14 DAY TRIAL // A report coming from market research firm DFC Intelligence has stated that Star Wars: The Old Republic, the MMO from developer BioWare and publisher Electronic Arts, has the potential to remain successful in the long term while using the subscription business mode, despite a general weakness when it comes to the viability of the concept.
DFC Intelligence has worked with tracking service Xfire to get data from more than 4,000 gamers, looking at their gaming patterns between December 20 of last year and February 20 of 2012.
The market research firm has concluded that the collected data shows that Star Wars: The Old Republic can stay over the 1 million paying subscribers mark in the long term.
Jeremy Miller, who is an analyst working for DFC Intelligence, stated, “The current trend among large massively multiplayer online games is to have strong initial sales, after which users quickly lose interest and are not converted to long-term paying subscribers.”
He added, “While early signs are fairly positive, over the next few months the plan is to closely monitor usage and consumer reaction to gauge how well Star Wars: The Old Republic performs over time. The next three to six months will be critical to determine if the game can attract a large and sustained paying subscriber base.”
Star Wars: The Old Republic has posted strong initial sales and Electronic Arts has reported in late January that it had managed to sell more than 2 million copies of the game.
It is not clear how many of those who played through the initial free month that is packaged with new copies have then chosen to keep paying in order to access the MMO.
Both BioWare and EA have stated they are happy with the launch period and are currently working to deliver more content for the game, including a major update set for the coming weeks.