Originally posted by GuyClinch Zenimax is privately held.. BTW. ..So they aren't under any pressure to release numbers to appease investors.
agree
Turbine LOTRO and Trion RIFT never gave sub retention #s
both were/are privately held
You do realize they didn't -not- give sub numbers because they were privately held, but because the numbers were laughably bad right?
Common sense says, you release the numbers whether you're publicly open or not, if the numbers paint your game in a good light.
I'm expecting Zenimax to release numbers in a way to show the best light
--- number of copies sold
Except they won't. So don't hold your breath. Whether its number of copies sold(which the fact that the collector's edition out sold the regular edition is proof enough the numbers sold are woefully low) or subs, they won't release the info cause they're horrible.
Originally posted by GuyClinch Zenimax is privately held.. BTW. ..So they aren't under any pressure to release numbers to appease investors.
agree
Turbine LOTRO and Trion RIFT never gave sub retention #s
both were/are privately held
You do realize they didn't -not- give sub numbers because they were privately held, but because the numbers were laughably bad right?
Common sense says, you release the numbers whether you're publicly open or not, if the numbers paint your game in a good light.
Giving out sub numbers buys you nothing but headaches which is why very few companies do it in any meaninful manner anymore. Even EVE doesn't do it anymore and it's also why one of the long running MMO sub numbers web sites closed down. You won't earn acclaim for giving out numbers only criticism.
Pretty much this. The only one that really publicly discloses the numbers any more is Blizzard, and that's because they have investors haranguing them constantly.
You mean like Bioware on SWTOR's sales? Like Anet on GW2's sales? Like Square Enix on copies sold and numbers of subs?
Trion boosted about getting more than 1 million forum accounts and nearing 1M subs. ZOS boosts 5 million beta registry entries.
Reality is companies need all the positive marketing they can get, and if your game, or mmo in this case, sells 1-2 million copies/ has 1-2 million subscribers, you can bet they'll talk about it.
What do you think? See who makes the most accurate prediction lol.
I know there are a number of posters on here who thought ESO would be a flop, and have already been proven wrong. I read the bad reviews too, but checked it out myself, and boy were they wrong lol.
This game is totally awesome, and the more you play it the more surprises it throws at you. People in game seem to be loving it, and it seems to be growing exponentially. I have 3 people who said they had no plans to buy it after they read the reviews, all of whom plan to buy now they have seen it for themselves via mine / friends and heard word of mouth.
I think this one will be a snowball effect too, like WoW was when it inflated. The question is, do you think it'll take as long to snowball as WoW did, and do you think it'll exceed the subscriber base by far?
I wonder what impact this will have on other MMOs. Many feel like ghost towns if population drops by 30% or more.
I like ESO, a lot. But these threads are kind of pointless. First off, unless 2 or 3 years from now ESO is still on the sub model and still growing, you probably won't ever hear how many subscribers they have because they are not a publicly traded company. They do not have shareholders that by law, they have to publish an annual, detailed earnings report. They are privately held. They don't have to say jack. So, unless they have reason to brag, say 3 - 5 million subs and growing, I doubt you'll ever hear sub numbers from them.
Also, the estimated market of MMO players in NA is around 12 million give or take. WoW has 7.8 million subs, but you figure only 3 million or so are from the US. EVE also has 500k subs world wide. The rest are F2P folks. 3 sub based games are now vying for MMO business, FFXIV, ESO and soon, Wildstar. As much as I love ESO and think it will do well, I just don't see it getting anywhere near 5 million subs.
I don't think it's going to do well on console because of the double fee. Yes PS4 has waived the PS+ fee, but only if ESO is the only game you play online. But, I'll be shocked if ESO gets any more than a few hundread thousand console players between Xbox1 and PS4.
I think if ESO can capture 1 - 2 million subs and make them loyal subscribers for the next few years that would be a great success. I'm not even sure that will happen however due to the current climate in the market.
I think ESO is a great game. I think it has the potential to be a great revenue generator for Zenimax, but to say it's going to win a lion's share of the MMO market? That's just wishful thinking at this point. I suppose it can, but the odds are stacked up against them.
You'd at least expect copies sold being an advertisement for success, and a way to hype up the game for others on the fence. But with the game being outsold, opening week, by a game that's been out for six months, and the Imperial outselling the regular on major retailers that show off charts...
...The prospect is low that we'll see genuine numbers in the near future.
Originally posted by GuyClinch Zenimax is privately held.. BTW. ..So they aren't under any pressure to release numbers to appease investors.
agree
Turbine LOTRO and Trion RIFT never gave sub retention #s
both were/are privately held
You do realize they didn't -not- give sub numbers because they were privately held, but because the numbers were laughably bad right?
Common sense says, you release the numbers whether you're publicly open or not, if the numbers paint your game in a good light.
Giving out sub numbers buys you nothing but headaches which is why very few companies do it in any meaninful manner anymore. Even EVE doesn't do it anymore and it's also why one of the long running MMO sub numbers web sites closed down. You won't earn acclaim for giving out numbers only criticism.
Pretty much this. The only one that really publicly discloses the numbers any more is Blizzard, and that's because they have investors haranguing them constantly.
You mean like Bioware on SWTOR's sales. Like Anet on GW2's sales. Like Square Enix on copies sold and numbers of subs.
Trion boosted about getting more than 1 million forum accounts and nearing 1M subs. ZOS boosts 5 million beta registry entries.
Reality is companies need all the positive marketing they can get, and if your game, or mmo in this case, sells 1-2 million copies/ has 1-2 million subscribers, you can bet they'll talk about it.
Pretty much this ^. Sure, if 6 months down the line people will bring up that previously released information and obviously draw a compare and contrast between then and now to paint your game in a negative way, but you can't pull a negative spin on "2 million subscribers obtained in just 2 months after launch" in the present.
And let's be honest, if your game failed for people to compare contrast the then and now, then its not you releasing the numbers fault, its whatever decisions you made/didn't make that led to you losing numbers in the first place.
I think that so long as they do a good job of getting a handle on bugs, releasing new content, etc it will likely wind up being the closest thing to a WoW killer than any other game yet. It may not topple it as king, but it will probably land somewhere fairly close to it. Reason being that it has a lot of what WoW had that made it so successful. A series of already established popular games behind it, it runs very nicely without having to have a top of the line gaming rig, it offers good things to a large variety of players (PvErs, PvPers, crafters, RPers, etc), and it takes a lot of already existing things from other games and melds them together well.
But again, that is going to be VERY dependent on the competency of ZoS to do what needs to be done. So many games with huge potential have miserably failed due to the incompetency of the developers to get the game where it should be and making very ridiculous changes in the game that chased off a huge chunk of their playerbase. Sometimes it's as simple as catering too much to 1 crowd or the other. They need to establish a good middle ground to keep everyone interested in all aspects of the game.
Will it reach wow like numbers? no... there wont be another MMO to dominate for nearly a decade like wow has, will some one come along eventually and take its number 1 spot, yes its already happened and its called League of Legends. Are MMOs dead, no of course not they can still be huge money makers even without a wow level of audience, and that is the reality that developers are starting to realise.
What is also starting to happen, very slowly, is we are getting the next generation of MMO's ones that eschew the simple Diku/mud model for something more, again it is happening slowly, but we are getting there. As technology progresses we will see more and more evolution, the revolution happened a long time ago, now its a slow crawl forward.
Is ESO good, so far yes I have enjoyed it for what it is, but it wont change the wheel, and it wont alter the market only add to it.
So no, it wont topple the beast, it will just be another competitor in a very crowded market, and that is why no one will topple wow, the MMO scene is too fragmented for such a massive playerbase to ever coalesce into a single product like they did with wow. Let it go, WoW was and is an anomaly, it is not the rule it is the exception.
Originally posted by Emmer4 Whoever cougan is should try reading my posts lol. I may even buy the game once it stabilises and i have only 1 account on this site. Looking at his post history seems he makes the same excuse for anyone who has doubts about the game ha ha ha....the desperate action of an eso defender because he cant refute the actual details surrounding the actual launch lolz
Looks more like a desperate troll since you completely ignored the question I asked you. No source link of actual physical pre-order sales for NA like you claimed then?
quote
"I'm not so sure...
VGZ quoted 157k physical pre orders for all of NA. So what are we saying there VAST, VAST majority were all digital?
If the game had any form or marketing worthy spin in relation to its sales, be that "most pre ordered PC game ever" or even "most pre ordered MMO ever" then we would have heard all about from ZOS marketing team a long time ago. The fact that they are eerily quiet on the PR front with regard to sales is fishy to me.
I think it will probably get through the usual significant sub drop offs and stabilise at around 300k subs for year 1. Year 2 onwards has F2P cash grab written all over it."
I wondered why this thread got so many many pages so quickly..... And then realised its because ESO has just been patched and many now cannot log in, are waiting for a security code that never or very slowly arrives, often doesn't work anyway, and if they do manage to log in find the game buggy, laggy and/or crash.
"....polished and lag free experience."
*stands in salt circle to protect self from ESO fanbois*
I wondered why this thread got so many many pages so quickly..... And then realised its because ESO has just been patched and many now cannot log in, are waiting for a security code that never or very slowly arrives, often doesn't work anyway, and if they do manage to log in find the game buggy, laggy and/or crash.
"....polished and lag free experience."
*stands in salt circle to protect self from ESO fanbois*
10 million subs! *CACKLE*
edit: Meh, commenting to these are silly. It is just feeding folks that aren't currently playing
Death is nothing to us, since when we are, Death has not come, and when death has come, we are not.
Originally posted by Emmer4 Whoever cougan is should try reading my posts lol. I may even buy the game once it stabilises and i have only 1 account on this site. Looking at his post history seems he makes the same excuse for anyone who has doubts about the game ha ha ha....the desperate action of an eso defender because he cant refute the actual details surrounding the actual launch lolz
Looks more like a desperate troll since you completely ignored the question I asked you. No source link of actual physical pre-order sales for NA like you claimed then?
quote
"I'm not so sure...
VGZ quoted 157k physical pre orders for all of NA. So what are we saying there VAST, VAST majority were all digital?
If the game had any form or marketing worthy spin in relation to its sales, be that "most pre ordered PC game ever" or even "most pre ordered MMO ever" then we would have heard all about from ZOS marketing team a long time ago. The fact that they are eerily quiet on the PR front with regard to sales is fishy to me.
I think it will probably get through the usual significant sub drop offs and stabilise at around 300k subs for year 1. Year 2 onwards has F2P cash grab written all over it."
Lol I don't need to link it...it has been confirmed by other posters in the thread. The VGZ site is there for you to look on the marvel of the interweb although I don't expect you to bother...the truth about ESOs rocky launch seems to offend you somehow....meh.
like I said earlier I'm one of the many who are waiting for ESO to stabilise before we even think about dropping dollars on it. You on the other hand appear far too emotionally invested in the game, so far so that you cannot even be honest about the games launch and subsequent issues.
157k physical pre orders for the whole of NA and ZOS quiet as a church mouse about sales...even if those VGZ numbers are not 100% accurate...they are somewhere close and that's obviously what really narks you lol....
Originally posted by Emmer4 Whoever cougan is should try reading my posts lol. I may even buy the game once it stabilises and i have only 1 account on this site. Looking at his post history seems he makes the same excuse for anyone who has doubts about the game ha ha ha....the desperate action of an eso defender because he cant refute the actual details surrounding the actual launch lolz
Looks more like a desperate troll since you completely ignored the question I asked you. No source link of actual physical pre-order sales for NA like you claimed then?
quote
"I'm not so sure...
VGZ quoted 157k physical pre orders for all of NA. So what are we saying there VAST, VAST majority were all digital?
If the game had any form or marketing worthy spin in relation to its sales, be that "most pre ordered PC game ever" or even "most pre ordered MMO ever" then we would have heard all about from ZOS marketing team a long time ago. The fact that they are eerily quiet on the PR front with regard to sales is fishy to me.
I think it will probably get through the usual significant sub drop offs and stabilise at around 300k subs for year 1. Year 2 onwards has F2P cash grab written all over it."
Lol I don't need to link it...it has been confirmed by other posters in the thread. The VGZ site is there for you to look on the marvel of the interweb although I don't expect you to bother...the truth about ESOs rocky launch seems to offend you somehow....meh.
like I said earlier I'm one of the many who are waiting for ESO to stabilise before we even think about dropping dollars on it. You on the other hand appear far too emotionally invested in the game, so far so that you cannot even be honest about the games launch and subsequent issues.
157k physical pre orders for the whole of NA and ZOS quiet as a church mouse about sales...even if those VGZ numbers are not 100% accurate...they are somewhere close and that's obviously what really narks you lol....
Pretty much this. The only one that really publicly discloses the numbers any more is Blizzard, and that's because they have investors haranguing them constantly.
You mean like Bioware on SWTOR's sales? Like Anet on GW2's sales? Like Square Enix on copies sold and numbers of subs?
Trion boosted about getting more than 1 million forum accounts and nearing 1M subs. ZOS boosts 5 million beta registry entries.
Reality is companies need all the positive marketing they can get, and if your game, or mmo in this case, sells 1-2 million copies/ has 1-2 million subscribers, you can bet they'll talk about it.
A part of it is positive publicity but what Aeonblades is talking about is that some information is released because it has to be released by law. Its not about sub numbers of course but about earnings.
So EA gave out SWTOR info when it was launched in part to put a positive spin on the game - as you say - but also because they had to advise investors of how things had gone - so they could make investment decisions etc. Now EA can get away with reporting SWTOR as one of several games - as they do with DAoC.
Viacom when they owned Activision could probably have buried WoWs numbers but Activision reported independently so they had/have to be reported. Same with ANet. Not so with Funcom though - owned by WarnerBros you will struggle to find any mention of Funcom in WarnerBros report, let alone data on LotR.
So as you say in part it is to do with publicity but the other element is whether they have to - which comes down to how "big" a game is when set against everything else the company does.
Originally posted by Emmer4 Whoever cougan is should try reading my posts lol. I may even buy the game once it stabilises and i have only 1 account on this site. Looking at his post history seems he makes the same excuse for anyone who has doubts about the game ha ha ha....the desperate action of an eso defender because he cant refute the actual details surrounding the actual launch lolz
Looks more like a desperate troll since you completely ignored the question I asked you. No source link of actual physical pre-order sales for NA like you claimed then?
quote
"I'm not so sure...
VGZ quoted 157k physical pre orders for all of NA. So what are we saying there VAST, VAST majority were all digital?
If the game had any form or marketing worthy spin in relation to its sales, be that "most pre ordered PC game ever" or even "most pre ordered MMO ever" then we would have heard all about from ZOS marketing team a long time ago. The fact that they are eerily quiet on the PR front with regard to sales is fishy to me.
I think it will probably get through the usual significant sub drop offs and stabilise at around 300k subs for year 1. Year 2 onwards has F2P cash grab written all over it."
Lol I don't need to link it...it has been confirmed by other posters in the thread. The VGZ site is there for you to look on the marvel of the interweb although I don't expect you to bother...the truth about ESOs rocky launch seems to offend you somehow....meh.
like I said earlier I'm one of the many who are waiting for ESO to stabilise before we even think about dropping dollars on it. You on the other hand appear far too emotionally invested in the game, so far so that you cannot even be honest about the games launch and subsequent issues.
157k physical pre orders for the whole of NA and ZOS quiet as a church mouse about sales...even if those VGZ numbers are not 100% accurate...they are somewhere close and that's obviously what really narks you lol....
Are you just quoting other MMORPG posts then? One other poster confirmed it and said he had no idea how accurate.
Was this number you keep using like the ultimate of facts including copies from Zenimax, Amazon, every retailer?
No of course not...it's just all we have being as ZOS don't seem to want to release any kind of pr about pre orders or sales.
The fact is, those numbers on VGZ whilst not including digital downloads WILL be somewhere near accurate and that really pisses you off. Which is why you pounce to attack anyone who can be honest about the state of the launch. That being something you also seem to want to avoid discussing...and if I was as much as a mis guided white knight as you...I would want to avoid discussing the reality of ESOs launch too
Originally posted by Keylogger_007 WOW has been hemorrhaging rather intensely since Activision stepped in. I would like to see ESO end up with that bit of the MMO playerbase, or at least a stable portion of it.
Keep dreaming. Once WOD is out.. it is going to get a lot of player base back even those who left for ESO. This has been going on for last 8 years and ESO won't even put a dent in WOW.
I wish people would just stop beating this dead horse.
Originally posted by baphametas opposed to the countless ridiculous negative threads out there? but since those are negative they are accepted here.this is the best AAA mmo on the market right now, i don't see the OP as that much of a stretch honestly.it likely may not get the total subs wow has but in the west it could.especially if they are fast in fixing some of the minor issues this game is having right now.
Since you're actually considering that it might reach WoW sub levels I shouldn't really waste my time by responding... but I've got a few minutes of dead time so:
I don't understand what you mean by accepted?.. both far-fetched opinions are equally as bad, whether against or towards the game.
How is it the best AAA mmo ?... does it do everything better than wow? gw2? rift? etc
yes it's better than wow, GW2, and rift IMO
it doesn't yet have the amount of content that other games have that have been out for years but when comparing launches, it's quite good.
im sure some would argue that other AAA mmo's like GW2 and wow are better, that's fine, that is their opinion.
also, read the post you quoted again, i didn't say they would have more total subs than wow, i said in the west ESO could surpass it.
i think having more than 5 or 6 million subs is nearly impossible since they don't have much of a market in Asia like wow does.
how many subs do you think wow has in the west alone currently? you do realize most of those millions of subs come from the Asia market, right?
i never said it was going to happen, i simply said its not that far fetched to suggest it because it is a good AAA mmo, the best on the market currently IMO
sorry that wasn't negative enough for you, do you not know what i mean by "accepted" still?
maybe if i said it was the worst AAA mmo on teh market you would then agree?
Originally posted by Emmer4 Whoever cougan is should try reading my posts lol. I may even buy the game once it stabilises and i have only 1 account on this site. Looking at his post history seems he makes the same excuse for anyone who has doubts about the game ha ha ha....the desperate action of an eso defender because he cant refute the actual details surrounding the actual launch lolz
Looks more like a desperate troll since you completely ignored the question I asked you. No source link of actual physical pre-order sales for NA like you claimed then?
quote
"I'm not so sure...
VGZ quoted 157k physical pre orders for all of NA. So what are we saying there VAST, VAST majority were all digital?
If the game had any form or marketing worthy spin in relation to its sales, be that "most pre ordered PC game ever" or even "most pre ordered MMO ever" then we would have heard all about from ZOS marketing team a long time ago. The fact that they are eerily quiet on the PR front with regard to sales is fishy to me.
I think it will probably get through the usual significant sub drop offs and stabilise at around 300k subs for year 1. Year 2 onwards has F2P cash grab written all over it."
Lol I don't need to link it...it has been confirmed by other posters in the thread. The VGZ site is there for you to look on the marvel of the interweb although I don't expect you to bother...the truth about ESOs rocky launch seems to offend you somehow....meh.
like I said earlier I'm one of the many who are waiting for ESO to stabilise before we even think about dropping dollars on it. You on the other hand appear far too emotionally invested in the game, so far so that you cannot even be honest about the games launch and subsequent issues.
157k physical pre orders for the whole of NA and ZOS quiet as a church mouse about sales...even if those VGZ numbers are not 100% accurate...they are somewhere close and that's obviously what really narks you lol....
Are you just quoting other MMORPG posts then? One other poster confirmed it and said he had no idea how accurate.
Was this number you keep using like the ultimate of facts including copies from Zenimax, Amazon, every retailer?
No of course not...it's just all we have being as ZOS don't seem to want to release any kind of pr about pre orders or sales.
The fact is, those numbers on VGZ whilst not including digital downloads WILL be somewhere near accurate and that really pisses you off. Which is why you pounce to attack anyone who can be honest about the state of the launch. That being something you also seem to want to avoid discussing...and if I was as much as a mis guided white knight as you...I would want to avoid discussing the reality of ESOs launch too
Dude I was pointing out you were pulling figures from nowhere and posting them as truth. Your last few posts have said I am "ignoring release facts" or some nonsense when all I asked you was to prove the 200k~ figure. Nice defence mechanism there, someone calls you out so they must be a white knight.
Would VGZ even know how many copies Zenimax have sold in their store if they didnt want them to? I dont feel like you'd know the answer to that though.
157k physical pre orders for the whole of NA and ZOS quiet as a church mouse about sales...even if those VGZ numbers are not 100% accurate...they are somewhere close and that's obviously what really narks you lol....
Are you just quoting other MMORPG posts then? One other poster confirmed it and said he had no idea how accurate.
Was this number you keep using like the ultimate of facts including copies from Zenimax, Amazon, every retailer?
Numbers on vgchartz are, and always have been, estimates. And the data used to be revised (changed !) when later info comes out - I assume it still is but haven't checked recently.Posts that talk about the numbers as though they are absolute - for whatever game - may not realise this.
Doesn't mean they are not indicative but need to be treated as such. Same goes for other sites as well.
Companies don't release box / digital sales, or subs, or shop revenue etc. etc. by default. They do what they have to + what they decide to do. Sites that present any such numbers are estimating, trying to pull worldwide data from a huge number of retailers together - and sometimes generate traffic to their website for obvious reasons.
Dude I was pointing out you were pulling figures from nowhere and posting them as truth. Your last few posts have said I am "ignoring release facts" or some nonsense when all I asked you was to prove the 200k~ figure. Nice defence mechanism there, someone calls you out so they must be a white knight.
Would VGZ even know how many copies Zenimax have sold in their store if they didnt want them to? I dont feel like you'd know the answer to that though.
There are going to be at LEAST 15 million concurrent subscribers for this game. It is the bringer of the tide. It is the wave that will wash clean this unclean world.
Originally posted by Emmer4 Whoever cougan is should try reading my posts lol. I may even buy the game once it stabilises and i have only 1 account on this site. Looking at his post history seems he makes the same excuse for anyone who has doubts about the game ha ha ha....the desperate action of an eso defender because he cant refute the actual details surrounding the actual launch lolz
Looks more like a desperate troll since you completely ignored the question I asked you. No source link of actual physical pre-order sales for NA like you claimed then?
quote
"I'm not so sure...
VGZ quoted 157k physical pre orders for all of NA. So what are we saying there VAST, VAST majority were all digital?
If the game had any form or marketing worthy spin in relation to its sales, be that "most pre ordered PC game ever" or even "most pre ordered MMO ever" then we would have heard all about from ZOS marketing team a long time ago. The fact that they are eerily quiet on the PR front with regard to sales is fishy to me.
I think it will probably get through the usual significant sub drop offs and stabilise at around 300k subs for year 1. Year 2 onwards has F2P cash grab written all over it."
Lol I don't need to link it...it has been confirmed by other posters in the thread. The VGZ site is there for you to look on the marvel of the interweb although I don't expect you to bother...the truth about ESOs rocky launch seems to offend you somehow....meh.
like I said earlier I'm one of the many who are waiting for ESO to stabilise before we even think about dropping dollars on it. You on the other hand appear far too emotionally invested in the game, so far so that you cannot even be honest about the games launch and subsequent issues.
157k physical pre orders for the whole of NA and ZOS quiet as a church mouse about sales...even if those VGZ numbers are not 100% accurate...they are somewhere close and that's obviously what really narks you lol....
Are you just quoting other MMORPG posts then? One other poster confirmed it and said he had no idea how accurate.
Was this number you keep using like the ultimate of facts including copies from Zenimax, Amazon, every retailer?
No of course not...it's just all we have being as ZOS don't seem to want to release any kind of pr about pre orders or sales.
The fact is, those numbers on VGZ whilst not including digital downloads WILL be somewhere near accurate and that really pisses you off. Which is why you pounce to attack anyone who can be honest about the state of the launch. That being something you also seem to want to avoid discussing...and if I was as much as a mis guided white knight as you...I would want to avoid discussing the reality of ESOs launch too
Dude I was pointing out you were pulling figures from nowhere and posting them as truth. Your last few posts have said I am "ignoring release facts" or some nonsense when all I asked you was to prove the 200k~ figure. Nice defence mechanism there, someone calls you out so they must be a white knight.
Would VGZ even know how many copies Zenimax have sold in their store if they didnt want them to? I dont feel like you'd know the answer to that though.
A bit like how you try to discredit anyone who has doubts about the game as a troll or a multi accounter?
we both know how VGZ derives it's numbers. We both know they are not 100%. We both know they an indication. We both know it's all indicative until ZOS releases some info.
We both know if they are anywhere near accurate it's a very poor show indeed.
Comments
Except they won't. So don't hold your breath. Whether its number of copies sold(which the fact that the collector's edition out sold the regular edition is proof enough the numbers sold are woefully low) or subs, they won't release the info cause they're horrible.
Be the Ultimate Ninja! Play Billy Vs. SNAKEMAN today!
You mean like Bioware on SWTOR's sales? Like Anet on GW2's sales? Like Square Enix on copies sold and numbers of subs?
Trion boosted about getting more than 1 million forum accounts and nearing 1M subs. ZOS boosts 5 million beta registry entries.
Reality is companies need all the positive marketing they can get, and if your game, or mmo in this case, sells 1-2 million copies/ has 1-2 million subscribers, you can bet they'll talk about it.
I like ESO, a lot. But these threads are kind of pointless. First off, unless 2 or 3 years from now ESO is still on the sub model and still growing, you probably won't ever hear how many subscribers they have because they are not a publicly traded company. They do not have shareholders that by law, they have to publish an annual, detailed earnings report. They are privately held. They don't have to say jack. So, unless they have reason to brag, say 3 - 5 million subs and growing, I doubt you'll ever hear sub numbers from them.
Also, the estimated market of MMO players in NA is around 12 million give or take. WoW has 7.8 million subs, but you figure only 3 million or so are from the US. EVE also has 500k subs world wide. The rest are F2P folks. 3 sub based games are now vying for MMO business, FFXIV, ESO and soon, Wildstar. As much as I love ESO and think it will do well, I just don't see it getting anywhere near 5 million subs.
I don't think it's going to do well on console because of the double fee. Yes PS4 has waived the PS+ fee, but only if ESO is the only game you play online. But, I'll be shocked if ESO gets any more than a few hundread thousand console players between Xbox1 and PS4.
I think if ESO can capture 1 - 2 million subs and make them loyal subscribers for the next few years that would be a great success. I'm not even sure that will happen however due to the current climate in the market.
I think ESO is a great game. I think it has the potential to be a great revenue generator for Zenimax, but to say it's going to win a lion's share of the MMO market? That's just wishful thinking at this point. I suppose it can, but the odds are stacked up against them.
You'd at least expect copies sold being an advertisement for success, and a way to hype up the game for others on the fence. But with the game being outsold, opening week, by a game that's been out for six months, and the Imperial outselling the regular on major retailers that show off charts...
...The prospect is low that we'll see genuine numbers in the near future.
Pretty much this ^. Sure, if 6 months down the line people will bring up that previously released information and obviously draw a compare and contrast between then and now to paint your game in a negative way, but you can't pull a negative spin on "2 million subscribers obtained in just 2 months after launch" in the present.
And let's be honest, if your game failed for people to compare contrast the then and now, then its not you releasing the numbers fault, its whatever decisions you made/didn't make that led to you losing numbers in the first place.
Be the Ultimate Ninja! Play Billy Vs. SNAKEMAN today!
Trion never boasted about nearing 1 million subs
Trion boasted about selling 1 million copies (3 months after launch)
http://massively.joystiq.com/2011/06/07/rift-approaching-the-one-million-sell-through-mark/
EQ2 fan sites
I think that so long as they do a good job of getting a handle on bugs, releasing new content, etc it will likely wind up being the closest thing to a WoW killer than any other game yet. It may not topple it as king, but it will probably land somewhere fairly close to it. Reason being that it has a lot of what WoW had that made it so successful. A series of already established popular games behind it, it runs very nicely without having to have a top of the line gaming rig, it offers good things to a large variety of players (PvErs, PvPers, crafters, RPers, etc), and it takes a lot of already existing things from other games and melds them together well.
But again, that is going to be VERY dependent on the competency of ZoS to do what needs to be done. So many games with huge potential have miserably failed due to the incompetency of the developers to get the game where it should be and making very ridiculous changes in the game that chased off a huge chunk of their playerbase. Sometimes it's as simple as catering too much to 1 crowd or the other. They need to establish a good middle ground to keep everyone interested in all aspects of the game.
Will it reach wow like numbers? no... there wont be another MMO to dominate for nearly a decade like wow has, will some one come along eventually and take its number 1 spot, yes its already happened and its called League of Legends. Are MMOs dead, no of course not they can still be huge money makers even without a wow level of audience, and that is the reality that developers are starting to realise.
What is also starting to happen, very slowly, is we are getting the next generation of MMO's ones that eschew the simple Diku/mud model for something more, again it is happening slowly, but we are getting there. As technology progresses we will see more and more evolution, the revolution happened a long time ago, now its a slow crawl forward.
Is ESO good, so far yes I have enjoyed it for what it is, but it wont change the wheel, and it wont alter the market only add to it.
So no, it wont topple the beast, it will just be another competitor in a very crowded market, and that is why no one will topple wow, the MMO scene is too fragmented for such a massive playerbase to ever coalesce into a single product like they did with wow. Let it go, WoW was and is an anomaly, it is not the rule it is the exception.
Looks more like a desperate troll since you completely ignored the question I asked you. No source link of actual physical pre-order sales for NA like you claimed then?
quote
"I'm not so sure...
VGZ quoted 157k physical pre orders for all of NA. So what are we saying there VAST, VAST majority were all digital?
If the game had any form or marketing worthy spin in relation to its sales, be that "most pre ordered PC game ever" or even "most pre ordered MMO ever" then we would have heard all about from ZOS marketing team a long time ago. The fact that they are eerily quiet on the PR front with regard to sales is fishy to me.
I think it will probably get through the usual significant sub drop offs and stabilise at around 300k subs for year 1. Year 2 onwards has F2P cash grab written all over it."
I wondered why this thread got so many many pages so quickly..... And then realised its because ESO has just been patched and many now cannot log in, are waiting for a security code that never or very slowly arrives, often doesn't work anyway, and if they do manage to log in find the game buggy, laggy and/or crash.
"....polished and lag free experience."
*stands in salt circle to protect self from ESO fanbois*
10 million subs! *CACKLE*
edit: Meh, commenting to these are silly. It is just feeding folks that aren't currently playing
Death is nothing to us, since when we are, Death has not come, and when death has come, we are not.
Lol I don't need to link it...it has been confirmed by other posters in the thread. The VGZ site is there for you to look on the marvel of the interweb although I don't expect you to bother...the truth about ESOs rocky launch seems to offend you somehow....meh.
like I said earlier I'm one of the many who are waiting for ESO to stabilise before we even think about dropping dollars on it. You on the other hand appear far too emotionally invested in the game, so far so that you cannot even be honest about the games launch and subsequent issues.
157k physical pre orders for the whole of NA and ZOS quiet as a church mouse about sales...even if those VGZ numbers are not 100% accurate...they are somewhere close and that's obviously what really narks you lol....
I would like to see ESO end up with that bit of the MMO playerbase, or at least a stable portion of it.
I did check and it had no info at all
http://www.vgchartz.com/gamedb/?name=elder+scrolls+online
Are you just quoting other MMORPG posts then? One other poster confirmed it and said he had no idea how accurate.
Was this number you keep using like the ultimate of facts including copies from Zenimax, Amazon, every retailer?
here is a curve of the average imaginary sub based themepark player retention with 30 days free time included.
A part of it is positive publicity but what Aeonblades is talking about is that some information is released because it has to be released by law. Its not about sub numbers of course but about earnings.
So EA gave out SWTOR info when it was launched in part to put a positive spin on the game - as you say - but also because they had to advise investors of how things had gone - so they could make investment decisions etc. Now EA can get away with reporting SWTOR as one of several games - as they do with DAoC.
Viacom when they owned Activision could probably have buried WoWs numbers but Activision reported independently so they had/have to be reported. Same with ANet. Not so with Funcom though - owned by WarnerBros you will struggle to find any mention of Funcom in WarnerBros report, let alone data on LotR.
So as you say in part it is to do with publicity but the other element is whether they have to - which comes down to how "big" a game is when set against everything else the company does.
No of course not...it's just all we have being as ZOS don't seem to want to release any kind of pr about pre orders or sales.
The fact is, those numbers on VGZ whilst not including digital downloads WILL be somewhere near accurate and that really pisses you off. Which is why you pounce to attack anyone who can be honest about the state of the launch. That being something you also seem to want to avoid discussing...and if I was as much as a mis guided white knight as you...I would want to avoid discussing the reality of ESOs launch too
Keep dreaming. Once WOD is out.. it is going to get a lot of player base back even those who left for ESO. This has been going on for last 8 years and ESO won't even put a dent in WOW.
I wish people would just stop beating this dead horse.
yes it's better than wow, GW2, and rift IMO
it doesn't yet have the amount of content that other games have that have been out for years but when comparing launches, it's quite good.
im sure some would argue that other AAA mmo's like GW2 and wow are better, that's fine, that is their opinion.
also, read the post you quoted again, i didn't say they would have more total subs than wow, i said in the west ESO could surpass it.
i think having more than 5 or 6 million subs is nearly impossible since they don't have much of a market in Asia like wow does.
how many subs do you think wow has in the west alone currently? you do realize most of those millions of subs come from the Asia market, right?
i never said it was going to happen, i simply said its not that far fetched to suggest it because it is a good AAA mmo, the best on the market currently IMO
sorry that wasn't negative enough for you, do you not know what i mean by "accepted" still?
maybe if i said it was the worst AAA mmo on teh market you would then agree?
Dude I was pointing out you were pulling figures from nowhere and posting them as truth. Your last few posts have said I am "ignoring release facts" or some nonsense when all I asked you was to prove the 200k~ figure. Nice defence mechanism there, someone calls you out so they must be a white knight.
Would VGZ even know how many copies Zenimax have sold in their store if they didnt want them to? I dont feel like you'd know the answer to that though.
Numbers on vgchartz are, and always have been, estimates. And the data used to be revised (changed !) when later info comes out - I assume it still is but haven't checked recently.Posts that talk about the numbers as though they are absolute - for whatever game - may not realise this.
Doesn't mean they are not indicative but need to be treated as such. Same goes for other sites as well.
Companies don't release box / digital sales, or subs, or shop revenue etc. etc. by default. They do what they have to + what they decide to do. Sites that present any such numbers are estimating, trying to pull worldwide data from a huge number of retailers together - and sometimes generate traffic to their website for obvious reasons.
The numbers her's quoting were on VGChartz, they were for pre-orders and have since been removed as the game has launched. If you don't believe it then you should probably look: http://www.reddit.com/r/elderscrollsonline/comments/21o0tu/number_of_pre_orders/
No one is making up anything.
Meanwhile, in reality, a AAA MMO was outsold on debut weekend by a many month old game.
A bit like how you try to discredit anyone who has doubts about the game as a troll or a multi accounter?
we both know how VGZ derives it's numbers. We both know they are not 100%. We both know they an indication. We both know it's all indicative until ZOS releases some info.
We both know if they are anywhere near accurate it's a very poor show indeed.