Electronic Arts is going to prevent you from buying Star Wars: The Old Republic at some point--and I'm not talking about the inevitable future where the servers are coming down. EA has confirmed reports out of Gamescom the publisher will be limiting both retail and digital pre-orders of BioWare's Star Wars MMO, in order to control the game's initial rollout.
"We are limiting launch quantities of Star Wars: The Old Republic to ensure players have a smooth and high quality game experience and service at launch," said a company spokesperson over email.
The spokesperson was unwilling to disclose what the cut-off number is for The Old Republic sales, but did confirm its extension into retail.
MMOs have notoriously bad launches, with companies consistently finding themselves unable to handle the first waves of players jumping onto the servers. Early adopters can find themselves without a game to play. MMOs have proven time and time again that you can stress test for months and still not be prepared for the real thing.
A cynic would look at this news and figure it's just a way to generate more headlines, with eventual press releases proclaiming the game being "sold out" or "almost sold out" to help encourage early sales. It'd be nice to be proven wrong.
We don't have a release date for the game yet, however. EA has said it's definitely coming before the end of its fiscal year at the end of next March, but is hoping to release it before the end of the year.
"We’re holding the date for two reasons," said EA Games president Frank Gibeau back in May. "First, we don't want to tip off the competition; second, we want more data from the beta test to guarantee a spectacular experience at launch."