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Analyst believes Star Wars: The Old Republic had a $500 million price tag

Half a billion dollars to choke someone with your mind.  Not an awful investment.

Is Star Wars: The Old Republic the next big thing in MMOs? The same old thing in a new shell? Innovative? Routine? Polished? Buggy? Ask seven different people and you'll get nine different opinions. The one thing that everyone can agree on is that the game was expensive, and while most analysts are estimating somewhere between $100-$300 million, analyst Doug Creutz suspects that Electronic Arts has sunk nearly half a billion dollars into the project.

This is in stark contrast to the estimate from analyst Michael Pachter, who targeted the price tag at roughly $80 million when all was said and done. Unfortunately, the precise cost won't be known unless EA decides to release the game's official budget and how much was spent on development, which seems unlikely. What is certain is that the performance of Star Wars: The Old Republic is going to be under close scrutiny over the coming months among both fans of the game and fans of financial speculation.

[Thanks to Ben for the tip!]