To date, eight years ago, one of the most expensive projects in the video game industry was launched. Star Wars: The Old Republic should have been the chosen game to bring balance to the Force.
The Star Wars franchise had two MMORPG games, of which only one is live, and it was launched eight years ago today. Star Wars: The Old Republic is a sequel to KOTOR games that were single-player RPGs and one of the largest, or most expensive, projects in the video game industry. It was made at a time when EA was not licensed for Star Wars, and about two hundred million dollars went into the project, not counting the budget for the promotion of the game.
Star Wars: TOR was heralded by lavish trailers that at times looked better than Star Wars movies episodes 1-3, and the added reason was the fact that SW: TOR was conceived as the first MMORPG with full-featured dialogues. Over 200,000 lines of text were recorded for the game, setting the Guinness record of that time.
The game was launched according to the then current model, with a monthly subscription of 15 euros. The initial interest of players promised big things - more than a million people played SW: TOR in the first week after the game was released, making it the fastest-growing MMO title in history. However, the onslaught brought problems with the overcrowded servers, and the game content was not sufficient to keep players engaged for long.
The number of active subscribers declined rapidly from month to month until EA decided to switch the game to a free-to-play model. Since then, SW: TOR has been capturing a solid community of players, though it has not fulfilled the prophecy that it is the MMO that will bring down the famous World of Warcraft.
The game has received a total of seven expansions to date, and we last saw it in the tenth month of this year. Given that EA currently holds a Star Wars license, it is expected that development on SW: TOR will continue, but the question is whether this game can survive for more than a decade.
No comments:
Post a Comment