Well, ya gotta read this: http://www.swtor.com/free
Yeah, that’s right.. the ultimate Star Wars MMO went Free-to-Play in less than a year. Should I mention that even the Pre-NGE version of Star Wars Galaxies lasted two years before the near fatal NGE update, and then even with NGE, lasted another six years before shutting their doors. I don’t know how much more fail the Star Wars Franchise can take! What’s next? Darth Jar Jar and the Ewoks Revolution Online? You all remember the South Park episode that has George Lucas and Steven Spielberg taking, um, undue liberties with Indiana Jones? See, that is what Lucasarts did.. again, with the Star Wars IPO.
Now, I’m not going to say “I told you so.” mainly because everyone and their grandma who played MMOs saw this coming a mile away. However, I will send out these very public letters to all those involved:
To Electronic Arts:
I understand. You are executives, not gamers. You look at numbers and make imaginary rules about how it works. You took one of the best gaming companies in the world, with a stellar track record for producing awesome RPG games. And then, you gave them a free hand. To me, you don’t really bear any responsbility for this flop. You aren’t in the clear, and you should have done more homework, but all around.. you did what was expected of you. I forgive you and will await the next product that interests me.
To Bioware:
OMG, you are one of the best gaming companies around! I can’t remember all the titles that you have produced that I still love, even though those games are way in the past. You sought to do what you did best.. storyline RPGs, but on a massive level. And you flopped it. OMG, did you flop it. What was the thought process there was seemed hijack both this game and the ending to Mass Effect 3? But while you came back and fixed the Mass Effect 3 ending, fixing SW:TOR is going to be a long, hard job. And now that you are F2P, it’s going to be an even longer job. Because, and let me be clear, you made a space ship game, without very many spaceships. However, because this is really your first major fail, I forgive you and look forward to you dazzling me with your next releases, certain that you will not be foolish enough to make the same mistake twice.
To Lucasarts and George Lucas:
You sirs, should be absolutely ashamed of yourself. How many times have you destroyed your masterpiece for trinkets?! Why is there even the WORD “arts” in your name since you botched this up so badly. You could have talked with EA and Bioware and said, “Hey Guys, the last time we tried to take our IPO from an original idea to something that copied WoW, bad things happened.” or, better yet, “Hey Guys, we took a smart game and made it stupidly simple and lost the vast majority of our customer base. Let’s see if we can avoid that!” Instead, you tried AGAIN to beat WoW. Your Star Wars movies, your Star Wars games, all of them have so hashed up the Star Wars Universe that it is has ruined the love I had for Star Wars. And you knew better. YOU KNEW BETTER! Because of this, I will no longer purchase any Star Wars products for myself or my kids. If I see your name attached to it, I’ll avoid it. If I see LucasArts has a hand in it, I will walk away. You have ended, for me, a glorious story. The hearing of those fun questions in my head like, “I wonder what Hans Solo would do?”, or “Is that ship cooler than the Millenium Falcon?” will forever be tainted by the fact that you couldn’t keep your hands off of it. So good bye and remember:
