Eurogamer reports on a quote from Electronic Arts' Chief Financial Officer Eric Brown, who spoke at a Wedbush Morgan conference in New York on March 10th. Eric Brown stated that Star Wars: The Old Republic is "[the] largest ever development project, period, in the history of the company."
When you take a look at previous projects created by Electronic Arts, this speaks volumes. EA has several big name franchises, such as "The Sims," and "Command and Conquer". The news that The Old Republic exceeds these titles in terms of the scope of development certainly reinforces the idea that the game is being given a high priority within Electronic Arts.
Brown mentioned production costs of similar games, like World of Warcraft, which Blizzard spent "$100 million, perhaps more" to bring to market in 2004. This shows the general scope of the game as well as the quality that Bioware, and indeed EA as a whole, are aiming for. One reason they are likely investing so much is because they know they only have one launch and an MMO can be a make or break deal.
When you take a look at previous projects created by Electronic Arts, this speaks volumes. EA has several big name franchises, such as "The Sims," and "Command and Conquer". The news that The Old Republic exceeds these titles in terms of the scope of development certainly reinforces the idea that the game is being given a high priority within Electronic Arts.
Brown mentioned production costs of similar games, like World of Warcraft, which Blizzard spent "$100 million, perhaps more" to bring to market in 2004. This shows the general scope of the game as well as the quality that Bioware, and indeed EA as a whole, are aiming for. One reason they are likely investing so much is because they know they only have one launch and an MMO can be a make or break deal.
Comments
Sorry this was supposed to be a reply to Perkunas statement below.
It would be nice to know how many million $ EA poured into SWTOR. 100m$ for WoW is much, but also this information is worthless without the ability to compare it to SWTOR.