I remember reading a tech article in 2008 discussing the expense to support WoW and in the four years from 2004 to 2008 it cost 200 million.
So considering that it cost 135 million to produce swtor I'd say the near-half billion estimate (if they plan to run it for at least four years) is pretty close. Costs real money not just for coding and designing and producing the game but also keeping all of those pretty servers up and running perfectly 24/7 for millions of addicted people.
If they want to get to millions of people, they best be improving the shit out of this game. I don't think I will be keeping my sub. Some of this shit is MMO stone age--no LFG tool? No UI scaler?
I have taken two characters up to 10, and I just don't get any enjoyment out of it.