SWTOR UK Sales Plummet After One Week

SWTOR UK sales

According to Chart-Track, sales of Star Wars: The Old Republic in the UK fell from the #10 spot all the way down to #38 in its second week of sales after being released. Now this could be due to many reasons, one being of course the insane sales that take place during the holiday season and since SWTOR is a brand new game there is no sale. So you can argue that people will be more likely to buy the cheaper games.

On the other hand dropping from from 10 to 38 regardless of the reason isn’t a good sign. That basically tells me that everyone that wanted the game probably already bought it and now EA will have to start advertising. I’ve been some large banners in NYC for the game, but I can’t recall seeing one TV commercial for it.

No sales figures for North America have been released yet, but should be within the next day or two.

Also reported today by Baird Equity, a research firm, was that SWTOR has peaked so far with about 350,000 concurrent players online and that the game has had “minimal apparent impact” on Blizzard’s World of Warcraft. Baird Equity also mentioned that they predict a higher than 2.5% drop in WoW subscriptions for the fourth quarter or 250,000+ players.

Some mixed news for EA and BioWare. Obviously 350,000 concurrently players is a big number, but a drop is sales that large is not a good sign for the growth of the game in the long run. Of course that’s only one week and you really can’t start making predictions off of one week of sales, but it’ll be interesting to see if SWTOR has staying power.

19 Comments

  1. Or you might want to tell the truth that the game is on temporary hold for sales pending more EU servers coming online because the demand is so high the current list of 92 EU servers is just not enough.

    Come on Mike. Don’t be a WoW wanker.

  2. lols a wow wanker… hahahahaha this game shits all over WoW. the in-depth questing and voice acting make this make this game a true next gen mmo.

  3. Leave mike alone. He is the only one keeping this site alive. That said, This game is wow in space, and becuase of nothing new the game is over in less than a week. I have been leveling up in some older F2P, and have been enjoying holiday content and new years content in less greedy, totaly free, totaly fun games. I hope you all had as much and were not victims of wow, or this… horrible, whored out use of the Star wars title. Long live the original Old Republic RPG!

  4. I’d say it’s going to crash harder than Warhammer Online did, but WAR had a relatively mature, educated and objective audience which quickly saw the game for what it was. A brief glance at the TOR forums shows you that any naysayer is met with dozens of ad-hominem riddled posts declaring that EA should be charging higher subscription fees for the masterpiece they have put out. It’s actually bizarre. I find myself lurking the forum far too much, I’ve never seen such blind fanboyism for anything.

  5. So many Biodrones in denial

    Keep defending this piece of ass, its hilarious

    END OF RINE
    ______________________________

    BE ESHERENT TO ME

  6. I already hate it. I HAVE NO PROBLEM WITH BEING SEEN AS A SWTOR HATER! It’s a sack of cack. I hope it burns after crashing hard. Die TOR just die. Ha, back to wanking over WoW. Lovely lady Draenei, mmmm.

  7. Played SWTOR (only to lvl 18) alone with about 20 friends and we found it to be an okay game. Voice acting, companion system are great additions, but overall its WoW in a space Skin and taken as a whole a weaker version of it. Most have quit and went back to WoW. Just my 2 cents. If I had the time I would play both. Maybe GW2 will be better a game-

  8. Yes, isn’t it odd he leaves out more information from the same quoted article? :)

    “Early Star Wars success points to healthy MMO market

    The early success of Bioware and EA’s Star Wars: The Old Republic is an indication of a healthy market for subscription based MMOs, according to analysts monitoring the high-profile release. ”

    I think Mike needs to take some journalism classes and learn about libel.

  9. I enjoy the game, the only MMO i’ve ever actually had fun in, of course i place a lot of importance on story.

    It is funny to see the lack of maturity in here, just because you don’t likea game KIDS doesn’t mean someone else doezn’t. Everyone has a different opinion and wants different things from their games.

    What is really strange is wanting a game to fail because you don’t like it. Childish indeed. Move on to something you like and quit hating, you’ll be a better person for it.

  10. @mike, maybe he’s reffering to the 1 million hard copy pre orders that don’t take into account the digital copies which wouldn’t be reflected on the sales numbers which is the basis of your entire article.

  11. Total Ojective opinion:

    I have played WOW for years and I must say that

    1.Im not big into StarWars, Im a trekkie ( – :
    2. I love WOW for the most part

    Guys, I have to say, this game is really good! Dont listen to anyone’s rant, try the game out and I would be surprised if you dont like it. Just my 2 cents

  12. Step over a dollor to pickup a dime?

    I might be wrong but SWTOR is not available for download via Steam correct? I know some companies are trying to go against Steam but in the long run they will loose. I would wager to say that Steam sells most of the pc games that are sold these days.

    Example BF3 is a awsome game but Orgin sucks as a interface for multiple reasons. Because of this (and the fact that the large majority of people love Steam), that game will never see the success it could have had if they would have just released it via Steam.

  13. I took the plunge and bought it.

    For the most part it is like most other MMO, the combat is pretty much the same – maybe a bit slicker. The graphics are very nice but pretty much more of the same as I thought it would be.

    However having played it – I expected to not like it as I believed it would be another regurgitated cookie cutter MMO – I found actually I really do like it. The full voice stories actually make your missions seem relevent, It brings another dimension to your character and you feel like your really connecting with your character.

    There are a couple of grindy bits, but the way the missions are laid out, and the way the story is handled the grind rarely feels like a grind.

    I would say I was pleasantly surprised – like Mike it probably won’t hold my attention enough once GW2 arrives but it’ll certainly do in the interim.

    Try it before you knock it.

  14. I have to point out that a mmo with a monthly sub isn’t going to get hurt very much by a dipping sales rate. Keeping the subs over the long term will be much more important IMO.

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