Old Republic MMO Gets 1.7M Subscribers in About 2 Months

Some two months after launch, Star Wars: The Old Republic now has 1.7 million subscribers, Scott "Lum Lumley" Jennings notes, with over 2 million copies of the game sold. That's very impressive, and surprising to me: I was guessing the subscriber base would top out at 1 million. So clearly there's still some life in the monthly subscription-based model for MMOs, at least for those with massive production budgets like SWTOR. (Estimated cost: nearly $200 million.) As Lum points out, those 1.7 subscribers are actually "a mix of paying customers and customers with billing information entered but still on free trial", so the real test is how long those subscribers stay around, month after month. In six months or so, I'm still thinking that number goes down closer to a million.

Speaking of SWTOR, Iris has a good review of the game's avatar fashion here. We're thinking of doing more coverage of the MMO -- how many of you play SWTOR, readers?

Comments

[Pussycat Catnap]

Its a good thing this won't run on a Mac.

Good for my sanity that is... :)

The real test is whether they can keep those subscribers. Many MMOs have had big launches, only to falter shortly after.

That said, you usually hear the reasons they will fail within days of launch, and I've not yet heard those calls come out from this one, so maybe it will hold up.

[Arcadia Codesmith]

Predictions about an MMO's impending doom usually start about five minutes after it's first announced to the public.

I haven't played SWTOR. From the outside, it looks too lean on content and light on community for retention, so there may be a big dip after the free month.

But it does poke huge gaping holes in the argument that the subscription model is dead. F2P is a radically different development mindset, one that values churn over retention. That's fine for some games, but it is most definitely and emphatically NOT the answer for every MMO.

Oh... thumbs up on more MMO coverage. MMOs and virtual worlds are the same in important respects, regardless of their endless efforts to disavow one another.

[Nightbird Glineux]

At USD 60 up front and USD 15/month, I'm going to pass on SWTOR.

As for covering other MMOs, do they support User-Generated Content? I'd like to see more coverage of OpenSIM areas.

-nb

[David Holloway]

I write on SWTOR extensively for my site TOROZ and for other publications and I can tell you the 'light on content' claim isn't based on many facts. Those gripes primarily come from those who rushed to level 50 and didn't actually experience the content in any depth on the way up. Oh, and it does work on a Mac under Boot Camp, which is how I play it.

On subscriber numbers: if it declines to a million it won't be around more than a year. Half the world is still yet to officially have the game launch in their area so plenty of growth still to come.

[foneco zuzu]

I still play Kotor, but that was a single player game, that many still release mods to!
The only games (as I don't consider Sl or open Sims , games in any way!)i played online where:

Flight simulators:
Crimson skies.
Red Baron 3d, heavily modded all over the years.
Il2 and all the sequels!

1st person shooters:
Bf1942 modded version eye of defeat (based on vietnam scenario).
MoH 1.
Cod 2.

MMOS:
Lineage 2 as beta tester, Eve online as beta tester, Guild wars as beta tester.

But Kotor, as Bloodlines, Morrowind, Oblivion, Fallout 2 and 3, Syd Meyer Pirates, Mtw, Rtw, Mtw 2, those single player games made me forgot about online interaction till less then 2 years ago!
The only tool that made me forget about games (never touched any again), was SL and now OS grid as well!

[Vivienne Daguerre]

I tried it but won't be continuing. I like the graphics, the customization of the avatar, and I love the companion idea. The cinematics are well done. All the same, I was disappointed.

In the old SWG (Star Wars Galaxy) it was possible to take a non-fighting path. I was a doctor there. My ongoing quest was to find high quality resources to make the best doc buff. It took a long time before I was able to make a top quality buff and amass the goods in any quality, and just as I did, they nerfed the doc buff. That is when I left and went to Second Life.

There is crafting in SWTOR, but your secondary characters do it so you can focus on fighting, which was never what I enjoyed in the first place.

I enjoyed some freestyle socializing with friends. We made our own city, furnished houses, lit fireworks and had parties. None of that happens from what I saw in SWTOR. It is all about missions and flashpoints.

One of the things I HATED about WOW when I tried it (instances) is in SWTOR--flashpoints. You have to group up and allot a good 2 to 3 uninterrupted hours to work your way through it. That is hard to do. I like to be able to come in for 30 to 60 minutes, and then go do other things. If you try to solo your way through not doing flashpoints or heroic missions, you don't get the good stuff.

I was hoping for something like the old SWG before they nerfed it. I saw another tired version of WOW in a new setting with better graphics.

Don't you get tired of running around killing things? How boring.

[Pussycat Catnap]

"As for covering other MMOs, do they support User-Generated Content? I'd like to see more coverage of OpenSIM areas."

I don't use OpenSIM presently, and I still agree with this. :)

Mostly because, with more information, maybe I would start. Or at least be informed of 'the other side' or things.

But the same can be said of Blue Mars (if it still has news) and the like.

Essentially - user generated 3D MULTI-USER worlds (ie: no more skyrim ;) ).

[Pussycat Catnap]

"You have to group up and allot a good 2 to 3 uninterrupted hours to work your way through it. That is hard to do. I like to be able to come in for 30 to 60 minutes, and then go do other things."

One of the great benefits of Second Life is that unless I'm a live musicians or similar; I can go AFK in the middle of things and few people will care. Nobody's prim is going to die, nobody is going to have to redo the last 7 hours of shopping (well, we do that anyway. :) ) because I failed to click on the chair sit in time.

And there's no task to rez 37 prims in 32 sims at specific coords, everyday, in exactly the same way...

I go AFK all the time in SL. I've done it in mid conversation. People have done it to me.

Nobody cares.

MMOs don't come with a pause button.

That said the failure of many competing MMOs has been for two reasons:
1. Too much focus on PvP. Look at every failed MMO since Conan and Warhammer - they all launched promising a focus on PvP. They often had it but not in the way people wanted, and at the cost of PvE.

2. Lack of PvE group content. With an overfocus on PvP, many of them ended up looking like subscription based '3rd person shooter games' (as in over the shoulder or above rather than mouselook). PvE group content, despite the above concerns, it what holds an MMO together. Not enough of it at launch, and you're dead in the water... You'll never recover from the stigma of 'lacks group content' even if you patch it in within the first month.

WoW on the other hand, proves that you can launch without even having working PvP, and become a smashing success even if you take "way too long" to patch it in (I think I read that it took them almost a year to a year and a half to add battlegrounds).

[Pussycat Catnap]

"Oh, and it does work on a Mac under Boot Camp, which is how I play it."

Oh I know that. But buying a copy of Windows is not cheap...

Windows by itself can cost more than buying an actual PC with it pre-installed...

[Ciaran Laval]

It's pretty impressive in terms of how they use the storyline and how it can take different turns on your dialogue choices but how much long term appeal that has is a different matter, but maybe subscription based MMO's will look at shorter lifespans from this point forth.

[Pussycat Catnap]

"but maybe subscription based MMO's will look at shorter lifespans from this point forth."

I'm not sure they can afford to given the development costs. It cost them $600 million to make. Now they have to pay for bandwidth, and maybe pay to get WoW's servers throttled so they can look like they have better bandwidth ( :) ), and pay labor on customer support and tech support and marketing, and so on...

The darn thing probably costs tens of millions per month to keep running.

If it dies shortly, somebody's going to lose a lot of money and a few people might end up buying cement shoes...

But if it does well, it could result in a big influx of cash to not only MMOs, but also virtual worlds and other 'high complexity' online platforms.

[Emperor Norton]

Pussycat Catnap @ "P. Look at every failed MMO since Conan and Warhammer - they all launched promising a focus on PvP. They often had it but not in the way people wanted, and at the cost of PvE."

Conan is wierd that way. They have an allegedly good PvP system stuck on top of this huge PVE thing. But it's real down fall was all the bugs at the launch and the daily patching.

Playing Conan does make you appreciative of on how reliable LL has made SL.

[Winter Seale]

If something newsworthy happens with SWTOR then, by all means cover it. Still, I'm not sure I care particularly about consciously focusing on it.

I do play it, and it is my go-to-game when I want to actually play a game, and not just socialize. It'd be more to me, if it wasn't too slow for my sweetie's machine. She can run SL just fine, and WoW just fine, but SWTOR, no, not at all.