SWTOR did not cost $500 million

Nic

nniicc

SWTOR did not cost $500 million

January 21 2012
According to a Los Angeles Times article, SWTOR did not cost the rumored $500 million. Some quotes below for the TL;DR-ers. According to massively EA's stock value increased after this announcement.

More than 800 people on four continents have spent six years and nearly $200 million creating it.

Nearly 1,000 actors have recorded dialogue for 4,000 characters in three languages.

The narrative is so huge that writers created a 1,000-page “bible” to keep the details straight,

Art has been outsourced to Russia, Estonia and China. Motion capture filming is done in L.A. and Vancouver, Canada, with voices recorded in New York, London and Paris in English, French and German. Quality assurance testing takes place in Romania, Argentina and India, while technical operations are run out of Virginia and the customer service center operates in Ireland. A regular plane shuttles employees between Austin and Electronic Arts’ headquarters in Redwood Shores, Calif.

“Coordinating it all is like teaching elephants to do ballet,” said Greg Zeschuk, who co-founded BioWare with Ray Muzyka.


Players who choose the smuggler will see hints of “Big Trouble in Little China,” for instance, while the trooper’s tale is loosely based on “Band of Brothers.”


George Lucas.
The filmmaker, who declined to comment for this story, blessed the idea of setting the Old Republic in “Star Wars” pre-history and gave Muzyka and Zeschuk virtually free rein. His LucasArts’ staff stepped in only to soften content they found too risque, such as scenes involving sex slaves.


I want sex slaves! :evil: Oh well, most likely they where female only, so probably no loss here.
Edited January 21 2012 by nniicc
William

Nationalcity

Re: SWTOR did not cost $500 million

January 23 2012
lol, been a bumpy ride for EA stocks this week first part of the week there down now after this announcement there back up....

Re: SWTOR did not cost $500 million

January 23 2012
One of the things I find very interesting is that they started developing the game engine long before they had gotten the rights for the Star Wars IP. They had designed if for a lot of different possible IPs. I wonder how much EA invested in it at the very beginning before they got a buyer.
Sidanis

Sidanis

Re: SWTOR did not cost $500 million

January 23 2012
One of the things I find very interesting is that they started developing the game engine long before they had gotten the rights for the Star Wars IP. They had designed if for a lot of different possible IPs. I wonder how much EA invested in it at the very beginning before they got a buyer.


I thought they were using the Hero Engine from Simutronics. (I remember playing Dragonrealms from them, quite fun)
Edited January 23 2012 by Sidanis
Nic

nniicc

Re: SWTOR did not cost $500 million

January 23 2012
Quote by Sidanis

I thought they were using the Hero Engine from Simutronics.


Yes, but they adapted it.