Electronic Arts Spent Almost $200 Million Building Star Wars: The Old Republic

If I don't get on the Star Wars bandwagon before PSO2 then star wars can rot ^_^

@noisyturtle said:

Every time I hear John Riccitiello's name I immediately picture the Monopoly Man raping a puppy in front of an outraged and appalled crowd who nonetheless throws their money at him. EA: You will You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy.

Yeah, they torture and kill people daily.

Every time I hear John Riccitiello's name I immediately picture the Monopoly Man raping a puppy in front of an outraged and appalled crowd who nonetheless throws their money at him. EA: You will You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy.

I thought ToR was pretty neat. Still dont see the reason for it to be MMO since the MMO-parts of it are utterly boring like any other MMO.

EA is in this for the long haul. So people saying they don't see how they are going to make a profit have to look down the road 5-6 years. You don''t spend 200 million and expect to make it all back in your first year, I can only speculate but I would imagine they have something like a 2-3 year initial investment plan.

The off chance this game completely dies in the next three years all EA will do is produce 20 crappy games and earn their money back that way. Kind of like what Hollywood used to do with direct to video back in the day to cover theatrical flops.

Every time I hear John Riccitiello's name I immediately picture the Monopoly Man raping a puppy in front of an outraged and appalled crowd who nonetheless throws their money at him. EA: You will You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy.

Upkeep is a different beast entirely. WoW requires massive amounts of customer service and Servers to run.

@SamDrugbringer: As of September 16, 2008, World of Warcraft had cost over $200 million just to upkeep the servers and for customer support, its not hard to imagine WoW costing nine figures to develop.

kotaku.com/5050300/how-much-has-wow-cost-blizzard-since-2004

@Protonguy said:

Here's a list of the most expensive films of all time:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most_expensive_films

There are a LOT of movies 200 million and over and that's for an industry smaller than the games industry.

Why are people surprised at 200 million being spent on a game? One that is arguably way more complicated and content packed than anything the film industry could possibly create. Something that requires server farms, 24/7 engineers, trained technical support staff, bandwidth, coders, storywriters, voice actors, marketting strategies and of course overpaid executives.

Do i think it'll break even? I haven't a clue. Is it worth the risk? Why don't you ask blizzard. I'm sure they didn't spend the same amount on making WoW but it was also made in a very different time with a very different gaming landscape.

I doubt WoW cost that much, to be quite honest. Between not needing the huge money Voice acting, and just simpler technology, I'd be surprised if they spent even half that.

Pure speculation on my part, of course. Either way, there is a good chance it was one of the most expensive games made at the time it was released.

Here's a list of the most expensive films of all time:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most_expensive_films

There are a LOT of movies 200 million and over and that's for an industry smaller than the games industry.

Why are people surprised at 200 million being spent on a game? One that is arguably way more complicated and content packed than anything the film industry could possibly create. Something that requires server farms, 24/7 engineers, trained technical support staff, bandwidth, coders, storywriters, voice actors, marketting strategies and of course overpaid executives.

Do i think it'll break even? I haven't a clue. Is it worth the risk? Why don't you ask blizzard. I'm sure they didn't spend the same amount on making WoW but it was also made in a very different time with a very different gaming landscape.

I've found Giant Bomb's MMO coverage to be interesting, as they tend to see it more as a group of gamers who typically play traditional games looking at the genre and saying "Hey, what's going on here, and what's the big deal?"

MMOs have their small groups of different people playing them. Theres the crazy hardcore people, who schedule their lives around a raid time, the people playing socially, and of course, the people trying the game out, who haven't fallen into one of either group. And in my experience, so many people playing them, aren't really gamers outside of their chosen MMO.

I feel MMOs came along and satisfied that want for co-op gaming before co-op gaming was something everyone was doing. I know I was completely uninterested and unmotivated to subscribe to Xbox Live until every game started adding a co-op mode.

Though also interesting, is how avowed haters of the genre have embraced the concepts of leveling systems and gear into their games, typically shooters. I know people who rage at the mere mention of WoW, yet spend hour after hour farming for loot drops in Team Fortress 2. Kinda brings a smile to my face.

If only it didn't have the same terrible mmo combat that they all have.

There was a thread started on the SW:TOR forums on GB recently asking people if they planned on ussubbing after their free month was up. The response was overwhelmingly in favor of it. Having played just before the game launched, and based on my time with the game, its WoW with guns, basically. The quest hubs, quest types (Kill X of these, Bring back X of these, speak to person X) are all standard MMO fare. That's fine, I guess, if you haven't already done it in every other MMO out there, then I can see how this would be new and different to you. But, to the MMO vets out there (like myself), who may be jaded on this whole thing, SWTOR offers nothing new under the sun.

From the UI to the basic game mechanics, this game has entirely lifted its ideas from WoW (and the devs admitted as much). To add my own personal opinion to this, the game didnt' "feel" like Star Wars to me. It was definitely sci-fi, but not SW. SW: Galaxies had that feel to it, but not SW:TOR. Anyone else feel that wayI? I can't be the only one.

If I had the time for it, and a better computer, I'd check it out since I generally enjoy MMOs. No idea if $200 million is a big budget for a game with this scale or not.

@Tferr said:

Gentlemen.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-purchase_rationalization

That is all.

I got it as a gift. I like it. Your argument is invalid.

I don't get why there is so much hate around for this game, i've not run into any real issues at all up to lvl 40. I love the class stories and intend to go through them all. I'm not at all interested in raids/pvp.

I bought a 6 month sub. Gives me plenty of time to play and see where they take it from here.

@Rawson: I think its pretty cool to see people defending a game even though "The Horde (tm)" is gang raping it.

@Kaiji:

You have clearly not actually played this game, or rushed to 50 space barring through the story and then quit.

Also, my fucking GOD that F2P argument is just beyond ridiculous. The only thing you're proving with saying that is that there are a lot of quality F2P games out there that deserve more recognition than they get.

World of warcraft isn't a terrible game at all. It's great, but i't boring, it's old, and no matter how much they add to the game it's still warcraft, which is the problem.

The fact that star wars is more or less Vanilla WoW with good story, and more balanced characters, plus some updated features that people enjoy (i.e. warzones, hard modes, etc) is actually a good thing. That's what people want. They want to play world of warcraft but they're bored of that lore, that world, those characters. They want to play an mmo as good as that, if not better, but with a new face, and that's what they get. Bioware pushed the game out too early, there's absolutely no denying this with any sound mind, but that's EA's call not theirs, I guarantee they didn't want to.

Regardless, you've either played the beta a small amount and went in with the attitude that you wanted this game to fail, or you maybe even bought it (hey thanks) with the same attitude, half assed your way through it, and decided to go on an endless tirade to bash the game and spread negative shit about it, which says a whole ton more about you than it does about this rather successful game.

Great, we get it, you're afraid whatever game you play is going to lose subs to this game so you need to be upset by the success and bash it however you can, go ahead, but eventually people are going to see you as nothing more than the whiny little baby you are.

Edit:

Check Kaiji's activity. Since joining Giantbomb he's done nothing but bash SW:TOR (even before trying it in the beta which is all he's played of the game and it was a 4-5 month old beta version I might add). This dude is the perfect representation of most of the SW:TOR haters out there. They know nothing about the game and hate it for no particular reason. Give me a break.

That's a lot of money...

@Tferr said:

Gentlemen.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-purchase_rationalization

That is all.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion

That is all.

Gentlemen.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-purchase_rationalization

That is all.

@CL60 said:

@Rawson said:

I never said anything to the effect of your second line. However, I see people listing their reasons why they dislike the game routinely. It boils down to failing to meet expectations, finding it dull, introducing new issues to the game (oh hi, Ilum), and being disappointed by EA/Bioware and their general hubris. On the other side of the fence, you have people who just claim, "Hurr, you're a troll." whenever you dare have something not glowing to say about it.

Newsflash, people: Not liking a video game does not count as trolling. Get over yourself.

And I wasn't responding to simply a guy who dislikes the game and gave a well though out reason as to why. He quite literally said that the only people who like this game are the underage, people new to gaming, or the mentally challenged. And even you have to admit that's a bit on the trolling side..

He did list reasons, though. He found it dull, soulless, unimaginative, and propped up on a woefully unoptimized engine. For everything else, I think he needs to calm down, relax, and probably just eat popcorn with the rest of us who are watching the game from outside.

And on an unrelated note, since you mentioned that Guild Wars 2 has been kept in the dark and barely seen, I feel the need to point out that they've actually done plenty of public demos of their game even when it was in alpha. In contrast, I remember beta footage of TOR getting shut down left and right (including my own livestreams). If nothing else, it's a good sign of the developer's confidence in their game. One such example of raw, unedited footage:

@SoundChaser said:

@Buzzkill said:

@DoctorLazy said:

It's the most polished MMO ever released and the launch has been smoother than any other launch. It has more complete content than WoW did at launch, and most MMOs ever have. The negativity about the game is ridiculous.

The game's an absolute disaster and now ruined by exploiters. It doesn't even live up to the expectations of single player RPGs let alone come close to a Bioware quality title. The negativity about The Old Republic is massive because it's not just Star Wars nerds to bash on, it's not just EA to bash on, it's not just another MMO to bash on. You have the highest expectations possible from a AAA studio using a flawless IP that prints money, and they still managed to screw it up so badly that even meta critic is correct for once. Just look at all those sellout journalists who review The Old Republic based on its potential and not substance. Then, you've got the customer reviews who give it a 6.0 based on how the game actually feels and plays. This is one for the history books folks and I hope young aspiring developers are taking notes on how not to release a MMO.

So to sum things up you've got:

• people pissed at bioware
• people pissed at EA
• people pissed the game is a disaster
• delusional fanboys who attract haters
• haters who hate on anything
• people like me who love a good train wreck

You don't have a single point that mentions why the game is supposedly so terrible.

@patrickklepek said:

Jeff quit just fine.

*Guy with anime avatar calls into question the taste of others*

@Rawson said:

@Brodehouse said:

@Rawson said:

@CL60 said:

YOU BE TROLLIN'

You seem to be desperate to defend this game at every turn. If the game is truly as great as you say it is, then why do you feel the need to post one-sentence replies to people who actually give some thought and criticism to games? EA/Bioware's a big boy. They don't need you to defend their e-honor.

Seriously. Every post you've made in TOR-related discussions is either a one-sentence reply, or comes off incredibly holier-than-thou. At this point, you're actively hurting the game you claim to enjoy.

You consider 'only 13 year olds and retards' to be 'giving thought and criticism? Really?

You can hate the game if you want to, but you're really going to promote the argument that the only people who like this game are 13 year olds, fanboys, people new to gaming and the retarded? Good luck.

I never said anything to the effect of your second line. However, I see people listing their reasons why they dislike the game routinely. It boils down to failing to meet expectations, finding it dull, introducing new issues to the game (oh hi, Ilum), and being disappointed by EA/Bioware and their general hubris. On the other side of the fence, you have people who just claim, "Hurr, you're a troll." whenever you dare have something not glowing to say about it.

Newsflash, people: Not liking a video game does not count as trolling. Get over yourself.

And I wasn't responding to simply a guy who dislikes the game and gave a well though out reason as to why. He quite literally said that the only people who like this game are the underage, people new to gaming, or the mentally challenged. And even you have to admit that's a bit on the trolling side..

Pills here!

@Stimpack: I stated EA's expectations in my post. 500k sustained subscribers.

@Gargantuan said:

@k4el said:

@patrickklepek said:

@doomocrat said:

The big story is EA removing a cancellation option from their page here at the end of the free month, and then banning forum users (From Origin? unknown) who posted the direct link. Klepek, get on this!

Not sure it's a real story. Jeff quit just fine.

Has anyone else noticed that Patrick is the batman of the video gaming world? If there's an injustice he gets an email or tweet. I propose we need a gigantic light with a silhouette of his hair on it.

I didn't grow up 100% in Chicago, only spending a few breaks with the family still living there as my direct lineage moved to Dallas. Hyde Park and the University of Chicago surrounding it, as well as the working class neighborhoods adjacent they came from have an impressively low tolerance for bullshit in any manifested form that radiates through the city. Not to discredit the man and the effort and originality he clearly puts in, but the Patsignal kinda feels like a resource for me because I feel very confident the details will be shook out.

@Brodehouse said:

@Rawson said:

@CL60 said:

YOU BE TROLLIN'

You seem to be desperate to defend this game at every turn. If the game is truly as great as you say it is, then why do you feel the need to post one-sentence replies to people who actually give some thought and criticism to games? EA/Bioware's a big boy. They don't need you to defend their e-honor.

Seriously. Every post you've made in TOR-related discussions is either a one-sentence reply, or comes off incredibly holier-than-thou. At this point, you're actively hurting the game you claim to enjoy.

You consider 'only 13 year olds and retards' to be 'giving thought and criticism? Really?

You can hate the game if you want to, but you're really going to promote the argument that the only people who like this game are 13 year olds, fanboys, people new to gaming and the retarded? Good luck.

I never said anything to the effect of your second line. However, I see people listing their reasons why they dislike the game routinely. It boils down to failing to meet expectations, finding it dull, introducing new issues to the game (oh hi, Ilum), and being disappointed by EA/Bioware and their general hubris. On the other side of the fence, you have people who just claim, "Hurr, you're a troll." whenever you dare have something not glowing to say about it.

Newsflash, people: Not liking a video game does not count as trolling. Get over yourself.

@Rawson said:

@CL60 said:

YOU BE TROLLIN'

You seem to be desperate to defend this game at every turn. If the game is truly as great as you say it is, then why do you feel the need to post one-sentence replies to people who actually give some thought and criticism to games? EA/Bioware's a big boy. They don't need you to defend their e-honor.

Seriously. Every post you've made in TOR-related discussions is either a one-sentence reply, or comes off incredibly holier-than-thou. At this point, you're actively hurting the game you claim to enjoy.

You consider 'only 13 year olds and retards' to be 'giving thought and criticism? Really?

You can hate the game if you want to, but you're really going to promote the argument that the only people who like this game are 13 year olds, fanboys, people new to gaming and the retarded? Good luck.

@NaDannMaGoGo: 10 million. What? Links?

@Veektarius: When you spend 200 million dollars on something, you kind of begin to formulate expectations.

I've played up to lvl38 and was maybe a bit disappointed by some aspects of TOR. Still, I can't even comprehend how someone can say this game is flat out "bad" and keep a straight face.

It's not a bad game by any stretch of the imagination.

As someone who tends to hop around MMOs a lot, I am really liking this one. Sure it has the same old "Kill 10 X" quests, but the full voice acting makes me actually not mind it. Plus now I feel like I'm roleplaying my guy in an MMO RPG. Like wow.

Also they way they did transmorph is a thing I love, you can get through various ways, items that have mod slots, so if you like how it looks, you can just get mods equal to your level and then you cool looking equiptment stays with you forever.

Hot damn! I wonder how much they are spending monthly on infrastructure upkeep, patches and potentially content packs/expansions.

@CL60 said:

YOU BE TROLLIN'

You seem to be desperate to defend this game at every turn. If the game is truly as great as you say it is, then why do you feel the need to post one-sentence replies to people who actually give some thought and criticism to games? EA/Bioware's a big boy. They don't need you to defend their e-honor.

Seriously. Every post you've made in TOR-related discussions is either a one-sentence reply, or comes off incredibly holier-than-thou. At this point, you're actively hurting the game you claim to enjoy.

@Kaiji said:

@CL60 said:

See, people like that guy are the kind of people I'm talking about when I defend this game.

Dude, you act like this game saved your Mom from being hit by a train and you owe it some kind of life debt.

It's a bland, average MMO propped up by a big name developer and a big name IP. In a year it will be vaguely remembered as EA's failed follow up to Warhammer.

Stop pretending it's a good game. It isn't. The only excuse you have to think this is a high quality game is if you are one or more of the following...

a) 13 or below

b) New to gaming

c) An ultra hardcore Star Wars fan (the kind that would buy a broken stick for $50 if it had some scotch tape with "STAR WARS" written on it in marker)

c) A bit... "special".

No offense, but this game is an embarrassing dud. A blank. A misfire. There's a reason so many people are laughing at it. Eventually the penny will drop and you'll go "Ohhhh... Yeah!!! HAHAHAHAHAHAH!!! Now I get it!!!"

Until then, drop the hubris. You are vehemently defending a crap game.

YOU BE TROLLIN'

@CL60 said:

See, people like that guy are the kind of people I'm talking about when I defend this game.

Dude, you act like this game saved your Mom from being hit by a train and you owe it some kind of life debt.

It's a bland, average MMO propped up by a big name developer and a big name IP. In a year it will be vaguely remembered as EA's failed follow up to Warhammer.

Stop pretending it's a good game. It isn't. The only excuse you have to think this is a high quality game is if you are one or more of the following...

a) 13 or below

b) New to gaming

c) An ultra hardcore Star Wars fan (the kind that would buy a broken stick for $50 if it had some scotch tape with "STAR WARS" written on it in marker)

c) A bit... "special".

No offense, but this game is an embarrassing dud. A blank. A misfire. There's a reason so many people are laughing at it. Eventually the penny will drop and you'll go "Ohhhh... Yeah!!! HAHAHAHAHAHAH!!! Now I get it!!!"

Until then, drop the hubris. You are vehemently defending a crap game.

See, people like that guy are the kind of people I'm talking about when I defend this game.

@dillinger said:

Let WoW die so they can come out with something better and let swtor get its due.

Let SWTOR get it's due for what? Being a dull, soulless, flat, unimaginatively designed throwback to 2004 with tedious voiceovers that sound like the voice actors were desperately waiting for their shift to end?

If it had the exact same production quality without "Star Wars" and "Bioware" on the box, it would be an F2P-quality game with the added novelty of voiceovers. And I'm being generous, here. I've played several F2P MMOs that have obvious passion behind their inception and design, that make SWTOR look like everyone who worked on it would rather headbutt walls for a living for half the pay.

Don't get me wrong here... WoW is a heap of shit too. Blizzard couldn't have screwed that game up more if Kotick had forced them to at gunpoint, but don't delude yourself that SWTOR is anything more than an extremely bland shell of a game.

It amazes me that devs can waste millions upon millions of dollars releasing peurile trash like this and thousands of people will fall over themselves to squeal "YES!!! THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT WE'VE BEEN WAITING FOR!!! THANKYOU!!!".

Sad.

@Kaiji said:

LOL. $200 million to make this dull, dull, dull, dull, dull, dull, dull, dull, dull, dull, dull, dull, dull, dull, dull game???

That's like ordering a Big Mac, fries and coke and being charged $500.

What did they do with all the money? How can you even have that kind of development budget and voluntarily choose to build a game on the f***ing laughably clunky Hero Engine???

It's truly amazing how easily people's brains turn to fudge when brands like "Star Wars" and "Bioware" get thrown around.

Average gamer's cerebral cortex: "Hmmmmm.... Well this game really seems like a monolithic turd, but it's Star Wars and Bioware so I can safely blank out that thought... OK... *enable cognitive dissonance* DAMN!!! THIS GAME IS AMAZING!!! Der-HYURP!!!".

It's pretty sad that game development has been reduced to the art of convincing people that shit games are actually great. *slaps on pro-bullshitter grin*.... "SPACE COMBAT IS AWESOME!!!!" (bonus points to anyone who remembers that video)

All you've ever done on this forum is bash the game, and bash people who like it.

This game can afford to lose 10,000 hating screaming morons who wanted to hate this game anyway and only bought it because they are bored of WoW or all their friends did. It's not going to affect the other millions playing, except in a positive way. Negative press dies down. Do some searching, WoW didn't have a stellar launch either. The fact that this came out several years later doesn't matter. People fail to realize that. Look at Skyrim. Buggy as fuck, still game of the year. Why? Games as massive of an undertaking as both Skyrim and SWTOR are bound to have bugs. It simply doesn't matter how long you develop them for, you don't want a duke nukem forever on your hands.

Anyway whatever, every night at least half of the servers are heavy or higher pop, and the rest standard except maybe 2-3 late entry servers and the ptr. Look at World of Warcraft and there's maybe 10 servers that are really populated to boast over, and most of that population in their "seamless massive world!" is hanging out in orgrimmar or ironforge/stormwind, queuing up with strangers cross realm because thats all that game is anymore. queuing. you queue up for everything. there is no reason to go into the world anymore.

The haters will get bored of hating. They're upset because they don't want their precious warcraft to lose subscribers to a better game (swtor). It's run its course. Let WoW die so they can come out with something better and let swtor get its due. Man up. Stop complaining just for the sake of complaining.

LOL. $200 million to make this dull, dull, dull, dull, dull, dull, dull, dull, dull, dull, dull, dull, dull, dull, dull game???

That's like ordering a Big Mac, fries and coke and being charged $500.

What did they do with all the money? How can you even have that kind of development budget and voluntarily choose to build a game on the f***ing laughably clunky Hero Engine???

It's truly amazing how easily people's brains turn to fudge when brands like "Star Wars" and "Bioware" get thrown around.

Average gamer's cerebral cortex: "Hmmmmm.... Well this game really seems like a monolithic turd, but it's Star Wars and Bioware so I can safely blank out that thought... OK... *enable cognitive dissonance* DAMN!!! THIS GAME IS AMAZING!!! Der-HYURP!!!".

It's pretty sad that game development has been reduced to the art of convincing people that shit games are actually great. *slaps on pro-bullshitter grin*.... "SPACE COMBAT IS AWESOME!!!!" (bonus points to anyone who remembers that video)

@SoundChaser: Because he doesn't play it. He's been doing this for a looong time now.

@Buzzkill said:

@DoctorLazy said:

It's the most polished MMO ever released and the launch has been smoother than any other launch. It has more complete content than WoW did at launch, and most MMOs ever have. The negativity about the game is ridiculous.

The game's an absolute disaster and now ruined by exploiters. It doesn't even live up to the expectations of single player RPGs let alone come close to a Bioware quality title. The negativity about The Old Republic is massive because it's not just Star Wars nerds to bash on, it's not just EA to bash on, it's not just another MMO to bash on. You have the highest expectations possible from a AAA studio using a flawless IP that prints money, and they still managed to screw it up so badly that even meta critic is correct for once. Just look at all those sellout journalists who review The Old Republic based on its potential and not substance. Then, you've got the customer reviews who give it a 6.0 based on how the game actually feels and plays. This is one for the history books folks and I hope young aspiring developers are taking notes on how not to release a MMO.

So to sum things up you've got:

• people pissed at bioware
• people pissed at EA
• people pissed the game is a disaster
• delusional fanboys who attract haters
• haters who hate on anything
• people like me who love a good train wreck

You don't have a single point that mentions why the game is supposedly so terrible.

@TomA said:

And then most people are unsubbing at the end of the free month. Way to waste money EA

Do you have even the smallest shred of evidence to back up such a bold claim? Just curious.

@connerthekewlkid said:

@Sooty: cmon bro thats low

I was only joking, but I got a good self-laugh!

@ahaisthisourchance said:

@CL60 said:

@ahaisthisourchance said:

This is freaking hilarious. 6 months and this will be F2P.

See people... incredibly stupid comments like this being posted CONSTANTLY is why I "defend" this game so much.

Keep on trucking, fanboy :)

Keep on trucking, troll :)

@CL60 said:

@ahaisthisourchance said:

This is freaking hilarious. 6 months and this will be F2P.

See people... incredibly stupid comments like this being posted CONSTANTLY is why I "defend" this game so much.

Keep on trucking, fanboy :)