Electronic Arts has announced that subscribers to its Star Wars: The Old Republic title have experienced a sharp decline in the last two months.
Gamers actively playing the MMORPG dropped from 1.7m in February to 1.3m at the end of April, the publisher revealed.
That represents a startling drop-off of 25 per cent, which upon the news saw EA's shares drop by 10 per cent.
Republic credits are no good here
However the company said the fall remained in line with its projections and mostly accounted for casual gamers dropping out after trial period, rather than pay £8.99 ($13.99) a month to keep playing.
EA's interim chief financial officer, Peter Moore said: "a substantial portion of the decrease [was] due to casual and trial players cycling out of the subscriber base, driving up the overall percentage of paying subscribers."
The company, which has spent heavily on promoting the game in new territories like Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong and Singapore in recent months, is counting heavily on the success of the game.
One analyst suggested back in January that EA had pumped $500m into the game, so it will be looking for a serious return on its investment.
With competition from Skyrim, Game of Thrones and a new WoW expansion pack coming soon as well as a general decline in MMORPG subscriber numbers, it looks like tough times ahead for The Old Republic.
Via: BBC
