14 DAY TRIAL // Publisher Electronic Arts has clarified the future prospects of its upcoming MMO Star Wars: The Old Republic, saying that at the moment the company is spending quite a bit of money on development costs for the BioWare-made title, but that it will be easy to recuperate them once the game is launched.
Speaking in a conference call with those who invest in Electronic Arts, Scott Brown, who is the chief financial officer of the company, stated, “At half a million subscribers, the game is substantially profitable, but it's not the kind of thing we would write home about”, but at “anything north of a million subscribers, it's a very profitable business.”
The executive also took aim at those who spread the idea that Star Wars: The Old Republic has cost more than 300 million dollars, adding, “There's been a fair amount of talk on various blogs describing spends that are vastly higher than anything we've ever put in place. Don't read gamer blogs as having any substance. They bring a chuckle, but they also bring a frustration for those that are being responsible with the management of EA's R&D dollars.”
Development for an MMO is resource intensive, because such a product needs a huge amount of content at launch and the team linked to the game needs to keep working to both balance the experience and to deliver more playable content.
A report apparently coming from inside developer BioWare suggests that Star Wars: The Old Republic will be launched during the fall of this year, with previous reports linking the game to a spring date.
Industry watchers are saying that Star Wars: The Old Republic is this year's big challenges to the MMO supremacy of the Blizzard made World of Warcraft.
The main features of the game include fully voiced NPCs and a bigger emphasis on story-based gameplay.