Unlike blizzard who counts every account innactive, active and banned, SoE only count the accoutns active at any given time for its numbers. Blizzard is still counting all those chinense banned accounts as part of there subscription to make them look better than they realy are.
Its amazing the things people believe...
If Blizzard counts inactive accounts then how did they lose subs over the last year?
Way of life for millions?In your dreams $oe. The game has never come close to even 1m subs, and if you exclude the excess box accounts prolly never more the 200k. A legend in its own mind,a niche game with limited appeal in reality. Classic story of right place and right time, had it not released in a market devoid of 3d mmo's it never would have seen 50k subs past 30 days.
LOL are you being serious ???
When it was released it was the only 3d MMORPG, i think then followed by AC..
EQ is a legend and was an amazing game.. yes compared to some of todays games it very dated but so is pac man... i am also sure they have sold millinos of copies of the game.. now sure they where not all active at the same time but the MMORPG industry was a lot different then it was not fileld with millions of wow kids wanting instant gratification..
From Wikipedia
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Subscription history
Verant from 1999 to 2001 and SOE from 2001 to 14 January 2004 issued formal statements giving some indications of the number of EQ subscriptions and peak numbers of players online at any given moment.[12]
These records show "more than 225,000" subscriptions on 1 November 1999[citation needed], with an increase to "more than 450,000" subscriptions by 25 September 2003[citation needed].
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Verant is SoE so it is kinda wrong but everything else is right in subsciption history, When SoE made Everquest they made an off shoot brance of SoE to release EQ this offshoot was originaly Red eye but changed to Verant. The reason why SoE made this offshoot branch was because they were doing somthing that was never tried/done before by anyone else (Everquest) and they didnt wanna tarnish SoE name if it didnt work out.
The only reason im posted this is because i realy dont like it when people come in and complain that SoE took over verant and made the game go down the wrong direction by making it easier/instances (LDON). All they realy did was observe the branch back into the main company when they knew the game was a success since there was no longer a need for the scapegoat (Verant) if thing went wrong.
Quote from Sony online entertainment on wiki
In April 1998, Sony Online Entertainment (SOE) was formed by merging parts of Sony Online Ventures with Sony Pictures Entertainment. Within a matter of months after this change, Sony Interactive Studios America was renamed 989 Studios.
Towards the end of 1998, 989 Studios shifted its strategy to making PlayStationconsole games only. The company's computer game/online development branch spun off, initially calling itself RedEye Interactive and then soon after Verant Interactive.
Unlike blizzard who counts every account innactive, active and banned, SoE only count the accoutns active at any given time for its numbers. Blizzard is still counting all those chinense banned accounts as part of there subscription to make them look better than they realy are.
Its amazing the things people believe...
If Blizzard counts inactive accounts then how did they lose subs over the last year?
Blizzard claims they still have 11.4 million subscribers at the end of march in 2011, Quote During the call, CEO of Blizzard Entertainment Mike Morhaime pointed out that World of Warcraft had fallen again to pre-Cataclysm subscriber levels -- 11.4 million subscribers at the end of March, down from its peak of 12 million.(Source - http://wow.joystiq.com/2011/05/09/world-of-warcraft-dips-to-a-mere-11-4-million-subscribers/)
So lets see by using these numbers
People just playing the original game and still subscribed = 4.48 million
People Who are playing the original game + Burning crusade = 0.48 million
So again according to blizzard at the end of march 2011 they drop from 12 million subs to 11.4 million subs but yet they have only ever sold a total of 11.9 million copies of the ORIGINAL WoW. Also dont forget they baned China from playing WoW
The Acualy current subsciption number is probaly around 3-4 million atm maybe even less.
Unlike blizzard who counts every account innactive, active and banned, SoE only count the accoutns active at any given time for its numbers. Blizzard is still counting all those chinense banned accounts as part of there subscription to make them look better than they realy are.
Its amazing the things people believe...
If Blizzard counts inactive accounts then how did they lose subs over the last year?
Blizzard claims they still have 11.4 million subscribers at the end of march in 2011, Quote During the call, CEO of Blizzard Entertainment Mike Morhaime pointed out that World of Warcraft had fallen again to pre-Cataclysm subscriber levels -- 11.4 million subscribers at the end of March, down from its peak of 12 million.(Source - http://wow.joystiq.com/2011/05/09/world-of-warcraft-dips-to-a-mere-11-4-million-subscribers/)
Now if there still 11.4 million subscribers your telling me that only half a million has unsubscribed yet they have banned this many accounts which comes 508.4 Thousand accounts (over that half a million)
People just playing the original game and still subscribed = 4.48 million
People Who are playing the original game + Burning crusade = 0.48 million
People playing up
You do realize that China doesnt buy expansions right? They are given for free. That throws your numbers way off.
What about Battlechest sales? What about upgrades to trial accounts? Fact is, you have absolutely no way of knowing what is in those numbers and what isnt.
Unlike blizzard who counts every account innactive, active and banned, SoE only count the accoutns active at any given time for its numbers. Blizzard is still counting all those chinense banned accounts as part of there subscription to make them look better than they realy are.
Its amazing the things people believe...
If Blizzard counts inactive accounts then how did they lose subs over the last year?
Blizzard claims they still have 11.4 million subscribers at the end of march in 2011, Quote During the call, CEO of Blizzard Entertainment Mike Morhaime pointed out that World of Warcraft had fallen again to pre-Cataclysm subscriber levels -- 11.4 million subscribers at the end of March, down from its peak of 12 million.(Source - http://wow.joystiq.com/2011/05/09/world-of-warcraft-dips-to-a-mere-11-4-million-subscribers/)
Now if there still 11.4 million subscribers your telling me that only half a million has unsubscribed yet they have banned this many accounts which comes 508.4 Thousand accounts (over that half a million)
People just playing the original game and still subscribed = 4.48 million
People Who are playing the original game + Burning crusade = 0.48 million
People playing up
You do realize that China doesnt buy expansions right? They are given for free. That throws your numbers way off.
What about Battlechest sales? What about upgrades to trial accounts? Fact is, you have absolutely no way of knowing what is in those numbers and what isnt.
china has been banned from playing WoW ( ban lasted 4months i beleive however during this time blizzard still claimed to have 11-11.5 million subscribes however in fact they only had 5-6 mil world wide) due to breaking some kinda chinese law about western games
Ignoring this fact, let's just examine the 4 months when servers were offline and there were no subscriptions or players.
That was a loss of approximately 5-6 million players world wide. There were no announcements made, e.g. "Blizzard announces World of Warcraft is down to 5 million worldwide!" After all, why would they?
However, during this entire time news websites around the world continued to promote 11 or 11.5 million Subscribers, even though the number was closer to half.
Also here some financial number for blizzard
here are their financials over the most recent 3 month period: (Post date is 8/09/2010)
World of Warcraft Gross Profits: $301.75 million
World of Warcraft Operating Costs: $12.75 million (Source)
(also note the blizzard cash shop was up and running at the time of these statistics, so taking that into account there would be less than 6.7 mill subscribers.)
(Note: GAAP means "Generally Accepted Accounting Principles" but when corporations use non-GAAP methodologies, they can inflate or stretch numbers in their books. So it's safe to say that GAAP is the more "honest" figure. If you review their other Quarterly Reports for 2008 and 2009, they also show similar rates.)
Sales during those months were negligible, so their monthly subscriptions totaled approx. $301.75 million gross worldwide.
At a rate of $15 per month, that only accounts for 6.7 million active subscribers! That's almost 50 percent!
Actually had like 500-650,000 subs, maybe more, and was the #1 western mmo...When the mmo player base was smaller...So yeah over a million people played it...
Released during a 3d void? Uhm yeah, it was one of the first, thats like being pissed at the Atari 2600 for not having modern graphics back in the day.
$OE thanks you for your money though.
The last population update sony ever released for EQ said they had 450,000. I can only assume it never went higher than that because they kept announcing it every time they went up by 50k.
A bunch of stuff by someone unqualified to analyze number doing just that snipped
The very fact you think the average subscription is 15 dollars a month alone proves you lack the analytical skills needed to even come close to an answer. Plus, the china model is substantially different
Simple truth: No one that posts on these forums has a damn clue what the WoW subs actually are.
DO i think they are over 11 million? No, I think Blizzard measures them in a way convenient to them. But your theory that they count everyone who has ever bought the game, along with banned accounts, is beyond ridiculous.
Way of life for millions?In your dreams $oe. The game has never come close to even 1m subs, and if you exclude the excess box accounts prolly never more the 200k. A legend in its own mind,a niche game with limited appeal in reality. Classic story of right place and right time, had it not released in a market devoid of 3d mmo's it never would have seen 50k subs past 30 days.
I think it's more along the lines that it's the reason so many people are playing this genre, and they're partly right.
Actually finnmacool1, EQ has moved over 23 million paid accounts since its launch.
Granted, they've never had more than 200k subs at any given point, but over the years people have come & gone. Their accounts are still there, and if you took a look into the current un-banned accounts that have more than 10 expansions unlocked & paid for you'd see you're pretty much wrong .
EQ, one of the best MMOs of all time, and one of the reasons WoW exists at all today. UO being the second reason, but WoW couldn't copy anythingg from UO so I suppose that makes UO the golden child?
~Meh
Boxing wasnt that common in EQ's peak, certainly a lot less than out of every 5 accounts boxed so at the very least they had 400k subs.
There has only ever been two other MMOs in the west to sustain 400k subs for more than a month or two, WoW and SWToR.
SoE is 100% correct in their statement.
No they arent and neither are you. 3-4 years after the game was released boxing expoded, people grew tired of lfg or not having access to a rezzer/buffs. I played on Innoruk/stormhammer/errolisi marr, and vallon zek and boxing was commonplace.
You're are also dead wrong on your sub info. Aside from the obvious fact that only the actual companies know the real numbers, even the sites that offer guestimates have over 6 games that hit 400k+ for more than a month or two.
Spin it however you want the, bottom line is eq entered with zero competition and peaked at around 500k. Better games followed and blew those numbers out of the water in a market saturated with other offerings including eq.
Eq wasnt a bad game at launch(though the "vision" did have many horrible design decisions) nor is it a bad game now. Like many other games it has strong points and weak points and there have been fluctuations to both over its lifecycle. It was however and remains a niche game.
Do you not understand what the phrase 'western subs' means? It means games like FFXI or Lineage/Lineage2, or Aion dont count because they never reached 400k subs in the west, their player bases were heaveily eastern (almost all eastern in Aion and lineage's case)
So yes, only *one* game has blown EQs numbers out of the water. That is World of Warcraft. SWToR had a big start, but they are fading fast and remains to be seen how their overall success would be.
And EQ didnt cross over 400k subs until there was a lot of competition. UO, DAoC and AC were all competition.
I realize you just hate SoE and cant think straight because of it, but ony an idiot would deny that EQ was a huge game, one on the genre's legends, and there was a hell of a lot more to it than right place, right time. For instance, name an MMORPG with better grouping mechanics, even today, than Everquest.
1. Breaking subs down east vs west for games available in both the east and west is ridiculous. Even using this biased method still gives multiple games that broke 400k subs for more than one month. WAR,AoC,SwToR to name a few. It isnt like eq didnt have eastern subs included in their numbers
2. Eq's numbers came out a time when they were the only game in town and even so they pale in comparision to better games later. You are trying to compare apples to oranges. A game would need maybe 50-100k in todays market to compare to eq's 400k with no competition.
3. UO wasnt 3d competition but even if you include it as well 3 games isnt "a lot" of competition. Looking at mmodata guestimates shows eq hitting 400k before either daoc or ac launched. This is also the time when boxed accounts skyrocketed.
4. No im not a fan of $oe but it isnt without cause and im more than able to think clearly concerning $oe and their offereings. Eq was a huge game, but again this had more to do with being the first than anything else. Its a legend because it was first. No idea what you even mean by grouping mechanism. Holy trinity?Auto attack afk?One person boxing entire group?
As ive said many times before eq is a good game but it is far from some pinnacle of gaming achievement. Its success was due more to right place right time than anything else. Had it released in a saturated market like WoW it would have been lucky to hit 50-100k subs,period. The whole tit for tat all stems from $oe claiming eq was a "way of life" for millions which is a flat out lie.
Comments
Its amazing the things people believe...
If Blizzard counts inactive accounts then how did they lose subs over the last year?
Verant is SoE so it is kinda wrong but everything else is right in subsciption history, When SoE made Everquest they made an off shoot brance of SoE to release EQ this offshoot was originaly Red eye but changed to Verant. The reason why SoE made this offshoot branch was because they were doing somthing that was never tried/done before by anyone else (Everquest) and they didnt wanna tarnish SoE name if it didnt work out.
The only reason im posted this is because i realy dont like it when people come in and complain that SoE took over verant and made the game go down the wrong direction by making it easier/instances (LDON). All they realy did was observe the branch back into the main company when they knew the game was a success since there was no longer a need for the scapegoat (Verant) if thing went wrong.
Quote from Sony online entertainment on wiki
In April 1998, Sony Online Entertainment (SOE) was formed by merging parts of Sony Online Ventures with Sony Pictures Entertainment. Within a matter of months after this change, Sony Interactive Studios America was renamed 989 Studios.
Towards the end of 1998, 989 Studios shifted its strategy to making PlayStation console games only. The company's computer game/online development branch spun off, initially calling itself RedEye Interactive and then soon after Verant Interactive.
Source http://daeity.blogspot.com.au/2010/08/blizzards-active-subscription-numbers.html
Ok then take this for example
Here a chart on what blizzard beleives are there current subscribers
http://i.imgur.com/HTidt.jpg
Now here there WoW sales for retail and digital downlaods which was confirmed by NPD
http://i.imgur.com/bGmIC.jpg
original game sold - 11.9 million
Burning Crusade sold - 7.42 million
WolK sold - 6.94 million
(With a quick google search roghtly 4.7million cataclysm sold in the first month now this would of been 90% of the copies bought total because most player would of bought the game withing the first month of it coming out http://wow.joystiq.com/2011/01/10/cataclysm-sells-4-7-million-copies-in-one-month/)
Blizzard claims they still have 11.4 million subscribers at the end of march in 2011, Quote During the call, CEO of Blizzard Entertainment Mike Morhaime pointed out that World of Warcraft had fallen again to pre-Cataclysm subscriber levels -- 11.4 million subscribers at the end of March, down from its peak of 12 million.(Source - http://wow.joystiq.com/2011/05/09/world-of-warcraft-dips-to-a-mere-11-4-million-subscribers/)
So lets see by using these numbers
People just playing the original game and still subscribed = 4.48 million
People Who are playing the original game + Burning crusade = 0.48 million
So again according to blizzard at the end of march 2011 they drop from 12 million subs to 11.4 million subs but yet they have only ever sold a total of 11.9 million copies of the ORIGINAL WoW. Also dont forget they baned China from playing WoW
The Acualy current subsciption number is probaly around 3-4 million atm maybe even less.
You do realize that China doesnt buy expansions right? They are given for free. That throws your numbers way off.
What about Battlechest sales? What about upgrades to trial accounts? Fact is, you have absolutely no way of knowing what is in those numbers and what isnt.
china has been banned from playing WoW ( ban lasted 4months i beleive however during this time blizzard still claimed to have 11-11.5 million subscribes however in fact they only had 5-6 mil world wide) due to breaking some kinda chinese law about western games
(Source http://daeity.blogspot.com.au/2011/02/active-subscriptions-revisited-part-1.html)
Ignoring this fact, let's just examine the 4 months when servers were offline and there were no subscriptions or players.
That was a loss of approximately 5-6 million players world wide. There were no announcements made, e.g. "Blizzard announces World of Warcraft is down to 5 million worldwide!" After all, why would they?
However, during this entire time news websites around the world continued to promote 11 or 11.5 million Subscribers, even though the number was closer to half.
Also here some financial number for blizzard
here are their financials over the most recent 3 month period: (Post date is 8/09/2010)
World of Warcraft Gross Profits: $301.75 million
World of Warcraft Operating Costs: $12.75 million (Source)
World of Warcraft GAAP Net Revenue: $289 million (Latest Quarterly Report)
(also note the blizzard cash shop was up and running at the time of these statistics, so taking that into account there would be less than 6.7 mill subscribers.)
(Note: GAAP means "Generally Accepted Accounting Principles" but when corporations use non-GAAP methodologies, they can inflate or stretch numbers in their books. So it's safe to say that GAAP is the more "honest" figure. If you review their other Quarterly Reports for 2008 and 2009, they also show similar rates.)
Sales during those months were negligible, so their monthly subscriptions totaled approx. $301.75 million gross worldwide.
At a rate of $15 per month, that only accounts for 6.7 million active subscribers! That's almost 50 percent!
How about you read this first http://daeity.blogspot.com.au/2010/08/blizzards-active-subscription-numbers.html and http://daeity.blogspot.com.au/2011/02/active-subscriptions-revisited-part-1.htmlthen get back to me telling em that WoW still has 11.4 million subscribers in march 2011, because any person with half a brain can see that blizzard just like throwing random numbers out there making themself look good dispite half of those numbers dont even play the game.
The last population update sony ever released for EQ said they had 450,000. I can only assume it never went higher than that because they kept announcing it every time they went up by 50k.
The very fact you think the average subscription is 15 dollars a month alone proves you lack the analytical skills needed to even come close to an answer. Plus, the china model is substantially different
Simple truth: No one that posts on these forums has a damn clue what the WoW subs actually are.
DO i think they are over 11 million? No, I think Blizzard measures them in a way convenient to them. But your theory that they count everyone who has ever bought the game, along with banned accounts, is beyond ridiculous.
1. Breaking subs down east vs west for games available in both the east and west is ridiculous. Even using this biased method still gives multiple games that broke 400k subs for more than one month. WAR,AoC,SwToR to name a few. It isnt like eq didnt have eastern subs included in their numbers
2. Eq's numbers came out a time when they were the only game in town and even so they pale in comparision to better games later. You are trying to compare apples to oranges. A game would need maybe 50-100k in todays market to compare to eq's 400k with no competition.
3. UO wasnt 3d competition but even if you include it as well 3 games isnt "a lot" of competition. Looking at mmodata guestimates shows eq hitting 400k before either daoc or ac launched. This is also the time when boxed accounts skyrocketed.
4. No im not a fan of $oe but it isnt without cause and im more than able to think clearly concerning $oe and their offereings. Eq was a huge game, but again this had more to do with being the first than anything else. Its a legend because it was first. No idea what you even mean by grouping mechanism. Holy trinity?Auto attack afk?One person boxing entire group?
As ive said many times before eq is a good game but it is far from some pinnacle of gaming achievement. Its success was due more to right place right time than anything else. Had it released in a saturated market like WoW it would have been lucky to hit 50-100k subs,period. The whole tit for tat all stems from $oe claiming eq was a "way of life" for millions which is a flat out lie.