TOR investor worries

[Manic Velocity]

For anyone interested, this article touches on what we discussed in last night's meeting.  

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/32605/Analyst_Wary_EA_Investors_Betting_Against_SWTOR.php

I remember watching the build up to Warhammer Online and seeing it fall fast.  And APB holds the record for quickest MMO death.

I'm hopeful for TOR, though.  I've never played a Bioware game, but I've been hard pressed to find anyone who can say anything bad about them.  I can't honestly say TOR looks like anything revolutionary to MMO's, but "if it's not broke, don't fix it."

[JazzyC]

I think it is common sense.  Far more MMO's falter or just about get by, compared to those that truly succeed.

Investors are solely about the money.  They don't care about the game itself.  The MMO "genre" is statistically bad as a whole when it comes to getting a return on your investment.  And when you're investment is rumoured to have spent several hundred million dollars, its easy to see why they sit uncomfortably.

At this stage I believe someone betting for TOR to succeed monetarily would be going with your heart rather than your head.

[Keeloth]

It's definitely a risk, from an investing point of view.  A lot of people are going "Well, they don't know anything about games!" which is true, but they DO know investing.  Bioware is really trying to capture lightning in a bottle here, and while I think that if anyone can do it, they can, it's hard to persuade someone who isn't intimately familiar with MMO features otherwise.

[Valkyris]

We are FA guys, have a little faith.

[Strod]

Honestly, BioWare is an amazing company and have always done great games. Now, I have never played a game from this Studio of BioWare before, but I'm pretty optimistic that it will be a smash hit.

At the end of the day, it will come down to hardcore fans, of which in Star Wars there are a lot. I hate to say it but a lot more than The Matrix Online, which that fact alone helps me sit comfortably while waiting for the game to release.

I mean, I can not really believe only 50,000 people will be playing this game since it's a Star Wars game and the fact BioWare is the company behind it.

[Keeloth]

I mean, I can not really believe only 50,000 people will be playing this game since it's a Star Wars game and the fact BioWare is the company behind it.

To play devil's advocate here, SWG currently only has about 50,000 players, so I'd call that the hard core "Would play any Star Wars MMO" crowd right there.  That said, SWG is also crap, which means a lot of people that otherwise WOULD play a Star Wars MMO aren't subbing, so there you go :-D

[Paitryn]

The number of accounts on the SWTOR website has reached over 900,000 members. Now that doesnt always translate to long term subscriptions, but it does say a lot about the games potential in subs. Im still betting many will play that have not made accounts.

heck SOEs clone wars adventures game got a million subs in one week of official release. and thats not even an MMO of any kind.

[Tbone]

I have a lot of faith that this game is going to be POLISHED, and really that's 80% of the battle right there. Combine that with the Star Wars IP and there's no way I can see it FAILING. I have a feeling that it will take second place to WoW...so it might surpass EVE or something like that.

According to inside sources, those who have actually gotten their hands on the game in Beta are extremely pleased with what they are playing.

[Paitryn]

I took a look at the article again and it mentioned the blizzard lawsuit and the playfish profile, I had to look those up to see what investors seemed to be worried about in the industry.

the activison blizzard/zynga lawsuit stems from someone putting a patent on the ladder system for tournaments in games. funny since the system has been around since the 90s and someone puts out a patent in 02 and is seeking damages. dunno if zynga will fair out, but Blizzard has used the tournament ladder system for games like warcraft, diablo 2, and starcraft. I think they will win out the day on that one.

The playfish profile is a bit wierd to say the least. its a social gaming branch of EA (bought out at some point for 400m) and I assume this investor worry comes from seeing how profitable this venture will be, possibly was not very good in terms of revenue last year. "Playfish leads the social gaming industry in innovation and creativity with award-winning, category-defining games designed for friends to play together. To date, more than 200 million Playfish games have been installed and played by millions of people worldwide."

but despite this, zynga is currently worth more money than EA by last October accounts by 350 million dollars. so investors would naturally be worried about playfish's future prospects since zynga without the help of a parent company is really controlling the social gaming industry.

I feel that Investors probably see social gaming and traditional MMOs in the same marketshare so the article feels that the industry in general suffers from a handful of giants leaving no room for anyone else to profit from.

Im still betting on TOR to change that and make some of the investors willing to gamble very very rich.

[Paitryn]

We talked about it in the meeting so I figured I should post the link:

http://swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=255000

Dutch_Gamer is correct -- the target launch window for STAR WARS: The Old Republic is set for Spring 2011. If you've seen or heard any date more specific than that, you should treat it as speculation or a placeholder from those discussing the date.

it pretty much got lost in the thread but yes it appears the Mods reguard the article as baseless speculation.

[Paitryn]

alright, so if you didnt catch it already, EA didnt announce anything about a release date. They did mention however, that "guidance is may" and that beta invites are coming soon, referring to previous testing as community testing or something like that. They also mentioned that 1 million subscribers would be a very healthy income for the MMO and aren't relying on that figure to be profitable. and also mentioned that sources like EA louse were unreliable at best.

APB: EA is restarting it under the name APB: reloaded, and is going F2P. so if you got a beta invite it will be slightly different than before.