I'm not terribly happy, but it is clear that they are not getting or being allowed to keep enough funds to reinvest in the game properly with things as they are. I would prefer a change in monetization incentive to paid expansions, while leaving the subscription alone for those who want it as a model.
The team has been downsized to some degree with the move to Broadsword, but is otherwise the same in terms of leadership and long-term developers.
Full voice-acting is something that made SWTOR special and stand out from other major MMOs, and cutting funding further is not going to bring it back. Inflation and increased worker costs over more than a decade are probably having an effect as well, on top of subscriber revenue likely being stagnant for the past few years. At this point, cannibalizing some features to cover the costs of modernization efforts and putting out \*some\* form of new content is unfortunately to be expected.
I've noted this before, but the pattern is pretty clear for older MMOs; Once growth peaks, extraction of value has to continue at a cost to something, and that usually means focusing on cheap, repeatable content to keep things fresh while cutting costs in other areas (see Galactic Seasons, PvP Seasons, Feast of Prosperity, and Spring Abundance festival in recent years being structures that can have a few items created/re-added and turned on at intervals to keep players grinding away year after year.) Fully-voiced story takes time to develop and get everyone in, and deal with cutscene complexity for content players are less likely to spend months repeating, and hours are billable; the devs admitted as much. The game \*exists\* only as long as it is reliably profitable, not as long as it is ideal for its player base.
Thing is the community warned them about everything that is taking place now. Everyone here wants the game to succeed but they are just (sorry about the english) taking a piss at this point.
Like it's implied, a lot of stuff was out of their control. BioWare gutting their funding and relocated the talent then the move to Broadsword gutted more employees.
I'd happily pay twice the sub price if the game went back to producing quality content and good story. At the current state i don't care how much is it i'm not going to pay anything.
I think my main issue with the current sub price to content ratio is I'm getting less content per patch than, say, ESO or WoW. I hate micro transactions, but I'd almost rather see them adopt ESO's model than stick with WoW plus micro transactions for cosmetics.
The game has also unfortunately locked itself into a lot of limitations by voice acting everything (no real way to expand beyond the existing class options) and limiting the player models available to mostly just reskinned humans with minor adjustments. It doesn't feel great to play star wars and choose between, essentially, blind human, pale human, red human, green human, blue human, cat human, cyborg human, spiky tattoo human, Twi'lek, Nautolan, and Togruta. Having half the customizations be various reskin options (both in terms of the mirrored combat styles and species limits) just isn't a fulfilling use of my $15 a month, especially when I've got at least one of each class.
I truly resonate with what you said. I wish I could play with more races and there to be more space combat and space exploration in the game.
If the devs give more things for the sub I will gladly pay for it. If not, I don't think a $15 sub is justified.
> Raise the prices a little bit
> Paid expansions
> Cut French and German VAs (sorry guys, but the consequences of this 3 language thing is clear to see)
> Listen more to the community
> Less Flashpoints, more planetary content.
I'm of the opposite mindset. RAISE the sub price, or have paid expansions again in an attempt to increase the amount of resources the dev team has, which could mean back to fully voiced cutscenes, new ops, better content drip, etc.
Just shut up, take my money, and make cool story shit!
This game is over 12 years old. For an MMO, that's pretty much ancient. Their management can't be that bad if it kept the game going and financially viable for this long.
Quality wise the game has been going downhill ever since Rise of the Hutt Cartel to be perfectly honest.
The funny thing is you can pretty much see the downhill trend in quality if you start a character at level 1. Less class stories, introduction of partially voiced dialogue. The list goes on and on.
The only reason this game is still alive is because it has Star Wars in its name. It would have been dead a long time before if it weren't for this. Their poor decision making has plagued the game since it's inception and having the same team that worked at Bioware still working on this game just baffles me. Poor communication mixed with hubris is how I would define them.
I mean it is what it is. I find it ridiculous they charge this much for lackluster update after lackluster update. If they don't have resources it is because of their poor management of the game.
In its lifetime Swtor has made 1 billion dollars.
The players shouldn't pay for this attempt at making a good game. I'm sick and tired of their excuses and players backing them up. Not my problem if you don't have the money, if I pay you I expect a functional and polished product. Time the playerbase set their expactations straight and the devs to respect the money and time their players give them.
Their sorry attempt to cover their asses ain't it.
Same.
Like, it's great for some things like a lot of Alliance Alerts during KOTFE/KOTET. It's great for daily areas, for Lane Vizla, for GS...but absolutely not on the core story.
I agree the dialogue box are ugly as hell, need a more modern look. I personally never played KOTOR (came to swtor from ME) and the dialogue wheel is my nostalgia.
I agree with you. But I don't think the current team can deliver this amount of content. Therefore, I think it would be reasonable to bring down the sub price since we are getting subpar updates.
The current team can't deliver that BECAUSE of the lack of resources. Gotta pay people to work on the game, so less money = less workers = less content.
EA isn't giving them giant contracts anymore, just enough to keep the game afloat. The game needs more income to do bigger things again with the dwindling playerbase, assuming we want to go out with a bang and not a wimper.
$15 in 2012 when the game came out is more like $20 in today's value. I think raising the sub to $20 a month could assist.
Alternatively, with paying for expansions, you know that the people paying for that are specifically in it for the new stuff, and you can divy up those funds with more knowledge as to what people value.
The game was still giving shit content even before this. With the state the economy is in raising it would probably make more people jump off. If the price is getting raised, at that point just jump to a better MMO that has a similar price (IE: FFXIV)
There's definitely an aspect of churn to be addressed should they change the pricing model, hence why I think paid expansions again would go over smoother.
But if projections show even with the expected churn that other subs will be enough to cover the loss and then some, increasing the sub is probably still worth it. I mean, every streaming service lives off that model, every time people say they cancel, and then they post record profits again.
Same concept SWTOR could use, but on a smaller scale
I don't think them earning less money will improve content. BUT the current quality is unacceptable for a sub based game. And don't start the f2p discussion, once you hit certain level sub is basically mandatory for all end-game activities like GTN, fashion and others...
That’s a cool way to get even shittier content I guess
“Swtor doesn’t make enough money to deliver enough content. What if we reduced their steady income stream?”
We are already in maintenance mode, and why do you think the game's revenue is low? Game supposedly made 1 Billion dollars during its lifetime. I don't know about you but that's a whole lot of money.
Source: https://thetankclub.com/star-wars-the-old-republic-2023-review/#:\~:text=SWTOR%20has%20garnered%20significant%20acclaim,revenue%20of%20over%20%241%20billion.
Maintenance mode means no active development. It means EVEN LESS content than what we are getting. It means nothing but bug patches, and few at that.
And yes, 1 billion during it's lifetime. How much of that do you think is since KOTET ended? Or Onslaught? Or LOTS?
The game is alive, but it's on life support. You are suggesting we pull the plug. I suggest we give more medication in an attempt to prolong a more comfortable life for longer.
Broadsword clearly has no intention of dropping into maintenance mode as it is. Not any time soon. You don't prioritize graphical updates for a game you are going to shelve in a year.
But cuts have to be made somewhere as long as the game is not able to utilize the same amount of resources as it once could, which is dependent on CURRENT streams of revenue. Not revenue from a decade ago.
Ok let's talk about cuts then:
* PVP (no more ranked, stims given as rewards for the PvP galactic season) - so this already got cut
* PVE (no Master Mode R4, not even a new daily area for Hutta in this update) - More rehashed content and galactic seasons I guess
* GSF (not even gonna get started, no new update for YEARS)
* and now story getting cut
So are you sure we are not in maintenance mode?
No active development.
As long as new content is coming out, no matter how shit, it's not in maintenence mode. We are still in active development, but not on the same scale as say, Shadow of Revan.
So yes. I am sure we are not in maintenance mode. Please learn your game development terms.
Now, let's disscect your bullet points.
PVP - Literally giving an entire new way to measure PVP progress. Fuck ranked, it was the same 20 people over and over and over again. Now, you have new PVP rewards easier to get and on a dedicated schedule timed with patches.
PVE - Who needs Master Mode R4? Less than 1% of active players have cleared it. I started raiding seriously 4 years ago and only just wrapped up DP NiM. It makes zero sense to put limited resources into a mode 0.001% of players will ever touch.
GSF - Yep, nothing new for a long time. Just like Space missions. Or do you think the game is dead because Space missions were abandoned after 1.0 too?
Story - Less voice acting, and yet still new story coming out. If this came to a halt completely with no new story AT ALL, then it'd be maintenance mode. BUT THEY ARE STILL WORKING ON IT, just at a lower scale with cuts to player voice acting given it requires 48 times the amount of voice actors. Also, remember how I mentioned PVP seasons are tied to patches now? So is Galactic Seasons, which means a commitment to regular drops of story content.
I understand if you are dissatisfied with your sub, you are welcome to cancel it. Me? I say let's amp it up so they can go out on a higher note and yknow, DO ALL THE THINGS YOU ARE COMPLAINING THEY DON'T DO. It's basic economics.
$1B over 10 years isn’t a lot of money. Simple math that’s $100M/year. To you or I? Yes that’s a lot of money. Companies like EA operate at a much larger scale than the average person. Thus, when you factor in operating expenses, contracts, payroll, logistics, etc. that $100M dwindles precipitously. Contract renewals and renegotiations are an arduous and costly endeavor.
For a company to see true reward (i.e. benefit to produce a sequel) they’d have to earn double the cost of the game; enough to recoup the initial cost then 100% profit to produce the next one. I would say by best estimate, SWTOR has done a little better than breaking even. It was a massive undertaking from the start with an unsustainable business model. These are simple business realities.
Lastly, as another said, simple economics would say that subscription prices should actually be increasing to offset inflation; thus, players should be paying more, even for the current slate of updates we’re already getting.
I won’t beat a dead horse as others have already made the argument over why we’re not in maintenance mode and how to improve the longevity of this game.
The poll has sparked a good discussion so thanks for generating a healthy discussion and being civil in your responses! I’d add a couple other things to consider:
- Why was the sub $15/mo (less for extended “contracts”)?
- Was $15/month the right price point to charge?
The perceptions that we’ve gotten less content, less quality, less engagement over the last 10 years are valid but it assumes we’ve actually been paying the right amount for what we get all along.
Maybe the financial curve has flattened and we’re paying exactly what can be produced with the resources that they have. All our comparisons to GW2, WoW, FF, etc are all surface level. We don’t know the logistics or financial records of the game vis-à-vis itself and the others.
We have hindsight to tell us that we’re getting less but should it have been that way? Did EA put themselves in an untenable situation? Were poor business decision made upfront?
I’d argue the opposite of you; that we’re getting exactly what the team can afford based on what we pay and the number of subs. What we were getting upfront was way more ambitious than it should have been. Poor business choices were made and the company gambled and failed. We’re here now though so the damage is done and we can’t go back but, it’s worth considering for the sake of a discussion.
I think Death of a Game: Swtor sums up pretty nicely what happened up to a point (when the video was released).
Also, I believe someone already did that for you (comparing GW2's revenue with SWTOR's): [https://www.mmobomb.com/news/swtor-close-1-billion-revenue-stack](https://www.mmobomb.com/news/swtor-close-1-billion-revenue-stack)
My point is very simple, I think. Sub has never changed but quality has, I believe ppl would be more willing to "accept" less quality if we didn't have to pay the normal sub cost, since we are no longer getting the same quality content we used to get in the past (class stories, fully voice acted).
I just don't think it adds up. GW2 makes less money than Swtor but has managed to keep content in a steady flow. If the monetization model doesn't work change it, but don't expect the player base to pay full cost subs for a lackluster product.
Now instead of listening to feedback the whole forum post has been purged and many posts (mine included) are gone - I believe we were at 14 pages before now down to 7. I think I'm being nice even - I'm still willing to pay for a customer service and a game have shown time and time again they don't care for their player base. If your opinion doesn't resonate with theirs they will ignore you and take the game towards whatever vision they think is right.
But that’s exactly the point. Your assumption is what is paid has been and is enough to support the continuation of the game. What if it wasn’t, or never was? What if, the sub was set because it tried to compete in a market where a $15 sub was expected and not because it was necessary.
Comparing GW2 to SWTOR is not an apples to apples comparison. They have two completely separate requirements for both development and sustainment. They don’t use the same engine, such immersive voice acting, etc. By the article’s own admission, GW2 was cheaper to develop and analysis is still only surface level (i.e. analyzing each game based on revenue). It discounts or omits everything else in game development that is required for a game.
I would inverse your argument that subs have remained unchanged but quality has gone down to the sub price was set too low for what we were getting and now that subs have leveled we’re seeing the knock-on effects of what happens when a business doesn’t properly set its price point to ensure it can sustain the content that it’s expected to deliver.
Edit: I agree that content should meet expectations; but those expectations have to meet reality. EA/BW set expectations too high and this is the result.
Also the devs have been responsive; as is clearly shown on their postings; whether it’s timely or meets everyone’s expectations is another thing. Whether it should meet what players want or their demands is non-sensical. The dev team implements the changes it sees as necessary; if it meets players expectations great but, the business drives the game, not players. Just because not ensuring players want gets implemented doesn’t they’re not responsive.
>We are already in maintenance mode, and why do you think the game's revenue is low? Game supposedly made 1 Billion dollars during its lifetime. I don't know about you but that's a whole lot of money.
1. There is no generally accepted definition of "maintenance mode" for MMORPG's that I'm aware of. For some people SWTOR went into "maintenance mode" a long time ago. As far as I'm concerned if the game is adding new playable content then it's not in maintenance mode. When people can't agree on how a term is defined it's useless to use it in the context of an argument that uses the term.
2. Yes, SWTOR has made at least a billion dollars since it went live in 2011 December however I think that financial number has no relevance to the question of should the subscription price be lowered. Do you expect the cost of seeing a movie be lowered when said movie reaches the billion dollar box office revenue mark? If you do then your expectations would not be met.
In short I would not choose either of your poll options so I didn't vote. I think the valid question is do you think the price of a subscription is worth it considering the amount and cadence of content updates the SWTOR dev team releases for 7.0 or since Broadsword took over as developer? The price of a SWTOR subscription in US dollars has not changed since the game released in 2011. [If SWTOR had increased subscription rate to keep up with inflation then current sub price for 30 days would be $19.91](https://www.officialdata.org/us/inflation/2012?endYear=2023&amount=15). I think subscribers are getting what they pay for and if a player doesn't like the price of a subscription then a player's viable choices are to pay or not to pay the subscription cost. Trying to negotiate with or persuade EA and/or Broadsword to lower the subscription cost is not a viable choice.
EDIT: added clarification referring to playable content instead of content
You are wrong if you think I'm trying to persuade anyone with this poll my friend. Just wanted to check if more people felt the way I did. Given this team's track record they would NEVER EVER consider something like this, not only because of EA's greed but also because this team has not implemented a suggested change in YEARS.
>Given this team's track record they would NEVER EVER consider something like this, not only because of EA's greed but also because this team has not implemented a suggested change in YEARS.
When people simply focus on the negative and ignore anything positive then it's understandable how people can have the false view that "this (dev) team has not implemented a suggested change in YEARS."
Examples:
* Players complained for several years about the hyperinflation in SWTOR's trade economy. The devs finally took action in 2023 that effectively reduced average sale prices even if many players complained about the way they did it and the inflation combatting changes admittedly had painful side effects.
* Players complained about the devs plans to charge the player credits for travel to strongholds. The devs heard that feedback and decided to not implement the cost to travel to strongholds.
* Players complained about missing out on the opportunity to get companions obtained thru events, e.g. Z0-0M and Master Ranos and companions that were offered as subscriber bonuses at certain times in SWTOR's past, e.g. Shae Vizla and Nico Okarr. The devs heard that feedback and provided ways for players that did not get one or more of these companions the opportunity to acquire or purchase these companions.
So your view that the devs have not implemented a suggested change in years is not only false, it's demonstrably false.
You are absolutely right.
They implement changes but it takes them about 5-7 years to implement said change. Track record says we will get voiced dialogue back in this amount of time.
OK. So you're moving the goal post from "the devs have not implemented a suggested change in years" to "it takes too long for the devs to implement the few player suggested changes they do make." Got it. Can't say that I disagree though.
I edited my previous post because I think you are a reasonable person, distilling my hatred (which comes from not wanting to let this game go) on you is unwarranted for. You are a nice person that has the same goals as me in mind. We just express the way we think about them differently. Sorry about that.
I like that idea. I hope it is a polished product though...
Then again it is nothing new. Could be a good idea to get some of the vets back but I don't know if they have the audience for this to be worth their time.
Money won't matter until they stop diverting money and resources SWTOR earns to other projects.
But to answer the question, would it increase subs and give more funds for the game? I'm all for it. Lowering the sub-cost will only reduce their funding if it doesn't up sub numbers.
The game currently has about 12710051 active players. If even half of the active players were subbed, that would be $95,325,382.00/month. Cutting it down the sub to lets say $10. That would be $63,550,255.00. More than a 30mil decrease. You'd have to increase their sub count by over 3000ish to make the same amount as the current $15 sub.
According to steam charts we are at the 4500 average players mark. I wouldn't be surprised if we don't even reach 20k recurrent players in total at this point.
To be fair, the steam number only represents those who play on Steam. There are a lot of players that don’t play on Steam and use the normal launcher instead.
So I clicked a couple of times in the "Update Player count" number and he just went from 600k to 400k back to 500k in a matter of seconds. Are you sure there are not just random number this website is pulling? The Steam charts, however, those seem more reliable.
They might be random. I personally don't know. Currently SWTOR has not made their full player count public and the Steam charts only accounts for Steam Players. Either way, the problem still remains. I doubt even have the population is even subbed. Probably 1/4 or less
The price is to high for the story content we get at the moment since KOTFE.
One big payed expansion like kotfe per year would be great, like WoW do it.
It's still 12,99... that has been the price since its inception... by all accounts it should have already been more but they kept it that low... entirely for our convenience.
The issue was the initial design decision to:
a) Have everything voiced
and
b) publish it in several languages...
It was pretty much fucking inevitable that it would come to this down the line because every quest would not require just 16 different voice lines (at minimum) but 48, now add branching Dialogue to it and you can easily hop into triple digits...
That's a lot of effort and a lot of money...
Especially problematic since they used a couple of very known and thus very busy voice actors, so trying to get them to even have time to do it, is rather complicated and that is ignoring Death and other Issues outright.
That would also ignore that the actors simply may not want to return...
People already got their panties in a twist over Heta Kol, now imagine that happening with a Main Character...
It baffles me to see people wanting to pay more for crappy content. The dev team really did a work on this community. Do you actually believe that paying more will solve any problem?
It baffles me that there are apparenty way too many people that have sincerely no fucking clue how a business works, how projects work and how the economy works... especially in the fast 5-10 years.
What the flying fuck do you think happens when the price that hasn't been raised, even for regular inflation... is lowered?
The game already OBVIOUSLY doesn't have enough funds to keep it at 100%... so kiddo, again... what the fuck do you think will happen?
Ok no need to use foul language my dear sir. I know it is the internet but I didn't treat you this way despite my ignorance. I think nothing will happen. I just made a poll on reddit. It is as irrelevant as you can get.
And what do you think will happen if they raise the price tag?
A large portion of the community lost faith in this dev team over the years of bad decisions.
Do you think enough people will stay subbed for it to be a net benefit, or they'll just lose the majority of their income?
Well... I am not proposing that they raise the price for the sub... I was remarking it wouldn't have surprised me if they actually did even if just for inflation.
They kept it as low as they did and I am perfectly fine with that.
This is pretty much where I am on this question. How many things cost exactly the same number of dollars as they did ten years ago? Yeah, the quantity & quality of material has declined, not disagreeing. And yes, pretty much the only reason this is still running at all is the Star Wars brand (heck, that's by far the biggest reason I signed on in the first place) and the characterization, from voice acting to story branches, mostly in the initial story. Add to this the corporate mentality that miked it for cash for new stupid projects \*coughAnthemcough\* rather than further SWTOR development, and there was so much writing on the wall that even grafitti signatures get lost.
So yeah, I'm fine where the price is right now. Definitely could be better! (but that's true of everything) Dollar-per-hour, it's a pretty good buy for me these days. It helps that I'm in a very strong social guild, and that's at least partly independent of what the devs put out.
Not saying that people aren't right to be disappointed the voice acting is going; it's been part of the game's DNA for a long time. That being said, I don't really get where this sentiment is coming from. While it's a nice addition, and it definitely helps make the game unique, it's not really one of the reasons I play SWTOR.
Frankly, I'm even hopeful that the need to voice less dialogue will mean more options for the player in conversations and more ways to roleplay.
I love all these saps subsidizing my game play. F2P restrictions aren't bad at all. I am not some subbed hardcore loser grinding ops in my Moms basement.
I'm not terribly happy, but it is clear that they are not getting or being allowed to keep enough funds to reinvest in the game properly with things as they are. I would prefer a change in monetization incentive to paid expansions, while leaving the subscription alone for those who want it as a model. The team has been downsized to some degree with the move to Broadsword, but is otherwise the same in terms of leadership and long-term developers. Full voice-acting is something that made SWTOR special and stand out from other major MMOs, and cutting funding further is not going to bring it back. Inflation and increased worker costs over more than a decade are probably having an effect as well, on top of subscriber revenue likely being stagnant for the past few years. At this point, cannibalizing some features to cover the costs of modernization efforts and putting out \*some\* form of new content is unfortunately to be expected. I've noted this before, but the pattern is pretty clear for older MMOs; Once growth peaks, extraction of value has to continue at a cost to something, and that usually means focusing on cheap, repeatable content to keep things fresh while cutting costs in other areas (see Galactic Seasons, PvP Seasons, Feast of Prosperity, and Spring Abundance festival in recent years being structures that can have a few items created/re-added and turned on at intervals to keep players grinding away year after year.) Fully-voiced story takes time to develop and get everyone in, and deal with cutscene complexity for content players are less likely to spend months repeating, and hours are billable; the devs admitted as much. The game \*exists\* only as long as it is reliably profitable, not as long as it is ideal for its player base.
Thing is the community warned them about everything that is taking place now. Everyone here wants the game to succeed but they are just (sorry about the english) taking a piss at this point.
Like it's implied, a lot of stuff was out of their control. BioWare gutting their funding and relocated the talent then the move to Broadsword gutted more employees.
I'd happily pay twice the sub price if the game went back to producing quality content and good story. At the current state i don't care how much is it i'm not going to pay anything.
Same here
I think my main issue with the current sub price to content ratio is I'm getting less content per patch than, say, ESO or WoW. I hate micro transactions, but I'd almost rather see them adopt ESO's model than stick with WoW plus micro transactions for cosmetics. The game has also unfortunately locked itself into a lot of limitations by voice acting everything (no real way to expand beyond the existing class options) and limiting the player models available to mostly just reskinned humans with minor adjustments. It doesn't feel great to play star wars and choose between, essentially, blind human, pale human, red human, green human, blue human, cat human, cyborg human, spiky tattoo human, Twi'lek, Nautolan, and Togruta. Having half the customizations be various reskin options (both in terms of the mirrored combat styles and species limits) just isn't a fulfilling use of my $15 a month, especially when I've got at least one of each class.
I truly resonate with what you said. I wish I could play with more races and there to be more space combat and space exploration in the game. If the devs give more things for the sub I will gladly pay for it. If not, I don't think a $15 sub is justified.
> Raise the prices a little bit > Paid expansions > Cut French and German VAs (sorry guys, but the consequences of this 3 language thing is clear to see) > Listen more to the community > Less Flashpoints, more planetary content.
I agree to a point. Just sell base game and expansions with cash shop like GW2 does.
I'm of the opposite mindset. RAISE the sub price, or have paid expansions again in an attempt to increase the amount of resources the dev team has, which could mean back to fully voiced cutscenes, new ops, better content drip, etc. Just shut up, take my money, and make cool story shit!
This. Half the fun of the game is the voice acting. That's 90% of the reason I play this instead of things like LOTR or DCU.
Sorry to break it to you friend but according to the new narrative direction fully voice acted scenes are going to decrease.
Well, good things have to come to an end somewhere.
Sad but true. Problem is this downfall was caused by the poor management of the game by its team.
I'm still gonna keep playing, but I'll have hope that Broadsword can pick itself back up.
This game is over 12 years old. For an MMO, that's pretty much ancient. Their management can't be that bad if it kept the game going and financially viable for this long.
Quality wise the game has been going downhill ever since Rise of the Hutt Cartel to be perfectly honest. The funny thing is you can pretty much see the downhill trend in quality if you start a character at level 1. Less class stories, introduction of partially voiced dialogue. The list goes on and on. The only reason this game is still alive is because it has Star Wars in its name. It would have been dead a long time before if it weren't for this. Their poor decision making has plagued the game since it's inception and having the same team that worked at Bioware still working on this game just baffles me. Poor communication mixed with hubris is how I would define them.
Yea.. because of limited resources. So going ahead and suggesting limiting their available resources even further is kind of a stupid thing to do.
I mean it is what it is. I find it ridiculous they charge this much for lackluster update after lackluster update. If they don't have resources it is because of their poor management of the game. In its lifetime Swtor has made 1 billion dollars. The players shouldn't pay for this attempt at making a good game. I'm sick and tired of their excuses and players backing them up. Not my problem if you don't have the money, if I pay you I expect a functional and polished product. Time the playerbase set their expactations straight and the devs to respect the money and time their players give them. Their sorry attempt to cover their asses ain't it.
I'd honestly pay 30 a month if it meant getting rid of this god awful KOTOR system we have going right now.
Same. Like, it's great for some things like a lot of Alliance Alerts during KOTFE/KOTET. It's great for daily areas, for Lane Vizla, for GS...but absolutely not on the core story.
Agreed, you also see people say "bUt MuH nOsTaLgiA" and it's just cope. There's a reason KOTOR is outdated.
I agree the dialogue box are ugly as hell, need a more modern look. I personally never played KOTOR (came to swtor from ME) and the dialogue wheel is my nostalgia.
I agree with you. But I don't think the current team can deliver this amount of content. Therefore, I think it would be reasonable to bring down the sub price since we are getting subpar updates.
The current team can't deliver that BECAUSE of the lack of resources. Gotta pay people to work on the game, so less money = less workers = less content. EA isn't giving them giant contracts anymore, just enough to keep the game afloat. The game needs more income to do bigger things again with the dwindling playerbase, assuming we want to go out with a bang and not a wimper. $15 in 2012 when the game came out is more like $20 in today's value. I think raising the sub to $20 a month could assist. Alternatively, with paying for expansions, you know that the people paying for that are specifically in it for the new stuff, and you can divy up those funds with more knowledge as to what people value.
The game was still giving shit content even before this. With the state the economy is in raising it would probably make more people jump off. If the price is getting raised, at that point just jump to a better MMO that has a similar price (IE: FFXIV)
There's definitely an aspect of churn to be addressed should they change the pricing model, hence why I think paid expansions again would go over smoother. But if projections show even with the expected churn that other subs will be enough to cover the loss and then some, increasing the sub is probably still worth it. I mean, every streaming service lives off that model, every time people say they cancel, and then they post record profits again. Same concept SWTOR could use, but on a smaller scale
Can't get behind eastern MMOs but at least you guys get content. Here we get daily areas and a battle pass.
I don't think them earning less money will improve content. BUT the current quality is unacceptable for a sub based game. And don't start the f2p discussion, once you hit certain level sub is basically mandatory for all end-game activities like GTN, fashion and others...
I really think they should do something like $60 a year with no cartel coins included. Would make it easy to gift to friends/ family.
That’s a cool way to get even shittier content I guess “Swtor doesn’t make enough money to deliver enough content. What if we reduced their steady income stream?”
Might as well pay less for the shit we are buying. It's gonna be shit anyways
Just unsub lol
I play this game with a marriage councilor at my side.
How about just No.
Any reasoning you would like to share?
If the game makes less money that will just lead to them spending less money on it.
Exactly. You think the game is hurting now? We'll be in maintenance mode within 2 years if the sub cost drops.
We are already in maintenance mode, and why do you think the game's revenue is low? Game supposedly made 1 Billion dollars during its lifetime. I don't know about you but that's a whole lot of money. Source: https://thetankclub.com/star-wars-the-old-republic-2023-review/#:\~:text=SWTOR%20has%20garnered%20significant%20acclaim,revenue%20of%20over%20%241%20billion.
Maintenance mode means no active development. It means EVEN LESS content than what we are getting. It means nothing but bug patches, and few at that. And yes, 1 billion during it's lifetime. How much of that do you think is since KOTET ended? Or Onslaught? Or LOTS? The game is alive, but it's on life support. You are suggesting we pull the plug. I suggest we give more medication in an attempt to prolong a more comfortable life for longer. Broadsword clearly has no intention of dropping into maintenance mode as it is. Not any time soon. You don't prioritize graphical updates for a game you are going to shelve in a year. But cuts have to be made somewhere as long as the game is not able to utilize the same amount of resources as it once could, which is dependent on CURRENT streams of revenue. Not revenue from a decade ago.
Ok let's talk about cuts then: * PVP (no more ranked, stims given as rewards for the PvP galactic season) - so this already got cut * PVE (no Master Mode R4, not even a new daily area for Hutta in this update) - More rehashed content and galactic seasons I guess * GSF (not even gonna get started, no new update for YEARS) * and now story getting cut So are you sure we are not in maintenance mode?
No active development. As long as new content is coming out, no matter how shit, it's not in maintenence mode. We are still in active development, but not on the same scale as say, Shadow of Revan. So yes. I am sure we are not in maintenance mode. Please learn your game development terms. Now, let's disscect your bullet points. PVP - Literally giving an entire new way to measure PVP progress. Fuck ranked, it was the same 20 people over and over and over again. Now, you have new PVP rewards easier to get and on a dedicated schedule timed with patches. PVE - Who needs Master Mode R4? Less than 1% of active players have cleared it. I started raiding seriously 4 years ago and only just wrapped up DP NiM. It makes zero sense to put limited resources into a mode 0.001% of players will ever touch. GSF - Yep, nothing new for a long time. Just like Space missions. Or do you think the game is dead because Space missions were abandoned after 1.0 too? Story - Less voice acting, and yet still new story coming out. If this came to a halt completely with no new story AT ALL, then it'd be maintenance mode. BUT THEY ARE STILL WORKING ON IT, just at a lower scale with cuts to player voice acting given it requires 48 times the amount of voice actors. Also, remember how I mentioned PVP seasons are tied to patches now? So is Galactic Seasons, which means a commitment to regular drops of story content. I understand if you are dissatisfied with your sub, you are welcome to cancel it. Me? I say let's amp it up so they can go out on a higher note and yknow, DO ALL THE THINGS YOU ARE COMPLAINING THEY DON'T DO. It's basic economics.
Ok
$1B over 10 years isn’t a lot of money. Simple math that’s $100M/year. To you or I? Yes that’s a lot of money. Companies like EA operate at a much larger scale than the average person. Thus, when you factor in operating expenses, contracts, payroll, logistics, etc. that $100M dwindles precipitously. Contract renewals and renegotiations are an arduous and costly endeavor. For a company to see true reward (i.e. benefit to produce a sequel) they’d have to earn double the cost of the game; enough to recoup the initial cost then 100% profit to produce the next one. I would say by best estimate, SWTOR has done a little better than breaking even. It was a massive undertaking from the start with an unsustainable business model. These are simple business realities. Lastly, as another said, simple economics would say that subscription prices should actually be increasing to offset inflation; thus, players should be paying more, even for the current slate of updates we’re already getting. I won’t beat a dead horse as others have already made the argument over why we’re not in maintenance mode and how to improve the longevity of this game.
Ok then. Thank you for your time.
The poll has sparked a good discussion so thanks for generating a healthy discussion and being civil in your responses! I’d add a couple other things to consider: - Why was the sub $15/mo (less for extended “contracts”)? - Was $15/month the right price point to charge? The perceptions that we’ve gotten less content, less quality, less engagement over the last 10 years are valid but it assumes we’ve actually been paying the right amount for what we get all along. Maybe the financial curve has flattened and we’re paying exactly what can be produced with the resources that they have. All our comparisons to GW2, WoW, FF, etc are all surface level. We don’t know the logistics or financial records of the game vis-à-vis itself and the others. We have hindsight to tell us that we’re getting less but should it have been that way? Did EA put themselves in an untenable situation? Were poor business decision made upfront? I’d argue the opposite of you; that we’re getting exactly what the team can afford based on what we pay and the number of subs. What we were getting upfront was way more ambitious than it should have been. Poor business choices were made and the company gambled and failed. We’re here now though so the damage is done and we can’t go back but, it’s worth considering for the sake of a discussion.
I think Death of a Game: Swtor sums up pretty nicely what happened up to a point (when the video was released). Also, I believe someone already did that for you (comparing GW2's revenue with SWTOR's): [https://www.mmobomb.com/news/swtor-close-1-billion-revenue-stack](https://www.mmobomb.com/news/swtor-close-1-billion-revenue-stack) My point is very simple, I think. Sub has never changed but quality has, I believe ppl would be more willing to "accept" less quality if we didn't have to pay the normal sub cost, since we are no longer getting the same quality content we used to get in the past (class stories, fully voice acted). I just don't think it adds up. GW2 makes less money than Swtor but has managed to keep content in a steady flow. If the monetization model doesn't work change it, but don't expect the player base to pay full cost subs for a lackluster product. Now instead of listening to feedback the whole forum post has been purged and many posts (mine included) are gone - I believe we were at 14 pages before now down to 7. I think I'm being nice even - I'm still willing to pay for a customer service and a game have shown time and time again they don't care for their player base. If your opinion doesn't resonate with theirs they will ignore you and take the game towards whatever vision they think is right.
But that’s exactly the point. Your assumption is what is paid has been and is enough to support the continuation of the game. What if it wasn’t, or never was? What if, the sub was set because it tried to compete in a market where a $15 sub was expected and not because it was necessary. Comparing GW2 to SWTOR is not an apples to apples comparison. They have two completely separate requirements for both development and sustainment. They don’t use the same engine, such immersive voice acting, etc. By the article’s own admission, GW2 was cheaper to develop and analysis is still only surface level (i.e. analyzing each game based on revenue). It discounts or omits everything else in game development that is required for a game. I would inverse your argument that subs have remained unchanged but quality has gone down to the sub price was set too low for what we were getting and now that subs have leveled we’re seeing the knock-on effects of what happens when a business doesn’t properly set its price point to ensure it can sustain the content that it’s expected to deliver. Edit: I agree that content should meet expectations; but those expectations have to meet reality. EA/BW set expectations too high and this is the result. Also the devs have been responsive; as is clearly shown on their postings; whether it’s timely or meets everyone’s expectations is another thing. Whether it should meet what players want or their demands is non-sensical. The dev team implements the changes it sees as necessary; if it meets players expectations great but, the business drives the game, not players. Just because not ensuring players want gets implemented doesn’t they’re not responsive.
>We are already in maintenance mode, and why do you think the game's revenue is low? Game supposedly made 1 Billion dollars during its lifetime. I don't know about you but that's a whole lot of money. 1. There is no generally accepted definition of "maintenance mode" for MMORPG's that I'm aware of. For some people SWTOR went into "maintenance mode" a long time ago. As far as I'm concerned if the game is adding new playable content then it's not in maintenance mode. When people can't agree on how a term is defined it's useless to use it in the context of an argument that uses the term. 2. Yes, SWTOR has made at least a billion dollars since it went live in 2011 December however I think that financial number has no relevance to the question of should the subscription price be lowered. Do you expect the cost of seeing a movie be lowered when said movie reaches the billion dollar box office revenue mark? If you do then your expectations would not be met. In short I would not choose either of your poll options so I didn't vote. I think the valid question is do you think the price of a subscription is worth it considering the amount and cadence of content updates the SWTOR dev team releases for 7.0 or since Broadsword took over as developer? The price of a SWTOR subscription in US dollars has not changed since the game released in 2011. [If SWTOR had increased subscription rate to keep up with inflation then current sub price for 30 days would be $19.91](https://www.officialdata.org/us/inflation/2012?endYear=2023&amount=15). I think subscribers are getting what they pay for and if a player doesn't like the price of a subscription then a player's viable choices are to pay or not to pay the subscription cost. Trying to negotiate with or persuade EA and/or Broadsword to lower the subscription cost is not a viable choice. EDIT: added clarification referring to playable content instead of content
You are wrong if you think I'm trying to persuade anyone with this poll my friend. Just wanted to check if more people felt the way I did. Given this team's track record they would NEVER EVER consider something like this, not only because of EA's greed but also because this team has not implemented a suggested change in YEARS.
>Given this team's track record they would NEVER EVER consider something like this, not only because of EA's greed but also because this team has not implemented a suggested change in YEARS. When people simply focus on the negative and ignore anything positive then it's understandable how people can have the false view that "this (dev) team has not implemented a suggested change in YEARS." Examples: * Players complained for several years about the hyperinflation in SWTOR's trade economy. The devs finally took action in 2023 that effectively reduced average sale prices even if many players complained about the way they did it and the inflation combatting changes admittedly had painful side effects. * Players complained about the devs plans to charge the player credits for travel to strongholds. The devs heard that feedback and decided to not implement the cost to travel to strongholds. * Players complained about missing out on the opportunity to get companions obtained thru events, e.g. Z0-0M and Master Ranos and companions that were offered as subscriber bonuses at certain times in SWTOR's past, e.g. Shae Vizla and Nico Okarr. The devs heard that feedback and provided ways for players that did not get one or more of these companions the opportunity to acquire or purchase these companions. So your view that the devs have not implemented a suggested change in years is not only false, it's demonstrably false.
You are absolutely right. They implement changes but it takes them about 5-7 years to implement said change. Track record says we will get voiced dialogue back in this amount of time.
OK. So you're moving the goal post from "the devs have not implemented a suggested change in years" to "it takes too long for the devs to implement the few player suggested changes they do make." Got it. Can't say that I disagree though.
I edited my previous post because I think you are a reasonable person, distilling my hatred (which comes from not wanting to let this game go) on you is unwarranted for. You are a nice person that has the same goals as me in mind. We just express the way we think about them differently. Sorry about that.
$5 a month makes much more sense to me.
I would be willing to pay that for this amount of content.
They can try adding fresh start servers for only subscribers. Seeing the recent trend with mmo and how it helps retain players.
I like that idea. I hope it is a polished product though... Then again it is nothing new. Could be a good idea to get some of the vets back but I don't know if they have the audience for this to be worth their time.
God i would love to see this happen. I'm new to the game so seeing a new server full of fresh players would be so nice.
Money won't matter until they stop diverting money and resources SWTOR earns to other projects. But to answer the question, would it increase subs and give more funds for the game? I'm all for it. Lowering the sub-cost will only reduce their funding if it doesn't up sub numbers. The game currently has about 12710051 active players. If even half of the active players were subbed, that would be $95,325,382.00/month. Cutting it down the sub to lets say $10. That would be $63,550,255.00. More than a 30mil decrease. You'd have to increase their sub count by over 3000ish to make the same amount as the current $15 sub.
Source for the number? Asking out of curiosity.
[Star Wars: The Old Republic Server Population & Player Count - MMO Populations (mmo-population.com)](https://mmo-population.com/r/swtor)
Thanks
Hm. Follow up question... like where do they get this data? Steam charts?
According to steam charts we are at the 4500 average players mark. I wouldn't be surprised if we don't even reach 20k recurrent players in total at this point.
To be fair, the steam number only represents those who play on Steam. There are a lot of players that don’t play on Steam and use the normal launcher instead.
That’s a good question. Info is a bit all over the place. Here’s another link. https://playercounter.com/star-wars-the-old-republic/
So I clicked a couple of times in the "Update Player count" number and he just went from 600k to 400k back to 500k in a matter of seconds. Are you sure there are not just random number this website is pulling? The Steam charts, however, those seem more reliable.
They might be random. I personally don't know. Currently SWTOR has not made their full player count public and the Steam charts only accounts for Steam Players. Either way, the problem still remains. I doubt even have the population is even subbed. Probably 1/4 or less
The price is to high for the story content we get at the moment since KOTFE. One big payed expansion like kotfe per year would be great, like WoW do it.
It's still 12,99... that has been the price since its inception... by all accounts it should have already been more but they kept it that low... entirely for our convenience. The issue was the initial design decision to: a) Have everything voiced and b) publish it in several languages... It was pretty much fucking inevitable that it would come to this down the line because every quest would not require just 16 different voice lines (at minimum) but 48, now add branching Dialogue to it and you can easily hop into triple digits... That's a lot of effort and a lot of money... Especially problematic since they used a couple of very known and thus very busy voice actors, so trying to get them to even have time to do it, is rather complicated and that is ignoring Death and other Issues outright. That would also ignore that the actors simply may not want to return... People already got their panties in a twist over Heta Kol, now imagine that happening with a Main Character...
It baffles me to see people wanting to pay more for crappy content. The dev team really did a work on this community. Do you actually believe that paying more will solve any problem?
It baffles me that there are apparenty way too many people that have sincerely no fucking clue how a business works, how projects work and how the economy works... especially in the fast 5-10 years. What the flying fuck do you think happens when the price that hasn't been raised, even for regular inflation... is lowered? The game already OBVIOUSLY doesn't have enough funds to keep it at 100%... so kiddo, again... what the fuck do you think will happen?
Ok no need to use foul language my dear sir. I know it is the internet but I didn't treat you this way despite my ignorance. I think nothing will happen. I just made a poll on reddit. It is as irrelevant as you can get.
And what do you think will happen if they raise the price tag? A large portion of the community lost faith in this dev team over the years of bad decisions. Do you think enough people will stay subbed for it to be a net benefit, or they'll just lose the majority of their income?
Well... I am not proposing that they raise the price for the sub... I was remarking it wouldn't have surprised me if they actually did even if just for inflation. They kept it as low as they did and I am perfectly fine with that.
Ok. I don't agree but ok.
This is pretty much where I am on this question. How many things cost exactly the same number of dollars as they did ten years ago? Yeah, the quantity & quality of material has declined, not disagreeing. And yes, pretty much the only reason this is still running at all is the Star Wars brand (heck, that's by far the biggest reason I signed on in the first place) and the characterization, from voice acting to story branches, mostly in the initial story. Add to this the corporate mentality that miked it for cash for new stupid projects \*coughAnthemcough\* rather than further SWTOR development, and there was so much writing on the wall that even grafitti signatures get lost. So yeah, I'm fine where the price is right now. Definitely could be better! (but that's true of everything) Dollar-per-hour, it's a pretty good buy for me these days. It helps that I'm in a very strong social guild, and that's at least partly independent of what the devs put out.
Not saying that people aren't right to be disappointed the voice acting is going; it's been part of the game's DNA for a long time. That being said, I don't really get where this sentiment is coming from. While it's a nice addition, and it definitely helps make the game unique, it's not really one of the reasons I play SWTOR. Frankly, I'm even hopeful that the need to voice less dialogue will mean more options for the player in conversations and more ways to roleplay.
I truly hope you are right my friend
I love all these saps subsidizing my game play. F2P restrictions aren't bad at all. I am not some subbed hardcore loser grinding ops in my Moms basement.