EA to cap Star Wars: The Old Republic sales

The success of a massively multiplayer online role-playing game is commonly measured by how quickly it can gain a bustling population and how many players it has compared to genre kingpin World of Warcraft. However, Electronic Arts appears to be opting out of that race with Star Wars: The Old Republic.

As reported by Game Informer, EA said today that it will be limiting the number of Star Wars: The Old Republic copies that will be available at launch, through both retail and digital channels. EA reportedly made this decision so as to ensure server stability when the game goes live later this year.

The publisher went on to note that while it has already established what the exact number of copies sold will be, it will not be announcing that figure. If and when that sales figure is reached, the publisher plans to cease digital sales while it expands server capacity. Once the player load can be accommodated, EA will resume game sales.

Electronic Arts said in February that The Old Republic would be "substantially profitable" with just 500,000 subscribers, with anything above 1 million monthly users making the game "very profitable." Analysts have pegged the game's opening sales at anywhere from 1 million to 3 million units.

For more on Star Wars: The Old Republic, check out GameSpot's new impressions from Gamescom 2011.