It was announced recently that Eric Brown, EA’s CFO, finds that blogs about the cost of Star Wars: The Old Republic “bring a chuckle” to his day. Glad to bring a smile to your face, Eric – here’s hoping the following brings some belly laughs. Back when I started this series, I said there were … Continue reading
Tagged with World of Warcraft …
Rift: Great Expectations, The Creation Of
Massively’s exclusive Rift video pulls no punches about how great Rift is going to be. It is “the complete next generation in online gaming” that will “advance the genre the day it ships”. I’m surprised the video was restrained enough not to add, “Rift thinks World of Warcraft has a real pretty mouth”.
Five Reasons Why SWOR Is A High Risk MMO: #4 The Story Pillar’s Strength May Not Pass The Building Code
In selling Star Wars: The Old Republic to the masses, BioWare has been hammering on about the fourth pillar they are adding to MMOs: story. They see that most MMOs have exploration, combat and progression, but they are adding story to that mix which is going to make them stand out. Fully voiced story, at … Continue reading
Five Reasons Why SWOR Is A High Risk MMO: #3 The Subscription Fee Model Is Falling From Grace
Star Wars: The Old Republic is a high risk title because it is being developed for some good and bad reasons, and will cost too much… and because its core way of collecting revenue is currently on the downhill slide. Although BioWare has been coy about its revenue model, EA management is talking subscription fees. … Continue reading
Five Reasons Why SWOR Is A High Risk MMO: #2 It Is Going To Cost Too Much
Following on from reason number 1, the next big problem that Star Wars: The Old Republic is going to face is that it is going to cost too much.
Cost estimates for SWOR vary from the US$150m mark up to the US$300m mark, which is a big range, but regardless of its true cost it is EA’s self-proclaimed biggest project ever and even BioWare sees it being multiple times bigger than anything they’ve worked on before. The reason is will cost too much is that combination of profit, business practicality and ego I mentioned before, but the development costs are actually what could cause the most problems post launch.
To understand this, you have to look at how MMOs actually make money: box sales, subscription fees and real money transactions (RMT). Continue reading
Five Reasons Why SWOR Is A High Risk MMO: #1 EA Is In It For The Wrong Reasons
It’s been a good week for internet video game drama. There was a nice warm-up with Nick Lovell’s contribution to the masses on 10 doomed games / businesses / products, followed by the main course of EA Louse spewing bile at EA from the inside. Putting aside the validity of EA Louse’s posts – and … Continue reading
DCUO Delayed Until Q1 2011; Please Pre-order It Anyway
In an announcement that surprised me so much I remained sitting in my chair, DC Universe Online has been delayed until Q1 2011. There was an indication that things weren’t going swimming given the lack of marketing build-up before launch, but now the November launch is off and has been replaced by a November public … Continue reading
Blizzard Has Sent You A Friend Request
Blizzard recently implemented its own social network application called RealID, which launched as a totally optional adjunct to World of Warcraft. Two weeks later and the indication is that “totally optional” actually meant “compulsory with the launch of the Cataclysm expansion“. The reaction to this move hasn’t been positive, with a lot of the criticism … Continue reading
Bobby Kotick: “WoW Basically Props Up Activision”
Okay, that isn’t exactly what he said. The head of Activision Blizzard actually said, “Today, probably 70 percent of our operating profit comes from non-console-based video games. So, while you might see a month-to-month change or volatility against expectations, that doesn’t really get us too concerned.” The key word there is ‘profit’. Not ‘revenue’ which … Continue reading
How Many Players Does Aion Have in Q1 2010?
I’m going to look at how City of Heroes / City of Villains faired in Q1 2010 in a little while, but news that Aion is going to be closing some servers in North America and Europe means this is a bit more pressing. NCsoft’s Q1 2010 financials are out and paint an interesting picture. … Continue reading
World Class Villains 