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REAL (napkin) math on servers, 1017, sales, and peak concurrence
BadSpock
Member UncommonPosts: 7,979
FFXIV has/had supposedly about 190k concurrent users at one point or another.
GW2 announced they hit 460K.
GW2 has sold (according to them) about 3.5 million copies.
190k to 460k is about 41% of concurrent users.
so 41% of 3.5 million sold is probably close to 1.43 million copies sold.
Makes sense since SE stated they had a million + beta sign ups.
If out of 3.5 million users 460k are online at a time in GW2, that is around 13% of your user base logged in at once.
13% of 1.43 million users is about 186k
So that sounds pretty damn close to me for FFXIV.
So I'm guessing about 1.5 million sold so far, and peak concurrency of around 185k so probably only about 5k or so players are ever "locked out" at a time.
Or 0.3% of the player base.
190k/50 servers = 3800 users per server.
Spread those 5,000 people who are trying to play and can't across the 50 servers, about a 100 people per server are stuck in queue or unable to log in at any given time- which is probably about right.
Expanding their tech to allow 100 people more per server is only an increase of 2.6%, so if maintenance + upgrades gives 10% increase concurrent connections (or about what they are planning to raise to 200K concurrent capacity)
That'll be 380 more players allowed per server and should cover current player base + 7.4% growth or another 111,000 new user accounts.
Comments
Now some servers don't have queues or 1017, especially on the JP side, so it's probably more like 0 on some of those 25 servers and 200-300 on some of the EU/NA servers.
But the averages work out.
Aren't basic math and logical reasoning fun?!?
BIGGEST problem, IMO, is no AFK boots for people who stay logged in forever.
Would certainly help some of the 0.3% who are not able to log in right now.
So 10% increase to concurrent users (190K to 200K as I saw somewhere on the official forums) would allow 380 more users per server and solve the 200-300 NA/EU users per server not able to log in.
With room for a few more.
Suddenly makes a LOT of sense what SE is doing and everything that have said doesn't it?
GW2 has sold 3.5 million copies since launch, true... but it is not subscription based, so the question is how many active accounts(players who were still actively playing the game) were there at the time when that 460k was recorded.
I know during head start there were 1 million sales, and 400k concurrent users.
Given that we don't have numbers on actually active accounts, it would make more sense to compare head-start against head-start...
So if we use your math for that, that would make it 47.5 %.
if we accept that the ratio of concurrent users holds true for the sales (which I am not sure we can since they have artificially capped it out, whereas GW2 let everyone play immediately, even if it was on an overflow) that would put their total sales at 475000, of which. That would put you at 61k users... but that doesn't jive with the 187k number that they put out.
Also, GW2 opened in more regions and with more of a time zone spread than FFXIV did...
You are taking two completely unrelated pieces of data and drawing a relation between them that doesn't exist.
It would be like saying "Ok, lets take the concurrent users from FFXI in january 2005 and the total sales as of today, and try and use that to make a comparison with FFXIV current concurrent users+subscribers"... And yes, in this case(since we are talking about a time where the 30 day free hasn't even started yet 1 sale equals 1 subscriber.
tl;dr
I don't think your math works, because your basic premises are completely wrong.
Correlation does not imply causation, and these numbers are certainly not at all scientifically accurate and at best are educated guesses.
GW2 =/ FFXIV of course, so no real 1-1 correlation between users/concurrent etc. can be made.
etc. etc. etc. disclaimer blah blah blah
Still though, paints a nice picture don't it?
I think the most important point of the GW2 data is the relationship between concurrent users and total sales.
MMO gamers are MMO gamers, habits are habits.
I'd bet you'd find only a small deviation in the % of users concurrently playing to total users for a game across different time zones no matter what the game is.
EvE online, for example, 450k subs or so, 60k concurrent users... hmmm.... 13%... coincidence? Two data points don't make a relationship. But 3?
Not really... because there is neither correlation nor causation in what you wrote.
In order to do an accurate comparison, even for napkin math, you need to be comparing like to like. Comparing on one side the ration of concurrent users to active subscribers and on the other side the ratio of concurrent users(at a random point in time) to total sales since release doesn't give you anything... Certainly nothing that is applicable to the discussion at hand.
Try comparing head-start data to head-start data, since you can assume that all purchases are active players/subscribers at that point...
I think everything I have said is realistic and probable, versus the claim of 6 million box sales which is frankly ridiculous.
Much more likely than 5.8 million+ people not being able to play the game...
Except that 3.5 million total sales does not tell you anything about how many people are still actively playing, or how many were actively playing on the date where you got your concurrent users data for.
The same way that you can't look at the total lifetime sales for World of Warcraft and assume that that is the same number as the active subscribers today, you can't do the same on GW2. A lot of people left over time... Some return, but many do not.
Your basic premise is flawed and that ruins all the rest of it.
Go ahead and do the same calculation based on the lifetime sales for world of warcraft across all regions and all media(not just NA physical boxes, but digital sales too, worldwide), vs. current subscribers.
The time frame is mostly irrelevant, as concurrent users for GW2 were likely at or around the time of launch (as it'd likely be the highest number they can brag about) AND FFXIV:ARR assumptions are based around right now time, which is also launch.
So....
Pretty much comes down to - does 13% of total users being logged in at once (concurrent) seem like a relatively accurate guess?
Based on GW2 numbers, FFXIV numbers, EvE online numbers, and probably a few more I could dig up - I'm confident there wouldn't be too much deviation.
More than 1/10 people who bought the game are playing right now, across the world, in many different time zones.
I can get behind that idea. Anything higher seems highly improbable.
It is pretty cool that when someone puts a big question towards your math you say that theirs shouldn't be considered because GW2 =/ FFXIV and doesn't your own math paint a nice picture.
I don't think your math has any relevance or relation to actual sales of FFXIV. I'm sure if the sales numbers are good enough then they will at some point release that info. If they don't, then they were probably a bit disappointing.
He's trying to SWAG a relationship between sales and concurrency to apply a static framework to what he guessed about FFXIV. Keep in mind that the concurrency number is the peak and without knowing the slope of the sales curve, it's utterly impossible to back that out to make an apples to apples comparison. He simply used the next best thing.
It's a far sight better than the ridiculousness you spewed out. You are are outgunned on this thread, badly.
I'm not saying I'm right.
I'm saying I'm a LOT less wrong.
My numbers, though made up, make a lot more sense.
Much better point of discussion.
The time frame is only relevant because you brought in the total sales of GW2... The figure you quoted is from a year of play and after player attrition. The only place where we have actual info on concurrent players vs. active players is from head start where we had 1 million active players with 400k concurrent players. If there were 3.5 million total sales for GW2 it pretty much means that at no point were there 3.5 million active players. so basically you are comparing GW2 concurrent users(at highest point and GW2 accounts(both active and inactive from head start to current) against FFXIV concurrent users and FFXIV accounts(active only).
That means that you are trying to do a comparison of 2 completely different pieces of data.
Simply a question of logic-
1. Does SE know how many players are trying to connect and failing and/or in queue?
2. Would SE plan to expand their service to support less than the number of players in 1?
I wish I could again find the post where they say the expansion will bring their concurrent load up to 200k...
Your numbers may or may not be closer, but your math and logic is wrong.
I posted a link to it in my thread.
Also, another thing you didn't account for is people logging out of those other games when they are done playing.
In FFXIV most people do not log out, they just AFK indefinitely so they don't lose their place otherwise they are likely not to get back in... ever...
the administrators of zam.com and many of the fan sites are warning people not to log out.
Allow me to simplify what Mors is saying, because I think he has a valid point to why this math isn't even close to a valid approach.
Spock is saying that GW2 has sold over 3.2 million and had a peak concurrence of 460k. He is then saying that he's heard that FF has hit 160k peak concurrence and he is then doing a simple ratio calculation to make an assumed sales amount.
Mors is pointing out the major flaw is that when GW2 allegedly peaked at that high of a concurrence was early on when they had close to a million sales so the ratio should be done with that number not the lifetime of 3.2 million, which in turn greatly reduces the FF sales Spock is suggesting.
That would in fact be a better approach (although still not the least bit scientifically valid as a way to determine subs at all so the whole argument is meaningless from the get go) because the 3.2m doesn't relate as much to the 460k the way the 1m does. Also you would then be comparing similar points in time.
You can't say that this one game had a lifetime sales of this but at one point early on had X many concurrences so this other game will follow this path. There have been MMOs who had high peaks, but dropped off very fast. Others have started low and grown over the years. And others have fluctuated at all different speeds. So in this instance the closest relation would be the starting peak of GW2 and starting sales compared to the starting peak of FF to get a relation of starting sales and that is what Mors is suggesting. Even still, that number would in no manner reflect any scientific method to getting a correct number and would be 100% guess.
Are you trying so desperately to "defeat" my logic and chain of thought / reasoning to cover up how far fetched and improbable the figures were/are in your thread?
I don't get the zeal...
SE is expanding the concurrent users to 200K, it would seem to reason that would be enough to correct the current issues would it not?
If your math and logic were correct, they'd need to increase their capacity by a factor of 4 over what they are.
If it were closer to 40% of concurrent to total players as you suggest, and your math and logic were correct, they'd have to increase their capacity by a factor of 10.
Wouldn't they have announced their increases concurrent capacity from 180K to 1.8 million then?
And wouldn't that make FFXIV the most played MMORPG of all time and truly shatter every record ever?
Not going to happen, not happened, not happening.
Exactly, though I didn't think I would need to be so verbose about it to make that point.
Yeah I've said that a few times in this thread.
Doesn't make the claim that 6 million boxes have been sold and 5.8 million people are unable to play any LESS ridiculous.
I merely seek to use BETTER logic and BETTER math, of course even close to accurate as no one but SE knows, to BETTER explain what they are doing and what is MORE likely CLOSER to the truth.
I figured that'd be obvious to anyone reading... especially 'cause I've said it a few times.
but if the 460k concurrent you gave was at or around the time of launch when they had 1 million sales, then it is not 13% conccurrent, it is 46% of total active users logged in at once.
that is why time matters.
What you are doing is like saying "let's create a ratio of the maintenance costs of the chevy cruze at one month on the road, and the mileage of the chevy cruze after 2 years on the road, and then compare it to the maintenance costs of the dodge dart after 2 years, and the mileage of the dodge dart after 2 years. See, these numbers prove that the TCO is much lower on the Cruze".
Well, if you compare things that are completely unrelated (active subscriptions/accounts at the time when you are taking the concurrent player figure in one case vs. total sales over the first year in the other case) you will get numbers that are irrelevant.
If 46% of total FFXIV users were logged in at once, then the game has only sold about 391K copies if their peak concurrency is 180k.
Does that seem right to you?
It's napkin math. It's all bullshit.
I'm sorry my bullshit is better than yours?! What?
My number, though made up and logically assumed / differed based on limited available information, an intelligent person could look at and say "Yep, I could see that. I mean, we don't know for sure, but that at least makes sense."
Which is the whole point:
Making sense of this chaos. Trying to shed some light.