I just listened to their investor confrence call. A whole lot of nonanswers. The highlight was when Goldman Sachs said EA's number crunching looked dodgy EA hung up on them.
They never announced SWTOR's sub numbers other then under one million. They did suggest that the FTP model was an attempt to "claw back" the "churn" of cancelled subscriptions. EA also said they expected revenue from subs and microtransactions to be comparable in dollars.
EA also stated that "We don't expect Star Wars free to play revenue to be incremental to the other things we've listed."
In other words, EA is distancing itself from SWTOR as much as it can and further lowering it as a priority for EA.
EA has also anounced they will buy back $500 million in EA stock. If you want to be a uber-hater, you could say thet EA has to buyback stock because SWTOR 's failure halved their stock value. So if you say that SWTOR cost $500 million in production and marketing, and the stock buyback is an additional $500 million; SWTOR is now a billion dollar mistake.
Best post ever.
I love the fact that Goldman Sachs actually called them out on their number spinning, and they got hung up on.
Im seriously loving this whole thread, etc. Cus all the people supporting this game really have nothing left. We said that EA/Bioware was fudgin numbers, they called BS and said we were liars, full of it, etc. Now, GOLDMAN SACHS calls them out on it. Vindication is a wonderful feeling.
"The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently."
There is no chance ToR has 500k players. They have 16 total servers left (12 NA and 4 Euro.). At launch they had 210 serevrs that were all full with 1.7 million playing on them. Now they have 16 total servers which is 7% of that total. For comparisons EQ2 afrter its merger had 16 total servers and its population was toppint at 200k. With 7& of servers left assuming the same number and same log in time that would be 120k total population. Although thats not a fair comparison as players play a lot more at release and the servers now are only half as full as they were at release.
The number is likely somewhere between 150k-250k. No chance on 500k.
That may or may not be true. Didn't they increase the population cap on each server by a large amount? So it is possible to have over 500k. Anyway I won't be playing even after it goes f2p. I played beta and was bored after reaching lvl 5. If they had made a swg2.0 with no bugs I'm sure I'd be subbing and keeping their numbers of subs well above 2mil. We can only wonder what would have been I guess.
They talked about doing it but it never happened as the server stats never changed. If you looked at the merges you can see the serevr drop off from the merged servers along with increase was pretty close. So the mega server thing never happened. It was just another smokescreen by EA/BW to hide the true state of the game.
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
I dont believe they have those actual live subscribers. Due to their statement earlier 500k is profitable now when they stated that I presumed they meant with their current team.
2:14: Giving people choice along side subscriptions should give people plenty of options and drive players to the game. Mentioned break even point was 500,000, SWTOR is well above that but under 1 million total subscribers. Offering two-tiered pricing plan in November. For players who cancelled their subscriptions, feedback provided as they cancelled indicated that 40% were turned off by the monthly subscription fee
As was previously stated in numerous threads, 500K is the price point the game needed to stay at to remain profitable, according to Bioware.
Goshdamn......
We are now using 500k as the doom number? Talk about the soft bigotry of low expectations!
Just a few days ago, the talk was "around a million." Turns out that was optimistic by half.
Pure theorycrafting, but I'm guessing around 650k or less. Which means they lost 75% of their playerbase before the 9 month mark.
There is no chance ToR has 500k players. They have 16 total servers left (12 NA and 4 Euro.). At launch they had 210 serevrs that were all full with 1.7 million playing on them. Now they have 16 total servers which is 7% of that total. For comparisons EQ2 afrter its merger had 16 total servers and its population was toppint at 200k. With 7& of servers left assuming the same number and same log in time that would be 120k total population. Although thats not a fair comparison as players play a lot more at release and the servers now are only half as full as they were at release.
The number is likely somewhere between 150k-250k. No chance on 500k.
They had around 2.3 mill at launch. Now they have "over 500k" that's losing around 75% of your playerbase in 6 months.
What we've seen was the 6 month subscriptions expire at the end of June, and not get renewed. I think 500k is accurate. It's basically rift, except they had a buget 5 times the size of Rift.
I just listened to their investor confrence call. A whole lot of nonanswers. The highlight was when Goldman Sachs said EA's number crunching looked dodgy EA hung up on them.
They never announced SWTOR's sub numbers other then under one million. They did suggest that the FTP model was an attempt to "claw back" the "churn" of cancelled subscriptions. EA also said they expected revenue from subs and microtransactions to be comparable in dollars.
EA also stated that "We don't expect Star Wars free to play revenue to be incremental to the other things we've listed."
In other words, EA is distancing itself from SWTOR as much as it can and further lowering it as a priority for EA.
EA has also anounced they will buy back $500 million in EA stock. If you want to be a uber-hater, you could say thet EA has to buyback stock because SWTOR 's failure halved their stock value. So if you say that SWTOR cost $500 million in production and marketing, and the stock buyback is an additional $500 million; SWTOR is now a billion dollar mistake.
Best post ever.
I love the fact that Goldman Sachs actually called them out on their number spinning, and they got hung up on.
Im seriously loving this whole thread, etc. Cus all the people supporting this game really have nothing left. We said that EA/Bioware was fudgin numbers, they called BS and said we were liars, full of it, etc. Now, GOLDMAN SACHS calls them out on it. Vindication is a wonderful feeling.
Vindication is sweet....
But honestly, anyone think a failure of that magnitude is good for the industry? (Maybe not a billion, but we're well past talking a moderate failure or the idea that TOR is profitable.)
There is no chance ToR has 500k players. They have 16 total servers left (12 NA and 4 Euro.). At launch they had 210 serevrs that were all full with 1.7 million playing on them. Now they have 16 total servers which is 7% of that total. For comparisons EQ2 afrter its merger had 16 total servers and its population was toppint at 200k. With 7& of servers left assuming the same number and same log in time that would be 120k total population. Although thats not a fair comparison as players play a lot more at release and the servers now are only half as full as they were at release.
The number is likely somewhere between 150k-250k. No chance on 500k.
They had around 2.3 mill at launch. Now they have "over 500k" that's losing around 75% of your playerbase in 6 months.
What we've seen was the 6 month subscriptions expire at the end of June, and not get renewed. I think 500k is accurate. It's basically rift, except they had a buget 5 times the size of Rift.
Wrong, 6 month subs expire earliest on August 20th.
And, just to clarify, they needed 500k subs LONGTERM (my estimate 2 years at least), and it seems that their expectation is waaaaaaaaaay lower than 500k, when everything that needs to expire finally expire my guesstimate is 200-250k subs long term.
Thats why current 500k is "not good enough" (its anyones guess what they included under "subscriber" anyway)
But honestly, anyone think a failure of that magnitude is good for the industry? (Maybe not a billion, but we're well past talking a moderate failure or the idea that TOR is profitable.)
Yes, actually it is a good thing. For the consumer. When huge companies like that who are borderline monopolies in the segment fall, it opens up the option for smaller developers whose primary concern isnt 100% focused on how to make as much profit as possible, rather to make a good game (i'll use The Witcher 2 as an example) and be succesful.
"The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently."
No, this is factually incorrect. It was 500k at the beginning of the last 3 months (what this report is for). Rumour ahs it that the current active subs are at 250k.
BiowarEA has ALWAYS padded the numbers. For a previous report, they gave lots of subscribers an extra month so they could INFLATE their sub numbers. I'm not surprised that they would use figures from the start of the period 3 months ago and pass them off current figures.
"Never argue with a fool; onlookers may not be able to tell the difference."
...For players who cancelled their subscriptions, feedback provided as they cancelled indicated that 40% were turned off by the monthly subscription fee...
Players were turned off by it because it's a single player game with co-op that should've never had a sub in the first place.
In other words, the game is the problem, not the fee. They still don't get it and if they haven't by now, they never will.
Einherjar_LC says: WTB the true successor to UO or Asheron's Call pst!
Anyone that believes they still have over 500,000 subscribers...I have a business deal for you, PM me.
500,000 X 14.99 per month = 7.5 million, that would place them near 100 million a year they could be giving up. You know damn well a lot of people that like the game(AKA current subscribers) are going to drop their subs and play for free because there sure isnt a lot to give up in terms of end game...which is mostly crap anyway.
...For players who cancelled their subscriptions, feedback provided as they cancelled indicated that 40% were turned off by the monthly subscription fee...
Players were turned off by it because it's a single player game with co-op that should've never had a sub in the first place.
In other words, the game is the problem, not the fee. They still don't get it and if they haven't by now, they never will.
Truly , the most prime example of a dev team/publisher that just doesn't get the basic idea needed behind a mmorpg is SWTOR - other games have failed due to extrememly buggy launches , (Vanguard for example ) ,but TOR is failing because at it's heart , they truly don't get the idea of an mmorpg.
EA in particular and Bioware through association are dishonest when to comes to providing accurate subscribing player totals. They get away with it for now but I will not be surprised if they are eventually brought to heel for lying to their shareholders by ommission if not fact. It’s a shadey business practice if not yet criminal beyond shadow of a doubt. They constantly fluff numbers by including people on trial accounts, free to play week ends, and every other scheming twist that they can get away with to spin numbers higher for their shareholders without ever really indicating the current number of players logged in and paying this or that month.
The truth is that we do not have a reliable and accurate means of determining the actual player base. Before long I suspect all that we will hear from them is the total number of accounts they maintain, free or not without regard to how many are really playing. In order to divine any truth from them, I have to watch what EA does.
They have turned the largest budgeted MMORPG in history with a global IP into a free to play game in less than a year after launch in spite of all the hyped numbers. This tells me they were not making enough money from subscriptions. Otherwise, they would not have changed this drastically THIS soon...
I think they misunderstood the people telling them that they were not willing to pay them another cent for this game, as people wanted a free to play model.
The sub numbers will drop as low as 300k subs or less when August 25th/28th comes. Keep in mind some people still have 6 month sub running unable to get refunds unfortunately.
Looking at: The Repopulation Preordering: None Playing: Random Games
The sub numbers will drop as low as 300k subs or less when August 25th/28th comes. Keep in mind some people still have 6 month sub running unable to get refunds unfortunately.
I'd honestly be surprised if it gets above 250k people with actual subs now that it's F2P. 175-250k is more realistic, then maybe an extra 100k or so coming in from time to time.
Will be watchiing the news for the next few days. Based on what tiefighter25 reported in post #24 that EA hung on on the Goldman Sachs's rep when stated that the number crunching looked dodgy.
Some of the things that I will be looking for is reports of Goldman Sachs rating EA as junk based on that call and/or refusing to handle EA stock sells or call in any loans they have with EA.
Will also be looking to see if Goldman Sachs ask the FTC, SEC, and justice department to step in and take a look to see what is really going on.
Till then I will just have to hope for the best and wait to see what happens.
Easily over 500K. Servers are full of people. There are actually people here who love they game, you know?
There are people who like to be tied up and beat with whips as well. For what thats worth. Regardless, whatever the pop numbers, whatever the sub model, they need to make some pretty drastic changes to attract and hold players.
Utter bs on the 5ook+ subs be lucky if they have 100k lol .
What you and a lot of other people understand is that lieing at investor calls is not something ANY major company really wants to get into.
Its more likely they are telling the truth and are looking at Turbine and SOE and the way their games enjoyed spikes upwards after going F2P Hybrid and figured this is the best way to go for long term returns.
With any luck it works and Warhammer will go the same way too.
Most of the player that defended swtor are hiding under a rock now LOL IRL. I don't think anyone in that call even asked about BF3 but they bowtied swtor and BF3 together like a xmas present.
Comments
Easily over 500K. Servers are full of people. There are actually people here who love they game, you know?
Sith Warrior - Story of Hate and Love http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sxKrlwXt7Ao
Imperial Agent - Rise of Cipher Nine http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OBBj3eJWBvU&feature=youtu.be
Imperial Agent - Hunt for the Eagle Part 1http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQqjYYU128E
Best post ever.
I love the fact that Goldman Sachs actually called them out on their number spinning, and they got hung up on.
Im seriously loving this whole thread, etc. Cus all the people supporting this game really have nothing left. We said that EA/Bioware was fudgin numbers, they called BS and said we were liars, full of it, etc. Now, GOLDMAN SACHS calls them out on it. Vindication is a wonderful feeling.
"The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently."
- Friedrich Nietzsche
Too bad there arent 500k of you to keep game afloat.
And thats what lot of people have been saying...for...well...years now.
They talked about doing it but it never happened as the server stats never changed. If you looked at the merges you can see the serevr drop off from the merged servers along with increase was pretty close. So the mega server thing never happened. It was just another smokescreen by EA/BW to hide the true state of the game.
people must be dreaming if think SWTOR have anything near 500k players...
You have no concept of what a full server really is, 200 people in fleet does not full make.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
I dont believe they have those actual live subscribers. Due to their statement earlier 500k is profitable now when they stated that I presumed they meant with their current team.
There is clearly something up somewhere.
Goshdamn......
We are now using 500k as the doom number? Talk about the soft bigotry of low expectations!
Just a few days ago, the talk was "around a million." Turns out that was optimistic by half.
Pure theorycrafting, but I'm guessing around 650k or less. Which means they lost 75% of their playerbase before the 9 month mark.
Epic
Fail
They had around 2.3 mill at launch. Now they have "over 500k" that's losing around 75% of your playerbase in 6 months.
What we've seen was the 6 month subscriptions expire at the end of June, and not get renewed. I think 500k is accurate. It's basically rift, except they had a buget 5 times the size of Rift.
Vindication is sweet....
But honestly, anyone think a failure of that magnitude is good for the industry? (Maybe not a billion, but we're well past talking a moderate failure or the idea that TOR is profitable.)
Wrong, 6 month subs expire earliest on August 20th.
And, just to clarify, they needed 500k subs LONGTERM (my estimate 2 years at least), and it seems that their expectation is waaaaaaaaaay lower than 500k, when everything that needs to expire finally expire my guesstimate is 200-250k subs long term.
Thats why current 500k is "not good enough" (its anyones guess what they included under "subscriber" anyway)
Yes, actually it is a good thing. For the consumer. When huge companies like that who are borderline monopolies in the segment fall, it opens up the option for smaller developers whose primary concern isnt 100% focused on how to make as much profit as possible, rather to make a good game (i'll use The Witcher 2 as an example) and be succesful.
"The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently."
- Friedrich Nietzsche
No, this is factually incorrect. It was 500k at the beginning of the last 3 months (what this report is for). Rumour ahs it that the current active subs are at 250k.
BiowarEA has ALWAYS padded the numbers. For a previous report, they gave lots of subscribers an extra month so they could INFLATE their sub numbers. I'm not surprised that they would use figures from the start of the period 3 months ago and pass them off current figures.
"Never argue with a fool; onlookers may not be able to tell the difference."
I need to take this advice more.
Players were turned off by it because it's a single player game with co-op that should've never had a sub in the first place.
In other words, the game is the problem, not the fee. They still don't get it and if they haven't by now, they never will.
Einherjar_LC says: WTB the true successor to UO or Asheron's Call pst!
Anyone that believes they still have over 500,000 subscribers...I have a business deal for you, PM me.
500,000 X 14.99 per month = 7.5 million, that would place them near 100 million a year they could be giving up. You know damn well a lot of people that like the game(AKA current subscribers) are going to drop their subs and play for free because there sure isnt a lot to give up in terms of end game...which is mostly crap anyway.
Truly , the most prime example of a dev team/publisher that just doesn't get the basic idea needed behind a mmorpg is SWTOR - other games have failed due to extrememly buggy launches , (Vanguard for example ) ,but TOR is failing because at it's heart , they truly don't get the idea of an mmorpg.
EA in particular and Bioware through association are dishonest when to comes to providing accurate subscribing player totals. They get away with it for now but I will not be surprised if they are eventually brought to heel for lying to their shareholders by ommission if not fact. It’s a shadey business practice if not yet criminal beyond shadow of a doubt. They constantly fluff numbers by including people on trial accounts, free to play week ends, and every other scheming twist that they can get away with to spin numbers higher for their shareholders without ever really indicating the current number of players logged in and paying this or that month.
The truth is that we do not have a reliable and accurate means of determining the actual player base. Before long I suspect all that we will hear from them is the total number of accounts they maintain, free or not without regard to how many are really playing. In order to divine any truth from them, I have to watch what EA does.
They have turned the largest budgeted MMORPG in history with a global IP into a free to play game in less than a year after launch in spite of all the hyped numbers. This tells me they were not making enough money from subscriptions. Otherwise, they would not have changed this drastically THIS soon...
The sub numbers will drop as low as 300k subs or less when August 25th/28th comes. Keep in mind some people still have 6 month sub running unable to get refunds unfortunately.
Looking at: The Repopulation
Preordering: None
Playing: Random Games
I'd honestly be surprised if it gets above 250k people with actual subs now that it's F2P. 175-250k is more realistic, then maybe an extra 100k or so coming in from time to time.
Will be watchiing the news for the next few days. Based on what tiefighter25 reported in post #24 that EA hung on on the Goldman Sachs's rep when stated that the number crunching looked dodgy.
Some of the things that I will be looking for is reports of Goldman Sachs rating EA as junk based on that call and/or refusing to handle EA stock sells or call in any loans they have with EA.
Will also be looking to see if Goldman Sachs ask the FTC, SEC, and justice department to step in and take a look to see what is really going on.
Till then I will just have to hope for the best and wait to see what happens.
There are people who like to be tied up and beat with whips as well. For what thats worth.Regardless, whatever the pop numbers, whatever the sub model, they need to make some pretty drastic changes to attract and hold players.
The game is more of an online rpg, not an mmorpg. They tried to sell people a stallion and then showed up with a donkey, what did they expect.
Not all who wander are lost...
What you and a lot of other people understand is that lieing at investor calls is not something ANY major company really wants to get into.
Its more likely they are telling the truth and are looking at Turbine and SOE and the way their games enjoyed spikes upwards after going F2P Hybrid and figured this is the best way to go for long term returns.
With any luck it works and Warhammer will go the same way too.
Most of the player that defended swtor are hiding under a rock now LOL IRL. I don't think anyone in that call even asked about BF3 but they bowtied swtor and BF3 together like a xmas present.