Paying $15 a month for 2-3 games for me is nothing. I'd do it if there were actually 2-3 games out there worth paying for. I avoid F2p games like the plague unless I can gain full access with a sub so I can avoid the cash shop.
Someone claiming the $15 a month sub fee killed a game is totally full of shit. I stopped playing Swtor once I completely my Agent's story line. Anything else the game offered wasn't worth playing ... not just paying.
Originally posted by Psychow I enjoyed TOR more than I did GW2. I plan on returning to TOR after that pesky $15/mo sub is removed.
Good luck with that one. Once you see how much they gutted it to make you pay for functunality in the cash shop or force you to resubscribe, I think you'll change your opinion about the F2P model lol.
I don't understand. There claiming the issue was thier game was not worth a sub fee of $15?
However they are removing a lot of the game to F2P players in the hopes of them subscribing for content that isn't worth it!?
Do they think we are stupid?
Lol. Apparently so. They gut the game to force you to either re-buy all the features, but hoping you subscribe to the game. If people didn't want to subscribe to the game before, what makes you think they are going to do it now? I really don't get their logic with this.
EA Chief Operating Officer has claimed the fall of SWTOR was down to people not wanting to pay $15 a month for MMO's, funny, it seems to work for WoW and EvE amongst others. Maybe $15 is too much for this game.
I would be happy to pay 15 something per month for this game if it was fun to play, but just as when wow was released I also canceled this game subscribtion 2 months from release.
I would also pay the £9 a month fee(13 euro/$15), if the game was worth it. I currently have a month left on my SW-ToR account, yet i also have hardly played it for the past month, i log in and then after 5 minutes log out again. I have 2 characters maxed and 1 in the mid 30's. I just carnt be bothered with the game due to boredom. I thought i would wait for the F2P mode to come out but it seems that one will lose all equipment gained (unable to wear it) lose action/skill bars untill purchased from item shop and alot of other stuff that would need to be repurchased on a weekly basis.
Looked at someone else's post here with most details (some missed) and i agree that it seems to be well restricted. I was under the impression that they were making it a F2P model to try and bring back players or gain new players that would subscribe, but i really doubt that will happen. I can see this one also being shutdown (probably at the time or just before) teh launch of the other SW game in production (which looks like a console/joypad platformer type game). Aint going to be for me, mouse+keyboard+PC as i dont like consoles and carnt use joypads.
EA Chief Operating Officer has claimed the fall of SWTOR was down to people not wanting to pay $15 a month for MMO's, funny, it seems to work for WoW and EvE amongst others. Maybe $15 is too much for this game.
Time of subscription is over. 15$ was aceptable for some time , but now with so many "pay what and when you want" alternatives - its simply out of touch.
WOW will drop subscription soon enough they see decline in subscribers
And EVE is PVP sandbox - they can not go for F2P model - else they ruin the balance.
I was saying the subscription will kill this game all along. Big mistake for EA not going F2P from the start.
Themepark + subscription = fail
No it isnt. The time of Generic Mmos offer subs needs to end. Say if TSW, Rift, SWTOR, were truly amazing, revolutionary, the next best thing. People would NOT hesitate to pay a sub at all. To say the sub is dead is ridiculous.
Problem with that is that it takes 10 million people to call something "revolutionary" or "the next best thing" for it to be taken as word.. Even if a game DOES come out that manages to do things differently, if all those 80 gazillion people that played WoW don't play the game it would simply be seen as a dud.. A failure..
Farmville made millions.. But try being the next company to attempt a browser based farming "simulator".. I can almost guarantee that you will not come even close to making as much as farmville..
The "breakthrough" age for mmo's has ended, and WoW was the pinncle..
You are looking at the effect before you look at the cause. If a game has 10 million people playing it, then that is the effect of a good game. You can insist that a certain game is good, but if people won't continue playing it, then there is a problem.
Low population games are more the result of games not worth playing, not the other way around.
If a techy game company game out with a new idea for farmville, the idea would hold, and people would play that game instead. It can't be a clone though. It has to be original, which is where many online games are failing at these days.
SWTOR was a good example of MMO aimed at non MMO players.
4th pillar , KOTOR fanbase , Quests , aprochability ... everything in order to draw in the folks that usually play single player games , in.
I have many buddies that were hyped for SWTOR , because they love Bioware and they loved KOTOR (and SW). But they have no previous experience with games that you buy 60$ and than you have to cough 15$ every month if you want to play. And they refuse to do it. Its question of principle not savings.
This was the audience EA was aiming for
If they sold the game as B2P - they game would draw all those people and they would make 15 million sales easy.
But greed and stupidity - "WoW has done it!" total uninformed and not updated decision making rules.
And now its to late to win that customers back.
BW knew who THEIR target audience was. But then EA happened and LA probably joined in on it and we got SWTOR instead.
If SWTOR was ANYWHERE near KOTOR experience many many more people would still play it. Unfortunately experience is so watered down due to "MMO crowd" that its nowhere near KOTOR (or some other BW games).
Sorry to say it, but you got your standard MMO fare. THAT aint holding water.
I know many people that would pay sub for KOTOR like experiencex8+regular story updates AND i dont know many any more that would pay sub for new raid (gear grind) and warzone (gear grind) every 6 months.
EA Chief Operating Officer has claimed the fall of SWTOR was down to people not wanting to pay $15 a month for MMO's, funny, it seems to work for WoW and EvE amongst others. Maybe $15 is too much for this game.
yeah, ok... easier than facing the actual real issues I guess.
Bored with an industry that is more interested in selling me a shitty revenue model then building great games tbh.
It has been proven again and again that a game that gets it 'right' and succeeds in appealing to a decent sized playerbase will succeed whatever the rev model.
I wonder why instead of going F2P they dont try a lower sub cost. Maybe $7.99 a month, or $5.99 a month.
Especially if they think the sub cost is the problem.
Because EA is greedy?
The problem is they invested too much in the game already. They need to recover that somehow. Personally, I would have been much happier had they just lowered a lot of the production cost and done a B2P model or similar.
Well see how it works out though. Even with the sub fee, I got more out of TOR than I have with any other release this year.
Sorry but this response makes no sense at all if it was greed wouldn't it be a better option to try and bleed the player base of some type of sub instead of going free to play?
Sorry but this response makes no sense at all if it was greed wouldn't it be a better option to try and bleed the player base of some type of sub instead of going free to play?
You assume that bleeding only applies to one type of payment model; I assure you, it doesn't.
I was thinking about this last night. If $15 were indeed the problem then why even bother with this F2P and P2P levels? If the initial box price was the issue, I think the F2P hybrid model would be the appropriate solution, but since it is the other way around....why not allow those that purchased the game play for free?
Essentially, if people had a problem with the monthly fee then change it to B2P and offer expansions via DLC for purchase.
I was thinking about this last night. If $15 were indeed the problem then why even bother with this F2P and P2P levels? If the initial box price was the issue, I think the F2P hybrid model would be the appropriate solution, but since it is the other way around....why not allow those that purchased the game play for free?
Essentially, if people had a problem with the monthly fee then change it to B2P and offer expansions via DLC for purchase.
That makes more sense to me.
An obvious question!
B2P with paid DLC was clearly an option on day 1 but presumably rejected because EA didm't believe it would provide enough revenue - unlike NCSoft Ea have paid for an IP.
Now .... maybe someone has sold them a pup that F2P will bring riches galore ... LoL style. It would also mean they had to keep the team working on expansions for the future - and clearly that plug has been pulled (or greatly reduced).
I agree though that - even today - they would be better keeping the "main game" as B2P. Instead they are giving away what i feel is the best part - the story conten (OK they can be viewed on Youtube!)
EA Chief Operating Officer has claimed the fall of SWTOR was down to people not wanting to pay $15 a month for MMO's, funny, it seems to work for WoW and EvE amongst others. Maybe $15 is too much for this game.
Actually EVE Online was the first MMO to allow for players to play the game by buying game time with in game currency Tera also allows for this so they are basically free to play if one knows how to get the in game money to get more game time.
"Possibly we humans can exist without actually having to fight. But many of us have chosen to fight. For what reason? To protect something? Protect what? Ourselves? The future? If we kill people to protect ourselves and this future, then what sort of future is it, and what will we have become? There is no future for those who have died. And what of those who did the killing? Is happiness to be found in a future that is grasped with blood stained hands? Is that the truth?"
When WoW took over as #1 MMORPG it was the best of its kind. F2P games were not as popular because the quality of them was pretty horrid but very cool for anybody that wanted to play a free game.
Quality of F2P games has come a long way over just the past couple of years and theres also a lot more of them.
People dont want to pay a monthly subscription, its true, especially when theres so many "clones" in the mmorpg "market." SWTOR could do fine tho, i honestly believe they just want more players and more money. The player base it has now could likely keep the game thriving for at least two more years. Im only guessing tho, im not saying that as a matter of fact or anything.
Just take a look at Rift, thats an excellent example of just keeping your existing players and fans happy in order to maybe bring in more.
Most of these companies dont do that, they want the money immediately and if they dont get it theyd rather just scrap the whole thing.
The main problem with SWTOR was just how much money they spent to make it. Thats their biggest issue. Have they even profited from it yet?
Jeremiah 8:21 I weep for the hurt of my people; I stand amazed, silent, dumb with grief. Join me on TwitchFacebook Twitter
EA Chief Operating Officer has it all figured out .......
The guy who has spent maybe a few hours in the last year playing games knows what the problem is. I truly hope they spend a substantial amount of money implementing whatever it is these type of people think it needs. After he gets fired for obvious reasons I hope the new COO has it all figured out and puts in place the solution to make the game profitable ... etc ... etc ... etc.
I'm curious how this will all end up ..... I imagine a 300+ million dollar game with 5-10k players. Investors crying, COOs back pedaling, and another great IP game that no one wants to play. EA will claim to have the "NEW" solution and start the cycle all over again.
This is what happens when you get non-gamers to manage your titles. Some of these people don't even know the names of the products they oversee, they simply hop from one high-level position to another, applying generic business logic in each case.
I am honestly surprised the guy even knows the name of the game. Show me proof he even played it and I'll subsrcibe for a year...
if $15 a month was the cause of Swtor's failure then why are they limiting the free players? They can very much give the full game for free like GW2 after you buy the box.
the monthly fee contributed to the failure because the game as it is right now lacks the potential to have that monthly price of $15, but it was not the main cause of the problem.
I do not support subscriptions but if developers make a big, original and innovative mmo that its really worth the subscription then that is fine with me. Swtor is not that game. Anything resembling WoW will not have my money if its not superior to WoW in every sense of the word. That sub based mmo has yet to come.
EA Chief Operating Officer has claimed the fall of SWTOR was down to people not wanting to pay $15 a month for MMO's, funny, it seems to work for WoW and EvE amongst others. Maybe $15 is too much for this game.
Time of subscription is over. 15$ was aceptable for some time , but now with so many "pay what and when you want" alternatives - its simply out of touch.
WOW will drop subscription soon enough they see decline in subscribers
And EVE is PVP sandbox - they can not go for F2P model - else they ruin the balance.
I was saying the subscription will kill this game all along. Big mistake for EA not going F2P from the start.
Themepark + subscription = fail
No it isnt. The time of Generic Mmos offer subs needs to end. Say if TSW, Rift, SWTOR, were truly amazing, revolutionary, the next best thing. People would NOT hesitate to pay a sub at all. To say the sub is dead is ridiculous.
Problem with that is that it takes 10 million people to call something "revolutionary" or "the next best thing" for it to be taken as word.. Even if a game DOES come out that manages to do things differently, if all those 80 gazillion people that played WoW don't play the game it would simply be seen as a dud.. A failure..
Farmville made millions.. But try being the next company to attempt a browser based farming "simulator".. I can almost guarantee that you will not come even close to making as much as farmville..
The "breakthrough" age for mmo's has ended, and WoW was the pinncle..
You are looking at the effect before you look at the cause. If a game has 10 million people playing it, then that is the effect of a good game. You can insist that a certain game is good, but if people won't continue playing it, then there is a problem.
Low population games are more the result of games not worth playing, not the other way around.
If a techy game company game out with a new idea for farmville, the idea would hold, and people would play that game instead. It can't be a clone though. It has to be original, which is where many online games are failing at these days.
Well, just as the traditional rules for fads and pop culture go, things that are popular are not always "the best" or even "good" things.. But since it's all opinion based anyway, it would appear to the uninformed that "10 million people couldn't possibly be wrong could they?"
And where do we draw the lines on the "clone" conversation? From my understanding a "clone" would have exactly the same everything, even use the same art style or assets in creating the game world.. The mmo crowd sees a bar full of boxes at the bottom of their screens and scream CLONE!
I don't think all low population games are a result of being poor games, I think they are more an effect of simply being skipped over for the unfortunate situation of an oversaturated market.. Johnny wants to spend 60 bucks to buy a game, should he go for this game that everyone says is good or should he take his chances with a game no one talks about (even if HE feels it suits him better)?
The only way I would even bother with this game is if they went to a B2P model like GW2.. OH.. and make sure to give me store credits for the 5 months of sub I paid after I purchased it.. lol EVEN then I probably wouldn't play more then an hour or two a month.. lol
Why do they always take the F2P route due to lack of players. Why not simply halve the monthly cost from £9 to £4/5 and $15 to $7/8 a month instead.
The game is good to play for that ammount but in my opinion not at its current pricing. Older games should also take this route too that have fallen on hard times. Especially when they look extreamly dated and old, and also several years on i am sure new hardware could handly more playerbase per server so some can be merged.
If like me, F2P = much more of a cost under a hidden and misleading guise. Tend to stay away from them myself as i have been there before. My time in SW-ToR is comming to a close already.
Comments
Paying $15 a month for 2-3 games for me is nothing. I'd do it if there were actually 2-3 games out there worth paying for. I avoid F2p games like the plague unless I can gain full access with a sub so I can avoid the cash shop.
Someone claiming the $15 a month sub fee killed a game is totally full of shit. I stopped playing Swtor once I completely my Agent's story line. Anything else the game offered wasn't worth playing ... not just paying.
You stay sassy!
Good luck with that one. Once you see how much they gutted it to make you pay for functunality in the cash shop or force you to resubscribe, I think you'll change your opinion about the F2P model lol.
Lol. Apparently so. They gut the game to force you to either re-buy all the features, but hoping you subscribe to the game. If people didn't want to subscribe to the game before, what makes you think they are going to do it now? I really don't get their logic with this.
I would be happy to pay 15 something per month for this game if it was fun to play, but just as when wow was released I also canceled this game subscribtion 2 months from release.
I would also pay the £9 a month fee(13 euro/$15), if the game was worth it. I currently have a month left on my SW-ToR account, yet i also have hardly played it for the past month, i log in and then after 5 minutes log out again. I have 2 characters maxed and 1 in the mid 30's. I just carnt be bothered with the game due to boredom. I thought i would wait for the F2P mode to come out but it seems that one will lose all equipment gained (unable to wear it) lose action/skill bars untill purchased from item shop and alot of other stuff that would need to be repurchased on a weekly basis.
Looked at someone else's post here with most details (some missed) and i agree that it seems to be well restricted. I was under the impression that they were making it a F2P model to try and bring back players or gain new players that would subscribe, but i really doubt that will happen. I can see this one also being shutdown (probably at the time or just before) teh launch of the other SW game in production (which looks like a console/joypad platformer type game). Aint going to be for me, mouse+keyboard+PC as i dont like consoles and carnt use joypads.
You are looking at the effect before you look at the cause. If a game has 10 million people playing it, then that is the effect of a good game. You can insist that a certain game is good, but if people won't continue playing it, then there is a problem.
Low population games are more the result of games not worth playing, not the other way around.
If a techy game company game out with a new idea for farmville, the idea would hold, and people would play that game instead. It can't be a clone though. It has to be original, which is where many online games are failing at these days.
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.
BW knew who THEIR target audience was. But then EA happened and LA probably joined in on it and we got SWTOR instead.
If SWTOR was ANYWHERE near KOTOR experience many many more people would still play it. Unfortunately experience is so watered down due to "MMO crowd" that its nowhere near KOTOR (or some other BW games).
Sorry to say it, but you got your standard MMO fare. THAT aint holding water.
I know many people that would pay sub for KOTOR like experiencex8+regular story updates AND i dont know many any more that would pay sub for new raid (gear grind) and warzone (gear grind) every 6 months.
THATS why people dont want to pay 15/month.
yeah, ok... easier than facing the actual real issues I guess.
Bored with an industry that is more interested in selling me a shitty revenue model then building great games tbh.
It has been proven again and again that a game that gets it 'right' and succeeds in appealing to a decent sized playerbase will succeed whatever the rev model.
Sorry but this response makes no sense at all if it was greed wouldn't it be a better option to try and bleed the player base of some type of sub instead of going free to play?
You assume that bleeding only applies to one type of payment model; I assure you, it doesn't.
I was thinking about this last night. If $15 were indeed the problem then why even bother with this F2P and P2P levels? If the initial box price was the issue, I think the F2P hybrid model would be the appropriate solution, but since it is the other way around....why not allow those that purchased the game play for free?
Essentially, if people had a problem with the monthly fee then change it to B2P and offer expansions via DLC for purchase.
That makes more sense to me.
An obvious question!
B2P with paid DLC was clearly an option on day 1 but presumably rejected because EA didm't believe it would provide enough revenue - unlike NCSoft Ea have paid for an IP.
Now .... maybe someone has sold them a pup that F2P will bring riches galore ... LoL style. It would also mean they had to keep the team working on expansions for the future - and clearly that plug has been pulled (or greatly reduced).
I agree though that - even today - they would be better keeping the "main game" as B2P. Instead they are giving away what i feel is the best part - the story conten (OK they can be viewed on Youtube!)
Actually EVE Online was the first MMO to allow for players to play the game by buying game time with in game currency Tera also allows for this so they are basically free to play if one knows how to get the in game money to get more game time.
"Possibly we humans can exist without actually having to fight. But many of us have chosen to fight. For what reason? To protect something? Protect what? Ourselves? The future? If we kill people to protect ourselves and this future, then what sort of future is it, and what will we have become? There is no future for those who have died. And what of those who did the killing? Is happiness to be found in a future that is grasped with blood stained hands? Is that the truth?"
Of course it makes sense.
When WoW took over as #1 MMORPG it was the best of its kind. F2P games were not as popular because the quality of them was pretty horrid but very cool for anybody that wanted to play a free game.
Quality of F2P games has come a long way over just the past couple of years and theres also a lot more of them.
People dont want to pay a monthly subscription, its true, especially when theres so many "clones" in the mmorpg "market." SWTOR could do fine tho, i honestly believe they just want more players and more money. The player base it has now could likely keep the game thriving for at least two more years. Im only guessing tho, im not saying that as a matter of fact or anything.
Just take a look at Rift, thats an excellent example of just keeping your existing players and fans happy in order to maybe bring in more.
Most of these companies dont do that, they want the money immediately and if they dont get it theyd rather just scrap the whole thing.
The main problem with SWTOR was just how much money they spent to make it. Thats their biggest issue. Have they even profited from it yet?
Jeremiah 8:21 I weep for the hurt of my people; I stand amazed, silent, dumb with grief.
Join me on Twitch Facebook Twitter
EA Chief Operating Officer has it all figured out .......
The guy who has spent maybe a few hours in the last year playing games knows what the problem is. I truly hope they spend a substantial amount of money implementing whatever it is these type of people think it needs. After he gets fired for obvious reasons I hope the new COO has it all figured out and puts in place the solution to make the game profitable ... etc ... etc ... etc.
I'm curious how this will all end up ..... I imagine a 300+ million dollar game with 5-10k players. Investors crying, COOs back pedaling, and another great IP game that no one wants to play. EA will claim to have the "NEW" solution and start the cycle all over again.
Comedy at it's finest ..........
~Hairysun
http://www.straightdope.com/
This is what happens when you get non-gamers to manage your titles. Some of these people don't even know the names of the products they oversee, they simply hop from one high-level position to another, applying generic business logic in each case.
I am honestly surprised the guy even knows the name of the game. Show me proof he even played it and I'll subsrcibe for a year...
if $15 a month was the cause of Swtor's failure then why are they limiting the free players? They can very much give the full game for free like GW2 after you buy the box.
the monthly fee contributed to the failure because the game as it is right now lacks the potential to have that monthly price of $15, but it was not the main cause of the problem.
I do not support subscriptions but if developers make a big, original and innovative mmo that its really worth the subscription then that is fine with me. Swtor is not that game. Anything resembling WoW will not have my money if its not superior to WoW in every sense of the word. That sub based mmo has yet to come.
Well, just as the traditional rules for fads and pop culture go, things that are popular are not always "the best" or even "good" things.. But since it's all opinion based anyway, it would appear to the uninformed that "10 million people couldn't possibly be wrong could they?"
And where do we draw the lines on the "clone" conversation? From my understanding a "clone" would have exactly the same everything, even use the same art style or assets in creating the game world.. The mmo crowd sees a bar full of boxes at the bottom of their screens and scream CLONE!
I don't think all low population games are a result of being poor games, I think they are more an effect of simply being skipped over for the unfortunate situation of an oversaturated market.. Johnny wants to spend 60 bucks to buy a game, should he go for this game that everyone says is good or should he take his chances with a game no one talks about (even if HE feels it suits him better)?
Why do they always take the F2P route due to lack of players. Why not simply halve the monthly cost from £9 to £4/5 and $15 to $7/8 a month instead.
The game is good to play for that ammount but in my opinion not at its current pricing. Older games should also take this route too that have fallen on hard times. Especially when they look extreamly dated and old, and also several years on i am sure new hardware could handly more playerbase per server so some can be merged.
If like me, F2P = much more of a cost under a hidden and misleading guise. Tend to stay away from them myself as i have been there before. My time in SW-ToR is comming to a close already.