EA's The Old Republic welcomes 750,000 players during its Beta - 250,000 more than it needs to turn a profit...

EA’s upcoming MMORPG Star Wars: The Old Republic is already causing quite a stir among fans, and it is quickly becoming one of the most anticipated online titles of any platform.

Just looking at the figures for the recent beta test must feel pretty reassuring for EA - over two million eager gamers volunteered to test the game, and over the three-day Thanksgiving weekend, over 750,000 people logged onto the game to play.

However, while it certainly helps, a busy beta does not necessarily make a great game. What does look good though, is the fact that the average play time over three days was about 12 hours. Quite a long time by any standards, also, taking into account the fact that that is an average time, some people must have been playing for a very long time indeed.

So it would seem like The Old Republic is set for an eventful launch, and one assumes a hefty profit courtesy of its estimated success. Furthermore, when you consider that EA CEO John Riccitiello claimed that the game only needs 500,000 subscribers to turn a profit - which is 250,000 less than they had playing over just one small test weekend - it's hard to see how this could fail.

Saying that, The Old Republic is rumored to have cost over $135 million dollars to make (possibly the most expensive game ever), which was a hell of a risk based on just the games namesake alone. But when you consider these minimalistic estimates, EA must be feeling nice and relieved right now.

In fact, at the peak of the beta they had ‘over a quarter of a million’ players online at once, and that sort of interest does bode pretty well for an upcoming MMORPG, where securing high-volumes of players is by far the biggest challenge they face.

Star Wars: The Old Republic launches on December 20th this year, just in time to grab the last minutes of the Christmas frenzy. So, if you are interested in what looks to be one of the deepest and most involved explorations into the Star Wars universe, you’d better pre-order your copy now.

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