Last week at Gamescon, EA announced that they would be limiting availability of Star Wars: The Old Republic upon release. EA is hoping that in limiting availability that a smooth launch will be ensured. EA has yet to specify how many copies will be released but if all goes well in this endeavor, pre-sales may rise quickly. It is entirely possible that part of the reason for doing this is to prevent extraneous server load and to prevent long lines to get onto servers during the launch period as has been the history of many MMO launches in the past. Alternatively the plan may just be to use limited copies to drive up sales, EA already knows how many sales they need to make to break even (half a million) on this game so by increasing the demand they might get the sales of users who would have waited later to see how the game develops. Because EA isn’t saying how many copies they are selling or how long it will take them to start selling the game again if they reach the cap, many people might grab the game early so that they don’t run into the potential issue of having to wait days, weeks, or even months before getting into the game. Star Wars: The Old Republic will be sold in stores but also will be sold digitally. However EA is controlling the digital sale of the game so you won’t be seeing it on Steam, instead it will be on an EA client. Hopefully this game doesn’t run into the same issues EA has had in the past with its clients (they generally aren’t very good and they have terrible terms that you have to agree to).
Star Wars: The Old Republic is set to launch this year or early 2012 with a closed/open (based on pre-order) beta starting in mid-late September or early October. I am in the closed beta already so as soon as I get permission to print something about the game, you can expect my impressions of it but for now you will just have to wait. Here is to hoping Bioware (the game’s actual developer) continues with its history of success in video game developing and we get a solid product, I don’t think it will kill WoW but I do think it will compete and thrive along side it.
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