Layoffs Strike Star Wars: The Old Republic's Development Studio

Actually, I doubt it's the subscription model at all...I suspect its due to saturation coupled with sour grapes by some people.

But thats me personally.

The subscription plan had nothing to do with it. The game just wasn't designed with any staying power built into it. There is still next to no end game content and what is available quickly got repetitive. You can't design a game where people can reach level cap in less than a month and then not give them lots of stuff to do. It also didn't help that they more or less copied WoW with a little bit of inspiration from Rift. They built a generic MMO with some decent storylines, but didn't anything original. If game developers are going to insist on basing every MMO on WoW instead of breaking new ground, they are setting themselves up for failure. The people that like WoW already play it, the people that don't, don't need another clone of it.

I foresee TES:O doing this as well, unless they figure out something groundbreaking. So far I've read that's not the case.

It seems to me pay-2-play MMOs are failing these days due to the economy. No one wants to spend $15 a month on an MMO when that can be used for gas or food. Most Pay-2-Play games end up going Free-2-Play (DC Universe Online, The Lord of the Rings Online) because they lose their fan base quickly and subscriptions drop. WoW just like 400,000 users a couple of months ago.

I apologize in advance because I know I'm going to sound rude but this is a poorly written and lazy article. You really should do a little more homework and not let your bias write your article for you.

First, unit sales were 2 mil, not 1 mil. Second, holiday numbers were announced at 1.7 mil subs. Third, the part about no numbers being released since then is just all the way completely wrong. Just earlier this month was an earnings call where they announced sub numbers at 1.3 mil.

Layoffs and a shrinking player base certainly does not project confidence into the long term growth of the game, but to compare it to Warhammer Online (which was almost completely unplayable at launch) is laughable at best.

Warhammer Online is still online by the way. With a whopping two or so whole servers. That should be proof enough that even if swtor numbers continue to slide that it still won't mean they are going to shut it down until they wring every last nickle and dime out of it.

tl;dr version: When writing an article under a news headline, have your facts and figures in order. Otherwise it isn't a news article and just an opinion piece.

BURN! I like where this is heading. Ok Jonathan now a response

Yes, thumbs down for common sense. I love the informed minds here.

It's ok to have your viewpoint and opinions about this or any other subject. What bothered me about it and what I view as lazy is when you say something like:

"However, since the holiday season ended no numbers have been revealed as EA and BioWare have been tight-lipped."

When it just is not true. A couple of seconds on google could have showed you that. So why say it? Are you just trying to make the article sound more provocative? Then I tell you the number and you say it is a farce but whether it is or not was never the point. You said they stopped posting their sub numbers and I showed you that was incorrect. So instead of saying you were wrong you instead attack the number instead which makes no sense...ok?

And there is a long line of MMOs that was supposed to compete with WoW but never came close. How many subs is Rift holding on to these days? Hint: It's less then swtor. WAR was a train wreck on multiple levels and is a poor comparison.

Hey I'm all for it. You want to rag on the game for all the stuff it is missing, that is fair game. You want to say the game is struggling cause they lost 400k subs since the holidays, fair game as well. I was just complaining about the factual statements in the original post which you have since corrected so its all good.

Yeah, TOR doesn't have a bright future. Hey, Jonathan, I know this isn't the best place, but do you have anymore information on the whole WoW 'cross-zone' thing? I hope that works out, because my biggest problem with LFG and such is that its hard to bring a servers community together with tools like LFG, which can (and does) destroy server-community... but if there is cross-zone going on, that could fix it, 'cause I could meet someone on another server I like and continue to quest with 'em without them moving over to my server... so got any more details on that?

This makes me so fricking happy. I hope that game crashes and burns quick!

What more or less interests me is a formerly infallible company like Bioware, looks to be slowly circling the drain under the flag of EA, DA:2, ME3 (not a bad game, but christ did that ending cause an uproar) and SWTOR, they all seem to share a common issue, "manstreaming" for profit, be it rushed, copying other business models, or creating a cluster**** of an ending to keep it open for potential follow ups.

I'm no expert, hell, I'm not even halfway informed, but it seems like they're being bottlenecked by EA to follow an ideal of maximizing profits nowadays, and what once was a well established company, is now becoming a generic game factory.

I agree with you, Icepick. Can some of GR staff shed some opinions and or light on this for us?

Themepark MMOs are extremely boring and old. We need more sandbox MMOs that are principally similar to EVE Online in terms of variety and viability of behavior. More political intrigue, more social interactions, and real economic emergence. This swing towards anti-social MMOs will only cause stagnation, instead they should give players a real effect in the world they inhabit, empower them with the thought that they can change the world they are playing in. TOR is F2P quality with a shiny AAA finish.

these days you really need a sandbox, if players dont have a huge variety of things they could be doing they will quickly get bored and unsub

i've played eve for 9 years now and while i dont play very often now theres ALWAYS something different you could be doing, ofcourse after 9 years no amount of content can keep you from getting bored of the game in general but the very fact they have kept me paying for 9 years says something

I think the reason you don't see more sandbox games is the greed factor. No matter how good one may be, they never reach the numbers of boxes sold or subs obtained that theme park MMOs generate so a lot of times they are considered a niche game for a niche playerbase in the market.

Nothing like contention to spur on a healthy debate... and thanks to the chatter on GR I will not be joining TOR at all. I salute you!!!

true sandbox tend to be more niche game and may not get millions of users but for the most part they do end up with staying power, i agree greed plays a big role in that and companys tend to go for the quick profit but over the long run those niche games will make far more