We know that EA will not be pocketing all of the profit from SWTOR, which looks to be a very successful game but has also been quite a large investment. They will have to share with Lucas Arts, who owns rights to the Star Wars name. some have said that EA may not have much to gain in the way of profit from the deal but one analyst said there is plenty to go around. (Isn’t this what I just said yesterday?) According to Wedbush Morgan analyst Michael Pachter, LucasArts will take “around 35 per cent” of the revenue from forthcoming SWTOR MMO after EA earns back its investment in the game. “I think [EA] will make a profit,” said Pachter, who has proven to be right on these types of things in the past. He adds: “The revenue split is around 35 per cent to LucasArts after EA earns…
business model
Activision Questions Star Wars: The Old Republic’s Chances at Profitability
The days are counting down to the December 20th launch of SWTOR and as many are getting excited about the upcoming MMO, there are others who don’t quite fall into all the hype. Some are predicting SWTOR might not do as well as predicted and that even if it does, there won’t be much room for profit for EA with such an expensive game that they also have to share licensing rights with to Lucas Arts. Will there be any room left for profit from SWTOR? Activision’s CEO Bobby Kotick says EA Will Lose Out with The Old Republic but could he be right? There’s no surprise that there are skeptics when it comes to SWTOR. In fact, with any big thing, there are going to be those who oppose it but how much truth might there be to the questioning? Kotick made his remarks about SWTOR at the Reuters…
Analyst Downgrades Blizzard Stock in Anticipation of SWTOR Launch
Could Blizzard lose more fans as the SWTOR launch date approaches? It’s been called a WoW-killer before but one analyst believes Blizzard stock might take a hit as SWTOR launches. Earlier this month, Activision Blizzard revealed that WOW subscriptions had fallen by 10 percent since March, dropping to 10.3 million worldwide. Now Gamespot reports that age and increased competition for the MMOG market can cause Blizzard to lose more stock. This article explains: In an investor note today, Lazard Capital Markets analyst Atul Bagga expressed pessimism over WOW’s ability to reverse its negative trend. In the process, Bagga downgraded Activision Blizzard’s stock from “buy” to “neutral.” Bagga’s move was primarily motivated by a Lazard Capital Markets survey of online players, which was conducted in conjunction with Peanut Labs earlier this month and polled 381 online gamers. The study found that WOW’s age, as well as increased competition, could…
SWTOR Release 5 Days before Christmas- a Genius Idea?
Now that we finally have a release date for SWTOR, people are talking about the choice of that date. With December 20th, 5 days before Christmas set for launch, could BioWare be onto something special here? Why did BioWare choose this date anyway? We know the launch date was of super importance when it comes to SWTOR but we almost never see blockbuster titles out so close to Christmas, or even in December at all. So what was EA thinking with this decision? The guys over at Mad Tang have a theory on this topic. A snippet: “It doesn’t matter when the game is released there will be a line out the door to pick up every copy. People are going to do whatever they have to to get a copy of this game. Nerds will fight other nerds during the last minute Christmas rush in epic battles to get…
WoW Number One Due to Lack of Competition
For the past seven years, World of Warcraft has ruled the MMORPG scene. I know as I have played off and on since beta. I took “WoW breaks” and it seemed I would return again and again when I grew bored of whatever MMO I was playing at the time. It’s a great game despite what some haters will say but even I, a longtime fan, grew bored of it. I wanted something new, something different, something more… but I still loved many of the things that made WoW so great. Some people believe that WoW has survived for so long because it has not had any real competition. Although I love many things about the game, I have to agree on this. I’ve tried many other MMOs, including nearly every free-to-play MMORPG I could find to download to my computer and none of them had the total package that…
Star Wars: The Old Republic Sales Predicted To Hit 3 Million In Year 1
Now that we know a release date for SWTOR, we see more and more people talking about just how popular this game will be. Cowen & Company analyst Doug Creutz predicts that the upcoming Star Wars: The Old Republic will sell 3 million units in its first year. The numbers expected in the first year are at an incredible million with the following year bringing in about million. These numbers are astounding as before the release date the projected sales were considerably lower. The new numbers are based off of the projected pricing plan for the game. Star Wars: the Old Republic will be released in the US on Dec 20, 2011 and in the UK on Dec 22, 2011. The announcement of the release date brought many unseen Star Wars fans rushing to the stores to quickly preorder their copy of the game. This is what increased the number…
Investing In EA Could Be a Great Choice Right Now
There is good news for those who hold stock in EA and also for anyone considering investing in the company now. Many experts believe the benefits outweigh the risks to investing in Electronic Arts with big titles like SWTOR on the way. Seeking Alpha reports: Electronic Arts (ERTS) is on the verge of releasing potentially one of the best selling games of the year and possibly the decade. While there is no official release date set, Electronic Arts through its BioWare division has stated during their Q1 2012 Conference Call that it’s targeting the 2011 holiday season to release its upcoming massively multiplayer online role playing game [MMORPG] Star Wars: The Old Republic. You don’t even have to like video games to realize that this is a big move and that the stakes and the payouts could be high for getting in with the company now. The reasons this article…
The Force is with EA: Analyst Predicts Over 3 Million SWTOR Units sold
Yes… 3 MILLION! $ERTS stock has risen due to SWTOR pre-orders. EA is doubling projected sales from 1.5 million copies to 3 million copies. This is big news for EA, BioWare and anyone who is a fan of SWTOR or has an invested interest in the game. An article today on Forbes, an analyst discusses the rising predictions in sales and the potential success of SWTOR, which may be larger than anyone anticipated. ERTS this morning is up 24 cents, or 1.4%, to $17.86. Cowen analyst Doug Creutz says: “Since ‘Star Wars‘ became available for pre-orders three weeks ago, it has tracked very strongly on the Amazon.com top-selling video games list,” he writes in a research note. “We believe it is trending as well or better than two of the top-selling PC titles last year, Blizzard’s ‘Starcraft 2‘ and ‘World of Warcraft: Cataclysm‘, both of which went on to sell…
Star Wars n00bs Be Warned: There Be Pirates!
A story broke last week at the New York Times concerning a fiendish plot by North Korean leader Kim Jong-il to raise badly needed cash, by unleashing young hackers on South Korea’s immensely popular online gaming sites, and it got me thinking about the potential perils facing SWTOR new-comers. Since MMORPGs became big business, it was somewhat inevitable that Virtual Crime would become part and parcel of the communities. Unfortunately it is likely that that rogue element will also find its way into the SWTOR gaming world as soon as the game gets a release (in 2030 probably), with rackets set up to bully players into paying protection or illegally trading commodities. They are a fetid boil on the backside of MMORPGs and they must be stopped, or at least resisted with all of our power. The most likely crime SWTOR will face is farming, and thanks to innovations suggested…
Star Wars: The Old Republic Breaks EA Pre-order Record
As we reported with yesterday’s EA Q1 Earnings Conference Call, Electronic Arts is doing pretty good with SWTOR. But just how good is that? Well, apparently they have broken their record for pre-order sales for a game. According to EA’s Q1 FY12 Financial Results they have the fastest pre-ordered title in the history of EA in just the first five days. EA’s previous pre-order record was set by Battlefield 3, while SWTOR far exceed BF3‘s pre-order sales, beating their expectations. “We’re well over 200,000 pre-orders in the first five or six days. From an EA perspective, that is significantly greater than any other EA title we’ve ever had in the first week,” said the company’s finance chief, Eric Brown. President Frank Gibeau said, “In September, we will be in a position to call the ball and give you a hard ship date””. That means the rest of us will have…
Electronic Arts Q1 2012 Earnings Conference Call Live Blog
Today was the EA Q1 2012 Earnings Conference Call and we were interested in one thing- what they had to say about SWTOR. With this game being the pinnacle of the company at this time, you can guarantee they had a few things to say about it on the call. Here is an overview of the highlights of the call: John Riccitiello says that there were strong preorders for The Old Republic. He goes on to say, “Origin will scale quickly with Battlefield 3 and Star Wars: The Old Republic later this year.” Frank Gibeau says, “SWTOR targeted to launch in Holiday 2011, is able to ship with a variety of launch dates.” He adds to expect higher revenue from subscriptions for The Old Republic. John Riccitiello says, “We will launch SWTOR and battle to take a slice of the MMO market.” The conference calls move into the question and…
TOR to Sell 2 Million Units at Launch According to Analyst
Everyone seems to be highly concerned with how much TOR is going to sell on launch. We keep hearing predictions, guesstimates and more. One analyst familiar with the industry says the magic number will be 2 million units at launch. Michael Pachter with Wedbush Securities issued an investor note yesterday that says he predicts the launch sale of 2 million units with 1.5 million staying after the initial free month that is traditionally offered by games. Pachter is the host of Pach Attack on GameTrailers, and he tweets from @michaelpachter. I think he’s on to something here and I tend to agree with the numbers. I mean, it makes sense when you add all the factors. This game has something for so many different people- MMORPG fans, Star Wars fans, ex-WoW players, those who want to be ex-WoW players and more. There’s not a lot of question about BioWare bringing…
Scary stuff right here
I’m a firm believer that BioWare can pull the weight of this game. Electronic Arts is “just” the publisher, The quality of SWTOR comes down to BioWare assuming EA let’s them have enough time to finish it up, however the quality of the on-going service with the servers is EA, content patches BioWare again. It really comes down to hopefully enough people buy it that they won’t have an excuse of not having enough money or something for decent server/bandwith. The point of the image is to illustrate that EA has a track record of being incapable of building, maintaining and supporting their MMORPG projects and every time close them down or throw them into stasis within a year or two.
E3 2011 – EA Analyst Event
Today during E3, EA had an analyst event at Los Angeles. This event covered a large range of questions related to EA’s profile but as is no surprise, SWTOR had a large portion of the revenue stream for the company going forward. A lot of people have a lot of interest in the popularity and success of SWTOR, aside from just those of us who want to play. While there wasn’t really any new information released here that we don’t already know, it’s always great to know the plan is the same, and that they are on track for releasing SWTOR before the end of this year, as projected. In the analyst call, EA’s CFO, Eric Brown talked about how the financial performance of the company is expected to be higher at the end of 2012 when TOR has had a chance to peak in performance. He also confirmed that…
The Old Republic Downloads to be Exclusive to EA’s “Origin” Service
Will Origin Top Steam? I have been a Steam gal since 2005. I love the majority of the games released on Steam and I love access to old-school favorites and new releases all from one platform. When rumors first started that EA was building their own similar platform services, I thought it was a great idea, although I was still skeptical about whether or not they would truly compete with Steam when Steam has such a big head start. Launching with Star Wars: The Old Republic is as good a way as any to ensure they have the best possible chance of catching Steam in terms of users. The news was released today that TOR downloads will be exclusive to EA’s Origin Service which should be explained in more detail officially at E3. As of 11:24ET, Origin is officially online if you want to check it out for yourself. And…
Chinese Prisoners Forced to Farm Gold in Online Games
“There were 300 prisoners forced to play games. We worked 12-hour shifts in the camp. I heard them say they could earn 5,000-6,000rmb [£470-570] a day. We didn’t see any of the money. The computers were never turned off.” Says a prisoner at the Jixi labor camp, Liu Dali who shares his story of being imprisoned and forced to work hard labor by day and farm for in-game currency by night. Chinese gold farmers have become something of a joke in online gaming. Anyone who spends time collecting in-game currency is commonly referred to as a “gold farmer”. While many gamers have mixed feelings about the subject, most will admit they don’t actually know where the gold comes from. Most gamers don’t understand how many of these companies get their gold and make a profit. Some gold-selling companies have been known to steal or hack accounts and use these characters…
MMORPG stock market
Do you play the MMORPG stock market? Whether you play the market in the real world, or find real-world pleasures from virtual scenarios that allow you to escape from the day-to-day grind that is life, there is something to be said about the value of the MMORPG industry. More people are playing MMOs today than ever before. There is also a larger demographic- young and old, men and women, families, friends and couples are all playing together. There are also more types of MMORPGs than one could ever imagine. Your average fan could spend a lifetime trying them all out and still not get them all. From subscription based to free-to-play, action-adventure to science fiction, there are more MMORPGs to keep you happy than one could ever find the time to play. For some people, investing in a new MMO is a bit like playing the stock market. Will…
Star Wars: The Old Republic – Will it Survive through the Hype?
There has been much debate about how SWTOR will stack up to other MMO’s, especially Blizzard’s World of Warcraft. The debate isn’t just about how it will measure up but if SWTOR should even be considered an MMO in the first place. With a supposed completely character-driven storyline how can it be an MMO? David Radd reports that these issues are both good and bad. MMORPGs generally have less story-driven content and more gear, co-operation and gold driven content. SWTOR has set to change that completely but it might come at the price of player numbers. Your average MMO player right now is used to going out and doing X thing to gain Y item. They’re under no illusion that their actions will actually make a difference in the grand scheme of things. Most MMO gamers are used to doing simplistic tasks to get what they want. So if SWTOR…
The Next 12 Months is Super Important to EA
The next 12 months will prove to be very important to Electronic Arts (EA). While they had many things to be happy about in their recent company earnings call, they will also be held accountable over the next year to many predictions and investments. Gamasutra reports that the next 12 months could make or break EA. There are a lot of things working in the favor of EA but it’s too soon to start celebrating victories. While their revenues and earnings per share were higher than expected, and they reported a shift to a more aggressive stance at several fronts, there is still room for things to go wrong over the next fiscal year. CEO John Riccitiello said, “We’re shifting to offense and running plays no other company can,” which is a big promise they have to hope they can hold up to. They are going in…
Star Wars: The Old Republic development cost Could Exceed $80 Million
According to Wedbush Securities analyst – Michael Pachter, the development costs of Star Wars: The Old Republic, could exceed $80 million, especially if you factor in all the marketing and distribution costs. “The contribution from the Star Wars MMO is significant. Under the terms of its deal with LucasArts, EA is required to pay a royalty, but was required to front all of the development, marketing and distribution costs, as well as the costs of building out servers for the game. We estimate that LucasArts’ share is 33% of revenues, AFTER EA recoups its investment in game development. Given that the game was in development for over four years, with an estimated 200 full-time developers working on it, we estimate that EA’s investment exceeds $80 million,” EA has mentioned that it doesn’t need a whole lot of subscribes to make all that profit back and by having about 500,000 subscribers…
Electronic Arts Q4 Earnings Live Blog
Electronic Arts Q4 Earnings Live Blog. At 2:00PM PDT (5:00PM EDT) today, Electronics Arts gave their quarterly call for investors to report results. I joined the call as a member of the media and got the inside scoop on what’s happening with EA. There was a lot of great info in this call so I’m bringing you the highlights right here. First, they reaffirmed that Star Wars: The Old Republic will ship in CY 2011. Additionally: Star Wars: The Old Republic will be launched as a Digital Service. Subscription revenue expected to rise with the launch of SWTOR. SWTOR was mentioned as a Subscription based MMO Over 1 million testers (signed up) Server infrastructure for Star Wars: The Old Republic is a significant FY12 cost investment. There was also an interesting Q&A involving SWTOR: Question: On the beta test for SWTOR, how long can a test like that last before…
One million subscribers are attainable for SWTOR says analyst
What do you think? Will SW:TOR make one million subscribers or are they counting their chickens before they hatch? Personally, I think the 1 mill mark is very attainable but the real question is whether or not they will hold that many subscribers over time. How many MMOs have launched with high expectations and then fallen flat on their faces? (Think Warhammer and Age of Conan) I’m not expecting SW:TOR to join this list of overhyped MMOs but maybe I’m just holding high hopes as a big fan. We’ll have to wait until Fall to know for certain. While there is no definitive release date of the game, it is announced that it will be complete and ready for launch later this year. (We hope!) At the Electronic Arts fourth-quarter shareholders’ conference earlier this year, CEO John Riccitiello stated this about his soon-to-be-released MMORPG Star Wars: The Old Republic: “At…
Paid to Play SWTOR?
Would you love to get paid to play SWTOR? Who wouldn’t, right? Steven Reid, the Senior Community Manager from BioWare tweeted some news you’re gonna get excited about. If you live in or near Austin, Texas (me, me!) and have an interest in working in QA at BioWare on Star Wars: The Old Republic, here’s some news you’ll definitely be interested in. Make plans to head on over to Austin Books this upcoming Saturday and you may just get your chance. In fact, it may be the big break you’ve been waiting for to get into the gaming industry and what better video game to do it with than SWTOR? This Saturday is a very special day for gamers wanting to make their presence known within the gaming industry because Austin Books tweeted some information all gamers will be interested in. They will be holding a special Star Wars Day…
Selling Currency to a Game Not Yet Released?
Apparently you can buy SWTOR credits now, even though the game has not yet released. For gamers who partake in gold/currency-buying, this might be good news. For others, it’s an early sign of the annoying “gold-spammers” might cause in the increasingly popular game. Companies selling Star Wars: The Old Republic currency for real-world money are already on the Net and bartering their goods, months before the expected release of the game. Popular gold seller IGXE (Internet Game Exchange) recently released a press release about their placeholder pricing on SWTOR credits at £650 for 1000 credits. A simple search online will show you many other companies getting in the SWTOR action with promises of credit/gold to players. Just a few examples of the existing domains hawking non-existent credits include: starwarscredit.com, swtorforsale.com, swtorsell.com, swtorgolds.com, swtorgold.net, cheapswtorcredit.com, buyoldrepubliccredits.net, and cheap-swtor-credits.org. The closer it gets to launch time for the game, the more we…