The Daily Grind: Did BioWare make the right call?

by Jef Reahard on Jul 25th 2011 8:00AM

Sci-Fi, MMO Industry, Opinion, The Daily Grind, Star Wars: The Old Republic

BioWare made something of a stink last week with its decision to limit Star Wars: The Old Republic pre-orders (both in terms of total numbers and in certain regions around the world). Here at Massively, we received dozens of angry emails entreating us to take up the cause of the common gamer.

While limits on digital goods do seem a bit artificial, it's also worth noting that recent popular MMO releases were beset with server overcrowding and lengthy login queues (we're thinking of both Aion and RIFT here).

BioWare ruffled quite a few fan feathers with its actions, but from the outside looking in, it's difficult to determine what the company could have done differently. That's where you come in, and this edition of The Daily Grind is all about your reaction to Star Wars: The Old Republic pre-orders, load limits, and regional publishing. Do you think BioWare made the right call?

Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!

Reader Comments (211)

@Valkenr It's not just a US release. They're simultaneously launching in 20 European countries. 20 out of 50 or so countries that are part of Europe. Understandably, people in the remaining 30 countries might be a little miffed about being left out.

Of course, this is the preorder we're talking about, and there's no reason to assume that the rest of the world will not be included at or soon after the official launch, but it's still a bit of a downer if you happen to live outside the US or those 20 lucky countries.

@Valkenr

problem is that a Worldwide launch is often held back by language localisation.

Which is not an issue in some places it's being sold and in others people should still have the choice

It's hard to believe that WAR,RIft AIion, Age of conan,STO,Lotro. and to a lesser extent DCUO and champions online(which had about a week between US and AUS). Where all able to launch english speaking copies of their games to the english world either on the same day or the next after initial release depending on timezones.

With EA behind SW:TOR they should be able to achieve an english world release, without DD restriction to enable those that live in non english areas that want to buy the game.

Another reason why I wont be playing TOR.

Space combat on rails? Total lack of imagination by BioWare/Lucas Arts?

@Quarlo see you at launch.

Having been a part of some of the past mistakes in launches (looking at you aion and aoc), I can totally see their reasons for making sure they can get an idea of how many people to expect, and to be able to control the start of the game.

makes sense on all fronts.

@Quarlo

I agree...they said that part is optional so I will be skipping it. The rest seems okay. At worst its a really long mass effect game.

Jef, in my recollection the Rift launch went pretty smoothly. The only time server cues were a big issue was if you were lame enough to jump on the same shard as everyone else and there were pleanty of shards that were not cued.

frankly all the arguments i have heard in relation to leaving out english speaking areas such as Australia/NZ who are almost never treated this way by other developers, make no sence. Digital distribution costs nothing, no language issues and no server load problems caused by Oceanic players who play on US servers at vastly differant times.

I bet that when Origen finally does permit AU/NZ sales to go ahead it will be at a inflated regionalised pricing. it is the only reason I can think of that EA might use to justify offsiding AU/NZ gamers. Basicly greed. EA does this currently with ALL their digital distribution titles in the Oceanic area. price gouging is an EA policy, why change it now?

@Bezza

it's ironic though.

i probably would have thrown my money at origin just for the convienience of downloading it all(which i will do for beta anyways) even at the inflated 80-100USD that it would have cost.

instead i'm buying it off amazon and having a boxed copy shipped, which means ea makes only the margin they get off a store copy instead of getting the 80-100USD-cost

I have to comment on Rifts server ques. I fully believe these to be artificial due to the low limit put on each server. you do not go from the number of completely full servers to losing over half of them in the first month, which they did. i was on the highest pop server they had, yet i could travel around and do searches for specific numbers and levels (which i did) and found less than 1k at peak times. This couple with actually going to the various areas and seeing how many folks are around is telling of how small the actual allowed limits were. Trion will not release what the actual server limits were that first month for very obvious reasons.

What bioware is doing by limiting the special order sales? Probably more in line with local area politics (defining country area) and simple screwing up on the PR departments part at bioware, like the fiasco that was and is the missing CE keys that is still going on.

No, what we have here is simple lex parsimoniae. Simply poorly planned and failed to execute properly, but they wont admit that, no news here.

Limiting sales+no open beta=paid beta?

There's actually no real proof that pre-ordering to Oceania would actual result in a smoother launch than if they did not. Nor do their digital store restrictions seem to actually stop the sale of physical copies, since they do seem to be selling those there from what I can see.

Personally, the fact that as a Canadian I had to pay tax when I got this online and I never do with Steam shows that this store is not operating under the same principle as Steam, so the two are not really comparable.

@Greyhame ...Why must the comment system fail so much sometimes?

@Greyhame I personally believe that the comments system was written by the Dark Lord himself

I would say that they made the right call, and frankly I'm not even sure what the anger is about. They're still not sold out of either the standard or collector's edition pre orders. If you want to play, you can play. Plop down 5 bucks, play during the early entry, and pick up your copy when it comes out.

@Mystal
The thing that more people are complaining about than simply having issues getting hold of a pre-order is that every country outside the US/EU umbrella has been told "The game will not be available in your region at launch, and we have no idea when it will be, if at all"
When people from these spurned countries try to pre-order the game, figuring they'll just play on EU/US servers, they are having to lie about their location or use US proxies to even be able to pre-order. The pre-order company linked on the Bioware website just says "SWTOR is not available in your region".

Couple with the fact that the community manager mentioned something about IP address blocking to prevent people from playing in any area other than US/EU and then promptly went to bed without clarifying himself or dealing with the horde of angry fans...

Well, I'm sure you can see why so many of us are pissed.

@Leviathan
This is exactly the main issue atm. There is now talk in many None Umbrella EU countries to boycott all EA products because of this. We will most likely see a surge of pirated games from EU next months and years.

yes

Meh....sorry SW:TOR your game was just to hyped to death for me.

It's old news. I feel like I've played it, made alts, unsubbed, resubbed, and have now moved on.

I'm going to save my money for...something...

I'm all hyped out. >_<

The way I see it, Bioware is truly trying to provide a great service, limiting pre-orders and allowing early access in chunks will help to prevent server issues come launch. No matter how much cash you throw at data centers, an IP such as this will come with a HUGE launch population and they want it to go smooth. I don't have a problem with that.

Of course, I also see Bioware/EA pulling a 'Disney' here, in which they release the classic movies for purchase over a limited time, which drives up sales numbers.

I am Australian and I am more than angry at the fact that I can't play the game.

Also I would wish that massively would do a story on it at some stage :)

@Jack Pipsam

Start a boycotting EA campaign in Australia. I know many gaming forums in eastern Europe and other "second class" countries are doing it atm.

The thing is... alot of gamers that have no special intrest in SWTOR are very unhappy about this release. So.. not only potential SWTOR players are boycotting - but also other gamers that feel offended. And there are alot of them.

Bioware just created a secondary class countries for MMO gaming. Thats not acceptable and total disgrace for a gaming company aiming to make a big MMO game.

Previous 20 Comments | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | Most Recent | Next 20 Comments

The Daily Grind: Did BioWare make the right call?

Reader Comments (211)

Posted: Jul 25th 2011 6:31PM Lenn said

Posted: Jul 26th 2011 10:14AM alinos said

Posted: Jul 25th 2011 6:16PM Quarlo said

Posted: Jul 25th 2011 6:38PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Jul 25th 2011 7:12PM Yellowdancer said

Posted: Jul 25th 2011 6:29PM Bezza said

Posted: Jul 26th 2011 10:18AM alinos said

Posted: Jul 25th 2011 6:47PM Graill440 said

Posted: Jul 25th 2011 6:54PM terroni said

Posted: Jul 25th 2011 8:13PM Greyhame said

Posted: Jul 25th 2011 8:14PM Greyhame said

Posted: Jul 25th 2011 8:35PM mmogaddict said

Posted: Jul 25th 2011 8:38PM Mystal said

Posted: Jul 25th 2011 9:26PM Leviathan said

Posted: Jul 26th 2011 5:14AM Deadalon said

Posted: Jul 25th 2011 10:14PM uberman3000 said

Posted: Jul 25th 2011 11:10PM ElfLove said

Posted: Jul 26th 2011 2:57AM Erovin said

Posted: Jul 26th 2011 4:25AM Jack Pipsam said

Posted: Jul 26th 2011 11:37AM Deadalon said

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