Star Wars Galaxies: The Pursuit of a Mythical Audience

MMORPG.com has published a new article entitled “Star Wars Galaxies: The Pursuit of a Mythical Audience”, in which they look back at the detrimental effects of the game’s combat upgrade and New Game Experience rollouts.

The number one rule of any business deserving of customer patronage is to first and foremost, take care of your existing customers. Once they have been satisfied, then look out to attracting new customers. The majority of people who play MMORPGs do so with considerable commitment. They like advancing either through combat or other game mechanics. In order to do so, there needs to be stability. Why does anyone want to stay in a game that is constantly changing? Why pay for something when you have no clue if the product you receive three months down the line will be anywhere near the same as the product you have now? Minor changes to a constantly evolving game are to be expected, as balance is worked out, new content is added, etc. However, these things do not change the fundamental aspects of the gameplay for the customer like the changes SOE/LucasArts launched. In a world that requires consistent subscription fees to continue to have a viable game, the customer will not pay for games to advance their characters, only to see all that work eliminated constantly.