SWTOR rumored to be the most expensive piece of entertainment ever made.

[-Slacker-]

http://www.vg247.com/2012/01/17/analyst-ea-has-invested-close-to-500-million-in-swtor/

Cowen & Co analyst Doug Creutz has estimated that EA has invested close to half a billion dollars in Star Wars: The Old Republic. Speaking with MarketWatch, Creutz said he believes EA has “minimized its risks as much as it can” on the MMO, “but it’s still a risky bet” and how well the investment pays off will rely on “how Star Wars performs.” Last year, Wedbush Securities analyst Michael Pachter estimated that in the end, EA would have invested $80 million in the game. SWTOR was released on December 20 and shortly thereafter, EA announced that 1 million users had signed up, garnering over 60 million hours of in-game play time.

Probably not going to ever play it myself because lol mmorpgers and whatnot, though I can't help but smile at any overwhelmingly positive piece of news about PC gaming, like ridiculous amounts of money being invested into it.

In before the topic has already been discussed to death and this is the 455.754th repost...

 

[KeithTalent]

Cheaper than a Hollywood movie.

KT

 

[maniacalpha1-1]

Well, if they spent $500,000,000; and 1,000,000 are already signed up, then that's 50 million recouped already even if we assume conservatively that everyone has bought the standard version at $50 each(whereas in fact the standard version is $59.99 and many people actually bought digital deluxe and collector's edition).

And they will undoubtedly, in a few months when lots of people have level 50 characters with significant gear accumulated, roll out some money grabs like $25 for server transfers(where people would rather just cough up $25 than reroll and regear). That's just a guess, I haven't actually heard anything official, but if other MMOs can rape you for transfer fees, why wouldn't TOR?

 

[BladeVenom]

So this is going to put EA out of business if it fails?

 

[BallaTheFeared]

EA is worth like $5.5 billion...

 

[-Slacker-]

There are already almost 2 million subscribers, and if the sale trend continues a la wow, or anywhere near that, they are going to get the money back several fold over in a few years.

 

[Ns1]

Cheaper than a Hollywood movie.

KT

500MM is a top tier movie. 250mm production cost + 250mm distribution

Were talking more expensive than dark knight here!

 

[Kalmah]

What surprises me is that so much money has been put into it but I have yet to see anything in an advertisement that has compelled me to check it out. Something that has had this much money dumped into it should have tv commercials or youtube commercials etc...

With an MMO I need something with more dimensions than leveling up and pvp. Take Eve online for instance, scamming, stealing and completely being a douche is part of the game. That's a dimension I havn't seen in other games and I like it. (I'm not the scammy type but just knowing that I'm not in a controlled matrix with invisible boundries in all aspects of the game interests me)

But then again, maybe that is part of the game? They havn't spent any of that money in a way that puts advertisments in my face to compel me enough to find out.

 

[Dankk]

Cheaper than a Hollywood movie.

KT

Point me to a movie that cost over $500 million to make?

(I would use Wikipedia, but you know... SOPA blackout and all)

 

[RavenSEAL]

Only 500M?

 

[-Slacker-]

at LessThanDan:

To my knowledge, the most expensive motion picture ever made was Avatar, at a production budget of over 300 million dollars. Maybe he was talking about total spending, like production cost + advertisement + distribution, but even a MMORPG would have to have this type of extra spending, albeit probably not as high. At any rate, this is just a rumor, so it's quite possible for the game to have cost a lot less than 500 million ... but at the rate production costs have been skyrocketing for video games, I wouldn't be surprised if it really did cost that much...

 

[KeithTalent]

500MM is a top tier movie. 250mm production cost + 250mm distribution

Were talking more expensive than dark knight here!

Sorry, could not read the whole article as it's blocked here. Thought it was only saying 80 million.

So yeah, Dark Knight, Avatar are really the only ones I can think of. Pretty sure Avatar cost over a billion once all was counted.

KT

 

[drebo]

at LessThanDan:

To my knowledge, the most expensive motion picture ever made was Avatar, at a production budget of over 300 million dollars. Maybe he was talking about total spending, like production cost + advertisement + distribution, but even a MMORPG would have to have this type of extra spending, albeit probably not as high. At any rate, this is just a rumor, so it's quite possible for the game to have cost a lot less than 500 million ... but at the rate production costs have been skyrocketing for video games, I wouldn't be surprised if it really did cost that much...

Wrong, Tangled was the most expensive movie ever produced.

I'd point to the wikipedia article, but our government sucks, so I can't.

 

[KeithTalent]

Wrong, Tangled was the most expensive movie ever produced.

I'd point to the wikipedia article, but our government sucks, so I can't.

Wow, just looked it up and Tangled was crazy expensive.

I think taking everything into consideration, there are more and more movies closing in on that cost. Of course Ns1 can speak to this better than I can.

KT

 

[TheUnk]

For all the voice acting that everyone turned on dialog text to move along faster and even proceed to smash the space bar through on all the "my cat is stuck up a tree, plz hlp" side-quests.

 

[Genx87]

Be interesting to see if it has any staying power. 1-2 million users out of the gate sounds great but we have seen many of these MMORPGs start off this way to fade quickly.

 

[Kalmah]

For all the voice acting that everyone turned on dialog text to move along faster and even proceed to smash the space bar through on all the "my cat is stuck up a tree, plz hlp" side-quests.

What?

 

[maniacalpha1-1]

Point me to a movie that cost over $500 million to make?

(I would use Wikipedia, but you know... SOPA blackout and all)

http://webcache.googleusercontent.c...ost_expensive_films+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us

Google cache!

 

[Ns1]

Wow, just looked it up and Tangled was crazy expensive.

I think taking everything into consideration, there are more and more movies closing in on that cost. Of course Ns1 can speak to this better than I can.

KT

Holy shit wiki says pirates 3 cost 300mm to make, tangled 260mm to make

Doesn't say shit about distribution but yeah another 150-250 on top? Christ.


These days studio reps shit bricks at >200mm (ex: the lone ranger, dark tower)

 

[crownjules]

Be interesting to see if it has any staying power. 1-2 million users out of the gate sounds great but we have seen many of these MMORPGs start off this way to fade quickly.

My exact thoughts. If I were an investor, there is no way you could convince me that $500B into an MMO is a wise investment. Even with one of the biggest franchises backing you up, the product that's been sold and delivered is not much different from games rolled out 7 years ago. An avid fan of SW might stay interested a bit longer. Most everyone else will get bored because it's the SSDD as everything else, just dressed up different.

 

[Lonyo]

So wait, the AVERAGE developer on a game gets paid $100k?

Nothing indicates that on any websites.
$80k maybe, which reduces costs significantly to $64m.

Also, 1million units sold at $60/ea doesn't equal $60m for EA. More like $20m or so at best I would expect.

 

[maniacalpha1-1]

So wait, the AVERAGE developer on a game gets paid $100k?

Nothing indicates that on any websites.
$80k maybe, which reduces costs significantly to $64m.

Also, 1million units sold at $60/ea doesn't equal $60m for EA. More like $20m or so at best I would expect.

You're right, but it depends on whether the costs that come out of each $60 are counted in the 500 mil.

 

[KeithTalent]

Holy shit wiki says pirates 3 cost 300mm to make, tangled 260mm to make

Doesn't say shit about distribution but yeah another 150-250 on top? Christ.


These days studio reps shit bricks at >200mm (ex: the lone ranger, dark tower)

Heh, so I was not all that far off with my original post.

I remember people being aghast when Waterwold was going over 100mm in budget. Times sure have changed.

KT

 

[maniacalpha1-1]

Holy shit wiki says pirates 3 cost 300mm to make, tangled 260mm to make

Doesn't say shit about distribution but yeah another 150-250 on top? Christ.


These days studio reps shit bricks at >200mm (ex: the lone ranger, dark tower)

Dark Tower...the one movie I actually want, the one movie I might actually go to the theater to see instead of waiting for Netflix, and they're having trouble justifying the cost.

Last I heard HBO picked up the series portion and Ron Howard was confident someone else would pick up the movie portion, but since then there have been some slightly bad omens, such as Dark Tower being removed from Javier Bardem's wikipedia...

 

[Lonyo]

You're right, but it depends on whether the costs that come out of each $60 are counted in the 500 mil.

There's no indication of where the $500m number comes from in any way.
To be honest, it seems like some random analyst pulled a large number out of his ass to get some publicity.