Investors wary of Old Republic MMO, says Hickey
Janco Partners analyst says market not behind Electronic Arts
Mike Hickey of Janco Partners has said that he believes large parts of the investment market will be betting against the success of forthcoming Electronic Arts MMO, Star Wars: The Old Republic.
Accoding to Hickey, many factors are keeping investors wary, including the track record for successful launches of MMOs, either at EA or in the industry as a whole, along with the pending $400 million lawsuit with Activision.
"We believe many investors are betting against SWTOR achieving market success, provided the company's, and industry's track record at releasing successful new MMOs," he wrote, as reported by Gamasutra.
EA's last MMO launch was Warhammer Online: The Reckoning, which garnered 500,000 users at launch only to see that number wither over the next few months, resulting in server closures.
Bigpoint CEO Heiko Hubertz was recently critical of EA's subscription model for the delayed massively multiplayer online game, suggesting it will never be profitable.
On top of development costs, EA recently confirmed it would be taking on full publishing responsibilities for the game instead of sharing them with rights-holder LucasArts.