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another success of the F2P model?
nariusseldon
Member EpicPosts: 27,775
http://www.polygon.com/2013/5/7/4309866/star-wars-the-old-republic-revenue-doubled-free-to-play
"Monthly average revenue for Star Wars: The Old Republic, BioWare's massively multiplayer online role-playing game, has more than doubled and subscriptions have increased since adopting the free-to-play model last year, Electronic Arts president of labels Frank Gibeau revealed in an earning's call today."
""And the number of subscriptions has stabilized at just under half a million."
So a failed theme-park has the same sub numbers as the most successful sandbox (eve), many more active players, and on top they get cash shop money?
Comments
Oderint, dum metuant.
Man, you are busy today.
I would say keeping the same number of subscribers they had before the F2P transition and increasing the total number of players and also increasing the total revenues is definitely a "win".
** ** **
SWToR is F2P, but has the option of having a subscription that gets you "everything". The difference between the pre and post F2P subscription is that the post F2P subscription gets you cash shop money that you can use in the cash shop to buy anything you want. If you don't spend it every month, you can buy expansions to the game as well.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
No .. it is a failure. Just a failure that has the same amount of subs as the biggest sandbox "success". I wonder where this double standard comes from.
Slow work day? Waiting for my algorithm to crunch.
If they spent 10x more money developing swtor than developing EVE It also should have 10x more players playing it (or profit)
You have a lot of things to learn about business i guess :P
big assumption.
Epic Music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAigCvelkhQ&list=PLo9FRw1AkDuQLEz7Gvvaz3ideB2NpFtT1
https://archive.org/details/softwarelibrary_msdos?&sort=-downloads&page=1
Kyleran: "Now there's the real trick, learning to accept and enjoy a game for what it offers rather than pass on what might be a great playing experience because it lacks a few features you prefer."
John Henry Newman: "A man would do nothing if he waited until he could do it so well that no one could find fault."
FreddyNoNose: "A good game needs no defense; a bad game has no defense." "Easily digested content is just as easily forgotten."
LacedOpium: "So the question that begs to be asked is, if you are not interested in the game mechanics that define the MMORPG genre, then why are you playing an MMORPG?"
assumption ? In the numbers or theory? .. If in the numbers, well everyone knows that swtor had the biggest mmorpg budget yet and if in the theory .. that is not assumption, thats the truth.
yeah why should it? I doubt they spend 20x more money in WOW than in Eve.
swtor went f2p only cause of investors .. big investments, need big profit to return them right ..
wow had no investors, blizzard was developing the game and funding it ... so yea
It is all about budged right .. If they spent 10x more money developing swtor than developing EVE It also should have 10x more players playing it
You have a lot of things to learn about business i guess
I wasn't aware the CCP published how much money they spent on Eve of it's nearly twelve years of development. I wasn't aware that Bioware published numbers detailing how much they spent on developing SWToR either.
Bioware did say prior to release that 500k subscriptions would make the game profitable. They now have 500k subscriptions. They also have people buying stuff from the cash shop. Is this the best case scenario? No. Is this the worst case scenario? No. This is a profitable scenario. Add to this the game was crashing, badly before the F2P transition and they pulled it out of a steep dive. After the announcement, EA's stock price rose by 8%. For EA, this is a "win". It also vindicates what they were saying about the payment models prior to the F2P transition, that F2P was a better model for the game. It turns out they were right.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
All the themepark MMOs are doing it.
Practice doesn't make perfect, practice makes permanent.
"At one point technology meant making tech that could get to the moon, now it means making tech that could get you a taxi."
They have 1.7 million people who aren't paying subs too. Those people have a cash shop, why would you deny that opportunity to the subscription players? Are you subscriptionist?
Actually, while they have the option to spend even more money in the cash shop, their subscription gives them cash shop coin that they can use in the cash shop to buy stuff, in addition to having all the F2P restrictions removed.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
Very true.. but Swtor with 500k subs is pretty amazing considering how it gets trashed all the time.
I think they also touted being the second biggest sub game in the US. Pretty good for a "failure". I wonder where are all the "successes" (except wow, of course).
Nice switch you did there with the "truth" of the swtor budget. While the budget was high the BS is your overall math. 10 times the budget mean 10 times the players. You need to rephrase it to something like it needs 10 times the number to break even if that's what you meant. Or you might have just been pointing out the costs have gone up in the years. Or something else. You writing was kind of off.
Epic Music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAigCvelkhQ&list=PLo9FRw1AkDuQLEz7Gvvaz3ideB2NpFtT1
https://archive.org/details/softwarelibrary_msdos?&sort=-downloads&page=1
Kyleran: "Now there's the real trick, learning to accept and enjoy a game for what it offers rather than pass on what might be a great playing experience because it lacks a few features you prefer."
John Henry Newman: "A man would do nothing if he waited until he could do it so well that no one could find fault."
FreddyNoNose: "A good game needs no defense; a bad game has no defense." "Easily digested content is just as easily forgotten."
LacedOpium: "So the question that begs to be asked is, if you are not interested in the game mechanics that define the MMORPG genre, then why are you playing an MMORPG?"
I saw this yesterday and I have to admit that this news has hit me pretty hard.
It's not that I want them to fail - far from it. But with a result this dramatic, I find it hard to believe that any major publisher is going to be able to resist the siren call of cash shops.
So I'm pretty demoralized at the moment, wondering how much longer I will have this hobby left.
Just embrace the future. F2P is great. Play part of games for free.
To be honest, i think TOR is a pretty bad game (combat is meh, and it is much better as a SP game) but if it paves the way for more F2P, at least it is contributing to my fun.
*sigh*
I should have known better. Nariusseldon, I don't know if you are intentionally trolling or are just so lost in the game of forum PvP that you can't resist an opportunity to kick someone when they are down.
Either way, you're just not worth it.
Double standard?
Average game development of an MMO costs anywhere between 20-35 million. I highly doubt EvE went anywhere near that in their initial development costs. They could be considered a success because they didn't need 500k+ subs to turn a profit.
SWTOR on the other hand said they NEEDED 500k subs and needed them for 5 years to start turning a profit. Just doing the numbers 14.99 a month equals 179.99 a year. 500,000 people that comes out to about 90million a year. By 5 years thats about 450million. Not to mention box sales. So people that say "No SWTOR didn't cost that much", go read their own initial expectations and projections. They pretty much define it for you. I bet SWTOR cost about 500million with everything said and done, Voice Acting/Advertising etc.
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