But the wow 12 million bubble has been bursted . and please link me the financiel report of 2010 that they had 12 million subscribers (and not accounts)
The financial report was released in 2011. You're welcome to look it up yourself if you're that concerned, I'm not.
And as far as China goes, 7 million players is peanuts, China has a population of 1.3 billion.
WoW is likely not even the most played game there. I think Three Kingdoms has millions more.
So this is typical I HEAR WHAT I WANT TO HEAR ok fine .
Then keep screaming they are 7 million chinese players , bigger then the rest of the world , infact so BIG that every MAJOR MMORPG should be released in CHINA first ......
Eh sadly it doesn´t happen , but thats fine , no proof just 1.3 billion registrated chines people !! *coughs*
But anyway cloud 9 is very nice , just for us regular people on the ground , any new MMO that can sustain 500k Subscribers , is a huge profit hit , thats what its now .
Thats one of the reason SWTOR can function with 500k Subscribers , 1 million is the target .
No need to chase after the 12 million pound gorilla , especially since its stuffed gorilla . its still 4 million big and the biggest pay to play MMO , but it ain´t bigger then belgium anymore .
Then keep screaming they are 7 million chinese players , bigger then the rest of the world , infact so BIG that every MAJOR MMORPG should be released in CHINA first ......
No they don't because the Yuan is undervalued.
Blizzard has mentioned they make more money from the West even if they have more players in China, the reason is because China has an undervalued currency.
The profit from China was less than 10% of their overall profit, even if China had more subscribers than the West.
Why do you think all the gold farmers are always on Western servers and not on Chinese servers? Because a $ and euro is worth a lot more than a Yuan.
that's not a number that I would tout if I was a developer. Many of those accounts could be from people who were intrigued only to find out that the game wasn't for them.
Especially considering Age of Conan had similar numbers of SALES, not just registered accounts for a free preview (open beta) of the game, and look what happened...
It´s funny how most mmo players are wishing for pretty much every single game to fail and crash just to be able to point and laugh.
I hope Rift is successful even tho i do not plan to play at this point.
Indeed. I guess it has quite a bit to do with the fact that the competition is once again heating up and every game has its own loyal fans. Confrontation guaranteed. Yet, I don't see anything wrong on being critical towards game's design choices but it in no fashion renders null and void their achievement of launching a seemingly popular game.
that's not a number that I would tout if I was a developer. Many of those accounts could be from people who were intrigued only to find out that the game wasn't for them.
Especially considering Age of Conan had similar numbers of SALES, not just registered accounts for a free preview (open beta) of the game, and look what happened...
I don't think it's fair to make comparisons to AoC or WAR for that matter. I played both of those games during beta and early release, and I played the Rift open beta. I can say with all honesty that Rift is a much more polished product than either of those games were at release.
I had no intention of buying Rift a few weeks ago. I thought it would be "just another WoW clone" but to my surprise it's actually a very good game. I'll be buying it tomorrow when I get paid.
I think it's going to do well enough. I don't see it having WoW numbers, because WoW is just a freak of nature, but I can see it growing into a well populated MMO.
Cataclysme sold 4.7 million So thats not even close to half the 12 million subscribers ...
Unless China makes up 7.3 million subscribers , there ain´t no 12 million subscribers , there are 12 million wow account created !!! active or not active .
Blizzard isn't lying about their numbers. Their latest financial report said they had 12 million active subscribers.
Lying in financial reports is a good way to get your company shut down. They're not that stupid.
The reason they only sold 4.7 million copies of Cata is because there's about 2.5 million players in the U.S. and 2.5 in Europe.
The other 7 million is in China and since Cata isn't released there yet, they can't buy it yet.
They had 12 millions subscribers according to their definition:
World of Warcraft subscribers include individuals who have paid a subscription fee or have an active prepaid card to play World of Warcraft, as well as those who have purchased the game and are within their free month of access. Internet Game Room players who have accessed the game over the last thirty days are also counted as subscribers. The above definition excludes all players under free promotional subscriptions, expired or cancelled subscriptions, and expired prepaid cards. Subscribers in licensees’ territories are defined along the same rules."
So yeah they weren't lying, at least according to their definition. But if we use the common definition of MMORPG subscribers then Blizzard may actually have lower number of subscribers .
I don't think it's fair to make comparisons to AoC or WAR for that matter. I played both of those games during beta and early release, and I played the Rift open beta. I can say with all honesty that Rift is a much more polished product than either of those games were at release
I had no intention of buying Rift a few weeks ago. I thought it would be "just another WoW clone" but to my surprise it's actually a very good game. I'll be buying it tomorrow when I get paid.
I think it's going to do well enough. I don't see it having WoW numbers, because WoW is just a freak of nature, but I can see it growing into a well populated MMO.
Rift is in a lot better shape than those 2 games, yes.
But what really did those games in was that the long time playability wasn't good enough. While AoC had loads of whining WAR actually was very popular for the first few weeks but then people got bored after a month or so and stopped playing.
Rift will need to be more fun long termed to not go the same way. It is a great advantage to be in better shape, both the word to mouth will be better and the devs can focus on making new content instead of spending a year fixing the game up like Mythic and Funcom.
But long term fun is all that really matters fro MMO and frankly do none of us really know how Rift will do in the long run yet.
I imagine that it will do better than AoC and WAR, and I can easily see it keeping 400K players or even half a million unless the game have a fatal flaw of some kind we have yet to see (like WARs T4 RvR). I don't however think it kan keep a million+ players in the long run, so far have only one P2P game ever had that many player for more than a month and it isn't likely that Rift can either.
Half a million players however would still be great and enough for the game to make huge profits.
It´s funny how most mmo players are wishing for pretty much every single game to fail and crash just to be able to point and laugh.
I hope Rift is successful even tho i do not plan to play at this point.
Indeed. I guess it has quite a bit to do with the fact that the competition is once again heating up and every game has its own loyal fans. Confrontation guaranteed. Yet, I don't see anything wrong on being critical towards game's design choices but it in no fashion renders null and void their achievement of launching a seemingly popular game.
I want Rift to fail, I don't hide that fact.
The reason is simple: if Rift succeeds it will send a message to every MMO company that innovation isn't needed and players want WoW clones. I don't want WoW clones, so for me and everyone else who doesn't, Rift failing would be a good thing.
The reason is simple: if Rift succeeds it will send a message to every MMO company that innovation isn't needed and players want WoW clones. I don't want WoW clones, so for me and everyone else who doesn't, Rift failing would be a good thing.
{Mod Edit}
So just because it's not up to your taste, you're willing to help destroying a product made by a fledgling company that have spent years of hard work and sweat to produce a well made game, just because it's not up to your taste you're willing to help destroying their dream project which may very well be their employments, their income to feed their family, their lives?
{Mod Edit}
Why don't you try put yourself in their shoes? For example, your family open up a restaurant, the foods are delicious but has nothing innovative in the menu, what do you feel when there're people like you that wish your business bankrupted just because your restaurent offer nothing new, just great foods?
I'm a highly socioapthic individual, yet even I, am not wishing good manufacturers to fail just because they're not innovative, they put out well-made products, they deserve to be successful.
I liked the "one million registered accounts" thing. Within 30 seconds you had tons of people converting that to "RIft has 1 million players in the headstart program!" Smooth hype ploy that takes advantage of the mentality of the playerbase.
The play-by-play announcements of all the new servers they had to open was a nice touch too. "This game is more popular than we ever dreamed!"
All in all, I think they are doing everything by the book.
Warcraft is doing pretty good too. They made an announcement that 4.1 will release in a few months. I also noticed yesterday that on this site when all the games in the "most popular" category reset and most had 300-900 unique hits, Warcraft already had 10,000. /wink
Most of the haters here aren't in the game playing right now. If you have actually played the game for a reasonable amount of time during beta, you'll know why it garnered so much interest. Just at the early launch, we're already seeing why this game is around to stay! Congratulations Trion!
This I have to comment about, but first I'd like to congratulate Trion for a pretty pre-launch. The game was really solid in betas and hopefully you carry on with the actual launch too.
Now to that quote:
You're having hard time understanding everyone doesn't like things you like? I bought the game when the 1st public beta came out. I have access to this pre-launch, but tbh I didn't even remember it was due to launch.
Why? Because my interest in the game somehow died during the 2nd public beta (beginning of February) and I really can't point my finger what killed it.
I'm going to keep the subscription up and running, because it's only about 7€/Mo or something if I don't cut it off and that really is nothing these days. Will I log on? Probably, might even do it tonight. Will I really start playing the game? Hopefully, but not likely.
tl;dr: Preordered the CE-version of the game, interest vanished during betas and am on the fence if I ever start playing it. Have enough money to keep the halved subscription up and running even if I never played it.
Yeah great so 1 million people made an account to sign up for or try the beta. Warhammer was all excitied about the same thing they said they had 300k pre-orders and all that. Then 3 months later the game was dead and they didn't even sell all the boxes they sent to retail. Let's see how many sub they have in 6 months and then you will know if this game has any chance. They probably need to hold at least 500k to make any money.
I like to see someone playing in character.
You will never reach your destination if you stop and throw stones at every dog that barks ~ WC
The reason is simple: if Rift succeeds it will send a message to every MMO company that innovation isn't needed and players want WoW clones. I don't want WoW clones, so for me and everyone else who doesn't, Rift failing would be a good thing.
AKA "I want to force everyone to enjoy the same games I do."
About the 12 million subscribers... Those are active World of Warcraft subscribers, and I do believe Blizzard with those numbers. Cataclysm sold 4.7 million copies? It's not released in China and I know a fair lot of players without that expansion pack yet. Not everyone is focused on End Game.
It´s funny how most mmo players are wishing for pretty much every single game to fail and crash just to be able to point and laugh.
I hope Rift is successful even tho i do not plan to play at this point.
Indeed. I guess it has quite a bit to do with the fact that the competition is once again heating up and every game has its own loyal fans. Confrontation guaranteed. Yet, I don't see anything wrong on being critical towards game's design choices but it in no fashion renders null and void their achievement of launching a seemingly popular game.
I want Rift to fail, I don't hide that fact.
The reason is simple: if Rift succeeds it will send a message to every MMO company that innovation isn't needed and players want WoW clones. I don't want WoW clones, so for me and everyone else who doesn't, Rift failing would be a good thing.
I want a magic pony. But we don't always get we want. There will always be gaming companies prepared to take a chance on the next big thing. So you're fine. You probably just need to relax a little about the whole issue.
I think part of the problem comes about from people not agreeing on what Innovation is. Let's see what Wikipedia has to say :
Innovation can therefore be seen as the process that renews something that exists and not, as is commonly assumed, the introduction of something new
So you see, even if Rift is partly based on WoW (and lets not start on what WoW was based on), which nobody is denying, it can still be innovative. And given that the heads of gaming companies are probably aware of the above definition, it's allll gooodd.
I'm not even going to rib you about using WoW Clone because I know some people on this site just really get stuck on phrases that mean nothing. Trion's game does innovate, and very well. If you stop and listen to what many gamers are saying, even those who wanted to dislike the game, the writing is on the wall. And it doesn't spell fail.
Jump in and try some Xsyon or Earthrise (shudder), or wait for Firefall or WoD, etc., Hey there's always EVE, that game wins the Innovation award every year. ;-)
You will never reach your destination if you stop and throw stones at every dog that barks ~ WC
The reason is simple: if Rift succeeds it will send a message to every MMO company that innovation isn't needed and players want WoW clones. I don't want WoW clones, so for me and everyone else who doesn't, Rift failing would be a good thing.
AKA "I want to force everyone to enjoy the same games I do."
A message has already been sent. Dozens of mmo's have been launched with very innovative ideas and failed because new ideas take time to work out the kinks. The market has proven it does not have much patience.
I like Rifts approach. I think it's smart to launch a game with a proven formula and just concentrate on doing it better than everyone else.
Once the good foundation has been laid then they can move forward with new ideas because if they fail they will still have the solid foundation to keeping things going.
The reason is simple: if Rift succeeds it will send a message to every MMO company that innovation isn't needed and players want WoW clones. I don't want WoW clones, so for me and everyone else who doesn't, Rift failing would be a good thing.
AKA "I want to force everyone to enjoy the same games I do."
I think his post was saying HE doesn't want to be forced to play games everyone else likes. He's worried about RIFT being successful and telling the entire industry that all they should make is WOW clones. While I don't think this would stifle smaller companies from innovating, it would make it more likely that most money would go behind WOW clones because they would be perceived as the only successful games out there that generate massive returns.
It´s funny how most mmo players are wishing for pretty much every single game to fail and crash just to be able to point and laugh.
I hope Rift is successful even tho i do not plan to play at this point.
Indeed. I guess it has quite a bit to do with the fact that the competition is once again heating up and every game has its own loyal fans. Confrontation guaranteed. Yet, I don't see anything wrong on being critical towards game's design choices but it in no fashion renders null and void their achievement of launching a seemingly popular game.
I want Rift to fail, I don't hide that fact.
The reason is simple: if Rift succeeds it will send a message to every MMO company that innovation isn't needed and players want WoW clones. I don't want WoW clones, so for me and everyone else who doesn't, Rift failing would be a good thing.
Look you are living in fairy land...what you want from an mmo will never happen an I'm sorry to say you are a vast minority your little group just happen to be the loudest, most jaded and misrable so they want everyone else to be that way too. This mythical game you have created in your head will never exist because any company with any compentence will never cater to a group that makes up maybe 3-5% of the mmo market. {Mod edit}
The reason is simple: if Rift succeeds it will send a message to every MMO company that innovation isn't needed and players want WoW clones. I don't want WoW clones, so for me and everyone else who doesn't, Rift failing would be a good thing.
I want a magic pony. But we don't always get we want.
I signed up for an account. I don't play nor do I want to play rift at this time.
Smoke and mirrors.
Let see how many servers they open up and how many they can keep open. That is the only true indication that a games is doing well. Everything else is guess work or "creative number crunching".
Comments
REGISTERED ACCOUNTS... I'm also a registred but I don't play and will never login to that game ever.
They will do like Blizzard and add the cards also to make it sound like they have millions of players.
When GW2 and SWTOR are out this game will go down.
So this is typical I HEAR WHAT I WANT TO HEAR ok fine .
Then keep screaming they are 7 million chinese players , bigger then the rest of the world , infact so BIG that every MAJOR MMORPG should be released in CHINA first ......
Eh sadly it doesn´t happen , but thats fine , no proof just 1.3 billion registrated chines people !! *coughs*
But anyway cloud 9 is very nice , just for us regular people on the ground , any new MMO that can sustain 500k Subscribers , is a huge profit hit , thats what its now .
Thats one of the reason SWTOR can function with 500k Subscribers , 1 million is the target .
No need to chase after the 12 million pound gorilla , especially since its stuffed gorilla . its still 4 million big and the biggest pay to play MMO , but it ain´t bigger then belgium anymore .
No they don't because the Yuan is undervalued.
Blizzard has mentioned they make more money from the West even if they have more players in China, the reason is because China has an undervalued currency.
The profit from China was less than 10% of their overall profit, even if China had more subscribers than the West.
Why do you think all the gold farmers are always on Western servers and not on Chinese servers? Because a $ and euro is worth a lot more than a Yuan.
Collector's editions are scams.
Do you even read others people post donkey , or do you make it up yourself .
I been to china internet/gaming cafe , I know how they play WoW there .
They ain´t paying per month , you dont understand that !!!
They pay per hour with a option of extending your game time with in GAME GOLD .
Infact you just buy for 1 euro a hour and account , and then tap the guy next to you to bring you gold for 0.50 euro cent .
Or you grind your gold yourself and extend your gametime , instead of using real money .
Especially considering Age of Conan had similar numbers of SALES, not just registered accounts for a free preview (open beta) of the game, and look what happened...
Indeed. I guess it has quite a bit to do with the fact that the competition is once again heating up and every game has its own loyal fans. Confrontation guaranteed. Yet, I don't see anything wrong on being critical towards game's design choices but it in no fashion renders null and void their achievement of launching a seemingly popular game.
I don't think it's fair to make comparisons to AoC or WAR for that matter. I played both of those games during beta and early release, and I played the Rift open beta. I can say with all honesty that Rift is a much more polished product than either of those games were at release.
I had no intention of buying Rift a few weeks ago. I thought it would be "just another WoW clone" but to my surprise it's actually a very good game. I'll be buying it tomorrow when I get paid.
I think it's going to do well enough. I don't see it having WoW numbers, because WoW is just a freak of nature, but I can see it growing into a well populated MMO.
The more I play it, the more I like it. It grows on you, definatley a keeper
"Be water my friend" - Bruce Lee
They had 12 millions subscribers according to their definition:
http://us.blizzard.com/en-us/company/press/pressreleases.html?081121
"World of Warcraft's Subscriber Definition
World of Warcraft subscribers include individuals who have paid a subscription fee or have an active prepaid card to play World of Warcraft, as well as those who have purchased the game and are within their free month of access. Internet Game Room players who have accessed the game over the last thirty days are also counted as subscribers. The above definition excludes all players under free promotional subscriptions, expired or cancelled subscriptions, and expired prepaid cards. Subscribers in licensees’ territories are defined along the same rules."
So yeah they weren't lying, at least according to their definition. But if we use the common definition of MMORPG subscribers then Blizzard may actually have lower number of subscribers .
Rift is in a lot better shape than those 2 games, yes.
But what really did those games in was that the long time playability wasn't good enough. While AoC had loads of whining WAR actually was very popular for the first few weeks but then people got bored after a month or so and stopped playing.
Rift will need to be more fun long termed to not go the same way. It is a great advantage to be in better shape, both the word to mouth will be better and the devs can focus on making new content instead of spending a year fixing the game up like Mythic and Funcom.
But long term fun is all that really matters fro MMO and frankly do none of us really know how Rift will do in the long run yet.
I imagine that it will do better than AoC and WAR, and I can easily see it keeping 400K players or even half a million unless the game have a fatal flaw of some kind we have yet to see (like WARs T4 RvR). I don't however think it kan keep a million+ players in the long run, so far have only one P2P game ever had that many player for more than a month and it isn't likely that Rift can either.
Half a million players however would still be great and enough for the game to make huge profits.
I want Rift to fail, I don't hide that fact.
The reason is simple: if Rift succeeds it will send a message to every MMO company that innovation isn't needed and players want WoW clones. I don't want WoW clones, so for me and everyone else who doesn't, Rift failing would be a good thing.
Collector's editions are scams.
{Mod Edit}
So just because it's not up to your taste, you're willing to help destroying a product made by a fledgling company that have spent years of hard work and sweat to produce a well made game, just because it's not up to your taste you're willing to help destroying their dream project which may very well be their employments, their income to feed their family, their lives?
{Mod Edit}
Why don't you try put yourself in their shoes? For example, your family open up a restaurant, the foods are delicious but has nothing innovative in the menu, what do you feel when there're people like you that wish your business bankrupted just because your restaurent offer nothing new, just great foods?
I'm a highly socioapthic individual, yet even I, am not wishing good manufacturers to fail just because they're not innovative, they put out well-made products, they deserve to be successful.
I liked the "one million registered accounts" thing. Within 30 seconds you had tons of people converting that to "RIft has 1 million players in the headstart program!" Smooth hype ploy that takes advantage of the mentality of the playerbase.
The play-by-play announcements of all the new servers they had to open was a nice touch too. "This game is more popular than we ever dreamed!"
All in all, I think they are doing everything by the book.
Warcraft is doing pretty good too. They made an announcement that 4.1 will release in a few months. I also noticed yesterday that on this site when all the games in the "most popular" category reset and most had 300-900 unique hits, Warcraft already had 10,000. /wink
Actually, a lot of people are not very happy with the recycled content in patch 4.1, not to mention the new Ragnaros model
Also WoW has millions of players, it's no surprised that it will get the most hit, especially when new content patch is on the horizon.
거북이는 목을 내밀 때 안 움직입니다
This I have to comment about, but first I'd like to congratulate Trion for a pretty pre-launch. The game was really solid in betas and hopefully you carry on with the actual launch too.
Now to that quote:
You're having hard time understanding everyone doesn't like things you like? I bought the game when the 1st public beta came out. I have access to this pre-launch, but tbh I didn't even remember it was due to launch.
Why? Because my interest in the game somehow died during the 2nd public beta (beginning of February) and I really can't point my finger what killed it.
I'm going to keep the subscription up and running, because it's only about 7€/Mo or something if I don't cut it off and that really is nothing these days. Will I log on? Probably, might even do it tonight. Will I really start playing the game? Hopefully, but not likely.
tl;dr: Preordered the CE-version of the game, interest vanished during betas and am on the fence if I ever start playing it. Have enough money to keep the halved subscription up and running even if I never played it.
I like to see someone playing in character.
You will never reach your destination if you stop and throw stones at every dog that barks
~ WC
AKA "I want to force everyone to enjoy the same games I do."
About the 12 million subscribers... Those are active World of Warcraft subscribers, and I do believe Blizzard with those numbers. Cataclysm sold 4.7 million copies? It's not released in China and I know a fair lot of players without that expansion pack yet. Not everyone is focused on End Game.
I want a magic pony. But we don't always get we want. There will always be gaming companies prepared to take a chance on the next big thing. So you're fine. You probably just need to relax a little about the whole issue.
I think part of the problem comes about from people not agreeing on what Innovation is. Let's see what Wikipedia has to say :
Innovation can therefore be seen as the process that renews something that exists and not, as is commonly assumed, the introduction of something new
So you see, even if Rift is partly based on WoW (and lets not start on what WoW was based on), which nobody is denying, it can still be innovative. And given that the heads of gaming companies are probably aware of the above definition, it's allll gooodd.
I'm not even going to rib you about using WoW Clone because I know some people on this site just really get stuck on phrases that mean nothing. Trion's game does innovate, and very well. If you stop and listen to what many gamers are saying, even those who wanted to dislike the game, the writing is on the wall. And it doesn't spell fail.
Jump in and try some Xsyon or Earthrise (shudder), or wait for Firefall or WoD, etc., Hey there's always EVE, that game wins the Innovation award every year. ;-)
You will never reach your destination if you stop and throw stones at every dog that barks
~ WC
A message has already been sent. Dozens of mmo's have been launched with very innovative ideas and failed because new ideas take time to work out the kinks. The market has proven it does not have much patience.
I like Rifts approach. I think it's smart to launch a game with a proven formula and just concentrate on doing it better than everyone else.
Once the good foundation has been laid then they can move forward with new ideas because if they fail they will still have the solid foundation to keeping things going.
I think his post was saying HE doesn't want to be forced to play games everyone else likes. He's worried about RIFT being successful and telling the entire industry that all they should make is WOW clones. While I don't think this would stifle smaller companies from innovating, it would make it more likely that most money would go behind WOW clones because they would be perceived as the only successful games out there that generate massive returns.
Look you are living in fairy land...what you want from an mmo will never happen an I'm sorry to say you are a vast minority your little group just happen to be the loudest, most jaded and misrable so they want everyone else to be that way too. This mythical game you have created in your head will never exist because any company with any compentence will never cater to a group that makes up maybe 3-5% of the mmo market. {Mod edit}
I signed up for an account. I don't play nor do I want to play rift at this time.
Smoke and mirrors.
Let see how many servers they open up and how many they can keep open. That is the only true indication that a games is doing well. Everything else is guess work or "creative number crunching".
i was wondering where all the trolls went. it was odd seeing mostly positive threads. i guess this is the only thread where they can really hide =/.
Most memorable games: AoC(Tryanny PvP), RIFT, GW, GW2, Ragnarok Online, Aion, FFXI, FFXIV, Secret World, League of Legends (Silver II rank)