SWTOR is EA's most expensive project yet
by Alexander Sliwinski 
on Mar 11th 2010 1:40AM
Surprise! Major MMOs cost batty-bonkers-cuckoo amounts of money to produce.
Eurogamer reports that Electronic Arts CFO Eric Brown said as much today, describing
Star Wars: The Old Republic as the "largest ever development project, period, in the history of the company." EA is apparently betting big on having something like Activision Blizzard's
World of Warcraft with
The Old Republic. Brown guesstimates that
WoW cost about $100 million to launch back in 2004 -- the game makes something like that now in a month.
The executive explained that the average game costs about $30 million to produce, but that "any MMO costs significantly more than that." With an expected
spring 2011 release, hopefully EA will start making a return at that time on its investment in a galaxy far, far away. Otherwise, the gaping maw of the Rancor would be preferable to what investors will do.
