Originally posted by munx4555 2.5mill active users per week in guildwars 2? I find that extremly hard to belive, while you get what you payed for with guild wars 2, it lacks the ability to keep its players intrested over a long period of time.
Talking about yourself i suppose...
I´ve been playing since Beta & stills holds my interest.
I play everyday.
It lacking the ability to keep players intrested over a long periods of time, does not mean that there are no players that will stick with it.
Personally I have stuck with quite a few mmos way past theyr natural lifespan simply because the guilds/communities I were a part of were intresting enough to keep me going.
Also if you manage to get fixated on the cash grind for legendary items, I imagine that is also a way of keeping busy.
This said, what guild wars 2 does well is that it manages attract new players almost as quickly as it loses its old ones, however I very much doubt this is nearly enough to push guildwars 2 anywhere near 2.5m unique users per week.
Haters gonna hate.
Like it or not GW2 IS a very successful MMO and likely the most successful MMO since WoW.
All games have a grind of some sorts be it legendary items or raids, a time sink is essential in an MMO.
Originally posted by Mannish If this game has 2.5 million active players they would have made expansions for it.
Actually, if it had 500K or so active players they would be forced to.
Most successful MMOs release the first expansion after 2 years or so, they can easily live on other stuff until then.
And yes, NC soft have talked about an expansion even if ANET still are silent (talking about an expansion too early might get people to wait buying the game).
If you want an example then Wow had something like this after a year and still waited a long time for their first expansion.
Like it or not GW2 IS a very successful MMO and likely the most successful MMO since WoW.
All games have a grind of some sorts be it legendary items or raids, a time sink is essential in an MMO.
I love the game but I still think NC soft counts anyone who logged in the last 30 days as active, not every week. Still, even if the number would be only half of that number (which is highly unlike, 1,5-2M seems more likely) it would still be very impressive.
Just curious, what servers are full? My server is pretty dead unless every player on my server just does WvW now.
I recently just got back into the game to see whats going on with my level 40 character.
I was going to xfer to another world, but there is a nice xfer cost to do so and thought about starting over on a active server.
Some players say Anvil or Yak is the best place to go, is this true?
I'm not at my client, but I think it is Blackgate and Tarnished Coast, isn't it? Which is still impressive, they increased all the caps to allow more people per server and things are filling yet again.
If you're thinking of transferring, what is it you want to do? WvW, for example, I'd consider Jade Quarry as a excellent choice (for PvE as well actually). Best bet is to check out the official forums though and get feedback there.
I posted in that thread on reddit a few times. My one post criticizing the numbers promptly got downvoted, while other posts making ridiculously wild assumptions in favor of GW2 - like the one that giddily surmises that Anet might actually be close to 6 million GW2 box sales and just haven't announced it yet because they want to keep it a surprise - received unreserved upvotes. I mean, I've always known how biases influence our perspective, but I've also seen reason triumph over and over again, for all but the most hopeless cases. This particular case just demonstrated a complete disregard for reason, a the immense blinding effect of bias, and an utter lack of understanding of numbers like retention.
Anyone who knows me around here knows I'm a huge GW2 fan. It's been my main MMO since it was in beta, the only MMO that has even come close to holding my attention for the past 3 years. That said, there are just certain facts we can't ignore.
The highest number of sales so far has been 3 million. This does include digital sales (unlike what another wonky reddit poster suggested, which also received numerous upvotes), which comprised the vast majority of sales for this game. You can also bet your butt they'll announce it when they reach 4 million. So current sales lie between 3 and 4 million.
At the most extreme, this is an 83% retention rate. That would mean 83% of all players who purchased and tried GW2 have stuck around and continue to log in "actively," however that is to be defined. This. Is. Absurd. I can't stress that enough. It's a completely off-the-wall, astronomical, bonkers number that never has and never will be true for any game in the history of online gaming.
AT the least extreme, this is a 63% retention rate, which would still be absolutely record shattering for any MMO 11 months in.
All this begs two questions: how valid is this 2.5 million number, and what constitutes an "active user"? Since it came from the official GW2 Chinese website, I'm inclined to trust the 2.5 million number. I'm not a conspiracy theorist who thinks every company is lying to everybody all the time about everything. There's usually some measure of oversight to public release of numbers like these.
With that said, I can only conclude that, for the purposes of that statistic, Anet is counting every account that "logs in," which, we must remember, must be done for anyone who decides to do as little as update their client. Being a free game where everyone who owns it can at least log in and update, I wouldn't be surprised if huge numbers of players who aren't really playing the game at all do at least that much every time they get that biweekly email bragging about all the new content that came out.
This would help account for the strikingly low 12 average minutes played per player per day stat. If we remove as much as 1 million of those "active players," this number increases to 20.3 minutes played per player per day.
Now all these number shifts are speculation, but that's exactly my point. Speculating and assuming is exactly what everyone is doing here; except I see so many people wildly speculating with what seems like a blind intent to make their champion game look unrealistically remarkable. Let's try to keep it reasonable, guys.
+1 for reality
Not reality at all. There are plenty of new players in the game and people are not thinking about that. You don't need a box, just an electronic download. I will give you an example - I bought the deluxe electronic version, which is not counted in box sales. Only boxes are counted. How many electronic sales were there? We don't know but I would think it is higher than the 3 million box sales.
Just something to think about.
Haters will hate and will deny because if you continue to tell a lie, it eventually does become reality (or what they hope will happen).
I posted in that thread on reddit a few times. My one post criticizing the numbers promptly got downvoted, while other posts making ridiculously wild assumptions in favor of GW2 - like the one that giddily surmises that Anet might actually be close to 6 million GW2 box sales and just haven't announced it yet because they want to keep it a surprise - received unreserved upvotes. I mean, I've always known how biases influence our perspective, but I've also seen reason triumph over and over again, for all but the most hopeless cases. This particular case just demonstrated a complete disregard for reason, a the immense blinding effect of bias, and an utter lack of understanding of numbers like retention.
Anyone who knows me around here knows I'm a huge GW2 fan. It's been my main MMO since it was in beta, the only MMO that has even come close to holding my attention for the past 3 years. That said, there are just certain facts we can't ignore.
The highest number of sales so far has been 3 million. This does include digital sales (unlike what another wonky reddit poster suggested, which also received numerous upvotes), which comprised the vast majority of sales for this game. You can also bet your butt they'll announce it when they reach 4 million. So current sales lie between 3 and 4 million.
At the most extreme, this is an 83% retention rate. That would mean 83% of all players who purchased and tried GW2 have stuck around and continue to log in "actively," however that is to be defined. This. Is. Absurd. I can't stress that enough. It's a completely off-the-wall, astronomical, bonkers number that never has and never will be true for any game in the history of online gaming.
AT the least extreme, this is a 63% retention rate, which would still be absolutely record shattering for any MMO 11 months in.
All this begs two questions: how valid is this 2.5 million number, and what constitutes an "active user"? Since it came from the official GW2 Chinese website, I'm inclined to trust the 2.5 million number. I'm not a conspiracy theorist who thinks every company is lying to everybody all the time about everything. There's usually some measure of oversight to public release of numbers like these.
With that said, I can only conclude that, for the purposes of that statistic, Anet is counting every account that "logs in," which, we must remember, must be done for anyone who decides to do as little as update their client. Being a free game where everyone who owns it can at least log in and update, I wouldn't be surprised if huge numbers of players who aren't really playing the game at all do at least that much every time they get that biweekly email bragging about all the new content that came out.
This would help account for the strikingly low 12 average minutes played per player per day stat. If we remove as much as 1 million of those "active players," this number increases to 20.3 minutes played per player per day.
Now all these number shifts are speculation, but that's exactly my point. Speculating and assuming is exactly what everyone is doing here; except I see so many people wildly speculating with what seems like a blind intent to make their champion game look unrealistically remarkable. Let's try to keep it reasonable, guys.
+1 for reality
Not reality at all. There are plenty of new players in the game and people are not thinking about that. You don't need a box, just an electronic download. I will give you an example - I bought the deluxe electronic version, which is not counted in box sales. Only boxes are counted. How many electronic sales were there? We don't know but I would think it is higher than the 3 million box sales.
Just something to think about.
Haters will hate and will deny because if you continue to tell a lie, it eventually does become reality (or what they hope will happen).
Exactly what makes anything in Homitu's post hateful?
I may or may not agree with his assessment, but I don't see a hater in there.
Maybe 2.5 million LOGINS per week? You know, same guys logging in again and again..
That I would find much easier to believe.
Yeah I don't think it's 2.5 million UNIQUE users per week just 2.5 million logins total, you know if I log in once each day for a week I'll be counted 7 times not once. The 3 millions sales figure kind of backs that up, that or that's hell of a retention rate.
I posted in that thread on reddit a few times. My one post criticizing the numbers promptly got downvoted, while other posts making ridiculously wild assumptions in favor of GW2 - like the one that giddily surmises that Anet might actually be close to 6 million GW2 box sales and just haven't announced it yet because they want to keep it a surprise - received unreserved upvotes. I mean, I've always known how biases influence our perspective, but I've also seen reason triumph over and over again, for all but the most hopeless cases. This particular case just demonstrated a complete disregard for reason, a the immense blinding effect of bias, and an utter lack of understanding of numbers like retention.
Anyone who knows me around here knows I'm a huge GW2 fan. It's been my main MMO since it was in beta, the only MMO that has even come close to holding my attention for the past 3 years. That said, there are just certain facts we can't ignore.
The highest number of sales so far has been 3 million. This does include digital sales (unlike what another wonky reddit poster suggested, which also received numerous upvotes), which comprised the vast majority of sales for this game. You can also bet your butt they'll announce it when they reach 4 million. So current sales lie between 3 and 4 million.
At the most extreme, this is an 83% retention rate. That would mean 83% of all players who purchased and tried GW2 have stuck around and continue to log in "actively," however that is to be defined. This. Is. Absurd. I can't stress that enough. It's a completely off-the-wall, astronomical, bonkers number that never has and never will be true for any game in the history of online gaming.
AT the least extreme, this is a 63% retention rate, which would still be absolutely record shattering for any MMO 11 months in.
All this begs two questions: how valid is this 2.5 million number, and what constitutes an "active user"? Since it came from the official GW2 Chinese website, I'm inclined to trust the 2.5 million number. I'm not a conspiracy theorist who thinks every company is lying to everybody all the time about everything. There's usually some measure of oversight to public release of numbers like these.
With that said, I can only conclude that, for the purposes of that statistic, Anet is counting every account that "logs in," which, we must remember, must be done for anyone who decides to do as little as update their client. Being a free game where everyone who owns it can at least log in and update, I wouldn't be surprised if huge numbers of players who aren't really playing the game at all do at least that much every time they get that biweekly email bragging about all the new content that came out.
This would help account for the strikingly low 12 average minutes played per player per day stat. If we remove as much as 1 million of those "active players," this number increases to 20.3 minutes played per player per day.
Now all these number shifts are speculation, but that's exactly my point. Speculating and assuming is exactly what everyone is doing here; except I see so many people wildly speculating with what seems like a blind intent to make their champion game look unrealistically remarkable. Let's try to keep it reasonable, guys.
+1 for reality
Not reality at all. There are plenty of new players in the game and people are not thinking about that. You don't need a box, just an electronic download. I will give you an example - I bought the deluxe electronic version, which is not counted in box sales. Only boxes are counted. How many electronic sales were there? We don't know but I would think it is higher than the 3 million box sales.
Just something to think about.
Haters will hate and will deny because if you continue to tell a lie, it eventually does become reality (or what they hope will happen).
I fail to see the hate? or it is just the cliche line you guys like to throw around when you have no argument left to offer to the other side?
"The problem is that the hardcore folks always want the same thing: 'We want exactly what you gave us before, but it has to be completely different.' -Jesse Schell
"Online gamers are the most ludicrously entitled beings since Caligula made his horse a senator, and at least the horse never said anything stupid." -Luke McKinney
Maybe 2.5 million LOGINS per week? You know, same guys logging in again and again..
That I would find much easier to believe.
Yeah I don't think it's 2.5 million UNIQUE users per week just 2.5 million logins total, you know if I log in once each day for a week I'll be counted 7 times not once. The 3 millions sales figure kind of backs that up, that or that's hell of a retention rate.
I think it is 2.5 million unique users per week that log in.
I just think that about 1 million probably just log in to update the client. Which is why the average of 12 minutes per day played is so low.
The game is very active...though people here refuse to believe it...I'd say it has a retention rate at the LOWEST 50% and high end 70%.
Haters gonna hate. (Not neccessarily the people in quotes).
"As you read these words, a release is seven days or less away or has just happened within the last seven days those are now the only two states youll find the world of Tyria."...Guild Wars 2
Originally posted by DoogiehowserI fail to see the hate? or it is just the cliche line you guys like to throw around when you have no argument left to offer to the other side?
When you have people only coming to a game's specific forum to bash that game, often without even playing it, it's not hard to put a "hater" label on them. I call it a crusade, which is just as bad if not worse in my opinion.Not saying this about you by the way, but just trying to explain... many are sick of people coming to forums of games they obviously know nothing about just to bash them.
But that's the thing here, That post was totally out of line. No one referenced in that thread was being a hater. Homitu is far from being a hater, And regardless of the next poster's history, he was simply agreeing with Homitu. If that 2nd poster is a confirmed, self proclaimed GW2 hater, his post is still only being in agreement with a previous non-hateful post. So that isn't hating either. The follow up was an ad-hom attack.
I posted in that thread on reddit a few times. My one post criticizing the numbers promptly got downvoted, while other posts making ridiculously wild assumptions in favor of GW2 - like the one that giddily surmises that Anet might actually be close to 6 million GW2 box sales and just haven't announced it yet because they want to keep it a surprise - received unreserved upvotes. I mean, I've always known how biases influence our perspective, but I've also seen reason triumph over and over again, for all but the most hopeless cases. This particular case just demonstrated a complete disregard for reason, a the immense blinding effect of bias, and an utter lack of understanding of numbers like retention.
Anyone who knows me around here knows I'm a huge GW2 fan. It's been my main MMO since it was in beta, the only MMO that has even come close to holding my attention for the past 3 years. That said, there are just certain facts we can't ignore.
The highest number of sales so far has been 3 million. This does include digital sales (unlike what another wonky reddit poster suggested, which also received numerous upvotes), which comprised the vast majority of sales for this game. You can also bet your butt they'll announce it when they reach 4 million. So current sales lie between 3 and 4 million.
At the most extreme, this is an 83% retention rate. That would mean 83% of all players who purchased and tried GW2 have stuck around and continue to log in "actively," however that is to be defined. This. Is. Absurd. I can't stress that enough. It's a completely off-the-wall, astronomical, bonkers number that never has and never will be true for any game in the history of online gaming.
AT the least extreme, this is a 63% retention rate, which would still be absolutely record shattering for any MMO 11 months in.
All this begs two questions: how valid is this 2.5 million number, and what constitutes an "active user"? Since it came from the official GW2 Chinese website, I'm inclined to trust the 2.5 million number. I'm not a conspiracy theorist who thinks every company is lying to everybody all the time about everything. There's usually some measure of oversight to public release of numbers like these.
With that said, I can only conclude that, for the purposes of that statistic, Anet is counting every account that "logs in," which, we must remember, must be done for anyone who decides to do as little as update their client. Being a free game where everyone who owns it can at least log in and update, I wouldn't be surprised if huge numbers of players who aren't really playing the game at all do at least that much every time they get that biweekly email bragging about all the new content that came out.
This would help account for the strikingly low 12 average minutes played per player per day stat. If we remove as much as 1 million of those "active players," this number increases to 20.3 minutes played per player per day.
Now all these number shifts are speculation, but that's exactly my point. Speculating and assuming is exactly what everyone is doing here; except I see so many people wildly speculating with what seems like a blind intent to make their champion game look unrealistically remarkable. Let's try to keep it reasonable, guys.
+1 for reality
Not reality at all. There are plenty of new players in the game and people are not thinking about that. You don't need a box, just an electronic download. I will give you an example - I bought the deluxe electronic version, which is not counted in box sales. Only boxes are counted. How many electronic sales were there? We don't know but I would think it is higher than the 3 million box sales.
Just something to think about.
Haters will hate and will deny because if you continue to tell a lie, it eventually does become reality (or what they hope will happen).
Exactly what makes anything in Homitu's post hateful?
I may or may not agree with his assessment, but I don't see a hater in there.
Calling Homitu a hater when he has already admitted to being a huge GW2 fan is a bit surprising, personally i found his reasoning fairly logical, and also somewhat believable, its kind of amusing that because he's not feeding the hype, that he's suddenly labelled a hater, and the only arguments, if they can even be called that, that even attempt to refute his arguments are along the lines of 'because i said so' which are so poorly thought out that they only serve to highlight how reasonable Homitu's reasoning is.
I posted in that thread on reddit a few times. My one post criticizing the numbers promptly got downvoted, while other posts making ridiculously wild assumptions in favor of GW2 - like the one that giddily surmises that Anet might actually be close to 6 million GW2 box sales and just haven't announced it yet because they want to keep it a surprise - received unreserved upvotes. I mean, I've always known how biases influence our perspective, but I've also seen reason triumph over and over again, for all but the most hopeless cases. This particular case just demonstrated a complete disregard for reason, a the immense blinding effect of bias, and an utter lack of understanding of numbers like retention.
Anyone who knows me around here knows I'm a huge GW2 fan. It's been my main MMO since it was in beta, the only MMO that has even come close to holding my attention for the past 3 years. That said, there are just certain facts we can't ignore.
The highest number of sales so far has been 3 million. This does include digital sales (unlike what another wonky reddit poster suggested, which also received numerous upvotes), which comprised the vast majority of sales for this game. You can also bet your butt they'll announce it when they reach 4 million. So current sales lie between 3 and 4 million.
At the most extreme, this is an 83% retention rate. That would mean 83% of all players who purchased and tried GW2 have stuck around and continue to log in "actively," however that is to be defined. This. Is. Absurd. I can't stress that enough. It's a completely off-the-wall, astronomical, bonkers number that never has and never will be true for any game in the history of online gaming.
AT the least extreme, this is a 63% retention rate, which would still be absolutely record shattering for any MMO 11 months in.
All this begs two questions: how valid is this 2.5 million number, and what constitutes an "active user"? Since it came from the official GW2 Chinese website, I'm inclined to trust the 2.5 million number. I'm not a conspiracy theorist who thinks every company is lying to everybody all the time about everything. There's usually some measure of oversight to public release of numbers like these.
With that said, I can only conclude that, for the purposes of that statistic, Anet is counting every account that "logs in," which, we must remember, must be done for anyone who decides to do as little as update their client. Being a free game where everyone who owns it can at least log in and update, I wouldn't be surprised if huge numbers of players who aren't really playing the game at all do at least that much every time they get that biweekly email bragging about all the new content that came out.
This would help account for the strikingly low 12 average minutes played per player per day stat. If we remove as much as 1 million of those "active players," this number increases to 20.3 minutes played per player per day.
Now all these number shifts are speculation, but that's exactly my point. Speculating and assuming is exactly what everyone is doing here; except I see so many people wildly speculating with what seems like a blind intent to make their champion game look unrealistically remarkable. Let's try to keep it reasonable, guys.
+1 for reality
Not reality at all. There are plenty of new players in the game and people are not thinking about that. You don't need a box, just an electronic download. I will give you an example - I bought the deluxe electronic version, which is not counted in box sales. Only boxes are counted. How many electronic sales were there? We don't know but I would think it is higher than the 3 million box sales.
Just something to think about.
Haters will hate and will deny because if you continue to tell a lie, it eventually does become reality (or what they hope will happen).
Exactly what makes anything in Homitu's post hateful?
I may or may not agree with his assessment, but I don't see a hater in there.
Calling Homitu a hater when he has already admitted to being a huge GW2 fan is a bit surprising, personally i found his reasoning fairly logical, and also somewhat believable, its kind of amusing that because he's not feeding the hype, that he's suddenly labelled a hater, and the only arguments, if they can even be called that, that even attempt to refute his arguments are along the lines of 'because i said so' which are so poorly thought out that they only serve to highlight how reasonable Homitu's reasoning is.
Yea, I find Homitu's post probably closer to reality.
The game is still doing EXTREMELY well. Developers would KILL for 60-70% retention 11 months out. And its current 3Million+ boxes don't even account for the influx we are going to see from China (they were a huge force in GW1).
And with updates every 2 weeks giving people a reason to AT LEAST log on to check the game out twice a month...GW2 is doing fine.
Though I will say that I don't blame anyone here for being a bit defensive...GW2 forums here are notorious for people who played the game during the first 2-3 months (or sometimes not at all) commenting on the current state of the game...it's very easy to be upset.
"As you read these words, a release is seven days or less away or has just happened within the last seven days those are now the only two states youll find the world of Tyria."...Guild Wars 2
I fail to see the hate? or it is just the cliche line you guys like to throw around when you have no argument left to offer to the other side?
When you have people only coming to a game's specific forum to bash that game, often without even playing it, it's not hard to put a "hater" label on them. I call it a crusade, which is just as bad if not worse in my opinion.
Not saying this about you by the way, or about Homitu either... but just trying to explain... many are sick of people coming to forums of games they obviously know nothing about just to bash them.
But the post i am talking about is in relation to what Homitu said. Only because he and others refuse to believe in '2.5 million active' number doesn't mean they are hater. He posted a well thought out post and he was simply shrugged off as a 'hater'. Just shows the over zealous nature of GW2 fans.
Originally posted by Vorch
Originally posted by expresso
Originally posted by wizyy
Maybe 2.5 million LOGINS per week? You know, same guys logging in again and again..
That I would find much easier to believe.
Yeah I don't think it's 2.5 million UNIQUE users per week just 2.5 million logins total, you know if I log in once each day for a week I'll be counted 7 times not once. The 3 millions sales figure kind of backs that up, that or that's hell of a retention rate.
I think it is 2.5 million unique users per week that log in.
I just think that about 1 million probably just log in to update the client. Which is why the average of 12 minutes per day played is so low.
The game is very active...though people here refuse to believe it...I'd say it has a retention rate at the LOWEST 50% and high end 70%.
Haters gonna hate.
Another post to prove my point. notice the 'i think' part. Only because someone doesn't think the same as this gentleman.. he is a 'hater'.
"The problem is that the hardcore folks always want the same thing: 'We want exactly what you gave us before, but it has to be completely different.' -Jesse Schell
"Online gamers are the most ludicrously entitled beings since Caligula made his horse a senator, and at least the horse never said anything stupid." -Luke McKinney
Why exactly are people in any way surprised that a B2P game has good retention?
The only reason you would ever permanently quit GW2 is if you out and out hate playing it. That's it. Otherwise, it's very easy to just pop back in, level and alt, do some pvp/dungeons/run around the map and not be worse off for it. It sure as hell beats sitting around MMORPG.com all day whining about why games aren't exactly what you wish they were.
And while it's not quite as deep as I would personally like, I do understand it's appeal and continue to play it. Look at the popularity of MOBAs. GW2 is basically an RPG MOBA, you get a limited set of skills and a game world (a really well crafted one at that). You play for skins and for side events. It's a somewhat shallow experience . . . just like a MOBA.
If GW2 was top down isometric, I bet people would call it the greatest ARPG ever. But because it's 3D and called a MMO, it's not up to par. Down to semantics really.
I fail to see the hate? or it is just the cliche line you guys like to throw around when you have no argument left to offer to the other side?
When you have people only coming to a game's specific forum to bash that game, often without even playing it, it's not hard to put a "hater" label on them. I call it a crusade, which is just as bad if not worse in my opinion.
Not saying this about you by the way, or about Homitu either... but just trying to explain... many are sick of people coming to forums of games they obviously know nothing about just to bash them.
But the post i am talking about is in relation to what Homitu said. Only because he and others refuse to believe in '2.5 million active' number doesn't mean they are hater. He posted a well thought out post and he was simply shrugged off as a 'hater'. Just shows the over zealous nature of GW2 fans.
Originally posted by Vorch
Originally posted by expresso
Originally posted by wizyy
Maybe 2.5 million LOGINS per week? You know, same guys logging in again and again..
That I would find much easier to believe.
Yeah I don't think it's 2.5 million UNIQUE users per week just 2.5 million logins total, you know if I log in once each day for a week I'll be counted 7 times not once. The 3 millions sales figure kind of backs that up, that or that's hell of a retention rate.
I think it is 2.5 million unique users per week that log in.
I just think that about 1 million probably just log in to update the client. Which is why the average of 12 minutes per day played is so low.
The game is very active...though people here refuse to believe it...I'd say it has a retention rate at the LOWEST 50% and high end 70%.
Haters gonna hate.
Another post to prove my point. notice the 'i think' part. Only because someone doesn't think the same as this gentleman.. he is a 'hater'.
I apologize. I wasn't calling anyone in the quotes a hater, though it certainly appears that way. Just people who continue to think the game is dying.
I'll edit for clarity so that you can understand it better.
"As you read these words, a release is seven days or less away or has just happened within the last seven days those are now the only two states youll find the world of Tyria."...Guild Wars 2
2.5 million active users weekly / 7 days ~ 357,142 active users daily
508,428 hours daily
508,428 hours daily / 357,142 active users daily ~ 1.42 hours (1 hour 25 minutes) daily per user
OP should learn the maths, stop being a hater and try to seek attention somewhere else.
On a side note 1 hour 25 minutes daily per user is pretty good for a single player rpg (online lobby rpg at best) almost year after the release.
It is not a lobby game - GW1 is close to that not GW2. When you exit a city after antother player (going to the same area) you end up following them, you do not have a different instance.
I posted in that thread on reddit a few times. My one post criticizing the numbers promptly got downvoted, while other posts making ridiculously wild assumptions in favor of GW2 - like the one that giddily surmises that Anet might actually be close to 6 million GW2 box sales and just haven't announced it yet because they want to keep it a surprise - received unreserved upvotes. I mean, I've always known how biases influence our perspective, but I've also seen reason triumph over and over again, for all but the most hopeless cases. This particular case just demonstrated a complete disregard for reason, a the immense blinding effect of bias, and an utter lack of understanding of numbers like retention.
Anyone who knows me around here knows I'm a huge GW2 fan. It's been my main MMO since it was in beta, the only MMO that has even come close to holding my attention for the past 3 years. That said, there are just certain facts we can't ignore.
The highest number of sales so far has been 3 million. This does include digital sales (unlike what another wonky reddit poster suggested, which also received numerous upvotes), which comprised the vast majority of sales for this game. You can also bet your butt they'll announce it when they reach 4 million. So current sales lie between 3 and 4 million.
At the most extreme, this is an 83% retention rate. That would mean 83% of all players who purchased and tried GW2 have stuck around and continue to log in "actively," however that is to be defined. This. Is. Absurd. I can't stress that enough. It's a completely off-the-wall, astronomical, bonkers number that never has and never will be true for any game in the history of online gaming.
AT the least extreme, this is a 63% retention rate, which would still be absolutely record shattering for any MMO 11 months in.
All this begs two questions: how valid is this 2.5 million number, and what constitutes an "active user"? Since it came from the official GW2 Chinese website, I'm inclined to trust the 2.5 million number. I'm not a conspiracy theorist who thinks every company is lying to everybody all the time about everything. There's usually some measure of oversight to public release of numbers like these.
With that said, I can only conclude that, for the purposes of that statistic, Anet is counting every account that "logs in," which, we must remember, must be done for anyone who decides to do as little as update their client. Being a free game where everyone who owns it can at least log in and update, I wouldn't be surprised if huge numbers of players who aren't really playing the game at all do at least that much every time they get that biweekly email bragging about all the new content that came out.
This would help account for the strikingly low 12 average minutes played per player per day stat. If we remove as much as 1 million of those "active players," this number increases to 20.3 minutes played per player per day.
Now all these number shifts are speculation, but that's exactly my point. Speculating and assuming is exactly what everyone is doing here; except I see so many people wildly speculating with what seems like a blind intent to make their champion game look unrealistically remarkable. Let's try to keep it reasonable, guys.
+1 for reality
Not reality at all. There are plenty of new players in the game and people are not thinking about that. You don't need a box, just an electronic download. I will give you an example - I bought the deluxe electronic version, which is not counted in box sales. Only boxes are counted. How many electronic sales were there? We don't know but I would think it is higher than the 3 million box sales.
Just something to think about.
Haters will hate and will deny because if you continue to tell a lie, it eventually does become reality (or what they hope will happen).
Exactly what makes anything in Homitu's post hateful?
I may or may not agree with his assessment, but I don't see a hater in there.
We have had these types of threads in the past and most who come in saying 'GW2 is dying' or 'I can't find a group, GW2 is dying', etc does not look at things in any form of reality.
I was not saying he was a hater - but we have them on this board. It was a general expression.
If those stats were true, GW2 would be shouting from the roof tops. You would have marketing using that to their full advantage. Fastest growing MMO. MMO with the strongest retention, etc. etc. Most successful AAA MMO, since WoW.
2.5 million active users weekly / 7 days ~ 357,142 active users daily
508,428 hours daily
508,428 hours daily / 357,142 active users daily ~ 1.42 hours (1 hour 25 minutes) daily per user
OP should learn the maths, stop being a hater and try to seek attention somewhere else.
On a side note 1 hour 25 minutes daily per user is pretty good for a single player rpg (online lobby rpg at best) almost year after the release.
It is not a lobby game - GW1 is close to that not GW2. When you exit a city after antother player (going to the same area) you end up following them, you do not have a different instance.
It IS a lobby game. To exit city I must go through portal which will put me in map instance. To go back to city instance I must go through the portal. You won't always end up following person because you might appear in overflow instance if regular one is full. You don't even get to see what is happening in different zone from distance because, guess what, you are in instance of that zone and next zone is just an another instance. There is no open persistent world (or at least there is no feeling of it) - there are bunch of lobbies connected together with portals.
2.5 million active users weekly / 7 days ~ 357,142 active users daily
508,428 hours daily
508,428 hours daily / 357,142 active users daily ~ 1.42 hours (1 hour 25 minutes) daily per user
OP should learn the maths, stop being a hater and try to seek attention somewhere else.
On a side note 1 hour 25 minutes daily per user is pretty good for a single player rpg (online lobby rpg at best) almost year after the release.
It is not a lobby game - GW1 is close to that not GW2. When you exit a city after antother player (going to the same area) you end up following them, you do not have a different instance.
It IS a lobby game. To exit city I must go through portal which will put me in map instance. To go back to city instance I must go through the portal. You won't always end up following person because you might appear in overflow instance if regular one is full. You don't even get to see what is happening in different zone from distance because, guess what, you are in instance of that zone and next zone is just an another instance. There is no open persistent world (or at least there is no feeling of it) - there are bunch of lobbies connected together with portals.
I'm starting to wonder what companies are paying such people to spread such lies.
I know, sorta like saying it has 2.5 million UNIQUE users log in every week as some are stating.
2.5 million active users weekly / 7 days ~ 357,142 active users daily
508,428 hours daily
508,428 hours daily / 357,142 active users daily ~ 1.42 hours (1 hour 25 minutes) daily per user
OP should learn the maths, stop being a hater and try to seek attention somewhere else.
On a side note 1 hour 25 minutes daily per user is pretty good for a single player rpg (online lobby rpg at best) almost year after the release.
It is not a lobby game - GW1 is close to that not GW2. When you exit a city after antother player (going to the same area) you end up following them, you do not have a different instance.
It IS a lobby game. To exit city I must go through portal which will put me in map instance. To go back to city instance I must go through the portal. You won't always end up following person because you might appear in overflow instance if regular one is full. You don't even get to see what is happening in different zone from distance because, guess what, you are in instance of that zone and next zone is just an another instance. There is no open persistent world (or at least there is no feeling of it) - there are bunch of lobbies connected together with portals.
I'm starting to wonder what companies are paying such people to spread such lies.
Let's take an exceptional event, aka overflow server, and make it a generality in order to bash a game.
I guess those people rather wait in a login queue for one hour or more in order to be able to play.
It is NOT a lobby game - please. D3 is a lobby game, GW1 is a lobby game, how is GW2 a lobby game? OH, you go through a portal. THey broke the game up in areas to make it easier to run on smaller servers, I would assume. That is why overflow, as you get a max number of players, so the game doesn't slow down for others. Please DonVadim, really read what a lobby game is.
Comments
Haters gonna hate.
Like it or not GW2 IS a very successful MMO and likely the most successful MMO since WoW.
All games have a grind of some sorts be it legendary items or raids, a time sink is essential in an MMO.
Actually, if it had 500K or so active players they would be forced to.
Most successful MMOs release the first expansion after 2 years or so, they can easily live on other stuff until then.
And yes, NC soft have talked about an expansion even if ANET still are silent (talking about an expansion too early might get people to wait buying the game).
If you want an example then Wow had something like this after a year and still waited a long time for their first expansion.
I love the game but I still think NC soft counts anyone who logged in the last 30 days as active, not every week. Still, even if the number would be only half of that number (which is highly unlike, 1,5-2M seems more likely) it would still be very impressive.
Just curious, what servers are full? My server is pretty dead unless every player on my server just does WvW now.
I recently just got back into the game to see whats going on with my level 40 character.
I was going to xfer to another world, but there is a nice xfer cost to do so and thought about starting over on a active server.
Some players say Anvil or Yak is the best place to go, is this true?
I'm not at my client, but I think it is Blackgate and Tarnished Coast, isn't it? Which is still impressive, they increased all the caps to allow more people per server and things are filling yet again.
If you're thinking of transferring, what is it you want to do? WvW, for example, I'd consider Jade Quarry as a excellent choice (for PvE as well actually). Best bet is to check out the official forums though and get feedback there.
Oderint, dum metuant.
Not reality at all. There are plenty of new players in the game and people are not thinking about that. You don't need a box, just an electronic download. I will give you an example - I bought the deluxe electronic version, which is not counted in box sales. Only boxes are counted. How many electronic sales were there? We don't know but I would think it is higher than the 3 million box sales.
Just something to think about.
Haters will hate and will deny because if you continue to tell a lie, it eventually does become reality (or what they hope will happen).
Exactly what makes anything in Homitu's post hateful?
I may or may not agree with his assessment, but I don't see a hater in there.
Yeah I don't think it's 2.5 million UNIQUE users per week just 2.5 million logins total, you know if I log in once each day for a week I'll be counted 7 times not once. The 3 millions sales figure kind of backs that up, that or that's hell of a retention rate.
I fail to see the hate? or it is just the cliche line you guys like to throw around when you have no argument left to offer to the other side?
"The problem is that the hardcore folks always want the same thing: 'We want exactly what you gave us before, but it has to be completely different.'
-Jesse Schell
"Online gamers are the most ludicrously entitled beings since Caligula made his horse a senator, and at least the horse never said anything stupid."
-Luke McKinney
I think it is 2.5 million unique users per week that log in.
I just think that about 1 million probably just log in to update the client. Which is why the average of 12 minutes per day played is so low.
The game is very active...though people here refuse to believe it...I'd say it has a retention rate at the LOWEST 50% and high end 70%.
Haters gonna hate. (Not neccessarily the people in quotes).
"As you read these words, a release is seven days or less away or has just happened within the last seven days those are now the only two states youll find the world of Tyria."...Guild Wars 2
But that's the thing here, That post was totally out of line. No one referenced in that thread was being a hater. Homitu is far from being a hater, And regardless of the next poster's history, he was simply agreeing with Homitu. If that 2nd poster is a confirmed, self proclaimed GW2 hater, his post is still only being in agreement with a previous non-hateful post. So that isn't hating either. The follow up was an ad-hom attack.
Calling Homitu a hater when he has already admitted to being a huge GW2 fan is a bit surprising, personally i found his reasoning fairly logical, and also somewhat believable, its kind of amusing that because he's not feeding the hype, that he's suddenly labelled a hater, and the only arguments, if they can even be called that, that even attempt to refute his arguments are along the lines of 'because i said so' which are so poorly thought out that they only serve to highlight how reasonable Homitu's reasoning is.
Yea, I find Homitu's post probably closer to reality.
The game is still doing EXTREMELY well. Developers would KILL for 60-70% retention 11 months out. And its current 3Million+ boxes don't even account for the influx we are going to see from China (they were a huge force in GW1).
And with updates every 2 weeks giving people a reason to AT LEAST log on to check the game out twice a month...GW2 is doing fine.
Though I will say that I don't blame anyone here for being a bit defensive...GW2 forums here are notorious for people who played the game during the first 2-3 months (or sometimes not at all) commenting on the current state of the game...it's very easy to be upset.
"As you read these words, a release is seven days or less away or has just happened within the last seven days those are now the only two states youll find the world of Tyria."...Guild Wars 2
2.5 million active users weekly / 7 days ~ 357,142 active users daily
508,428 hours daily
508,428 hours daily / 357,142 active users daily ~ 1.42 hours (1 hour 25 minutes) daily per user
OP should learn the maths, stop being a hater and try to seek attention somewhere else.
On a side note 1 hour 25 minutes daily per user is pretty good for a single player rpg (online lobby rpg at best) almost year after the release.
But the post i am talking about is in relation to what Homitu said. Only because he and others refuse to believe in '2.5 million active' number doesn't mean they are hater. He posted a well thought out post and he was simply shrugged off as a 'hater'. Just shows the over zealous nature of GW2 fans.
Another post to prove my point. notice the 'i think' part. Only because someone doesn't think the same as this gentleman.. he is a 'hater'.
"The problem is that the hardcore folks always want the same thing: 'We want exactly what you gave us before, but it has to be completely different.'
-Jesse Schell
"Online gamers are the most ludicrously entitled beings since Caligula made his horse a senator, and at least the horse never said anything stupid."
-Luke McKinney
Why exactly are people in any way surprised that a B2P game has good retention?
The only reason you would ever permanently quit GW2 is if you out and out hate playing it. That's it. Otherwise, it's very easy to just pop back in, level and alt, do some pvp/dungeons/run around the map and not be worse off for it. It sure as hell beats sitting around MMORPG.com all day whining about why games aren't exactly what you wish they were.
And while it's not quite as deep as I would personally like, I do understand it's appeal and continue to play it. Look at the popularity of MOBAs. GW2 is basically an RPG MOBA, you get a limited set of skills and a game world (a really well crafted one at that). You play for skins and for side events. It's a somewhat shallow experience . . . just like a MOBA.
If GW2 was top down isometric, I bet people would call it the greatest ARPG ever. But because it's 3D and called a MMO, it's not up to par. Down to semantics really.
I apologize. I wasn't calling anyone in the quotes a hater, though it certainly appears that way. Just people who continue to think the game is dying.
I'll edit for clarity so that you can understand it better.
"As you read these words, a release is seven days or less away or has just happened within the last seven days those are now the only two states youll find the world of Tyria."...Guild Wars 2
Too little context to form a reasonable idea of how a game is doing.
Concurrency would be more important to me than 'active logins', handily CCP display concurrency prior to login.
So things we know are hours played and peak concurrency, from which we can get a ballpark figure for other games, thus;
EVE - 2150 - 55000 (peak concurrent)
SWTOR - 3483 - 89100
GW2 - 6807 - 174132
WOW - 15257 - 390295
From here it's fair to note that shortly after GW2 launched ANet said concurrency was ~400,000, so currently 44% of that figure.
I see numbers, but I have no idea where they came from or what they mean.
Oderint, dum metuant.
It is not a lobby game - GW1 is close to that not GW2. When you exit a city after antother player (going to the same area) you end up following them, you do not have a different instance.
We have had these types of threads in the past and most who come in saying 'GW2 is dying' or 'I can't find a group, GW2 is dying', etc does not look at things in any form of reality.
I was not saying he was a hater - but we have them on this board. It was a general expression.
If those stats were true, GW2 would be shouting from the roof tops. You would have marketing using that to their full advantage. Fastest growing MMO. MMO with the strongest retention, etc. etc. Most successful AAA MMO, since WoW.
Yeah.
It IS a lobby game. To exit city I must go through portal which will put me in map instance. To go back to city instance I must go through the portal. You won't always end up following person because you might appear in overflow instance if regular one is full. You don't even get to see what is happening in different zone from distance because, guess what, you are in instance of that zone and next zone is just an another instance. There is no open persistent world (or at least there is no feeling of it) - there are bunch of lobbies connected together with portals.
I know, sorta like saying it has 2.5 million UNIQUE users log in every week as some are stating.
It is NOT a lobby game - please. D3 is a lobby game, GW1 is a lobby game, how is GW2 a lobby game? OH, you go through a portal. THey broke the game up in areas to make it easier to run on smaller servers, I would assume. That is why overflow, as you get a max number of players, so the game doesn't slow down for others. Please DonVadim, really read what a lobby game is.