14 DAY TRIAL // An analyst has suggested that the huge investment in both money and resources that publisher Electronic Arts has sunk into the upcoming MMO Star Wars: The Old Republic might not be to the liking of those who invest into the company, as they are more concerned about the suit which the company has with Activision and about the development of the social games portfolio of Playfish.
In an investor note Mike Hickey, who is an analyst watching the video game industry for Janco Partners, says, “We believe many investors are betting against SWTOR achieving market success, provided the company's (Warhammer Online from Mythic) and industry's track record at releasing successful new MMOs.”
Star Wars: The Old Republic is being developed by BioWare, one of the best outfits that Electronic Arts can call upon, and there's also some input from LucasArts, and the game is set to be launched at some point during this year.
Hickey adds that “suspected aggressive royalty to LucasArts” are also a threat to the financial success of The Old Republic.
The subscription-based MMO space is dominated by the Blizzard made World of Warcraft, which has just received its third full expansion and has more than 12 million subscribers playing at the moment.
Despite the strong intellectual property it uses The Old Republic could have a hard time attracting and holding on to a significant number of players.
Electronic Arts knows how quick MMOs can rise and fall, having experienced it with Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning, which a lot of people saw as a worthy challenger to World of Warcraft before launch.
The game incorporated some interesting new idea linked to how parties were formed and to public questing and it initially attracted a good number of gamers but since then the game faltered, with players complaining that there's not enough content and Electronic Arts is being forced to consolidate servers in order to accommodate a falling number of players.