It seems that you're using an outdated browser. Some things may not work as they should (or don't work at all).
We suggest you upgrade newer and better browser like: Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer or Opera

×
Community
General discussion (archive)TOR already lost 25% of subscribers(57 posts)(57 posts)
(57 posts)
Pages:
1
2
3
4
This is my favourite topic
Posted May 09, 2012
avatar
Fred_DM: isn't that what happens to every game that tries to go up against World of Warcraft?
avatar
rampancy: I think the problem is that a lot of MMOs tried to go up against WoW by essentially out WoW-ing WoW. As games like Guild Wars 2, EVE and Tera Online show, you can still be successful in a market with WoW present; the only key thing is to not try to copy WoW.

avatar
Tizzysawr: I don't see it as a huge issue even when I play SWTOR myself. It's not really a signal that the game sucks (Though it is not without its issues or glaring omissions), but more of a result of the current MMO landscape where there are too many games competing for too few gamers.

In other words, the bubble is kind of about to burst. Come back in a couple of years and there will only be a few big MMOs, many will have died (Age of Conan and Vanguard, for example) and many more will have gone F2P in attempts to stay afloat, some of them also dying after that. I do believe, however, that a few of them will still be around and relatively big (GW2, SWTOR, WoW, EVE and RIFT, for example), but the amount of MMOs released a year will greatly decrease (And that's a good thing - Remember when the launch of a MMO was an event?) and most will stop trying to be "WoW killers"; instead aiming for smaller numbers (1-2 million subscribers is more than enough to keep most games both afloat and with constant updates; RIFT is said to be doing fine with about 700k though that's just a wild estimate).
avatar
rampancy: I think the bubble already has burst. The fact that WoW is chronically bleeding subscriptions, and the discouraging numbers seen with SW:TOR (the "last of the WoW-type MMOs") are proof positive of that.
TOR is still profitable. These #'s are actually better than what I expected. I unsubbed fwiw.
Posted May 09, 2012
avatar
cioran: TOR is still profitable. These #'s are actually better than what I expected. I unsubbed fwiw.
Still profitable? They actually earned more than 200 million dollars on the game?

(rumors suggested that the dev process cost around 200 million dollars)
Posted May 09, 2012
Grinding bad, that's why so many people are giving up on WoW style MMOs.

But Secret World looks fresh, they had a free beta recently I understand? Anybody tried that?
Posted May 09, 2012
avatar
cioran: TOR is still profitable. These #'s are actually better than what I expected. I unsubbed fwiw.
avatar
Elenarie: Still profitable? They actually earned more than 200 million dollars on the game?

(rumors suggested that the dev process cost around 200 million dollars)
I don't think SWTOR was ever expected to recover those $200M during its first six months. Then again with a mean of 1.5M subscriber over the 4 months (3 since there's a free month on all account) at a $15/month rate, that's about $67M in subscriptions. Sum the roughly 2.5M boxes it has sold, let's say $40 is the mean (and that's a low mean) and that's another $100M. So roughly $167M in less than six months, sounds fine to me.
Posted May 09, 2012
avatar
Tizzysawr: Sum the roughly 2.5M boxes it has sold, let's say $40 is the mean (and that's a low mean) and that's another $100M. So roughly $167M in less than six months, sounds fine to me.
Not sure investors would agree with that. Seeing subs will probably keep dropping off, they may be looking at recouping their investment in the longterm, but given an investment of 200 million over several years the outlook for a decent profit for the time and money spent looks pretty grim.
Post edited May 09, 2012 by Pheace
Posted May 10, 2012
avatar
Pheace: Not sure investors would agree with that. Seeing subs will probably keep dropping off, they may be looking at recouping their investment in the longterm, but given an investment of 200 million over several years the outlook for a decent profit for the time and money spent looks pretty grim.
Yeah, but you have to consider SWTOR benefits from a very strong franchise, meaning it will likely keep selling and obtaining new players. If EA stops being stupid and lowers the entry barrier (which is up to $70 for many places) once Bioware finishes adding a few much needed additions like a LFG tool, some proper endgame content and merging servers to deal with the low pops, the game could actually get a lot more subscribers. Trion worlds did it right when they put RIFT on sale for $15 about four months after release, since RIFT is now one of the stronger fantasy MMOs around. EA could pull off the same thing once the most glaringly obvious omissions in TOR have been fixed to get one or two hundred thousand new players every now and then.
Posted May 10, 2012
avatar
Pheace: Not sure investors would agree with that. Seeing subs will probably keep dropping off, they may be looking at recouping their investment in the longterm, but given an investment of 200 million over several years the outlook for a decent profit for the time and money spent looks pretty grim.
avatar
Tizzysawr: Yeah, but you have to consider SWTOR benefits from a very strong franchise, meaning it will likely keep selling and obtaining new players. If EA stops being stupid and lowers the entry barrier (which is up to $70 for many places) once Bioware finishes adding a few much needed additions like a LFG tool, some proper endgame content and merging servers to deal with the low pops, the game could actually get a lot more subscribers. Trion worlds did it right when they put RIFT on sale for $15 about four months after release, since RIFT is now one of the stronger fantasy MMOs around. EA could pull off the same thing once the most glaringly obvious omissions in TOR have been fixed to get one or two hundred thousand new players every now and then.
You mean when it goes F2P... first class free, then earn points or spend cash for any other class you want to play... maybe, dunno exactly how they'd monetize it, but you know this will go F2P at some point.
Posted May 10, 2012
avatar
Tizzysawr: I don't think SWTOR was ever expected to recover those $200M during its first six months. Then again with a mean of 1.5M subscriber over the 4 months (3 since there's a free month on all account) at a $15/month rate, that's about $67M in subscriptions. Sum the roughly 2.5M boxes it has sold, let's say $40 is the mean (and that's a low mean) and that's another $100M. So roughly $167M in less than six months, sounds fine to me.
Yeah, but you have to consider that, at least for retail, they get very little of the actual price. A lot of the money go to retailer, production, transportation etc. And from the subscriptions, you have to take into account the server maintenance, the support staff, the developers that keep working on patches. i would be very surprised if even half of the $167M is actual profit. My guess would be it's more like 25-33% of that. But it's just a guess.

The game doesn't have to just sell $200M (game + subs). The game needs to turn $200M in PROFIT just to cut even and I'm betting the investors expect a lot more than cutting even.
Post edited May 10, 2012 by Aningan
Posted May 10, 2012
avatar
Aningan: Yeah, but you have to consider that, at least for retail, they get very little of the actual price. A lot of the money go to retailer, production, transportation etc. And from the subscriptions, you have to take into account the server maintenance, the support staff, the developers that keep working on patches. i would be very surprised if even half of the $167M is actual profit. My guess would be it's more like 25-33% of that. But it's just a guess.

The game doesn't have to just sell $200M (game + subs). The game needs to turn $200M in PROFIT just to cut even and I'm betting the investors expect a lot more than cutting even.
That's why I'm putting $40 as a mean. Consider they might be earning $20 from retail sales, but they earn $60 from digital ones, even more outside US where the game is sold for 60 euro. It should even out at roughly $30-40 a box. And cutting even isn't turning profit (green numbers), cutting even is investors getting their money back. Selling $200M should do that just well enough.

avatar
orcishgamer: You mean when it goes F2P... first class free, then earn points or spend cash for any other class you want to play... maybe, dunno exactly how they'd monetize it, but you know this will go F2P at some point.
This is actually the one MMO I don't expect will go F2P. It is backed by too strong a franchise to require it, and so long as it can keep its subscriber number at over 500k it should do fine - Something it will likely do without any problems. If Star Wars Galaxies managed to stay afloat until SWTOR got released, I can't see SWTOR not staying around for a long time, even if it won't likely be a heavy hitter on the MMO market.
Posted May 10, 2012
avatar
bansama: Maybe they will learn not to regionally restrict their MMOs in the future...
avatar
Aningan: Like that's ever going to happen.
I would have gotten it. Hell I would have pre-ordered it. But nooooooo. "Not available in your reagion!". Well fuck you EA, I'll spend my money elsewhere.
Same here.
Posted May 10, 2012
avatar
orcishgamer: You mean when it goes F2P... first class free, then earn points or spend cash for any other class you want to play... maybe, dunno exactly how they'd monetize it, but you know this will go F2P at some point.
avatar
Tizzysawr: This is actually the one MMO I don't expect will go F2P. It is backed by too strong a franchise to require it, and so long as it can keep its subscriber number at over 500k it should do fine - Something it will likely do without any problems. If Star Wars Galaxies managed to stay afloat until SWTOR got released, I can't see SWTOR not staying around for a long time, even if it won't likely be a heavy hitter on the MMO market.
Galaxies happened in a time when there were very few high quality F2P options. DDO is Dungeons and Dragons, LoTRO is Lord of the Rings, either rank right up with Star Wars. While a MMO can stay afloat with way fewer than 500k subs I don't think they'll find 500k acceptable, WAR got screwed with until it sank under the EA umbrella while they had over 100k subs (somehow 1.5 million a month is somehow losing money...), Warhammer being another outstanding franchise btw. The problem with licenses from places like Games Workshop or Lucas is that they inevitably exert way too much control and this can end up strangling the product.

If TOR doesn't go F2P it'll contract and be a "has been", now maybe they'll be content with that, but somehow I'm thinking not. Also, I'm not sure 500k is realistic for a level out number, no sub MMOs have kept those numbers in recent years, except WOW. 150-200k is probably the most they'll have by year's end if they don't go F2P.
Posted May 10, 2012
avatar
rampancy: I think the problem is that a lot of MMOs tried to go up against WoW by essentially out WoW-ing WoW. As games like Guild Wars 2, EVE and Tera Online show, you can still be successful in a market with WoW present; the only key thing is to not try to copy WoW.
They don't realise that people who are burnt out of WoW probably and most likely won't enjoy the new WoW clone and get tired of it very fast.

I stopped my TOR sub after 1 month, then resub when they gave the 30 days free. Now I've cancelled it, my sub ends at the end of June. Hope I can get the Purple Lightsaber Crystal before my sub ends.
Posted May 10, 2012
avatar
cw8: They don't realise that people who are burnt out of WoW probably and most likely won't enjoy the new WoW clone and get tired of it very fast.
exactly my feelings.
Pages:
1
2
3
4
This is my favourite topic
Community
General discussion (archive)TOR already lost 25% of subscribers(57 posts)(57 posts)
(57 posts)