In 2011, Star Wars: The Old Republic was released, an MMORPG set in the Star Wars universe. Now EA is giving up the game. One of the former heads of the game explains that Star Wars has always been profitable and developed by a great team. But EA and BioWare had no idea what kind of treasure they had. Instead of investing more in SWTOR, they preferred to promote Mass Effect and Dragon Age. A difficult situation for the MMORPG developers.
This is the situation:
- Star Wars: The Old Republic has been running for 12 years and still has nearly 7,000 average players on Steam. It has long been considered among insiders as an often invaluable but extremely profitable MMORPG, benefiting from its strong license – similar to DC Universe Online.
- Although regular new expansions were released for a long time, BioWare seemed to largely neglect the game after 2016, apparently focusing on Anthem, which turned out to be a flop.
- It has now been decided that BioWare and EA are handing the game over to an MMORPG developer.
Former Chief Takes Stock with BioWare and EA
Who is speaking? On Twitter, Chris Schmidt comments on the sale. He says he started as a World Designer at SWTOR in 2009 and stopped as Design Director 13 years later, in 2022.
Schmidt also worked on Anthem and was involved in the reboot Anthem Next, which was canceled by EA – he is now employed as Game Director at Infinity Ward. The studio is working for Activision Blizzard on Call of Duty.
This is how SWTOR started: He says his team, BioWare Austin, was an independent studio for many years. It was founded to develop Star Wars: The Old Republic, and while headquartered in Edmonton, it had little to do for a long time.
All revenues from the MMORPG flowed into “the bigger picture”; that is, to BioWare and ultimately to EA. Apparently, Schmidt was satisfied with this state, but he did not hold back.
This is how the problems began. Schmidt explains: After a few years, the model changed and the SWTOR studio was no longer independent but subordinate to BioWare’s management:
In practice, this meant that there was a “game comes finished in the packaging” model, which had been tested and successful for years, and that was now combined with a live-service game that was not understood by the others. Probably not by EA either.
This is how the chief sees his MMORPG: Schmidt raves about SWTOR and the team working on it, in the highest terms:
- The game has been extremely financially successful
- The team knew exactly how to multiply every dollar invested
- The team stands close together, is extremely talented and works with passion
- Even today, SWTOR is highly profitable, with a lot of passion behind it
Ex-Chief Says: SWTOR Funded BioWare’s Singleplayer Games, But Got Nothing In Return
He sees this as a problem: Although SWTOR is so successful, Schmidt felt that the performance of the team is not appreciated at EA and BioWare:
Older games are not sexy. They are not new. They don’t excite marketing firms or make social media teams dance. SWTOR is a “legacy game” despite the mountain of money it has earned and on which other game series could be built.
And you can FEEL that as a member of the team. It is a fantastic team with insane talent. How can it be that in a team that holds so tightly together, you always feel like you’re worth less? Well, look around. Look at what BioWare posts on social media and compare the ratio of SWTOR against Mass Effect or Dragon Age.
Schmidt says it always felt as a developer of SWTOR that EA and BioWare had no connection to the game because it was not “their game” but that of strangers.
“It Feels Bad”
What does he base the little recognition on? He criticizes that SWTOR was only given 10 out of 328 pages in the book celebrating 25 years of BioWare. SWTOR had already been live for 9 of the 25 years when the book came out, which was supposed to celebrate the history and game franchises of BioWare:
Teams notice that. They feel it. And it feels bad.
MMORPG Chief Takes a Jab at BioWare’s Singleplayer Games
This is how he sees the sale: Schmidt says it is a good thing for SWTOR that it is now moving to Broadsword. The game is now at a company that understands MMOs.
But he sees it as a mistake for BioWare, as they would now lose the constant stream of money with which new products can be developed. For BioWare, according to Schmidt, it would have been much better if they had invested more resources in SWTOR.
Without SWTOR, the company will also have to reduce costs and staff. Because only SWTOR could offset the “unusually long development times” for their last singleplayer games.
A clear jab at Anthem.
