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Seems like the game has peaked on XFire - Part 2
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Lizardbones: the point about the medical analogy is that there is an element of selection. I was pointing out that just because people choose to use Xfire does not in and of itself invalidate what is, at the end of the day, simply data. Whether the data is good, bad or indifferent is another matter and that leads on to the margin of error. A lot of medical trial are much smaller as well - often less than 1,000. doesn't matter however: the analogy was about selection.
I don't dispute EA's data but EA themselves have chosen to muddy the water - hence the latest: sybscriptions numbers are very hard to count interview. smoke and mirrors. And as I said I don't think we will get any more info and going forward it would simply be a case of trying to guess the everlasting trial numbers - amd they don't look good.
As for taking the EA numbers and then using what XFire showed this thread made a reasonable stab at saying what should happen - in advance. And everything looked at and brought up suggested that there was some 'reasonable' link between the data XFire was producing and what was happening. How good we don't know but not way off.
And like you I am not bothered what happens
The analogy is about selection? So you're saying that both medical trials and XFire have data selection? True! The problem is that XFire's data selection is known bad. It can't be good because of how they do it. The size is irrelevant. You can poll 3,000 people and know what 3,000,000 people are going to vote in the next election, but you have to be very careful about how you select those 3,000 people. XFire isn't careful. They don't even care who runs XFire. The only thing they care about is getting as many people to run it as they can, so they can advertise to as many people as they can. The initial selection is flawed, so the outcome is flawed. How flawed? Nobody knows because the information isn't provided.
With EA's numbers, either the numbers are accepted as accurate, or not. If they are accepted as accurate, then it makes some sort of sense to try and back track to XFire's numbers. Only sort of because there aren't enough data points to really make that connection. If EA's numbers are used to validate XFire, and then EA's numbers are invalidated, it invalidates XFire's numbers. It's either EA's numbers are accurate, or they're not. It can't be both.
I can look at a chart of the number of pirates in the world and global warming. There is 'obviously' a 'reasonable' link between pirates and global warming. It's right there on the chart. Why isn't anyone taking action on this?
There's a reason that political polls come with a margin of error and a reason medical trials come with a level of significance. It's because humans are so bad at separating random information from actual patterns and relationships. We find patterns and relationships everywhere whether they exist or not.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
6/3 = 1576... looks like only a tiny drop from 1 week ago. Pace of decline slowing for the moment, maybe?
First caveat - we don't know obviously but the other thing of note is that the average hours played has shot up from 4-ish to over 5 (about 5.4 ish). That is a big jump. Now its a holiday weekend in the UK but not in the US or Europe so the obvious reason is that the number of trial players has gone up. And what we have is extra people trying out the new shiny thing.
Just a guess - and as I say we don't know but as there hasn't been a huge content drop to bring existing players back to login for longer .....
You make a game free - sorry introduce an extended never ending trial - and more people will try it.
One more week
An honest review of SW:TOR 6/10 (Danny Wojcicki)
So if we are to believe that there is a correlation between Xfire numbers and sub numbers, then World of Warcraft is down to 1.7 million subs since they are down to the point TOR was in Decenmber?
Currently Playing: World of Warcraft
Wow is not even on that graph lol
Not if they have subbed annually to WOW, and playing D3 which they got free from doing so
Star Trek Online - Best Free MMORPG of 2012
Xfire shows index of active players not sub numbers. Thefore, according to Xfire we can say that WoW at this moment has active players as much as SWTOR had in December, which could very well be true.
So on Xfire, the only MMOs with more active players than SWToR is WoW and EvE?? Am I seeing that graph right? Or is this graph just putting in select games to paint a certain picture?
(DISCLAIMER - The use of the word YOU in the above post is not directed at any one person in particular, but towards those who fall into the category itself - there is no personal attack here, neither intentional nor implied.)
I'm just putting in selected games to paint a certain picture. How did you guess it?An honest review of SW:TOR 6/10 (Danny Wojcicki)
That isn't how this works. One games numbers on Xfire do not mean they are the same for another game. We are looking purely at trends, IE SWTORs Xfire numbers are down X% then the actual population is probably close to down X% as well. It does not mean that 11k Xfire users is equal to 1.7 million people.
I'm just putting in selected games to paint a certain picture. How did you guess it?
Or to answer his questionEve and WoW are only 2 with more LOL
That isn't how this works. One games numbers on Xfire do not mean they are the same for another game. We are looking purely at trends, IE SWTORs Xfire numbers are down X% then the actual population is probably close to down X% as well. It does not mean that 11k Xfire users is equal to 1.7 million people.
That would mean all of the games shown in the chart are getting more players the past few weeks. This makes sense for Tera, but nothing really amazing is happening with any of the other games, especially WoW.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
Perhaps Diablo 3 players have already migrated back.
Eve should appear as 4t, close to Aion 3d.
WoW 1st and SWTOR 2nd.
Is there a problem with the colors? I'm confused.
An honest review of SW:TOR 6/10 (Danny Wojcicki)
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
School just ended for most of the teen and young adult crowd in the US. It would make sense for activity to be up across the board, at least in the short-term.
That isn't how this works. One games numbers on Xfire do not mean they are the same for another game. We are looking purely at trends, IE SWTORs Xfire numbers are down X% then the actual population is probably close to down X% as well. It does not mean that 11k Xfire users is equal to 1.7 million people.
That would mean SWToR started with something like 4 million players.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
Remember, we expect #'s to rise from mon - sun.... it's important to compare the same days, then consider if there are any other obvious factors affecting the data -- ie. last monday was a holiday, thus why it was almost as high as sun.
1426 for monday - tue and wed look like they will bring new all-time lows.
Which would put their subscribers at about 500,000. If they started with 4,000,000. Which would be kind of a stretch since they haven't sold 4 million copies in their entire 6 month lifespan.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
Did you not understand any of the "not's" in the post you just quoted?
4 millions.... I assume you have no other response to the fact that xfire is measuring trends, not absolute numbers, and now you are trolling with fantasy numbers.
everyone knows that every MMO player out there uses Xfire.
"going into arguments with idiots is a lost cause, it requires you to stoop down to their level and you can't win"
That isn't how this works. One games numbers on Xfire do not mean they are the same for another game. We are looking purely at trends, IE SWTORs Xfire numbers are down X% then the actual population is probably close to down X% as well. It does not mean that 11k Xfire users is equal to 1.7 million people.
That would mean SWToR started with something like 4 million players.
Did you not understand any of the "not's" in the post you just quoted?
4 millions.... I assume you have no other response to the fact that xfire is measuring trends, not absolute numbers, and now you are trolling with fantasy numbers.
IE SWTORs Xfire numbers are down X% then the actual population is probably close to down X% as well.
What is that if not 'measuring' trends? If we know that SWToR's population was 1.7 million at a specific point in time, we know that SWToR's population was 1.3 million at a specific point in time, we know XFire's numbers at those specific points in time and we also know the trend that the population is following, we should be able to tell what the initial population was, and what the current population is with some degree of accuracy.
For that matter, we don't need to know XFire's actual numbers, just the % that the numbers have risen and fallen. I'm not sure how you expect that to happen without XFire's actual numbers, but let's pretend we don't know XFire's actual numbers and we're just playing with percentages.
End of March, Bioware reports SWToR's population at 1.3 Million. From then to now, XFire reports the population has dropped about 54%. That means SWToR's population has dropped 54% to about 500,000 players. Now, move backwards in time from end of March to the start of the chart. XFire's population trend rises 300% from the end of March numbers. This would mean that SWToR's population was 300% higher than it was at the end of March. That puts it around 4,000,000 people. Which is not possible, but whatever, we're sailing around fantasy land here anyway.
Oh wait. I forgot, we're supposed to accept that XFire is somehow an accurate representation of measuring trends with no way to measure XFire's accuracy. My bad.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
If EVE online has 4000-6000 hours per day at 350k subscribers and SWTOR has 5000-8000 hours per day, you can easily estimate that SWTOR might have 400k and 550k subscribers -- maybe slighly more towards the upper limit, since assumably EVE players do spend slighly more time in-game, since they log in and train skills even if they're idle.
Now 350k for EVE is also maybe a bit over-estimation, if it's just 250 or 300k, then SWTOR might actually be more around 350-400k subscribers. In the end, we get a number between 350k - 550k.
REALITY CHECK