Galaxies is June 26!...But wtf?

[Macbeth2k1]

Well, I've been playing since Friday, and I have to admit...Its worth every cent! It was amazing to be able to walk around in Mos Espa. Seeing Shuttles and Tie Fighters fly by every now and then. Jawas scurrying around the outskirts of town, Droids going about their duties. There are even some womp rats skulking around the allyways.

 

I've already been in a blaster fight in the streets. People were ducking for cover while we were ducking into byways to get a better angle. Blaster bolts were flying all over the place.

 

I ran into a herd of banthas in the desert, some of them were actually lying down resting, and when i got too close they all stood up and watched me as I skirted around them.

 

I'm planning to head to Mos Eisley to rough up some of the Lady Valarian's thugs to gain good faction standing with Jabba.

 

I'm having too much fun. Time for bed.

[lukeiamyourdad]

Has anyone wondered why half of the forum seems to be not into MMORPGs? While almost 99% of us are gamers who like video games in general. It's because of the monthly cost!

 

And besides I've done some math and came to seriously strange conclusions:

 

Right now LA is sure to sell at least 500 000 copies of the game.

 

So every month, everyone pays like 15$ (annual fee seems a little bit for starters).

 

500 000 X 15= 7 500 000$ every month

 

now let's say everyone of those guys plays 12 months

 

7 500 000$ X 12= 90 000 000$

 

Ok now don'T tell me that's not a lot of money!

I mean what the hell are they feeding those guys?!

And this is only the money they're gonna make per month not even the money they're gonna make for the game only!

 

I know Galaxies been in the works for 3 years but Half-Life 2 has been for 5 I think. Does this mean they're gonna sell a copy of Half-Life 2 for 200$????

[[RAA]-=Chi3f=-]

Monthly fee hmmm.....

 

I don't know about that. $50 + $12 = no child support for a few months. For that price I could just buy a cloak and pretend I'm a Jedi (like I do in public).

[swphreak]

Orginally said by Mujahid

Here's a stab at the cost breakdown. I'm a professional software developer, so this is an educated guess (and, by the way, is just the TIP of the iceberg):

 

*Note: Game has been under development for 5+ years with no income (obviously). So right off the TOP, the investors need to recoup their investment...and like a poster mentioned above, they are NOT investing in SWG to break even. Would you?

 

Let's be conservative and say there were only 15 full time software developers. Each of these guys is making a salary between $60k per year and $150k per year, depending upon their position in the team.

 

Let's break it down like this:

1 Development Team Lead @ $150k per year.

1 QA Team lead @ $100k per year

5 developers @ $85k per year (total $425k per year)

8 developers @ $60k per year (total $480k per year)

 

This is a total *salary payout* of $1,155,000 per year.

Now, to determine an organization's *cost* to have those employees (medical insurance, disability, dental, vision, 401k, vacation, floating days, sick leave, bereavement leave, overhead breakdown per employee, etc) you need to take your salary payout (per person) and approximately multiply it by 2. So the figure above becomes $2,310,000 per year. [if you make $50k a year, it costs your employer nearly $100k just to look at your sorry self every day ]

 

Figure 5 years of development. I'm going to be SO conservative, I'm not even going to give the developers a miniscule cost-of-living raise each year. So 5 x the figure above equals: $11,550,000

 

I haven't even discussed management, folks. And, this is just the personnel cost. And, the total development staff is probably MUCH larger than 15 developers! I've personally developed smaller projects and needed more developers than that! (I once made AMPLE use of 22 developers on a simple e-commerce site that took 1 year to develop and field). The above figures are a *cartoon picture* of what must be the reality of SWG development.

 

Now, let's look at equipment: You need a server "farm" to handle this kind of game. One "server" might actually be as many as 10 physical server machines (it's more than that in EQ, and SWG has much more data).

 

Last time I priced an average server (at government cost), I was looking at (depending upon features) between $6k - $15k per box (not including racks, UPSs, tape farm, etc).

 

A message from a while back also hinted at the fact they are using Oracle as the underlying "back end" database. Have you ever priced an Oracle license? The cheapest license I have personally purchased, for an average application with limited use, was $100k just to get in the door. You don't go down to Comp USA and pick up a copy of Oracle, my friend Their enterprise-class license must be running close to a mil alone.

 

The developers had to develop the software SOMEWHERE, right? Ok, how much rent did the office space cost for 5 years? I don't know either, but it's a helluva lot more than your house/apartment payment, I can guarantee it. You can place the rent alone at close to a million dollars for a 5-year period. That's conservative for a modern office building. Ok, the building needs electricity now.... phones....HVAC....maintenance....

 

Now let's talk bandwidth. It's not free. Depending upon their pipeline, they could easily be looking at $10k per month over the span of that 5 year period. That ALONE would add up to approx $600k over that 5 year period. They're not developing this on a RoadRunner connection

 

Publicity: They don't get a booth at E3 for free, you know. They don't get ads in PC Gamer for free either.

 

We've spoken about development. How about marketting? How about business development? Those are two teams unto themselves that could *easily* cost more than the development team!

 

When you add it all up, a CONSERVATIVE estimate is that development of the game alone cost in the vicinity of $20mil

 

Now you have ongoing costs to take into consideration:

1. bandwidth

2. salary of CSRs and Live Team devs

3. salary of management

4. salary of continued marketting efforts (even EverQuest still advertises)

5. overhead of facilities and office

6. countless other costs I haven't even considered

 

Conclusion: Do I really have to offer one?

Here's a hint: $32 million is NOT a lot of money. All you have to do is spend ONE year managing a $30+ mil budget and you'll be bald from trying to make it spread over all the things you need to cover.

 

This is professional software development. They didn't ask "Jim Bob" down the street to throw this together on his Amiga

 

I just wish people would quit complaining about the monthly fee...

[lukeiamyourdad]

Still, I calculated that they would make 90 millions in one year without the price of the game itself.

 

and 32 million is a LOT of money. Nobody should dare say that it's not a lot to the common people with a salary of 30 000$ per year.

[Redwing]

Originally posted by Random

Well if you've made up your mind, its made up. I still feel its worth it, there is a lot of fun to be had.

 

Lexx, SWG is a little different from EQ in the character development area. They've designed the game to be faster than EQ. A hardcore player is predicted to max out their character's skill points in around 3 months. Casual players in around 6 months. But maxing out your points isn't the point of the game. That's when you become able to do anything you want. Go on journies to the really dangerous planets, or start focusing on joining and participating with the Rebelion or the Empire, or working your way into Jabba's circle of "friends". Or if you're really in for a long directionless journy, becoming a Jedi.

 

Or you could refocus your character and free up your skill points and spend them on different skills.

 

They've really spent a lot of time developing the game to the players that *used* to play EQ and had a lot of time. They know that they've all grown up and have jobs now, and have less time to play, so they want the shorter game sessions to be more fulfilling.

 

But hey, I know what you're saying that you'll "never pay to play" I used to say it too. And $50 is a lot for a 30 day trial period, but thats all it took to get me hooked the first time. Prehaps they'll one day release a free demo or something...

 

 

Unfortunately, you can only have one character, unless you want to pay double. Three characters make triple. Limitless possiblities? x.o

 

Anyways: I have a brother who was going to share the cost, and get the game, but that's obviously impossible now

[swphreak]

You can only have one charcter per server. You can have other characters on a different server. You just can't play together on the same server, but you could take turns....