| Mail |

You might also like: WoW Insider, Joystiq, and more

More Sites You Might Like

Massively

BioWare: Average SWTOR play session tops four hours

by Jef Reahard on Feb 24th 2012 12:00PM

Sci-Fi, Interviews, MMO Industry, News Items, Star Wars: The Old Republic

147

Star Wars: The Old Republic - Twi'lek Smuggler girl

Star Wars: The Old Republic players are consuming game content in four- to six-hour sessions on average, according to Kotaku and BioWare bigwig Greg Zeschuk. "When they play, their sessions are absurd," he said recently.

Zeschuk goes on to say both that the retention is a sign of the title's addictive "just-one-more" gameplay and that the firm is pulling an "intense amount of analytics and telemetry" from the title.

Finally, he hints at the theory that most SWTOR players are happy due to a general drop in forum tomfoolery. "You can tell when things are going really well in the game," Zeschuk explains. "The amount of forum chatter drops. People don't go to forums. They just play."

Take that as you will, and let us know how long your average SWTOR session lasts.

Source: Kotaku
More coverage: Official site

Tags: analytics, bioware, ea, ea-bioware, Electronic-Arts, greg-zeschuk, interview, metrics, mmo-industry, sci-fi, star-wars-the-old-republic, swtor, the-old-republic, tor

Reader Comments (147)

Finally, he hints at the theory that most SWTOR players are happy due to a general drop in forum tomfoolery. "You can tell when things are going really well in the game," Zeschuk explains. "The amount of forum chatter drops. People don't go to forums. They just play."

Na- they just moved on to another game.

Jeff, you just can't help yourself, can you. Lol.

Post flame bait

get paid.

@(Unverified)

I'm one of em. Moved back to Rift.

@DerpMchurson
Just had to post your snark as a reply to the first comment even though it's not related in the least, didn't you? Who cares what the OP may have wanted to talk about, huh? Just needed to get your little attention fix.
You can't help yourself, can you?

@(Unverified)

DCUO and X-box is now where I roam.

@(Unverified)
tbh I moved back to nothing. SWToR is simply bad on its own, I dont need having a better game to stop paying for that. I rather not play anything than playing (and paying for) a crappy, overhyped, poorly executed WoW clone.

@Deliverator you sound mad. U mad?

@(Unverified) Judging by the fall in population numbers, I'd say that's exactly what happened

http://i.imgur.com/wEryc.png

@(Unverified)
I wonder if I'll get rated down for backing up the quote.

Yes, I do still play SWTOR (level 50 and all) and yes I'm happier now that the tomfoolery has toned down.

@(Unverified)

LOL EXACTLY!.

Bioware didn't mention the fact that when you end your sub to the game you can no longer post on the forums.

@Alph some people are like you and some people are like my guild mates (around 50 or so people) who all quit after reaching lvl 50 on their main because they got bored.

@wahahabuh

Dude..I've never played an MMO where I got so bored so fast.

I thought I was missing something..like a huge zone or more dailies or something.

Not saying dailies are fun but that was literally the only reason I had to sign on after I got all my rakata gear, which was stupid easy to get, minus the unnecessary wipes to broken boss mechanics and bugs.

But yea..so boring.

@(Unverified) From the amount of subs and people playing, they didn't move to another game. Of course, IF that were true it isn't WoW obviously as they are still bleeding last I heard.

@Traptz
Exactly, the reason the forums are calm (just another word for dead btw) is because once your sub runs out you can't post anymore.

I love how Bioware takes bad situations and attempt to present them as good ones for PR marketting.

"Sir? Why is there nobody in the my zone? Is the game dying?"
Bioware PR: "Of course not, here, have a title"
* You have gained a new title "Sucker"! *

@kalipou134
Also, I think we're due for another

OUR LAUNCH WAS SO AWESOME

post. Any minute now

So? This is absolutely typical of any MMO. It's not special in any way, shape or form.

I will say this, it lets a lot of air out of the people who say the constantly declining server load doesn't mean people are quitting the game. Because if players are still playing at a constant, the 50+ percentage drop in server-status over the past month means too many people have quit.

@(Unverified)

Exactly. It isn't that SWtOR is special in some way. On new MMOs the average play session is always like that. It is a new game and people are playing it a lot, surprise that's how the genre works.

@(Unverified)
the thing is, in the other MMOs 4h is a GAME SESSION, that is, people playing content in the game for 4 hours.

in SWToR, a good portion of those 4h is more likely than not the time it takes people to get a group going, or simply to complete their Ilum daily.

@Fabius Bile

Or (assuming players don't skip them) listening to voiceovers....?

I seriously doubt ingame feedback has any link whatsoever to forum feedback. Neither is a true reflection of the playing public and both should be taken together, either negative or positive.

When I played the session lasted about 2 hours, sometimes longer but I cancelled because after logging out after that session I felt like I hadn't really achieved anything except levelling, and also it got to a stage where I saw no reason to log in other than to grind out missions to level up. The game has great potential and I will definitely be resubbing in a few months once the real MMO features have been implemented.

| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | Most Recent | Next 20 Comments

BioWare: Average SWTOR play session tops four hours

Reader Comments (147)

Posted: Feb 24th 2012 12:01PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Feb 24th 2012 12:11PM DerpMchurson said

Posted: Feb 24th 2012 12:13PM majorfalcon00 said

Posted: Feb 24th 2012 12:25PM Deliverator said

Posted: Feb 24th 2012 12:35PM Yellowdancer said

Posted: Feb 24th 2012 2:24PM Fabius Bile said

Posted: Feb 24th 2012 3:12PM DerpMchurson said

Posted: Feb 24th 2012 6:31PM Vgk said

Posted: Feb 24th 2012 8:34PM Alph said

Posted: Feb 24th 2012 9:24PM Traptz said

Posted: Feb 25th 2012 8:12AM wahahabuh said

Posted: Feb 25th 2012 9:03AM Traptz said

Posted: Feb 26th 2012 11:05PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Feb 27th 2012 3:26PM kalipou134 said

Posted: Feb 27th 2012 3:27PM kalipou134 said

Posted: Feb 24th 2012 12:06PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Feb 24th 2012 12:59PM SnarlingWolf said

Posted: Feb 24th 2012 2:26PM Fabius Bile said

Posted: Feb 24th 2012 11:01PM Ekphrasis said

Posted: Feb 24th 2012 12:12PM Snichy said

Info

Description

MSRP

Release Date

Genre

Developer

Publisher

Rating

Breaking News

Massively surveys WildStar's Scientist and Settler paths, the Esper class, and the crazy things Jeremy Gaffney says

Featured Stories

WRUP: Visiting the Department of Inevitable Arguments edition

The Daily Grind: Should big guilds have a mechanical advantage over smaller ones?

Betawatch: May 18 - 24, 2013

Engadget

Joystiq

WoW

TUAW