Cowen and Company, an analyst group, has released a new report that states, subscription numbers for Star Wars: The Old Republic have already peaked in February and the game is currently in decline.
The reports states that from the game’s peak of 1.7 million subscribers, it has declined to about 1.25 million at the end of March, based on server statistics provided on TorStatus.net.
The report suggest that the reason for the decline is lack of end-game content. Cowen’s Doug Creutz stated the following,
We believe that the apparent decline in subscribers is most likely due to a lack of ‘end-game’ content for the title, meaning that players who hit the level cap have few compelling options in terms of ongoing game play. While the game got off to a good start, the relatively light amount of end-game content does appear to be taking a toll.
We believe EA is attempting to address the end-game content issue, including a recent major game update, but momentum appears to have stalled and we believe it is prudent to adopt a more conservative forecast on subscribers at this time.
For those of us following SWTOR, this comes at no surprise considering the amount of promotions EA and BioWare have been giving out over the last month. Checking Xfire stats, you can also clearly see the the decline in activity for the game, although it looks like for April it’s plateaued a bit.
Quite an optimistic prediction in my opinion. I think they’ll reach the 1.25m mark right around GW2’s launch.
I would be worried, but didn’t WOW have this problem in it’s first year?
The only reason I ever left was the fact that it cost quite a bit more monthly to play than wow, and the game was obviously released unfinished with all the bugs and glitches. You shouldn’t have to make millions monthly in order to make a good mmo.
@Starwars4ever it cost the exact same as wow. Almost every p2p mom is 14.14.99, so not sure what your talking about.
@Starwars4ever: The subscription for SWTOR is the same as the subscription for WoW. Your claims about it being unfinished with “all the bugs and glitches” is also bogus. The game is fine. It’s a very solid MMO that will entertain fans of Star Wars and fans of the MMO genre for years to come. Unlike many MMO’s this game launched with a complete set of content for people to experience as they level up. There are no “holes” in the content where you sit in one spot killing snakes to finally get some necessary level to go on to the next area. For people who are only interested in “end game” raiding there clearly was not going to be enough of that kind of content at the launch of the game but that’s true of all MMO’s and was certainly true of WoW when it launched years ago. Bioware is committed to adding in that type of content regularly and they have already shown that they have really fun dynamic world events in their arsenal as well. If you aren’t playing SWTOR and like the IP or the genre you should try it.
@Dont_misinform
Surely you haven’t played it when i did if you say the “bugs and glitches” is bogus.
By your tone and speech are you by chance an employee?
No wonder the game is declining since it brought nothing new to the genre, it even has a surprising number of areas where it is vastly inferior to it’s competitors. Have you ever tried leveling an alt on the same faction, man…. just how much more boring can it get?
Game has some nice dialogues and story, but for way less money you can get a book to keep you much more entertained.
So I’m supposed to believe some 3rd party site? I personally played the hell out of the game early on and probably burned out a bit. Additionally a TON of new off-line games have come out in the last few months. I personally haven’t been playing SWTOR that much lately so I am pretty confident that others may be in the same boat, which would cause users logged in to drop down. I have a 6-month recurring sub and have no plans to stop playing SWTOR.
It has some minor issues (itemizing/stat budget/crafting needs to be made more comprehensive) but overall I enjoy the hell out of the game and will ultimately return to playing it full time again. As with any data that is analyzed, people need to really discern what these ‘analysts’ are actually looking at.
I was never some die-hard fanboy, in fact I wasn’t even following the game until I got invited into the beta. I’m just more diverse in my gaming enjoyment and I am guessing that other SWTOR players may be in the same boat.
Of course there has been a delay in end-game content. Welcome to virtually every MMO ever released. I’m already warming up to some of the additional content/challenges that have been getting patched into the game.
I played it a little but for me it was just too much like WoW. I’ve already played the shit out of WoW and im over it. I don’t really feel like sinking a bunch of time into another game that is pretty much exactly the same.
This would be the same Doug Creutz of Cowen and Co who in July 2011 called Star Wars the Old Republic a “highly derivative clone of World of Warcraft” and stated it would never break the 500,000 subscribers mark? Forgive me if I take his predictions with a large shovel full of salt.
I’ve not been playing for the last couple of months due to an ongoing dispute with my Internet Provider and a connection that drops out 15-20 times an hour. I’ve actually used the time to make the most of Mass Effect 3. (There is a certain irony to the fact that SWTORS biggest offline competitot is probably the other BioWare game). I’ve also played a bit of Skyrim
Now my connection is fixed I fully intend to play the game to the hilt – and I’ve got another 4 months of my 6 month sub ahead of me :)
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