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If you wanted accurate numbers on MMO subs...
mutantmagnet
Member Posts: 274
...you can now rely on NPD in the near future. But keep in mind that NPD charges for the majority of their reports and they aren't cheap.
Comments
some companies make public their subs like Blizzard / NCSoft / Square Enix
but other companies like SOE and Turbine -- this will be helpful for
EQ2 fan sites
...so they're publishing "official numbers" that they gather from an online survey.
wow, that's cutting edge technology.
Have to agree, talk about a totally useless service. They'll be publishing numbers that they extrapolate (a.e, wild arse guesses) from their survey results. Only thing is some stupid execs are going to buy into it and actually pay for these "results"
Who the hell are you, and why should I care?
Congrats! You are a victim of Trollstar!
The thing that upsets me most about this...is that I didn't think of it first
I mean, I could ask 6 or 8 of my friends and even do a poll right here on MMORPG.com and then sell subscription numbers as official, I even have Excel to make them look all pretty and real LOL!
LOL ... you know next to NOTHING about their methodologies and you write them off? People are so idiotic to write other people off without even knowing the details.
Knowing other research companies (I have colleagues working with Nelson), they probably have tracking done on a panel and not just surveys. And even surveys can give reasonable accurate information if done right. There is a whole field of scientific research regarding the use of, and accuracy of surveys.
LOL ... you know next to NOTHING about their methodologies and you write them off? People are so idiotic to write other people off without even knowing the details.
Knowing other research companies (I have colleagues working with Nelson), they probably have tracking done on a panel and not just surveys. And even surveys can give reasonable accurate information if done right. There is a whole field of scientific research regarding the use of, and accuracy of surveys.
Their "methodologies" are posted right on the link. They are online surveys.
Apparently you know next to nothing about "click link and read"
Let me help you...
"will be tallied based on an "online panel of more than 3 million consumers who have agreed to complete online surveys.""
oh, p.s. Are you sure your "close colleagues" don't work for NIELSEN...
People are failing to realize how expensive and massive an undertaking it is to survey 3 million people. In the late 80s surveying around 200,000 people across 52 countries for the Globe project IIRC was the biggest undertaking in gathering data by any single company.
You also have to consider that the estimated size of subcribers at this point is about 30-40 million people. sampling 8-10% of the probable population is excessively accurate.
since you just stated your self that the number of total subscribers by itself is already just an estimate, "excessively accurate" really doesn't come into play. You also realize this is a group who had to re-release it's "best selling games of 2007" because it couldn't even get that right. Also worth pointing out, guess what...they're SO accurate that when they calculate sales figures they leave out digital downloads and big box retailers...
oh...and one more thing? They're only tracking US subscriptions with this ridiculous online poll.
I believe that many will find this tracking report more dependable than the majority of external information currently available as long as the methodology remains consistant.
I am one of the client members that requested for this information a year ago; therefore, I am quite interested in this update! From my experience, the company offers purchase data that is useful for cross comparison as long as it's within their data pool.
I've been using personal applications to determine MMO subscriber numbers in North American, and "I think" my numbers are very accurate! I can decide after comparing their presentation with my results whether or not I should purchase the service - and save myself some future efforts!
While I question whether or not this will be accurate in giving specific subscriber information, such as game A has 100k subscribers and game be has 200k. I do think this could be usefull for tracking trends in games. For example if we se a trend where in survey 1 Game A has 100k estimated subs, in survey 2 it has 110k estimated subs and in survey 3 it has 150k estimated subs, this would show a positive trend in that game. This I think is the best we will be able to hope for with the type of tracking they plan on doing.
why would anyone not intrested in investing in the company even give a shit?
And in that case, you'd have real numbers provided by the company.
LOL ... you know next to NOTHING about their methodologies and you write them off? People are so idiotic to write other people off without even knowing the details.
Knowing other research companies (I have colleagues working with Nelson), they probably have tracking done on a panel and not just surveys. And even surveys can give reasonable accurate information if done right. There is a whole field of scientific research regarding the use of, and accuracy of surveys.
Their "methodologies" are posted right on the link. They are online surveys.
Apparently you know next to nothing about "click link and read"
Let me help you...
"will be tallied based on an "online panel of more than 3 million consumers who have agreed to complete online surveys.""
oh, p.s. Are you sure your "close colleagues" don't work for NIELSEN...
Thanks Vincenz, saved me the trouble of replying in detail.
I know that surveys can only be accurate if the poll takers are extremely careful in defining their sample base. Using Nielsen was a poor choice, because I feel the reason we receive such crap TV programming is that executives have been relying on their "skilled" information and it doesn't really reflect what people want to see today.
No, I have no faith that their pool of 3M customers will result in any sort of accuracy, no more than if they took a poll of the subscribers here on these forums, the result would be quite skewed.
There is no way to accurately tally the number of MMO subscribers out there unless the game companies release the numbers themselves. (and even when someone like Blizz does so, many folks doubt their validity)
Who the hell are you, and why should I care?
Congrats! You are a victim of Trollstar!
You know what strikes me, the more I read this. They're only conducting the online polls in the U.S. (not even all of North America)...and claim to be polling 3 million people. Now, the problem I see with this is pretty simple...
1. WoW has 2.5 million North American subscribers, so let's even say they're all American...which they're not.
2. ALL the other games combined probably have MAYBE another 2 million US subs.
So...are we really expected to believe they're sampling like 2/3 of the ENTIRE MMO SUBSCRIBER BASE???
come on. I mean...I certainly didn't get an e-mail...and I'm subscribed to 3 MMOs.
EDIT: I'm gonna dig into this deeper, because with that HUGE number of people being "polled", I'm seriously wondering if they've simply tied into one of the good old "fill out surveys, win an i-pod" systems already in place and added MMO questions.
One little tidbit for those of you excited to see these ridiculous reports.
prepare to spend THIRTY FIVE THOUSAND DOLLARS A YEAR to subscribe to them.