Do you think SWTOR has increased its revenue going F2P?

[Vankrys]

Regardless of wether you feel the F2P is right or wrong, too restritive or not enough, what impact do you think it would have on SWTOR revenue.

[Lagwin]

Possibly... i hope not because it is a fucked up attempt but i get the feeling that it may have made some money.
It retains the people it had before and those still pay subs and they may pay for some stuff in the cash shop...then there are the few that will start the f2p and spend some aswell.
Though after a month or 2 i think they will be back to their base subs

[Dezerte]

No doubt.

I imagine the existing subscribers will splurge a lot of cash on the cartel market, especially the die-hard Star Wars fans.

My guess is that is where most of the increased revenue will come from, which is a bit ironic but that's just me guessing so *shrug*.

[Repefe]

For the record its stupid not to have features that let players put more money into the game. Some ppl do want to give BW more money for star wars game and without cash shop there is not that many options how to do it.

[Deleted]

In the short term probably but for me they couldn't even get F2P right, they are trying to charge people for basis uses like UI functions, I can't believe they are trying to charge people for more than 2 action bars. The whole thing as been one continues nightmare of a game from launch till now, pretty much everything they could have got wrong they have, I don't even want to try the game for free with their silly F2P rules.

Im fine with a cash shop, im fine for them selling boosts and character slots but to try and get money off customers for basic UI functions? get real.

[Deleted]

Of course they did. With the introduction of the cash shop they now have the perfect basis to milk their remaining subscribers even more. F2P players don't even matter in this scenario. There are already posts stating that people have dumped several hundred bucks on lockboxes. Sure those aren't the majority but even if just 20% of your subscribers dump 5 bucks every month on extra points it's already a win for the company. Virtually free way to make money.
And it's not just lock-boxes. There are also legacy perks you can now unlock with money. Same with perks like speeder piloting. You should never under estimate the lure those stuff can have on people.
They might have failed to make the F2P model attractive for new players unwilling to subscribe but they sure did it perfectly to double dip their already paying costumers.

[Deleted]

I think it has until players realise they can buy cartel rewards cheaper and easier from 3rd party sites, none of this random bs.

[Forsedar]

I think it has until players realise they can buy cartel rewards cheaper and easier from 3rd party sites, none of this random bs.

Except Bioware has shown that they do not tolerate people who take advantage of exploits and 3rd party sites that sell credits and such. This would be a bad idea and only result in a loss of money.

[Deleted]

No doubt about it, in the short term for sure.

The question now is whether they can hook the people and for that they need more content, we know alot that is still yet to come they they definatly have assets for, or have announced.

Announched:
New space missions
Warzone: Ancient hypergates
Makeb.

Voice assets and names for:
Flashpoint: Titans of Industry
Dailies: High Value Targets (Imperial) and Opportunism (Republic)
Operation: Scum and Villany
Dailies: Rakata Prime
Flashpoint: The Imperial Warlord
Operation: The Dread Masters

They need to start getting this stuff out fast, that's always been their problem, they had a good boon when they put in the group finder, but added no new content for months after, 1.5 doesnt bring alot of new content, they need to get a fairly decent patch out in December IMO to try to hook some of these people over the hols.

[TheOne]

I kept my sub. I also throw quite a bit of money at the cash shop. I support and play games I like. I don't support and play games I don't like. I love living in a state with an excellent economy. Bills paid, rent paid, groceries in the fridge, time to but more cartel coins. Life is good.

[zorkuus]

The revenue is propably short-term but hopefully they will take advantage of that sudden boost and invest it in future quality content (that's where the key to long-term revenue lies).

[Kelimbror]

I voted short term with a decline. Here's why:

Like I alluded to previously, this design is clearly aimed at pulling more money out of the existing customer base. Alyssa and I have discussed this thoroughly before, about how this is a terrible approach for the consumer, and it is. The money they are making now are from people like ones on these boards that have dropped hundreds of dollars on Coins already. I am not judging them personally. They can spend their money however they please.

The truth is though, that EA knew where they were going to get the money from. The 'loyal' customers. Most new players that are experienced in MMOs will not stay very long in this model. Most returning players are likewise disgusted by the restrictions and will likely not sbuscribe because of it. The only remaining people to gain revenue from are people who have paid their dues from the day the game launched. They will be tasked with pumping more and more money into the game in order to keep it afloat.

There is only one thing that could slightly validate/possibly change this scenario. This is using this initial injection to make real content, real vanity/fun items on the market, and fix most of the bugs in the game. Judging from their track record I can't realistically expect this to happen. The HK quest was as disappointing to most people as the Chevin event. How you could give the greatest different quest experience in the game (the 15 minutes on the Theoretika) and then follow with a needle in a haystack hunt in the middle of fields not once, but 3 times, is beyond me. It's like after the Theoretika they said fuck it, people will want this robot let's just put some filler shit in to get this over with. And this is with MONTHS of time to prepare this in advance. There's nothing epic about it. No effort required. Just a flash in the pan of fun and then tedious bull crap.

[MaximusRex]

Probably, but its been less then a week, so hard to say.

[Dezerte]

There's nothing stopping BioWare from putting out new packs & rare items on the Cartel Market. If they keep doing that at a constant rate their revenue should end up higher overall over time.

[Edge-]

If things stay the way they are, I can't see this being a big success in the long run.

There's definitely going to be a huge boost in revenue initially, but I don't think there's going to be any way to sustain that level of revenue in the long-run with what we have now. Maybe a slight overall increase in the longrun, but I don't think this is going to be the big moneymaking change that EA/BW think it will be. The way they've handled this isn't really conducive to engendering new players to the game.

I actually kinda see it more like CoH (not the closure part though), where the transition made them a ton more money, but most of it came from existing player purchasing stuff from the cash shop in addition to paying their sub. It'll be a boost in revenue, but it won't be boost they're looking for (huehuehuehue).

[LilSaihah]

I think they're just going to pull a big amount of money with their gambleboxes on the first week or so, and then it'll go back to business as usual. I expect a minimal amount of F2P players will upgrade their accounts to subscriptions, which will (maybe?) be less than the bleeding out of subscribers. At best, the simple fact that they've put out a content patch will help to retain subscribers.

Their future content patch plans, and (hopefully) the new stuff they add/fix in the cartel market will define their performance.

[Deleted]

Increase, if any subscribers are like me then they have probably spent more on the cartel store than they do subscribing.

Those packs with random things in are going to be a gold mine and as they add more content and armour I can see people spending more and more. God knows I would love a Jedi set that has the robes over something like the trooper armour, or a sith set that looks like darth baras.

Hell I'd pay $10 for my sorc to shout "unlimited power" every time he uses force lightning.

[Azhreia]

Undoubtedly they will make money with the cartel market. Problem is as Kitty stated that most of that money will probably come from current subscribers. At the moment they do too little to entice new or returning players to spend their cash. Even though their track record on changing/improving the game to attract more people isn't the best, I'm still mildly optimistic though that they might have realized this and will work to remedy the problem. Giving out two additional action bars and offering more char slots for sale will go a long way in that direction.

Ultimately the success or failure of the new model will depend on whether they can keep pumping out stuff that will keep the players interested in the game as well es tha cartel market.

[Deleted]

I think it will increase revenue and subscribers, they picked a good time to do this also, people are bored of doing endless dailies in wow, many people will install the game just because its free, they willl play the story mode, enjoy it then sub

[Morros]

There is only one thing that could slightly validate/possibly change this scenario. This is using this initial injection to make real content, real vanity/fun items on the market, and fix most of the bugs in the game. Judging from their track record I can't realistically expect this to happen. The HK quest was as disappointing to most people as the Chevin event. How you could give the greatest different quest experience in the game (the 15 minutes on the Theoretika) and then follow with a needle in a haystack hunt in the middle of fields not once, but 3 times, is beyond me. It's like after the Theoretika they said fuck it, people will want this robot let's just put some filler shit in to get this over with. And this is with MONTHS of time to prepare this in advance. There's nothing epic about it. No effort required. Just a flash in the pan of fun and then tedious bull crap.

Slightly off-topic, but I found the whole HK experience to be great. The scavenger hunt part made for some interesting collaborations on my server at least. It was neat seeing everyone in the same area looking for something, and people helping each other out. And then a guild on my server kept camping the Jawa in the Outlaw's Den, there maybe 10 of them, so we formed a couple 40 main raids and went in there to completely obliterate them. So much fun.

So just because you think that there is nothing epic about it, that it involved no effort, and was just tedious bull crap, doesn't make it true. At this point it seems like you're just reaching lately to find any reason to complain about this game, while tons of people are online having fun.


On-topic. This is definitely going to increase revenue, especially with them being so willing to ease up on restrictions and add new things to the market quite frequently. I am still seeing huge numbers of players on my server, usually 300-400 on the fleet, sometimes higher, 150-250 on starting worlds, and then that number trickles down the higher level you get obviously, but even on Belsavis I've regularly seen 40-50 people on at a time. So definitely, with the increased amount of players being lured back with F2P and then likely at least buying something to get Preferred, and then Subscribers buying up Cartel Packs.