Swtor on CNN Money

[Maelleous]

• Swtor made it on on CNNMoney:
  
  http://money.cnn.com/2012/08/10/tech...lay/index.html
  
  They also mention howmost MMOs now struggle in the sub model with the exception of the Money Machine that is wow.
  
  

[Ryuukon]

• Swtor made it on on CNNMoney:
  
  http://money.cnn.com/2012/08/10/tech...lay/index.html
  
  They also mention howmost MMOs now struggle in the sub model with the exception of the Money Machine that is wow.
  
  

That article is actually interesting and makes a lot of sense, except for a few contradictions, such as Guild Wars. They kind of insinuate that Guild Wars went F2P, even though it was always F2P aside from the initial software purchase, which still holds true today.

I also wish it would have gone into depth on why WoW is the big money making machine that it is today, but they don't for understandable reasons. The article was written by a business analyst, not a game reviewer.

Maybe the whole landscape of MMO franchises would be better served if business analysts and game reviewers co-wrote articles?

[iggie]

To be fair, a huge part of Blizzard subs come from China where they used a PPM system where $4 Canadian can buy you over 60 hours of play time. Imagine if you're only logging in for raids/dailies.

[Victus01]

"The message from players exiting the game is clear: 40% say they were turned off by the monthly subscription, and many indicate they would come back if we offer a free-to-play model,"

that is utter PR bs. most people are leaving not because of it being a subscription base (i would have gladly paid the subscription for years if it was a triple A game but in reality its only a triple A game by name), but because it was an unfinished, unpolished game that offered very little for people at endgame and lack of support from the developers as well. i.e. lack of updates. most "maintenance" and those unscheduled 3 times a week maintenance are from blunders in patching that introduced new bugs. sound bug from 1.1 is still there and the 'stunned death' problem in alderaan warzone is still there every since i can remember. have written numerous support ticket and have talked to a live agent they said they are aware of it and on to it. even today its still there just happened to a guildy.

[Crysis]

I also wish it would have gone into depth on why WoW is the big money making machine that it is today

You don't needan analyst or a game reviewer to come up with why it has such success. It launched in a perfect time with just enough things that were done better than it's rival, Everquest 2. It was a copy of EQ2 in many aspects, sure, but they improved those things and add other just so that the game was more enjoyable for wider audience. Which resulted in growing player base and since there wasn't any considerable competion for it, it could grow and grow. Lure more people to it. And once people are addicted to something, it's difficult to stop. People have spent too many years and money on this game, that's why most of them just won't quit, even if they may not like that game as much as they used to. Sure, nowadays there is bunch of other games, that people can easily switch to and with F2P taking over, the number of paying subscribers will be lower and lower.

Now this is just how I see WoW's future, my intention is definitely not to hate, just to express my opinion. I myself resubbed to WoW today for 2 months, and I plan on playing both SWTOR and WoW for quite some time, hoping in both, TOR adding new exciting content and WoW getting back on the right path, since I didn't like the way they treated the game in Cataclysm.

[Hostagecat]

You don't needan analyst or a game reviewer to come up with why it has such success. It launched in a perfect time with just enough things that were done better than it's rival, Everquest 2. It was a copy of EQ2 in many aspects, sure, but they improved those things and add other just so that the game was more enjoyable for wider audience. Which resulted in growing player base and since there wasn't any considerable competion for it, it could grow and grow. Lure more people to it. And once people are addicted to something, it's difficult to stop. People have spent too many years and money on this game, that's why most of them just won't quit, even if they may not like that game as much as they used to. Sure, nowadays there is bunch of other games, that people can easily switch to and with F2P taking over, the number of paying subscribers will be lower and lower.

Now this is just how I see WoW's future, my intention is definitely not to hate, just to express my opinion. I myself resubbed to WoW today for 2 months, and I plan on playing both SWTOR and WoW for quite some time, hoping in both, TOR adding new exciting content and WoW getting back on the right path, since I didn't like the way they treated the game in Cataclysm.

Yep, same here about having 2 subscriptions. I think also you should add WOWs low requirements making it playable on a majority of machines, as opposed to EQ2 and other games that launched at that time made it real attractive. I also should add something most people forget is that its playable on MACs, none of that dual booting stuff. That was another big plus im sure.

With the standard being free to play, i think the subscription game is something we will tell our kids about. How folks would pay 15 bucks a month and get access to everything. The kids of course will look at us strange and think we are off our meds.

[Alvito]

"By dropping its subscription fees, Star Wars could attract upwards of 10 million players a month, according Michael Pachter, a well-quoted video game industry analyst with Wedbush Morgan Securities."

How does this guy still have a job and why does anybody with 1/5th of a working brain listen to him. I see stuff from him and its always a crazy and high insanely opptomistic if not impossible figure or point of view. This would be like turning on ESPN and seeing Chris Berman tell me the Packers are such a strong team this year they might win the World Series.

[Tekkommo]

"By dropping its subscription fees, Star Wars could attract upwards of 10 million players a month, according Michael Pachter, a well-quoted video game industry analyst with Wedbush Morgan Securities."

How does this guy still have a job and why does anybody with 1/5th of a working brain listen to him. I see stuff from him and its always a crazy and high insanely opptomistic if not impossible figure or point of view. This would be like turning on ESPN and seeing Chris Berman tell me the Packers are such a strong team this year they might win the World Series.

Bolding the important word for you.

I could go out tonight and kill 10 people. I could, but I won't.

He's just doing what analysts do, looking at the current market numbers, he's not taking into consideration that the game absolutely sucks.

[Redblade]

To be fair, a huge part of Blizzard subs come from China where they used a PPM system where $4 Canadian can buy you over 60 hours of play time. Imagine if you're only logging in for raids/dailies.

This, general rule of thumb is that around 40-45% is western subs, sadly to few actually know this and keep going on about their 10 million subscriber when comparing.

Semi interesting article otherwise, didn't really go deeper in to anything though.

[Crysis]

He's just doing what analysts do, looking at the current market numbers, he's not taking into consideration that the game absolutely sucks.

The game does not absolutely suck.

There are far worse games that people play, I don't see a reason, why 10 million Star Wars fans and other mmo players couldn't play The Old Republic, when it's for free.

[Tekkommo]

The game does not absolutely suck.

There are far worse games that people play, I don't see a reason, why 10 million Star Wars fans and other mmo players couldn't play The Old Republic, when it's for free.

I'm a huge star wars fan, I will not be playing this crap game again, free or not. The game is a bad MMO, a very bad MMO, 1-50 was great the first time, after that, the game is just bad.

[Alvito]

Bolding the important word for you.

I could go out tonight and kill 10 people. I could, but I won't.

He's just doing what analysts do, looking at the current market numbers, he's not taking into consideration that the game absolutely sucks.

If you have seen any of the other "could" numbers he has tossed out, you would know they are shithouse rat crazy. Just some of the ones with SWTOR said it could have 15 million accounts soon after launch. I understand what analysts do, as a company you want better numbers and things closer to reality. I could get hit by lightning, win the lottery, find solid proff on Bigfoot and win a gold medal in the Olympics. When somebody asks me what I think I am going to do today none of those will be my answer.

[SirRobin]

Wait a minute... Someone is actually trying to take Patcher seriously?

[Deleted]

This, general rule of thumb is that around 40-45% is western subs, sadly to few actually know this and keep going on about their 10 million subscriber when comparing.

Semi interesting article otherwise, didn't really go deeper in to anything though.

They pay to play like everyone else, and they have to have paid gametime active in the last 30 days of any call. But for some reason people don't think they're allowed to count eastern subs apparently because, they pay differently and less, or because they desperately seek to belittle WoW in attempts to make other failures look like smaller failures.

[Redblade]

They pay to play like everyone else, and they have to have paid gametime active in the last 30 days of any call. But for some reason people don't think they're allowed to count eastern subs apparently because, they pay differently and less, or because they desperately seek to belittle WoW in attempts to make other failures look like smaller failures.

You clearly fail to understand how their subscription model works, if they used 1minute they are counted, something that will earn Blizz less than 1c, it simply isn't useful for comparison to others that have not launched in china. For comparison using the western numbers would be the appropriate thing, no matter what game you enjoy or how hurt your feelings might be from the results.

[Lugor]

Not sure how people are getting these pie in the sky numbers like 10 million. The game only sold 2.4mil boxes total. How many more people are out there with a computer and broadband connection able to run it, and the will to get involved in an MMO? With free to play, you'll never see sub numbers again from EA, so you'll only have the anecdotal evidence of how you feel the server pops are. The only real evidence of a growth in concurrent users will be reopening closed servers.

[alturic]

• Swtor made it on on CNNMoney:
  
  http://money.cnn.com/2012/08/10/tech...lay/index.html
  
  They also mention howmost MMOs now struggle in the sub model with the exception of the Money Machine that is wow.
  
  

I personally find it completely and utterly hilarious how they (and others) are making it seem like ToR was this HUGE successful game and them going F2P is "ending the subscription model" in online games as some/most/all news reports are saying. I'm not knocking ToR for what it was, it just didn't appeal to me, but at least call a spade and spade and say "SWToR going F2P due to lackluster subscriptions based on a number of reasons" instead of "SWToR going F2P is signaling the end of subscription MMO's" as if subscriptions are a horrible idea and people are sick of paying monthly. People will gladly pay monthly if the product they receive is (to them) "worth it".

[Deleted]

You clearly fail to understand how their subscription model works, if they used 1minute they are counted, something that will earn Blizz less than 1c, it simply isn't useful for comparison to others that have not launched in china. For comparison using the western numbers would be the appropriate thing, no matter what game you enjoy or how hurt your feelings might be from the results.

Yes I'm sure a lot of people buy 1 minutes of gametime, get real please.

[alturic]

You clearly fail to understand how their subscription model works, if they used 1minute they are counted, something that will earn Blizz less than 1c, it simply isn't useful for comparison to others that have not launched in china. For comparison using the western numbers would be the appropriate thing, no matter what game you enjoy or how hurt your feelings might be from the results.

I don't see what's wrong with saying "We currently have 10m players" as if there needs to be an asterisk breaking it down further because some people in the west put less value on the people who pay different in the east. Just because the pay system is different in different parts of the world doesn't necessarily mean you value X player over X player. They are each paying the equivalent "price" based on their region(s).

[Deleted]

I'm a huge star wars fan, I will not be playing this crap game again, free or not. The game is a bad MMO, a very bad MMO, 1-50 was great the first time, after that, the game is just bad.

Wich is why it would have made an awesome 2-5 coop game and not an MMO.