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In my last post I made the comment that EA’s July 31st, “press conference will tell us everything we need to know on what to expect from the game's future.” What they announced was they were going free to play in the near future. They also announced that subscriptions had slipped below 1,000,000 but were significantly above their breakeven of 500,000. Because they didn’t give an actual number it makes me think the real number is closer to 500,000 and I’d bet 650,000 is probably good. When you consider they’ve gone from 1.7 on 12/31 to 1.3 on 3/31 to .7 on 6/30 it is obvious the game was going to stabilize at a point below their breakeven. MMO’s like DAOC, WAR, AOC, and Rift stabilized between 100-200k and if you figure that SWTOR has the star war fan factor I’d bet the number would have been in the 300k range. I made a comment back in May that:
EA/Bioware is painfully aware of what happened last year with Rift. In their first quarter they peaked at 600,000 subscriptions but two quarters later they dropped to 250,000 and are still falling. The same trend happened with Warhammer - peak of 850,000 with a drop to 300,000 six months later and 175,000 within a year. Age of Conan followed a similar pattern - peak of 700,000 with a drop to 410,000 in 4 months and around 100,000 within 8 months.
They’ve know this for a while as I’m sure they’ve been tracking subscriptions closely and the other titles subscriber loss is common knowledge. That meant they needed to add additional sources of revenue to make money which is the reason for the free-to-play (F2P) announcement.
Bioware has been especially quiet for the last quarter and the reason is they’ve known they this has had to happen and they’ve been working frantically to implement it. You can’t make an announcement like F2P without giving fans a reason to continue to subscribe until the new system is in place.
- A new Operation: Terror From Beyond
- A new Warzone: Ancient Hypergate
- 10 New Space Combat Missions for level 50 characters
- A Powerful New Companion – HK-51
- Subscription Players Earn Cartel Coins:
- Free-to-Play Option: Coming this fall
The F2P option is specifically designed to reward long time players and is designed to keep people subscribed until the fall.
- 150 Cartel Coins – Every Month subscribed prior to July 31st
- 1000 Cartel Coins – Purchase of the Collector’s Edition
- Hero’s Banner – Purchase of the Collector’s Edition
- In Game Gift – Players that remain subscribed from August 1st – F2P launch
- 200 Cartel Coins – Every month subscribed after August 1st
- 250 Cartel Coins – Active subscribers at launch of F2P
As you can see, the rewards are a nice mix of rewarding faithful sgubscribers along with trying to make sure people stay subscribed while they get the system ready. As I’ve subscribed for 6 months with a short break and one month free after 1.2 launched I will have 4-6 x 150 coins right now. This part is ingenious as my first thought is to unsub but I will get into the reasons why in a future post. The reason it is smart is I currently have 600 coins and I can’t spend them if I leave the game. It’s silly but it’s human nature and it is why F2P is a good method.
The other hooks like the in game gift (it looks weak to me but will entice some) 200 coins for subscribing from now to launch and 250 coins for being active at launch are big enticements. That leads me to believe that subscribers after F2P goes live will be getting around 100-150 coins per month and the cost per coin will be around a dime. That gives people a reason to subscribe even if they aren’t playing because another way of looking at it is pre-buying cartel coins. I expect EA/Bioware to make this obvious in the near future which will emphasize that playing now is like getting coins on sale.
They can do this because the companies goals are now more defined. They now have two development teams – 1) to make content for Cartel Coins and 2) to provide content for people that continue to subscribe. Both will be limited in their scope and have strict budgets based on expected revenues. This discipline has been missing from the game designers since the games inception and I’m sure is a reason that EA wanted it.
The big questions is - what does this mean to people that are playing now and is this enough to keep people subscribing? What can we expect?
My last post I listed a bunch of issues in the game and I will use a shortened version to predict what will happen:
Game Design:
- No scripting tools to make mods
- No threatmeter
- No guild tools
- Crafting system extremely basic
- WOW Auctionator functionality on GTN
- Alt crafting control
- Long Travel Times
- Game engine needs better optimization
- Limited ability to track abilities
Subscriber Only:
- Nothing to do at endgame
Now Free to Play:
- Simplistic Space combat
- Planets feel dead
- Planet design is too linear without obvious hubs
- Non Instanced dungeon design is bad (fight in and a fight out)
The reason many people played this game was because of the class stories. They were mostly good but in actuality a small part of the game from level 1-50. Now that 1-50 is free I really doubt we see any changes in that area. All the F2P players can expect is what exists and the ability to buy XP boosters or trinkets that have no real impact on the game. The good stuff will need a subscription.
EA/Bioware has made it clear they view the game from 1-49 as a failure and giving it away for free. This news is actually good news for subscribers as it means the focus will be on creating content at level 50 like events, mini-games, operations, flashpoints, and equipment. That is what will keep people subscribing and that is where most of the subscriber money will go.
The biggest question is game design. Are they going to address any of these issues? There really isn’t any payback other than giving everyone a more enjoyable experience and that is hard to quantify in the F2P world. My suspicion is these items will get minimal funding until the next expansion which I’d expect to see in the fall/winter of 2013. By then they should be pro’s at creating monthly events to keep the playerbase happy.
So that leads to the question of my future plans. Despite Bioware’s missteps the biggest question players should ask themselves when considering to subscribe is --- Am I having fun? Could I have more fun doing something else? For me the inclusion of the LFG option has made the game fun. The reason for my current hesitance to commit is trying to figure where the game is going. I’ve been willing to invest money to help them improve the game while I had fun. They are saying all the right things now that the game will be much closer to what we expect when F2P launches. The issue is EA/Bioware has shown in the past they aren’t above lying. Perhaps some of the comments were made with the expectation they were true at the time but their credibility needs a lot of work.
I know the CEO’s only goal is to stop the sliding revenue numbers in the game and he doesn’t care how it happens. If that means lying to us once again, he’s ok with that. On the other hand, the Cartel Coins seem like a decent investment and the game is still fun for me. Am I offended enough by the possibility that they could be lying to unsub? I really don’t have an answer right now and as my subscription runs out in a few weeks I have a bit of time to decide.
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