Repeated maintenances, patches that are slow to come, general weariness of players with the highest levels, more or less justified bans, too many servers and often deserted, so many reasons that could justify the disaffection of players for the BioWare MMO edited by LucasArts and Electronic Arts which has only 1.3 million subscribers with an officially estimated loss of 400.000 players since the start of the year, while EA announced in February that it had sold more than 2 million copies of the game.
Despite everything, EA announces that the product is profitable and that the decline in the number of long-term subscriptions is roughly offset by regular new sign-ups. Several analysts are already discussing the possibility of EA making the game free-to-play while switching to a freemium system like Gameloft's, for example, meaning players could spend (a lot of) in-game money to acquire skills, equipment, access new areas, etc.
LEGO has chosen to capitalize on the game's popularity by incorporating characters and other vehicles from the game into its 2012 set lineup. Those familiar with the game know that the possibilities are virtually endless and that LEGO could produce dozens of sets based on this universe. However, if the game's player base continues to decline, if the number of loyal subscribers drops a little more each month, and if Electronic Arts scales back its ambitions for 2013, LEGO will likely not risk persisting with sets containing vehicles and characters that are ultimately too niche to interest the average consumer, for whom Star Wars is primarily symbolized by X-/Y-/B-/A-wings and by Darth Vader, Luke, Han, Leia, Yoda, and the like.
The sets to be released in 2012 would remain a simple opportunistic tribute to a concept that is certainly interesting but which has had difficulty in converting regulars of classic MMOs or Star Wars fans to the monthly adventure ...
