14 DAY TRIAL // Ever since The Old Republic, the MMO based on the Star Wars universe BioWare is working on with help from LucasArts, was announced, one thing the developers have made clear is that they aim to have a videogame bigger than everything players have seen until now. And, now, an Electronic Arts executive has confirmed that the publisher is spending more on it than on any other project undertaken in its history.
Speaking at the Janney Capital Markets Consumer Conference, Eric Brown, who is the Chief Financial Officer at publisher Electronic Arts, stated, “It is the largest R&D project EA has ever undertaken in terms of total dollars that we expect to spend bringing the title to market.”
The actual size of the MMO project means the company cannot yet commit to a launch date, with Brown saying, “We're not expecting it to ship in fiscal 2010, nor have we given a specific ship date thereafter. We're intentionally being nonspecific on the ship date.”
Brown also mentioned that a Star Wars setting has the potential to perform well against the fantasy-based world of competitors like World of Warcraft, the Blizzard made leader in the field, because it shares many similarities, with swords very similar, in terms of gameplay, to lightsabers and with knights easily assimilated to Jedi warriors.
The Old Republic is very ambitious because it aims to deliver a complex, branching narrative for all the classes included in the game and because it is set to be the first fully voiced MMO on the market. BioWare has been offering bits of information about the game at a steady pace and more could be unveiled at E3. Still, what is shown off can change significantly before the launch date, which will probably be set for late 2011.