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No more WotC Star Wars - announcement
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<blockquote data-quote="Steel_Wind" data-source="post: 5073109" data-attributes="member: 20741"><p>You are assuming the only reason they would do it would be to make money in and of itself. They don't think like that. And when your dev budget is that high and most of this content <strong>is being produced anyways,</strong> there are other issues at hand.</p><p></p><p>For example, there are marketing aspects to a core group of people that they want to attract to <em>SW:TOR</em>. They also know that gathering groups of people into their games with pre-established social ties builds in a critical social aspect to their game at an early stage. This aids in raising monthly subscription retention, reduces churn and adds to building and maintaining guilds early on after the game's release to act as a support structure for the broad mass of their other transitory subscribers. </p><p></p><p>It also increases word of mouth amongst gamers for comparatively little.</p><p></p><p>There are other compelling reasons to do so. Importantly, it serves as a breeding ground and test bed for their own setting ideas and as a means of identifying individuals who can write for the setting. BioWare has had a great deal of success in hiring writers and designer from within their game communities -- a scene which has all but vanished for them since 2004</p><p></p><p>Moreover, if the product is promoting the game directly, in respect of which Lucasfilm is a co-principal, the license fees are no longer an issue either -- because there <em>won't be any.</em></p><p><em></em></p><p></p><p>It's not as if BioWare does not have people working full time on background bibles and setting fluff that we will never, ever, see. They do. They've been doing it, in fact, FOR YEARS. The cost of art for an outfit like BioWare is minuscule. They have most of those artists not as freelancers, but as full time in-house artists anyways. The material is there already and the marginal cost of making it publishable is very small.</p><p></p><p>Have you looked at their website? It's a massive amount of free content that is exactly what is needed to do a successful pnp RPG tie-in. Add some crunch? You are good to go.</p><p></p><p>It takes a vast amount of money and testing to put their setting information for SW:TOR and plot hooks in front of a single in house beta team. In some cases, hundreds of thousands of dollars for relatively small plot arcs. </p><p></p><p>In contrast, at the budget levels they are working with, it is essentially FREE to get test their plots and characters among fans when the game need only be put into print -- and even less if much of it is released online only.</p><p></p><p>I found it interesting to note that Lucasfilm on Starwars.com specifically mentioned the "growth of online gaming" as one of the two reasons that WotC supposedly cited as their reason for not renewing the license.</p><p></p><p>Why cite a reason which is not a temporary matter which is subject to the business cycle? It's akin to shooting down the long-term viability of your own license in a news release. How the hell does that assist your business? Answer: it doesn't.</p><p></p><p>Given that Lucas then reaffirms the strength of all of these the product lines in the same news release with a reminder to people to check the space in the coming months for new announcements suggests to me that something is up.</p><p></p><p>Not saying it's a sure thing by any means. But <em>SW:TOR</em> is where the action is in the coming years. EA and Lucas have essentially bet the farm on it. They aren't going to leave that success to chance, imo.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Steel_Wind, post: 5073109, member: 20741"] You are assuming the only reason they would do it would be to make money in and of itself. They don't think like that. And when your dev budget is that high and most of this content [B]is being produced anyways,[/B] there are other issues at hand. For example, there are marketing aspects to a core group of people that they want to attract to [I]SW:TOR[/I]. They also know that gathering groups of people into their games with pre-established social ties builds in a critical social aspect to their game at an early stage. This aids in raising monthly subscription retention, reduces churn and adds to building and maintaining guilds early on after the game's release to act as a support structure for the broad mass of their other transitory subscribers. It also increases word of mouth amongst gamers for comparatively little. There are other compelling reasons to do so. Importantly, it serves as a breeding ground and test bed for their own setting ideas and as a means of identifying individuals who can write for the setting. BioWare has had a great deal of success in hiring writers and designer from within their game communities -- a scene which has all but vanished for them since 2004 Moreover, if the product is promoting the game directly, in respect of which Lucasfilm is a co-principal, the license fees are no longer an issue either -- because there [I]won't be any. [/I] It's not as if BioWare does not have people working full time on background bibles and setting fluff that we will never, ever, see. They do. They've been doing it, in fact, FOR YEARS. The cost of art for an outfit like BioWare is minuscule. They have most of those artists not as freelancers, but as full time in-house artists anyways. The material is there already and the marginal cost of making it publishable is very small. Have you looked at their website? It's a massive amount of free content that is exactly what is needed to do a successful pnp RPG tie-in. Add some crunch? You are good to go. It takes a vast amount of money and testing to put their setting information for SW:TOR and plot hooks in front of a single in house beta team. In some cases, hundreds of thousands of dollars for relatively small plot arcs. In contrast, at the budget levels they are working with, it is essentially FREE to get test their plots and characters among fans when the game need only be put into print -- and even less if much of it is released online only. I found it interesting to note that Lucasfilm on Starwars.com specifically mentioned the "growth of online gaming" as one of the two reasons that WotC supposedly cited as their reason for not renewing the license. Why cite a reason which is not a temporary matter which is subject to the business cycle? It's akin to shooting down the long-term viability of your own license in a news release. How the hell does that assist your business? Answer: it doesn't. Given that Lucas then reaffirms the strength of all of these the product lines in the same news release with a reminder to people to check the space in the coming months for new announcements suggests to me that something is up. Not saying it's a sure thing by any means. But [I]SW:TOR[/I] is where the action is in the coming years. EA and Lucas have essentially bet the farm on it. They aren't going to leave that success to chance, imo. [/QUOTE]
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