Is Old Republic the Most Expensive Video Game Ever?

CommanderFrank

CommanderFrank

Cat Can't Scratch It
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May 9, 2000
Messages
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Electronic Arts put 200M eggs in one big basket and is praying for the best. Star Wars: The Old Republic could be a make it or break it situation for EA with its $200 million dollar outlay and six years of invested time in its production. Sales have been below expected levels fueling speculation of problems for EA causing shares of EA stock to drop 3% on Thursday.
 
I want to support this game because it's a PC exclusive but it's just not my kind of game plus I don't do pay to play subscription games.
 
After EA messed up Warhammer Online so badly, I am surprised they would throw this much money into another MMO.
 
as non-mmo player, I can tell you it's an excellent game. My friends who all played WOW will agree for the most part, it's better.
 
If it fails it will be the over hype.

Everyone that plays the game, expects it too be better then games that have been live for 8 years... mostly because off all the hype, and reports of 200m budgets.

The game is good, but its not going to be on par with content and polish with games that have been live taking peoples money for 8 years out of the gate.

The base of a great MMO is there, it needs time to mature. I for one just hope EA / gamers can stick with it for awhile while it matures a bit.
 
I want it to be successful or no one will ever put that much money into a game again.

That and EA owns the rights to DAoC and if I ever want to see a DAoC 2 I need them to be in good shape.
 
Something doesn't seem right about having to buy a game that you then pay monthly for. Just make the game free to install and charge the monthly fee. Isn't the residual income where the money is made anyways?
 
I've been playing games since the late 70's when I was a kid and I would sitting in front of mainframes playing text based games, printing off huge mountains of paper.

My take on swtor. It's an entry level mmo. Simplistic. The color palette they use seems drab, unexciting. There are a lot of things they could have simply done better to make the game pop and exciting.

It's not surprising the game is dying out. I got the game as a stocking stuffer and honestly, had zero desire to log back into the game a week into it. No doubt many others have felt the same way and for very similar reasons.

You just don't launch a space based mmo and not have ships, space combat, upgrades, trading, exploration etc etc etc. And really. from the stand point its a gate-way / entry level mmo, that's ok. What's not ok, is most people expected much more and have decided to walk.
 
As an ex wow player, I can also attest that it is a better "Game" but it needs a LOT of work. It is very unstable, has tons of graphical issues, CTD's, etc. No high res graphics like we thought were going to be in the game, etc.

I will play for another month to see if they fix some of the issues, but so far they havent done anything but make it worse.
 
And uhhh .. no, it's not better than wow. Not even close and I'm no wow fan boy. swtor is an excellent game as long as you're new to the genre, a newbie, friends and family, social, casual, etc. It's great for those groups of people. Question is, is that enough to keep the game going. Early reports are, it's not.
 
Taldren said:
I want it to be successful or no one will ever put that much money into a game again.
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Maybe because they shouldn't.... 200 Millions is ridiculous for a GAME, even in the movie business it's concidered to be a really reaalllyyy high budget.

I can understand how a game like WOW after all these years (and with the success they have) would have invested so much for the development, servers, update, etc. But 200 million spent before the game is even out is just silly.
 
I like it a lot. And this is my first experience playing an MMO. It feels like I am playing Mass Effect but on a much larger scale.

Whatever happens though, you have got to give credit to EA for taking risks. We wouldn't have innovation without risk takers.:)
 
bpmurrGT said:
Something doesn't seem right about having to buy a game that you then pay monthly for. Just make the game free to install and charge the monthly fee. Isn't the residual income where the money is made anyways?
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I agree; That or they should include 3-4 months with the initial purchase.
 
It's a pretty good game, I will give it that. If they had released it as a single player game then I still would've felt I was getting my money's worth. But to say that this game is potentially bankrupting EA is overstating the facts.

A couple of weeks ago it was confirmed that SWTOR reached 2 million copies sold--- http://gamrreview.vgchartz.com/sales-data/31584/star-wars-the-old-republic/ ---so if you do some rough math assuming an average of 70 bucks a copy then you get a number of 140 million. Now each of those two million people will probably subscribe at least one month, possibly two. That's 15 bucks each, which means 30 million rolling in per month.

Now there are probably other associated costs (like server maintenance, customer service, etc.) but by the end of the second month of operation they should break even. Such a large player population really bodes well for the future of this game, though it remains to be seen if it'll grow impressively into a cash cow for EA (as did WoW months after release) or implode spectacularly (like pretty much every other mmorpg ever).
 
As a big Star Wars fan SWG ruined MMOs for me. Swore I'd never play another one, and TOR isn't good enough to even tempt me.
 
I tried WoW once and could not get into it at all. SWTOR, however, has kept me (not an MMO player) interested. It's not horribly buggy, I've only stumbled on one actual bug and a small number (less than 5) of graphical glitches. I really wish the monthly rate would be lower, though. I'm not sure if I'm willing to go more than 3 months max at $14.99/month ($13.99/month if you pay into the 3 month renewal plan).
 
That's the first I've heard of low sales. Don't they already have over a million users or something?
 
200 Mil, and there is still wait times on selected servers? wait...where did the money go?
 
SixFootDuo said:
And uhhh .. no, it's not better than wow. Not even close and I'm no wow fan boy. swtor is an excellent game as long as you're new to the genre, a newbie, friends and family, social, casual, etc. It's great for those groups of people. Question is, is that enough to keep the game going. Early reports are, it's not.
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How do you define "better"? I was a hardcore WoW raider and left disgusted at the spoon-fed games for WoTLK and most of Cataclysm (except for the first 2 months, but stuff got prompted nerfed due to the crying on the forums). Class balance for PvP (Arena's) has been a total joke since TBC. Looking back at it, it's amazing that it took me this long to quit (which has a LOT to do with friends playing it).

Is SWTOR perfect? No. The controls are buggy (they promised a fix for 1.1, but there's still some dodge actions). The PvP lead seems clueless about world PvP (see the last Ilum patch). The PvE is still buggy and easy (even at Nightmare difficulty). The graphics/sound engine is poorly optimized. Even still, I think the game is better (for the moment) because I like the direction the game is going (from developer blogs) than WoW.
 
bpmurrGT said:
Something doesn't seem right about having to buy a game that you then pay monthly for. Just make the game free to install and charge the monthly fee. Isn't the residual income where the money is made anyways?
Click to expand...

The other issue being it is one oxygen most expensive games to buy.
 
dlewis4 said:
As an ex wow player, I can also attest that it is a better "Game" but it needs a LOT of work. It is very unstable, has tons of graphical issues, CTD's, etc. No high res graphics like we thought were going to be in the game, etc.

I will play for another month to see if they fix some of the issues, but so far they havent done anything but make it worse.
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Graphical issues yes, unstable and CTDs, no. You might want to check your computer if you are having CTDs. The game has not crashed to desktop once yet for either me or my wife and we have radically different computers. Graphics are fine now that we have Anti-Aliasing - could they be better, sure, but they are nowhere near as bad as WOW.
 
this games success is half "Its freaking star wars man" and the other half is "its not wow man"
I am shocked at the 200mil figure I am sorry this game is no were near finished, for 200 million freaking dollars this thing should be flawless, the issues the game has while some are minor dont really take away from the game play, others are huge!

for 200 million dollars someone getting overpaid on that staff should have thought of a lot of the problems this game is having and fixed them in the "6 year development cycle"

So I hope it gets fixed but I am pissed I have to hope

Search Tortanic on youtube. pretty funny stuff
 
I doubt EA will go down the tubes if this fails. They have something like $1 billion in the bank in cash last I checked their financials. I'm not a fan of EA, but it just seems unlikely to me that it would fail over a single $200 million problem.
 
I'd consider it a success if it doesn't stall out of the gate like Star Trek Online did. I haven't played TOR yet (and am still debating it over the whole Origins deal. but at least it isn't a jumbled mess (still) like STO. STO is still bland (I started playing around season 1 or 2 for the free month, gave it up for a year, came back around season 4 for a month and gave up on it, and now will hop on it now and then since it's now F2P).
 
I don't even think the hobbit has a budget of 200mil. And that's a movie that will probably make over a billion dollars.

I read this somewhere the scifi mmo's don't bring in as many people as fantasy. But blizzard needs some real competition. No competition is bad for the consumer.
 
This game simply does not look entertaining. Also, they don't have a UI mod api? That alone puts them so far behind...
 
Spoon-fed? At the end of the day, that's just a personal issue that you have with the game. It has no bearing on anyone but you. I was in Corp-Hur under Avatar back in the day, one of the first huge super guilds all server firsts. I remember having T2 and Ashkandi 8 or 9 months before other guilds even started to get that content down and you know what, I never felt like an elitist. For me to hear you say spoon-fed just really upsets me. The game needs to be easier so everyone can enjoy the content. And that's what they are doing. Trust me, I can dissect your spoon-fed comment perfectly and put you in a bad light but I won't do it.

Swtor is a great game. I'm not trying to take anything away from it. But you have to match up the experience with the right people and only then judge that together.

Sorry man, I have to stop you right there. Stop making excuses for poor game design and implementation. No one ever, with half a brain expected Swtor to have thought out and intelligent pvp, or space combat or crafting or a lot of the other things the game does. It does most of it only very casually. And that's fine. Remember how I said matching up the players to the experience. This is what I'm talking about. Swtor is a great game, an excellent and fun game for friends and family, a brother or sister, that uncle that might like Star Wars, casual players, social players, new people, etc. And that's a huge market but, that market doesn't have the die-hards that keep coming back and paying those sub fees month after month, year after year. The casuals and socials that Swtor was targeted have had their fun but now, they are done. Clearly. The die-hards, well, they figured out long ago that Swtor wasn't that type of game. So, where is Swtor going to get it's customers from?

This isn't about bugs, those will get fixed. This is about the majority of players that plays these types of games wanting more, needing more. High-end raiding, full on space exploration, combat, upgrades, trading etc etc. It's about having a customizable UI, addons, I'm absolutely not talking about a wow clone, but wow has set the bar, a high one at that and all the different components within wow has made that one hell of a game. Swtor just doesn't come close to those components. The only thing Swtor had going for it was that it was new, a fresh face. Now, that's starting to fade and there aren't any legs left to stand on.

I really wanted Swtor to be hard-core, high-end, custom ui, addons, solid and indepth pvp and pve, fleshed out crafting, a HELL OF A LOT more lore than what's in the game now. I wanted to interact with Darthvader. Luke, R2D2 etc etc. But it not that. They wanted to after what I call the facebook gamers.

Anyways, c'mon, this can't surprise anyone. There is just no one no one saw this coming. I am shocked to read that EA may have invested 200 million in this game. They should have known better doing that with this being such a casual / social game.
 
The next patch will allow you to move the GUI around. I was kind of surprised it wasn't in the game right away.
Honestly, I was very unsure about what to think about the game. This is certainly not my first MMO. And when you see screenshots, rather than the game in motion, it looks ugly, imo. But I have been playing it now with about 8 buddies and I am having a blast. I do agree that at times the color choices can be wholly uninteresting, especially the starter planets.
I do not think the game will be in trouble for a while, especially when you factor in the part where a lot of those costs are for content updates they have been working on for a year+ already. So new content is already paid for by EA.
I am a humongous Star Wars fan, but I won't lie. When Guild Wars 2 comes out, I am dumping TOR for it.
 
bpmurrGT said:
Something doesn't seem right about having to buy a game that you then pay monthly for. Just make the game free to install and charge the monthly fee. Isn't the residual income where the money is made anyways?
Click to expand...

That's my deal. I buy a game, I want to play it. I don't want to have to keep paying for it. That's what happens when you get married. I'm just not ready for that kind of commitment in a game. Even if it does look awesome, I'm not in the pay full price just so I can rent a game month to month.
 
I think investor and people forget wow didnt get that big overnight it took a coupke years. For those that think swtor was going to top wow werent thinking. The majority of wow players are overseas in china. Im pretty sure starwars isnt very big in china
 
Star Wars really had to play to it's strengths. One of those being the lore that everyone knows and loves. Why you can't raid with Yoda helping you is ... beyond me. Why Darthvader isn't some big bad ass raid boss is, again, mind boggling. That's turning away millions and millions of potential dollars by not allowing the player base access to that well known lore. Some guy over at Wired.com said it best when he destroyed Swtor. Swtor really is a casual / social game and it's quickly running out of interested customers.

Space .... rail .... combat? ... well, o-k then lmfao. One of the many many blunders.

They screwed up Dungeons and Dragons. they screwed up Star Trek, they screwed up Lord of the Rings, they are bombing out with Swtor. Let's pray to god they get Fallout MMO right.
 
Im playing it and really like it, but honestly there are a lot of parts that leave me wanting. I just dont know WERE they put that 200 million. Its not in art, since they use the same models over and over and over and over. I dont think VO is all that expensive since a lot of the missions later on are pure text read off of some data pad or screen. Its not in the cut scenes since there really are none. Its not in the worlds since they are very small, and the user accessable parts of the world are even smaller.

Overall, it just feels rushed. 6 years and 200 mil and it still feels rushed? I dont accept this bullshit that "MMO's are never finished when released" since Rift was an AMAZING game on day 1. Better GFX, open world, so on and so on. I think Rift is a better MMO, but I got bored of it fast.

As for WoW, konfu pandas. Nuff said. They jumped the shark a long time ago. WoW day one was crap anyways.
 
I think people forget just how much of a cash cow these things are.... they don't need for the game to last years just too break even or something. lol

They brought in a gross of 70 mil on game copies almost in the first week... even if they are only operating on a 50% margin. That's 35 Mil in the first week recouped.

Now assume the game Bombs by everyone's standards.... which means they hold on too 500,000 subs for 1 year, at an average of $14 a month with again a 50% margin. (You can assume the real margin numbers are higher then that)... that's 3.5 Mil a month in profit... or 42 Mil a Year one in PROFIT. That's if it Seriously under performs and only holds 500 thousand subs for 1 year. Not counting any new copy sales... the inevitable 10 mil kick in the pants when they blow copies out at $19.99.

If year two they hold onto half of the year one subs... that's another 21 Mil in PROFIT.

Point is even if they have the WORST margin rates in the industry... and they can't hold on too 1/4 of the pop they have now... they will still turn a profit after turning the servers off 2-3 years after launch. Even Failed MMOs in general turn a profit. This one does need to hold a few more people too hit that ouch mark... but something tells me they will be in the green even if the game is a failure. $200 mil isn't that crazy of a budget... for a game built on a subscription business model.
 
bpmurrGT said:
Something doesn't seem right about having to buy a game that you then pay monthly for. Just make the game free to install and charge the monthly fee. Isn't the residual income where the money is made anyways?
Click to expand...

How do so many people fail to understand this? A game like this takes years of painstaking development, and your initial purchase of the game pays for that work (a game with tons of content before the additional content patches even come out). As for the monthly fee (aside from the obvious business objective of making a profit), part of that pays for the ongoing development of content, server maintenance costs, etc.

Have you tried asking an HD cable provider for a free HDTV?

/rant

As for this game, I love it.
 
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