EA said it shipped 1.5 million copies of WAR to retail last week.
Arvind Bhatia at Stern Agee told Edge on Tuesday he came to the 250,000 subscriptions figure based on EA's goal to break even on the game.
"Over time, subscribers will drop off and level off at 250,000- 300,000," he said in a phone interview.
But he admitted that the number could jump as updates and expansion packs are released, adding that it would take about "six months or so" to get an idea of the MMORPG's sustainable user base.
--------------
Don't mislead people by reporting skewed information.
EA said it shipped 1.5 million copies of WAR to retail last week. Arvind Bhatia at Stern Agee told Edge on Tuesday he came to the 250,000 subscriptions figure based on EA's goal to break even on the game. "Over time, subscribers will drop off and level off at 250,000- 300,000," he said in a phone interview. But he admitted that the number could jump as updates and expansion packs are released, adding that it would take about "six months or so" to get an idea of the MMORPG's sustainable user base. -------------- Don't mislead people by reporting skewed information.
The problem with this so called analist is that he has no data to backup this claim that the subscribers will drop off and level off at 250,000 - 300,000. Zip, non, nothing, he has no idea, he does not even know what's in the line up for WAR that Mythic has planned. He has no idea what market the game will move into next.
HE HAS ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA.
Yet, he made up his claim by probably pulling it out of his behind. And we can still accept him as an business analist? What kind of analist could predict through very very rough initial sale data the future of a game subscriber population? I would like to know what data that he based his claim on?
I have read that article very carefully and it seems that just some bullshits put together. With every bit of data that he has right now, at best he can estimate how many user the game has right now, he has no history data to trend, he has no inside knowledge to base his analysis on. Just a bunch of bullshit made up out of thin air.
Who would have thought WoW could blow out of propotion like that? Actually, those guys at Blizzard probably can guess that from the beginning, why? Because The9 ( the Chinese WoW publisher) approached Blizzard when the game still in open beta to strike a deal. But for outsider who has no such knowledge of that kind of information nobody could even make a wild guess that WoW will have 10 millions subscribers.
Its a guestimation based on what EA hopes to have it has nothing to do with reality. Anyone that takes this post as truth is retarded at the moment. I'm not saying it'll make a million but I am saying that the OP is trying to twist the wording of the article to his own benefit. 250K is rather good in normal standards. Only one Game ever got bloated with more than 500K and thats WoW not even EQ 1 or 2 ever reached a Million and they're considered finicial successes because they are making a profit.
LOTRO and FFXI surpass 500k
FFXI *maybe* if you count all NA/EU/Asian markets, but definitely not LOTRO. If you have a better source and analysis than this site http://www.mmogchart.com/Chart2.html I'd like to take a look at it.
Yep from NPD, latest article i can find about subs is here
I realy don't know where mmogchart get there fighures from, as most games don'y officialy release them (ffxi excluded, as they do)
I am not seeing a link to the NPD's actual numbers. I'll dig a bit deeper for their findings but I am not convinced by a simple rankings list. And gaming sites referenced in that article? Disney.com?
Yeah its kinda tough, do you go with 1 guy who updates a site so often, or the leading company in sales and games subscriber values....
Think this is slightly off topic anyway.
For WAR to have 250k subscribers so far is not bad, there will be alot of people that are being cautious after being totaly disssapointed by AOC, and waiting a while to see how things go
leading company? I don't debate the NPD's past track record with other industries but they only recently started reporting on MMO subscriptions and as far as I know their research is at least equally imperfect in that they don't account for digital sales and downloads. More accurately, it's a matter of looking at numbers and I haven't seen the NPD's numbers. Only a rankings list. It's comparing one guy's research to one journalist's abstract.
That seems a little low. probably 500k to 600k is closer in a month or two. The reason being is that there isnt' anywhere else for 'wow-haters' to go. There also isn't a game launching any time soon ( I think Bioware is next, but that is a long way away). But I think the big test with War is how good Lake Wintergrasp ends up being in WOW. The zone so far is amazing, with moveable seige weapons, troop transports, destrutable walls and buildings, fighter plans and bombers etc etc. If the thing you like most about a MMORPG is seiging, wow is really going to blow Warhammer away. There are just so many more things to do with seiging than warhammer offers.
Im sorry but i have to disagree completely here. WoW will not blow warhammer away in PVP sieging, 1 zone is nothing compared to an entire game (every zone) of siege weapons and constant battles...leading up to capital city sieges. Yes WoW is a great game...but unfortunately I think 1 zone, only 1 hero class and 2 expansions later..its too little too late. Good luck with the WoW expansion, im not touching it untill they fix the end game gear grind problem. To the OP, EA announced they sold 1.5 million copies in just North America. How many stay is a different story.
"every zone" lol make that 10%, 20% etc / zone ..
That % gets bigger as you go with T4 being almost only RvR.
Hold on Snow Leopard, imma let you finish, but Windows had one of the best operating systems of all time.
If the Powerball lottery was like Lotro, nobody would win for 2 years, and then everyone in Nebraska would win on the same day. And then Nebraska would get nerfed.-pinkwood lotro fourms
AMD 4800 2.4ghz-3GB RAM 533mhz-EVGA 9500GT 512mb-320gb HD
EA said it shipped 1.5 million copies of WAR to retail last week. Arvind Bhatia at Stern Agee told Edge on Tuesday he came to the 250,000 subscriptions figure based on EA's goal to break even on the game. "Over time, subscribers will drop off and level off at 250,000- 300,000," he said in a phone interview. But he admitted that the number could jump as updates and expansion packs are released, adding that it would take about "six months or so" to get an idea of the MMORPG's sustainable user base. -------------- Don't mislead people by reporting skewed information.
The problem with this so called analist is that he has no data to backup this claim that the subscribers will drop off and level off at 250,000 - 300,000. Zip, non, nothing, he has no idea, he does not even know what's in the line up for WAR that Mythic has planned. He has no idea what market the game will move into next.
HE HAS ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA.
Yet, he made up his claim by probably pulling it out of his behind. And we can still accept him as an business analist? What kind of analist could predict through very very rough initial sale data the future of a game subscriber population? I would like to know what data that he based his claim on?
I have read that article very carefully and it seems that just some bullshits put together. With every bit of data that he has right now, at best he can estimate how many user the game has right now, he has no history data to trend, he has no inside knowledge to base his analysis on. Just a bunch of bullshit made up out of thin air.
Who would have thought WoW could blow out of propotion like that? Actually, those guys at Blizzard probably can guess that from the beginning, why? Because The9 ( the Chinese WoW publisher) approached Blizzard when the game still in open beta to strike a deal. But for outsider who has no such knowledge of that kind of information nobody could even make a wild guess that WoW will have 10 millions subscribers.
This man is employed by a company who's paymasters include pension funds, investment banks and other major league investors that are the owners of EA.
He probably receives an extremely large pay check to analyse these kinds of things and most likely has access to information that is not readily available to the general public, so saying "He has absolutely no idea" is probably not giving him enough credit.
I'm not saying he is 100% correct (I personally think it will have more subs than that) but it should not be just discounted out of hand.
Sounds about right, as i have said in the past and ill continue to say it again, Although WAR is fun for a VERY short period of time, you will quickly see the level grind-fest of repetition that all cookie-cut MMO clone's mask behind their curtains! And this become even more obvious post level 18 where leveling becomes a huge time sink!
thats most likely true if you play the same type of character (with same playstyle) like you have played in your last mmorpg...
I do always "more or less" roll a tank type mele character.. so i rolled a black orc, but got bored before lvl20... it had nothing to do with the class, it whas just me who whas burned out on that type of playstyle..
so now i play all the order healers.. (rune priest,archmage, warrior priest) for nice variation.. and it is so mutch more fun "i did try shaman & zealot first, but honestly, i didn't like them...just a matter of taste i guess.
EA said it shipped 1.5 million copies of WAR to retail last week. Arvind Bhatia at Stern Agee told Edge on Tuesday he came to the 250,000 subscriptions figure based on EA's goal to break even on the game. "Over time, subscribers will drop off and level off at 250,000- 300,000," he said in a phone interview. But he admitted that the number could jump as updates and expansion packs are released, adding that it would take about "six months or so" to get an idea of the MMORPG's sustainable user base. -------------- Don't mislead people by reporting skewed information.
The problem with this so called analist is that he has no data to backup this claim that the subscribers will drop off and level off at 250,000 - 300,000. Zip, non, nothing, he has no idea, he does not even know what's in the line up for WAR that Mythic has planned. He has no idea what market the game will move into next.
HE HAS ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA.
Yet, he made up his claim by probably pulling it out of his behind. And we can still accept him as an business analist? What kind of analist could predict through very very rough initial sale data the future of a game subscriber population? I would like to know what data that he based his claim on?
I have read that article very carefully and it seems that just some bullshits put together. With every bit of data that he has right now, at best he can estimate how many user the game has right now, he has no history data to trend, he has no inside knowledge to base his analysis on. Just a bunch of bullshit made up out of thin air.
Who would have thought WoW could blow out of propotion like that? Actually, those guys at Blizzard probably can guess that from the beginning, why? Because The9 ( the Chinese WoW publisher) approached Blizzard when the game still in open beta to strike a deal. But for outsider who has no such knowledge of that kind of information nobody could even make a wild guess that WoW will have 10 millions subscribers.
This man is employed by a company who's paymasters include pension funds, investment banks and other major investors that are the owners of EA.
He probably receives an extremely large pay check to analyse these kinds of things and most likely has access to information that is not available to the general public, so saying "He has absolutely no idea" is probably not giving him enough credit.
I'm not saying he is 100% correct (I personally think it will have more subs than that) but it should not be just discounted out of hand.
I don't think so. I would like to give him credit but it doesn't seem he deserve it. He said in the interview that he based his projection on a statement made by an EA rep. That statement was EA hope to break even on its investment. And then in the next sentense, you can see that he also make his analysis based on initial sale data which could be very very rough at this point because the game has not even officially release for a week yet. Plus the big shopping season is comming (Thanksgiving, Christmas). Make a projection on what the subscriber population would be at this point, even attemp to analyze it at this point is bad because the sale number of the shopping season will push his data out of whack.
Regarding the what information he know, judging by the article, he does not know much. Anyway, Mythic and EA are both public trading companies. Information regarding sale and subscription are kept pretty tight. If this guy can broadcasting these things to a new site like this, he probably does not know much.
I suggest a name-change for this topic if it is at all possible. People who merely glance at the name and then scribble a response are misinformed. The point is: WAR does not have 250k subscribers, it is an estimate reported on in the article the OP has linked to. Mythic, as far as I know, has not yet released official sub. numbers.
EA said it shipped 1.5 million copies of WAR to retail last week. Arvind Bhatia at Stern Agee told Edge on Tuesday he came to the 250,000 subscriptions figure based on EA's goal to break even on the game. "Over time, subscribers will drop off and level off at 250,000- 300,000," he said in a phone interview. But he admitted that the number could jump as updates and expansion packs are released, adding that it would take about "six months or so" to get an idea of the MMORPG's sustainable user base. -------------- Don't mislead people by reporting skewed information.
The problem with this so called analist is that he has no data to backup this claim that the subscribers will drop off and level off at 250,000 - 300,000. Zip, non, nothing, he has no idea, he does not even know what's in the line up for WAR that Mythic has planned. He has no idea what market the game will move into next.
HE HAS ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA.
Yet, he made up his claim by probably pulling it out of his behind. And we can still accept him as an business analist? What kind of analist could predict through very very rough initial sale data the future of a game subscriber population? I would like to know what data that he based his claim on?
I have read that article very carefully and it seems that just some bullshits put together. With every bit of data that he has right now, at best he can estimate how many user the game has right now, he has no history data to trend, he has no inside knowledge to base his analysis on. Just a bunch of bullshit made up out of thin air.
Who would have thought WoW could blow out of propotion like that? Actually, those guys at Blizzard probably can guess that from the beginning, why? Because The9 ( the Chinese WoW publisher) approached Blizzard when the game still in open beta to strike a deal. But for outsider who has no such knowledge of that kind of information nobody could even make a wild guess that WoW will have 10 millions subscribers.
This man is employed by a company who's paymasters include pension funds, investment banks and other major investors that are the owners of EA.
He probably receives an extremely large pay check to analyse these kinds of things and most likely has access to information that is not available to the general public, so saying "He has absolutely no idea" is probably not giving him enough credit.
I'm not saying he is 100% correct (I personally think it will have more subs than that) but it should not be just discounted out of hand.
I don't think so. I would like to give him credit but it doesn't seem he deserve it. He said in the interview that he based his projection on a statement made by an EA rep. That statement was EA hope to break even on its investment. And then in the next sentense, you can see that he also make his analysis based on initial sale data which could be very very rough at this point because the game has not even officially release for a week yet. Plus the big shopping season is comming (Thanksgiving, Christmas). Make a projection on what the subscriber population would be at this point, even attemp to analyze it at this point is bad because the sale number of the shopping season will push his data out of whack.
Regarding the what information he know, judging by the article, he does not know much. Anyway, Mythic and EA are both public trading companies. Information regarding sale and subscription are kept pretty tight. If this guy can broadcasting these things to a new site like this, he probably does not know much.
Without doubt he has taken everything that you have just mentioned and a large number of other variable's into account.
He isn't just pulling that figure out of his ass after a few minutes consideration.
These people are not paid such a large amount of money for doing next to nothing.
Based on looking at xfire data etc I'd say that war is way more then 250k right now. I'd estimate it is between 500k and 1M currently. But of course the first month is pretty meaningless any hyped game will do pretty well. What matters is how it looks in 2-3 months, trending up or down and how steeply.
I mean LoTR probably hit 400-500K before ramping down to something around 100-150k. AoC probably hit 600-700k and is down to maybe 150k and still dropping. So the question is what will War look like in 3 months.
Who cares about the estimated subscriptions? Who cares how its comparing to wow? Who cares what xfire says (i dont even know anyone who even uses that)?
None of these things are effecting how much fun im having in game, and i play order, which i can attest, is not as underpopulated as you guys seem to suggest.
Perhaps duing the normal 9am-5pm mon-fri the order side is under populated, but most people work for a living and/or go to school.
Either way, i could care less about how dominant the game is in the industry, im having too much fun with it at the moment.
The reason being is that there isnt' anywhere else for 'wow-haters' to go.
That's funny.
Because this type of cookie-cutter, easy-mode kiddie game is exactly what the so-called "WoW haters" hate.
This game is full of ex-WoW players. Why would a fan of genuine massive online worlds (you know, those things called RPG's - maybe you've heard of them?) want to play with this pre-school toy?
If I want to PvP I'll stick to DAoC, thanks.
I miss the good ol' days when nerds were actually intelligent.
Sounds wrong to me, unless this is NA only. There are 55 NA server, like 20-30 euro and 10 or so oceanic. Many of the oceanic hit full on destro. The NA probably average to medium.
I would guess that across all primetimes there are about 60k concurrent users. Which would be like 500k. With the 1:10 subs versus concurrent.
That is very rough math but it would have to be off by double to meet this projection.
EA said it shipped 1.5 million copies of WAR to retail last week. Arvind Bhatia at Stern Agee told Edge on Tuesday he came to the 250,000 subscriptions figure based on EA's goal to break even on the game. "Over time, subscribers will drop off and level off at 250,000- 300,000," he said in a phone interview. But he admitted that the number could jump as updates and expansion packs are released, adding that it would take about "six months or so" to get an idea of the MMORPG's sustainable user base. -------------- Don't mislead people by reporting skewed information.
The problem with this so called analist is that he has no data to backup this claim that the subscribers will drop off and level off at 250,000 - 300,000. Zip, non, nothing, he has no idea, he does not even know what's in the line up for WAR that Mythic has planned. He has no idea what market the game will move into next.
HE HAS ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA.
Yet, he made up his claim by probably pulling it out of his behind. And we can still accept him as an business analist? What kind of analist could predict through very very rough initial sale data the future of a game subscriber population? I would like to know what data that he based his claim on?
I have read that article very carefully and it seems that just some bullshits put together. With every bit of data that he has right now, at best he can estimate how many user the game has right now, he has no history data to trend, he has no inside knowledge to base his analysis on. Just a bunch of bullshit made up out of thin air.
Who would have thought WoW could blow out of propotion like that? Actually, those guys at Blizzard probably can guess that from the beginning, why? Because The9 ( the Chinese WoW publisher) approached Blizzard when the game still in open beta to strike a deal. But for outsider who has no such knowledge of that kind of information nobody could even make a wild guess that WoW will have 10 millions subscribers.
This man is employed by a company who's paymasters include pension funds, investment banks and other major investors that are the owners of EA.
He probably receives an extremely large pay check to analyse these kinds of things and most likely has access to information that is not available to the general public, so saying "He has absolutely no idea" is probably not giving him enough credit.
I'm not saying he is 100% correct (I personally think it will have more subs than that) but it should not be just discounted out of hand.
I don't think so. I would like to give him credit but it doesn't seem he deserve it. He said in the interview that he based his projection on a statement made by an EA rep. That statement was EA hope to break even on its investment. And then in the next sentense, you can see that he also make his analysis based on initial sale data which could be very very rough at this point because the game has not even officially release for a week yet. Plus the big shopping season is comming (Thanksgiving, Christmas). Make a projection on what the subscriber population would be at this point, even attemp to analyze it at this point is bad because the sale number of the shopping season will push his data out of whack.
Regarding the what information he know, judging by the article, he does not know much. Anyway, Mythic and EA are both public trading companies. Information regarding sale and subscription are kept pretty tight. If this guy can broadcasting these things to a new site like this, he probably does not know much.
Without doubt he has taken everything that you have just mentioned and a large number of other variable's into account.
He isn't just pulling that figure out of his ass after a few minutes consideration.
These people are not paid such a large amount of money for doing next to nothing.
If you read that article carefully, you will realize that this article is a prediction of what the subscription number of WAR EVENTUALLY will be, not right now. If it's a prediction of what the subscription number WAR has right now or a short term projection then I can take his number. But no, it's about eventually WAR subscription will settle down to 250k sub which could be 1 year from now, 2 years from now, who know. Which is why I said his prediction is bullshit base on the data he has now. You just have too little data to make this kind of analysis.
Based on looking at xfire data etc I'd say that war is way more then 250k right now. I'd estimate it is between 500k and 1M currently. But of course the first month is pretty meaningless any hyped game will do pretty well. What matters is how it looks in 2-3 months, trending up or down and how steeply. I mean LoTR probably hit 400-500K before ramping down to something around 100-150k. AoC probably hit 600-700k and is down to maybe 150k and still dropping. So the question is what will War look like in 3 months.
Yeah, it's really not hard to do estimates pulling information gathered from different, independant sources. Warhammer shipped about as many boxes as AOC. AOC sold about 800k boxes, which is probably around what Warhammer has sold.... a few weeks after launch, AOC had 600k players still playing.
Everything (so far) matches up exactly to what AOC was at. Same boxes shipped, same sold, nearly the same number of servers. Xfire numbers look nearly identical to AOC at launch..
It's doubtful Warhammer is at a million yet, there would be more issues with server queues and a bigger indication on xfire. It's also not realistic to think they've sold that many boxes that fast compared to other games(and the numerous low population servers kinda support that).
The other thing to watch is weekly game sales charts. AOC had a huge first two weeks.. beating out even WOW on the sales chart... it then dropped to #50 almost overnight. Warhammer has already dropped to #17 which basically means Warhammer is pretty much near it's peak right now. In comparison, WOW continues to hold 5 of the top 21 spots ( Wraith #1, Wraith CE, BC, Battlechest and Vanilla).
I do think the analyst was a bit low.. War is probably at 600k now and will be at 400k in a month.
The reason being is that there isnt' anywhere else for 'wow-haters' to go.
That's funny.
Because this type of cookie-cutter, easy-mode kiddie game is exactly what the so-called "WoW haters" hate.
This game is full of ex-WoW players. Why would a fan of genuine massive online worlds (you know, those things called RPG's - maybe you've heard of them?) want to play with this pre-school toy?
If I want to PvP I'll stick to DAoC, thanks.
Easy mode kiddie game? Any game can be seen as a kiddie game. Its all about how much effort your willing to put in. Just becuase you can't go full loot, kill anyone, or RvR anywhere does not mean its easy. Its called a game people play to have fun not to get their asses stomped on by people who have way to much time to play.
Hold on Snow Leopard, imma let you finish, but Windows had one of the best operating systems of all time.
If the Powerball lottery was like Lotro, nobody would win for 2 years, and then everyone in Nebraska would win on the same day. And then Nebraska would get nerfed.-pinkwood lotro fourms
AMD 4800 2.4ghz-3GB RAM 533mhz-EVGA 9500GT 512mb-320gb HD
The reason being is that there isnt' anywhere else for 'wow-haters' to go.
That's funny.
Because this type of cookie-cutter, easy-mode kiddie game is exactly what the so-called "WoW haters" hate.
This game is full of ex-WoW players. Why would a fan of genuine massive online worlds (you know, those things called RPG's - maybe you've heard of them?) want to play with this pre-school toy?
If I want to PvP I'll stick to DAoC, thanks.
Easy mode kiddie game? Any game can be seen as a kiddie game. Its all about how much effort your willing to put in. Just becuase you can't go full loot, kill anyone, or RvR anywhere does not mean its easy. Its called a game people play to have fun not to get their asses stomped on by people who have way to much time to play.
Not true, in wow all you need to do is pick the good class/classes, get the best gear, then have fun solo pvping. Warhammer there is no good class, just classes that fit into the larger picture of a perfect group. Warhammer requires teamwork and strategy, despite most people ar currently RvRing like its a solo killing spree.
I can honestly say most of the kids who are awash with fustration in the game, for whatever reasons, are wow players when i ask. They seem to not like having to find things on their own and just want everything handed to them.
Most non wow players dont get fustrated with games like that, they think it though, explore, trial and error if needed. To me that is half the fun of mmo's. Also ive noticed that most wow players play RvR only to win, and wont play if they arnt winning. Another source of fustration ive seen in game and in forums.
So to say that this game is easy mode isnt really true, although it seems that finding the action and ease of entry into a decen RvR fight would be on easy mode, but that is a good thing.
EA said it shipped 1.5 million copies of WAR to retail last week. Arvind Bhatia at Stern Agee told Edge on Tuesday he came to the 250,000 subscriptions figure based on EA's goal to break even on the game. "Over time, subscribers will drop off and level off at 250,000- 300,000," he said in a phone interview. But he admitted that the number could jump as updates and expansion packs are released, adding that it would take about "six months or so" to get an idea of the MMORPG's sustainable user base. -------------- Don't mislead people by reporting skewed information.
The problem with this so called analist is that he has no data to backup this claim that the subscribers will drop off and level off at 250,000 - 300,000. Zip, non, nothing, he has no idea, he does not even know what's in the line up for WAR that Mythic has planned. He has no idea what market the game will move into next.
HE HAS ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA.
Yet, he made up his claim by probably pulling it out of his behind. And we can still accept him as an business analist? What kind of analist could predict through very very rough initial sale data the future of a game subscriber population? I would like to know what data that he based his claim on?
I have read that article very carefully and it seems that just some bullshits put together. With every bit of data that he has right now, at best he can estimate how many user the game has right now, he has no history data to trend, he has no inside knowledge to base his analysis on. Just a bunch of bullshit made up out of thin air.
Who would have thought WoW could blow out of propotion like that? Actually, those guys at Blizzard probably can guess that from the beginning, why? Because The9 ( the Chinese WoW publisher) approached Blizzard when the game still in open beta to strike a deal. But for outsider who has no such knowledge of that kind of information nobody could even make a wild guess that WoW will have 10 millions subscribers.
This man is employed by a company who's paymasters include pension funds, investment banks and other major investors that are the owners of EA.
He probably receives an extremely large pay check to analyse these kinds of things and most likely has access to information that is not available to the general public, so saying "He has absolutely no idea" is probably not giving him enough credit.
I'm not saying he is 100% correct (I personally think it will have more subs than that) but it should not be just discounted out of hand.
I don't think so. I would like to give him credit but it doesn't seem he deserve it. He said in the interview that he based his projection on a statement made by an EA rep. That statement was EA hope to break even on its investment. And then in the next sentense, you can see that he also make his analysis based on initial sale data which could be very very rough at this point because the game has not even officially release for a week yet. Plus the big shopping season is comming (Thanksgiving, Christmas). Make a projection on what the subscriber population would be at this point, even attemp to analyze it at this point is bad because the sale number of the shopping season will push his data out of whack.
Regarding the what information he know, judging by the article, he does not know much. Anyway, Mythic and EA are both public trading companies. Information regarding sale and subscription are kept pretty tight. If this guy can broadcasting these things to a new site like this, he probably does not know much.
Without doubt he has taken everything that you have just mentioned and a large number of other variable's into account.
He isn't just pulling that figure out of his ass after a few minutes consideration.
These people are not paid such a large amount of money for doing next to nothing.
If you read that article carefully, you will realize that this article is a prediction of what the subscription number of WAR EVENTUALLY will be, not right now. If it's a prediction of what the subscription number WAR has right now or a short term projection then I can take his number. But no, it's about eventually WAR subscription will settle down to 250k sub which could be 1 year from now, 2 years from now, who know. Which is why I said his prediction is bullshit base on the data he has now. You just have too little data to make this kind of analysis.
They have over 10 years of data from previous mmo releases that they can use to make direct comparisons.
The software that these analysts use is extremely sophisticated. They are not fail proof, and how much information he has access to regarding last weeks WAR sales is obviously a factor, but they are normally accurate enough to provide useful data.
If it wasn't then companies wouldn't bother using such techniques.
They seem to not like having to find things on their own and just want everything handed to them.
But that is exactly what Warhammer does. It holds your hand. Not just at starting levels, it is fundamentally an "easy mode" game (ask an objective pre-open-beta tester), designed to minimize any learning curve. That may be a good thing honestly, but what this causes is a very large degree of over simplifying the game play and game world. In a game that is supposed to be an RPG that is a very bad thing.
Ask any longtime Warhammer fan (talking about the 25 year old table top RPG) what they think of Warhammer Online. In fact, head over the the Warhammer PnP forums and take a look.
This game is just one more nail in the coffin of what used to be MMORPG's. The folks who's first experience was World of Warcraft will never understand.
Warhammer and World of Warcraft are the same game essentially.
It's the shallow, trendy pop music of whats left of our genera. Pop music outsells all other kinds of music. But honestlyly, that does make it any less shallow?
The truth is I feel sorry for all you cats who have never had the chance to experience what your really missing.
I miss the good ol' days when nerds were actually intelligent.
But I think the big test with War is how good Lake Wintergrasp ends up being in WOW. The zone so far is amazing, with moveable seige weapons, troop transports, destrutable walls and buildings, fighter plans and bombers etc etc. If the thing you like most about a MMORPG is seiging, wow is really going to blow Warhammer away. There are just so many more things to do with seiging than warhammer offers.
Thats the thing.. Since it comes AFTER WAR all it has to do, is watch and see what was "wrong" and just improve upon it... And soon of course Mythic will watch that, and just make improvements to that and in the end we have something called "competition".. yeah.. New vocabulary today folks...
People who keep bobbling back and forth because of small minor aditions are not the ones they are after, but the ones that see a solid difference and stick with it.. Repeat customers are wayy more sought after than the "just stopping in" customer from out of town if ya catch my drift..
Its a guestimation based on what EA hopes to have it has nothing to do with reality. Anyone that takes this post as truth is retarded at the moment. I'm not saying it'll make a million but I am saying that the OP is trying to twist the wording of the article to his own benefit. 250K is rather good in normal standards. Only one Game ever got bloated with more than 500K and thats WoW not even EQ 1 or 2 ever reached a Million and they're considered finicial successes because they are making a profit.
LOTRO and FFXI surpass 500k
FFXI was over 1 million at one point. LotRO might've been over 500k but it wasn't for very long.
The reason being is that there isnt' anywhere else for 'wow-haters' to go.
That's funny.
Because this type of cookie-cutter, easy-mode kiddie game is exactly what the so-called "WoW haters" hate.
This game is full of ex-WoW players. Why would a fan of genuine massive online worlds (you know, those things called RPG's - maybe you've heard of them?) want to play with this pre-school toy?
If I want to PvP I'll stick to DAoC, thanks.
This post wins the thread, this WAR forum, all the WAR forums, all the MMO forums and all the internet.
I like the WAR siege weapons, they are more what you'd expect, the ones I saw on WoW and beta footage look like someones child's drawing they stuck on the fridge.
Comments
EA said it shipped 1.5 million copies of WAR to retail last week.
Arvind Bhatia at Stern Agee told Edge on Tuesday he came to the 250,000 subscriptions figure based on EA's goal to break even on the game.
"Over time, subscribers will drop off and level off at 250,000- 300,000," he said in a phone interview.
But he admitted that the number could jump as updates and expansion packs are released, adding that it would take about "six months or so" to get an idea of the MMORPG's sustainable user base.
--------------
Don't mislead people by reporting skewed information.
The problem with this so called analist is that he has no data to backup this claim that the subscribers will drop off and level off at 250,000 - 300,000. Zip, non, nothing, he has no idea, he does not even know what's in the line up for WAR that Mythic has planned. He has no idea what market the game will move into next.
HE HAS ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA.
Yet, he made up his claim by probably pulling it out of his behind. And we can still accept him as an business analist? What kind of analist could predict through very very rough initial sale data the future of a game subscriber population? I would like to know what data that he based his claim on?
I have read that article very carefully and it seems that just some bullshits put together. With every bit of data that he has right now, at best he can estimate how many user the game has right now, he has no history data to trend, he has no inside knowledge to base his analysis on. Just a bunch of bullshit made up out of thin air.
Who would have thought WoW could blow out of propotion like that? Actually, those guys at Blizzard probably can guess that from the beginning, why? Because The9 ( the Chinese WoW publisher) approached Blizzard when the game still in open beta to strike a deal. But for outsider who has no such knowledge of that kind of information nobody could even make a wild guess that WoW will have 10 millions subscribers.
LOTRO and FFXI surpass 500k
FFXI *maybe* if you count all NA/EU/Asian markets, but definitely not LOTRO. If you have a better source and analysis than this site http://www.mmogchart.com/Chart2.html I'd like to take a look at it.
Yep from NPD, latest article i can find about subs is here
I realy don't know where mmogchart get there fighures from, as most games don'y officialy release them (ffxi excluded, as they do)
I am not seeing a link to the NPD's actual numbers. I'll dig a bit deeper for their findings but I am not convinced by a simple rankings list. And gaming sites referenced in that article? Disney.com?
Here's where his numbers come from. www.mmogchart.com/analysis-and-conclusions/
Yeah its kinda tough, do you go with 1 guy who updates a site so often, or the leading company in sales and games subscriber values....
Think this is slightly off topic anyway.
For WAR to have 250k subscribers so far is not bad, there will be alot of people that are being cautious after being totaly disssapointed by AOC, and waiting a while to see how things go
leading company? I don't debate the NPD's past track record with other industries but they only recently started reporting on MMO subscriptions and as far as I know their research is at least equally imperfect in that they don't account for digital sales and downloads. More accurately, it's a matter of looking at numbers and I haven't seen the NPD's numbers. Only a rankings list. It's comparing one guy's research to one journalist's abstract.
Im sorry but i have to disagree completely here. WoW will not blow warhammer away in PVP sieging, 1 zone is nothing compared to an entire game (every zone) of siege weapons and constant battles...leading up to capital city sieges. Yes WoW is a great game...but unfortunately I think 1 zone, only 1 hero class and 2 expansions later..its too little too late. Good luck with the WoW expansion, im not touching it untill they fix the end game gear grind problem. To the OP, EA announced they sold 1.5 million copies in just North America. How many stay is a different story.
"every zone" lol make that 10%, 20% etc / zone ..
That % gets bigger as you go with T4 being almost only RvR.
Hold on Snow Leopard, imma let you finish, but Windows had one of the best operating systems of all time.
If the Powerball lottery was like Lotro, nobody would win for 2 years, and then everyone in Nebraska would win on the same day.
And then Nebraska would get nerfed.-pinkwood lotro fourms
AMD 4800 2.4ghz-3GB RAM 533mhz-EVGA 9500GT 512mb-320gb HD
The problem with this so called analist is that he has no data to backup this claim that the subscribers will drop off and level off at 250,000 - 300,000. Zip, non, nothing, he has no idea, he does not even know what's in the line up for WAR that Mythic has planned. He has no idea what market the game will move into next.
HE HAS ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA.
Yet, he made up his claim by probably pulling it out of his behind. And we can still accept him as an business analist? What kind of analist could predict through very very rough initial sale data the future of a game subscriber population? I would like to know what data that he based his claim on?
I have read that article very carefully and it seems that just some bullshits put together. With every bit of data that he has right now, at best he can estimate how many user the game has right now, he has no history data to trend, he has no inside knowledge to base his analysis on. Just a bunch of bullshit made up out of thin air.
Who would have thought WoW could blow out of propotion like that? Actually, those guys at Blizzard probably can guess that from the beginning, why? Because The9 ( the Chinese WoW publisher) approached Blizzard when the game still in open beta to strike a deal. But for outsider who has no such knowledge of that kind of information nobody could even make a wild guess that WoW will have 10 millions subscribers.
This man is employed by a company who's paymasters include pension funds, investment banks and other major league investors that are the owners of EA.
He probably receives an extremely large pay check to analyse these kinds of things and most likely has access to information that is not readily available to the general public, so saying "He has absolutely no idea" is probably not giving him enough credit.
I'm not saying he is 100% correct (I personally think it will have more subs than that) but it should not be just discounted out of hand.
Sounds about right, as i have said in the past and ill continue to say it again, Although WAR is fun for a VERY short period of time, you will quickly see the level grind-fest of repetition that all cookie-cut MMO clone's mask behind their curtains! And this become even more obvious post level 18 where leveling becomes a huge time sink!
It has only been a week, and when the time comes Mythic will release the subscription numbers.
Stop frothing at the mouth over the low number EA set for a goal, it is not the actual number of players.
STOP WHINING!
thats most likely true if you play the same type of character (with same playstyle) like you have played in your last mmorpg...
I do always "more or less" roll a tank type mele character.. so i rolled a black orc, but got bored before lvl20... it had nothing to do with the class, it whas just me who whas burned out on that type of playstyle..
so now i play all the order healers.. (rune priest,archmage, warrior priest) for nice variation.. and it is so mutch more fun
"i did try shaman & zealot first, but honestly, i didn't like them...just a matter of taste i guess.
Want to play: Lego Universe
The problem with this so called analist is that he has no data to backup this claim that the subscribers will drop off and level off at 250,000 - 300,000. Zip, non, nothing, he has no idea, he does not even know what's in the line up for WAR that Mythic has planned. He has no idea what market the game will move into next.
HE HAS ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA.
Yet, he made up his claim by probably pulling it out of his behind. And we can still accept him as an business analist? What kind of analist could predict through very very rough initial sale data the future of a game subscriber population? I would like to know what data that he based his claim on?
I have read that article very carefully and it seems that just some bullshits put together. With every bit of data that he has right now, at best he can estimate how many user the game has right now, he has no history data to trend, he has no inside knowledge to base his analysis on. Just a bunch of bullshit made up out of thin air.
Who would have thought WoW could blow out of propotion like that? Actually, those guys at Blizzard probably can guess that from the beginning, why? Because The9 ( the Chinese WoW publisher) approached Blizzard when the game still in open beta to strike a deal. But for outsider who has no such knowledge of that kind of information nobody could even make a wild guess that WoW will have 10 millions subscribers.
This man is employed by a company who's paymasters include pension funds, investment banks and other major investors that are the owners of EA.
He probably receives an extremely large pay check to analyse these kinds of things and most likely has access to information that is not available to the general public, so saying "He has absolutely no idea" is probably not giving him enough credit.
I'm not saying he is 100% correct (I personally think it will have more subs than that) but it should not be just discounted out of hand.
I don't think so. I would like to give him credit but it doesn't seem he deserve it. He said in the interview that he based his projection on a statement made by an EA rep. That statement was EA hope to break even on its investment. And then in the next sentense, you can see that he also make his analysis based on initial sale data which could be very very rough at this point because the game has not even officially release for a week yet. Plus the big shopping season is comming (Thanksgiving, Christmas). Make a projection on what the subscriber population would be at this point, even attemp to analyze it at this point is bad because the sale number of the shopping season will push his data out of whack.
Regarding the what information he know, judging by the article, he does not know much. Anyway, Mythic and EA are both public trading companies. Information regarding sale and subscription are kept pretty tight. If this guy can broadcasting these things to a new site like this, he probably does not know much.
I suggest a name-change for this topic if it is at all possible. People who merely glance at the name and then scribble a response are misinformed. The point is: WAR does not have 250k subscribers, it is an estimate reported on in the article the OP has linked to. Mythic, as far as I know, has not yet released official sub. numbers.
The problem with this so called analist is that he has no data to backup this claim that the subscribers will drop off and level off at 250,000 - 300,000. Zip, non, nothing, he has no idea, he does not even know what's in the line up for WAR that Mythic has planned. He has no idea what market the game will move into next.
HE HAS ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA.
Yet, he made up his claim by probably pulling it out of his behind. And we can still accept him as an business analist? What kind of analist could predict through very very rough initial sale data the future of a game subscriber population? I would like to know what data that he based his claim on?
I have read that article very carefully and it seems that just some bullshits put together. With every bit of data that he has right now, at best he can estimate how many user the game has right now, he has no history data to trend, he has no inside knowledge to base his analysis on. Just a bunch of bullshit made up out of thin air.
Who would have thought WoW could blow out of propotion like that? Actually, those guys at Blizzard probably can guess that from the beginning, why? Because The9 ( the Chinese WoW publisher) approached Blizzard when the game still in open beta to strike a deal. But for outsider who has no such knowledge of that kind of information nobody could even make a wild guess that WoW will have 10 millions subscribers.
This man is employed by a company who's paymasters include pension funds, investment banks and other major investors that are the owners of EA.
He probably receives an extremely large pay check to analyse these kinds of things and most likely has access to information that is not available to the general public, so saying "He has absolutely no idea" is probably not giving him enough credit.
I'm not saying he is 100% correct (I personally think it will have more subs than that) but it should not be just discounted out of hand.
I don't think so. I would like to give him credit but it doesn't seem he deserve it. He said in the interview that he based his projection on a statement made by an EA rep. That statement was EA hope to break even on its investment. And then in the next sentense, you can see that he also make his analysis based on initial sale data which could be very very rough at this point because the game has not even officially release for a week yet. Plus the big shopping season is comming (Thanksgiving, Christmas). Make a projection on what the subscriber population would be at this point, even attemp to analyze it at this point is bad because the sale number of the shopping season will push his data out of whack.
Regarding the what information he know, judging by the article, he does not know much. Anyway, Mythic and EA are both public trading companies. Information regarding sale and subscription are kept pretty tight. If this guy can broadcasting these things to a new site like this, he probably does not know much.
Without doubt he has taken everything that you have just mentioned and a large number of other variable's into account.
He isn't just pulling that figure out of his ass after a few minutes consideration.
These people are not paid such a large amount of money for doing next to nothing.
Based on looking at xfire data etc I'd say that war is way more then 250k right now. I'd estimate it is between 500k and 1M currently. But of course the first month is pretty meaningless any hyped game will do pretty well. What matters is how it looks in 2-3 months, trending up or down and how steeply.
I mean LoTR probably hit 400-500K before ramping down to something around 100-150k. AoC probably hit 600-700k and is down to maybe 150k and still dropping. So the question is what will War look like in 3 months.
---
Ethion
Who cares about the estimated subscriptions? Who cares how its comparing to wow? Who cares what xfire says (i dont even know anyone who even uses that)?
None of these things are effecting how much fun im having in game, and i play order, which i can attest, is not as underpopulated as you guys seem to suggest.
Perhaps duing the normal 9am-5pm mon-fri the order side is under populated, but most people work for a living and/or go to school.
Either way, i could care less about how dominant the game is in the industry, im having too much fun with it at the moment.
That's funny.
Because this type of cookie-cutter, easy-mode kiddie game is exactly what the so-called "WoW haters" hate.
This game is full of ex-WoW players. Why would a fan of genuine massive online worlds (you know, those things called RPG's - maybe you've heard of them?) want to play with this pre-school toy?
If I want to PvP I'll stick to DAoC, thanks.
I miss the good ol' days when nerds were actually intelligent.
Sounds wrong to me, unless this is NA only. There are 55 NA server, like 20-30 euro and 10 or so oceanic. Many of the oceanic hit full on destro. The NA probably average to medium.
I would guess that across all primetimes there are about 60k concurrent users. Which would be like 500k. With the 1:10 subs versus concurrent.
That is very rough math but it would have to be off by double to meet this projection.
The problem with this so called analist is that he has no data to backup this claim that the subscribers will drop off and level off at 250,000 - 300,000. Zip, non, nothing, he has no idea, he does not even know what's in the line up for WAR that Mythic has planned. He has no idea what market the game will move into next.
HE HAS ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA.
Yet, he made up his claim by probably pulling it out of his behind. And we can still accept him as an business analist? What kind of analist could predict through very very rough initial sale data the future of a game subscriber population? I would like to know what data that he based his claim on?
I have read that article very carefully and it seems that just some bullshits put together. With every bit of data that he has right now, at best he can estimate how many user the game has right now, he has no history data to trend, he has no inside knowledge to base his analysis on. Just a bunch of bullshit made up out of thin air.
Who would have thought WoW could blow out of propotion like that? Actually, those guys at Blizzard probably can guess that from the beginning, why? Because The9 ( the Chinese WoW publisher) approached Blizzard when the game still in open beta to strike a deal. But for outsider who has no such knowledge of that kind of information nobody could even make a wild guess that WoW will have 10 millions subscribers.
This man is employed by a company who's paymasters include pension funds, investment banks and other major investors that are the owners of EA.
He probably receives an extremely large pay check to analyse these kinds of things and most likely has access to information that is not available to the general public, so saying "He has absolutely no idea" is probably not giving him enough credit.
I'm not saying he is 100% correct (I personally think it will have more subs than that) but it should not be just discounted out of hand.
I don't think so. I would like to give him credit but it doesn't seem he deserve it. He said in the interview that he based his projection on a statement made by an EA rep. That statement was EA hope to break even on its investment. And then in the next sentense, you can see that he also make his analysis based on initial sale data which could be very very rough at this point because the game has not even officially release for a week yet. Plus the big shopping season is comming (Thanksgiving, Christmas). Make a projection on what the subscriber population would be at this point, even attemp to analyze it at this point is bad because the sale number of the shopping season will push his data out of whack.
Regarding the what information he know, judging by the article, he does not know much. Anyway, Mythic and EA are both public trading companies. Information regarding sale and subscription are kept pretty tight. If this guy can broadcasting these things to a new site like this, he probably does not know much.
Without doubt he has taken everything that you have just mentioned and a large number of other variable's into account.
He isn't just pulling that figure out of his ass after a few minutes consideration.
These people are not paid such a large amount of money for doing next to nothing.
If you read that article carefully, you will realize that this article is a prediction of what the subscription number of WAR EVENTUALLY will be, not right now. If it's a prediction of what the subscription number WAR has right now or a short term projection then I can take his number. But no, it's about eventually WAR subscription will settle down to 250k sub which could be 1 year from now, 2 years from now, who know. Which is why I said his prediction is bullshit base on the data he has now. You just have too little data to make this kind of analysis.
Yeah, it's really not hard to do estimates pulling information gathered from different, independant sources. Warhammer shipped about as many boxes as AOC. AOC sold about 800k boxes, which is probably around what Warhammer has sold.... a few weeks after launch, AOC had 600k players still playing.
Everything (so far) matches up exactly to what AOC was at. Same boxes shipped, same sold, nearly the same number of servers. Xfire numbers look nearly identical to AOC at launch..
It's doubtful Warhammer is at a million yet, there would be more issues with server queues and a bigger indication on xfire. It's also not realistic to think they've sold that many boxes that fast compared to other games(and the numerous low population servers kinda support that).
The other thing to watch is weekly game sales charts. AOC had a huge first two weeks.. beating out even WOW on the sales chart... it then dropped to #50 almost overnight. Warhammer has already dropped to #17 which basically means Warhammer is pretty much near it's peak right now. In comparison, WOW continues to hold 5 of the top 21 spots ( Wraith #1, Wraith CE, BC, Battlechest and Vanilla).
I do think the analyst was a bit low.. War is probably at 600k now and will be at 400k in a month.
That's funny.
Because this type of cookie-cutter, easy-mode kiddie game is exactly what the so-called "WoW haters" hate.
This game is full of ex-WoW players. Why would a fan of genuine massive online worlds (you know, those things called RPG's - maybe you've heard of them?) want to play with this pre-school toy?
If I want to PvP I'll stick to DAoC, thanks.
Easy mode kiddie game? Any game can be seen as a kiddie game. Its all about how much effort your willing to put in. Just becuase you can't go full loot, kill anyone, or RvR anywhere does not mean its easy. Its called a game people play to have fun not to get their asses stomped on by people who have way to much time to play.
Hold on Snow Leopard, imma let you finish, but Windows had one of the best operating systems of all time.
If the Powerball lottery was like Lotro, nobody would win for 2 years, and then everyone in Nebraska would win on the same day.
And then Nebraska would get nerfed.-pinkwood lotro fourms
AMD 4800 2.4ghz-3GB RAM 533mhz-EVGA 9500GT 512mb-320gb HD
That's funny.
Because this type of cookie-cutter, easy-mode kiddie game is exactly what the so-called "WoW haters" hate.
This game is full of ex-WoW players. Why would a fan of genuine massive online worlds (you know, those things called RPG's - maybe you've heard of them?) want to play with this pre-school toy?
If I want to PvP I'll stick to DAoC, thanks.
Easy mode kiddie game? Any game can be seen as a kiddie game. Its all about how much effort your willing to put in. Just becuase you can't go full loot, kill anyone, or RvR anywhere does not mean its easy. Its called a game people play to have fun not to get their asses stomped on by people who have way to much time to play.
Not true, in wow all you need to do is pick the good class/classes, get the best gear, then have fun solo pvping. Warhammer there is no good class, just classes that fit into the larger picture of a perfect group. Warhammer requires teamwork and strategy, despite most people ar currently RvRing like its a solo killing spree.
I can honestly say most of the kids who are awash with fustration in the game, for whatever reasons, are wow players when i ask. They seem to not like having to find things on their own and just want everything handed to them.
Most non wow players dont get fustrated with games like that, they think it though, explore, trial and error if needed. To me that is half the fun of mmo's. Also ive noticed that most wow players play RvR only to win, and wont play if they arnt winning. Another source of fustration ive seen in game and in forums.
So to say that this game is easy mode isnt really true, although it seems that finding the action and ease of entry into a decen RvR fight would be on easy mode, but that is a good thing.
The problem with this so called analist is that he has no data to backup this claim that the subscribers will drop off and level off at 250,000 - 300,000. Zip, non, nothing, he has no idea, he does not even know what's in the line up for WAR that Mythic has planned. He has no idea what market the game will move into next.
HE HAS ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA.
Yet, he made up his claim by probably pulling it out of his behind. And we can still accept him as an business analist? What kind of analist could predict through very very rough initial sale data the future of a game subscriber population? I would like to know what data that he based his claim on?
I have read that article very carefully and it seems that just some bullshits put together. With every bit of data that he has right now, at best he can estimate how many user the game has right now, he has no history data to trend, he has no inside knowledge to base his analysis on. Just a bunch of bullshit made up out of thin air.
Who would have thought WoW could blow out of propotion like that? Actually, those guys at Blizzard probably can guess that from the beginning, why? Because The9 ( the Chinese WoW publisher) approached Blizzard when the game still in open beta to strike a deal. But for outsider who has no such knowledge of that kind of information nobody could even make a wild guess that WoW will have 10 millions subscribers.
This man is employed by a company who's paymasters include pension funds, investment banks and other major investors that are the owners of EA.
He probably receives an extremely large pay check to analyse these kinds of things and most likely has access to information that is not available to the general public, so saying "He has absolutely no idea" is probably not giving him enough credit.
I'm not saying he is 100% correct (I personally think it will have more subs than that) but it should not be just discounted out of hand.
I don't think so. I would like to give him credit but it doesn't seem he deserve it. He said in the interview that he based his projection on a statement made by an EA rep. That statement was EA hope to break even on its investment. And then in the next sentense, you can see that he also make his analysis based on initial sale data which could be very very rough at this point because the game has not even officially release for a week yet. Plus the big shopping season is comming (Thanksgiving, Christmas). Make a projection on what the subscriber population would be at this point, even attemp to analyze it at this point is bad because the sale number of the shopping season will push his data out of whack.
Regarding the what information he know, judging by the article, he does not know much. Anyway, Mythic and EA are both public trading companies. Information regarding sale and subscription are kept pretty tight. If this guy can broadcasting these things to a new site like this, he probably does not know much.
Without doubt he has taken everything that you have just mentioned and a large number of other variable's into account.
He isn't just pulling that figure out of his ass after a few minutes consideration.
These people are not paid such a large amount of money for doing next to nothing.
If you read that article carefully, you will realize that this article is a prediction of what the subscription number of WAR EVENTUALLY will be, not right now. If it's a prediction of what the subscription number WAR has right now or a short term projection then I can take his number. But no, it's about eventually WAR subscription will settle down to 250k sub which could be 1 year from now, 2 years from now, who know. Which is why I said his prediction is bullshit base on the data he has now. You just have too little data to make this kind of analysis.
They have over 10 years of data from previous mmo releases that they can use to make direct comparisons.
The software that these analysts use is extremely sophisticated. They are not fail proof, and how much information he has access to regarding last weeks WAR sales is obviously a factor, but they are normally accurate enough to provide useful data.
If it wasn't then companies wouldn't bother using such techniques.
But that is exactly what Warhammer does. It holds your hand. Not just at starting levels, it is fundamentally an "easy mode" game (ask an objective pre-open-beta tester), designed to minimize any learning curve. That may be a good thing honestly, but what this causes is a very large degree of over simplifying the game play and game world. In a game that is supposed to be an RPG that is a very bad thing.
Ask any longtime Warhammer fan (talking about the 25 year old table top RPG) what they think of Warhammer Online. In fact, head over the the Warhammer PnP forums and take a look.
This game is just one more nail in the coffin of what used to be MMORPG's. The folks who's first experience was World of Warcraft will never understand.
Warhammer and World of Warcraft are the same game essentially.
It's the shallow, trendy pop music of whats left of our genera. Pop music outsells all other kinds of music. But honestlyly, that does make it any less shallow?
The truth is I feel sorry for all you cats who have never had the chance to experience what your really missing.
I miss the good ol' days when nerds were actually intelligent.
Thats the thing.. Since it comes AFTER WAR all it has to do, is watch and see what was "wrong" and just improve upon it... And soon of course Mythic will watch that, and just make improvements to that and in the end we have something called "competition".. yeah.. New vocabulary today folks...
People who keep bobbling back and forth because of small minor aditions are not the ones they are after, but the ones that see a solid difference and stick with it.. Repeat customers are wayy more sought after than the "just stopping in" customer from out of town if ya catch my drift..
LOTRO and FFXI surpass 500k
FFXI was over 1 million at one point. LotRO might've been over 500k but it wasn't for very long.
That's funny.
Because this type of cookie-cutter, easy-mode kiddie game is exactly what the so-called "WoW haters" hate.
This game is full of ex-WoW players. Why would a fan of genuine massive online worlds (you know, those things called RPG's - maybe you've heard of them?) want to play with this pre-school toy?
If I want to PvP I'll stick to DAoC, thanks.
This post wins the thread, this WAR forum, all the WAR forums, all the MMO forums and all the internet.
I like the WAR siege weapons, they are more what you'd expect, the ones I saw on WoW and beta footage look like someones child's drawing they stuck on the fridge.