I'm still standing by my prediction that the game will have its plug pulled by December of this year. And I'm basing that prediction on Lucas' dissatisfaction with his stake and percentage on sales and, more importantly, having a property out there with the Star Wars name that is received poorly. (Remember, this is the guy that tried to erase the Star Wars Christmas Special from history.)
I think the suggestion to cancel the game will come from Lucas himself and EA will comply. I don't see SWTOR going F2P.
I could be entirely wrong, but this is my gut feeling.
I think you are really right about the all thing, only the date.
They wil wait till february 2013 because maybe some might buy it for christmass, EA will milk all those cows if possible.
Also in store the game went from a dazzling € 59.90 to a € 39.90 recently.
My guess is that Lucas Arts will never let them go F2P. My hope is that they allow them to swicth to B2P with a cash shop ala GW2. It will take at least a year for that to happen.
Its way to late for B2P,that should of been the plan from the very start,FTP is the only way they can go if they are going to change the subcription.
Who in their right mind would buy swtor now we have seen what a mess it is,only an idiot or someone who knows nothing about MMOs or reads these type of websites.
I remember people posting at release that SWTOR will have less than 10 servers left after 4 months of release and that game will go F2P with in 6 months. Now i guess doomers have extended their time limit to 2013. In 2013 we will see same posters on new alts, extending doom and gloom to 2014 and F2P or dead servers prediction...and so on.
Its amazing how desperately people want SWTOR to fail even though it is not going to happen.
You must have your eyes closed. Let me open them up for you.
SWTOR has less than 10 active servers left after 4 moths of release. 90% of servers are ghost towns.
The game should be F2P but instead they are just gutting the entire staff and cancelling all future content.
Where did you read this? Can you toss a link about them canceling all future content? I'm sure it is an excellent read.
I am just waiting for the moment where the devs finally admit deateat and say, "yes, we actually do have less that 1.7 million subs."
Yes, we were counting free players.
Yes, the 6 month subs hadn't run out yet.
Yes, we have 400k subs now.
The crazy part is they will likely, after constantly bringing up their lack of sub loss, never bring up another reference to subs again. Ever. Servers will be empty, they will smash 'em together, but they will never again mention anything about how "healthy" their game is again.
They will have to bring up subs, well at least revenue. And with box sales declining the vast majority of their income will be from sus, so we'll at least be able to deduce an approximate sub amount from their quarterly reports.
My guess is that Lucas Arts will never let them go F2P. My hope is that they allow them to swicth to B2P with a cash shop ala GW2. It will take at least a year for that to happen.
Its way to late for B2P,that should of been the plan from the very start,FTP is the only way they can go if they are going to change the subcription.
Who in their right mind would buy swtor now we have seen what a mess it is,only an idiot or someone who knows nothing about MMOs or reads these type of websites.
[mod edit]
Really! Vanguard is still going 5 years later and is about to go FTP not B2P. SOE have had five years to sort out most of the bugs,remember it was bugs that plagued Vanguard not crap game play features.
[mod edit] you can download the free trail and pay the sub.
It really is disgusting how if someone likes something you don't you both call them idiots. If someone buys a game you don't like, its called a different opinion, not that they have any less intelligence. Grow up.
I don't believe you and I agree on much but I'll second this.
I'm all for raking someone over the coals over matters or issues with a game. Especially if the person is being condescending themselves or willfully ignorant. But over them simply enjoying a game? Yeah...simply no reason for it.
1. For god's sake mmo gamers, enough with the analogies. They're unnecessary and your comparisons are terrible, dissimilar, and illogical.
2. To posters feeling the need to state how f2p really isn't f2p: Players understand the concept. You aren't privy to some secret the rest are missing. You're embarrassing yourself.
3. Yes, Cpt. Obvious, we're not industry experts. Now run along and let the big people use the forums for their purpose.
Dude. This is EA. They don't give anything away without squeezing out at least a nickel's worth of blood. Even if it would make sense.
Except of course giving away free time and trials and "come back" weeks like candy, as they have been for TOR.
Make no mistake, they have been throwing everything and the kitchen sink at people to get them to keep playing TOR, and it does not appear to be working.
TOR is looking more and more like a financial turkey as things go on.
And I don't disagree much with the timeline in the OP, except for a longer duration before F2P, because EA needs to work out the new financial model (unless they did that with eventual plans of taking TOR F2P).
In the end, it does not matter much: TOR failed to deliver what most people were looking for.
There's no indication that the game is losing money. I'm sure they are still quite profitable. It's just that the suits are getting scared they'll lose their jobs for not maintaining the subs they have and not meeting internal predictions.
I never said it was losing money, per se.
There were however some very definite numbers thrown out by EA/BW execs about what was needed for TOR to be considered "financially successful" by the company and investors.
It was on the order of 1 mil subs for a year, with 500k for a year basically being breaking even.
At this point, I think there is very little chance of EA getting their 1 mil subs for year.
Bottom line is that TOR was the most expensive MMO/computer game ever made and that came with very high exectations for revenue and return on investments.
Everyone but perhaps EA execs realize/admit that meeting those very high expectations is all but impossible at this point: the game was simply not "good enough" for the people that bought it to maintain retention past a month or two, and that is a big problem when you are looking to keep people a year.
Any other MMO generating $100-$150 mil in revenue would be considered a winner. For TOR, that's a loser.
Their statement was that even 500k subs would turn a profit, just nothing to write home about.
That was in the Q1 2011 results Q&A, this was clarified in the Q3 2011 results Q&A to be 500k to break even, 1m subs would turn a profit but nothing to write home about, but that they would not have made the investment if they thought they would only get that number. It's all a matter of public record.
Comments
I think you are really right about the all thing, only the date.
They wil wait till february 2013 because maybe some might buy it for christmass, EA will milk all those cows if possible.
Also in store the game went from a dazzling € 59.90 to a € 39.90 recently.
Diablow 3, it sucks ...
Its way to late for B2P,that should of been the plan from the very start,FTP is the only way they can go if they are going to change the subcription.
Who in their right mind would buy swtor now we have seen what a mess it is,only an idiot or someone who knows nothing about MMOs or reads these type of websites.
Where did you read this? Can you toss a link about them canceling all future content? I'm sure it is an excellent read.
They will have to bring up subs, well at least revenue. And with box sales declining the vast majority of their income will be from sus, so we'll at least be able to deduce an approximate sub amount from their quarterly reports.
Really! Vanguard is still going 5 years later and is about to go FTP not B2P. SOE have had five years to sort out most of the bugs,remember it was bugs that plagued Vanguard not crap game play features.
[mod edit] you can download the free trail and pay the sub.
[mod edit]
Only an idiot would buy swtor now.
There Is Always Hope!
I don't believe you and I agree on much but I'll second this.
I'm all for raking someone over the coals over matters or issues with a game. Especially if the person is being condescending themselves or willfully ignorant. But over them simply enjoying a game? Yeah...simply no reason for it.
1. For god's sake mmo gamers, enough with the analogies. They're unnecessary and your comparisons are terrible, dissimilar, and illogical.
2. To posters feeling the need to state how f2p really isn't f2p: Players understand the concept. You aren't privy to some secret the rest are missing. You're embarrassing yourself.
3. Yes, Cpt. Obvious, we're not industry experts. Now run along and let the big people use the forums for their purpose.
Except of course giving away free time and trials and "come back" weeks like candy, as they have been for TOR.
Make no mistake, they have been throwing everything and the kitchen sink at people to get them to keep playing TOR, and it does not appear to be working.
TOR is looking more and more like a financial turkey as things go on.
And I don't disagree much with the timeline in the OP, except for a longer duration before F2P, because EA needs to work out the new financial model (unless they did that with eventual plans of taking TOR F2P).
In the end, it does not matter much: TOR failed to deliver what most people were looking for.
There's no indication that the game is losing money. I'm sure they are still quite profitable. It's just that the suits are getting scared they'll lose their jobs for not maintaining the subs they have and not meeting internal predictions.
I never said it was losing money, per se.
There were however some very definite numbers thrown out by EA/BW execs about what was needed for TOR to be considered "financially successful" by the company and investors.
It was on the order of 1 mil subs for a year, with 500k for a year basically being breaking even.
At this point, I think there is very little chance of EA getting their 1 mil subs for year.
Bottom line is that TOR was the most expensive MMO/computer game ever made and that came with very high exectations for revenue and return on investments.
Everyone but perhaps EA execs realize/admit that meeting those very high expectations is all but impossible at this point: the game was simply not "good enough" for the people that bought it to maintain retention past a month or two, and that is a big problem when you are looking to keep people a year.
Any other MMO generating $100-$150 mil in revenue would be considered a winner. For TOR, that's a loser.
Their statement was that even 500k subs would turn a profit, just nothing to write home about.
That was in the Q1 2011 results Q&A, this was clarified in the Q3 2011 results Q&A to be 500k to break even, 1m subs would turn a profit but nothing to write home about, but that they would not have made the investment if they thought they would only get that number. It's all a matter of public record.