by Stacy Jones on Jan 23, 2012
The Los Angeles Times has posted a new article about the latest MMORPG on the market Star Wars: The Old Republic (SWTOR). We all knew this game was a massive project, but a recent Los Angeles Times article news tells us just how expansive the work on BioWare's massive project really was.
According to the article, more than 800 people from four different continents spent over six years developing the Star Wars-based MMORPG with an estimated budget of nearly $200 million. Over 1,000 voice actors were cast to lend their vocals to more than 4,000 characters in three different languages with over 1,600 hours of story and more on the way.
SWTOR managed to entice more than one million players to sign up for a subscription at launch, but according to GameSpot, investor notes from industry Research Analyst Michael Pachter of Wedbush Morgan indicates that SWTOR has sold nearly 2 million units since its December 20th launch. Pachter also noted that between 75-90% of those players are expected to stick around after the initial 30 free days of gameplay. This may or may not alleviate some investor concerns following a drop in EA's stock last week following concerns about SWTOR's post-launch performance.
Time is the greatest test of any MMORPG. Well see what the future holds for SWTOR, but in the short-term the title seems to be doing better than any of its recent competitors thus far with the exception of World of Warcraft, who is still currently holding the top subscription spot.
Sources:
Los Angeles Times
via GameSpot