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Seems like the game has peaked on XFire - Part 2
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But that doesn't matter because people in 30 day free month are also reflected in xFire, so when they disappear, they will also disappear from xfire (in whatever proportion).
An honest review of SW:TOR 6/10 (Danny Wojcicki)
Well if those with free 30 days still don't play they won't be counted on X-fire anyways.
And I think there is a large amount of players that got the free 30 days that aren't playing.
Yes that's true but don't think it can explain the difference between a 24% drop and a 70% drop. Specially if we consider that the free month was after the 31-march....
An honest review of SW:TOR 6/10 (Danny Wojcicki)
Conference call notes are up and, other than repeating the preapared comments they add a little but not much. There are about 3 paragraphs but this one caught my eye most:
Yes, sure. The trend line on Star Wars is as follows. When we launched the product back in December, it was an event launch and we brought in a lot of users, and with a brand like Star Wars it reaches out much past the hard-core MMO fan base into the broader market. And as the service evolves from here what we're seeing is that some of those initial casual customers have gone through a billing cycle and decided not to subscribe to the game. But for the most part, we are seeing very good retention amongst core MMO users, which has given us a solid base of around 1.3 million subscribers. The percentage of paying subscribers from our peak until now has actually gone up, and the folks that we have are as engaged as they were when they first bought the product. And in fact if you look at how we are going to be releasing content going forward, we have a lot of elder gameplay, a lot of extension content that will keep them engaged and continue to grow subs.
Bit confused here ! are they trying to suggest that their core mmo base is non-SW folk. 9How do they even know).
And then: the % of paying subscribers from our peak until now has actually gone up. Everyone who bought the game paid so if they were talking about subs in the industry defined sense that would be 100%. So peak must include those on one of the trials? If so - so what e.g. they could have had 1M subs and 9M trials i.e. 10% (1M out of 10M). A week later they only have 800k subs but only 4.2M trials - so 800k out of 5M. Hence the percentage of paying subs has gone up!!!!!
I am open to other interpretations though.
And that is pretty much it other than the fact that they are going to be focusing on PDPs - making the game even less of an mmo? (PDP = Personal Development Plans!)
Seemed very down played overall - its a top 10 title but not a top 5 etc.
They kill me with this shit. If it is so great then what is it? How much did it go up by? So if they have an actual number of the 1.3 million that are paying customers what the fuck is it?
These guys use so much doubletalk and vague descriptors it isn't even funny.
1. For god's sake mmo gamers, enough with the analogies. They're unnecessary and your comparisons are terrible, dissimilar, and illogical.
2. To posters feeling the need to state how f2p really isn't f2p: Players understand the concept. You aren't privy to some secret the rest are missing. You're embarrassing yourself.
3. Yes, Cpt. Obvious, we're not industry experts. Now run along and let the big people use the forums for their purpose.
The malfunction is the explanation. 2264 is not an accurate figure. Xfire users were logged out for over 6 hours yesterday./ last night
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They don't
Ok, if there was a malfunction, it will be reflected in the coming days. We will see.
Remember guys, that it is not only X-Fire that points towards a huge decline. So does eye witnesses (see all the posts about empty servers) and so does the TORstatus.
I don't believe EA one bit on their report. They have been manipulating the activity so bad with a hailstorm of free trials and the 30-day extension, and noone really knows how they define a "subscriber".
They are full of shit, and the 1.3 million is a preposterous claim, in light of the anecdotal evidence.
And yet here you are unable to stop yourself clicking on the thread, I think you secretly love us and our thread.I agree with you Zymurgeist.
How about if day 1 was the peak "box sales" figure (or day 20 etc.) then at that point on 2M box sales - all counted as subs - maybe they had 100k signed up for more than the first month: 5%. (Figures are illustrative)
Fast forward 4 months; sold an extra 400k. Now are they calculating the percentage value on 400k e.g. extra 400k sold, 100k sign up, conversion rate now 25%. Or on the 2.4M e.g. 240k now subscribed so conversion rate is now 10%.
There will be issues with whether they count people as a 'monthly sub' if they are in their 30 days but, to me, it is a very woolly statement to make. I can understand it if they were a retailer reporting like-for-like / same store sales but in an mmo. And if they are using the 2.4M value then we will never hear it again as it is bound to fall over time.
Sounds good though.
Subs are dropping that is for sure, but the 2264 figure is inaccurate, Xfire was down throughout US primetime, and that figure should be ignored. It is not a figure to flaunt if you want SWTOR to fail, nor a figure to panic over if you do not want it to fail.
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Well, I just checked out the other games. The drop trend on Tuesday is unique to SWTOR in the sense that it plumetted.
But we'll have to see though.
lol, elegant.
An honest review of SW:TOR 6/10 (Danny Wojcicki)
It’s kind of surprising how accurate the xfire numbers were when you take the box sale numbers into account and not the subscriber numbers...since both are represented in the xfire player base.
But what’s even more surprising is the amount of people who don’t seem to have any knowledge of statistics.
Can you actually pass high school in the us without stochastic theory and probability calculus?
I agree.
We will see in 12 hours.
It is 2378 today, and if it was not for the malfunction I reckon it would have been in the 2400s-2500s.
It did affect other games, as I know for a fact, because I could not increase STO or LOTRO by 1 myself that day, and that thread I linked to proves I was not the only one, but everyone was affected. Even when they do a patch it knocks people out and sometimes loses hours, this was a lot longer downtime than a regular maintenance period. Also I had to close down Xfire this time as the failed reconnections got annoying, whereas on a normal maintenance period, I just wait about 15 mins and try again, and is usually successful
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Sorry, but your theory is not plausible anymore.
It was not a theory it is fact. Xfire malfunctioned and prevented people recording their stats. WIth me it affected LOTRO and STO.
What is not plausible is the 2264 figure. The true figure for the other day will never be known, but I say it would have been about 2400-2500.
The figure has increased today, so that means the number of xfire players are increasing? No, because the figure of 2264 is not accurate. The numbers are still decreasing
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If you guys find any errors in the numbers/dates please tell me and i will corret it. Thanks.
February date for the 1.7M figure is aproximate, since i don't have data for earlier days.
An honest review of SW:TOR 6/10 (Danny Wojcicki)
lol. Most school districts don't even teach statistics. Calculus is a fringe course. Algebra. Algebra II. Geometry/Trigonometry is the typical college-prep maty cycle.
24th December 2011
1
1,453,494
N/A
1,453,494
31st December 2011
2
311,687
-78.6%
1,765,181
07th January 2012
3
111,777
-64.1%
1,876,958
14th January 2012
4
64,151
-42.6%
1,941,109
21st January 2012
5
55,933
-12.8%
1,997,042
28th January 2012
6
46,406
-17.0%
2,043,448
04th February 2012
7
32,861
-29.2%
2,076,309
11th February 2012
8
26,190
-20.3%
2,102,499
18th February 2012
9
24,606
-6.0%
2,127,105
25th February 2012
10
23,962
-2.6%
2,151,067
They only track weekly sales, for this chart purpse, the first ten weeks.
Global Annual Summary (Units)
Year
Yearly
Change
Total
2011
1,765,181
N/A
1,765,181
2012
535,022
-69.7%
2,300,203
http://www.vgchartz.com/game/31584/star-wars-the-old-republic/
These numbers tie, very much, with the numbers reported by EA. So, no crying about it, fanboys.
Weekly sales, for the first time ever, have finally gone up. That is due to opening the game in 38 more countries. It's an insignificant boost. Sales went from approx 13K two weeks ago to 15k last week (week ended April 28th, 2012). Another way to put it... It was close to a pointless exercise. 38 countries shared about 2K to 3K worth of sales.
Also, you change your chart 01/01/2012 should be 1.76 million sales. May 2nd should be at 2.3 million.
These are, by the way, retail sales. EA sales include wholesale sales. That's why they're claiming 2.4 million. For them, it was 2.4 million. For population dynamics, it 2.3 million becaues there is 100K of unsold inventory. Which, I went to my local Target yesterday, and 20 of them were there... Probably the same 20 that were there last week... (BTW, that is just an anecdote, but I think it's amusing and could very well speak to what's going on...)
Remember, when ever we talk about EA and numbers: They're talking wholesale and Origin retail, not actual retail. Therefore, their sales figures will be over-stated when compared to retail sales. When they talk subscribers, they're talking about legal obligations to provide goods and services, not active players. So their 'subscribers' will always over-state compared to active players.
This is a nice argument you guys are having. But even if ther was a blip that cost a small number of players, it's not really effecting the slope of the decline all that much.
The 2.4M sold is as of the end of April.
They also announced over 1M players on the 23rd December, 28M in game hours.
26th December - 60M in game hours
1st Feb press release: sold over 2M and a thriving base of 1.7M, over 259M in game hours. The 2M figure as of 1st February is borne out by their prepared comments - note the full stop in the second quote:
"To date we have sold through more than 2 million units".
"At the end of the quarter we launched Star Wars: Th eOld Republic recording strong initial results with this very important digital service. Two million people have purchased the game. "
Yep, that is what I was saying, but they seemed to think the malfunction made no impact, and would have dropped from about 2600 to 2264 regardless, and implied that it would be below 2000 or something now, but todays figure is 2310. Clearly that huge drop the other day was due to that malfunction, and not a speedier decline.
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