Never read a more biased article in my life. It's obvious hes an EA hater.
Battlefield 3 did very well considering it is the 1st one that was on all platforms at release. Console gamers didn't even know what Battlefield 1 and 2 were about it was a PC FPS for the most part.
Also if activision is doing so great why is the majority stock holder who owns 61% of it selling it ?
Indeed, Battlefield 3 did very well.
So well that Dice is already developing BF 4... 1 year layer.
Get ready to buy the same game every year, the new COD with yearly releases, only that now EA will drive it to the ground and kill another great franchise, because unlike Activision, they really don't know what they are doing.
It's an article in Forbes... ea hater? seriously?
Just because its on forbes means nothing. Everyone is capable of being biased real writers are able to be unbiased this one obviously is not.
It's not Bias if he is basing his comments on fact,
So him assuming swtor cost 500m to make is fact ? When every other expert says it wasn't even half of that ? I don't even play swtor anymore , but that article is about as biased as you can get. No one ever said BF was going to compete with COD. He is comparing Activision to EA in games that only show activision is better. I.E BIASED if you cannot see this you're a tool. How about we compare how many copies of madden EA sells every year ? Or NHL, Fifa, NBA franchises. The dude is a moron if he thinks SWTOR will make or break EA sure it won't be good, but in the grand scheme of things it will not have a huge impact on EAs ability to develop games. He didn't even mention that diablo 3 is a failure and despite people buying it no one is left playing it.
He wouldnt mention cod or diablo 3 in detail because this was an EA Article.
He also stated that swtor probably cost 200-300 million and that marketing expenses after that mounted to a total of 500 million, for example do you think a superbowl advert is free? Not to mention what they have to pay LA.
EA are in trouble their share price is terrible they are voted worst company of america, this does have a huge impact on their ability to develop games. If I was a top notch designer or coder the last place I'd look to work is EA infact Id rather jack that all in and work as a deputy manager at starbucks.
A SB ad is 10000 times what a normal TV ad cost. You do not spend 200mil on development and 300m on marketing are you serious ? Do you really think marketing cost that much ? Its not cheap but it in no way comes close to half of what development cost let alone 50% more. EA being voted the worst company lol like that matters. Did you vote ? No Did I vote ? No especially in a poll where you don't even know who voted or the demographic of who voted on it.
When you compare games to each other you have to talk about BOTH games not be BIASED and only point out the flaws in one of them. If Activision is so great why are they being sold ?
Even if the numbers are off by half, it would be one of the most expensive games ever made. The bleeding of staff being fired or resigning + the bleeding of subscribers is immense. 100s of staff and 100,000s of customers. No other game has fluctuated these populations so rapidly and on this scale.
Ill put things into perspective for you Rift cost 50 million and has made its money back plus the game plays better than swtor and is patched the heaviest of all mmorpgs.
Non of the excuses in the world can hide the fact that SWTOR is a mess and so now is its parent company.
And yes I did vote not in that poll, but I have voted with my wallet and I will never buy another EA game as long as I can hold my grudge for selling me swtor and then not delivering.
Rift isn't SWTOR SWTOR should of been a PVP game period.
EA will be fine a few games does not make or break a company of that size. Will people be fired over it ? Sure , but EA has dozens of franchises that remain extremely profitable. I would argue activision is in worse shape just because of the unknown the majority stock holder is selling and if 1 person comes in and buys it all they will have a new person in charge and who knows what direction the company goes. Can you imagine if Sony did the unexpected and bought it ? Or Microsoft ? Someone is going to buy them and most likely it will be a company who already has an interest in the gaming market.
Rift isn't SWTOR SWTOR should of been a PVP game period.
EA will be fine a few games does not make or break a company of that size. Will people be fired over it ? Sure , but EA has dozens of franchises that remain extremely profitable. I would argue activision is in worse shape just because of the unknown the majority stock holder is selling and if 1 person comes in and buys it all they will have a new person in charge and who knows what direction the company goes.
Yeh vivendi is trying to sell bliz/acti but its also their most profitable section. If I was a billionaire wow player I'd buy it and then tell them to make the night elf mohawk class.
EA - soon going to be the Lehmann Brothers of gaming...
Oh and just for the record towards everyone who flamed us who said SWTOR cost $200 million: Forbes even assumes $500M (including advertising). lol. Just lol.
"SWTOR might end up going free-to-play like so many other of World of Warcraft’s competition, but that’s not the model that’s going to earn them their money back. They really needed the monthly fee model to work, and the fact that it hasn’t makes the game a failure, no matter how many players a free-to-play switch may bring back."
In the immortal words of Yoda: This is why you fail.
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert
Same old. Some journalist called Paul shows up, which is as credible as my old lady neighbour next door, and admits himself he is new contributor to Forbes. Writes an article based only on his own predictions based on nothing solid. [mod edit]
You know how many quotes I read just like this after the NGE, after AoC launched, etc., etc., etc?...
Take the blinders off...I have that "same-old" feeling this is going to get REAL ugly before it's all said and done...The business model for this Game requires a TON of cash coming in Monthly...And that cash is in steady decline since Feb...If F2P does not work, SWTOR could be canceled in a year or two...It's really that serious...
EA - soon going to be the Lehmann Brothers of gaming...
Oh and just for the record towards everyone who flamed us who said SWTOR cost $200 million: Forbes even assumes $500M (including advertising). lol. Just lol.
"SWTOR might end up going free-to-play like so many other of World of Warcraft’s competition, but that’s not the model that’s going to earn them their money back. They really needed the monthly fee model to work, and the fact that it hasn’t makes the game a failure, no matter how many players a free-to-play switch may bring back."
In the immortal words of Yoda: This is why you fail.
If SWTOR honestly did cost half a billion dollars to make, I mean REALLY, somebody was suckered and somebody is hiding in Cuba spending laundryed money right now. I would not only be firing people I would be having a full blown internal investigation with the police looking to put away a lot of people for the criminal misuse of corporate funds. It's an inexcusable disaster at that level of funding. But that's a big IF and I am not sure we will ever get the real scoop.
Bio stands behind thier games 100% if game like Rift and Aion and CoX and AoC and 40k can survive then TOR will be around for a very long time to come oh btw it is not just EA that took a lost it is ALL of the gaming indrustry.
Never read a more biased article in my life. It's obvious hes an EA hater.
Battlefield 3 did very well considering it is the 1st one that was on all platforms at release. Console gamers didn't even know what Battlefield 1 and 2 were about it was a PC FPS for the most part.
Also if activision is doing so great why is the majority stock holder who owns 61% of it selling it ?
Indeed, Battlefield 3 did very well.
So well that Dice is already developing BF 4... 1 year layer.
Get ready to buy the same game every year, the new COD with yearly releases, only that now EA will drive it to the ground and kill another great franchise, because unlike Activision, they really don't know what they are doing.
It's an article in Forbes... ea hater? seriously?
Just because its on forbes means nothing. Everyone is capable of being biased real writers are able to be unbiased this one obviously is not.
It's not Bias if he is basing his comments on fact,
So him assuming swtor cost 500m to make is fact ? When every other expert says it wasn't even half of that ? I don't even play swtor anymore , but that article is about as biased as you can get. No one ever said BF was going to compete with COD. He is comparing Activision to EA in games that only show activision is better. I.E BIASED if you cannot see this you're a tool. How about we compare how many copies of madden EA sells every year ? Or NHL, Fifa, NBA franchises. The dude is a moron if he thinks SWTOR will make or break EA sure it won't be good, but in the grand scheme of things it will not have a huge impact on EAs ability to develop games. He didn't even mention that diablo 3 is a failure and despite people buying it no one is left playing it.
He wouldnt mention cod or diablo 3 in detail because this was an EA Article.
He also stated that swtor probably cost 200-300 million and that marketing expenses after that mounted to a total of 500 million, for example do you think a superbowl advert is free? Not to mention what they have to pay LA.
EA are in trouble their share price is terrible they are voted worst company of america, this does have a huge impact on their ability to develop games. If I was a top notch designer or coder the last place I'd look to work is EA infact Id rather jack that all in and work as a deputy manager at starbucks.
A SB ad is 10000 times what a normal TV ad cost. You do not spend 200mil on development and 300m on marketing are you serious ? Do you really think marketing cost that much ? Its not cheap but it in no way comes close to half of what development cost let alone 50% more. EA being voted the worst company lol like that matters. Did you vote ? No Did I vote ? No especially in a poll where you don't even know who voted or the demographic of who voted on it.
When you compare games to each other you have to talk about BOTH games not be BIASED and only point out the flaws in one of them. If Activision is so great why are they being sold ?
Ill put things into perspective for you Rift cost 50 million and has made its money back plus the game plays better than swtor and is patched the heaviest of all mmorpgs.
Rift is also a better Game...It has much more depth and is constantly growing in that area...SWTOR was the worst overall MMO Development ever...REAL bad ideas that obviously cost a ton of cash...When you bank on the cornerstone of a Game being voice-overs knowing a great number of your core Subscribers are going to be on Voice Servers...That's a bit of a swing-and-a-miss...I wonder sometimes if anybody tests anything at BioWare Austin...The Game was planned terribly IMHO...No question it fell far short of expectation...And hype for that matter...
Bio stands behind thier games 100% if game like Rift and Aion and CoX and AoC and 40k can survive then TOR will be around for a very long time to come oh btw it is not just EA that took a lost it is ALL of the gaming indrustry.
So people who post that TOR has faild need to beef up on facts before they make such statments.
We'll see...Those other Games cost a fraction of what SWTOR cost to make, AND to maintain...And BioWare is not going to stand behind anything that is bleeding cash for too long...What business would? So again, we'll see...
So, I did a simple google image search on bad EA customer service (since the article linked an example) and found quite a few, including a screenshot of an ex-EA customer service rep talking about his experiences working for EA. Not sure if I want to buy/play another EA or Mythic game after reading that. Maybe it has changed since then (the picture was posted in October of 2011, but I'm not sure how long ago it originated).
Bio stands behind thier games 100% if game like Rift and Aion and CoX and AoC and 40k can survive then TOR will be around for a very long time to come oh btw it is not just EA that took a lost it is ALL of the gaming indrustry.
So people who post that TOR has faild need to beef up on facts before they make such statments.
All other MMOs are still worthwhile playing than SWTOR, as they are dynamic in design, where the devs are in constant development on the game week by week. You feel like you are in online social gaming clubs, but SWTOR is just a single player game with multiplayer, and the big patches aside from 1.1 have given no added content to the game. With all the layoffs the game is not going to be going where it was intended to be.
EA/Bioware have so far not given much reason to give people for keeping logged in, unlike other MMOs. If they keep this up, then there will hardly be anybody playing it this time next year, let alone even 40K. They attempted an event about 3 months ago, but I only noticed it when it was going away. They did not advertise it much, and have done nothing like it since. LOTRO has had several events since then though, and there is a new one just gone live now, from July 26th to Aug 13th, The New Farmers Faire
STO this month had Season 6 (more content) go live, plus last weekened the game celebrated 25th Anniversary of The Next Generation
The last email from EA/Bioware about SWTOR, was back in March, but for other MMOs - SOE (even SOE are more communicative with their crap!), Aion, Rift, City of Heroes, EVE, LOTRO, STO, I receive an email from each of them each week.
Sep will probably kill SWTOR, unless EA/Bioware get their act together, as GW2, LOTRO next expansion, and WOWs expansion all get released.
What is there happening for SWTOR? Server closures. Which is a mess, I have characters on Dxun Battle Circle and characters on The Red Eclipse, and as The Red Eclipse is the only server I can transfer to I can not transfer my characters. So what happens when they automatically move you? 1) Delete chars 2) Increase slots to 16 or 3) Transfer to another server. Depending on what happens, their process could stop me (and others) playing permanently
SWTOR failed, and is still failing, and will only stop failing when subs stabilsie / stop decling and EA/Bioware get serious abouyt adding proper content to the game each patch or on regular weekly intervals, like other MMOs are doing.
SWTOR failed, and is still failing, and will only stop failing when subs stabilsie / stop decling and EA/Bioware get serious abouyt adding proper content to the game each patch or on regular weekly intervals, like other MMOs are doing.
How can they even hope to add more content when they keep laying everyone off? This game is dead imho.
An article of equal depth, insight and maturity you can find around these boards...why posting it here? To show how Forbes is lacking professional journalist?
EA - soon going to be the Lehmann Brothers of gaming...
Oh and just for the record towards everyone who flamed us who said SWTOR cost $200 million: Forbes even assumes $500M (including advertising). lol. Just lol.
"SWTOR might end up going free-to-play like so many other of World of Warcraft’s competition, but that’s not the model that’s going to earn them their money back. They really needed the monthly fee model to work, and the fact that it hasn’t makes the game a failure, no matter how many players a free-to-play switch may bring back."
In the immortal words of Yoda: This is why you fail.
Yes because forbes knows all. Seriously ? FORBES does not assume it cost 500m some free lance scrub of a journalist who does not WORK for forbes assumes it did with no FACTS to back it up.
Also F2P is the future a real F2P system has 10 times the potential revenue stream then monthly subscriptions.
EA - soon going to be the Lehmann Brothers of gaming...
Oh and just for the record towards everyone who flamed us who said SWTOR cost $200 million: Forbes even assumes $500M (including advertising). lol. Just lol.
"SWTOR might end up going free-to-play like so many other of World of Warcraft’s competition, but that’s not the model that’s going to earn them their money back. They really needed the monthly fee model to work, and the fact that it hasn’t makes the game a failure, no matter how many players a free-to-play switch may bring back."
In the immortal words of Yoda: This is why you fail.
Yes because forbes knows all. Seriously ? FORBES does not assume it cost 500m some free lance scrub of a journalist who does not WORK for forbes assumes it did with no FACTS to back it up.
Also F2P is the future a real F2P system has 10 times the potential revenue stream then monthly subscriptions.
Have you actually seen the amount of advertisement of SW:TOR around launch? It was on par of Hollywood blockbusters PR. It was insane! Huge billboards in cities, metro stations, train stations, shops, etc, commercials on both TV and cinemas! It was everywhere!
It's no secret that the average hollywood blockbuster spends a ridiculous amount of money in advertisement.
So the 250 million guestimate on advertisement isn't so far fetched as you think.
All the voice overs that have been put into the game has cost them an insane amount of money. You can bet that it took pretty much all of their budget, with not much left for the game itself. Hence, why the game failed hard!
Originally posted by William12 FORBES does not assume it cost 500m some free lance scrub of a journalist who does not WORK for forbes assumes it did with no FACTS to back it up.
Yeah, he got the estimates from Gamespot, and Gamespot got the estimate from LA Times, and LA Times pulled this estimate out of ...who knows, they do not bother to cite the source at all. As for marketing costs, they seem to be completely made up random number.
Originally posted by JeroKane All the voice overs that have been put into the game has cost them an insane amount of money. You can bet that it took pretty much all of their budget, with not much left for the game itself.
Oh, really? The voice overs are costly?
Hm... There is like 200.000 lines of recorded text used. 1000 actors. Lets say each session lasts 4 hours. That is 4000 hours of voice-overs.
Now, do all the figures include other languages? I don't know but make it 3 for each language.
How much for recording hour? Is 1000 USD/hour enough?
Well, that makes 12000 hours at 1000 USD rate, resulting in 12M USD.
If you consider minimum budget as 150M USD, it is exactly 8% of the budged spent on 3 languages voice-overs.
I've been playing DRM EA games for free and w/o DRM for years...
I've purchased WoW, Diablo 3, Starcraft 2, and many other games recently... And will continue to support quality developers.
I suggest everyone joins the new wave and supports kick-starter type business. Minecraft has the art budget of a sunday grocery shopping adventure and yet did very well for itself. Goes to show quality and enjoyable gameplay go a long further than millinos of dollars in special effects and voice acting.
EA - soon going to be the Lehmann Brothers of gaming...
Oh and just for the record towards everyone who flamed us who said SWTOR cost $200 million: Forbes even assumes $500M (including advertising). lol. Just lol.
"SWTOR might end up going free-to-play like so many other of World of Warcraft’s competition, but that’s not the model that’s going to earn them their money back. They really needed the monthly fee model to work, and the fact that it hasn’t makes the game a failure, no matter how many players a free-to-play switch may bring back."
In the immortal words of Yoda: This is why you fail.
Yes because forbes knows all. Seriously ? FORBES does not assume it cost 500m some free lance scrub of a journalist who does not WORK for forbes assumes it did with no FACTS to back it up.
Also F2P is the future a real F2P system has 10 times the potential revenue stream then monthly subscriptions.
It's about time someone with credibility told the truth! (what most of us already knew)
Yellow: Don't ever piss off Forbes!
P.S. Though I care less for EA and I'm glad Forbes is speaking the truth, I do feel bad for the workers who lost their jobs. If anything, the courts should get involved in forcing EA to find employment for the staff they fired; due to poor management!
If Activision is so great why are they being sold ?
I recall reading that Activision is being sold because their parent company, Vivendi, is having financial troubles due to something going on in their other divisions.
Originally posted by joocheeseIt's about time someone with credibility told the truth!
I wonder what you base the credibility on.
Paul Tassi
I'm EIC of a movie/tv/gaming site called Unreality in addition to my duties for Forbes. I'm new to this business, and I think I'm a part of the first generation of journalists to skip print media entirely. Feel free to follow me on Twitter or circle me on Google+
If Activision is so great why are they being sold ?
I recall reading that Activision is being sold because their parent company, Vivendi, is having financial troubles due to something going on in their other divisions.
/end offtopic.
True... but that could go both ways. Either "A" they have to sell their most profitable section of their portfolio in order to solidify their finances or "B" they are selling it while it's still making a profit (i.e. Activion-Blizzard's numbers are going in the wrong direction).
First off let me say I am not playing SWTOR but did play briefly. In doing my best to look at this article from any particular bias position, I find some very concerning issues with the article. The wording suggests everything but proves nothing. It really is an opinion of sorts with very little, if any credible facts to back up what was stated. While most of us speculate much of what is in the article is probably correct, and there are some things happening to suggest these things are correct, nothing is proven. When all is said and done, this article has to be viewed as opinion and speculation by the author.
Comments
Even if the numbers are off by half, it would be one of the most expensive games ever made. The bleeding of staff being fired or resigning + the bleeding of subscribers is immense. 100s of staff and 100,000s of customers. No other game has fluctuated these populations so rapidly and on this scale.
Ill put things into perspective for you Rift cost 50 million and has made its money back plus the game plays better than swtor and is patched the heaviest of all mmorpgs.
Non of the excuses in the world can hide the fact that SWTOR is a mess and so now is its parent company.
And yes I did vote not in that poll, but I have voted with my wallet and I will never buy another EA game as long as I can hold my grudge for selling me swtor and then not delivering.
Rift isn't SWTOR
SWTOR should of been a PVP game period.
EA will be fine a few games does not make or break a company of that size. Will people be fired over it ? Sure , but EA has dozens of franchises that remain extremely profitable. I would argue activision is in worse shape just because of the unknown the majority stock holder is selling and if 1 person comes in and buys it all they will have a new person in charge and who knows what direction the company goes. Can you imagine if Sony did the unexpected and bought it ? Or Microsoft ? Someone is going to buy them and most likely it will be a company who already has an interest in the gaming market.
Yeh vivendi is trying to sell bliz/acti but its also their most profitable section. If I was a billionaire wow player I'd buy it and then tell them to make the night elf mohawk class.
EA - soon going to be the Lehmann Brothers of gaming...
Oh and just for the record towards everyone who flamed us who said SWTOR cost $200 million: Forbes even assumes $500M (including advertising). lol. Just lol.
"SWTOR might end up going free-to-play like so many other of World of Warcraft’s competition, but that’s not the model that’s going to earn them their money back. They really needed the monthly fee model to work, and the fact that it hasn’t makes the game a failure, no matter how many players a free-to-play switch may bring back."
In the immortal words of Yoda: This is why you fail.
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert
You know how many quotes I read just like this after the NGE, after AoC launched, etc., etc., etc?...
Take the blinders off...I have that "same-old" feeling this is going to get REAL ugly before it's all said and done...The business model for this Game requires a TON of cash coming in Monthly...And that cash is in steady decline since Feb...If F2P does not work, SWTOR could be canceled in a year or two...It's really that serious...
If SWTOR honestly did cost half a billion dollars to make, I mean REALLY, somebody was suckered and somebody is hiding in Cuba spending laundryed money right now. I would not only be firing people I would be having a full blown internal investigation with the police looking to put away a lot of people for the criminal misuse of corporate funds. It's an inexcusable disaster at that level of funding. But that's a big IF and I am not sure we will ever get the real scoop.
Bio stands behind thier games 100% if game like Rift and Aion and CoX and AoC and 40k can survive then TOR will be around for a very long time to come oh btw it is not just EA that took a lost it is ALL of the gaming indrustry.
http://games.yahoo.com/blogs/plugged-in/ailing-video-game-industry-222612072.html
So people who post that TOR has faild need to beef up on facts before they make such statments.
Rift is also a better Game...It has much more depth and is constantly growing in that area...SWTOR was the worst overall MMO Development ever...REAL bad ideas that obviously cost a ton of cash...When you bank on the cornerstone of a Game being voice-overs knowing a great number of your core Subscribers are going to be on Voice Servers...That's a bit of a swing-and-a-miss...I wonder sometimes if anybody tests anything at BioWare Austin...The Game was planned terribly IMHO...No question it fell far short of expectation...And hype for that matter...
We'll see...Those other Games cost a fraction of what SWTOR cost to make, AND to maintain...And BioWare is not going to stand behind anything that is bleeding cash for too long...What business would? So again, we'll see...
So, I did a simple google image search on bad EA customer service (since the article linked an example) and found quite a few, including a screenshot of an ex-EA customer service rep talking about his experiences working for EA. Not sure if I want to buy/play another EA or Mythic game after reading that. Maybe it has changed since then (the picture was posted in October of 2011, but I'm not sure how long ago it originated).
All other MMOs are still worthwhile playing than SWTOR, as they are dynamic in design, where the devs are in constant development on the game week by week. You feel like you are in online social gaming clubs, but SWTOR is just a single player game with multiplayer, and the big patches aside from 1.1 have given no added content to the game. With all the layoffs the game is not going to be going where it was intended to be.
EA/Bioware have so far not given much reason to give people for keeping logged in, unlike other MMOs. If they keep this up, then there will hardly be anybody playing it this time next year, let alone even 40K. They attempted an event about 3 months ago, but I only noticed it when it was going away. They did not advertise it much, and have done nothing like it since. LOTRO has had several events since then though, and there is a new one just gone live now, from July 26th to Aug 13th, The New Farmers Faire
STO this month had Season 6 (more content) go live, plus last weekened the game celebrated 25th Anniversary of The Next Generation
The last email from EA/Bioware about SWTOR, was back in March, but for other MMOs - SOE (even SOE are more communicative with their crap!), Aion, Rift, City of Heroes, EVE, LOTRO, STO, I receive an email from each of them each week.
Sep will probably kill SWTOR, unless EA/Bioware get their act together, as GW2, LOTRO next expansion, and WOWs expansion all get released.
What is there happening for SWTOR? Server closures. Which is a mess, I have characters on Dxun Battle Circle and characters on The Red Eclipse, and as The Red Eclipse is the only server I can transfer to I can not transfer my characters. So what happens when they automatically move you? 1) Delete chars 2) Increase slots to 16 or 3) Transfer to another server. Depending on what happens, their process could stop me (and others) playing permanently
SWTOR failed, and is still failing, and will only stop failing when subs stabilsie / stop decling and EA/Bioware get serious abouyt adding proper content to the game each patch or on regular weekly intervals, like other MMOs are doing.
Star Trek Online - Best Free MMORPG of 2012
How can they even hope to add more content when they keep laying everyone off? This game is dead imho.
An article of equal depth, insight and maturity you can find around these boards...why posting it here? To show how Forbes is lacking professional journalist?
I am puzzled...
Yes because forbes knows all. Seriously ? FORBES does not assume it cost 500m some free lance scrub of a journalist who does not WORK for forbes assumes it did with no FACTS to back it up.
Also F2P is the future a real F2P system has 10 times the potential revenue stream then monthly subscriptions.
It's both awe inspiring and depressing to see just how many words are being wasted on hating ToR.
I don't think I've ever seen anything so pointless or pathetic in my entire life.
And, no, Forbes didn't rip into EA, just another overblown thread title by an ignorant OP with a bad case of confirmation bias.
Have you actually seen the amount of advertisement of SW:TOR around launch? It was on par of Hollywood blockbusters PR. It was insane! Huge billboards in cities, metro stations, train stations, shops, etc, commercials on both TV and cinemas! It was everywhere!
It's no secret that the average hollywood blockbuster spends a ridiculous amount of money in advertisement.
So the 250 million guestimate on advertisement isn't so far fetched as you think.
All the voice overs that have been put into the game has cost them an insane amount of money. You can bet that it took pretty much all of their budget, with not much left for the game itself. Hence, why the game failed hard!
Yeah, he got the estimates from Gamespot, and Gamespot got the estimate from LA Times, and LA Times pulled this estimate out of ...who knows, they do not bother to cite the source at all. As for marketing costs, they seem to be completely made up random number.
That is what "journalism" means these days...
Oh, really? The voice overs are costly?
Hm...
There is like 200.000 lines of recorded text used. 1000 actors. Lets say each session lasts 4 hours. That is 4000 hours of voice-overs.
Now, do all the figures include other languages? I don't know but make it 3 for each language.
How much for recording hour? Is 1000 USD/hour enough?
Well, that makes 12000 hours at 1000 USD rate, resulting in 12M USD.
If you consider minimum budget as 150M USD, it is exactly 8% of the budged spent on 3 languages voice-overs.
Hate is blinding much, isn't it?
I've been playing DRM EA games for free and w/o DRM for years...
I've purchased WoW, Diablo 3, Starcraft 2, and many other games recently... And will continue to support quality developers.
I suggest everyone joins the new wave and supports kick-starter type business. Minecraft has the art budget of a sunday grocery shopping adventure and yet did very well for itself. Goes to show quality and enjoyable gameplay go a long further than millinos of dollars in special effects and voice acting.
Unfortunately it seems you can rarely have both.
You said it not me
.
Are you team Azeroth, team Tyria, or team Jacob?
It's about time someone with credibility told the truth! (what most of us already knew)
Yellow: Don't ever piss off Forbes!
P.S. Though I care less for EA and I'm glad Forbes is speaking the truth, I do feel bad for the workers who lost their jobs. If anything, the courts should get involved in forcing EA to find employment for the staff they fired; due to poor management!
I recall reading that Activision is being sold because their parent company, Vivendi, is having financial troubles due to something going on in their other divisions.
/end offtopic.
I wonder what you base the credibility on.
Paul Tassi
I'm EIC of a movie/tv/gaming site called Unreality in addition to my duties for Forbes. I'm new to this business, and I think I'm a part of the first generation of journalists to skip print media entirely. Feel free to follow me on Twitter or circle me on Google+
http://blogs.forbes.com/people/paultassi/
http://unrealitymag.com/
True... but that could go both ways. Either "A" they have to sell their most profitable section of their portfolio in order to solidify their finances or "B" they are selling it while it's still making a profit (i.e. Activion-Blizzard's numbers are going in the wrong direction).
First off let me say I am not playing SWTOR but did play briefly. In doing my best to look at this article from any particular bias position, I find some very concerning issues with the article. The wording suggests everything but proves nothing. It really is an opinion of sorts with very little, if any credible facts to back up what was stated. While most of us speculate much of what is in the article is probably correct, and there are some things happening to suggest these things are correct, nothing is proven. When all is said and done, this article has to be viewed as opinion and speculation by the author.