On Sunday I let my wife play Star Wars: The Old Republic. Yeah, I know, "account sharing" is forbidden, but it was just for an afternoon to enable her to decide whether she wants to play that game. And she does. So Monday I went to one of the biggest stores of a European electronics chain in my area to buy her a copy. No luck: The sales guy told me it was sold out everywhere, and he was really worried he wouldn't be able to get hold of a pre-paid card before his free month ran out.
A Google search resulted in lots of news reports that SWTOR had in fact already sold out by Christmas. Even EA's Origin showed the physical copy of the game as sold out, which got some people thinking the digital version wasn't available any more. But it is, it is just 9 Euros more expensive over here. Which, compared to Steam selling 2011 games at 25% to 75% discount over Christmas, I consider to be a lousy digital distribution pricing scheme. (So I bought Batman: Arkham City, L.A. Noire, Deus Ex Human Revolution, and some older games all together for less than €100 on Steam, and nothing on Origin.)
MMORPG.com promptly reported "Retail sales plummet" for SWTOR in the UK, without checking whether that was due to lack of demand, or lack of supply, or a mix of both. Most mail order suppliers, like Amazon, list the game as "in stock" again, even the $150 collectors edition. Which will hopefully annoy those who were trying to sell their collectors edition on EBay for $400. And EA is keeping mum on the availability of SWTOR, probably busy hectically producing another million or so physical copies of the game.
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