While speaking at Lazard Capital Markets Technology & Media Day, EA CFO Eric Brown updated attendees on the state of the publisher’s white whale, Star Wars: The Old Republic, the upcoming MMO being developed by the craftspeople at BioWare Austin. According to Brown, nearly 1.5 million users have signed up to test the game. "It's a great indicator in the interest level in the franchise," he said.
Unfortunately, with the good comes the bad. Brown also revealed that The Old Republic would not be shipping during Electronic Arts’ first fiscal quarter, which spans from April 1 to July 31, 2011. That still leaves the game as coming out sometime in 2011, but no more details were given. The title has yet to leave closed beta.
Brown admitted that EA believes The Old Republic will expand the potential MMO audience through word of mouth and the Star Wars license itself.
"We're not that concerned about generating initial demand. For us it's about creating the right experience for expanding from tier 1 and the tier 2 users to getting people who have never played an MMO before, but are interested in Star Wars, to engage and give it a try,” he said.
EA is aiming for a subscription model with The Old Republic, but Brown explained that additional microtransactions were still on the table.
"The key [question] is, what do you include in a base monthly fee versus what do you charge extra for? That requires some careful decision making, [but] for now we're focused on the standard monthly subscription model,” he said.
[Via Gamasutra]
5 Comments
March 16, 2011
Yes double dipping with out angering the masses is hard to do. With games like LOTR free to play and I only pay for the extra I actually use in the game paying a monthly fee and having to pay for the extras I want int eh game is got me wondering if I will actually play this. I have not done Star Trek online for that same reason.
March 16, 2011
Yes well triple dipping if you consider you have to pay at retail then a subscription then micro-transactions. Don't be greedy EA...
March 16, 2011
Realistically, that's no different than what Blizzard does with vanity pets and mounts in WoW. They're just being open about it.
March 16, 2011
Yeah, I'm not a fan of double dipping, even if Blizzard (hallowed be they name) does it too, it's not right. If you charge a monthly fee, then that should cover 100% of your game's cost to the players. If you don't charge a monthly fee, or if it's optional, then you can charge the players for all sorts of things. You should be able to have it both ways though.
The only form of double dipping I would condone is if it's a shortcut around gold farmers, basically a sanctioned way for players to buy out tasks that are reasonably achievable through gameplay but may require more effort than it'd be worth, like offering rare drop loot and stuff that you can get through gameplay as something you can buy wish cash instead if you don't care to do the in-game work for it.
March 17, 2011
Most of the stuff you can buy in WoW is peripheral to the experience - you generally don't gain a huge in-game benefit from it. Also every online game now, subscription or not, will have some form of microtransactions, but what that involves will differ a lot depending on the title. Personally, I think that an option for F2P is the best offering out there, but companies go different ways.