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Biggest MMO Failure to date?

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  • KryptyKrypty Member UncommonPosts: 454
    Final Fantasy 14 trumps all.
  • Esquire1980Esquire1980 Member UncommonPosts: 568
    Originally posted by superniceguy
    Originally posted by Vorch

     

     

    However, if you mean profitability, then no, SWTOR still remains profitable and will most likely be even more profitable as time goes on given its change to Freemium.

    It certainly is not getting profitable at the moment. They say they need 500k subs to break even, and by now (within the next month at the latest) the subs will be below that, so now they are losing money on SWTOR now. They are doing F2P in hope to stop the loss

    I seriously doubt that 500K+ number that was released.  They have 26 servers with any population at all.  Same as SWG (as you might remember before the mess at C6CD and server closures) .  Before C6CD, Smed released he had 100K+ subs, at max SWG was reported to have 300K - 350K subs.  That put at least 11K subs on each of their SWG 26 servers and it would seem that TOR servers (according to TORstatus) is capped at or around 4K concurrent log-ons at any 1 time.  It would seem that hardly any of the TOR servers hit full and Qs anylonger also.

    Maybe that TOR number released was including all the 6 month subs that no longer play nor log on anymore as well.  However, EA knows the actual numbers for players that have not canceled, waiting their time out, and that is probably the entire reason for F2P "coming soon (tm)".  They already know they are under 500K subs and therefore under the number that "makes TOR slightly profitable" according to the pre-release talk.

  • tiefighter25tiefighter25 Member Posts: 937
    Originally posted by Gdemami

     


    Originally posted by tiefighter25

    I beg to differ, but if you want to believe that the server consolidations, several rounds of lay-offs, key executives leaving/terminated, lack of EA announcing exact active subscriber numbers, and the conversion of the game to Free To Play is because the game is a resounding financial success; that is of course your perogotive.

     

    I guess it comes down what you consider "failure".

    If you attribute server consolidation, layoffs, executives leaves, no exact subscriber numbers and F2P conversion as "failure", it will be a "failure". Circular reasoning as any other invalid logic proves just about anything...

    I was trying to stay away from what seem to be the majority's consensus that the game itself was bad and focus rather on the game being a financial failure.  Server consolidation, layofs, et al. is evidence of a financial failure. I don't think my logic that the game is a finacial failure is circular. Mind you EA categorized the game as "a miss". If you want to say the game isn't a failure because it's fun or still live, fine, but it still doesn't make the game a finacial success.

  • GdemamiGdemami Member EpicPosts: 12,342


    Originally posted by tiefighter25

    Server consolidation, layofs, et al. is evidence of a financial failure. I don't think my logic that the game is a finacial failure is circular.

    No, it is not an evidence of financial failure and that is where your logic becomes circular - your premise and conclusion are the same.

  • superniceguysuperniceguy Member UncommonPosts: 2,278
    Originally posted by Esquire1980
    Originally posted by superniceguy
    Originally posted by Vorch

     

     

    However, if you mean profitability, then no, SWTOR still remains profitable and will most likely be even more profitable as time goes on given its change to Freemium.

    It certainly is not getting profitable at the moment. They say they need 500k subs to break even, and by now (within the next month at the latest) the subs will be below that, so now they are losing money on SWTOR now. They are doing F2P in hope to stop the loss

    I seriously doubt that 500K+ number that was released.  They have 26 servers with any population at all.  Same as SWG (as you might remember before the mess at C6CD and server closures) .  Before C6CD, Smed released he had 100K+ subs, at max SWG was reported to have 300K - 350K subs.  That put at least 11K subs on each of their SWG 26 servers and it would seem that TOR servers (according to TORstatus) is capped at or around 4K concurrent log-ons at any 1 time.  It would seem that hardly any of the TOR servers hit full and Qs anylonger also.

    Maybe that TOR number released was including all the 6 month subs that no longer play nor log on anymore as well.  However, EA knows the actual numbers for players that have not canceled, waiting their time out, and that is probably the entire reason for F2P "coming soon (tm)".  They already know they are under 500K subs and therefore under the number that "makes TOR slightly profitable" according to the pre-release talk.

    Pre-release talk they reckoned that it would be "profitable" at about 500K, but Frank Gibau states last week that they need 500K to break even

    http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-19077238

    Payment turn-off

    The President of EA Labels Frank Gibeau said the Star Wars game would still break even so long as it maintained 500,000 subscribers, but admitted that its current performance was "not good enough".

    "The message from players exiting the game is clear, 40% say they were turned off by the monthly subscription and many indicate they would come back if we offered a free-to-play model," he told analysts, according to a transcript of the conference call provided by the Seeking Alpha financial news site.

    "Our plan now is to pivot and provide a two-tiered pricing plan, which will make the game more accessible and grow the audience."

    The new scheme will allow users to explore the online title's first 50 levels at no cost, although they will not have access to all its features.

    Users must pay $15 (£9.50) a month for full access and a monthly allowance of in-game cash to purchase items or advance their progress.

    Star Wars: The Old Republic screenshot Non-paying members cannot complete operations and have limited access to in-game auctions

    In addition the firm is cutting the price that it charges for the game pack that users must buy before being able to access the MMORPG (massively multiplayer online role-playing game).

  • tiefighter25tiefighter25 Member Posts: 937
    Originally posted by Gdemami

     


    Originally posted by tiefighter25

    Server consolidation, layofs, et al. is evidence of a financial failure. I don't think my logic that the game is a finacial failure is circular.

     

    No, it is not an evidence of financial failure and that is where your logic becomes circular - your premise and conclusion are the same.

    Game costs a lot to develop. Game doesn't  retain subscribers to cover development costs. Game company executes measures to minimize losses. That is linear.  When I say someone has been shot in the head as evidenced by a gaping bullet wound, you can't call it a logical fallacy example of circular logic.

  • eddieg50eddieg50 Member UncommonPosts: 1,809
    Originally posted by RizelStar
    Originally posted by eddieg50
    Originally posted by eddieg50
    Originally posted by gervaise1
    Originally posted by eddieg50
    A failure at half a million players LOL,  Vanguard would die to have a quarter that many players

    The idea of what defines failure is a valid question.

    Number of players? Well if you ignore WoW, Guild Wars, Linegage, FF, League of Legions and a host of others then SWTOR didn't do very well.

    Ah number of players for a western subscription game you may cry. OK - but on that definition it isn't much better than WAR or AoC. WAR still had 300k+ subs in month 7 and AoC held onto a lot of subs pretty much until WAR launched; AoC still had about 100-150k 11 months after it launched. (Source: EA and Funcom's financial reports -  at the end Funcom gave a revenue range for AoC hence the range for the subs). Even EQ1 managed 650k subs at its peak and 450k for quite a while. UO as well. And we know that SWTOR wil have 0 subscribers in November so at that point it is a failure by this measure.

    Sales? Dwarfed by WoW, GW, EQ1, FF, Lineage.

    Longevity - no. SWTOR will probably see out 2 or 3 years because of the IP agreement but it doesn't look good.

    Profit made. Not a good measure at all. SWTOR cost a lot. And factor in part of the purchase price for Bioware - EA expected 1.2M subscribers at the time they bought  Bioware (source JR after the May results) .... dwarfs the reported $120 for VSoH, AoC was less still and even factoring in $84M or so for buying Mythic WAR will have looked cheap. Ditto TR when allowing for the stock options / damages that RG won in the court case against NCSoft. Against this measure - profit/return on investment  - SWTOR is a solid candidate for greatest failure.

    Content: not great for an mmo. People will debate the point but most agree this is a problem.

    Single player experience: probably scores highly here.

    MMO experience: and not very highly here.

    I am sure that there are other measures though.

       I just dont think you can call an mmo a failure with a half million players, that is a problem with our society today, if you are not perfect you are a failure-I dont agree

     

    I must say eddie your defense is interesting, if I'm corrrect didn't you say the same exact thing when they had 1 million subs? It was either you or someone else but if you don't see the pattern here then I almost(I said almost) fear for you. 

    The direction SWTOR is moving in, is not good, 500k IMO is good but to go from approx 2 mill and to go below 1 mill in less than a year? That shit isn't good period.

    Direction is not going towards success unfortunately.

     

      That was not me, although I do comment on these fourms quite a bit and I do like SWTOR, but if you read my threads you will see that I do point out the flaws in the game.   Most MMO's with the exception of  wow lose customers, it will be interesting to see if swtor can keep a good player base or not, they do need to listen to us when we say to build a more comprehensive Space game and other suggestions we make, if they do not than yes they will be doomed

  • eddieg50eddieg50 Member UncommonPosts: 1,809
    Originally posted by superniceguy
    Originally posted by eddieg50
    Originally posted by ktanner3
    Originally posted by eddieg50
       I think SWG has to be right in there when talking about biggest failures, The Hype was HUGE, Time Magazine, News Week, it was everywhere, then when people started playing it they were stunned by how bad it was.  You could actually be killed by a butterfly, AI was totally over powered, Lag was just as bad as Vanguard, it took years to become a full fledged Jedi,  because you could not actually play the game it became a Giant chat room although it was a very good chat room. People left quickly and it was down to a small core of fanatic dedicated Star Wars players, then Sony took over and put the final nail in the Coffin.   Yes Epic Failure!

    I have to disagree with this. Yes, that game when it released had tons of issues, but it still had a lot of people playing it. I started playing it in late 2004, a full year and a half after it had been released and there were people everywhere.  It did lose people to WOW, but it still had more than enough to maintain itself as a subscription based game. And this was back in the days when you were only allowed one character per server. What screwed galaxies was the mismanagemant by SOE and LA.  It didn't meet expectations, but then again any game with the Star Wars brand on it is going to have sky high expectations. 

       I guess i am looking at SWG because no matter who took it over, no matter what they tried to do it failed. The game had everything going for it-Open World, unique and different planets, nice harvesting, nice crafting, good space game (although it came in late when people had allready left) friendly people, nice guilds and fun places to chat.   But its fatal flaws killed it.  So I say that with all those things going for it, to die like that was an Epic Failure.

    The trouble with all MMOs they change over time, although SWG had 2 changes within the same year and no one trusted SOE/LA after the NGE, despite the fact then the game had no major changes to it after the NGE.

    By the time the game closed it was doing quite well, and the game was far from a failure in 2011 (SOE did a great job in turning the game around during the course of the 6 years), and last year with the free 45 days it brought a load of people back to the game, showing that there was a tonne of interest for the game still and not dead at all. The thing that made people return was the free time plus the free transfers. I suspect a loot of people would resubbed after the 45 days, but did not as the shutdown announcement beat them to it. I do not see many people playing the game for a solid 45 days and then just cancel, a lot would have subbed.

    SWTOR has had many free periods, and especially with it being new and having a top rate developer with Bioware, none of the free periods boosted SWTORs servers as much as SWG last year.

    Maybe Bioware can turn SWTOR around now but from what they have shown, is that the game is what it is and they can not expand upon it, like add Beast Master or multiplayer space battles etc, but just add more of what the game has already - more flashpoints, more warzones, more operation, more story etc

        You say by the time the game closed it was doing quite well,  I have  been in business for 20 years, if a business is doing quite well it does not shut down, In fact Sony did not think it was doing as well as Vanguard which has been floundering for several years. They looked at the present and future and saw no future.  Again this game had everything going for it and still failed, For a game to have inovative features, a fiercly loyal fan base, great crafting, great harvesting, great open Worlds, good graphics for the time, above average space game, and still fail is an Epic Fail

  • gervaise1gervaise1 Member EpicPosts: 6,919
    Originally posted by superniceguy
    Originally posted by Esquire1980
    Originally posted by superniceguy
    Originally posted by Vorch

     

     

    However, if you mean profitability, then no, SWTOR still remains profitable and will most likely be even more profitable as time goes on given its change to Freemium.

    It certainly is not getting profitable at the moment. They say they need 500k subs to break even, and by now (within the next month at the latest) the subs will be below that, so now they are losing money on SWTOR now. They are doing F2P in hope to stop the loss

    I seriously doubt that 500K+ number that was released.  They have 26 servers with any population at all.  Same as SWG (as you might remember before the mess at C6CD and server closures) .  Before C6CD, Smed released he had 100K+ subs, at max SWG was reported to have 300K - 350K subs.  That put at least 11K subs on each of their SWG 26 servers and it would seem that TOR servers (according to TORstatus) is capped at or around 4K concurrent log-ons at any 1 time.  It would seem that hardly any of the TOR servers hit full and Qs anylonger also.

    Maybe that TOR number released was including all the 6 month subs that no longer play nor log on anymore as well.  However, EA knows the actual numbers for players that have not canceled, waiting their time out, and that is probably the entire reason for F2P "coming soon (tm)".  They already know they are under 500K subs and therefore under the number that "makes TOR slightly profitable" according to the pre-release talk.

    Pre-release talk they reckoned that it would be "profitable" at about 500K, but Frank Gibau states last week that they need 500K to break even

    http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-19077238

    Payment turn-off

    The President of EA Labels Frank Gibeau said the Star Wars game would still break even so long as it maintained 500,000 subscribers, but admitted that its current performance was "not good enough".

    "The message from players exiting the game is clear, 40% say they were turned off by the monthly subscription and many indicate they would come back if we offered a free-to-play model," he told analysts, according to a transcript of the conference call provided by the Seeking Alpha financial news site.

    "Our plan now is to pivot and provide a two-tiered pricing plan, which will make the game more accessible and grow the audience."

    The new scheme will allow users to explore the online title's first 50 levels at no cost, although they will not have access to all its features.

    Users must pay $15 (£9.50) a month for full access and a monthly allowance of in-game cash to purchase items or advance their progress.

    Star Wars: The Old Republic screenshot Non-paying members cannot complete operations and have limited access to in-game auctions

    In addition the firm is cutting the price that it charges for the game pack that users must buy before being able to access the MMORPG (massively multiplayer online role-playing game).

    Pre-release there was talk about 500k but in their subsequent results EA said that the game needed 500k to break even and 1M to "make a profit but nothing to write home about". So 500k to keep the game ticking over, 1M for some period of time (assumed to be 1 to 2 years by analysts etc.) to repay all the development costs. Free weekends and 30 day periods won't have helped of course.

    Going F2P. Well lets assume that EA still need 500k to "break even" - I suspect it is less now but assuming 500k:

    EA are assuming that they will get 50% of the income from subs, 50% from F2P (see conference call questions).

    So that would be 250k subs and enough F2P folks to generate "250k's worth of money". Now F2P income is usually hifgest in month 1 but Zynga, on average, get most of their revenue from 5% of the players. So if Zynga's experience - that most F2P players don't pay (much) - then SWTOR will need 250k subs + 5M F2P folks. Hmmmm ....

    Now with the cut-backs EA can - presumably - break even with less but even with a 40% cost reduction that would still require 150k subs and 3M free-to-play folk, paying every month. Not playing, zapping through the class stories and then moving on.

  • KarteliKarteli Member CommonPosts: 2,646
    Originally posted by gervaise1
    Originally posted by superniceguy
    Originally posted by Esquire1980
    Originally posted by superniceguy
    Originally posted by Vorch

     

     

    However, if you mean profitability, then no, SWTOR still remains profitable and will most likely be even more profitable as time goes on given its change to Freemium.

    It certainly is not getting profitable at the moment. They say they need 500k subs to break even, and by now (within the next month at the latest) the subs will be below that, so now they are losing money on SWTOR now. They are doing F2P in hope to stop the loss

    I seriously doubt that 500K+ number that was released.  They have 26 servers with any population at all.  Same as SWG (as you might remember before the mess at C6CD and server closures) .  Before C6CD, Smed released he had 100K+ subs, at max SWG was reported to have 300K - 350K subs.  That put at least 11K subs on each of their SWG 26 servers and it would seem that TOR servers (according to TORstatus) is capped at or around 4K concurrent log-ons at any 1 time.  It would seem that hardly any of the TOR servers hit full and Qs anylonger also.

    Maybe that TOR number released was including all the 6 month subs that no longer play nor log on anymore as well.  However, EA knows the actual numbers for players that have not canceled, waiting their time out, and that is probably the entire reason for F2P "coming soon (tm)".  They already know they are under 500K subs and therefore under the number that "makes TOR slightly profitable" according to the pre-release talk.

    Pre-release talk they reckoned that it would be "profitable" at about 500K, but Frank Gibau states last week that they need 500K to break even

    http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-19077238

    Payment turn-off

    The President of EA Labels Frank Gibeau said the Star Wars game would still break even so long as it maintained 500,000 subscribers, but admitted that its current performance was "not good enough".

    "The message from players exiting the game is clear, 40% say they were turned off by the monthly subscription and many indicate they would come back if we offered a free-to-play model," he told analysts, according to a transcript of the conference call provided by the Seeking Alpha financial news site.

    "Our plan now is to pivot and provide a two-tiered pricing plan, which will make the game more accessible and grow the audience."

    The new scheme will allow users to explore the online title's first 50 levels at no cost, although they will not have access to all its features.

    Users must pay $15 (£9.50) a month for full access and a monthly allowance of in-game cash to purchase items or advance their progress.

    Star Wars: The Old Republic screenshot Non-paying members cannot complete operations and have limited access to in-game auctions

    In addition the firm is cutting the price that it charges for the game pack that users must buy before being able to access the MMORPG (massively multiplayer online role-playing game).

    Pre-release there was talk about 500k but in their subsequent results EA said that the game needed 500k to break even and 1M to "make a profit but nothing to write home about". So 500k to keep the game ticking over, 1M for some period of time (assumed to be 1 to 2 years by analysts etc.) to repay all the development costs. Free weekends and 30 day periods won't have helped of course.

    Going F2P. Well lets assume that EA still need 500k to "break even" - I suspect it is less now but assuming 500k:

    EA are assuming that they will get 50% of the income from subs, 50% from F2P (see conference call questions).

    So that would be 250k subs and enough F2P folks to generate "250k's worth of money". Now F2P income is usually hifgest in month 1 but Zynga, on average, get most of their revenue from 5% of the players. So if Zynga's experience - that most F2P players don't pay (much) - then SWTOR will need 250k subs + 5M F2P folks. Hmmmm ....

    Now with the cut-backs EA can - presumably - break even with less but even with a 40% cost reduction that would still require 150k subs and 3M free-to-play folk, paying every month. Not playing, zapping through the class stories and then moving on.

    Well .. 500k subs to break even is nice and dandy .. but EA never gave a time frame for this.  500k for how long?  for 1 month? NO .. for 6 month? NO  for 3-6 years? plausible.

     

    EA is going down a very dark path with this game.  It had numerous problems and the dev team could not correct them (see patches).

     

    Shit, I'm not buying a game anytime soon unless it is sandbox.  Tired of hoping for a good result with themeparks - not possible.

    For my sandbox I hope Archeage or The Repopulation delivers :-)

    Want a nice understanding of life? Try Spirit Science: "The Human History"
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U8NNHmV3QPw&feature=plcp
    Recognize the voice? Yep sounds like Penny Arcade's Extra Credits.

  • DistopiaDistopia Member EpicPosts: 21,183

    Biggest failure? Don't know, but from a personal perspective looking at the game compared to some others, no. Couldn't care less about It's commercial success or lack there of. When I look at MMO launches I've played through I'd say it was okay, yet the game was only good for one purpose IMO, playing through the stories. Which were intact with no large content gaps . AOC on the other hand...

     

    For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson


  • Tawn47Tawn47 Member Posts: 512
    Originally posted by eddieg50
    Originally posted by superniceguy
    Originally posted by eddieg50
    Originally posted by ktanner3
     

    I have to disagree with this. Yes, that game when it released had tons of issues, but it still had a lot of people playing it. I started playing it in late 2004, a full year and a half after it had been released and there were people everywhere.  It did lose people to WOW, but it still had more than enough to maintain itself as a subscription based game. And this was back in the days when you were only allowed one character per server. What screwed galaxies was the mismanagemant by SOE and LA.  It didn't meet expectations, but then again any game with the Star Wars brand on it is going to have sky high expectations. 

       I guess i am looking at SWG because no matter who took it over, no matter what they tried to do it failed. The game had everything going for it-Open World, unique and different planets, nice harvesting, nice crafting, good space game (although it came in late when people had allready left) friendly people, nice guilds and fun places to chat.   But its fatal flaws killed it.  So I say that with all those things going for it, to die like that was an Epic Failure.

    The trouble with all MMOs they change over time, although SWG had 2 changes within the same year and no one trusted SOE/LA after the NGE, despite the fact then the game had no major changes to it after the NGE.

    By the time the game closed it was doing quite well, and the game was far from a failure in 2011 (SOE did a great job in turning the game around during the course of the 6 years), and last year with the free 45 days it brought a load of people back to the game, showing that there was a tonne of interest for the game still and not dead at all. The thing that made people return was the free time plus the free transfers. I suspect a loot of people would resubbed after the 45 days, but did not as the shutdown announcement beat them to it. I do not see many people playing the game for a solid 45 days and then just cancel, a lot would have subbed.

    SWTOR has had many free periods, and especially with it being new and having a top rate developer with Bioware, none of the free periods boosted SWTORs servers as much as SWG last year.

    Maybe Bioware can turn SWTOR around now but from what they have shown, is that the game is what it is and they can not expand upon it, like add Beast Master or multiplayer space battles etc, but just add more of what the game has already - more flashpoints, more warzones, more operation, more story etc

        You say by the time the game closed it was doing quite well,  I have  been in business for 20 years, if a business is doing quite well it does not shut down, In fact Sony did not think it was doing as well as Vanguard which has been floundering for several years. They looked at the present and future and saw no future.  Again this game had everything going for it and still failed, For a game to have inovative features, a fiercly loyal fan base, great crafting, great harvesting, great open Worlds, good graphics for the time, above average space game, and still fail is an Epic Fail

    Err..  SWG lasted for years (despite the NGE fiasco)..  and was not shut down because it failed  -- it was shut down because LA didn't want two SW games on the market competing with each other.  SWG was shut down to pave the way for SWTOR.   You cannot call a game that lasted 7 years without resorting to a F2P model a failure.   On the other hand, SWTOR went to F2P in record time.  Theyll tell you that its the latest trend with MMO's.. but thats just to save face.  Look at the negativity surrounding this game.  Something went seriously, seriously wrong with SWTOR and I wonder how long it will be before they pull the plug..   well all depends how many people the F2P model brings in.

  • GdemamiGdemami Member EpicPosts: 12,342


    Originally posted by tiefighter25
    Game costs a lot to develop.

    A fact.


    Originally posted by tiefighter25

    Game doesn't  retain subscribers to cover development costs. Game company executes measures to minimize losses.

    Conclusions. Same circular reasoning I was pointing out before.


    Hope that helped.

  • tiefighter25tiefighter25 Member Posts: 937
    Originally posted by Gdemami

     


    Originally posted by tiefighter25

    Game doesn't  retain subscribers to cover development costs. Game company executes measures to minimize losses.

     

    Conclusions. Same circular reasoning I was pointing out before.


    Hope that helped.

    No it doesn't help at all. I have no idea what you are talking about. I stated that in pure fiscal terms, SWTOR is a failure. EA has stated that the game has failed to meet fiscal expectations. EA has said it is changing its pay structure to hopefully aid its underperformance.  There is a whole lot of cause and effect going on there.

    [mod edit]

    I state facts, you pick a term form a list of false rhetoric.

    You keep stating that SWTOR is not a fiscal failure, to conclude so one would be employing circular logic. Then you never explain why that it is circular logic other then giving a thin definition as to what a conclusion derived by circular logic is.

    Furthermore you never give any reason why SWOR shouldn't be considered a fiscal failure other then it isn't. Additionally you never give any reasons why one should consider SWTOR a success.

    Just accusing people of circular logic and saying that FTP is the wave of the future doesn't make SWTOR any less of a financial failure.

  • Creslin321Creslin321 Member Posts: 5,359
    Originally posted by tiefighter25
    Originally posted by Gdemami

     


    Originally posted by tiefighter25

    Game doesn't  retain subscribers to cover development costs. Game company executes measures to minimize losses.

     

    Conclusions. Same circular reasoning I was pointing out before.


    Hope that helped.

    No it doesn't help at all. I have no idea what you are talking about. I stated that in pure fiscal terms, SWTOR is a failure. EA has stated that the game has failed to meet fiscal expectations. EA has said it is changing its pay structure to hopefully aid its underperformance.  There is a whole lot of cause and effect going on there.

    [mod edit]

    I state facts, you pick a term form a list of false rhetoric.

    You keep stating that SWTOR is not a fiscal failure, to conclude so one would be employing circular logic. Then you never explain why that it is circular logic other then giving a thin definition as to what a conclusion derived by circular logic is.

    Furthermore you never give any reason why SWOR shouldn't be considered a fiscal failure other then it isn't. Additionally you never give any reasons why one should consider SWTOR a success.

    Just accusing people of circular logic and saying that FTP is the wave of the future doesn't make SWTOR any less of a financial failure.

     Tiefighter is right Gdemami...you keep falling back on these "logical fallacy" arguments, but you're basically ignoring the actual issue.

    In reality, the only folks who could say 100% whether SWTOR is a financial failure is EA.  They have their projections for SWTOR, and what it actually made.  If SWTOR is doing better than projected, then it is a financial success...if it is doing worse, then it is some degree of a failure.

    That said, if you look at what EA is saying to their investors and the media...it becomes fairly clear that SWTOR probably did not meet projections.  Consider this snippet of the article here:  http://www.gamefront.com/ea-battlefield-3-premium-largely-off-sets-poor-swtor-performance/

    The contrast between EA’s prepared remarks during their Q4 2011 and Q1 2013 — between stolid optimism and rueful pragmatism — could not be more stark:

    Interim CFO Ken Barker, 5/7/2012:

    “We delivered an extraordinary launch of a solidly profitable long-term franchise…We expect this title will further expand our margins in fiscal 13 as we get the full year benefit of subscription revenue…the current number of active subscribers, 1.3 million, is very consistent with the original assumptions we made when we acquired BioWare in 2008….while this franchise is very profitable, it only represents a mid-single digit percent of our total profitability in fiscal 13.”

    EA Labels Head Frank Gibeau, 7/31/2012:

    “Although it launched well, subscriptions have been on a declining trajectory and have now slipped below one million. Last year we announced that the breakeven point was roughly 500,000 subscribers. And while we are well above that today, that’s not good enough. The message from players exiting the game is clear – 40 percent say they were turned off by the monthly subscription. And many indicated they would come back if we offered a free-to-play model.”

     

    Look at his statement at the end of July...it's pretty clear that SWTOR is not doing as well as they hoped, and they are reacting to this by changing the business model in a bid to get it back on track.  I would say that this is a good indicator that SWTOR did not meet their projections.

    Are you team Azeroth, team Tyria, or team Jacob?

  • GdemamiGdemami Member EpicPosts: 12,342


    Originally posted by tiefighter25

    No it doesn't help at all. I have no idea what you are talking about.


    I clearly pointed out and explained where a flaw in your train of thoughts is. Then you either come and build a counter argument or you address my own fallacy. You did neither.

    What more should I do? Ball is on your court, not mine.


    Originally posted by Creslin321

    Tiefighter is right Gdemami...you keep falling back on these "logical fallacy" arguments, but you're basically ignoring the actual issue.

    No, he is not right.


    I am not ignoring anything, I see it clearly, just I am not making hasty, baseless, biased conclusions.

    It is as you say, only EA can really claim it a failure and so far they did not - or if the game simply shuts down. Neither is happening.

    I was never denying SWTOR was underperforming. EA stated that 500k subs is considered as a low range revenue and SWTOR approached the range. Those are facts.

    But that is about all one can say. For anything else you would need very solid back up which tiefighter, or in a matter of fact anyone so far, did not provide.

  • tiefighter25tiefighter25 Member Posts: 937
    Originally posted by Gdemami

     


    Originally posted by tiefighter25

    No it doesn't help at all. I have no idea what you are talking about.

     


    I clearly pointed out and explained where a flaw in your train of thoughts is. Then you either come and build a counter argument or you address my own fallacy. You did neither.

    What more should I do? Ball is on your court, not mine.

     


    Originally posted by Creslin321

    Tiefighter is right Gdemami...you keep falling back on these "logical fallacy" arguments, but you're basically ignoring the actual issue.


     

    No, he is not right.


    I am not ignoring anything, I see it clearly, just I am not making hasty, baseless, biased conclusions.

    It is as you say, only EA can really claim it a failure and so far they did not - or if the game simply shuts down. Neither is happening.

    I was never denying SWTOR was underperforming. EA stated that 500k subs is considered as a low range revenue and SWTOR approached the range. Those are facts.

    But that is about all one can say. For anything else you would need very solid back up which tiefighter, or in a matter of fact anyone so far, did not provide.

    If this was a debate, I would say your arguments are thin, disingenuous, and spurious. Here's the thing. This is the General Discussion board, not the General Debate board.  I'm not saying that a lively discussion of opposing views isn't both encouraged and welcomed; what I'm saying is that your attempts to bog discusion down into meangless wordplay is tedious.

    You aren't trying to discuss anything. You're seeking a vitcory where the only prize is the sound of one hand clapping.

    You could have just said that you didn't think SWTOR was the biggest MMO failure because even though it is severely underperforming, it still garners a small day to day profit and with changes it may become more successful in the future.

    Instead you've turned yourself into SWTOR's attorney for a trial that exsists only in your head.

    -Edited some typos.-

  • Originally posted by Creslin321
    Originally posted by tiefighter25
    Originally posted by Gdemami

     


    Originally posted by tiefighter25

    Game doesn't  retain subscribers to cover development costs. Game company executes measures to minimize losses.

     

    Conclusions. Same circular reasoning I was pointing out before.


    Hope that helped.

    No it doesn't help at all. I have no idea what you are talking about. I stated that in pure fiscal terms, SWTOR is a failure. EA has stated that the game has failed to meet fiscal expectations. EA has said it is changing its pay structure to hopefully aid its underperformance.  There is a whole lot of cause and effect going on there.

    [mod edit]

    I state facts, you pick a term form a list of false rhetoric.

    You keep stating that SWTOR is not a fiscal failure, to conclude so one would be employing circular logic. Then you never explain why that it is circular logic other then giving a thin definition as to what a conclusion derived by circular logic is.

    Furthermore you never give any reason why SWOR shouldn't be considered a fiscal failure other then it isn't. Additionally you never give any reasons why one should consider SWTOR a success.

    Just accusing people of circular logic and saying that FTP is the wave of the future doesn't make SWTOR any less of a financial failure.

     Tiefighter is right Gdemami...you keep falling back on these "logical fallacy" arguments, but you're basically ignoring the actual issue.

    In reality, the only folks who could say 100% whether SWTOR is a financial failure is EA.  They have their projections for SWTOR, and what it actually made.  If SWTOR is doing better than projected, then it is a financial success...if it is doing worse, then it is some degree of a failure.

    That said, if you look at what EA is saying to their investors and the media...it becomes fairly clear that SWTOR probably did not meet projections.  Consider this snippet of the article here:  http://www.gamefront.com/ea-battlefield-3-premium-largely-off-sets-poor-swtor-performance/

    The contrast between EA’s prepared remarks during their Q4 2011 and Q1 2013 — between stolid optimism and rueful pragmatism — could not be more stark:

    Interim CFO Ken Barker, 5/7/2012:

    “We delivered an extraordinary launch of a solidly profitable long-term franchise…We expect this title will further expand our margins in fiscal 13 as we get the full year benefit of subscription revenue…the current number of active subscribers, 1.3 million, is very consistent with the original assumptions we made when we acquired BioWare in 2008….while this franchise is very profitable, it only represents a mid-single digit percent of our total profitability in fiscal 13.”

    EA Labels Head Frank Gibeau, 7/31/2012:

    “Although it launched well, subscriptions have been on a declining trajectory and have now slipped below one million. Last year we announced that the breakeven point was roughly 500,000 subscribers. And while we are well above that today, that’s not good enough. The message from players exiting the game is clear – 40 percent say they were turned off by the monthly subscription. And many indicated they would come back if we offered a free-to-play model.”

     

    Look at his statement at the end of July...it's pretty clear that SWTOR is not doing as well as they hoped, and they are reacting to this by changing the business model in a bid to get it back on track.  I would say that this is a good indicator that SWTOR did not meet their projections.

    That's extremely subjective.  Saying that whether it succeeds depends on the publisher/devs projections.   That is not good enough for most things.

     

    The question is will they ever see a profit?  At this point based on sales and subs they will take a major loss when you consider dev costs and advertising (which was huge).  I don't need exact figures to say this because there is currently such a large obvious shortfall.  I don't need to know precisely where a ball will land to understand that it is going over the fence and a home run or a foul ball.

    Will F2P eventually make it profitiable?  I have no idea.  But when they clearly need to make $100 million OR MORE to break even they have some real trouble.  There is more than enough information out there to say that figure is in the ballpark even if we do not have the exact numbers.  Just from all the people hired and all the ad buys done and from the sales themselves a VERY conservative estimate puts them at $50-100 million in the hole with a rapidly strhinking revenue stream that won't make that up any time soon and is just a burden for little return.

     

    You do not need exact figures to say somethign is a financial failure or to ascertain things.  You merely need to hit certain thresholds.  The thresholds here are so glaring that it is not that hard to say 100% it is currently failing.

     

  • WolfmeisterWolfmeister Member UncommonPosts: 50

    actually nope.

    They changed the business model to match the market; that does NOT indicate any kind of failure.

    Subjective facts;

    1. best raiding in any mmo right now - most challenge and most reward.

    2. Best individual play for storyline - with voice acting and interactions that the group can turn one way or the other and affect the outcome by how they choose to respond- no other MMO has this.

    3. Best pvp EVER, end of story. Yes you get slaughtered when you are a newb. Scoundrel V90, Powertech V68, Operative V65, Sorc V 55. Yes, I still get owned sometimes, but if Im rolling with vets on my team, we have a damn good chance... and even if I lose, I kick ass all the way.

     

    I could go on and on about why this game is the best, but those are the top 3 that matter to me as an mmo player.

     

    Noobs and whiners will disagree- let them QQ.

    We are the Founding Fathers in this virtual world in which we create. As such it seems we must do what our Founding Fathers had to do.. in order to let our fellow gamers have a fair shake.

  • abyss404abyss404 Member UncommonPosts: 68
  • FrodoFraginsFrodoFragins Member EpicPosts: 5,898
    Originally posted by Wolfmeister

    actually nope.

    They changed the business model to match the market; that does NOT indicate any kind of failure.

    Subjective facts;

    1. best raiding in any mmo right now - most challenge and most reward.

    2. Best individual play for storyline - with voice acting and interactions that the group can turn one way or the other and affect the outcome by how they choose to respond- no other MMO has this.

    3. Best pvp EVER, end of story. Yes you get slaughtered when you are a newb. Scoundrel V90, Powertech V68, Operative V65, Sorc V 55. Yes, I still get owned sometimes, but if Im rolling with vets on my team, we have a damn good chance... and even if I lose, I kick ass all the way.

     

    1. Tee Hee

    2. Agreed

    3. ROFL

     

    They didn't change models to match the market, they changed models because they are bleeding players at a ridiculous rate.

     

    SWTOR will be the highest quality F2P game on the market but will still fail because they are counting on people subscribing once they hit the cap.  It didn't work the first time.  They need a better store model.

  • TibernicusTibernicus Member Posts: 433
    Originally posted by Beanpuie

    Age of Conan, Vanguard and Star Trek Online

    None of those had as big a budget as SWTOR, nor as big an IP.

    LotRO is about as big a failure as the 3 you mentioned. Biggest IP in the world and it could barely keep above water for years.

     

    SWTOR is the most expensive MMO ever made, with two of the biggest studios in the world. Within 3 months half the team has been fired and the game is going FTP.

    That's probably the biggest failure I've ever seen.

     

  • cylon8cylon8 Member UncommonPosts: 362
    i dont get you people shouldn't we be celebrating and supporting the games that HAVE survived...regardless of whether or not the provide any future proofing for the genre they still are financial and fan successes. And frankly sto isn't a failure...perfect no a failure NO

    so say we all

  • VikingGamerVikingGamer Member UncommonPosts: 1,350

    Definitly FFXIV at release. I have never seen any company so apologetic for their product. Also, they didn't charge the sub fee for what like the first year? No cash shop and no sub for the longest time. That is nothing if not admitting you don't want to drive a way the few people who were actually playing it.

    But I do have to temper this by saying that the changes they have been making and what I have been hearing about a realm reborn are very encouraging. If SE can succeed, even moderately in turning this ship around they will have made the biggest comeback ever. MMOs don't get second chances but FFXIV might just fight its way around that truism.

    All die, so die well.

  • itgrowlsitgrowls Member Posts: 2,951
    Originally posted by pharazonic

    Sure you guys can argue that F2P is not a failure and that the game had "always been intended for F2P/Freemium" . Personally I think this view is bogus but whatever.

     Completely agree! anyone who argues that is just stupid. LOL they always planned it? nah maybe as a backup when they thought the sub numbers would crash. The only issue is they crashed long before people anticipated. People actually told me that the game would not go F2P until 3 years after launch. That didn't happen.

    But the FACT remains that this game was THE WoW killer. Everyone from EA's CEO to BioWare's developers to SWTOR community managers said that this was the game that was going to face Blizzard's juggernaught, WoW. (You can look up articles posted during SWTOR's development that how this was the next big thing; I am not making this stuff up.) 

     Rift actually took more players from WoW then any other title so far, around 2mil. And now WoW has some of Rift's features trying to get those players back in MoP. AOE looting anyone? LOL Oh i know you're not making this stuff up, people will argue with you about it but i have the launch and prelaunch videos and the articles with that stuff in them.

    Well, one game still requires you to buy the latest expansion at FULL PRICE. One game still requires you to buy the game to level to levelcap. One game still has a major expansion coming up. One game still requires a subscription fee. That game isn't SWTOR. 

    I wouldn't say WoW is still a success because they are slowly bleeding members, and two months after their release we will see a drop in subs again most likely as annual passes will be stopping left and right. And while i don't deny at launch of their new exp there will be a rise in the number of subs but after the newness wears off that $40 tiny expansion (i played the beta) won't hold people's attention much longer. People are getting tired of the same old, even WoW's same old. I personally stopped playing until they put someone other then ghostcrawler in charge. Shoulda listened to people's complaints in BC when Blizz decided he was the best man to run WoW, smh. 

    This has got to be the most monumental MMO failure - way beyond other "WoW killers" like AoC, War, etc. I mean, even WAR still has a subscription. How sad. 

     

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