EA spending more on SWTOR than any game in its history

EA CFO Eric Brown has said that the company's spending more on Star Wars: The Old Republic than any game in its entire history.

Speaking at the Janney Capital Markets' 2010 Consumer Conference today, Brown said that the money spent on the game is one of the reasons it's not being released until after March 2011.

"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," he said (via Gamasutra).

"We're not expecting it to ship in fiscal 2010, nor have we given a specific ship date thereafter. We're intentionally being nonspecific on the ship date.

"In the past, for MMOs, the type of fiction that has resonated most broadly is fiction based on swords and knights and sorcery, et cetera.

"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," Brown added, pointing out that most if not all of the conference's attendees were likely to be familiar with the property.

"We think it has very broad appeal."

Brown believes it will be money well-spent though, as BioWare "is one of the highest-rated studios in terms of quality overall".

Star Wars: The Old Republic will be at E3, and everyday that passes, makes us want it more.