I really hope this puts to rest all the talk about Bioware being "dishonest". They seem pretty forth-right in giving this information (which not every company gives subscriber numbers). I don't think this is a surprising number, although it's probably a little higher than I excpected but still seems pretty reasonable.
I haven't played SWTOR so I could be completely missing the ball here, but I never understood SWTOR's focus on the storyline. Games that tend to focus on story are great games, but they tend to lack replay value, since once you've done it once, you've done it all.
1.3 million paying customers, making it easily the second largest western MMO, is... Dying?
It's a question of return on investment. If you cut through the cheering/jeering from the stands, there is a real serious question here about the entire future of our hobby.
If the game is sufficiently profitable, it will become the template for the entire next generation of clones (from the tiny collection of companies able to afford to pay the cost). If the game fails to turn a profit, it will be unlikely we see another fully voice-acted story-driven MMO attempted any time soon.
Given the astronomical sums whispered about how much was spent to construct the game, it is entirely possible for it to have one of the highest subscription rates ever and still be the death of its infant subgenre. That said, there are so many contradictory numbers and so much spin flying around that I'm finding it difficult to get a feel on exactly what's going on. I guess only time will tell how investors and publishers are reading these reports.
EA spent around 100 million to developed SWTOR and they got all that money back from their box sales.
Seeing these numbers makes the dual free membership offers last month make a lot of sense. I thought that a report must have been coming out. 1.3 is still a far cry from 1.7, especially considering that no new MMOs have come out. Technically SWTOR should be king of the roost right now. Tera's a few weeks away, GW2 only has beta weekends and Secret World delayed 3 months.
So that means 400k people just decided to stop playing and not play anything else or play soemthng they use to play. I still bet their real sub rate is close to 1.1.
I haven't played SWTOR so I could be completely missing the ball here, but I never understood SWTOR's focus on the storyline. Games that tend to focus on story are great games, but they tend to lack replay value, since once you've done it once, you've done it all.
you sir just figured out what a team of stuck up over paid game developers could not
1.3 million paying customers, making it easily the second largest western MMO, is... Dying?
Because, you know, it's not like newly released MMOs typically lose subscribers after a few months.
1.3 million paying customers does not equal 1.3 million playing customers. I tried it out for a short while this past month and it was kind of infuriating that my server choices where either A) Dead with sub 50 fleet or Massive queues on servers like fatman. Remember that long term subs that have yet to expire are counted, and factor in the extremely clever business ploy of handing out a free month of subscription time before a quarterly report to delay subscription cancelation (why cancel a subscription when it's free?).
While SWTOR definitely does still have a large player base, this is due to the massive amount of initial sales due to the company reputation, strong IP, and massive marketing/hype blitz. 2.2 million initial box sales and a few months later they have only 1.3 million retained ignoring the factors I already brought up? That is not a comforting trend no matter how you spin it. Now spread the players you do have over literally hundreds of servers and suddenly you have a fairly toxic environment for an MMO where many basic functions of the game cannot work due to player starvation, like flashpoints and battlegrounds.
I'm not trying to say that SWTOR is doomed and you should all feel bad for playing it, but putting your head in the sand is not going to fix the very real problems currently facing the game. If/When it loses another 400k subscribers in another few months, will you still say "oh 900k paying customers, making it the second largest western MMO, is....Dying?" How about at the end of the year if it loses another 300k? Sure analysts estimate that only half a million subs would be needed to make it continue generating profit, but at that point you won't be able to get fast patches and content updates since the game will now be low priority.
Some people say whining won't solve anything, but that's not true. Squeaky wheel gets the grease is the oldest adage out there and I for one am happy that people are voting with their wallet. Sure if you really enjoy SWTOR and want it to be a healthy game with a growing population then this trend might suck for you, but hopefully Bioware either gets their act together or this will be a good lesson for future AAA releases not to ship out an unfinished product lacking core features.
The quarter ended 3/31 and the free 30 days came out in april.
When they last released numbers (1.7m) I believe they took the numbers at the time the report was released and not at the end of the reporting period. However my only source for this is ars technica and kotaku so I have no way of knowing if this is true or not. However I would not be surprised if it was since it seems like a smart idea to me, if you are going to give away a free month worth of subscription revenue then you will want to use it to your financial advantage. I would be surprised if EA (voted worst company in America) decided to give it out from the goodness of their hearts.
The only way I could justify claiming that a flagship title in the MMO space focused on one of the largest franchises of all time was "not a top 5 game" is if I wanted to set myself up for the fall.
"Not a top 5 game" will quickly turn into "not an ongoing concern for EA" into "not a priority for Bioware".
They'll never admit failure, but they will admit a niche when they see it.
We all know the free month give away and waht not is the only reason theyare saying they have 1. whatever subs. Idoubt they have even 500k real subs at the moment and how many of those are 6 month subs that don't even play any longer?
I guess all the people who said it would be f2p after 6 months better update their hyperbole.
More like eradicate this incredibly dumb prediction altogether. Game is not going F2P for a very long time, if ever, at this rate.
Tis a bold claim to make either way.
If SWTOR drops subs by the end of the year, it will go F2P. EA have already implied that the F2P model had been considered and planned for, but that they felt the game was "worth" a subscription. If it isn't, what do you think they'll do?
Do you think they'll look at LotRo, Guild Wars 2 and other games and go, "naah... not worth the 700% increases in profit margins"?
the way it is TOR will have less than 1m subs soon... gw2 comming... tsw.... d3....
Totally different games and neither of the 2 has sub charge.
Are you implying that the release of those two games will have no effect on SWTOR sub numbers?
He is simply correctly stating that even if they play less during the initial launch window of certain b2p games are, since two of those new games dont require a sub, they are less likely to permanently drop a sub as they are not dropping it in favor of anything else. We have seen this with WoW for years and years.
Agreed, but it's too early in the game for such a decline. Yes, even new games will have fluctuations, but they should end up with a net gain at this stage of the cycle. You'd expect that kind of decline well into the second year of a game. The anecdotal evidence of lower numbers when people log in can be misleading on many levels and due to different factors, but Mardukk is obvioiusly using hyperbole when he states a 50% decline when he has absolutely no concrete proof. In fact, If I were to go with his kind of data gathering, when I logged in a couple of weeks ago and started a baby bounty hunter, the instance never had less than 17 people. That may not seem like much, but when I logged in and started my first toon, an agent, that was the exact number of people in the instance back on release week. So, you can see that because it's an instanced game and because one faction is more populated than another and depending on the server you are on and at what time of day and which day of the week.....etc, you can come up with all kinds of conclusions that would be absolutely wrong in the greater picture.
Wonder if all those "loyal" fans that got a free month is in these numbers or not. I still say they will be under 500k after Aug, 7 month mark with the free month.
I will not play a game with a cash shop ever again. A dev job should be to make the game better not make me pay so it sucks less.
Comments
I really hope this puts to rest all the talk about Bioware being "dishonest". They seem pretty forth-right in giving this information (which not every company gives subscriber numbers). I don't think this is a surprising number, although it's probably a little higher than I excpected but still seems pretty reasonable.
I haven't played SWTOR so I could be completely missing the ball here, but I never understood SWTOR's focus on the storyline. Games that tend to focus on story are great games, but they tend to lack replay value, since once you've done it once, you've done it all.
Wow all the doom and gloom around this game, i would have thought it would have been under 400k like a lot of people here were saying.
Still well over 1 million? Good job bioware!
EA spent around 100 million to developed SWTOR and they got all that money back from their box sales.
Seeing these numbers makes the dual free membership offers last month make a lot of sense. I thought that a report must have been coming out. 1.3 is still a far cry from 1.7, especially considering that no new MMOs have come out. Technically SWTOR should be king of the roost right now. Tera's a few weeks away, GW2 only has beta weekends and Secret World delayed 3 months.
So that means 400k people just decided to stop playing and not play anything else or play soemthng they use to play. I still bet their real sub rate is close to 1.1.
you sir just figured out what a team of stuck up over paid game developers could not
I guess all the people who said it would be f2p after 6 months better update their hyperbole.
More like eradicate this incredibly dumb prediction altogether. Game is not going F2P for a very long time, if ever, at this rate.
When they last released numbers (1.7m) I believe they took the numbers at the time the report was released and not at the end of the reporting period. However my only source for this is ars technica and kotaku so I have no way of knowing if this is true or not. However I would not be surprised if it was since it seems like a smart idea to me, if you are going to give away a free month worth of subscription revenue then you will want to use it to your financial advantage. I would be surprised if EA (voted worst company in America) decided to give it out from the goodness of their hearts.
I wish I didn't buy collector's edition.
The game does not run well and bioware have no idea when will they fix it.
I don't care what the numbers say. Log into the game, the servers are dead. Look at the populations on the planets, down at least 50% since launch.
If their numbers are correct there are a lot of people paying a sub and never logging in.
EAs "Not a top 5 game" comment is telling.
The only way I could justify claiming that a flagship title in the MMO space focused on one of the largest franchises of all time was "not a top 5 game" is if I wanted to set myself up for the fall.
"Not a top 5 game" will quickly turn into "not an ongoing concern for EA" into "not a priority for Bioware".
They'll never admit failure, but they will admit a niche when they see it.
I am confused didn't Daniel Erickson state that TOR's population did not drop much if at all from the 1.7 million number?
That was a misleading statement.
Happens in all MMOs.
http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/2986509135
the way it is TOR will have less than 1m subs soon... gw2 comming... tsw.... d3....
We all know the free month give away and waht not is the only reason theyare saying they have 1. whatever subs. Idoubt they have even 500k real subs at the moment and how many of those are 6 month subs that don't even play any longer?
Tis a bold claim to make either way.
If SWTOR drops subs by the end of the year, it will go F2P. EA have already implied that the F2P model had been considered and planned for, but that they felt the game was "worth" a subscription. If it isn't, what do you think they'll do?
Do you think they'll look at LotRo, Guild Wars 2 and other games and go, "naah... not worth the 700% increases in profit margins"?
REALLY?!
Totally different games and neither of the 2 has sub charge.
Are you implying that the release of those two games will have no effect on SWTOR sub numbers?
Why would they effect swtor sub numbers?
He is simply correctly stating that even if they play less during the initial launch window of certain b2p games are, since two of those new games dont require a sub, they are less likely to permanently drop a sub as they are not dropping it in favor of anything else. We have seen this with WoW for years and years.
Because people will stop playing SWTOR to play the other games and then cancel their sub because they aren't playing SWTOR.
People start playing another game.
People stop playing SWTOR.
People cancel sub because they are not playing SWTOR.
I thought that was a pretty straightforward concept.
Agreed, but it's too early in the game for such a decline. Yes, even new games will have fluctuations, but they should end up with a net gain at this stage of the cycle. You'd expect that kind of decline well into the second year of a game. The anecdotal evidence of lower numbers when people log in can be misleading on many levels and due to different factors, but Mardukk is obvioiusly using hyperbole when he states a 50% decline when he has absolutely no concrete proof. In fact, If I were to go with his kind of data gathering, when I logged in a couple of weeks ago and started a baby bounty hunter, the instance never had less than 17 people. That may not seem like much, but when I logged in and started my first toon, an agent, that was the exact number of people in the instance back on release week. So, you can see that because it's an instanced game and because one faction is more populated than another and depending on the server you are on and at what time of day and which day of the week.....etc, you can come up with all kinds of conclusions that would be absolutely wrong in the greater picture.
citation needed.
(although I'm not sure what source I'd actually believe at this point given how many competing claims I've seen posted)
Wonder if all those "loyal" fans that got a free month is in these numbers or not. I still say they will be under 500k after Aug, 7 month mark with the free month.
I will not play a game with a cash shop ever again. A dev job should be to make the game better not make me pay so it sucks less.