How many subscribers will SWTOR average in their first year?

[Deleted]

I'm guessing 1.5 mil the first year. *nod* *nod*

[vizzle]

Hahaha, 500k. Good one.

[Primernova]

If the game is good, EA doesn't meddle and WoW stays on it's current course...

Could be huge, went with 5 Mil.

[Shock]

3-4 million

[Deleted]

wont be above 1mil, wow has 4 mil or something in the western market, peopple who think SWTOR will have more then that in their first year are crazy.. I think they will get 1.4mil at the end of the year.

[Volitar]

2 mil launch then drop to 1.5 after people realize the end game is really lacking

[Deleted]

Rift had 2mill at launch and it was an awful release compared to current SWG gameplay

Rift had an awful release? Its was pretty much faultless.

I would say by just being Star Wars it will get a solid million+ at launch. The rest after that depends on how good it is

[vizzle]

wont be above 1mil, wow has 4 mil or something in the western market, peopple who think SWTOR will have more then that in their first year are crazy.. I think they will get 1.4mil at the end of the year.

Are you high or something?

First you said "wont be above 1 mil", then you said "I think they will get 1.4mil at the end of the year".


.....................what?

[Mynsc]

I think it will start out strong... with maybe as high as 3 mils copies sold in the first few months, but it will go down fast and hard after a while because of the competition (GW2, WoW's new expansion, TERA, etc) and because it really doesn't bring a lot of fresh gameplay to the table.

At the end of it's first year I think it will keep somewhere between 1 - 1.5 million subscribers, most of them being die-hard Star Wars fans. It will end-up being a reasonable success for EA and Bioware, but it definitely won't ever get close to WoW.

[Deleted]

What stuns me is that they are already projecting it to be a 12-14 year surviving game. I think they said something like 500 planets by 2024? That's some high expectations.

500 Planets?
It's a trap!

[hakujinbakasama]

I think it will start out strong... with maybe as high as 3 mils copies sold in the first few months, but it will go down fast and hard after a while because of the competition (GW2, WoW's new expansion, TERA, etc) and because it really doesn't bring a lot of fresh gameplay to the table.

At the end of it's first year I think it will keep somewhere between 1 - 1.5 million subscribers, most of them being die-hard Star Wars fans. It will end-up being a reasonable success for EA and Bioware, but it definitely won't ever get close to WoW.

Not being mean, but I think you are being a little over board on bias opinion here.

Last I heard, Tera was struggling to keep 100k accounts active in Korea and was failing to keep positive response in Japan. The beta isn't supposed to even grace us till next year, and even then, the look of the game so far doesn't seem like it will hold much of a Western market. There has been a long line of dismal population mmos in the last several years for the same reason Tera will probably also equal out to; they focus too much on character models and not enough on overall content.

GW2 is also probably a year out for full open beta and is still a FTP MMO so it shouldn't hurt the possible numbers for SWtoR or WoW in a way. You also have to realize that SW is a worldwide beloved franchise. If they even hit half of the fluidity and comfort of WoW it will do perfectly fine.

[Mynsc]

Not being mean, but I think you are being a little over board on bias opinion here.

I don't have any reason to be biased... I played and loved almost all of Bioware's games. Same thing goes for Mythic's DAoC and Warhammer (although the last one had some over the top mistakes in it that made me run away). I also enjoy the franchise, even though I'm definitely not a die hard fan. I also don't play WoW anymore (and it's safe to say I won't resume playing unless MoP absolutely rocks).

It's just how I see it. And my main reason is described by you almost perfectly:

There has been a long line of dismal population mmos in the last several years for the same reason Tera will probably also equal out to; they focus too much on character models and not enough on overall content.

From what I read until now about the game, it focuses waaay too much on the story at the expense of actual MMO features. It's completely natural to "milk" all the possible lore details from such a huge franchise, but you have to make sure not to sacrifice other stuff. SWTOR's number one advertised feature is the storyline with its tons of audio dialogues and countless quests... that's nice, but as a MMO player it really ain't the main thing I'm looking for when deciding to get into a game or not. Sure, I'll get sucked into the leveling / questing process for a few weeks, maybe even months, but then what ? I get to the endgame and find that it's identical to what I've been playing for years in WoW or more recently RIFT. It might be just me, but that's just not acceptable.

Anyway, even so, my prediction of 1 - 1.5 mils subscribers after 1 year is far from being a bad thing. It would be by far the biggest success of a MMO since the launch of WoW 7 years ago. So I took into account the huge impact the Star Wars universe will have and the fact that the game, being produced by Bioware, won't be bad but more on the lines of RIFT: solid but "old".

When it comes to competition, I forgot to add Diablo 3. It might not be a true MMO, but half the people I know in WoW are eagerly awaiting it and hoping it will have a strong (and lasting) multiplayer component. Also, don't underestimate GW2. It might come later, but it will huuuurt.

[LeBron]

1 Mio. should be possible.

[ptwonline]

I think SWTOR will be HUGE in it's first year. The game appears to be mostly story-driven and should easily keep most gamers enthralled for the better part of a year.

It's going to get really good reviews which will help sway many gamers on the fence, and there will be a popular media blitz where even the mainstream news will be talking about this game. I would be very, very surprised if SWTOR turns out to be as good as expected and yet fails to surpass WoW in North America and Europe sometime in its first year.

[BeingRepressed]

You're nuts if you think it will have 4+ million. I bet even WoW barely pushes those numbers if you don't include China.

[ptwonline]

You're nuts if you think it will have 4+ million. I bet even WoW barely pushes those numbers if you don't include China.

I suspect SWTOR will expand the MMO playerbase in a similar way that WoW did. WoW had a wider demographic appeal because of the popularity of existing Blizzard games (Diablo, World of Warcraft) and because it got a bit more mainstream coverage. As a result, the MMO population what....tripled? Quadrupled? I would be very surprised if the MMO population did not expand greatly once more because Star Wars has a much broader demographic appeal, and this game is squarely aimed at the masses like WoW was (and unlike Galaxies).

My guess: In the first year SWTOR will bring in 1 million new MMO players, take 2+ million away from WoW and other games, and get 1+ million former MMO players who were waiting for a new game to play. In subsequent years the population taken from former MMO players and taken from other games will decline because they will have seen it all before, but the influx of new people will continue to rise.