“This is an incredible moment for everyone at BioWare and our partners at LucasArts who have dedicated their lives to build this extraordinary game. We appreciate the patience from the millions of fans who have been waiting for the game’s release.”

Announced in a keynote address by Dr. Ray Muzyka and Dr. Greg Zeschuk at the Eurogamer Expo 2011, the release dates for The Old Republic have been revealed as 20th December for North America and 22nd December for Europe.

All copies of the game will come with 30 days of playing time, before players can choose from the following subscription options -

• 1 Month Subscription costing $14.99 (£8.99 /€12.99)
• 3 Month Subscription costing $ 41.97 (£25.17/€35.97)
• 6 Month Subscription costing $77.94 (£46.14/€65.94)

And as already announced, everyone who has pre-ordered a copy of the game will also be eligible for the Early Game Access program.

According to Janco analyst Mike Hickey, as reported by Gamasutra, Star Wars: The Old Republic is looking to gain over 1 million subscribers within the first year of the game’s launch.

Earlier this year when discussing the game’s profitability, EA CEO John Riccitiello said that the game would be profitable with over 500,000 subscribers, and “[anything] north of a million subscribers, it’s a very profitable business.”

With over 1 million subscribers, the analyst says the game could make $161.9 million in total sales and $35 million in profits during the game’s first year.

Hickey also expects sales for the game to be far over the 1 million mark. However, to retain subscribers, “game development must be perfectly orchestrated”, noting that the EA-publisher Warhammer Online quickly fell in subscriber numbers after a strong launch. With Star Wars: The Old Republic being EA’s most costly project ever, it’s certain EA will be doing all they can to keep the game going strong.

Last week at Game Developer’s Conference, BioWare General Manager Dr. Ray Muzyka spoke to gaming blog Kotaku about the pricing plan for their upcoming MMO. While he clarified that they have not announced anything regarding their payment model, he commented that it would “be more of the traditional business model with maybe some twists as well.”

It has been hinted at in the past that The Old Republic would be microtransaction-based, or at least have microtransactions as a part of the payment model. Could this be the twist Muzyka is referring to? Most MMOs that are microtransaction-based are free to play, but it is reasonable to assume that TOR will have a subscription.

Muzyka went on. “With Star Wars: The Old Republic, we haven’t announced anything yet. But what we’re striving to do, to clarify what I said earlier, is to make sure the fans and the audience that we’re trying to reach feel they are getting something they understand and feel that it is a good value for their money — and feel that there is a way they actually want to engage in the experience, both in how they play it and how they pay for it. That’s our high-level goal.”

What kind of payment model would you like to see for TOR?

MMORPG reported on an interview posted in gameindustry.biz. Phil Elliot interviewed Darrell Rodriguez, who is the president of LucasArts.  The question of the business model for TOR came up, and Rodriguez replied briefly.  Mr. Elliot expanded on that question in this article. Rodriguez’ answer? Decidedly vague.  Saying “we’re looking at it all” is a non-answer.  I don’t think we’ll know how we’re going to pay to play until much closer to the game release date.

Speaking to GDC, BioWare co-founder Greg Zeschuk has told gaming site VG247 that The Old Republic’s business model will depend on what the industry standard is at the time.

“The way we look at these things is, ‘What’s the standard at the time?’ Obviously we’re not quite done yet. We’ve got a lot of work left to do. But we’ll be very conscious of how the market looks.”

Both Zeschuk and his partner Ray Muzyka stressed that the business model has not yet been announced. But it looks like you can expect a similar subscription fee of around US$15 if the current standard remains the same by the time the game is released.

Old Republic pricing will depend on MMO “standard,” says BioWare [VG247, thanks leXX]

Whether The Old Republic will be microtransaction-based or not has been a fairly debated topic since the EA CEO’s slip up and the statement being later retracted. Such a big misunderstanding must have something to it, whether SWTOR was originally going to be microtransaction-based and had the idea scrapped later, or will be microtransaction-based but EA didn’t want it out in the open just yet, is unsure. In any case, there would be some advantages to microtransactions, particularly for the more casual gamer who does not see a monthly subscription as a wise investment if they can’t invest the time needed to make it a worthy purchase.

Read about some advantages at TheOldRepublicForum.com and let us know what payment model you’d like to see.

In an update to a previous news post, Electronic Arts has said CEO John Riccitiello’s statement on The Old Republic’s business model was based on a ‘misunderstanding’. Riccitiello had originally commented that TOR will be ‘microtransaction-based’, which is quite different from the traditional MMO payment model based around monthly payments.

It’s surprising that Riccitiello would make such an obviously important statement without checking with the rest of the EA brass. Most of the speculation as to why usually attributes it to just another way TOR is going to stand out from the rest of the MMO crowd and that makes sense, given how much attention BioWare has given to the story and the characters. But for now, it seems that fans will be left to speculate on just how much they’ll have to pay until February, when this issue is hopefully cleared up.

Read the updated Shacknews post here.

ShackNews has reported that Star Wars: The Old Republic will feature an uncommon form of payment. Instead of being subscription-based like most MMOs are, paying a flat rate each month, EA has classified The Old Republic as a “microtransaction-based” title.

EA CEO John Riccitiello spoke on the matter today. “We are continuing to stick to the plan relative to building out our direct-to-consumer models which include microtransactions and subscriptions… The recent launch of Warhammer is a great example of that.”

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