It is a simple way to have a guess if that information can be true or not.
After 6 months to one year after launch, a lot of MMO had server mergers. Rift, SWTOR and Tera are good examples.
GW2 is coming to first birthday and no server mergers so far. We can guess it is having better retention than Rift, SWTOR and Tera...
:P
PS
Sorry to use logic. Haters will hate GW2 anyway and they cannot live in a world where people like GW2...
So logic states that if you disagree with stated un official numbers in OP you are automatically a hater? nice logic.
Logic says that GW2 have better retention than Rift, SWTOR and Tera. So, the OP numbers CAN be possible.
Haters will hate the game and who like the game will like the game. That is emotion, need no logic.
But to try make everyone hate the game with posts here... it is waste of time.
As I said above, haters cannot live in a world where people like GW2...
Unofficial numbers which are not given out by Anet and you wonder people are refusing to believe it? the replies on this topic have more to do with the numbers rather than whether GW2 sucks or not.
I like how you lump everyone into same category of 'haters'.
"The problem is that the hardcore folks always want the same thing: 'We want exactly what you gave us before, but it has to be completely different.' -Jesse Schell
"Online gamers are the most ludicrously entitled beings since Caligula made his horse a senator, and at least the horse never said anything stupid." -Luke McKinney
I believe these numbers (after reading the redit) The 2 most active mmo's i play are WOW and GW2 both games have a rabid following and a handull of "FUll" servers. My GW2 server (JQ) is super active and has a good community with a full on website, forums and TS3 server.
I'm not sure why anyone would doubt GW2 having a higher playerbase than GW1
I posted in that thread on reddit a few times. My one post criticizing the numbers promptly got downvoted, while other posts making ridiculously wild assumptions in favor of GW2 - like the one that giddily surmises that Anet might actually be close to 6 million GW2 box sales and just haven't announced it yet because they want to keep it a surprise - received unreserved upvotes. I mean, I've always known how biases influence our perspective, but I've also seen reason triumph over and over again for all but the most hopeless cases. This particular case just demonstrated a complete disregard for reason, the immense blinding effect of bias, and an utter lack of understanding of numbers like retention.
Anyone who knows me around here knows I'm a huge GW2 fan. It's been my main MMO since it was in beta, the only MMO that has even come close to holding my attention for the past 3 years. That said, there are just certain facts we can't ignore.
The highest number of sales reported so far has been 3 million. This does include digital sales (unlike what another wonky reddit poster suggested, which also received numerous upvotes), which comprised the vast majority of sales for this game. You can also bet your butt they'll announce it when they reach 4 million. So current sales lie between 3 and 4 million.
At the most extreme (2.5 out of 3 million), this is an 83% retention rate. That would mean 83% of all players who purchased and tried GW2 have stuck around and continue to log in "actively," however that is to be defined. This. Is. Absurd. I can't stress that enough. It's a completely off-the-wall, astronomical, bonkers number that never has and never will be true for any game in the history of online gaming.
AT the least extreme (2.5 out of nearly 4 million), this is a 63% retention rate, which would still be absolutely record shattering for any MMO 11 months in.
All of this begs two questions: how valid is this 2.5 million number, and what constitutes an "active user"? Since it came from the official GW2 Chinese website, I'm inclined to trust the 2.5 million number. I'm not a conspiracy theorist who thinks every company is lying to everybody all the time about everything. There's usually some measure of oversight to public release of numbers like these.
With that said, I can only conclude that, for the purposes of that statistic, Anet is counting every account that "logs in," which, we must remember, must be done for anyone who decides to do as little as update their client. Being a free game where everyone who owns it can at least log in and update, I wouldn't be surprised if huge numbers of players who aren't really playing the game at all do at least that much every time they get that biweekly email bragging about all the new content that came out.
This would help account for the strikingly low 12 average minutes played per player per day stat. If we remove as much as 1 million of those "active players," this number increases to 20.3 minutes played per player per day.
Now all these number shifts are speculation, but that's exactly my point. Speculating and assuming is exactly what everyone is doing here; except I see so many people wildly speculating with what seems like a blind intent to make their champion game look unrealistically remarkable. Let's try to keep it reasonable, guys.
I've logged over1700 hours in gw2, and i'm at the point where i just cant bother to play anymore. I do log in with every update for around 1 hour, then i log off and wait for next update. overall i've been very dissapointed in the direction they've taken the game, with extremely boring, almost content less updates.
So atm i'm just playing some casual vindictus and waiting for wildstar
I posted in that thread on reddit a few times. My one post criticizing the numbers promptly got downvoted, while other posts making ridiculously wild assumptions in favor of GW2 - like the one that giddily surmises that Anet might actually be close to 6 million GW2 box sales and just haven't announced it yet because they want to keep it a surprise - received unreserved upvotes. I mean, I've always known how biases influence our perspective, but I've also seen reason triumph over and over again, for all but the most hopeless cases. This particular case just demonstrated a complete disregard for reason, a the immense blinding effect of bias, and an utter lack of understanding of numbers like retention.
Anyone who knows me around here knows I'm a huge GW2 fan. It's been my main MMO since it was in beta, the only MMO that has even come close to holding my attention for the past 3 years. That said, there are just certain facts we can't ignore.
The highest number of sales so far has been 3 million. This does include digital sales (unlike what another wonky reddit poster suggested, which also received numerous upvotes), which comprised the vast majority of sales for this game. You can also bet your butt they'll announce it when they reach 4 million. So current sales lie between 3 and 4 million.
At the most extreme, this is an 83% retention rate. That would mean 83% of all players who purchased and tried GW2 have stuck around and continue to log in "actively," however that is to be defined. This. Is. Absurd. I can't stress that enough. It's a completely off-the-wall, astronomical, bonkers number that never has and never will be true for any game in the history of online gaming.
AT the least extreme, this is a 63% retention rate, which would still be absolutely record shattering for any MMO 11 months in.
All this begs two questions: how valid is this 2.5 million number, and what constitutes an "active user"? Since it came from the official GW2 Chinese website, I'm inclined to trust the 2.5 million number. I'm not a conspiracy theorist who thinks every company is lying to everybody all the time about everything. There's usually some measure of oversight to public release of numbers like these.
With that said, I can only conclude that, for the purposes of that statistic, Anet is counting every account that "logs in," which, we must remember, must be done for anyone who decides to do as little as update their client. Being a free game where everyone who owns it can at least log in and update, I wouldn't be surprised if huge numbers of players who aren't really playing the game at all do at least that much every time they get that biweekly email bragging about all the new content that came out.
This would help account for the strikingly low 12 average minutes played per player per day stat. If we remove as much as 1 million of those "active players," this number increases to 20.3 minutes played per player per day.
Now all these number shifts are speculation, but that's exactly my point. Speculating and assuming is exactly what everyone is doing here; except I see so many people wildly speculating with what seems like a blind intent to make their champion game look unrealistically remarkable. Let's try to keep it reasonable, guys.
if you bought the game you log whenever you feel like it.
There is no barrier preventing you from clicking the GW2 shortcut on your desktop so retention is much less important.
I've played tons of GW1 and I saw how it worked. some players would not log in for years and then would come back and play everyday for 3-4 months before disappearing again.
Currently playing: GW2 Going cardboard starter kit: Ticket to ride, Pandemic, Carcassonne, Dominion, 7 Wonders
Unofficial numbers which are not given out by Anet and you wonder people are refusing to believe it? the replies on this topic have more to do with the numbers rather than whether GW2 sucks or not.
I like how you lump everyone into same category of 'haters'.
That numbers come from the chinese GW2 page. So, they are official numbers.
There is something wonky with those numbers. So out of 3 million boxes sold 83 percent of the people still play? Out of the 10 or so people I know that bought the game zero are still playing.
So I find that statistic hard to believe.
I agree, I just realized the other day that GW2 was still on the hard drive and had not been activated in months, so I uninstalled it.
I must say that I am actually surprised that my server as so full still, it actually are a lot more players on now than last autumn.
That said, 2,5 million still sounds a bit over the top. 1,5 M seems a lot more likely.
I also think that the game still is just under 3 million copies since I think ANET would make a big deal out it, but I might be wrong. I do know that Activision or EA would shout it all over the net if it was one of their games but ANET might be a little bit cooler.
Unofficial numbers which are not given out by Anet and you wonder people are refusing to believe it? the replies on this topic have more to do with the numbers rather than whether GW2 sucks or not.
I like how you lump everyone into same category of 'haters'.
That numbers come from the chinese GW2 page. So, they are official numbers.
Thank you, I was about to post this same thing. Kong Zhong is the Chinese company hired to make the localized GW2 game (much like Trion is making the Western version of Arch Age).
But if that's true, and Xfire is without a doubt 110% correct, then we've got a discrepancy here. That would mean that GW2 has actually increased it's population to 3.46 million customers. Why? Because that's 45% of WoW's current population of 7.7 million announced earlier this week.
But that cant' be right. Because that means that Xfire is shedding some bright light on GW2, and that just can't be. I mean to say that the only time Xfire is ever used towards GW2, is by those to "official prove a decline in population". .....
But if that's true, and Xfire is without a doubt 110% correct, then we've got a discrepancy here. That would mean that GW2 has actually increased it's population to 3.46 million customers. Why? Because that's 45% of WoW's current population of 7.7 million announced earlier this week.
Take note that XFire numbers are about time played, not number of players and not number of subscriers.
While WoW have currently 7.7 million SUBSCRIERS, the current population really playing WoW must be lower. There are a lot of subscriers that just not play WoW, but mantain the subscription. We can guess that 80 to 90 % of subscriers are really playing WoW and if that, 45% time played for GW2 fit with 2.5 million.
You can tell which people have no real grasp of the mmorpg market, by the fact that they don't realize how absurd the 2.5 million claim is.
Quarterly report will help paint a better picture, and btw recently colin was interviewed and was still referencing the 3million number, so it probably isn't really close to 4million.
Originally posted by caetftl You can tell which people have no real grasp of the mmorpg market, by the fact that they don't realize how absurd the 2.5 million claim is.
What you think it is absurd? The company that is launching GW2 for the chinese market is using that number. We can guess they know it a lot better than any one of us. They are no making any speculation about that number, they know how many players use GW2 servers.
Originally posted by caetftl You can tell which people have no real grasp of the mmorpg market, by the fact that they don't realize how absurd the 2.5 million claim is.
What you think it is absurd? The company that is launching GW2 for the chinese market is using that number. We can guess they know it a lot better than any one of us. They are no making any speculation about that number, they know how many players use GW2 servers.
I don't know why any company would ever distort or spin or misconstrue stats to make them look good for the incoming launch of their product in a region. :rolls eyes:
The company that is launching GW2 also made a manifesto making a great deal of claims, they obviously knew what their game was going to be since they work on it, except those claims weren't true.
But if that's true, and Xfire is without a doubt 110% correct, then we've got a discrepancy here. That would mean that GW2 has actually increased it's population to 3.46 million customers. Why? Because that's 45% of WoW's current population of 7.7 million announced earlier this week.
Take note that XFire numbers are about time played, not number of players and not number of subscriers.
While WoW have currently 7.7 million SUBSCRIERS, the current population really playing WoW must be lower. There are a lot of subscriers that just not play WoW, but mantain the subscription. We can guess that 80 to 90 % of subscriers are really playing WoW and if that, 45% time played for GW2 fit with 2.5 million.
This isn't true. Xfire also keeps track of the total number of players that log in that use xfire. It is listed under their daily stats for the game.
James T. Kirk: All she's got isn't good enough! What else ya got?
But if that's true, and Xfire is without a doubt 110% correct, then we've got a discrepancy here. That would mean that GW2 has actually increased it's population to 3.46 million customers. Why? Because that's 45% of WoW's current population of 7.7 million announced earlier this week.
Take note that XFire numbers are about time played, not number of players and not number of subscriers.
While WoW have currently 7.7 million SUBSCRIERS, the current population really playing WoW must be lower. There are a lot of subscriers that just not play WoW, but mantain the subscription. We can guess that 80 to 90 % of subscriers are really playing WoW and if that, 45% time played for GW2 fit with 2.5 million.
This isn't true. Xfire also keeps track of the total number of players that log in that use xfire. It is listed under their daily stats for the game.
I am sure if it were actually true, ArenaNet would be announcing it themselves.
Very few devs ever announce numbers like that because as soon as they stop posting them or as soon as there is a downturn, MMO gamers start doing umbrella dances in the street and screaming the end is nigh.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein "Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
EDIT: These figures were taken during/refer to the first 4 months of release.
That makes a lot more sense. Like I posted earlier, no one was mentioning the time frame. This is a lot more believable if it was closer to launch......
James T. Kirk: All she's got isn't good enough! What else ya got?
I am sure if it were actually true, ArenaNet would be announcing it themselves.
Very few devs ever announce numbers like that because as soon as they stop posting them or as soon as there is a downturn, MMO gamers start doing umbrella dances in the street and screaming the end is nigh.
I don't think that is true. Nearly all of the games posted launch numbers and how things were going. When the numbers are good, they almost always post them. It is only to their benefit that they do and great for marketing. It is when they aren't or they are unable to put a positive spin on them, they stop.
James T. Kirk: All she's got isn't good enough! What else ya got?
Just a simple look at the math explains a lot about the figures.
Really high 'active', extremely low play time.
That means a lot of those people are logging on very briefly, maybe to check in with friends, update the client, maybe spend a couple hours every couple weeks poking at the new content.
Same with the 'active' users for WoW in China. A lot of those people aren't actually playing the game very long, and they're not paying a sub.
... or hell, the active users in the US. Sometimes I'll end up paying months for a game I only play an hour a week or so, before I finally break down and kick it off my credit card, realizing I'm never coming back.
... Homitu's post makes a lot of sense, you just have to look at the math behind this sort of thing.
The idea that everybody playing GW2 only plays 12 minutes a day tops is ridiculous. :I Obviously the serious players play lots of time.
Just a simple look at the math explains a lot about the figures.
Really high 'active', extremely low play time.
That means a lot of those people are logging on very briefly, maybe to check in with friends, update the client, maybe spend a couple hours every couple weeks poking at the new content.
Same with the 'active' users for WoW in China. A lot of those people aren't actually playing the game very long, and they're not paying a sub.
... or hell, the active users in the US. Sometimes I'll end up paying months for a game I only play an hour a week or so, before I finally break down and kick it off my credit card, realizing I'm never coming back.
... Homitu's post makes a lot of sense, you just have to look at the math behind this sort of thing.
The idea that everybody playing GW2 only plays 12 minutes a day tops is ridiculous. :I Obviously the serious players play lots of time.
It turns out that the 2.5 million was actually from the first four months so it makes more sense. Even with just logging in to update theory, that number was completely unrealistic.
James T. Kirk: All she's got isn't good enough! What else ya got?
Comments
Unofficial numbers which are not given out by Anet and you wonder people are refusing to believe it? the replies on this topic have more to do with the numbers rather than whether GW2 sucks or not.
I like how you lump everyone into same category of 'haters'.
"The problem is that the hardcore folks always want the same thing: 'We want exactly what you gave us before, but it has to be completely different.'
-Jesse Schell
"Online gamers are the most ludicrously entitled beings since Caligula made his horse a senator, and at least the horse never said anything stupid."
-Luke McKinney
I believe these numbers (after reading the redit) The 2 most active mmo's i play are WOW and GW2 both games have a rabid following and a handull of "FUll" servers. My GW2 server (JQ) is super active and has a good community with a full on website, forums and TS3 server.
I'm not sure why anyone would doubt GW2 having a higher playerbase than GW1
I posted in that thread on reddit a few times. My one post criticizing the numbers promptly got downvoted, while other posts making ridiculously wild assumptions in favor of GW2 - like the one that giddily surmises that Anet might actually be close to 6 million GW2 box sales and just haven't announced it yet because they want to keep it a surprise - received unreserved upvotes. I mean, I've always known how biases influence our perspective, but I've also seen reason triumph over and over again for all but the most hopeless cases. This particular case just demonstrated a complete disregard for reason, the immense blinding effect of bias, and an utter lack of understanding of numbers like retention.
Anyone who knows me around here knows I'm a huge GW2 fan. It's been my main MMO since it was in beta, the only MMO that has even come close to holding my attention for the past 3 years. That said, there are just certain facts we can't ignore.
The highest number of sales reported so far has been 3 million. This does include digital sales (unlike what another wonky reddit poster suggested, which also received numerous upvotes), which comprised the vast majority of sales for this game. You can also bet your butt they'll announce it when they reach 4 million. So current sales lie between 3 and 4 million.
At the most extreme (2.5 out of 3 million), this is an 83% retention rate. That would mean 83% of all players who purchased and tried GW2 have stuck around and continue to log in "actively," however that is to be defined. This. Is. Absurd. I can't stress that enough. It's a completely off-the-wall, astronomical, bonkers number that never has and never will be true for any game in the history of online gaming.
AT the least extreme (2.5 out of nearly 4 million), this is a 63% retention rate, which would still be absolutely record shattering for any MMO 11 months in.
All of this begs two questions: how valid is this 2.5 million number, and what constitutes an "active user"? Since it came from the official GW2 Chinese website, I'm inclined to trust the 2.5 million number. I'm not a conspiracy theorist who thinks every company is lying to everybody all the time about everything. There's usually some measure of oversight to public release of numbers like these.
With that said, I can only conclude that, for the purposes of that statistic, Anet is counting every account that "logs in," which, we must remember, must be done for anyone who decides to do as little as update their client. Being a free game where everyone who owns it can at least log in and update, I wouldn't be surprised if huge numbers of players who aren't really playing the game at all do at least that much every time they get that biweekly email bragging about all the new content that came out.
This would help account for the strikingly low 12 average minutes played per player per day stat. If we remove as much as 1 million of those "active players," this number increases to 20.3 minutes played per player per day.
Now all these number shifts are speculation, but that's exactly my point. Speculating and assuming is exactly what everyone is doing here; except I see so many people wildly speculating with what seems like a blind intent to make their champion game look unrealistically remarkable. Let's try to keep it reasonable, guys.
I've logged over1700 hours in gw2, and i'm at the point where i just cant bother to play anymore. I do log in with every update for around 1 hour, then i log off and wait for next update. overall i've been very dissapointed in the direction they've taken the game, with extremely boring, almost content less updates.
So atm i'm just playing some casual vindictus and waiting for wildstar
+1 for reality
What is retention for GW2?
if you bought the game you log whenever you feel like it.
There is no barrier preventing you from clicking the GW2 shortcut on your desktop so retention is much less important.
I've played tons of GW1 and I saw how it worked. some players would not log in for years and then would come back and play everyday for 3-4 months before disappearing again.
Currently playing: GW2
Going cardboard starter kit: Ticket to ride, Pandemic, Carcassonne, Dominion, 7 Wonders
That numbers come from the chinese GW2 page. So, they are official numbers.
http://gw2.kongzhong.com/act/brand/index.html
I agree, I just realized the other day that GW2 was still on the hard drive and had not been activated in months, so I uninstalled it.
I must say that I am actually surprised that my server as so full still, it actually are a lot more players on now than last autumn.
That said, 2,5 million still sounds a bit over the top. 1,5 M seems a lot more likely.
I also think that the game still is just under 3 million copies since I think ANET would make a big deal out it, but I might be wrong. I do know that Activision or EA would shout it all over the net if it was one of their games but ANET might be a little bit cooler.
Thank you, I was about to post this same thing. Kong Zhong is the Chinese company hired to make the localized GW2 game (much like Trion is making the Western version of Arch Age).
That was announced back in Aug 2012 here: SOURCE
But if that's true, and Xfire is without a doubt 110% correct, then we've got a discrepancy here. That would mean that GW2 has actually increased it's population to 3.46 million customers. Why? Because that's 45% of WoW's current population of 7.7 million announced earlier this week.
But that cant' be right. Because that means that Xfire is shedding some bright light on GW2, and that just can't be. I mean to say that the only time Xfire is ever used towards GW2, is by those to "official prove a decline in population". .....
Be the Ultimate Ninja! Play Billy Vs. SNAKEMAN today!
Take note that XFire numbers are about time played, not number of players and not number of subscriers.
While WoW have currently 7.7 million SUBSCRIERS, the current population really playing WoW must be lower. There are a lot of subscriers that just not play WoW, but mantain the subscription. We can guess that 80 to 90 % of subscriers are really playing WoW and if that, 45% time played for GW2 fit with 2.5 million.
You can tell which people have no real grasp of the mmorpg market, by the fact that they don't realize how absurd the 2.5 million claim is.
Quarterly report will help paint a better picture, and btw recently colin was interviewed and was still referencing the 3million number, so it probably isn't really close to 4million.
What you think it is absurd? The company that is launching GW2 for the chinese market is using that number. We can guess they know it a lot better than any one of us. They are no making any speculation about that number, they know how many players use GW2 servers.
I don't know why any company would ever distort or spin or misconstrue stats to make them look good for the incoming launch of their product in a region. :rolls eyes:
The company that is launching GW2 also made a manifesto making a great deal of claims, they obviously knew what their game was going to be since they work on it, except those claims weren't true.
This isn't true. Xfire also keeps track of the total number of players that log in that use xfire. It is listed under their daily stats for the game.
James T. Kirk: All she's got isn't good enough! What else ya got?
The 45% number is based in the hours played, not the number of players. You can look the metodology at http://nosygamer.blogspot.com.br/2012/02/nosy-gamers-digital-dozen.html
Anyway, it is strange that Noisy Gamer is using the hours played for build the statistics if XFire have the number of players stats like you said.
seen at Ops link
http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/1j6bkv/interesting_figures_about_guild_wars_2_from_the/
EDIT: These figures were taken during/refer to the first 4 months of release.
EQ2 fan sites
Very few devs ever announce numbers like that because as soon as they stop posting them or as soon as there is a downturn, MMO gamers start doing umbrella dances in the street and screaming the end is nigh.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
That makes a lot more sense. Like I posted earlier, no one was mentioning the time frame. This is a lot more believable if it was closer to launch......
James T. Kirk: All she's got isn't good enough! What else ya got?
I don't think that is true. Nearly all of the games posted launch numbers and how things were going. When the numbers are good, they almost always post them. It is only to their benefit that they do and great for marketing. It is when they aren't or they are unable to put a positive spin on them, they stop.
James T. Kirk: All she's got isn't good enough! What else ya got?
Just a simple look at the math explains a lot about the figures.
Really high 'active', extremely low play time.
That means a lot of those people are logging on very briefly, maybe to check in with friends, update the client, maybe spend a couple hours every couple weeks poking at the new content.
Same with the 'active' users for WoW in China. A lot of those people aren't actually playing the game very long, and they're not paying a sub.
... or hell, the active users in the US. Sometimes I'll end up paying months for a game I only play an hour a week or so, before I finally break down and kick it off my credit card, realizing I'm never coming back.
... Homitu's post makes a lot of sense, you just have to look at the math behind this sort of thing.
The idea that everybody playing GW2 only plays 12 minutes a day tops is ridiculous. :I Obviously the serious players play lots of time.
It turns out that the 2.5 million was actually from the first four months so it makes more sense. Even with just logging in to update theory, that number was completely unrealistic.
James T. Kirk: All she's got isn't good enough! What else ya got?
Actually its 23 hours and 56 minutes in 1 day