We keep hearing it everywhere- “SWTOR was a failure” and with many new MMORPGs coming out, we hear the claim that it might end up being a failure “Just like SWTOR”. Why all this hatred for the game?
First, let’s clear the air and say that we don’t think SWTOR is a failure. And with the numbers they are bringing in financially, the stats don’t say it’s a flop either. But we hear this far too much to just write it off as a handful of trolls. So for this reason, we’re going to entertain this opinion for just a bit and see why some people think the game failed.
When we talk about why SWTOR is seen as a failure to some, we have to look at player expectations vs. how SWTOR was hyped. As a standalone game today, most people will agree it’s a pretty decent game, even most of the haters. Where some people had a problem is that we waited years and years for the game and in some ways SWTOR just didn’t have the things they promised us it would have- at least not at launch.
Some players felt like SWTOR was a failure because the live game didn’t live up to the player expectations based on hype. This doesn’t make it a bad game; it just makes it different from what many were expecting them to be, so they felt let down.
Another problem was that there were some kinks in the first year of the game and especially when there were so many servers that it spread players out too much and gave an empty feeling to the game. The game was severely overhyped by Bioware and we’ll be the first to admit we were expecting greatness as well.
It’s understandable that some were disappointed when they didn’t see from the game what they had expected. The saddest part is just that many never came back to see what SWTOR has turned into now or how it has grown.
But SWTOR is not a failure in comparison to the majority of MMOs. It had a very high box purchase, a successful launch, great early reactions and good early subscriber numbers. However, after that the population began to decline. The success of SWTOR really depends on how Bioware continues to boost the population and ensure future profits and this means keeping the players happy.
