As previously discussed, I’m fairly cynical of Kickstarter for video game development. Backers see it as supporting something they are interested in; I see it as companies leveraging off their previous reputation and gamer hope to get money gifted to them. Because that’s what the money is: a gift. Once the pledge target is met … Continue reading
Tagged with Star Wars: The Old Republic …
The Secret World: Fighting The Previous War
There has been one MMO that I’ve been interested in for a long time and that’s The Secret World (TSW). I joined the forum back in June 2007, but my account had issues with posting in threads, plus I’ve long since got over my interest in taking part in the “wouldn’t it be cool if…”-style … Continue reading
Star Wars: The Old Republic – SWTOR vs. WAR!
… and Age of Conan, for that matter. EA announced during their earnings call that Star Wars: The Old Republic had sold over 2 million boxes and had 1.7 million subscribed players, beating EA’s internal projections. A lot of sources took that at face value as a great result, but was it? Let’s look at … Continue reading
Star Wars – The Old Republic: And The Final Price Is…
In my previous examination of Star Wars: The Old Republic, the development budget from various sources ranged from the probably too-low US$80m (plus US$20 for advertising) through to US$300m. The LA Times has indicated that SWOR’s development cost sits at US$200m, while analyst Doug Creutz of Cowen & Co. suggested that EA’s “total all-in investment … Continue reading
Reading the MMO Tea Leaves for 2012
In previous years I’ve spent a lot of time reviewing and writing up a year’s worth of Massively.com / other MMO sites news articles. Although this is very useful from an information point of view (particularly the “oh, I’d forgotten about that” articles) it takes a very long time. So, this year I’m still doing … Continue reading
Reviewing My 2011 MMO Predictions
Time to see how right I was back when I wrote the following predictions about how things would turn MMO-wise in 2011. F2P titles continue to enter the market and other existing MMOs are likely to join them. Warhammer Online is a distinct possibility, as are titles in the position of Vanguard and Fallen Earth: … Continue reading
Star Wars: The Old Republic – Not Failing Isn’t Always A Guarantee of Success
We’re on the downhill run to Star Wars: The Old Republic’s launch. Soon the hype will be over and the hard part – delivering MMO services to paying customers – begins. I saw a report that stated industry analysts saw SWOR as a “little risk of failure” title. In some ways this is because if … Continue reading
EA BioWare Cancels Christmas, New Year…
… for its employees working on Star Wars: The Old Republic anyway. With the announcement that SWOR is launching December 20 (US) / December 22 (EU), EA BioWare have basically put the SWOR team (and related infrastructure teams) on the crunch to launch on pretty much the last possible date of this year. But MMOs … Continue reading
Star Wars: The Old Republic – The Risk in Being Too Big
There is a risk in being too big. Although the modern cliche is “too big to fail”, it is a term that originally referenced companies who were saved by Government money because their collapse would have resulted in unbearably devastation on the economy around them. In a short period of time, it seems this saying … Continue reading
Star Wars: Galaxies – End of the Universe, Driven by the Republic
It is sometimes said that the launch of a new MMO never really ‘kills’ an older title. The older MMO might lose some players but will continue on in its own way with its already established community and developer Vision. That might have been true once, but it is increasingly less reliable to believe in. … Continue reading
World Class Villains 