Is it fair to consider SW:TOR a failure?

[Linzo]

I would only consider it a failure if it sold less than Angry Birds: Star Wars .

[Kelimbror]

I would only consider it a failure if it sold less than Angry Birds: Star Wars .

Uhh...except that is definitely going to happen and has no logical bearing to this argument. A cheap, easily consumed, wildly popular franchise is adding a gimmicky huge IP and you think that its success means SWTOR's failure.

We need to take you to economics night classes!

[WarpedAcorn]

Actually, the industry considers SWToR to be a failure. The worst part of it is, I was still keeping my fingers crossed for Dragon Age 3 to be epic but now that EA has eaten up and destroyed BW (so many major BW people have left), donno if it'll happen.

Sidetrack: DA3 has as much chance to be epic as Stephan Bonnar has to beat Anderson Silva tomorrow night. =)

But seriously DA3 will probably be a lot like DA2 in that it will be a good game, but a bad Bioware game. I know I won't be paying full retail for it unless I read some crazy PLAYER reviews.

[Kelimbror]

Sidetrack: DA3 has as much chance to be epic as Stephan Bonnar has to beat Anderson Silva tomorrow night. =)

I don't care for Silva...I would love to see that happen...though I'd rather watch Jon Jones get beat by anyone. Can't stand that punk.

[WarpedAcorn]

I don't care for Silva...I would love to see that happen...though I'd rather watch Jon Jones get beat by anyone. Can't stand that punk.

I agree on both sentiments whole-heartedly, but I would also love to see DA3 go in the opposite direction DA2 went.

[anyaka21]

Actually, the industry considers SWToR to be a failure. The worst part of it is, I was still keeping my fingers crossed for Dragon Age 3 to be epic but now that EA has eaten up and destroyed BW (so many major BW people have left), donno if it'll happen.

SWToR deserved to fail because it was one of the worst possible released game, clearly not ready for release. I think if BW had their way, they would have pushed back the release another few months but they had EA breathing down their necks. I have played BW games, it is sorry to see another good bunch of developers destroyed by EA.

The game did not meet the expectations of over 75% of the people who purchased it. I think under 25% is a failure in any walk of life be it school grades or work output. This is a fact and no matter what any SWToR fan says, this fact can not be refuted.

I love quotes like this because.....it fails on every level.

1st, the industry? who is this industry, who are the companies, who are the people, where are articles to back up this assertion
2nd, deserved to fail? why did it deserve to fail? you say they released early. Name one mmo released recently that hasn't released early.
3rd, your point about the 75%, sure tons of people signed up, but that is the same with every mmo on the market. People will try it and see if they like it, if they don't they leave.

Example: Blizzard has said a few years ago that over 30,000,000 people have tried WoW. Thus by your standards, thats a borderline failure because over 66% of the people that tried it, didn't stick with the game. Add that the number is probably higher and as thus, the percentage is also higher.

Part of the point is that as of now, WoW is the exception to it all. Pretty much every mainstream mmo is going free-to-play. Star Wars by no means is a failure. It is just going the way the mainstream is going atm. Is that good or bad? That we don't know yet.

[Profyrion]

Too bad that guy won't be back to read your response. Just another drive-by...

[tennesseej]

I love quotes like this because.....it fails on every level.

1st, the industry? who is this industry, who are the companies, who are the people, where are articles to back up this assertion
2nd, deserved to fail? why did it deserve to fail? you say they released early. Name one mmo released recently that hasn't released early.
3rd, your point about the 75%, sure tons of people signed up, but that is the same with every mmo on the market. People will try it and see if they like it, if they don't they leave.

Example: Blizzard has said a few years ago that over 30,000,000 people have tried WoW. Thus by your standards, thats a borderline failure because over 66% of the people that tried it, didn't stick with the game. Add that the number is probably higher and as thus, the percentage is also higher.

Part of the point is that as of now, WoW is the exception to it all. Pretty much every mainstream mmo is going free-to-play. Star Wars by no means is a failure. It is just going the way the mainstream is going atm. Is that good or bad? That we don't know yet.

I think you make some valid points, but I agree that SWToR was not ready for launch. There were way too many bugs that were way to frustrating. SWToR had by far more bugs than any other MMO I have played (obviously that was just my personal experience) and it was really frustrating at time. Also they weren't prepared as far as endgame content goes to launch. I don't know why we so see many MMOs release without adequate endgame content (Aion, Rift, SWToR, GW2, although Rift has recovered in that aspect the best out of all of them). They know players are gonna rush to the end, and they know they need tons of content that most players won't see for a while, because once those top players get to the end and say that there is nothing to do, players start to leave in droves.


I think what makes SWToR a failure is not that it is going F2P, its that the cost to make SWToR is so high compared to their revenue. SWToR cost $200 million dollars to make (http://www.gamespot.com/news/star-wa...evelop-6348959).

With 2 million in launch sales, at $60 a pop that's 120 million. Now lets say they dropped from 2 million to 750k players linearly from Launch until now (~10 months), that's approximately 226 million in subscription revenue.

They said that 500k subscribers was their break even point (http://www.swtorhub.com/free-play-faq), and because they might dip below that they decided to go F2P. 500k subscribers at 15 a month means their monthly expenditures are 7.5 million, and 10 months of the game being out is 75 million in costs thus far.

We have 200m to make the game, 75m for 10 months of running it, that is a total cost of 275m.

We have profits of 120m in initial sales, and 226 million in subscriber revenue (which is declining).

That means they have made roughly 71 million in 10 months, at first glance that seems awesome. That sounds like a lot of money, but keep in mind they only made 3.75 million in the 10th month, and that number is going down (most of the profit was in the first couple months).

Now let's flip that around. Lets say you take that 200 million in initial cost, and invest it with a 3% return (which is extremely low, depending on how you invest you can get 10%+ returns). You would have 46 million dollars right now (from 7 years of investing), but that number would be growing fast. In 7 more years, you would have well over 100 million dollars and climbing faster. SWToR, would not break 100 million with 7 more years given the decline rate.

So as a business man looking at this, 14 years would have passed, and your money in SWToR made you less than if you invested it with a 3% return. That is what they care about, that is why they are going F2P. F2P is damage control to get their assets out of SWToR as fast as possible and into other things.

Meanwhile, Call of Duty Black Ops cost about 30 million to make, and has grossed over 800 million. EA looks at those types of numbers and considers SWToR a failure.

That is what made SWToR a failure, it's that it failed to beat a 3% return on investment per year over the course of it's life.

[Alvito]

With 2 million in launch sales, at $60 a pop that's 120 million. Now lets say they dropped from 2 million to 750k players linearly from Launch until now (~10 months), that's approximately 226 million in subscription revenue.

Don't forget they gave away a free month to just about everybody after they pulled rwz at the last second. That takes away a nice chunk of sub money on its own.

[kijthae]

I had to stop playing swtor because i got to go to obligated army duty.Im back now and im going to start if i can find a job.

I loved my every minute i spent at swtor.Questing , pvp , pve ( even i didnt do much operations , i mostly pvped ) everything. Only fail of swtor for me its graphic engine.I had horrid fps at warzones but i hope they solved it in the last 6 months.

Swtor didnt reach sub. as much as other popular mmos because it cant adress every layer of the society in west.Wow does this great. MoP is 3rd expansion of wow and ppl still buy it and now qq on forums about how disappointed they are. Lore of wow is crap.Demons evils at tbc , trash christian themes at wotlk , a deadly monster at cata and cheap chinese crap at mop. Players have been doing same things since vanilla at raids. PVP mentality of devs never changed since wotlk.However wow has 11m subs.Bliz knows how to adress most ignorant low lives in western society.

Therefore comparing games' success according to their subs. is not a smart idea.

[TaurenNinja]

To be honest it's hard to tell, because while popularity does mean something, it's not always a good measure of quality.
There always exist a few more or less obscure games (or music, or movies, or whatever for that matter) that almost no one even knows about but those can be good none the less.
Maybe SW:TOR has some niche features that a few people really like and for them that makes it a success.
But for most of the players including me, WoW most likely offers more to do and higher-quality content as well.
It also depends on whether or not you can live with some shortcomings or not. WoW obviously has few shortcomings (PvP class balance, long waits for new content, ...), but WoW's quality in several other things is stellar, for example in raid/dungeon content or PvE class balance or animations or sound or design (what the designers make out of the engine) or controls (fluidity, precision, UI, ease of use and so on) and that's usually what most people care the most about, I'd guess. At least I do.

[notorious98]

To be honest it's hard to tell, because while popularity does mean something, it's not always a good measure of quality.
There always exist a few more or less obscure games (or music, or movies, or whatever for that matter) that almost no one even knows about but those can be good none the less.
Maybe SW:TOR has some niche features that a few people really like and for them that makes it a success.
But for most of the players including me, WoW most likely offers more to do and higher-quality content as well.
It also depends on whether or not you can live with some shortcomings or not. WoW obviously has few shortcomings (PvP class balance, long waits for new content, ...), but WoW's quality in several other things is stellar, for example in raid/dungeon content or PvE class balance or animations or sound or design (what the designers make out of the engine) or controls (fluidity, precision, UI, ease of use and so on) and that's usually what most people care the most about, I'd guess. At least I do.

Who asked for the "I love WoW" post?

[Kelimbror]

SWToR cost $200 million dollars to make (http://www.gamespot.com/news/star-wa...evelop-6348959).

I love how someone throws out a random number from one article they saw, then continues with a wall of text of guesstimatory math. Go look at the handful of other links that have sworn the budget was anywhere from 50 Million to 500 Million. At this point, I think that Bioware is responsible for USA's finanical crisis. Maybe we should bail them out.

[notorious98]

I think what makes SWToR a failure is not that it is going F2P, its that the cost to make SWToR is so high compared to their revenue. SWToR cost $200 million dollars to make (http://www.gamespot.com/news/star-wa...evelop-6348959).

With 2 million in launch sales, at $60 a pop that's 120 million. Now lets say they dropped from 2 million to 750k players linearly from Launch until now (~10 months), that's approximately 226 million in subscription revenue.

They said that 500k subscribers was their break even point (http://www.swtorhub.com/free-play-faq), and because they might dip below that they decided to go F2P. 500k subscribers at 15 a month means their monthly expenditures are 7.5 million, and 10 months of the game being out is 75 million in costs thus far.

We have 200m to make the game, 75m for 10 months of running it, that is a total cost of 275m.

We have profits of 120m in initial sales, and 226 million in subscriber revenue (which is declining).

That means they have made roughly 71 million in 10 months, at first glance that seems awesome. That sounds like a lot of money, but keep in mind they only made 3.75 million in the 10th month, and that number is going down (most of the profit was in the first couple months).

Now let's flip that around. Lets say you take that 200 million in initial cost, and invest it with a 3% return (which is extremely low, depending on how you invest you can get 10%+ returns). You would have 46 million dollars right now (from 7 years of investing), but that number would be growing fast. In 7 more years, you would have well over 100 million dollars and climbing faster. SWToR, would not break 100 million with 7 more years given the decline rate.

So as a business man looking at this, 14 years would have passed, and your money in SWToR made you less than if you invested it with a 3% return. That is what they care about, that is why they are going F2P. F2P is damage control to get their assets out of SWToR as fast as possible and into other things.

Meanwhile, Call of Duty Black Ops cost about 30 million to make, and has grossed over 800 million. EA looks at those types of numbers and considers SWToR a failure.

That is what made SWToR a failure, it's that it failed to beat a 3% return on investment per year over the course of it's life.

All of this is based off a Los Angeles Times article that offered up no factual merits to back up their claims of how much money the game cost. Not only that, but you have no evidence that the game costs $75 million/month to maintain. They made that comment back when they were employing five or six hundred people to work on it. The majority of that workforce has either been let go or have left along with some big money guys. As for the "break even point", get your facts straight. John Riccitiello said the game would be "substantially profitable" at 500k subscribers, not breaking even.

This entire post has no facts to back it up. It's a math problem with numbers picked at random.

Something else about these fake numbers I'd like to point out. First, it was 2.4 million box sales, not 2 million. Second, you're basing your number off of the assumption that they only ever sold those initial 2.4 million boxes. That nobody has, in the 11 months since release, bought a single copy of the game.

[RoninaThorstone]

Lets make up more stuff.

Come on people.

We need more fake numbers.

[Azuri]

Lets make up more stuff.

Come on people.

we need more fake numbers.

75% of the people got there info from 32% unreliable sources which makes me 100% right 50% of the time. On top of that I get paid $50 million a year to be a mod at this site. I love this thread too.

I guess people love a good train wreck thread I pretty much just /shrug. If you like the game (applies to any game) play it if you don't move on. It's not a marriage but a video game.

[notorious98]

Something about that article I linked above is kind of interesting. I just read it completely and saw that Riccitiello said he thought the game "can be very successful without fundamentally challenging the market leader because we think we'll probably hit the smaller competitors harder when we get out there." Can we officially say the game was never billed nor hyped as being a "WoW killer" and it was only given that title by a group of individuals who, for some unknown reason, are praying for the end of WoW?

[RoninaThorstone]

Something about that article I linked above is kind of interesting. I just read it completely and saw that Riccitiello said he thought the game "can be very successful without fundamentally challenging the market leader because we think we'll probably hit the smaller competitors harder when we get out there." Can we officially say the game was never billed nor hyped as being a "WoW killer" and it was only given that title by a group of individuals who, for some unknown reason, are praying for the end of WoW?

Stop using reasoning!

It only makes them angrier!

[notorious98]

Stop using reasoning!

It only makes them madder!

You're right. I'm being bad and will head to my corner now.

[OneSent]

I just read it completely and saw that Riccitiello said he thought the game "can be very successful without fundamentally challenging the market leader because we think we'll probably hit the smaller competitors harder when we get out there." Can we officially say the game was never billed nor hyped as being a "WoW killer" and it was only given that title by a group of individuals who, for some unknown reason, are praying for the end of WoW?

Riccitiello was singing a different tune before the game was released:

Ultimately, Riccitiello sees the Star Wars universe as a big differentiator and he envisions BioWare's MMO taking a healthy part of the MMO market away from WoW. That's a tall order, even for a developer as hugely talented as BioWare is.

"We're going right at it. We want share, we want leadership position here," affirmed Riccitiello. "I'm not expecting to sort of knock them over, but ... we're gonna get a big chunk of [their market]."

Riccitiello also commented that the acting and dialogue in The Old Republic will make WoW look like a "silent movie" by comparison.

"In a way, theirs is a silent movie and ours is the first talkie," he said. "By and large, theirs is not a voiced MMO. Ours is a fully voiced MMO in multiple languages."

His recent comment you quoted from the article about SWTOR "being a success without challenging WoW, but instead, going after the smaller competitors", is a much more realistic goal, and really the only option they have left. When your game fails to deliver on such a massive scale as SWTOR did, you have to take what you can get. Which is basically what he's saying now.