Home of the SWTOR Tip of the Day
Yes, the rumors are true. SWTOR is going free to play (F2P) in August. To compare the features of free to play against a subscription, check out the link here.
With a change in the business model coming so soon, it makes you wonder how long they have been working on the F2P model? I would say since last quarter, which would coincide with the first round of layoffs at Bioware.
Shares of Blizzard Activision are down today after the company released their 3rd quarter results. Although the company beat analyst estimates and even raised their earnings forecast for the year, investors are concerned about the number of WoW subscriptions dropping to 10.3 million compared to 11.1 million three months earlier.
Is this because of SWTOR’s launch in December? Their latest expansion having to do with pandas? People wanting to jump ship after playing the same game for so long? Probably a combination of both.
I am going out on a limb here saying that WoW subscriptions will drop again during this fiscal quarter before leveling out at around 9 million for 2012.
Even though this is a post concerning WoW and Activision/Blizzard, it is related to Bioware/EA. Activision release their 2nd quarter results on Tuesday and although revenue and shareholder earnings increased, the number of WoW subscribers dropped.
According to the article at IGN:
“the number of players subscribed to the developer’s flagship title World of Warcraft has dropped by approximately 300,000 since the last announced subscriber volume of 11.4 million. This brings the total number of worldwide World of Warcraft subscribers to 11.1 million.”
This downward trend of WoW subscriptions benefits TOR. I see this as a sign that some people are bored with the game and ready to move on. Keep in mind that this decrease was during the company’s second quarter (roughly May-July). It will be interesting to see if these numbers drop even further in the third quarter which will end in October, just before the (likely) TOR launch date.
http://torsyndicate.com/