Is it fair to consider SW:TOR a failure?

[notorious98]

Their sales were not profitable, it doesn't mean the investors didn't make money. I guess it depends on what you define as profitable, but I would say that if you invest in a company, and you made money, it was profitable (am I crazy?).

---------- Post added 2012-10-14 at 07:12 PM ----------



Even if my numbers are way off, does it change the point of what I am saying? SWToR did not make as much money as expected, thus it was a failure.

So anybody who doesn't make a certain set amount of money based on the investment they put in towards college is also a failure? It failed to meet expectations, but it doesn't make it a failure.

As for Circuit City, no, the investors were not making money. If they were, Circuit City stock wouldn't have been trading at below $1/share. Investors weren't making money. If they were, Circuit City stock wouldn't have been tanking. Investors weren't making money. If they were, there would have been more interested parties in purchasing the company. No, the investors were not making money. The company was not making money. In fact, they ceased paying out dividends months before they filed for bankruptcy. Seriously, research.

---------- Post added 2012-10-14 at 04:00 PM ----------

Never forget that EVERY company "pads" its numbers as much as it can legally do. One common way is rounding. It all depends on where you round to. But SWTOR has been playing games as well. Listing as "subscribers" players who had already cancelled their accounts. Refusing to even state what the actual numbers were ar the end of the last quarter.

That wasn't really them playing games as opposed to softening the blow. They can list players as subscribers if those people are still an active subscriber. It doesn't matter if they had cancelled or not. As long as they could still log into the game, they can be considered "subscribers".

[tennesseej]

So anybody who doesn't make a certain set amount of money based on the investment they put in towards college is also a failure? It failed to meet expectations, but it doesn't make it a failure.

As for Circuit City, no, the investors were not making money. If they were, Circuit City stock wouldn't have been trading at below $1/share. Investors weren't making money. If they were, Circuit City stock wouldn't have been tanking. Investors weren't making money. If they were, there would have been more interested parties in purchasing the company. No, the investors were not making money. The company was not making money. In fact, they ceased paying out dividends months before they filed for bankruptcy. Seriously, research.[COLOR="red"]

Seriously, understand that you can make money when a company is tanking. The legal ways would be to count the loss of Circuit City as a giant tax deduction for your other investments, collect money through investment insurance organizations, and to liquidate the inventory outside of the sales of the company so the company tanks and you get the liquidation revenue, all the while collecting bankruptcy funds from the government. The illegal way would be to get your hedge fund buddy to short sale the stock right before you tank it, and take a cut of the profit (which I am sure happened, you can't honestly believe that every investor is a shining example of morality). I agree they weren't making as much money off of Circuit City as they wanted, which is why they ended it, but they made money off of Circuit City going under, make no mistake about it.

Failing to meet your self-imposed expectations, in the world of business and commerce, in my opinion, means you failed.

[anyaka21]

My other post had the link for the cost of WoW in China, since I am assuming you didn't read it here it is: http://www.quora.com/How-much-does-a...-cost-in-China

You are free to debate/refute my numbers all you want, but simply saying they are made up and having no basis in fact yourself doesn't make you any more credible than me. I can defend any number I used as part of an assumption and explain why/how I came up with that number. For instance the 4.5 million US/EU and 5.5 million China number comes from this: http://users.telenet.be/mmodata/Charts/Subs-1.png



EA would never come out and say SWToR was a failure at this stage of the game. There is still money to be made off of it, and that would tank the perception of SWToR down even further.

My point being that you said:

Even if the numbers were significantly off, say the game only cost 50 million to make and you double their revenue (which is definitely a ridiculous assumption to skew the numbers in the other direction) it doesn't even come close to the profit margin of Call of Duty Black Ops, which is why EA is looking at SWToR as a huge failure.

so you said EA considered it a failure, now you are saying they never would....extremely poor form.

Add that your link is essentially an asked question. I will add that the number sounds about right, about, which is 7 cents per hour....everything else is your guesstimate on how many hours you think the average player in China actually plays. If they are anything like the NA/EU, it's really only hardcore people that spend a significant amount of time, meaning 10+ hours a week playing. Which is maybe about 10% of the playerbase.

[Vankrys]

Failure depends on point of view and expectation.


From my point of view, i enjoy the game, the gameplay, the story, the operation. So not a failure here.

From an investor point of view that was maybe hoping for muh bigger commercial success, it did fail to meet there expectation.

From a game developper, it's neither a failure nor a success, it's a learning experience and a fun adventure.

[RoninaThorstone]

From a game developper, it's neither a failure nor a success, it's a learning experience and a fun adventure.

Or in the case of Bioware's developers, a pink slip.

[Imhotep]

AAA title with $300 million budget and less subs than RIFT in the same genre (MMORPGs).

Yeah I'm pretty sure I'd classify that as a failure. Not because of the designers that worked on it mind you, I just think the way EA tried to sell it made a lot of people sick.

Put a lobster in hot water, he will jump out. Put a lobster in cold water and gradually turn up the heat and he won't notice.

That's how I'd compare EA and Activisions business strategies respectively.

[Psychlon]

AAA title with $300 million budget and less subs than RIFT in the same genre (MMORPGs).

Yeah I'm pretty sure I'd classify that as a failure. Not because of the designers that worked on it mind you, I just think the way EA tried to sell it made a lot of people sick.

Put a lobster in hot water, he will jump out. Put a lobster in cold water and gradually turn up the heat and he won't notice.

That's how I'd compare EA and Activisions business strategies respectively.

how many subscriber has Rift and how many has SWTOR?.....

[RoninaThorstone]

how many subscriber has Rift and how many has SWTOR?.....

unknown but believed to be around 400k

I also like the 300 million figure. Always funny when that one makes its way on to the scene.

[Osmeric]

When lead developers pursue "personal opportunities elsewhere", when even the heads of the studio suddenly decide to change careers, it's a good sign the project is viewed as a failure.

Businesses are not in the habit of punishing success, or even something close to success. Failure, on the other hand...

[SirRobin]

unknown but believed to be around 400k

I also like the 300 million figure. Always funny when that one makes its way on to the scene.

That one makes me giggle too but I honestly wouldn't be surprised if its true. This project was so over the top that, depending on what you include, maybe its true? Again though, I doubt the actual cost will ever see the light of day. It would do far more harm than good, especially for Johnny, to reveal at this point.

[Profyrion]

AAA title with $300 million budget and less subs than RIFT in the same genre (MMORPGs).

Please stop repeating that number. It is a myth.

Put a lobster in hot water, he will jump out. Put a lobster in cold water and gradually turn up the heat and he won't notice.

That's how I'd compare EA and Activisions business strategies respectively.

Not only is that not true, but that's not how you boil a lobster. Please just do the bare minimum of fact checking before you spout off like your opinion is fact.

[Kelimbror]

Put a lobster in hot water, he will jump out. Put a lobster in cold water and gradually turn up the heat and he won't notice.

Coming in for more fact checking, since this thread is filled with nonsense. (that last part is not directed at you, just referencing the rest of the thread)

Lobsters do in fact feel everything. They also exhibit signs of intense stress in captivity (floaty tanks where you pick one). They 100% notice that the water is hot and feel every second of their terrible boiling death on the way there. I think the steady increase in temperature more than likely prevents their immediate escape reactions and isntead just makes them freak out and not do anything until they die in pain. So to say they 'don't notice' is a misrepresentation.

It just doesn't trigger their immediate escape instinct until the water is too hot and they can't move properly from tissue damage.

[SirRobin]

It just doesn't trigger their immediate escape instinct until the water is too hot and they can't move properly from tissue damage.

So, as I suspected, it is a lot like marriage.

On another note. The only way I see us ever getting the real development cost numbers is if there is an internal power struggle and its leaked to damage whatever shred of credibility that Johnny has left, with the stockholders.

[Redblade]

Please stop repeating that number. It is a myth.

For shits and giggles, prove that it is...

[Profyrion]

You can't "prove" a negative.

EA/Bioware have never published the development costs for SWTOR. The $300 million figure comes from the semi-famous rant letter by an alleged ex-Bioware employee -- someone who was likely not privy to the actual financial data.

[SirRobin]

You can't "prove" a negative.

EA/Bioware have never published the development costs for SWTOR. The $300 million figure comes from the semi-famous rant letter by an alleged ex-Bioware employee -- someone who was likely not privy to the actual financial data.

The only "proof," per se, was one of the EA guys laughing about the three hundred million claim and saying "no." Not finding the source at the moment but it wasn't too long after it originally blew up. Again, depending on what you count, I could definitely see the bill being three hundred million. Though that would probably also include the cost of the building and grounds for the Austin studio, that they opened to make the game, itself.

[Kelimbror]

Is anyone else expecting Dr Evil to come out with the budget numbers at this point, with his pinky up to his mouth stating: One Miillllion Dollars. To which we all stare dumfounded b/c it was so much less money than we expected? It would make me laugh.

[SirRobin]

Is anyone else expecting Dr Evil to come out with the budget numbers at this point, with his pinky up to his mouth stating: One Miillllion Dollars. To which we all stare dumfounded b/c it was so much less money than we expected? It would make me laugh.

Personally I'm waiting for an upper management massacre at EA and the number being "leaked" among the various knives being plunged into various backs.

[Redblade]

You can't "prove" a negative.

EA/Bioware have never published the development costs for SWTOR. The $300 million figure comes from the semi-famous rant letter by an alleged ex-Bioware employee -- someone who was likely not privy to the actual financial data.

Yet you claim it to be a myth...

It's funny to watch discussions around here, if some one says 300 million people come in and claim that it's untrue and that the more appropriate number is 180-200 million, the next thread over some other guy uses the 200 million number and again people gang up on him claiming it's not 200 million but instead 80-100 million is the correct number.

But no one can support their numbers in any way shape or form, the game took 6 years to develop and had over 800 people working on it towards the end if I understood it correctly. Now if you assume a reasonable pay for them, the cost of hardware, a building to house the developers, marketing and so on, also taking in to consideration that a lot was outsourced hence more than likely expensive compared to doing it in house, I'd say more than 200 million isn't unlikely. Hell I'm sure the marketing alone cost them at the very least 25 million, probably way more.

[Profyrion]

Yet you claim it to be a myth...

It's funny to watch discussions around here, if some one says 300 million people come in and claim that it's untrue and that the more appropriate number is 180-200 million, the next thread over some other guy uses the 200 million number and again people gang up on him claiming it's not 200 million but instead 80-100 million is the correct number.

But no one can support their numbers in any way shape or form, the game took 6 years to develop and had over 800 people working on it towards the end if I understood it correctly. Now if you assume a reasonable pay for them, the cost of hardware, a building to house the developers, marketing and so on, also taking in to consideration that a lot was outsourced hence more than likely expensive compared to doing it in house, I'd say more than 200 million isn't unlikely. Hell I'm sure the marketing alone cost them at the very least 25 million, probably way more.

The fact is, none of us knows for sure. So repeating the claim that it cost $300 million is as frivolous and irresponsible as claiming it cost 10 bucks.

Basing an opinion (namely one of failure) on that number is just outright stupidity.