“Lucas is going to be the principal beneficiary of the success of Star Wars,” Kotick said Monday at the Reuters Media Summit. “We’ve been in business with Lucas for a long time and the economics will always accrue to the benefit of Lucas, so I don’t really understand how the economics work for Electronic Arts.”
While backhanding The Old Republic as successful — just not for EA — Kotick also spread doubt that it’ll be a sustainable game. “If you look at the history of the people investing in an MMO and achieving success, it’s a small number,” he opined.
Kotick’s appraisal is, of course, not without self-interest. Reuters reported an analyst’s note that The Old Republic, which releases Dec. 20, could draw 1.5 to 2 million subscribers “which would qualify as a major success for EA.” Down the line, some 3 to 4 million World of Warcraft subscribers could be enticed to buy it.
Activision CEO Taunts EA, Touts Skylanders [Reuters via GamesIndustry.biz.]
Raazel
Thursday, December 1, 2011 at 2:33 PMEither way it doesn’t work out for Australians…
Glenn
Thursday, December 1, 2011 at 3:03 PMWhy not, I’ve got my pre-order and early access organised?
Pre-order from Amazon, the game plus shipping at $75 will still be cheaper than the $90 they try to retail it for here when it is finally released.
Aliasalpha
Thursday, December 1, 2011 at 3:29 PMAnd it ran pretty well even during the stress test bets weekend. I had a few lag spikes here and there and a few were fairly severe at 6+ seconds but my ISP has been having trouble lately and is rapidly going to shit so given the generally excellent play when my net was working properly, I’d say that game would be perfectly fine to import (damn well better be, I’ve preordered too)
Glenn
Thursday, December 1, 2011 at 3:59 PMWouldn’t make a difference as even when released in AU the Oceanic servers will only be Oceanic in name, they’ll still be hosted in the US.
And yes, the game ran really good for me, 250ms latency on average. The internet has improved since WoW was launched.
Raazel
Thursday, December 1, 2011 at 4:20 PMYeah I didn’t have a problem with the latency or the factor of price, (as I’ve also preordered.) It’s just a dislike for EA and their handling of the game through our region (or lack there of).
Nick
Thursday, December 1, 2011 at 5:44 PMI’m getting the same latency as I do in wow just under 190 on west coast servers I don’t understand why they don’t release to us the same time as the yanks………. (I also pre order from amazon, no region lock so I don’t understand why they don’t release it)
Akra
Thursday, December 1, 2011 at 2:35 PMSo… Kotick strategy here is to inform us that Lucas get the money from the game so they won’t be able to invest it back in the game, right?
NegativeZero
Thursday, December 1, 2011 at 2:39 PMI am shocked. I never thought that Lucas might make money from a game made with the Star Wars license.
Kotick is trying to chill people’s interest in the game because WoW has lost roughly a million subscribers over the last year and a half and The Old Republic is a game that actually has what’s necessary to compete and probably draw away another sizeable chunk of WoW’s pie.
Matt
Thursday, December 1, 2011 at 2:43 PMPost more old news. This has been updated.
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2011-11-30-lucasarts-to-take-around-35-percent-of-old-republic-revenue-report
Sir Sam
Thursday, December 1, 2011 at 2:50 PMSay what you will about hours directing but George Lucas has always been a canny businessman.
Anon
Thursday, December 1, 2011 at 2:52 PMI still don’t understand why there is any interest in The Old Republic, or WoW for that matter.
shodannet
Thursday, December 1, 2011 at 2:54 PMAnd if Activision had this, they’d be all “Best. Thing. Evar”
Aidan
Thursday, December 1, 2011 at 3:29 PMyep.
Simon
Thursday, December 1, 2011 at 4:14 PMWhat, you mean people have other opinions & tastes than you? SHOCKING! You’re an idiot.
Simon
Thursday, December 1, 2011 at 4:15 PMNo, I am for replying to the wrote comment. Sigh.
Fruit252
Thursday, December 1, 2011 at 2:56 PMas if we want activision to get more money anyway
Fruit252
Thursday, December 1, 2011 at 2:57 PM*publishers
DrBoon
Thursday, December 1, 2011 at 3:01 PMI was in the Beta, and if what I experienced, in gameplay and player sentiment, is anything to go on, the old republic is going to give WoW a black eye. Regardless of who makes money out of it, TOR is going to get a solid foothold in the market.
InformedGamer
Thursday, December 1, 2011 at 3:46 PMCompletely agree. Also played the beta and it was by far-and-large one of the best gaming experiences I’ve had in a while, and not only because I got to play with a lightsaber.
However, the 4.3 patch in WoW really redefined the games dungeons. New mechanics have finally been introduced so it will be interesting to see if this new design path leads to a successful panda expansion, or if it will be more of the same. Either way, TOR is on my must-buy’s for this xmas.
ACa. linos
Thursday, December 1, 2011 at 4:20 PMYeah but what’s interesting in my mind is that all the shiny wow stuff is coming out now.
People have been complaining for years about wanting wardrobe options and blizzard always said no. Now they have the next 12 months where a bunch of MMO’s are coming out that could threaten them. An suddenly you have free diablo 3 for a year sub and other things.
Don’t get me wrong it’s good wow is putting in some more effort it’s grown complacent IMO and hasn’t delivered actual value for the sub in a long time(IMO if you don’t add the title enemy from an expansion in until several patches later all that content is still expansion content and not sub content in WotLK that was over a year) not sure about cata haven’t played it
Steve
Thursday, December 1, 2011 at 9:01 PMOld Republic combines two great loves: Star Wars and a polished MMO experience. This, combined with the fact that EA is hungry to make this a success, and that people are becoming exhausted with WoW pretty much guarantee this being a surefire hit. Doubt it’ll topple WoW, but it’ll still be crazy profitable.
Neo-Kaiser
Thursday, December 1, 2011 at 3:31 PMThen Lucas will rerelease The Old Republic except every time a player dies everybody else screams No!
Jack
Thursday, December 1, 2011 at 4:10 PM“Jedi Outcast, Jedi Academy, Star Wars: STFU”
Oi where’s the mention of Star Wars Demolition?
Another awsome Star Wars game developed by Activision and Luxoflux.
Joshy206
Thursday, December 1, 2011 at 5:08 PMOf course Lucas makes money. He made the characters and the universe.
Also, this comes off as more of a “Kotick is a dick” article than an article on The Old Republic. He seems to just be trying to make the game seem bad by trashtalking the creators.
Steve
Thursday, December 1, 2011 at 9:21 PMWell…. More specifically he lay the groundwork for the universe which was essentially limited to a handful of main characters and worlds (specifically Tatooine, Hoth, Endor and Alderaan). Just about everything else is an EU creation.
Even the few positive inclusions of the prequels like Coruscant appeared in EU works by other writers, illustrators etc before Lucas just put them on screen. Now if you take into account the vastly different setting of The Old Republic, Lucas’s creative input could probably be rounded off as ’0.’He’s a businessman first and foremost. He realised the potential for merchandising before anyone else and made BILLIONS off Star Wars, he also later profited heavily off royalties and licensees (like this game franchise).
Kung Fu Kai
Thursday, December 1, 2011 at 5:50 PMCan Kotick go 2 seconds with out talking crap about profits in video games.
I mean he says the majority of profit will go to Lucas, what a hypocrite.
Majority of CoD sales go to his fat arse.
tailblazers
Thursday, December 1, 2011 at 6:30 PMI Read star wars: STFU as star wars: Shut the F*** up
Az
Thursday, December 1, 2011 at 7:19 PMWhat does he mean? He gets money from COD, WoW and all the other shit Activision puts out…. Rather Lucas get the money (even though the star wars 1,2 and 3 sucked) instaed of a greedy fuckin redhead troll
xXNapsterManXx
Thursday, December 1, 2011 at 7:33 PMKotick STFu you have no say you been destroying COD for years go shine your Devil fork you ass
El Kapitan
Friday, December 2, 2011 at 10:00 AMYeah god dammit Kotick, you’ve killed CoD so hard that it’s both the #1 and #2 played game on Xbox Live this week. What a failure!
Seriously? Destroying CoD? Lol.
LF1MTank
Thursday, December 1, 2011 at 11:10 PMKotick is the scourge of the video game industry. The irony of him giving such snide remarks about the business strategies of another individual is just rich. Lucas is well known as a pioneer amongst the business world for introducing the concept of making money off merchandise. He didn’t make his fortunes off the films. He realised the potential his universe had, and decided to bet on the popularity of it and the consequent sales off merchandise. Fox has been kicking themselves since. It pains me that my WoW subscription pays for this guy’s salary.
AerintheADEQUATE
Friday, December 2, 2011 at 1:09 AMKotick of Activision(Blizzard), who enjoy the fat bounty that is ‘millions of WOW subscriptions’, has publicly come out to undermine a hugely anticipated MMO which happpens to be set in a humongously popular universe and is almost upon its release date?
No kidding.
Gemini
Friday, December 2, 2011 at 1:37 PMWoW in Star Wars clothing is still yawn worthy. Where is the innovation?
Oh, that’s right….if you don’t give the junkies what they crave they won’t jump ship. ;)