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Seems like the game has peaked on XFire
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The key question for this thread is:
Could the GW2 weekend have accounted for the drop - and the answer must be 'possibly'.
If so then there should be a corresponding uptick when its all over.
How on earth can it be accurate, when only a percentage of gamers use it!?
Not a single person in our TS/Guild uses it, so it can never be truely accurate unless
every gamer used it, simple.
**EDIT**
Oh & it's also irrelivant how many user/accounts their are, i guarantee a large percentage
are inactive or dead accounts.
The Deathstar destroyed planets...Lucas Arts destroyed Galaxies
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Played:
SWG | EVE | WOW | VG | LOTRO | WAR | FML | STO | APB | AOC | MORTAL | WOT | BP | SW:TOR
3043 on 4/28. Typically the 2nd most active day of the week and barely cracks 3000... surely the GW2 beta had a part in the drop, but I still think you're looking at a slowing, but steady decline. The thing to worry about for TOR - this was only the beta... when GW2 actually launches, I'd expect a much greater impact.
Sigh. This has been covered. It is called statistics. It is 'accurate' with a margin of error. Now the margin of error might be 20% but it is not 'out of the ballpark' from what we have observed. And I had better say that the data being tracked is primarily the number of users not the XFire graph you see which is hours played.
The 'neither I nor any of my friends use Yahoo - so it doesn't exist' argument is meaningless.
If you want to challenge why the data post something constructive. Others have and so far it stands up. One poster came up with "XFire can't be right because it still has SWG users". A good point - and someone posted that there were unofficial servers out there (which I didn't know).
So far XFire has tracked. From the Early Access ramp up; a peak that tied in to extra sales that EA reported; every single promotion that EA have run; low numbers that tie into a massive marketing campaign.
Challenge the data by all means but "I'm a luddite this can't be right" approach - leave it at home.
No one is claiming that because the XFire number is c. 25% of its highest point SWTOR has lost 75% of its users. It isn't that simple - see posts above. The only people claiming 'absolutes' are people claiming its useless.
Inactive or dead accounts
I could ask you to prove this but we know you can't. What I will point out however is that SWTOR is a new game. 4 months old. Sleeper accounts used to happen when there were very few games around. Today I don't think they are that common - but other than pointing out that games that report subs / those we can guesstimate from financial reports like Funcom it is difficult to prove either way.
Hmmmmmm the force in this one strong is.
An honest review of SW:TOR 6/10 (Danny Wojcicki)
Forgot to add explicitly that the whole concept of 'a margin of error' is that this allows for 'not every gamer using it'. This is behind every shopping survey, the research of new drugs involving patients (some get the new drug, some don't - oh deary me how can the results be accurate we didn't test it on every person with the disease it might not work on Fred ...)
Flat week, slightly above 3000. Lowest sunday.
WoW and Aion seem to be on a descending trend too.
An honest review of SW:TOR 6/10 (Danny Wojcicki)
Not a single person in our TS/Guild uses it, so it can never be truely accurate unless
every gamer used it, simple.
Forgot to add explicitly that the whole concept of 'a margin of error' is that this allows for 'not every gamer using it'. This is behind every shopping survey, the research of new drugs involving patients (some get the new drug, some don't - oh deary me how can the results be accurate we didn't test it on every person with the disease it might not work on Fred ...)
Please calculate the margin of error for XFire. Anyone please calculate a margin of error for XFire. Calculate anything really. There's too much guesswork involved with it. Even the statement "there are fewer players now than three weeks ago" has to be qualified with probably because you can't prove anything with it.
It's just a poor tool to use to make any sort of point.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
Possible future scenarios and consequences:
SWTOR has offcially 3.000.000+ paying subscribers -> xFire is very worthless.
SWTOR has officially 2.000.000 paying subscribers -> xFire is worthless.
SWTOR has officially 1.000.000 paying subscribers -> xFire is good to show a descending or ascending trend.
SWTOR has officially -500.000 paying subscribers -> xFire is a good indicator of general population.
There you have it. We just have to sit and wait.
An honest review of SW:TOR 6/10 (Danny Wojcicki)
We are not sure. That is what this thread is about. You seem to want people to ignore it because it's not perfect, we will see if it is a poor tool or not when EA issue more numbers, it has mirrored trends in other games so it is better than no tool at all (which appears to be your preferred option).
Statistical margin of error is: 2,58 * ((p - p ^ 2) / n) ^ 0,5, where
n = total hours played on X-Fire
p = presentage of total hours used to play SWTOR
Counting from X-Fire statistics, n is more than 680 000, p = 2,5555%, and margin of error is 0,05%.
Calculating that was totally useless since there's a good reason to believe that the sample isn't representative of overall SWTOR's playerbase.
I did 'have a go' a while - an estimate of the margin of error obviously because the EA data is a) scarce and b) fuzzy. It also depends on what you assume etc. but, if I recall correct;y, I looked at end of year numbers and the February numbers. Came out to about 20%. Is it right - no idea.
Does this - if it was correct - make it a poor tool. Arguably so - but a tool nevertheless that seems to reflect what is happening.
Before SWTOR launched it was going to have 2M subs on day 1 rising to 3M by summer etc. EA have not said anything to suggest this is not so - their actions suggest otherwise but they haven't said anything. The poor XFire tool suggests that numbers have tanked however; and that numbers are lower than last week that the patch + promotion hasn't hacked it. Now if you want to know the exact number - sorry wrong thread.
Edit: Total hours are not very useful but the average hours played, as recorded by XFire, matched the numbers pushed out by EA as well - another example (as covered in this thread) that XFire is 'OK'.
XFire isn't worthless. SWTOR isn't the first video game that is tracked there and in the past XFire trends for other games were in line with numbers that came from other sources. XFire doesn't count subs. It counts players and hours played. Day-to-day deviations in XFire figures don't reflect changes in subs. But most people don't stay subscribed to games they don't play anymore so in the long term both trends correlate quite well.
MMORPG genre is dead. Long live MMOCS (Massively Multiplayer Online Cash Shop).
We are not using hours but unique users.
That makes sense yes.
In past experiences, how did it correlate? A 50% drop for instance, in xFire, would be also a 50% drop in the game, after a while?
An honest review of SW:TOR 6/10 (Danny Wojcicki)
Here is a margin for error for ya .. AoC , Warhammer, Aion , Hellgtae, DCUO, Dungeon Runner, Darkfall... etc , they all showed the same trends.. and the reult is always the same.. 0 margin of error. in that...
Its only the Facts and never let it interfere with your perceived truth ...
The game is dying and will be lucky to have 350k subs by Sept..
Some facts there i tell ya... good grief
I think its a decent tool, and like seeing people posting graphs, and would like them to continue
its an indicator perhaps, but, you really didnt need to look at xfire to see that there are people leaving the game, anyone who has played the game will have seen the numbers dwindling.. all xfire does is really confirm something we already knew anyway.
You don't need to play the game to see that there are people leaving the game, anyone looking at xFire will have seen it. All you do is confirm something we already knew anyway, and not conditioned to one server.
See what I did there.
An honest review of SW:TOR 6/10 (Danny Wojcicki)
You're doing it wrong.
MMORPG genre is dead. Long live MMOCS (Massively Multiplayer Online Cash Shop).
2939 today.
I think we will see it constantly be under 3000 from now on.