Game Developers Conference 2013: James Ohlen talks about SWToR’s woes during launch

Bioware’s creative director James Ohlen recently spoke at the Game Developer’s Convention about SWToR’s launch and provided a plethora of details about the game’s launch. Among other things, he mentioned that Bioware significantly underestimated how quickly players can burn through content and found itself in a difficult spot. The development team originally expected that story lines would keep gamers engaged for at least five months – an expectation that as we all know didn’t prove to be true.

james_ohlenBioware’s creative director James Ohlen

During launch, subscribers spent an average of 40 hours per week playing SWToR, while in some cases they would reach 80-120 hours on average per week. These extended gaming sessions lead to having close to half a million players at endgame content within a month’s period since launch.