115520-say-no-to-f2p-page-7

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Thank the lord Caretaker for this post. This topic is over. A range of price points for different value offerings to broaden the potential market.

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Ok ... *cupcake* it... let this game die because it definitely will happen when W* does not change their model. For sure.


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They're massaging the truth, which is typical and necessary in a situation like this and in no way a sin or crime. Those numbers are "active" subscribers, which includes a ton of players who bought six month or year long subs or are sustaining their subs on CREDD but not actually playing. That's fine for quoting sub numbers to the game press but it's a death knell for the game's future financial performance. All the income from the long-term subbers who bought in but aren't playing has already been accounted for. They won't be re-upping their subs, so no more revenue from them. Most of the CREDDers, while still providing income, will stop buying CREDD in the game when they give up hope, and the whales buying CREDD from Carbine will stop doing that when they also give up hope -- although some will continue to buy it regardless, I'm sure, due to being true fans of the game or the studio, but I doubt the game can live off of those guys for all that long. This is why the game's projected future revenues back in August were so dismal (which led to Gaffney being fired voluntarily resigning bowing out due to family and health concerns.) When we get to see the new financials and projected revenues for 3QFY2014 in mid-November, about a month from now, it's going to be even uglier, I'm betting, because the subscriber situation has not improved since then. I didn't make up any of the numbers, you know -- they're publicly released and everyone who has analyzed them has seen the same future for Wildstar written there. Please keep in mind that "hundreds of thousands" could be 100,001 and still be technically true. (Or as  Bureaucrat #1.0 from Futurama puts it, “Technically correct is the best kind of correct.”) Scuttlebutt has it that the active player base is closer to 50k. That's not enough. No, of course I don't expect you to believe scurrilous rumors from anonymous sources. But honestly, it fits with the observable level of game activity at the moment. No one at Carbine is a bad person for spinning whatever positive numbers they can  -- this is a project many of them love and have devoted an incredible amount of time and energy to, and of course they're going to put the most positive spin they can on the situation. That doesn't make them liars, but please keep in mind the position they are currently in when you evaluate their public statements, okay?


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Wrong that is not necessarily active at all. If it was that clear they could have said "subscribers and people playing with activated CREDD" they did not, this is a PR spin, the act of giving an answer without giving the true or most accurate answer. They could consider active accounts as subscribers, people who are playing with activated CREDD and people's whose accounts may have lapsed for less than 30 or 60 days perhaps. They could also potentially include trial accounts in that number too. On top of that there are some I am not sure how many, but some people who had CREDD up the yazoo, and I know one who has not logged in in 3 months. He literally had like over a thousand plat worth of credd when credd was under 6plat... I am sure he would be considered an active account but he no longer contributes to the population really. And one other point... subscribers does not mean there are that many people playing the game.


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Then you should open your eyes. This is an exact timeline of the failure of subs and the success of F2P for SWTOR: EDIT: for reference, here are some examples of the verbage in the quarterly conference calls from EA on SWTOR before F2P, this one from July 2012, before F2P Quote

Now here's a quote from January of 2013; well before ROTHC but also after the F2P transition: Quote

Now heres a quote from the EA CFO from the May 7th quarterly (just a few days after the release of ROTHC; which was not yet included in analyses) Quote

Subs do not drive the F2P microtransaction system in SWTOR. Microtransactions were the staple of the F2P system implemented in SWTOR; just because subscribers CAN use the system doesn't stop it from being a F2P system; likewise, there are only a large number of subs now because the F2P system allowed them to try the game, and enjoy it enough to sub (which is verified in EA's reports). SWTOR failed as a sub game (see above quote 1). SWTOR instituted it's F2P system based on MT and producing more subs, which turned the game around (see above quote 2) SWTOR was a major revenue source and financial success after F2P and before ROTHC was launched (see above quote 3). The financial analysis for all periods are in their respective quarterly report, again found HERE and the earnings releases HERE . You are one of only a very few people who would claim SWTOR was not saved by the F2P system they implemented, including the games own creative director himself. Since all you continue to provide is the invalid assertion that the F2P model implemented in SWTOR doesn't count because subscribers (most of whom would not be subs with out first being free players) can engage with the F2P model specifically used in SWTOR, rather than provide evidence that EA has lied in all of its investor information and Quarterly releases, that it's creative director has lied in official, public statements, I am still left with only one option; fundamentally rejecting your claim that SWTOR was not saved by F2P in light of the very substantial evidence to the contrary.


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Remember, subscribers get 500-600 free Cartel Coins a month, so a lot of the items that show up in the AH are things that subscribers buy with their bonus Cartel Coins and sell on the AH for Credits.


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