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Star Wars: The Old Republic Subscriber Base Growing
A frank letter from the game’s executive producer talks about how The Old Republic can still improve, but also touts 2 million new active players since going free-to-play.
The prevailing sentiment in many gaming circles is that The Old Republic is struggling to find players, but info from the developer seems to counter that idea. Executive producer Jeff Hickman posted an open letter to the community today, in which he discusses the state of the game.
“Last spring, there was some uncertainty surrounding Star Wars: The Old Republic as we were starting to lose subscribers and players were growing frustrated,” says Hickman. “In fairness, many of the complaints and worries were justified. In an effort to try to address everything, we just weren’t sufficiently focused on improving the core experience.”
In response, the team added the group finder, increased the rate of content release, and brought in new players by offering a free-to-play option. How many new players? “Since launch of the free-to-play option we have had over two million new accounts created and have thousands of new players jumping in every single day,” Hickman states.
No one familiar with the gaming industry can doubt the challenge presented by releasing and then maintaining a high-quality MMO. No matter your opinion of The Old Republic, it’s refreshing to see the developer speaking openly with its audience, as well as acknowledging past challenges and goals for how it hopes to overcome those issues.
Are you one of those two million new TOR players? If not, what would the game have to do to lure you into that galaxy far, far away?
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