Star Wars MMO Costs An Estimated $80 Million to Develop

Its like almost as much as they spent on episode 1. Crazy.

It'll be worth it though, when I can take home my very own Luke.
 
ElectricBlue187 said:
2012 now. God this game is never coming out. Remember just a short while ago they were aiming for Spring 2011
I spoke to someone on the dev team and he told me a few days ago that 2011 is still planned. $80m really isn't nearly as bad as most had suggested before as has been mentioned.
 
Teknopathetic said:
"at least they are trying to do something different AND new with the mmo. and dont forget, this is star wars we are talking about here. ( not that it matters to me)"


It's SWG all over again.

It seems like it's more narrative based and novel in that regard.

As someone who can't stand MMOs, that sounds like an improvement over WoW. Maybe people who actually like MMOs and fork their cash over will disagree though.
 
Content and team size is a big issue. You have to maintain a crunchtime level of staffing for a period of multiple years.

As for Galaxies. Its problem was it tried to be too diverse in a way that made it costly. Once the game ships most of the staff moves over to expansion development etc. That doesnt work well when you have 32 Classes that can mix and match and need to be tweaked,fixed etc constantly.

That and the reliance on a sandbox too much were problems
 
I'm really struggling to believe this.

I'd love Pachter to come in here and tell us how he came up with that $80 million figure.
 
Vilam said:
Just like WoW looks dated amirite? Both games look great for the genre imho, MMOs are all about art direction.


wow is a 2004 game that was able to suck in millions of players before it looked very dated.


Tor is a 2011/12 game that looks like at best a 2008 game t.


Many people forget that with wow you needed $400 video cards and $800 cpus to run the game in dx 9 mode at decent resolutions when it first came out . Now of course you can play it on almost anything but hardware has advanced alot in the last 6 years
 
eastmen said:
wow is a 2004 game that was able to suck in millions of players before it looked very dated.


Tor is a 2011/12 game that looks like at best a 2008 game t.


Many people forget that with wow you needed $400 video cards and $800 cpus to run the game in dx 9 mode at decent resolutions when it first came out . Now of course you can play it on almost anything but hardware has advanced alot in the last 6 years

What?

I was running WoW for a couple of years on a Radeon 9700 Pro (which was already two years old in 2004) with no problem.
 
"Fortunately for investors, the company expenses R&D spending, meaning that its revenues on sales of the Star Wars MMO DVD will be pure profit"

I'm not sure I understand the logic or accuracy of this statement.

Also, the $20m estimate for marketing, manufacturing and distribution seems low.
 
Mario said:
I'm not sure I understand the logic or accuracy of this statement.

Also, the $20m estimate for marketing, manufacturing and distribution seems low.

I believe whats being said is EA is writing off costs via business expenses on taxes. That way they basically get to make pure profit as what it cost to make the game is used against taxes.
 
water_wendi said:
Just development though. Wait for the marketing dollars to add to this.
While this is true if they can fit into the bluray launch window they can cooperate on advertising. Have something like here is your chance to relive the greatest Saga ever told and show the blu rays then transition to now its time to live your own Saga and cue The Old Republic.
 
How many proper Knights of the Old Republic games could have been made for that plus the marketing that it'll need to gain any momentum?

:(
 
Crazy how the MMO market has grown when they are saying "Only 500,000 subscribers" could sustain the game.

Seriously, there was a time where that number was a peak that only some of the very popular MMO's managed to reach, let alone sustain.
 
Havok said:
How many proper Knights of the Old Republic games could have been made for that plus the marketing that it'll need to gain any momentum?

:(
Just think, if this MMO works out how someone will want them to do this model for all of their franchises.
 
Jerk said:
Yeah, which is why I am guessing that the final costs are going to be pretty damn high.



Any ideas on GW2?
Well, they started with about 120 people back in 2007, and now they're at about 250 people, which would make them one of the largest (if not the largest) MMO teams around.

That game should be finishing up either this year or by Q1 2012 though.

Given the adjustments here relative to previous estimates, I'm guessing somewhere between $40-$80 million, depending on when their staff grew.

I realize that's not a very helpful range, but I think it's the best I can give until we see NCSoft make some more statements.
 
How does this game offer anything new btw?
I haven't followed it lately but the footage shown a few months ago looked extremely run of the mill EQ style standard stuff that we've all seen a thousand times.
Talking gameplay not conversations.


With games like vindictus, tera, blade and soul etc all making it to europe and NA before their release I doubt many people will still be willing to replay the old boring mmo formula again.

Street fighter/soul calibur style blocks, counters, grapples and dodges and / or manual aiming are a lot more interesting than auto target auto attack global cooldown spam.
 
Snipes424 said:
Even with just development, I think it's low. It's literally the most ambitious project I've seen in years if not ever.
The game looks cool and all but most ambitious project ever?
 
SneakyStephan said:
How does this game offer anything new btw?
I haven't followed it lately but the footage shown a few months ago looked extremely run of the mill EQ style standard stuff that we've all seen a thousand times.
Talking gameplay not conversations.


With games like vindictus, tera, blade and soul etc all making it to europe and NA before their release I doubt many people will still be willing to replay the old boring mmo formula again.

Street fighter/soul calibur style blocks, counters, grapples and dodges and / or manual aiming are a lot more interesting than auto target auto attack global cooldown spam.


Not terribly certain what your actually asking here. Are you asking if there is a market out there for "auto target auto attack global cooldown spam"-based MMORPGS? I can tell you with certainty, there is..
 
antonz said:
well on the plus side. Old Republic does not have auto attack and Tanks can actually PVP ;)
Prot Warriors/Paladins in WotLK and Blood DKs in Cataclysm say hi.

And it makes me sad. :(
 
$80 million for a MMO, especially a licensed one like Star Wars with full voice, really isn't that bad. MMO's are development time sinks, which are in turn money sinks, so this figure is surprisingly low in my eyes.

IIRC, MW2 had a ridiculous budget once marketing was included. Different genre and larger install base to sell to, sure...but in this day and age that's really not that crazy a number.
 
Nirolak said:
Well, they started with about 120 people back in 2007, and now they're at about 250 people, which would make them one of the largest (if not the largest) MMO teams around.

That game should be finishing up either this year or by Q1 2012 though.

Given the adjustments here relative to previous estimates, I'm guessing somewhere between $40-$80 million, depending on when their staff grew.

I realize that's not a very helpful range, but I think it's the best I can give until we see NCSoft make some more statements.

Not at all. $40-$80 million is a pretty good range and around what I was guessing (about $50 Million).

Seems like NCSoft is putting a lot of faith (and cash) on this project.
 
SneakyStephan said:
How does this game offer anything new btw?
I haven't followed it lately but the footage shown a few months ago looked extremely run of the mill EQ style standard stuff that we've all seen a thousand times.
Talking gameplay not conversations.


With games like vindictus, tera, blade and soul etc all making it to europe and NA before their release I doubt many people will still be willing to replay the old boring mmo formula again.

Street fighter/soul calibur style blocks, counters, grapples and dodges and / or manual aiming are a lot more interesting than auto target auto attack global cooldown spam.
SWTOR has neither auto attack nor global cooldown.

lockload said:
I think its doomed to failure, cant see enough people getting it
Gamasutra said:
Speaking at a Lazard Capital Markets Technology & Media Day presentation, which Gamasutra listened in on, EA CFO Eric Brown said the company has "over one million, closer to 1.5 million" people opted-in to be notified of a coming open beta test for the BioWare Austin-created game. "It's a great indicator in the interest level in the franchise," he said.
 
eastmen said:
Many people forget that with wow you needed $400 video cards and $800 cpus to run the game in dx 9 mode at decent resolutions when it first came out .

lol are you for real? Get out of here with this blatant misinformation.
 
I was running wow on my wifes peice of shit computer at launch.

I'm looking forward to SWTOR, just recently quit WoW and am hoping this is a little different.
 
even if this mmo doesnt bomb, itll prolly release so close to blizz's new mmo that itll look like the apollo creed ivan drago fight from rocky 4. (and bioware aint russian!)
 
ZombieSupaStar said:
even if this mmo doesnt bomb, itll prolly release so close to blizz's new mmo that itll look like the apollo creed ivan drago fight from rocky 4. (and bioware aint russian!)
Last rumors ive read put Titan in 2013. i doubt very seriously that TOR slips that far.
 
ZombieSupaStar said:
even if this mmo doesnt bomb, itll prolly release so close to blizz's new mmo that itll look like the apollo creed ivan drago fight from rocky 4. (and bioware aint russian!)

wow man, you must have confidence in Blizzards releases.....


/waitsfordiablo3
 
Nirolak said:
Apparently that's estimated at $20 million.
I guess it's less than I thought

This is still only 1/3rd of the $300 million figure [Nintex] keeps trolling with though.
Well, I was pretty close like in the ballpark... :(

element said:
I've heard much much more then that from various people. I'm going to trust them.
hmm who to believe.
 
legend166 said:
What?

I was running WoW for a couple of years on a Radeon 9700 Pro (which was already two years old in 2004) with no problem.


http://www.anandtech.com/show/1649/4

The game required beefy hardware even in 2005. the x850xt was $500 on release in dec 05 and the fx -55 was $800 +

I'm sure you could have run the game on a 9700 pro at a lower resolution and mabye even dx 8 mode , but that wasn't its highest quality .


Tor is a dx 9 game only . If you look at wow's time line it came out in 2004. It used dx 8 (nov 2000) and dx 9 (dec 2002) So it used a 4 and 2 year old api for its base.

Tor is what 2011/2012 ? Dx 9 was released in 2002 . It will be using a 9-10 year old api for its base. If it was like Wow it could have used dx 10 (2006) or dx 11 (2009) a 5-6 and 2-3 year old api's respectivly depending on when its released.
 
Pretty sure the radeon 9700 could max out wow easy at the time and get a decent framerate. And not many people had 1600x1200 displays back then >.<
 
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