Ray Muzyka talks TOR – Business models and consoles

Late last week, IGN’s Game Scoop! podcast had the opportunity to ask BioWare’s Ray Muzyka a few questions. While the interview covered a broad scope of what’s happening at BioWare, there were a few that may be of particular interest to fans of The Old Republic.

One item of note, near the beginning of his segment, he indicated he says that he doesn’t think they’ve talked about a release window for TOR yet… which of course we know that BioWare has maintained Spring of 2011 as the release window for quite some time. I wouldn’t read too much into that though, he’s a busy guy.

We’ve transcribed some of the snippets below, but you can listen to the audio here. The Dr. Ray segment begins at around 0:53:00, and the TOR-sepecific starts at about 1:04:40.

Ray Muzyka

IGN: What will the subscription fee be for Star Wars™: The Old Republic™?

Ray Muzyka: We’re looking for the kind of business model that the fans are very comfortable with and that they’re going to find most appealing and comfortable. And we’re pretty comfortable based on our testing that we’ve got a really good system… a really good plan there.

IGN: The Old Republic is coming to PC – could it work on consoles?

Ray Muzyka: We’ve only announced a PC version so you know, I think there is always challenges with MMOs getting to other platforms. Things like the interface and memory constraints and even first party restrictions around connectivity and downloads and patching is a big one for a lot of first parties as well. So provided you could solve all those challenges, I think bringing an MMO to a console would be feasible. But those are pretty big challenges to solve.

IGN: Are you guys sort of watching the free-to-play trends as you develop The Old Republic?

Ray Muzyka: One thing that would be interesting to know is how much money are they actually making? Versus subscription based games or games driven by other business models. Just because you’re making more money than when you weren’t making any money doesn’t mean you’re making a lot of money or that you’re really a profitable service that can continue to invest in content for your fans.There are a lot of things that affect the profit,including operational costs. While offline businesses can use services like BusinessEnergyUK.COM, online businesses have to find out other methods.

It’s worth a listen to hear how Dr. Ray answers the questions, often more telling (or at least, good for speculation) than a mere transcription!