SWTOR breaks EA funding records

It’s one of the most bankable franchises in the world of entertainment, and such is EA’s faith in BioWare’s upcoming MMO Star Wars: the Old Republic that it has spent more on its development than any other game in its history.

It is the largest R&D project EA has ever undertaken in terms of total dollars that we expect to spend bringing the title to market,” EA’s chief financial officer Eric Brown outlined at the Janney Capital Markets’ 2010 Consumer Conference, as reported by Gamasutra.

In the past, for MMOs, the type of fiction that has resonated most broadly is fiction based on swords and knights and sorcery, etc. Star Wars is analogous to that. Instead of the swords, you have the lightsabers; instead of the knights you have the Jedi – we think it’s a fiction that does very well, we think it’s a fiction that spans the decades.

We think it has very broad appeal.”

Brown also refused to be drawn on the game’s planned release date. We’re not expecting it to ship in fiscal 2010,” he asserted. Nor have we given a specific ship date thereafter. We’re intentionally being non-specific on the ship date.”