Lightsabers and futuristic environment of a famous film license against potions and magical world. The first battle of the titans of industry role-playing massively multiplayer (MMO) began on Tuesday 20 December, with the launch of Star Wars : The Old Republic (SWTOR) , published by Electronic Arts . Its goal: to compete with the industry leader World of Warcraft (WoW).

After the final part of the license Battlefield is the second time in a few weeks that the U.S. defies the global video game Activision Blizzard attached to the Vivendi group and publisher of the blockbuster Call of Duty, which had already earned over a billion dollars in revenue sixteen days after the start of operation of the final part Modern Warfare 3 .

Inspired by films from the successful saga of George Lucas , this new album of studio Bioware takes place thousands of years before that Anakin Skywalker does rocker "Dark Side of the force" and becomes Darth Vader . The players in a terrible war between the Sith and Jedi.

The game is licensed popular. A journalist from Wired acknowledges that the name Star Wars and the fact that The Old Republic is developed by Bioware were the decisive factors in his decision to the test : "I feel that I will not be the only newcomer to discover MMOs with this event. "

DOUBLE-EDGED

Choose a double-edged sword for Electronic Arts, which would have spent nearly $ 135 million (103 million) to develop , reports the specialized site The Inquisitr , making it one of the most expensive games of history. An estimated additional licenses to success, as GTA IV or Red Dead Redemption , developed by Rockstar, had already reached the hundred million dollars (76.5 million) in development costs.

According to Forbes , nearly two million players had volunteered to test the beta. The analysts believe that SWTOR 1.5 million already enrolled. But the difficulty will be to encourage the players to pay a monthly subscription.

While WoW celebrated in November, its seventh year of operation, no MMO has so far managed to dethrone . The game includes more than 10 million subscribers worldwide, and analysts believe it has generated over one billion dollars (about 765 million euros) Activision Blizzard last year.



For the CEO of Activision Blizzard, Bobby Kotick , SWTOR is not a real threat to World of Warcraft . To mark the Reuters Media Summit in late November, he even expressed doubts about the profitability of the game: " LucasArts [the licensee Star Wars] will be the primary beneficiary of the benefits of The Old Republic ... We worked with Lucas for a long time and cost is always on the side of Lucas, so I really do not understand how the project can operate economically for Electronic Arts. "

EA had considered it sufficient to retain a sustainable 500,000 subscribers for profitable investment in the development of SWTOR . According to Bobby Kotick, this objective has already some risk: "If you study the history of those who have invested in an MMO and have met with success, you will see that they are not numerous."

The purchase of each copy of SWTOR is available starting from 54.99 euros. It includes a 30-day access to the game, after which players will s' subscription to continue their adventure. The subscription price amounts to 12.99 euros a month, 35.97 euros for three months or six months to 65.94 euros, the competition model.

A subscription system risk when other models are attracting more and more editors. This is the case of Sony, which tests for the month of August the "free to play" with its online role-playing game EverQuest 2 Extended . Access to the basic version is free, paying only the player to get more options.

World of Warcraft , after having recorded a loss of 2 million subscribers in one year, taking him on a new extension of the game - the fourth since 2006 - to raise , by persevering on the path cost of the game subscription.