First things first for those under the age of 40 who may not know what the term ‘Jumping The Shark’ means – here’s some free edumacation for you.

Now that’s out of the way, here’s why I think SWTOR will never be at a stage of ‘jumping the shark’: because the Star Wars franchise made that jump years ago. Before you start entertaining the idea of inserting a light saber in one of my cavities, let me explain.

At risk of sounding like an old bugger, it can be pretty easily argued that the Star Wars universe’s best work is behind it. No-one would argue that it isn’t totally embedded into Western culture in particular, but that widespread love and acceptance is predominantly based on the original three movies and to a lesser extent Episodes 1 to 3.

Sure, there have been TV series, toys, piles of books and stacks of comics, but it’s the movies that are the foundation of everything Star Wars. And those original movies are the pinnacle of what has been achieved in Star Wars. Everything since then may have been enjoyable, engaging and even of higher quality, but it’s all of lesser importance (my, I can already hear the sound of this site’s server sighing as it prepares for the onslaught of comments).

Now before anyone gets totally up in arms, I believe that this is actually a great thing. If Star Wars were still the groundbreaking new kid on the block, imagine the pressure on an MMO like SWTOR succeeding. And it’s likely it wouldn’t succeed, because it’s taken all these years for Star Wars lore to be rich enough so that something like SWTOR will appeal to a big enough group of people to make it viable. It’s easy to sell a Star Wars Lego game, but an MMO is a much different beast and only now after so many years is it a viable option.

So overall, although there’s no shortage of criticism of SWTOR, and some of it is certainly valid, SWTOR is in a space where it’s likely to go from strength to strength. Obviously in a number of years it will decline like any game, but that’s no jumping the shark. That’s plain old ageing.

Over to you as always: have I jumped the shark in my jumping the shark analogy??

[Superb image via http://ulysses-gorge.blogspot.com.au]