Photo-Receptor Focus on: TOR Subscriptions
By Maer
There’s a lot of buzz happening in the community lately. What with layoffs, the announcement of 1.3, loss of subscriptions and various other happenings in the Star Wars universe, the trolls are out in full force and the fanboys and fangirls are staunchly defending their game. So what does all of this mean?
More after the jump…
The doom and gloomers insists the game is on its way out. I think it’s way too early to even think of making that sort of prediction. Of course, keep in mind, these are the same people who were saying the same thing the first week of launch. I think we can safely disregard their opinions. Sorry, doom and gloomers, you haven’t convinced me. In spite of your persistent and negative posts on the official forums, your rhetoric is falling on deaf ears. At least mine.
Okay, you say, but what about the loss of subscriptions? Fine, let’s take a look at those. Frankly, subscription loss is to be expected. Yes, you say, but so many? Yes, my padawans, even so many. And here’s why.
The Star Wars name brought in a lot of people who were not MMO gamers. They were simply drawn in by the Star Wars name. Some of those folks may have stayed, but I’m guessing a lot more did not. Nor would I expect them to, since they’re not real gamers. They came, they played, they went away and probably not to other games.
You also have the gamer contingent that is going to go to any and every new game out there. They inflate the numbers in the beginning, but they quickly burn out, become bored and move on. They bounce from game to game to game. Again, I think the Star Wars name inflated this group in the beginning. So, when they did their usual move on to the next game, it was a larger group that left.
You have a very large PVP group whose defection was based on valid reasons. PVP had some unique and fun aspects to it, but there were a lot more problems in other PVP areas that were not addressed soon enough. Those players are gone and I doubt many of them will return. Unless, of course, Bioware can come up with some ideas that will bring them back in force.
The next group to leave were those who came in with high expectations and were disappointed when things were not fixed as quickly as they thought they should be. Their reasons are valid, but I think they jumped the gun. Some of these folks may return, once Bioware adds new content and features.
I’m sure there are many other reasons as to why people left the game, but I think these are the biggest groups of people. Did I miss anyone? Feel free to comment below.
So who does that leave? The core of people who love the game and want to see it grow. New games take time to evolve and we haven’t had enough evolution time. We aren’t even at six months after launch, yet. Yes, I agree, there were a lot of things that should’ve been in the game at launch. But they weren’t in the game. So, I’m going to get over it. I’ll continue to ask for those things and wait for Bioware to put them in.
And I’m not ready to go anywhere. None of the new games have even tempted me. I’m still enjoying SWTOR. Yes, I have my concerns, but I’m willing to give Bioware more time to work on these things.
That’s my two credits. What’s yours?
Ready… Set… Discuss…
I think next time I’m in this conversation with some one again I am just going to send them a link to this, well said!
What’s very curious is those who have apparently quit this game, and yet breathlessly follow the forums and any post on TOR’s Facebook page so they can post a response telling everyone how much of a fail this game is and how they aren’t playing it. Actually, if you find that fun, I suppose it’s an inexpensive hobby.
Anyhow, I’m still enjoying the game. Still having a good time. I tanked Hard Mode KP for the first time last weekend, and had a blast. I guess I’m lucky that my server is still pretty lively. I have some alts on other servers that are pretty empty, but that doesn’t bother me that much since alts are for solo’in in my book.
The best thing is that if I stay away from the forums and don’t bother with Facebook, I never come into contact with the bitter failfolk, since they’ve all quit the game right? (Yeah, right)
SWTOR is the 1st mmo where I log in the official forum on a weekly basis. I noticed some really pathetic behaviors among the whiners. Did you know that some players stopped to play the game for at least a month but keep coming back in the forum only for bashing the game?! There’s even a forum member who subscribed to the forum since 3 weeks and keep talking about Elder Scrolls Online. I mean, come on! Anyway, I feel so sorry for those people, it’s just sad.
About SWTOR, I expected about 500k subscribers left after 6 months and probably a population increase before the end of the year. This game keeps improving and I think we’ll be surprised how many people will come back to the game.
I agree with your comment about expecting some of a drop off in subs after release but I don’t believe that fully 1/4 of the subscriber base was even close to anything that bioware expected.
I would guess that there will be another downturn when the people who opted for a six month subscription at release renewals come up for payment.
That said, I enjoy the game but believe that bioware could be faster with their patch releases. They could also do with some serious server merging. I rolled on one of lower pop servers to check it out, during prime time on a friday there were 6 people on the imp fleet and 10 on the republic fleet. At that point, for all intents and purposes on that server, swtor is a single player game.
I don’t believe swtor is going away anytime soon. I see them hovering around the million subscription mark. The people that I speak to that have left do not seem to have any interest in returning.
Another thing that I can see as a possibility is swtor going f2p. According to ea/bioware they need 500k subs to break even. Imo, if the corporate honchos think they can make more money off of micro transactions they will. They did not make this game to break even after all, it is supposed to be a big money maker.
Best case scenario, 1.3 comes out some people come back and they get the population back up to close to 1.5-1.8 million.
Worst case, under pressure from mists and gw2 they lose even more players , have more layoffs increasing development time even more.
All in all this game has alot of potential. To bad it didn’t ship with more good game design and less potential. For me, 1.3 is make it or break it. If I cannot place my toons on a high pop server with a cross-server lfg tool that will be it for me.
@sixskins
Yes, you’ll be able to place your toons on a “super server”. No, it won’t be a cross-server lfg tool, it will be a single server lfg tool. They specified it many times in the forum, Q&A, conventions and articles.
I couldn’t agree more Maer. As of right now I have no desire to play any new MMO that is coming down the pipe. I am still enjoying SWTOR, I will continue to subscribe to SWTOR even if it means a small (albeit loud) percentage of the population kicks and screams about how bad the game is. At the end of the day… it just Isn’t true.
I also agree with Maer. I don’t have any need or desire to play any other MMO. I left WoW based on the fact that Cat sucked not when first came out but after all the stupid trolls started to cry and say its to hard to run in dungeons, I cant find any good groups. So they fixed it to play more like BC . So i said F U to Bizz and never looked back. Now i know SWTOR need a lot more work as any new MMO does at the start of its run. And yes i’m a Star Wars Fanboy but so what. I like what i see in this game, i want it to be here for a long long time. and i think by its 1yr mark your going to see a much different game the you did at the start. Biowhare is on a leaning curve right now. there finding out what works and what doesn’t. just like Bizz and all the rest had to.
That Bioware should consider server mergers to maitain a high population ratio , that those who really un subbed the game were nothing but posers or just jumping on the bandwagon not for the long haul … Second you have to consider that everything Bioware is done on thier time-table of release to ensure quality and entertainment , they should make a planet where we can fight the republic just not empire vs empire . Thirdly think about continuing the class story arcs that were started and left us just hanging after we got to the cap .