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More Than 1.7 Million Active Subscribers 2/1/12 [EA Conf Call Discussion Thread]
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Funny to see the haters clinging on to a bandwagon they thought was a surefire runaway
It was always pretty obvious they had the wrong end of the stick. BW is opening up a market of new MMO fans, not trying to peel off bored ex-WoW-ers.
Which is exactly how Blizzard went about it. They weren't trying to filch EQ's subscribers, so much as attract a whole new bunch of people to MMOs (i.e. specifically those who tried EQ and didn't like it - i.e. they plugged holes that had put people off the previous king of MMOs).
The new people coming into SWTOR have no interest in the gabble of old MMO hands, so they're not really affected by the cries of d00000000m.
its more humorous to see the die hard fans actually beleive these numbers mean this game is going to be successful in the mmo market
http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/339443/Video-FollowUp-Guide-For-Enhancing-Graphics-and-Performance-in-SWTORSorry-still-Nvidia-Only.html
With that number of subs, it's successful, period. Who cares what market it is successful in?
I think right now both the fans and the haters have reasons to be disappointed. Not a big success, not a total failure. And the majority here that voted around 2M subs are the ones that had it more or less right.
But the future is looking better for haters than for fans, immo.
An honest review of SW:TOR 6/10 (Danny Wojcicki)
1.7 out of 2 million is about 85%. There are some people who have no doubt bought the game but not yet subscribed to it. I have bought 3 copies but only used 1 so far, so 66% of my purchase of SWTOR has not subbed. I know some people who bought the game but then could not play it in early access as their PCs / Laptops were not able to play it, and now just waiting for more stuff to be added whilst they save up money to buy a new PC. Then there will be some who bought the game in multiples to try and make a profit of it afterwards
Also when I activated the game near the end of Dec, I immediately unsubscribed, as wanted to use Time cards and not a payment method, but then checking the account last week I was actually still subscribed and pending renewal. I cancellled subscription successfully then. I am not renewing until I get more time to play it or they get more efficient with their downtimes, so I can actually get to play the game when it is up. Lately I have only had time to play when the servers have been down, and is just a waste of time and money, and not helped by the last minute notices, posted at about 2am in the morning, for 8am, giving only 6 hours notice, and in bed so not able to see it.
15% of people not subscribing / activating the game on/after Dec 20th/22nd after purchasing the game sounds more accurate
Star Trek Online - Best Free MMORPG of 2012
It would be successful if they sold 4 million and had 1.7 million subs, that would be more believable for sub numbers after the 30 days.
As I stated above I do not see 85% subbing when you take away people who have bought the game but not yet activated it and applied a subscription yet
That 1.7 in actual subs is virtually 100% when you take away the people who have bought the game and not yet activated it, and with so many people with varying tastes that figure is just not possible for active current subs
Star Trek Online - Best Free MMORPG of 2012
I'm sorry but a purchaser-to-subscriber conversion rate of 85% is just unbelievable unless you change the meaning of either the words 'purchaser' or 'subscriber'. Blizzard's 'WOTLK' expansion - which was converting pre-existing subscribers (ie people who were already playing and paying for World of Warcraft') - only managed a conversion rate of 69%.
If it is unbelievable, it is probably not true. Just saying.
An honest review of SW:TOR 6/10 (Danny Wojcicki)
Heheh! I just love these kinda financial reports!
It can be read in like 3 different ways, because of this everyone can read whatever they want in it so everyone should be happy.
On the other hand: since everyone can read whatever they want in it maybe noone will be happy.
Ummm, actually '1.7 million subscribers' from '2 million unit purchasers' is 85%. These are figures from the investor call yesterday. So EA/Bioware is actually claiming this phenomenally high retention rate. If true, it's an excellent endorsement of the company's directors and a great reason for investors to invest in the company. If false, it's a rather transparent way for the directors to justify their end of year bonuses and to ramp the value of their share options.
LOL I can't believe people still going at it ....
Well..carry on. this drama is awesome
This is why its not even worth commenting on. Except to say, who the hell knows, outside of EA. I have my suspicions as to what they mean, but what's the point of tossing that out there, just so that others can counter-guess? That's not a debate, or a discussion. Not sure what the point of it is.
And anyone who can't even admit the ambiguity of the wording is just hopeless.
When I want a single-player story, I'll play a single-player game. When I play an MMO, I want a massively multiplayer world.
Some of that information is pretty direct. As of the time of the release, there were 1.7 million players. There were over 2 million units sold. Players average 4 hours of play time per day. The 1 million players logging in is a bit ambiguous, is that concurrent users, or is that in a single day?
Anyway you want to look at those numbers, they're big. Bigger than BioWare expected, which is good for the game and certainly worth bragging about.
** edit **
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
I'm still trying to figure out how if there are this many players I can be on a server listed as 'heavy' that last evening averaged about 40 people on fleet and 8 people on my planet.
...and I'm playing Imperial. The numbers are all well and good. Seem impressive to me but sure would like to know where the fuck these players are because they sure as hell aren't on the three servers I've tried out.
1. For god's sake mmo gamers, enough with the analogies. They're unnecessary and your comparisons are terrible, dissimilar, and illogical.
2. To posters feeling the need to state how f2p really isn't f2p: Players understand the concept. You aren't privy to some secret the rest are missing. You're embarrassing yourself.
3. Yes, Cpt. Obvious, we're not industry experts. Now run along and let the big people use the forums for their purpose.
It's "Magic Numbers With Lizardbones Time"!
From their investor report, we know that a million people log in to the game. I'm going to make the assumption that that's a million people a day, not all at once. They have something like 217 servers, so that's about 4618 people per server, who login sometime during the day.
If people stay logged in for 4 hours at a time, and we want everyone to login during the day, starting a Midnight, then every hour from Midnight to 8PM, 220 people login to a server, then play 4 hours and log out. Using this model, you get about 880 players at any given time during peak hours, spread out across all the zones on the server. You probably wouldn't see that many at any given time. If I knew how many zones there were and how many possible places it were possible for players to be, I could make up some more magic numbers.
Now, you're probably saying to yourself, this is a horrible model. You would be absolutely right. This is "Magic Numbers" time, not "Accurate Numbers" time. Anyway, the point is that there are not that many players at any given time on a given server and in a given zone relative to the total numbers of players.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
I would say cause it didnt happen.
I joined 2 servers that were light for the longest time, and finally got up to standard after a couple of weeks. We have 30 or more on the Rep fleet during primetime(which is your server would hit heavy), and more than 8 folks in any zone thru Alderaan(furthest planet I have been). Typically there is 20 to 40 in each zone during prime time, although Coruscant the other night had like 80.
My Imperial server moves to normal slower than the Rep one does, and their numbers are always even bigger. I dont bother to play Imperial during prime time cause my machine lags.
Thus I seriously doubt playing on heavy servers you see less folks than I do on light(/normal during prime time) servers. Had ya said 3AM, I probably would of believed ya.
Just for shits n giggles, I would enjoy knowing what server this is that is so dead when sitting at a heavy rating. I would really like to experience it first hand.
Asking Devs to make AAA sandbox titles is like trying to get fine dining on a McDonalds dollar menu budget.
I am on Bergeran Colony and I saw perhaps 80 odd people in Tython when I rerolled to change my advance class a few nights back. Sometimes there are 120 people in the Imperial Fleet . It varies especially because there are so many areas that you could be in.
You are not understanding what was said in the CC.
It is very clear. Go read the transcript.
1.7 million includes people that HAVE decide to stay another month AND people that are still on their 30-day trial. Period. That's what it means.
Ultimately - I think it does work out to a 1-mo retention rate (from those that were basically in on launch or X-mas) of between 60% and 75%... good - but keep in mind the higher end of that scale you choose to go... the less interest in continued purchases TOR is seeing.
I would also contend that you should expect to see higher retention rates among those that were at launch than those that picked the game up later.... more hardcore Star Wars and/or MMO fans vs. more casual players.... so a 65% 1-mo rate might not hold for people buying the game today and in the future. Might be more like 50%.
Anyway... as someone said above... we'll know a LOT more about the direction this game is heading at the NEXT quarterly CC.
If it's holding 1.5 million subscribers then.... I'll be impressed. If it appears they are fudging numbers to show a 1 million subscriber base... I'd worry if I have any investment based on this game's performance.
First of all it was heavy when I joined it not now. Now it sits at standard. Secondly, what possible reason would I have for making it up? Like I'm going to fabricate bullshit about a game I'm actually playing. That makes a lot of sense. This server is better than my last one Empress Teta but still is way low in population.
You guys want to keep thinking people are making this stuff up by all means keep thinking so. That's fine. Not gonna sit here and argue with someone that ridiculous.
Hell, you can look at the link a person posted earlier about the servers and see for yourself that some are really low in people. Not all of them. But there are quite a few.
But keep believing whatever you want.
1. For god's sake mmo gamers, enough with the analogies. They're unnecessary and your comparisons are terrible, dissimilar, and illogical.
2. To posters feeling the need to state how f2p really isn't f2p: Players understand the concept. You aren't privy to some secret the rest are missing. You're embarrassing yourself.
3. Yes, Cpt. Obvious, we're not industry experts. Now run along and let the big people use the forums for their purpose.
On the server I played on before my free sub ran out there's still 250+ people in the fleet every night. How many are the same players and how many are new players picking up the game is hard to say, though.
Cool stories bro care to show us evidence of it dying so far all anyone has seen is the tradition first month drop off that every mmo in history has had.
Game is already a succes and no matter how much you and others who wanted SWTOR to fail grubmle over it, its not going to change. But its funny to see how succes of SWTOR grinds your gears.
You must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is an ocean; if a few drops of the ocean are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty -- Mahatma Gandhi
Calling an MMO a success after one month is as ridiculous as calling it a failure after one month.
Consider this... If they continue retaining 85% of subscribers each month (with box sales), the game will bleed out as fast as SWG did.
The important number is where they stabilize and/or begins growing again. Right now, the trend over the initial release is a shrinking playerbase (which is normal for a new game). To make any conclusions right now is pretty much a waste of time.
Enter a whole new realm of challenge and adventure.