Old Republic will be the greatest failure in MMO or EA history

[Bateluer]

http://www.computerandvideogames.com/article.php?id=269533

Strong words. Some of it makes a lot of sense, given past games from EA and Lucas. 300 million dollars in development costs though, thats a doozy. Could TOR finally be the shoals that sink the EA boat? Nah, they'll just change the labeling on EA Sportss 2011 to 2012, slap a 75 dollar price tag on it, and people will line up around the block to buy it.

Star Wars: The Old Republic is destined to be a massive failure, claims an alleged, anonymous employee of Bioware Mythic.

Blogging as 'EA Louse' and criticising the "culture of fear" at Mythic, the poster claims that The Old Republic's budget has topped $300 million.

Despite the massive spend, the supposed insider suggests that, aside from the sound work, "the rest of the game is a joke", leaving EA and George Lucas in a state of panic.

EA Louse wrote: "And Bioware? Don't make me laugh. They've spent more money making the Old Republic than James Cameron spent on Avatar. Shit you not. More than $300 million! Can you believe that?

"And you know what they're most proud of? This is the kicker. They are most proud of the sound. No seriously. Something like a 20Gig installation, and most of it is voiceover work. That's the best they have.

"The rest of the game is a joke. EA knows it and so does George Lucas, they're panicking, and so most of Mythic has already been cannibalized to work in Austin on it because they can't keep pushing back launch.

"Old Republic will be one of the greatest failures in the history of MMOs from EA. Probably at the level of the Sims Online. We all know it too."

Ouch. EA's already called the Star Wars MMO its "most expensive game ever", but the $300m number - if true - would astound us.

 

[CurseTheSky]

Oh, that's not good. Heads will roll.

 

[DaveSimmons]

This could just be a bitter ex-employee.

"And you know what they're most proud of? This is the kicker. They are most proud of the sound. No seriously. Something like a 20Gig installation, and most of it is voiceover work. That's the best they have.

Since I'm most interested in this for the pseudo-single-player RPG content, having good voice acting is a positive thing for me. This person dismissing it as "the sound" makes me a little doubtful of "her" blog post.

 

[shortylickens]

Further proof EA is the anti-Midas.

Also good evidence PC gaming has been headed in the wrong direction for so long that its neck deep in shit.
Maybe my dream will come true. The whole system will burn down and a glorious Phoenix will rise from the ashes.

Nope. Blizzard is too successful for all of PC gaming to die.

 

[CVSiN]

Sounds like someone got fired and has sour apples to me..

I dont think Bioware is going to put out Junk.. I really dont.

but I dont trust Myhtic at all.. warhammer sucked... and DOAC was meh too.

 

[AyashiKaibutsu]

It'd be par for course for MMOs so wouldn't surprise me. Especially with EA being the publisher, releasing when a game needs atleast another year of development has been the death of many an MMO.

 

[Russwinters]

Anyone who says DAOC was a bad game I just can't take seriously. Sorry.


Warhammer on the otherhand was a major failure, and everyone who was in alpha and beta (myself included) knew this.

While I am sure there is a certain amount of bitterness involved in being laid off; I believe this person speaks many truths, and is shedding light on the crap that is causing PC gaming as a whole to fail.


TOR is going to suck, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure that out.



The only RPG/MMOS on the horizon that have any sort of promise are GW2, and Terra.

If those fail; then I mourn the loss of the MMO genre, hopefully it will rise from the ashes someday.

 

[Nintendesert]

Further proof? What proof? A troll/liar or a disgruntled ex-employee trying to bad mouth a company because they're butthurt over something is hardly proof of anything.

We already know this game is expensive, you can tell that from the size of the development team and the time it's been in development already. Look at the costs of other MMOs, they run into the tens of millions and the bigger ones even more.

There's little chance this game is going to fail that big for EA since they'll probably recoup all the development cost on the initial box sales.

Bioware doesn't make bad games, so judging SWTOR based on Lucas made games and EA made games is ridiculous. Look at KOTOR and Dragon Age and Mass Effect and Mass Effect 2. They have a good track record.

 

[Udgnim]

going to go with troll / disgruntled employee at the moment

EA isn't that stupid to ok a 300M budget for a game and ToR hasn't been plagued by delays so I seriously doubt the 300M figure.

 

[Schadenfroh]

Any financial releases from EA's BiowareMythic division that can shed some light on if that 300M figure is anywhere close to being accurate?

 

[CVSiN]

Anyone who says DAOC was a bad game I just can't take seriously. Sorry.


Warhammer on the otherhand was a major failure, and everyone who was in alpha and beta (myself included) knew this.

While I am sure there is a certain amount of bitterness involved in being laid off; I believe this person speaks many truths, and is shedding light on the crap that is causing PC gaming as a whole to fail.


TOR is going to suck, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure that out.



The only RPG/MMOS on the horizon that have any sort of promise are GW2, and Terra.

If those fail; then I mourn the loss of the MMO genre, hopefully it will rise from the ashes someday.

Didnt say it was a "bad" game said it was meh..
I wasnt big into RVR and more of a PVE raider. so that game was not a good fit for me.
I had more fun on the open realm server than on any of the RVR servers.

 

[darkewaffle]

Even if it does run them $300M, I still have a hard time seeing it as a flop. It's an incredibly popular, mainstream franchise coming from a renowned developer in an alive and well genre that's gained and still is gaining a lot of mainstream acceptance itself. It's not going to be WoW overnight, but neither was WoW, and with EA + Bioware behind it I sincerely doubt it's going to pull an APB on us.

 

[VulgarDisplay]

Bioware is one of 4 devlopers that I actually trust to not suck. This is just a pissed off employee talking out of his ass.

 

[rivan]

Anyone who says DAOC was a bad game I just can't take seriously. Sorry.

Then don't take me seriously, either.

I played it for a few months following launch, long enough for it to get (I felt) exceptionally grindy and long enough to discover the end game was really only about RvR.

I guess it depends on your definition of "bad". It certainly wasn't my cup of tea.

 

[Merad]

I guess it depends on how you look at it. The expectations for TOR have been built up so high that even if it's a good/decent game it'll almost certainly going to fall short of its own hype.

 

[Maximilian]

Please let EA release dead space 2 and 3 before they go under :awe:

 

[KaOTiK]

I want to like TOR but really from the vast majority of stuff I've seen and read, it just looks meh overall. I wouldn't be surprised if there was a fair amount of truth in what the person said either.

 

[RavenSEAL]

Sounds like it was written by a WoW addict...probably some BS source.

 

[arredondo]

Since I'm most interested in this for the pseudo-single-player RPG content, having good voice acting is a positive thing for me. This person dismissing it as "the sound" makes me a little doubtful of "her" blog post.

But an audio book accomplishes the same thing. This is a game. If the audio is the best thing going for it, then the game itself will be a huge disappointmment.

As for guaranteed sales because of the name, it's not guaranteed. How many titles come out with a big name attached and still fall apart? Wasn't Matrix Online supposed to set the world on fire? Lord of the Rings Online started to make more money after they dropped the monthly fees.

And the first SW MMO, while moderately successful, didn't make any records sales-wise. The name alone for SW:ToR won't be enough to carry it to financial bonanza if the core gameplayis lackluster, when you considerthe amount of money poured into it so far.

 

[Fanatical Meat]

Personally TOR seems like WOW in space, there really isn't anything exciting about it to me, hopefully I will be wrong. DAOC wasn't that good at launch. The game felt soulless compared to EQ1 I didn't feel any love in it. Towns were all the same, run speed was slow to make the map appear big, mobs all looked similar.

 

[s44]

It's a whiny bitch from Mythic who never worked a day on the project.

Credibility: none.

 

[Dorkenstein]

I hope this isn't true. I used to think Bioware could do no wrong.

 

[CottonRabbit]

Why would George Lucas panic about this? I doubt he has much interest in anything Old Republic related. Sounds like BS.

 

[GoodRevrnd]

I think you guys are really focusing on the wrong aspect of the article. Anything he says regarding SWOTOR is honestly just unqualified opinion. That said, anything who was expecting more than a watered down WoWified KOTOR set in a graphical chat room has been SERIOUSLY deluding themselves.

Anyway, like I said the real story here is the workings of EA / EA-Mythic. So, assuming what this blogger says is true and everything... probably not the best way to go out and if it were me I probably would have put a bit more effort into writing it more objective sounding so I didn't so disgruntled and out for blood. The thing is, this story sounds so absurdly plausible, and frankly, you could probably copy and paste this onto almost any failed game. And if things worked like this at Mythic after EA got their hands on it imagine how Bioware will operate. Anyone observing the differences from DA:O -> DA:O2 should see the writing on the wall.

If you need further proof of negative publisher impact on gaming read this article regarding Activision and True Crime: Hong Kong.
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/new...sion-Doesnt-Think-Female-Leads-Can-Sell-Games

 

[Russwinters]

I am not sure how having a 300m budget makes this game a "sure success".


No amount of money can help you if your decision makers are asshats with less mmo experience then my Dog.


The problem with these companies? They put people in positions to make decisions who don't have a true love for gaming, and who's gaming resume includes some classic NES games, and one of those 500 in one arcade PC discs you can pick up for $5.