top wanted stuff that wasn't ever going to be possible and all their decisions just made things worse to where I had to basically take a dump in a box and mark it guaranteed. A polished turd is still a turd.

[leehambly]

Just for balance, SWG had a cash shop, too... it was through a fun little side game element that you could play(mostly when the game was in maintenance!) and it linked through to in-game rewards - some really quite nice ones, housing, quick travel items, qol stuff etc.

 

SWG sunset because of the IP not wanting to run two MMO's side-by-side, not because it wasn't necessarily profitable. And you can understand why... splitting probably the most ardent sections of the player community across two separate games was never going to work. If it weren't for that, much like DCUO, I suspect SWG would probably still be going now.

 

They'll run this while its in the interests of the IP (ie: until something better comes along) and still making money somewhere.

[DarthDymond]

It should have been 5x's that much if it weren't so poorly managed. Lately SWTOR has been costing them money. They attributed this game, by name, with a 1-million dollar decline in revenue.

That's not "costing them money." There was a year-over-year decline for the quarter, and that's compared to a quarter where they did remarkably well - i.e. it brought in (using hypothetical numbers) $8.5 million in July-Sept 2015 and brought in $7.5 million in July-Sept 2016.

[MeNaCe-NZ]

3 years ... tough one to call until the next stream.

 

I imagine we are set for this year and an expansion at the end of the year so that will set it for 2 years. Then at least another year on a maintenance type mode from there if it were to occur.

They made some big in roads with the engine in 5.0 so that sort of technical investment is usually aimed around longevity I would think.

 

When I say the game is dieing I tend to refer to it declining to a point that many people just don't want to play it anymore and the game experience for a true MMO player is entirely diminished.

However for it to completely die ( close ) is a whole other issue as that requires the players joining and doing stories plus those happy camping along with solo content to also start dieing off and those players seem to at this stage keep a pretty steady, albeit low compared to the past, population base.

 

I personally think though the game is profitable enough to at least be kept alive ( and helps paying for the license from Disney for the most part ) so the only way I see it entirely shutting down is if it stops being profitable and/or their is a replacement in the works.

 

Once you hear of a game that could ideally replace this game ( even a hybrid style MMO like Destiny ) then you would assume this games days are numbered to the point it wouldn't be worth keeping open and paying royalties for the license to keep it open for EA.

 

Until then ... it will truck on.

[Ottoattack]

FYI. This game launched in December 2011. Warhammer wasn't shut down until December 2013. So closing Warhammer had nothing to do with SWTOR.

 

Here is the big question. EA has said repeatedly they need to game to have a least 200,000 subs to turn a profit. Does anyone believe that SWTOR still has that many active subs?

 

I am aware that Warhammer was closed after SWTOR release, however, from my understanding several key employees who worked on Warhammer are currently working on SWTOR. This is not a fact, but speculation, EA did not see a reason to keep Warhammer alive with another bigger thriving MMO was in need of resources. They just shifted the resources from Warhammer to SWTOR.

 

As for sub numbers, since BW does not disclose that info, our best bet is MMO articles. Not a reliable source, but even the doom and gloom ones do not estimates subs below 300K. One thing as well to keep in mind, the current remaining subs (especially the ones that do not break sub) are more loyal subs and probably buy more items from CM compared to subs like me who subbed for only 3 month since 3.0 was released, or F2P. If BW holds on to these they probably do not 200K subs to stay a float.

[Ottoattack]

The game has brought in over 100 million dollars in revenue for the past three years.

 

I'm sure EA is just dying to throw away this cash cow.

 

What was the cost? Companies like to advertise the revenue figures cuz they are flashy, but has little if anything with return on investment. That does not mean that the game is losing money. The players lack the info to know the actual returns.

[ALaggyGrunt]

Not really.

 

MMOs are a remarkably resilient form of game service. About the only thing that will force one to shut down is loss of an IP license, or a population too small to make the license payments and still stay profitable. Beyond licensing, they are remarkably easy to scale operationally to insure costs are in line with revenue. Thing is.. most of them have scaling rates for the license fees, based on revenue.... so even then... they will keep going until a license renewal window comes or they trigger a breach clause. Unlikely for that to happen for SWTOR, because EA and Disney are working at a much higher level of strategic business partnership then any single game.

 

Sure.. some players will leave, but others will return or join as well. MMOs are largely revolving doors with players now days. I'd say there is, on average, a core player base of 10-20% that stick with an MMO for the long term. The rest are actually game hoppers, mixing in every other possible game genre and style as they hop, as they are agnostic about if a game is an MMO or console shooter, or <insert your favorite type of game here>.

 

Game will never be the sizing of WoW, and does not need to be. WoW goes belly up someday, and Blizzard is in deep trouble. SWTOR goes belly up someday, and EA won't miss the revenue impact.

 

My bet is 2023 is the earliest that we will see any commercial pressure that might shutter the game. That is when the EA agreement with Disney is up for renewal/ending.

 

Operate, sure. Keep developing new content? That's a little more expensive.

[Wayshuba]

The game has brought in over 100 million dollars in revenue for the past three years.

 

I'm sure EA is just dying to throw away this cash cow.

 

Okay, this is one that gets me because I also happen to be an EA shareholder.

 

That $100 million number is complete and utter BS. It is now and always has been. The company that has made those claims that everyone likes to quote has no partnership with EA, nor has EA ever reported that separately. In addition, that BS research firm has NEVER matched up to what was reported by EA - EVER.

 

EA has 12 titles under subscription services along with Origin Access (so 13 revenue streams). The average as reported by EA for the titles in that pool - $28 million per year per title.

 

I am so sick, as a shareholder, of reading about that BS report from that firm which is quoted so often and has NEVER matched up to the EA financials.

 

Sorry, I don't mean to reflect this at you personally, but as a shareholder it angers me when I read this because it is complete BS started from that research firm.

 

EDIT: One last thing to add, EA has ALWAYS made a deal in their financials of titles that do more than $100 million in revenue. Outside of the launch of this game, they have NEVER attributed that much revenue to SWTOR - not a single time. You can bet you bottom dollar that if this game was doing $100 million plus a year, EA would have been talking about it in the financials. Instead, they have never mentioned it - not even once.

Edited January 18, 2017 by Wayshuba

[MeNaCe-NZ]

That's not "costing them money." There was a year-over-year decline for the quarter, and that's compared to a quarter where they did remarkably well - i.e. it brought in (using hypothetical numbers) $8.5 million in July-Sept 2015 and brought in $7.5 million in July-Sept 2016.

 

It's worth noting that loss in revenue could be higher or lower for this specific game because all we know the $1 million subscription loss that this game was the primary reason to.

 

That could be for example $400K with every other sub based game making less losses in revenue or it could be $5 million with other sub based games offsetting that subscription based loss with their gains to the $1 million overall subscription decline.

[MeNaCe-NZ]

Okay, this is one that gets me because I also happen to be an EA shareholder.

 

That $100 million number is complete and utter BS. It is now and always has been. The company that has made those claims that everyone likes to quote has no partnership with EA, nor has EA ever reported that separately. In addition, that BS research firm has NEVER matched up to what was reported by EA - EVER.

 

EA has 12 titles under subscription services along with Origin Access (so 13 revenue streams). The average as reported by EA for the titles in that pool - $28 million per year per title.

 

I am so sick, as a shareholder, of reading about that BS report from that firm which is quoted so often and has NEVER matched up to the EA financials.

 

Sorry, I don't mean to reflect this at you personally, but as a shareholder it angers me when I read this because it is complete BS started from that research firm.

 

Which firm are we talking about here? Not superdata is it ... ???

[DarthDymond]

Here is the big question. EA has said repeatedly they need to game to have a least 200,000 subs to turn a profit. Does anyone believe that SWTOR still has that many active subs?

Pretty sure that 200k number is from before the CM was introduced and changed the monetization of the game significantly (unless it's been repeated since then?).

 

Even so, in Oct-Dec 2015, EA announced that they hit their highest subscriber level in three years. Three years prior would have been late 2012, when the game was in its infamous post-launch decline. We know the subscriber number dropped below 1 million subs by July 2012, (about three-and-a-half years prior to their 'highest in three years' announcement) but after F2P launched the number "stabilized" at just under 500,000 by May 2013 (about two-and-a-half years prior to the 'three years' announcement).

 

Therefore, we know subscribers were already below a million by July 2012, we know that 500,000 was where the subscribers 'stabilized' at the end of that decline by May 2013, and they said that in Oct-Dec 2015 their subscriber numbers were back up to the highest they've been since sometime in between those two.

 

Numbers have certainly dropped in the year since then, but I seriously doubt that the drop is in the neighborhood of 60%, which is what it would take to go from the low end of that range all the way down to 200,000.

Edited January 18, 2017 by DarthDymond

[MeNaCe-NZ]

Pretty sure that 200k number is from before the CM was introduced and changed the monetization of the game significantly (unless it's been repeated since then?).

 

Even so, in Oct-Dec 2015, EA announced that they hit their highest subscriber level in three years. Three years prior would have been late 2012, when the game was in its infamous post-launch decline. We know the subscriber number dropped below 1 million subs by July 2012, (about three-and-a-half years prior to their 'highest in three years' announcement) but after F2P launched the number "stabilized" at just under 500,000 by May 2013 (about two-and-a-half years prior to the 'three years' announcement).

 

Therefore, we know subscribers were already below a million by July 2012, we know that 500,000 was where the subscribers 'stabilized' at the end of that decline by May 2013, and they said that in Oct-Dec 2015 their subscriber numbers were back up to the highest they've been since sometime in between those two. Numbers have certainly dropped since then, but I seriously doubt that the drop is in the neighborhood of 60%, which is what it would take to go from the low end of that range to 200,000.

 

I personally don't believe a drop of 60% from that highest point in 2015 to now is that out of the realms at all. When you look at the reddit traffic stats for example they support a huge decline in participation, torstatus tends to support this trend also.

 

Whilst none of that is anywhere near definitive evidence on numbers I think from a purely speculative approach using what evidence is available I think a 60% drop from that high point would be, and probably is, easily the case.

[mfourcustom]

I sure hope not... Want something new ran by a different company.

 

A mass effect mmo could be neat but i'm sure EA and BIO would find a way to mess it up too...

[DarthDymond]

I personally don't believe a drop of 60% from that highest point in 2015 to now is that out of the realms at all. When you look at the reddit traffic stats for example they support a huge decline in participation, torstatus tends to support this trend also.

 

Whilst none of that is anywhere near definitive evidence on numbers I think from a purely speculative approach using what evidence is available I think a 60% drop from that high point would be, and probably is, easily the case.

See, I think that's unlikely if for no other reason than it would certainly make the "$1 million decline in revenue" from the most recent earnings call quite a stretch. $1 million in sub revenue for a fiscal quarter translates into approximately 25,000 subs. As you pointed out earlier, that year-over-year decline was for the entire segment, so SWTOR could have declined more and had it offset by other games - but even if we were to posit that SWTOR dropped by twice that amount, it would still only calculate out to losing 50,000 subs.

 

Not great for the game, but a far cry from 300,000. To hit that point, the game's income would have to decline by twelve times the amount mentioned for the entire segment.

Edited January 18, 2017 by DarthDymond

[psandak]

Question: How many subs do Ultima Online and EverQuest have? Last I saw EQ1 had about 30k active subs. Those games are still operational after nearly two decades and I KNOW SOE is still releasing content for EQ1.

 

Point is so long as a company deems the MMORPG profitable, they will keep it going and continue to expand upon it. Now what EA considers "profitable" and what SOE considers "profitable" are very different answers.

 

Lastly, so long as Disney is releasing movies at the clip they are (about one per year) and TV episodes, they will want an ongoing SW game title to exist (yes I know I am contradicting myself; I have said in other threads that movie goers and TV watchers are not necessarily gamers).

[MeNaCe-NZ]

See, I think that's unlikely if for no other reason than it would certainly make the "$1 million decline in revenue" from the most recent earnings call quite a stretch. $1 million in sub revenue for a fiscal quarter translates into approximately 25,000 subs. As you pointed out earlier, that year-over-year decline was for the entire segment, so SWTOR could have declined more and had it offset by other games - but even if we were to posit that SWTOR dropped by twice that amount, it would still only calculate out to losing 50,000 subs.

 

Not great for the game, but a far cry from 300,000. The game's income would have to decline by twelve times the amount mentioned for the entire segment to hit that point.

 

The point of the "highest subs in 3 years" isn't necessarily applied to the whole period though. The way it is worded to means they at some point in that 3 month period hit the highest levels they had seen in 3 years.

It is quite likely a really big spike in October 15 ( as we saw in the torstatus data ) followed by a drop off in the following 5 months ( as we saw on reddit stats and torstatus ) and then a gradual decline from there from there and not really picking up notably since then - certainly not YoY. There were spikes though around DvL, KotET launch and December holiday period but again nothing even close to what we saw YoY.

 

Also isn't the $1 million drop comparing the July-September period so is not part of that highest sub statement?

My point here is the drop off for Oct-Dec was and probably is far worse of a drop off YoY than the Jul-Sept drop off.

 

So when I am saying a 60% drop off I am specifically talking about that recorded highest peak vs now that allowed them to state "highest in 3 years" as opposed to an overall drop off of 60% over the entire period.

 

That highest in 3 years part is an anomaly I am guessing and would not have lasted more than a month if the torstatus trends are to be believed. For example say the spike was 501K ( in keeping with your low end example ) in October and declined from there as we know it did - it's only got to lose 50K a month over the Nov-March period to be down around 250K and then a gradual decline from there and you're easily under 200K.

 

I guess it's important to note the 60% decline I was saying is possible is from that October 15 spike to the players we have in game right now. We did see a wee boost in December but I wouldn't find it hard to believe this has quickly dropped off.

 

I'm not necessarily saying I believe the sub numbers to be below 200K either ( it's possible though - be nice if we had some indication of how well reddit numbers correlated to gaming community numbers ) but that I do believe a 60% drop off in subs from that October period to now is quite likely. e.g. 600K subs in that spike down to 240K now.

[heythereqt]

Unless EA decides to shut it down because it's not officially canon, the game will continue to run off Cartel Market profits for a good 3 or 4 years at least.

 

Now, whether or not the game will theoretically "die" before that because of lackluster development and little-to-no real content updates...that's another story. One thing is objectively true: when 99% of forum and reddit posts have been negative towards the game in the past 6 months (not including "new player" or "looking for help" posts), the game's state is clearly trending downward.

[MeNaCe-NZ]

Question: How many subs do Ultima Online and EverQuest have? Last I saw EQ1 had about 30k active subs. Those games are still operational after nearly two decades and I KNOW SOE is still releasing content for EQ1.

 

Point is so long as a company deems the MMORPG profitable, they will keep it going and continue to expand upon it. Now what EA considers "profitable" and what SOE considers "profitable" are very different answers.

 

Lastly, so long as Disney is releasing movies at the clip they are (about one per year) and TV episodes, they will want an ongoing SW game title to exist (yes I know I am contradicting myself; I have said in other threads that movie goers and TV watchers are not necessarily gamers).

 

We don't really know how much of a say Disney has in what comes out star wars wise. There is no doubt some sort of creative control due to the IP integrity but not necessarily anything that says they have to keep this game open etc. or how EA is to do business.

 

It might be they do have to do so or it might be that EA just has to ensure a certainly level of minimum revenue goes Disney's way each year and if it's missed EA has to make it up out of their other licenses meaning it's 100% upto EA what and how they use the Star Wars gaming license they have to make money ... and it's EA they aren't about to just not make money from it.

 

Point being though as long as this game doesn't make a loss and there is no replacement it's fairly safe ... I wouldn't feel so sure about it's current management personally. At the least if it's profitable it is contributing to whatever amount Disney expects from EA which means the other more successful games can put more into EA's own pockets than if the game were totally scrapped.

 

In a way having EA not own the IP probably does this game a favour.

Edited January 19, 2017 by MeNaCe-NZ

[FerkWork]

After they abandoned the MMO part midway through 3.0 and they released 4.0. Episode VII comes out so lot of fans wants to see another Star Wars movie. So some spend 15 dollars to watch a different one called KotFE. Weird but alright. Then they are told there is more but it's 15 more per month to get a part or wait till last part release. They be like nah I'll watch it later. BW be like well fudge this plan to milk the movie casuals goers isn't working let's go for Plan B next year. And they called it KotET. Now let's find out what plan C is and I Do episode VIII will save it Edited January 19, 2017 by FerkWork

[Char_Ell]

The license is for exclusive rights to make Star Wars games, not SWTOR. SWTOR has literally nothing to do with the deal...the deal still holds true with or without this game.

 

I don't see how you could possibly know that EA's Star Wars game licensing agreement does not include SWTOR.

 

I've no idea where SWTOR will be at in three years. Right now the game seems like it's on the path to either maintenance mode or complete shutdown. It would take something fairly miraculous at this point to reverse that trend.

[Kurfer]

Not sure how anyone can compare the future of this game to SWG due to the time period.

 

Remember, when SWG was available there was a large player base still using dial-up. At the time I rolled my first character I was using a 128kbps ISDN line. Also, Everquest was the top dog MMO and did not attract casual gamers at all. This was the dawn of the MMO age; but also users were very timid as it was completely new.

 

SWG didn't really bring anything incredibly new to the table either, it was another MMO is a new market. Infrastructure to support the servers (data circuits, servers, etc) were extremely expensive and difficult to maintain. This was long before cloud computing and third party secure data centers existed. All infrastructure had to be supported and maintained in-house. There was an extreme cost associated with running it. The in-game purchase market model did not exist either, the ONLY source of revenue was through game sales and monthly subs.

 

Fast forward to today:

 

Cloud based third party DC's drastically reduce operating costs. Virtualized compute models reduced server hardware costs and upgrade nightmares. General infrastructure is cheaper and not to mention you don't need an army of $150k+/year engineers to maintain it.

 

This game will last as long as EA manages to keep the license and ability to maintain Starwars from Disney. I believe this game also had something to do with the closing of SWG; so unless another Starwars MMO comes along I am sure this game will be around for a while. I am a casual player these days, even I spend more than $30 monthly on random cartel coins + sub if you avg it out over the course of a year.

Edited January 19, 2017 by Kurfer