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EA's Eric Brown at UBS Media and Communications Conference

Electronic Arts CFO Eric Brown's presentation at the UBS 38th Annual Media and Communications Conference reaffirmed CY2011 for Star Wars: The Old Republic. It was also mentioned that SWTOR "...will generate revenue through monthly subscriptions" while speaking on the subscription model. Speaking on availability of options on purchasing, Eric Brown stated that the game's PC client will be available in both a retail packaged format and digital download format. Eric Brown also described The Old Republic as a ten year opportunity for EA.

Eric Brown's presentation lasted about 40 minutes and is now over. As of this moment this appears to be all of the new information relating to The Old Republic that came out of the presentation.

Last Updated: 11:45 AM PT. Klipto and Bjbrains contributed to this article.

Comments

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  • lucho's avatar
    • Posts: 0
    #38 lucho Posted 12/8/2010 2:37:13 PM
    Awesome! I was hoping for this billing model, and this kills all the speculation and discussions around that subject
    btw, is it me or we are getting bigger and better news lately?
  • Divade's avatar
    Nerf Herder
    • Posts: 17
    #25 Divade Posted 12/7/2010 11:40:55 PM
    was hoping for more of an announcment it being the 7th, release date of a certain expansion. even more info on a class or ANYTHING!! plus hope game cards can be used :)
  • Shadowpants's avatar
    • Posts: 0
    #36 Shadowpants Posted 12/8/2010 8:01:30 AM
    Went with a buddy to Game Stop to pick up his 'certain' reserve last night at midnight, and they stated they were taking pre orders for TOR. I know that doesn't mean a lot, but it makes it feel like it's closer to release.
  • Zanthos's avatar
    Jawa Trader
    • Posts: 173
    #37 Zanthos Posted 12/8/2010 9:16:22 AM
    yeah, they finally have it up on the official gamestop site as of today. (wasn't up there as of last night when I checked and I check it quite often for some weird reason.)

    http://www.gamestop.com/Catalog/ProductDetails.aspx?product_id=88761

    Notice the price? $59.99. No idea if that is official or not but from what I read on the official forums they have the SKU now so that is the reason they are able to take the preorders?? No idea myself. But with all the other hints we've gotten lately, I think a spring release is looking better than ever!

    Kind of an odd placeholder date they have as well 1/2/2012. We all know that's all it is, is a placeholder but still...
  • alexsau91's avatar
    Gamorrean Thug
    • Posts: 55
    #41 alexsau91 Posted 12/8/2010 7:07:58 PM
    For British gamers, 'Game' too have it up and are taking pre-orders at a price of 29.99 (RRP 39.99). They have a place-holder of 04 March 2011 which is slightly more accurate.

    --

    http://www.game.co.uk/Games/PC-Games/Star-Wars-The-Old-Republic/r342342/?added=342342
  • alexsau91's avatar
    Gamorrean Thug
    • Posts: 55
    #40 alexsau91 Posted 12/8/2010 7:05:37 PM
    For British gamers, 'Game' too have it up and are taking pre-orders at a price of 29.99 (RRP 39.99). They have a place-holder of 04 March 2011 which is slightly more accurate.

    http://www.game.co.uk/Games/PC-Games/Star-Wars-The-Old-Republic/r342342/
  • RogueJedi86's avatar
    Jawa Trader
    • Posts: 3107
    #24 RogueJedi86 Posted 12/7/2010 11:30:23 PM
    I would hope the digital download is cheaper than the retail version. It bugged me how WoW's was the same price. You miss out on the box and CD/DVD and manuals and maps and other goodies inside, but still have to pay the same price. You can say you can download it quicker than buying it, but if the game is pretty big, you could probably get it from the store and install it from disk quicker than the long download.

    Always felt ripped off by WoW's digital download being the same price as retail. That's why I only buy Steam games on sale, far cheaper than I would've spent for a retail box.
  • zechio's avatar
    Jawa Trader
    • Posts: 391
    #29 zechio Posted 12/8/2010 12:16:20 AM
    Yea, that is kind of messed up. Shave 5 or 10 bucks off the price, and you are STILL getting more money than from the box. The CEO of Stardock talked about it in a post a year or so ago. After all the costs and such, the developer gets about 30-40% of the price from a box, around 70% for digital download on someone elses service ( IE: Bioware selling a game on Steam. ), and over 90% from your own digital download service ( So this would be Bioware selling a game on the Bioware/EA stores. )

    At $50 that means the developer gets about $20 at best. If you evened this out, that is about $28.50 for someone elses service, and using the lower end of just 90% thats $22.23 from your own service. I'm sure they can afford to drop it down to $40 for the DD on their own system, netting over double the amount compared to box sales at $44.44.

    Where this gets interesting though, is advertisement. How often has someone walked through a game aisle, seen a game and then bought it? I think more often when people buy the game from the DD system, they were looking for it. I could be wrong here though, just personal experience so far. I've only made like 1 random purchase from DD, the rest I went looking for them specifically. In store however, I have bought quite a few without having gone looking for them.

    Finally: You can't have the price TOO different, or people that bought the box will feel ripped off. So, I think a 5 MAYBE $10 max off Digital Downloads, but at least something.
  • Niirohanso's avatar
    • Posts: 0
    #42 Niirohanso Posted 12/9/2010 7:48:05 PM
    Stop being cheap bastards, even $60 is a good price for a game with hundreds of hours of story gameplay per class. So many games out there right now that you will pay $60 and beat the entire game in a week. Ya there will be a monthly fee so after game price and a few MONTHS go by you would have invested about $100 into a game that has more gameplay than 10 Xbox/Ps3 games.
  • RogueJedi86's avatar
    Jawa Trader
    • Posts: 3107
    #30 RogueJedi86 Posted 12/8/2010 12:32:06 AM
    When Steam has weekend and holiday sales, I'll buy games I wouldn't have bought before. I never would've bought the L4D bundle of both games if I hadn't seen it on sale for $10.19. I previously hated L4D, but seeing it on sale for that cheap, I was more apt to listen to the good reviews for the games since it was that cheap. Ditto The Orange Box. Bought it for $7.50 a couple weeks ago during Thanksgiving, when I was already planning to buy HL2 Episode 1. Now I have both HL2 Episodes(my intended goal), plus TF2 which I wouldn't have bought otherwise.

    So yeah, if I see games on sale on Steam, I get curious about them. But mainly when there's multiple things on sale, like weekends and holidays, I may pick one out of the multiple games on sale.
  • zechio's avatar
    Jawa Trader
    • Posts: 391
    #32 zechio Posted 12/8/2010 12:46:31 AM
    Oh, I've done that as well, though it's kind of separate as I doubt there will be a steam special for TOR on launch day:)

    The large profit margin on digital downloads, as well as the ability to provide games long past their prime is a big plus for digital downloads, and ability to provide amazing sales for games. If steam wasn't so intrusive and such a big POS I would really praise them...instead I always try to make a point to buy stuff off Stardocks Impulse:)
  • MuscarKrone's avatar
    Nerf Herder
    • Posts: 16
    #21 MuscarKrone Posted 12/7/2010 10:04:36 PM
    Glad to see it will have a monthly fee, make me much more happy. I like the one price each month gets you all the content, no having to deal with some players purchasing the MT that is needed to do X, or get X ability. I cant see the worlds largest game ever developed just living on MT's.

    And I am glad to see it will be available for digital download, I hope a "Premium" digital download is available where, you can start your download now (about a week before release) and use that copy just incase the box with all the cool collectors edition stuff does not make it in time.


  • zechio's avatar
    Jawa Trader
    • Posts: 391
    #26 zechio Posted 12/7/2010 11:48:19 PM
    $15. Not saying I hope it has MTs ( I'm actually quite against it...), just saying don't rule it out.

    As to having a download before hand:

    Usually the boxes are available BEFORE the game launches. This allows you to install, register, etc. but you still can't play until launch ( or pre-launch ) because you have to wait for the servers to actually come online.

    Also, sometimes there is a leeway, like I think WAR had one of like 3 days that you didn't need to use the code to play, though I think you did have to have a beta account. In this case, you can usually just use the beta client: Just don't forget to uninstall and install the fresh game from the CD when you do get it. Sometimes there are registry/setting glitches from using the beta client.

    Finally: Sometimes a pre-order will email you your account keys. In this case as well, you can usually just use the beta client.

    You "shouldn't" run into an issue where the game is live, but you can not get in. Well, unless you forget to pre-order/don't go to get your copy first thing:) Remember: Companies have no problem with over-selling pre-orders, then making them first come first serve.
  • gstommylee's avatar
    Jawa Trader
    • Posts: 102
    #34 gstommylee Posted 12/8/2010 4:03:04 AM
    I think it does rule out MTs cause EA didn't have TOR listed in their MT/ftp chart i recall seeing I believe last month
  • Korithian's avatar
    • Posts: 0
    #39 Korithian Posted 12/8/2010 5:18:10 PM
    I'd be very surprised if EA didn't include some form of MT shop. We have all just seen WAR bring one in and saw how much revenue that flying mount made for WoW. More and more MMO's seem to be going down that route and I can think of plenty more examples of cash shops available in MMO's.

    Now somethimes its simple things like renaming of a toon, a change of server or account or additional character slots. Other times its an additional level or some gear or pet or mount. But these days F2P or P2P all seem to include a shop in the line up.
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