BioWare Says The Old Republic is Not Losing Subscribers
Daniel Erickson from BioWare told PC Gamer that subscriber numbers for Star Wars: The Old Republic have not dropped, even though concurrent users at peak times have.
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Star Wars: The Old Republic is four months old, and as it matures players want to know what the plan is for the future. This month’s Rakghoul plague event is a sign that BioWare still have a few surprises up their sleeves: but there are still question marks over the future of the game, and what will keep players logging in during the wait between updates.
It’s exactly the kind of the scenario that breeds speculation, most of it of the “sky is falling” variety. We spoke to BioWare’s Daniel Erickson about the future of the game and the challenges of responding to the community while sticking to the established content plan.
BioWare claim that subscriber numbers haven’t dropped, but concurrent users at peak times have. This, Erickson says, is the reason why players are noticing a lot of ‘light’ server populations – and also why mergers are on the cards, but not a priority. According to Erickson, they’re doing “anything and everything” to bring that concurrent users number up. “Nothing is off the table when it comes to making sure our communities are strong and active on each server.”
I also call bullshit.
Game doesn't hold interest what so ever. All mmo's seem to be moving to solo quests and gameplay similar to WoW. LOTR moved towards WoW style gameplay and thats when i started to lose interest. I liked when the game first released with more emphasis on group quests instead of solo quests, and the diversity of each of the characters.
No matter how you slice it, it's a huge huge failure. Having to protest that sub numbers are not dropping hides the real issue ... sub numbers are certainly not growing.
They've been having weekend free passes for a while now. I think you can only level up to 10, though.
They just gave out 30 free days to anyone with a level 50 char, so I guess that's a decent way of keeping people playing, but sheesh, seems a little desperate.
No matter how you slice it, it's a huge huge failure. Having to protest that sub numbers are not dropping hides the real issue ... sub numbers are certainly not growing.
They've been having weekend free passes for a while now. I think you can only level up to 10, though.
They just gave out 30 free days to anyone with a level 50 char, so I guess that's a decent way of keeping people playing, but sheesh, seems a little desperate.
It's a 30gb install. Why on earth would I DL all that for a weekend pass? Gonna take me at least a day just to DL it.
Bioware should just quietly die for good. It is galactically obvious they have lost whatever creative juices they had eons ago. Now its just one PR lie after another in attempt to regain fans that they have screwed over.
Agree with this being total BS. I'm guessing they gave the 30 days to all the 50s so they could include the numbers for their six month from launch figures and I'm guessing they will do it again for 14 days near the end of June to fudge the end of fiscal year report as well. With Guild Wars 2, Tera, Diablo 3, Torchlight 2 all coming out soon plus so many F2P titles out now I see it getting worse. Hopefully this is the last of the WoW clone MMOs and the genre will start taking risks again.
What will be funny is if Old Republic doesn't last as long as Galaxies.
Analyst group Cowen and Company suggests in a new report that player subscriptions for Star Wars: The Old Republic have begun to decline since Electronic Arts said earlier this year that the game has 1.7 million subscribers.
Cowen's Doug Creutz estimates that subscriber numbers for the game peaked at 1.7 million in February, and that by the end of the current fiscal year in March 2013, the game will have around 1.25 million subscribers, based on server statistics provided on TorStatus.net.
EA is in pure damage control mode. The Spin is strong with this one.
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Originally Posted by gzsfrk
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EA executives should drive Star Destroyers. Its somehow fitting.
EA is in pure damage control mode. The Spin is strong with this one.
It wouldn't shock me if "player" numbers were even lower than what you are seeing from those subscriber numbers. It takes most people a month or two until they warm up to the idea of stopping their subscription.
Less if something else comes out that catches their eye. No matter how you slice it, having your game bomb out after only 4 months is a huge failure for a game that was like a 300+ Million investment.
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I just quit this past week. I played super-casual so I sort of enjoyed the game, but giving a free month to people that paid the same as me just because they play more is pretty stupid business. I'm glad I didn't blow money on the 6-month sub.
Also, I can't think of many other MMOs that plateaued only 4 months after release.
hmm. I dont know why these companies waste their time trying to go big in the mmo genre.
It's a recipe for disaster. ppl play these games mostly to socialize with unique and interesting people (in some cases as a substitute for socializing at all) - not just to run pve content. If ppl enjoyed pve over interaction and pvp -we'd all still be playing oblivion.
Most mmos are smartening up though and going F2p. STO and more recently Aion did this and it's so refreshing to play a game you dont feel like you 'have' to play just to justify paying for it - even if it's just 50 cent a day.
But until these companies get serious about a pvp model that is fun, rewarding and also has a step ladder for new players to get in and enjoy it without getting roflstomped (at all level brackets not just max level) - I expect each mmo that doesnt do this to follow the usual formula:
Get released, Seem fun for 3 months and then begin to die a slow painful death.
