Congratulations BioWare On Star Wars: The Old Republic

Yesterday, EA/BioWare launched Star Wars: The Old Republic – a game that will stand as one of the greatest and most ambitious achievements in EA history.

Beyond the critical and commercial success, this game represents an enormous career milestone for the team that made it. Led by Dr. Ray Muzyka and Dr. Greg Zeschuk, the talented team at BioWare began this project with a great vision and a plan to recruit an army of engineers, designers, artists, lighters, scriptwriters and voice-over talent. Several years and millions of man-hours later, they have released an unparalleled artistic achievement.

It’s very early, but our online tracking suggests fans are loving Star Wars: The Old Republic. Some who preordered the game were allowed to begin playing up to eight days before the launch. Here’s what we’re seeing so far: 

• Players have already logged 28 million hours in the game – roughly equivalent to watching all six Star Wars movies, one million times.
• Players averaged well over five hours a day playing the game.
• More than 3.8 million characters were created, including 510,000 Jedi Knights and 550,000 Sith Warriors.
• 56 percent chose the Empire – 44 percent chose the Republic.
• More than 2 billion non-player characters were killed in eight days of gameplay.

We’re extraordinarily proud of the game and every one of the people responsible for creating, launching and now maintaining it. We know this is a game that people will play for many years to come.