Star Wars: The Old Republic apparently cost somewhere around $200 million to produce, if an estimate put up by Hero Complex is to be believed. The development team involved over 800 people working on four continents, with nearly 1,000 actors recording dialogue for 4,000 characters in three languages.
“We want to do to other video games what talkies did to silent films,” said Rich Vogel, co-director of BioWare Austin.
The game had its nascence in a meeting between Vogel and BioWare co-founders Greg Zeschuk and Ray Muzyka in 2005, where they took close looks at franchises like Lord of the Rings, A Game of Thrones and Marvel Comics heroes like Spider-Man. However, they ended up signing up for Star Wars in a co-publishing deal with LucasArts.
The article notes that while there are great opportunities for income from subscriptions (World of Warcraft has generated billions by itself), “tens of millions” must be spent on upkeep, putting out new stories and content for players. With over a million in estimated users, the game is at least off too a good start.
