SWTOR is EA's "largest ever" project

By Robert Purchese Published 10 March, 2010

Reckons WOW cost $100m to make.

BioWare's Star Wars: The Old Republic is the most expensive game ever created at EA.

The publisher's chief banker Eric Brown described the MMO as the "largest ever development project, period, in the history of the company".

He said a packaged game usually costs around $30m to make at EA, but "any MMO costs significantly more than that".

When asked by a member of the Wedbush Morgan Securities audience in New York today how the cost compared to World of Warcraft, Brown said Blizzard spent "$100 million, perhaps more" to ship the game in 2004.

"That's lifetime [research and development] to actually ship it and obviously then there's maintenance subsequent to ship and expansion packs," Brown added.

These days, WOW makes around $100m a month from subscriptions. EA no doubt hopes SWTOR will recoup costs in a similar fashion.

"MMOs are sizeable undertakings," quipped Brown.

EA is steering Star Wars: The Old Republic towards a spring 2011 release. Take that with a pinch of salt, as these things slip.

Picture of Robert.

About Robert Purchese

Bertie is Eurogamer's Senior Staff Writer. When he's not hunting down news stories he's often found playing with his kids or gabbling about fantasy games and strange online worlds.

Read more articles from Robert by visiting the Robert Purchese archive page.

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Comments (27) 2 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • Markitron #1 2 years ago

    I hate MMO's but I already know ill be addicted to this

  • Boomerang #2 2 years ago

    $100m a month!?!?

  • Skandalle #3 2 years ago

    *waves hand* This is the game your looking for....

  • munki83 #4 2 years ago

    Unfortunately it won't topple WoW. I'm just hoping its a MMO I can enjoy playing solo for as much as possible. Yeah I know playing solo in a MMO doesn't make much sense but I'm not a fan of playing with strangers. Anyway woooo more SWTOR.

  • sneetch #5 2 years ago

    Why would you want it to "topple WoW"?

    Anyway, from what I've read it's designed to be playable solo and is largely instanced so you won't have to worry about competing with other people for quests or kills and whatnot. I just hope you bump into other people every now and again.

    [link url=http://www.swtor.co m/info/faq#348
    ]http://www.swtor.co m/info/faq#348
    [/link]

    Can I play alone?

    While there are some tasks that cannot be completed without the cooperation of others, the majority of the game can be accomplished by playing alone.

  • MaxiSleep #6 2 years ago

    Really look forward to this.

  • OnlyMe #7 2 years ago

    Playing solo in an MMORPG DOES make sense, since there are no single player games that can give you the same experience. I prefer playing solo, actually, and wish MMO would start including single-player dungeons where you can't play in a party. It's nice to wander around a huge world, doing whatever you like, whichever quests you like and just explore and enjoy the atmosphere.

  • Murton #8 2 years ago

    $100m a month!?!?

    Not exactly. Many players pay upfront for blocks of 3, 6 or 12 months in order to take advantage of discounted rates for long term play, these are often disregarded in order to make the maths easier, in this case the assumptions make the revenue roughly equal to number of accounts x $10 per month. And generally speaking MMO publishers give figures for total number of accounts created, not number of accounts that are currently paid for, so the true revenue of WoW is almost certainly lower slightly than 100 million USD. It's still a massive figure though, for a standard game to achieve that sort revenue it would have to shift over three million full price copies, every month.

    Small wonder why every publisher is chasing the subscription model when you compare it to standard retail.

  • Cosquae #9 2 years ago

    Sounds vaguely like STO, being able to play (the vast majority of it) on your own.

    Ok, the $100m budget doesn't sound like STO, but that's something else again.

  • Markitron #10 2 years ago

    I had a STO conversation with a STO-playing friend, we agreed that were essentially playing it 6 months early but we dont really care (Lots of potential). I know TOR wont be released early tho

  • AOFanboi #11 2 years ago

    EA has a tradition for killing off their MMOs before they really get off the ground. Wonder if they manage to resist the urge this time?

  • Ryboy #12 2 years ago

    I just hope this is as good as I want it to be. If so, WoW can finally be uninstalled from my PC!

  • Shikasama #13 2 years ago

    AQFanboi, SWTOR has already been in development for years and they have shown a considerable amount of gameplay footage so I reckon it's pretty safe. It's also being made by Bioware, who EA realise basically shit money.

  • thelzdking #14 2 years ago

    Would rather they'd spent it on KotOR III.
    Edited by 1 at 10/03/10 @ 17:40

  • Thedni #15 2 years ago

    Whats the betting Activision kick up a legal shitstorm when this draws closer to release being that they publish all lucas arts material outside of the US?

    *hopes to be wrong*

  • Shikasama #16 2 years ago

    thelzdking - this is KOTOR 3, and 4,5,6 according to Bioware

  • Ryboy #17 2 years ago

    @Shikasama

    True story...

  • Markitron #18 2 years ago

    Well they consistantly WONT answer whether or not we find out what happened to Revan, which means you will probably find out. Thats all I need from a KOTOR game

  • Tomo #19 2 years ago

    $100m a month or thereabouts is fucking staggering. I never realised it was so lucrative. No wonder so many people want a slice of the MMO pie.

  • dirtysteve #20 2 years ago

    too far off, dont care yet...

  • paulf #21 2 years ago

    @murton - I think they may have got the $100 million from this article

    [link url=http://www.techdigest.tv/2008/10/world_of_warcra_7.html
    ]    http://ww w.techdigest.tv/2008/10/world_o...[/link]

    and as you point out not all the subscribers pay the 'British price' of 9 pounds a month, however I think with WoW subs figures they always show the number of active subscriptions - ie those that are being paid for - maybe we should say they spent a good bit making it, but make shedloads back every month :)

  • curtlikesmeat #22 2 years ago

    Although I do enjoy solo play in MMOs, I still like to see other people running about and have random encounters with them; it's what gives the constant world that epic feeling. With this in mind I hope it's not heavily instanced as that means I might aswell be offline and not paying a monthly subscription.

  • Kerome #23 2 years ago

    The 100m a month figure is inflated - yes, wow has 10m or so subscribers, but not all of those pay the full EU/US subscription fee. Something like 70m is closer to the truth ;) Although then you have to factor in paid account services, which probably equal a thirteenth month's revenue.

  • EmiliasHorse #24 2 years ago

    I have room in my life for this and WoW, actually I have room for loads of games which is nice.

    @Kerome....you really sucked the fun out of that 100m statement.

  • bad09 #25 2 years ago

    "Would rather they'd spent it on KotOR III"

    This.

  • MonsieurToni #26 2 years ago

    Hmm, am I only one now wondering what kind of a budget does SWTOR have? I'd reckon that using voice acting for every quest in the game would, for a start, be pretty expensive. The figure they give for WoW isn't all that surprising as I do recall reading somewhere that the project Copernicus or what they call it from 38 studios has a similar price tag.

    Also, the revenue Activision-Blizzard makes with WoW is likely to be close to that 100 M$. For example, their item shop for one seems to fill in the gaps of "chinese players being less" -syndrome. Didn't they make roughly 2 million dollars from selling a pandaren monk mini-pet out of which they donated a million to some charity? And that's for one mini-pet for one month. Then all those race changes, faction changes, name changes etc. and you quite quickly reach that 100 million mark. And I do think that their current playerbase is quite close to that 11.5 million they announced a few years back, atleast so suggests http://mmodata.net on their front page.

  • levitate #27 2 years ago

    Please be good. Please please be good...