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If it is true that SWTOR cost near 500mil...
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Sure, voice acting costs 300-400 million dollars. That makes sense: so that means that the voice acting in TOR costs as much as making WoW, AoC, LotrO, WAR, Rift, EQ2, Vanguard and some more MMO's together. Sure, that makes a lot of sense. Oh, and that means that TSW and GW2 will cost 200+ million dollars too, because the amount of voice acting that those MMO's have is definitely not negligible in the amount of hours that they have regarding voice acting. Or will this again be some double standard, where when it comes to other MMO's, we shouldn't think like that, but only when it comes to TOR? Now, that would be unreasonable or even trolling, don't you think? :-)^This
Is what you have been doing all thread.
/Thread
They were also banking on games like Madden 2011 and Battlefield 3.
Actually, the initial budget was never reported near 300 million, either. It was one guy trumpeting that number over and over on a message board, an alleged former EA employee, and it was debunked countless times.
Fact is, nobody knows how much it cost to make, but EA did say it was roughly between 150-200 million. And they are the only official source we've heard on the subject. Whether you choose to believe them or some disgrunteled ex-employee/internet troll is up to you.
Can you pull up this EA/BW quote where they say it cost between 150-200 mil? If you can pull up an actual quote of them saying this, I'll have the mods lock this thread. How's that?
It actually seems to be lowering itself for some reason. When I first heard about costs for this game numbers ranged from around 200 million to 300 million. Then EA Louse said 300 million. Then for some reason after the dust settled people started saying 150 to 200 million. Now I'm hearing even lower numbers than those.
I think that numbers closer to EA Louse's number is probably the safest bet. The guy was like a prophet.
You can be sure that SWTOR costs more then 50mill unless they paid all those voice actors in toilet paper. As for actual costs to create the game... conjecture? We also know that primetime TV commercial spots are very expensive, all TV spots are expensive though. Those CGI trainlers alone could have ran them 15mill or more.
I believe total spent on adverts & development = 200mill-300mill.
From what I've read, EA just doesn't do good business and survives mostly on their ongoing successful franchises. Gettin Bioware was a good move and I think it bought them a decade or 2 in the business but, it just looks like a bunch of suits at EA keep making the wrong decisions.
I'm personally looking forward to them finding new and interesting ways to milk the now dead to me Mass Effect franchise.
I think you're greatly over-valuing the voice actors...
Voice acting isn't some cushy gig that nets you six figures (unless you're on the very very high end.)
The Bureau of Labor statistics puts Voice acting at about $22 an hour. (With a range from $7 an hour to $77 an hour)
So lets get crazy and throw out some silly numbers.
800 voice actors, each working for 1 hour, being paid the average = $17,600
Now I can't remember how many hours of voice acting I read were in SWTOR...for some reason the number 250,000 keeps popping in my head.
$22 x 250,000 hours = $ 5,500,000.
That's a very very small portion of even 80 million, let alone 200-500 million.
(Of course these numbers are just averages, and they don't mean anything. This post is to give perspective.)
Edit : Let's get really crazy...
$22 x 1,000,000 hours = $22,000,000.
I am not sure where you get your information, but the initial budget that was reported was near $300m. After release, and the game doing poorly, EA/BW tried to say the costs came in at around $200m in total. Most people do think it cost closer to the $300m that was originally stated.
Sorry, but that was stated by an anonymous blogger, or are you saying we should believe everything that all anonymous bloggers write? Besides, it was debunked by official EA representatives that stated that the actual development cost was nowhere near that high. In fact, no official statements has been given at all, besides third party speculation that are estimations ranging from the 80 million dollars to hundreds of millions of dollars. EA/BW/TOR haters however love to make the claim that TOR has cost as much to make as the other top 6 most expensive MMO's ever together, and try to sell that as reasonable -_-Hell even if Louse was right(which I dont believe for a second), the OP has taken that number n added another 65%.
It was understood the number of 500M was for analysts wanting to throw the BW purchase into the mix....not the dev costs themselves, which the OP is trying to present as fact.
The delusion in this thread ranks up there with "they are giving us PRE-CU servers back".
Asking Devs to make AAA sandbox titles is like trying to get fine dining on a McDonalds dollar menu budget.
SWTOR caused our national debt to default.
EA could've ended world hunger, and bought everyone an island to re-create the story of Lost...
with how much they spent on SWTOR.
.....
Said an "analyst" from Marketwatch
Here is the Los Angeles Times article that came out in January. In it, the cost of production for the game was specified. There doesn't seem to be a direct quote from anyone from Bioware/EA giving that figure, but the source for their article were people inside the company, including Daniel Erickson, Rich Vogel, and Greg Zeschuk, all with Bioware.
"It may have been the largest entertainment production in history. More than 800 people on four continents have spent six years and nearly $200 million creating it."
"It's also a great risk. In addition to the nearly $200 million spent to create the game, tens of millions of additional dollars per year will be required to keep it refreshed with new stories and adventures."
http://herocomplex.latimes.com/2012/01/20/star-wars-the-old-republic-the-story-behind-a-galactic-gamble/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter&dlvrit=63378#/0
Louse has been debunked about 1000 times, btw. So he's no prophet at all.
Well, there you go...you let me know when you find that quote.
How did they debunk him? Did they throw out their world record for having the most voice acting to prove that that sound wasn't what they were most proud about?
I didn't find any quote, because...wait for it...EA has never release the actual production numbers. So I was wrong about that. I just remember the LA times article, as well as the countless marketing analysts who have estimated the costs of production between 150-200 million.
So a few things to gather from this:
1) The LA times article contains direct quotes from people at Bioware, so you'd have to assume that 200 million figure came from them too, unless the Times just decided to make up that number and throw it in there.
2) Assuming we can't take the $200 million number seriously since it's not a direct quote from EA, how are we to take EALouse's $300 million seriously? Or your $500 million number seriously, both of which have only ever come from ONE source each, while numerous analysts have predicted between 150-200 million spent?
3) Again, you created a thread throwing out this $500 million figure based on a number put out by a single person, and now you are asking for proof that the game only costs $200 million? Isn't the burden of proof just as much on you as it is me? I don't recall seeing any direct EA quotes in any of your links either.
Rebel, just let the thread die. She's just trying to keep it going. Logic prevailed to anyone who actually cared. She's been proven to be nothing more than a troll.
I never said my number was an actual number - all I said was it is speculated as in "If it is true...". You however said you could put up an actual quote from EA/BW. No biggy. I know you'll never find an actual quote. That is OK though. We're all just guessing...but I think I am closer to the right number than some of you.
Guessing has nothing to do with it Teala....it reads more like shit stirring to me, and obviously others as well.
You knew damn well where the 500M number come from. The fact you are trying to play it off as a legitimate topic says everything. So dont act innocent when folks call ya on your posting this topic.
I would expect a normal person to at least go the "Oops I didnt realize they were adding in BW purchase cost". Nope instead you counter the EALouse claim with oneupmanship of 65%, and try to pass it off as a legitimate conversation based on "what if". Worse, you side step where the number actually does come from.
There is no "comnversation" here.....instead it is once again spam not grounded in reality.
Asking Devs to make AAA sandbox titles is like trying to get fine dining on a McDonalds dollar menu budget.
ea/bionubs themselves said the game had 100m going into it i wouldnt be surprised if it went over a 100m in end given that it was rushed out
Let's go over the forum evolution of the game's development price, it was something like this:
100 million --> 150 million --> 300 million --> 500 million --> 1 billion + (at this point, even the hardcore haters realised they were hinging on Dr. Evil territory)
None of these numbers could be tracked back to an original source (aka. someone from EA / BioWare explicitely stating how much the development cost was). They only ever said that the game had a high cost.
All of the numbers came from articles by gaming sites, blogs or so called analysts.
Whatever the true number is, it's probably not near the extremes of the forum based rumour mill, in other words: it's pretty safe to assume it didn't cost them 500 Million Dollars to make the game.
Secondly, stocks are dropping for a great many companies out there (remember the big entry a couple weeks back.... yeah), usually because of a great many factors, with simple irrational thought not being a negligible one.
Feel free to use my referral link for SW:TOR if you want to test out the game. You'll get some special unlocks!
I don't believe it was even half that... sorry.
I find it funny that the OP is still making post's about SW:ToR, funnier still that they are always full of BS.
A creative person is motivated by the desire to achieve, not the desire to beat others.
Development cost was originally budgetted at $150M, then they ran into some unexpected costs. This took the budget significantly over $200M but nowhere near the then rumored $300M. This was from an interview with EA CEO, CFO or someone else high on the EA ladder. It is also known that EA paid $860M to acquire BW, a company they had never show any interest in until it became known they were working on the one and only sure thing "WoW killer" (we all know how that turned out).
How much of that amount one wants to add to the "cost" of the game (from EA's point of view) is pretty debatable. Some would add nothing, some would add a third or even more. Overal cost could be estimated anywhere between $201M and $1100M if you really wanted to. The former is an underestimation because cost went significantly over $200M and you'd have to assume they spent nothing on marketing at all, the latter number would of course mean that without TOR BW is worthless and that none of the development cost was spent before acquisition. This is clearly not the case either.
$500M is not a really bad estimate IMO, though if you want to shift more or less of the acquisition cost to other games you can come up with significantly different numbers. It doesn't really matter. TOR will probably never break even for EA. It's all damage control now.