It looks like a large portion of the player base in The Old Republic isn’t just hiding — they’re full on missing. Rock, Paper Shotgun did some digging through EA’s recent financial report and found that 400,000 subscribers have quit the game in the past few months. It seems as if Bioware’s original backwards reasoning of “you aren’t looking in the right places” wasn’t completely forthright.
The EA earnings call states that subscribers are now listed at 1.3 million — a far cry from the 1.7 million in March. It also sheds a bit of light on the recent “free month for 50s” promotion, which could have easily been a ruse to bolster numbers for investors in the annual financial report. This also comes after Lead Designer Daniel Erickson stated last week, “Although the internet loves to pronounce the doom of all things, what we’re seeing is a huge increase in activity with [update] 1.2 as people return to see all of the new content.”
Well, speaking from experience, even around launch, I saw less people in TOR‘s persistent world than I have in any other MMO I’ve ever played. I just recently started playing TERA Online, and I’ve already found and grouped with more people in the starting zone than I did the entirety of TOR. You can all start your “Free to play! Free to play!” chant now.
Old Before Its Time? SWTOR Subs Sliiiiiide [Rock, Paper Shotgun]
Published: May 8, 2012 11:30 am