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Star Wars online video game players slump

Dunya News

The number of people paying to play online Star Wars has dropped.

The title is the US firms biggest investment to date.Launched in December, it initially attracted more than 1.7m subscribers.The firm said the news was disappointing adding that it was switching to a new pricing plan which would allow users to access much of the content for free.The news coincided with the firms first quarter results which showed net income of $201m (£128m), a 5% drop on the same period the previous year.The President of EA Labels Frank Gibeau said the Star Wars game would still break even so long as it maintained 500,000 subscribers, but admitted that its current performance was not good enough.The message from players exiting the game is clear, 40% say they were turned off by the monthly subscription and many indicate they would come back if we offered a free-to-play model, he told analysts, according to a transcript of the conference call provided by the Seeking Alpha financial news site.Our plan now is to pivot and provide a two-tiered pricing plan, which will make the game more accessible and grow the audience.The new scheme will allow users to explore the online titles first 50 levels at no cost, although they will not have access to all its features.Users must pay $15 (£9.50) a month for full access and a monthly allowance of in-game cash to purchase items or advance their progress.Non-paying members cannot complete operations and have limited access to in-game auctions.In addition the firm is cutting the price that it charges for the game pack that users must buy before being able to access the MMORPG (massively multiplayer online role-playing game).EAs move comes just under two months before its rival Activision Blizzard releases an update to World of Warcraft.Mists of Pandaria is expected to help boost the titles subscribers above the current level of 10.2 million, securing its place as the most popular MMORPG.Other upcoming big name releases include Arenanets Guild Wars 2 and Bethesdas Elder Scrolls Online. Competition is intense because analysts say most players are only likely to subscribe to one title at any one time.Other titles that offer free-to-play options include Dungeons and Dragons Online, Lord of the Rings Online and Entropia Universe.Given the MMORPG landscape in recent years, where pure subscription is becoming a rarity, EA will have been planning to introduce this since before launch, but the drop in subscribers makes it a timely announcement, said Steve Bailey, senior analyst at IHS Games Digest.Its not necessarily a portent of doom. The titles ongoing performance is now down to EAs ability to engage users with content refreshes, and other aspects of the service.Michael French, editor-in-chief of the games industry trade news site MCV agreed that the problem was not the titles gameplay, but rather convincing the public to keep paying for it.There are distractions elsewhere and people have become used to playing online titles for free, he said.What EA needs to do is to attract players back guilt-free by offering the title without charge, and then hope it is compelling enough to encourage them it is worth paying to unlock the additional content.