Star Wars: The Old Republic Players Will Return to WoW Says Analyst
In a recent interview on MSNBC’s “In-Game” feature, video game analyst Michael Pachter argues that a majority of players who flee World of Warcraft for Star Wars: The Old Republic will quickly find their way back to Azeroth “within a year.”
Pachter predicts that TOR will obtain about one 1/3 of its initial subscriber base from World of Warcraft and the other 2/3 from miscellaneous MMO’s. Of that third, Pachter boldly declares he “would bet that Blizzard would get everybody back.”
Pachter ascribes this to two factors. First, he argues that, “Everyone who leaves WOW, Blizzard is going after them hard … They are going to inundate [deserters] with offers and new stuff.” Second, he believes that TOR will “peak early and … fade after a while because that’s what’s happened with every other MMO.”
Having closely studied this recent wave of AAA MMO’s slated for release within the next year (or re-release in FFXIV’s case), I would disagree with Mr. Pachter. Between Guild Wars II, SWTOR, and Final Fantasy XIV, I predict a vast migration away from the aging World of Warcraft with extensive interaction between these IPs – rather than a simple back and forth between any one of these games and WOW.
While it might be the case that TOR’s appeal quickly fizzles out within the next year, I cannot imagine this explosively diverse market collapsing into Blizzard’s singularity so quickly once again. If an army must be mustered to slay the ancient MMO behemoth, then so be it – an army has been mustered. I foresee each game cannibalizing a sizable portion of WOW’s player base and subsequently scheming to destroy one another.
Pachter is a fortune-teller, but not in the way he thinks he is. Anything the man says will happen won’t. Somtimes the opposite of what he predicted manages to happen.
He’s essentially a bizarro-psychic.
Played wow since launch and now the swtor beta for two solid months. It is better than wow is and ever was already. suck it.
well idc if they do. sucks to be them. I quit wow a while back for this, got bored, and began playing warhammer online. When tor comes out, ill quit warhammer and play it for the next 5 years or whatever. I dont plan on leaving whether its a fail or not, unless its completely horrid. 1 cus im a star wars nerd(didnt help galaxies). and 2 cus wow is old and the story is boring and im tired of being way to powerful as a healer. And ive seen tor pvp gameplays and it looks so much better than wow. And i have ppl in my guild in the beta and they claim its better than wow.
Video games earn more than Hollywood, and this is the kind of inane crap that passes for journalism? The obvious fault of Pachter’s reasoning is assumption that all potential players of MMO’s are currently playing an MMO and any new game will slice into a dwindling pie. The Old Republic has the potential to bring new players into the market and be a financial success regardless of what happens to WoW’s subscription base.
I’ve been free of WoW for over a year now and I will never be going back. Not that it doesn’t have its merits, but between the length of time I played it and the absolutely awful community I have no desire to play it ever again.
That being said I won’t be playing MMO’s too much going into the future, but I am excited to give TOR a shot. It looks like it should be fun and if all the kids go back to WoW the community should actually benefit.
Just because some people who have grown disillusioned with WoW and decide to give TOR a try doesn’t mean every single person who tries TOR have played WoW. Get a grip, Pachtner.
1/3 from WOW and 2/3 from from miscellaneous MMO’s???
) and the old republic actually got me interested to try it out. You are forgetting a big fact that The Old Republic is getting alot of attention people from the “other crowds” like console owners who hated pc games, KOTOR fans from the xbox/pc original, and even Mass Effect/ Dragon Age fans.
I nevered play PC games before ( always hated the keyboard
This game isn’t made for just the hardcore mmo players from WoW and I see that as a great advantage, not to mention that the company (bioware) makes great rpg games in my opinion. This might be the game to actually hook me on pc games ^.^
The only people interested in GW2 are those playing it now. They’re typically not WoW players. No one is playing FFIV. RIFT will lose a lot of people to SWTOR, and it won’t get them back; if any game is going to fade and die, it’ll be RIFT. LOTRO will probably keep its subscribers; it’s F2P anyway.
WoW will lose a big chunk of people, and many will return if BioWare can’t keep the TOR content coming. That’s what will decide whether TOR is a distraction or a stayer: whether it provides enough to do on an ongoing basis. I’m sure BioWare will do this, but we will see. TOR’s potential is vast, and is far more subject to parallel development of expansion content than WoW. It’s entirely possible that TOR really can keep (as Blizzard puts it) the “beast fed”.
Nobody takes Michael Pachter serious anymore because everyone sees him as a joke.
http://seanmalstrom.wordpress.com/2010/01/29/is-michael-pachter-imploding/
*******-tool/" rel="nofollow">http://gamersrepublic.net/topic/16526-michael-pachter-is-the-biggest-*******-tool/
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/113570-Michael-Pachter-Apologizes-for-Team-Bondi-Comments
who said you cant play two games that you need to leave one to play the other?
Let’s face it: World of Warcraft is an old game now. Its subscriber numbers have been dropping without any help from major MMO releases. This Michael Pachter is just a hack that’s trying to get a rise.
Pachter is a tool. You cant predict that TOR will be a cookie cutter MMO. And people are leaving WoW on their own anyways. Subscribership is down. People are bored with it. You can only play a game so long before it burns you out. Pachter needs to keep his mouth shut.
Yeah this guy doesn’t have any credible references to sustain his allegations.
I am currently Beta testing this game from when they opened the test and I can say with 100% confidence that it is ground breaking, immersive, and will cause addicts out of many people.
I think Pachter didn’t see the new kung-fu panda version of WoW before he made that statement. It’s drawing ever closer to ‘Hello Kitty Island Adventure’