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Star Wars MMO Estimated To Cost $100M
donniebaseball23 writes "EA's BioWare is developing its first-ever MMORPG in Star Wars: The Old Republic, and the publisher is betting big that the project will be a huge success. Wedbush analyst Michael Pachter says development alone cost an estimated $80 million, with marketing and distribution adding in another $20 million. The good news is it shouldn't take much to break even. 'We estimate that EA will cover its direct operating costs and break even at 500,000 subscribers (this is exceedingly conservative, and the actual figure is probably closer to 350,000), meaning that with 1.5 million paying subscribers, EA will have 1 million profitable subs,' Pachter noted."
They're now aiming for a release late this year, but acknowledged the possibility that it could slip to January 2012. If you're curious about the current state of the gameplay, Eurogamer and Rock, Paper, Shotgun (PvE, PvP) both posted write-ups of some recent hands-on time.
Great. . . another crappy Star Wars game. I miss when Lucasarts was responsible for good games. X-Wing, TIE Figher, Rebel Assault, Dark Forces I & II, Sam & Max, Outlaws, Full Throttle, Indiana Jones & The Fate of Atlantis, etc.
The game has cinematic NPC interactions in the style of Mass Effect and Dragon Age. There are no text popups. An example of a quest in the empire has a father ask you to assassinate his politically inconvenient daughter. The interaction conveys non-verbally that he isn't very sure about his course of action. When you get to the daughter, you interact with her and at the end you can kill her or capture her. If you kill her you'll get paid, if you capture her and bring her to her father he is very happy that you didn't do as asked. In a way that is just a quest to go kill someone, but only in the same way that Lord of the Rings is a story about someone fetching a ring and throwing it into someplace.