Is it fair to consider SW:TOR a failure?

[Redblade]

Oh and they sold 2.4 million boxes.

I took 2 million as the other 400k probably wasn't at full price hence made it to complex, I think 2 million was around launch though.

---------- Post added 2012-09-29 at 01:00 AM ----------

Take a look at ActiBlizz's quarterlies. The cost of maintenance is not much. The month to month development? Well....what development? I think you're overestimating the amount of money going out as opposed to coming in.

The cost of day to day operation is hardly worth a footnote in their quarterly, month to month development with 500 developers at $50k a year is $2.08m which translates to 173334 subscribers (@ $12 each ). It's far from expensive to maintain a MMO, something that few gamers seem to understand, sadly as it gives the developers the opportunity to under deliver while over charging.

Only thing expensive about an MMO is to make the original product.

[Kelimbror]

I'm not sure how you can say that. It is certainly a failure from a business perspective, and the massive sub losses would seem to indicate that it is also a failure in the eyes of its player base.

Here, lemme try; Yes, it was a failure. That sentence includes as much reasoning and fact as yours did.

The OP is asking a valid question here and didn't come off as biased to me. You're post is useless.

Since you clearly don't come around these parts often, let me tell you exactly how I can say that.

1) I praise the game when it warrants it and critique it the same. The company is making terrible decisions and I'm very unhappy with that part at the moment.

2) I am currently worgen elbows deep in Mists of Pandaria because I love that game. So you can throw your bullshit bias claim out the window...since you don't know me at all.

3) Point number two doesn't change the fact that I think SWTOR is a great game. It still has people playing and must make money. I think box sales alone more than likely brought it into the black. As a continuous business model it can't fail until it shuts it's doors with a loss. Since that is not going to happen, it is not a failure.

4) The post was made almost solely to promote the OP's youtube video and get him hits. This thread is complete bullshit.

[MagusGothica]

Since you clearly don't come around these parts often, let me tell you exactly how I can say that.

1) I praise the game when it warrants it and critique it the same. The company is making terrible decisions and I'm very unhappy with that part at the moment.

2) I am currently worgen elbows deep in Mists of Pandaria because I love that game. So you can throw your bullshit bias claim out the window...since you don't know me at all.

3) Point number two doesn't change the fact that I think SWTOR is a great game. It still has people playing and must make money. I think box sales alone more than likely brought it into the black. As a continuous business model it can't fail until it shuts it's doors with a loss. Since that is not going to happen, it is not a failure.

4) The post was made almost solely to promote the OP's youtube video and get him hits. This thread is complete bullshit.

I... I think I love you.

[Forsedar]

If the OP was here to get 'views', then he is definitely in the wrong place. The video seems to have about 200 views, so I'm not worried. This is a valid discussion as long as it doesn't get out of hand soo.. (When I say valid: I mean don't make more of these threads.)


Don't let it get out of hand.

[Agent Mercury]

Did it fail at being a good game? Hell no, it is wonderful.
Did it fail at hitting the mark it was thought to make? Yes, it did.

[Lord Kristivas]

I wouldn't call it a success, but it's not a failure either.

I would call it a success, at the base level.

Failure means it's done. It means there aren't at least the 600k people now playing it. Failure means development is over.

SWTOR is not done, there are 600k+ people playing, and it's still very much being developed. Most of all? There are a lot of people who really enjoy the game. Enough numbers to justify it's existence. SWG, for example, had like what? 5k people (granted, this small number of people were rabid fans, so props there) playing at the end? Then it's servers shut down. That's the line for failure.

When you look at the sales and subs of most other MMOs that pop out these days, they don't even come close to reaching where SWTOR is now, let alone at it's peak. They rise and fall without even nearing the 500k mark, and most gamers don't even know their names. That's success.

Now, when people tell you it's a failure, it's their own personal opinion leading them to that conclusion. The game wasn't everything they ever wanted, so the whole thing is just trash in their view. Expectations for this game (and basically for every other game in development) were really high, initially. EA guys were talking it up as being awesome and revolutionizing, fans were talking it up and calling it a WoW-killer. Did the game fail to live up to those individual, personal expectations that each unreasonable, entitled gamer had in mind? Sure. Absolutely. Then again, so did everything else. GW2 didn't turn out to be the Messiah of MMOs. The Secret World had a cool story and a good concept, but then you started feeling like you're playing a clunky game drawn by college students. Rift revolutionized with events and content output, but still stayed small after people left after the free month was up. MoP is getting a collective "meh" from a lot of dudes I know.

It seems like every game that comes out these days has something new and different, but sticks to a base formula. SWTOR had the best fucking questing ever (well, the first couple of times through, then you only do class quests). Rift had.. Rifts, and a nostalgia Old-EQ feel. GW2 has an expansive world and some really great PvP shit. But they ALL follow the UO>EQ>WoW formula: Kill shit + get loot/rep/tokens/etc + fuck bitches + get money.

I honestly don't know what will impress people. How different can these kinds of games be, before they won't even be these kinds of games? Everyone has SUCH varied expectations. You have the sandbox fans, the the theme park fans, the hardcore raiders, the PvPers, the casuals, the crafters, the RP-immersive-types.. and if each game doesn't focus on what they want, and only what they want, it's a failure. "Well, back to WoW!" If WoW came out today, do you think it would be any different?

[SteakAndAlePie]

How do we define exactly what a failure is?

You try something. If it does not work as intended, it's a failure.

I would say, qualities of SW:TOR aside, it is a failure, as it was intended to gain a siezeable amount of market share by the people financing it.

[Krolikn]

It failed at its original goal, so the answer is yes.

[Lord Kristivas]

It failed at its original goal, so the answer is yes.

It failed at being a successful MMO and making it's companies money? I don't think the goal of the game (to make profit) is the same as the goal of what people (fans, etc) had in mind for it. So no, this is wrong. Otherwise, every other game in the history of the internets, from now until the end of time, to not pass 12 million subs, is fail.

[Varyk]

Yes, it was a massive failure. Anyone who believes otherwise is kidding themselves. With how much they spent, it wasn't even close. I enjoyed leveling in that game probably more than any other game, but after that, is where it had problems.

[RoninaThorstone]

It failed at its original goal, so the answer is yes.

The original goal was and is to make money.

It's doing that.

---------- Post added 2012-09-29 at 03:14 AM ----------

Yes, it was a massive failure. Anyone who believes otherwise is kidding themselves. With how much they spent, it wasn't even close. I enjoyed leveling in that game probably more than any other game, but after that, is where it had problems.

Getting the feeling you think they spent 300 to 500 million...

[Varyk]

The original goal was and is to make money.

It's doing that.

---------- Post added 2012-09-29 at 03:14 AM ----------



Getting the feeling you think they spent 300 to 500 million...

No, I don't. The game is a failure. It lost over half of it's playerbase in a span on a couple months.

[Edge-]

The original goal was and is to make money.

It's doing that.

It was more to be a direct competitor with WoW and take a big chunk of their playerbase. To simply "make a profit" is the absolute minimum, they were looking to make a very big profit with it.

So yeah, it's still profitable (as far as we know), but it's absolutely failed to meet EA's expectations and it's quite obvious that that is the case.

[Arganis]

Considering it's potential it sure is a massive failure. I'm also angry they never released a Mac version, which at this point there's no reason to believe they ever will. Simply a bad attitude, even GW2 is making a Mac version.

Anyways that's not the point, most people consider SW:TOR a massive failure and that in itself is enough to make it so. Sad considering it probably means the end of Knight of the Old Republic in general, which was a great franchise with a bright future.

Aslo I think it's safe to say SW:Tor is dead, which makes it a en even bigger failure and by dead I mean it will never have huge expansions like WoW and get people excited like it briefly did. So ya, one big gigantic massive failure. At this point it's no better than Age of conan.

[Summerwine]

From a personal perspective, I would not call SW:TOR a failure. I really enjoyed it and it had a few features which I think a lot of MMO's could learn from, such as a fascinating and deep storyline and character voice acting. It had its low points, sure. I think it felt very constricting for a MMO, with very little option or motive for exploration outside of questing. Perhaps the quests them self could become repetitive, especially when rolling a new class (Although I didn't have much of a problem with this. The unique class quests carried me on and I liked seeing how the quests played out depending on Light/Dark choice. Besides, I like repetition.) and I think the HM quests/early lack of LFG tool was a mistake.

As for whether it is a commercial success, well I don't have the information to call it. The game certainly dose have its critics, but then again is it still making money? Will going F2P make a difference? I think, in the long run, its to early to call to be honest.

One thing SW:TOR has proven to me is to never believe someone when they say "X game is going to kill WoW" It certainly failed in that respect!

[Arganis]

Here, this should settle the debate forever:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/insertco...-from-bioware/

[Asics]

Not a failure but fell short of expectations.

If that is failing then many games are failures.

[Forsedar]

Not a failure but fell short of expectations.

If that is failing then many games are failures.

Exactly what I think. D3 sold A LOT of copies, yet many people called it a failure because they didn't like it. If you don't like a game- you will label it a failure.

[Mandible]

As said - it was a failure in regards to meeting most peoples expections. At least not enough for them to stay in the game. Personally I liked it, but having quite abit build into World of Warcraft and no real idea about Sw:tor at max level there wasn´t enough incentive to keep playing it (at least not as a paid game). The game is however really well made, and they manage to involve the player alot taking them back and forth in the class storyline. Also personally liked the crafting system instead of having to be ingame all the time to craft ou could do other things.

Diablo 3 sold well so economically it wasnt a failure, but I can still relate to people calling it a failure as a game. Since it seemed to sell itself hard on the real money auction house and such instead of the actual game, and to me it didn´t seem like alot more than Diablo 2 with abit of enhancement here and there (fun at start, but got boring fast). Also if you arent into repeating things over and over in that way ofc one would call it a failure.

[Vargas]

I really liked SWTOR, but the engine itself needs some serious re-optimization. On a system that can run Crysis 1 and 2 pretty well, SWTOR doesn't run that well.