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Eso Global top seller 5 april
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Agreed. I waited until B2P myself, but can understand why they didn't sell as much (combat/animations/marketing, probably).
But, while VZchartz are not a good indicator like i said, there's been a few red flags that put together aren't painting a good image of ESO:
- 160K pre-orders on pc (ofcourse, digital not included)
- Didn't even reach top 10 on xfire (can't verify, don't use it, or Raptr).
- No statement from Zenimax regarding sales/sub numbers (maybe keeping to themselves, but definitelynot 2M).
- Only 10 RVR zones for each region at launch, but apparently, only 2,3 are full in NA according to other posters. (Maybe people are leveling, but seems extremely low imo).
I really can't imagine this game not selling 1 million on pc atleast, but it's actually starting to look like it. I hope we don't start seeing layoffs at ZOS.
Agree with your points, but even more important than sales will be the % dropout after the first month
Well:
As for subsequent sales well we don't know but there is anecdotal evidence that suggests there hasn't been "huge" post-launch sales. As with vgchartz data remember this stuff isn't hard fact:
It's quite possible that ZOS may never release the numbers. It may actually even be an interesting experiment if they don't.
Either way, I'd guess we're unlikely to hear any numbers from ZOS until well after the console launch, and then it will most likely be a combined sales number.
Whatever numbers they release in the next 2 months will inevitably affect the console launch of the game. Even if they sold 5M copies and only 2.5M of those take a sub, players will still point to the 50% loss as a huge "fail", which could cause negative pubicity for the console launch.
Their marketing tactics have been been somewhat "unconventional" up to now, no reason to think that's going to change in the future...
They can always pad the numbers out or offer misleading information, if they simply brag about registered users like Square Enix have been doing they can offer up a figure above 5 million and the press will all report it. Very few people will know registered users is meaningless and will think it means active players.
http://uk.ign.com/articles/2014/04/03/the-elder-scrolls-online-infographic-reveals-5-million-beta-registrations
Those numbers are for 1 day of sales after launch.
Notice the ending date is April 5, 2014.
Game launched April 4, 2014.
Also notice that over half of the sales reported list N/A as the sales numbers.
Seriously, why does anyone care and why would anyone use this unreliable site if they did care?
Why? Do you know something I don't know? Are they going to give me money if they have good figures?
Also I didn't "sink" money, I purchased a game. Why are people acting like $60 is some financial investment? It's a game, and us gamers (you know, people on forums like these) tend to spend $60 on games quite frequently.
You do know not everyone is a broke teenager asking their mother to buy them a game right? To put things in perspective, I spend $80 per month just to park at my job. That's right, it costs me money just to show up at work (and I park in the cheap lot, you can park in the closer, more expensive lot for just $175 per month).
I paid for something, I received what I paid for, and I have played the crap out of this game. Easily at 200 hours right now. $60 (actually $64 because I got the imperial edition) for 200 hours of entertainment? That's why MMO's are good value, even with a $15/mo sub.
Rusque out of curiosity have they fixed your game breaking hardstop bug yet ?
http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/410234/lvl-45-game-breaking-bug-Literal-hardstop.html
I say sunk because when a game does not do very well it tends to go f2p then people who bought the game would indeed have sunk money in it. Their metacritic user score is at 6.7 even SWTOR which people hate and which had less votes scored 8.9. Don't you think that the bugs you and others are experiencing have lead to poor sales from beta experiences.
No they haven't and I'm super pissed about it too.
Though it's been 3 days for me, people on the forums who leveled much faster than me have been waiting 7+ days for a fix. =O
If there's anything that people could highlight as ZOS offering up some fail, it's a bug that doesn't let you progress.
http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/discussion/66385/main-story-quest-messages-across-tamriel-bugged/p8
That's deplorable really. And there's no point in contacting a GM, it's the #1 reported problem! Wohoo! Falling through the world, dismounting, boss mob not spawning, animation glitch. Whatever, none of those bother me, cause you can just /stuck or relog real quick and your problem is solved. But this quest (and motes in the moonlight btw) is asshattery.
! agree with Rusque's comment about people "getting what they purchased" - which for c. $60 was c. 30 days access.
How much use they make of that access is up to them. Rusque is at 200+ hours in just over 10 days ... doesn't make the game any less valuable to someone who has only played 20 hours.
Why do people care however?
Some might because they may want to see future content. Adventure zones, dark brotherhood, thieves guild stuff whatever. Others may care because they simply want their bank slots fixed asap.
And - like it or not - if a game doesn't get the subs companies cut running costs; and if the game doesn't get the sales the running costs get cut even more. Staff are released. And the drumbeat of future content and patches slows to a trickle.
The bank issue is a database issue - probably stemming from a server architecture issue. Messy.
If you check out most of the "bug fixes" as well you will see that they are actually "work arounds" rather than "fixes" - possible things the things weren't even "broken". So instead of "X will no longer do Y" - a bug fix - you have "X will no longer do Y when z happens". Not what you really want as you may not be fixing the problem just the result.
This
This is why companies lie and mislead about "registered players", I really wish players would stop being so easily persuaded by it because it's just encouraging the behaviour of these publishers.
If you like a game and it has a decent enough population to sustain updates that's really all that should matter.
There is no winner other than WoW in the mmo field and if being the winner matters that much this market will never move past launching wow clones.
I don't think any company makes a press release until at least the first month after release do they?
What it also, crucially, doesn't cover, is returned sales. So, I purchased mine on the 4th, thus being recorded in the sales figures. Returned and refunded it on the 7th after 3 days of not being able to login. No subscription sale...no "genuine" box sale.
Until they release an official "number of subscribed accounts" during month two (which they almost certainly wont, GW2 for example has never published that information since it launched) then no-one apart from certain key individuals in Zenimax will ever know, unless you are unfortunate enough to be a shareholder right now. What "might" get published is number of box sales...but unless its very high even that will be from offline sources like retail charts, which are about as reliable as tofu mallets.
Because GW2 has 0 subscribers. That wouldn't be very good advertising.
While the numbers may not be very accurate they can be used when you can compare them to the other games.
The lack of numbers inst surprising, probably why the game ran so 'well' at launch and didnt meltdown completely.
Anecdotal 'evidence' already showed it didnt have close to the numbers GW2 had simply by looking at the PvP campaigns, and seeing how empty they were when those were the ONLY PvP option. GW2 had WvWvW AND numerous insta 50 mini maps and they were all full all the time.
In any event I am glad to see people did shy away from this game in droves based on all the things we have seen.
Hopefully these numbers are fairly accurate and will make other companies think twice before trying to tripe dip as well as release a game as poorly ready for release as this one is/was.
But BECAUSE this one is so horrible right now other companies now have a cellar that they know they can tip tow towards in terms of performance, because there are still plenty of people calling this launch a success. Even though it is just above Vanguard as probably the worst in AAA history, and even worse than some less than AAA launches.
But even if you double those numbers and then take away 70% the game is going to be left with about 100-150K 'subscirbers' in a couple week. I seriously doubt there are that many left personally, but I am sure some critics locked themselves into some longer term sub packages, not to mention the people who had to sub up front just to get their free time, so I am sure there will still be some critical news coming out, and not just fanboy central.
So, you hate the game and are hoping that it sold poorly. Got it. This is a silly game to play; if it was popular you'd still hate it.
And there is no meaningful data to look at, since it is challenging to track digital sales and MMO companies are traditionally very reluctant to release sales totals. Zen isn't even public, if I remember correctly, so there is even less reason for them to do so than is the norm. And they haven't released the game on consoles, which is another major market for them.
I dont hate any game, that is irrational. I just didnt like what ZoS did and is still doing to people theyre takingmoney from and trying to extract more money from.
I dont like cash grabbing money whores who try and rape people off the name of an IP and put out a game so horribly broken a large percentage of the player base cant go a few hours without something happening to them that makes them want to pull their hair out.
But I am happy that the sales numbers look like crap because it might deter other companies from doing the same. I have said that all along. I remember people spouting that this game might sell 2 or 3 million copies. I figured with the IP and despite the problems it might sell a million. But yes I am glad to see, at least on the surface, it didnt come close to that number.
At first people were pissed about the sub, but some could deal with it, ZoS made their speech and it was doen with. Then people were pissed about stuff getting locked behind a pre order or pay wall with the race and the faction unlock 'perks' to the different versions and whether you pre ordered or not. But people go over that. Then more and more people got to experience the betas and they saw first hand what the game was like. Many still tried to excuse it saying it wasnt the release version. Well the game has been out almost 3 weeks now and if anything it is probably running worse now than it did in the betas.
How many more strikes does a game and company need to show people what it was from the start?
Games that have been in development 5 or 6 years and had the money thrown at it this game has had shouldnt look like this one does. People can use all the same lame and tired excuses about every other failed game to come down the pike they want but that proves the point even more ESo is a failure, it just hasnt been out long enough yet to confirm it.
But if they didnt sell 500K copies of the game then IMO that is a failure in and of itself. Everything else is just icing on the failure cake. Because I dont know of any AAA MMO that didnt sell more than 500K copies even back when there werent nearly as many gamers around as there are now.
Where are all these game-breaking bugs? I've logged about 5 days playtime on my character so far, level 36, and I've run into ONE bug that was actually pretty easy to fix user-side.
Cash shop money-hungry... what? Yeah, two editions of the game, just like other MMOs. One horse up for sale on their site, just like a lot of other MMOs as well (actually, a lot less than what other MMOs sell), no in-game cash shop window or plans to integrate one. This cash shop crap is a blatant lie.
Have you even played the game? I see healthy player numbers, virtually no one complaining in chat, haven't heard anyone talk about not being able to log in (and I've tried through three different proxies by accident, from various locations around the world). Every public dungeon I go into has players everywhere (not bots, players), and the economy is actually really healthy, possibly healthier than if it had a server-wide AH.
I sense that you're mostly pissed about the fact that a game costs money to play. That's fine, but there's no need to go off on nonsensical tirades and blind attacks because of it.
Also, if you're going to use VGcharts as a reference, take the numbers into consideration: ESO sold 253k copies according to this site, yet was #1 on Amazon's best seller list for games (and no.2, and 3, and 4... imperial edition, boxed standard, boxed imperial) for two weeks straight, only offset once by a free DLC for saints row IV. Same deal with green man gaming: top seller for over a week.
Look at titanfall in the VGchartz lineup. It's known to have sold well over a million copies before it even launched on the 360, yet this site says it only sold 95,865... that's quite a large margin of error. Statistically speaking, that means that ESO sold WAAAAAY more units than VGchartz is reporting on. Hell, on the "weekly" spread it outsold Infamous: Second Son twice over.
If you want to try slamming a game for it's business model, remember what it costs to make these stupid things. Pay up or shut up, because no one is forcing you to buy it.
Furthermore, if you're gonna slam a game for it's sales figures, make sure you have all your facts straight.
Holy Shit!!!
Those figures are really, really poor. Combined with what looks to be a decreasing retention rate this does not look good at all to me