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wondering ddo's population
Jd1680a
Member Posts: 398
ive trying to determine whats the population of DDO currently. popped open the player search window and began counting how many people were on at that moment as i was. i counted around 900 people were playing at the same time as me. could probably add another 500 more since people commonly come and go during the day or just isnt on line that day. throughout of all the servers, there was probably 14,400 people playing all in one day..
i would have to make an educated guess what it is right now. it probably have 40,000-50,000 people currently subscribed.
Have played: CoH, DDO EQ2, FFXI, L2, HZ, SoR, and WW2 online
Comments
i should have noted that its not offical. its just my own guess what it could be. once turbine make it public to what really is the right subscription number. its really all speculation.
also 50,000 people is still pretty successful for a mmo.
Have played: CoH, DDO EQ2, FFXI, L2, HZ, SoR, and WW2 online
50,000 will equal to $750,000 per month or $9 million a year. thats quite a bit of money. turbine could employee a team of 20 people just to keep the game running. all turbine really does is just keep adding content and maintain the game while its still active. mmos are still very profitable, thats why so many are trying to get into the market too.
Have played: CoH, DDO EQ2, FFXI, L2, HZ, SoR, and WW2 online
i am really tired of this. when im trying to bring postive light to this game, someone is coming out and keeps bashing it. why dont you just leave this game alone and go play your own that you like and stop trolling this thread?
did you even listen a single damn word i said? it was an educated guess. i dont know what the exact population is. i dont care if the some of the people there are playing the seven day trial. all i care about is keeping some kind of positive look to this game without someone bashing it.
Have played: CoH, DDO EQ2, FFXI, L2, HZ, SoR, and WW2 online
To late JD. There is pretty much no way to make it postive anymore anywhere. Everywhere you go people are saying the same thing. Maybe just maybe its time for people to start relizing the sad truth, but thats most likely not gonna happen either. So your gonna get a lot more of stuff like this. Does anyonelse see a pattern forming?
Maybe it's enough to survive. But what about recouping millions of dollars spent on development?
It was a nice effort. I will give you credit for trying.
But in the end it's kind of like putting a coat of paint on a turd. Underneath the glossy exterior, it's still a piece of crap.
Take a look at this thread if you haven't already. The thread has been going on for a little over a month. What you'll see from the anecdotal evidence here is that the game is, at best, stagnant. Even the free trial didn't bump any listed numbers over 1,000 concurrent users on a server.
The financial numbers you guessed at, if they were true, wouldn't begin to offset the development costs and interest, let alone keep the lights on and the support staff paid.
To survive, Turbine is going to have to reach out to the people they said they didn't need. The soloists. The PvP people. People who like crafting.
When you put 'MMO' on a game and try to tack on a monthly fee, people expect a certain thing. And no matter how much anyone wants to argue differently, the standard today is crafting, the ability to solo, some PvP, and player housing. To put out a MMO game without these items and try to get people to buy it is like trying to build a car without a radio, a heater, an air conditioner, and windows you can roll down. Now, are those things required to have a car get you from one place to another? No, they're not. But people expect those things from a car, and if your car doesn't have those things no one will be interested in buying it.
Once you see the announcement of a PvP arena or solo instances, you'll see that Turbine has seen the light. There will be wailing and gnashing of teeth from the fanboys who said that these things aren't needed in "their game" (look at the sigs on the DDO boards ... you'll see who those fanboys are). Some will even threaten to quit over it (which I will find absolutely hilarious). But it will be an indication that Turbine is pulling out all of the stops to get DDO to be a viable game.
1) They have to pay for bandwidth. Erase several thousand dollars a month. Suspect they're on a T3 or higher so probably over 500k a year just for bandwidth.
2) They have to pay staff to work on their servers. A Software Developer makes around 110k/year. Probably at least 3, possibly 10 of those. Take the 'median' and go with 6 for argument's sake.
3) They have to keep HR staff... figure another 60k/yr... probably just 1 person.
4) Support Staff... figure $25-35k/yr per "help" agent... probably at least 10 of those.
5) They're splitting the profits with the Producer of the game. AFTER expenses.
50k isn't a lot of users. It's possibly not even break-even numbers since they have to pay part of the profts, and there is probably a fixed minimum as well. After all is said and done they probably have somewhere in the neighborhood of 3-5 mil in expenses per year from running DDO. So if the guess of 9mil is accurate that leaves a whopping 4 million as 'profit'. Some, or all, of which has to go to the producer because of whatever license agreement they made. Atari gets a cut, WotC gets a cut... etc.
All that said, even if all our guestimation is correct. It's entirely possible that DDO has more players than 50k. 14,000 concurrent players indicates a player base more around 70-80k than 50k. 50k would be about 9-11k players online at peak, typically. And it's even possibly they have over 100k... it's a new game... it had a lot of interest.... etc.
It probably won't keep that many because it's just not worth a monthly fee to most people. But for now it's probably doing ok.
Currently Playing: Dungeons and Dragons Online.
Sig image Pending
Still in: A couple Betas
1) They have to pay for bandwidth. Erase several thousand dollars a month. Suspect they're on a T3 or higher so probably over 500k a year just for bandwidth.
2) They have to pay staff to work on their servers. A Software Developer makes around 110k/year. Probably at least 3, possibly 10 of those. Take the 'median' and go with 6 for argument's sake.
3) They have to keep HR staff... figure another 60k/yr... probably just 1 person.
4) Support Staff... figure $25-35k/yr per "help" agent... probably at least 10 of those.
5) They're splitting the profits with the Producer of the game. AFTER expenses.
50k isn't a lot of users. It's possibly not even break-even numbers since they have to pay part of the profts, and there is probably a fixed minimum as well. After all is said and done they probably have somewhere in the neighborhood of 3-5 mil in expenses per year from running DDO. So if the guess of 9mil is accurate that leaves a whopping 4 million as 'profit'. Some, or all, of which has to go to the producer because of whatever license agreement they made. Atari gets a cut, WotC gets a cut... etc.
Oh and don't forget, they also have to split the proofs with Wizard of the Coast too since they are using thei license material.
1) They have to pay for bandwidth. Erase several thousand dollars a month. Suspect they're on a T3 or higher so probably over 500k a year just for bandwidth.
2) They have to pay staff to work on their servers. A Software Developer makes around 110k/year. Probably at least 3, possibly 10 of those. Take the 'median' and go with 6 for argument's sake.
3) They have to keep HR staff... figure another 60k/yr... probably just 1 person.
4) Support Staff... figure $25-35k/yr per "help" agent... probably at least 10 of those.
5) They're splitting the profits with the Producer of the game. AFTER expenses.
50k isn't a lot of users. It's possibly not even break-even numbers since they have to pay part of the profts, and there is probably a fixed minimum as well. After all is said and done they probably have somewhere in the neighborhood of 3-5 mil in expenses per year from running DDO. So if the guess of 9mil is accurate that leaves a whopping 4 million as 'profit'. Some, or all, of which has to go to the producer because of whatever license agreement they made. Atari gets a cut, WotC gets a cut... etc.
Oh and don't forget, they also have to split the proofs with Wizard of the Coast too since they are using thei license material.
I already said that.
Currently Playing: Dungeons and Dragons Online.
Sig image Pending
Still in: A couple Betas
it seems all you care about is bashing people whenever they are trying to a make positive discussion. its not a discussion if this forum is saturated with people who are willing to troll a thread like this.
making an educated guess is by looking at the player search window and count all the people are on at the same time. then you multiply that by the number of servers assuming they have the same amount of people on. i would love to see what the subscription numbers really are just to shut you up.
in fact you are only one and you dont represent everyone who plays DDO as a whole. there are alot more people who are playing the game and actually enjoy then people who are bashing it. even with the ones that dont like it will go off quietly back to where ever they came from. i have played Lineage 2 for about a month, didnt like and quit. i made a few words of discussion on why i didnt like it and moved on anyway. you wont see me hanging around a thread like this ready to bash anyone who comes along trying to make a positive discussion.
i commonly see players that are over level 3 in taverns or in the street. people who are playing a seven day trial wouldnt have gotten to lvl 3 by the time its ups. there were alot of players who are over lvl 3 i saw on the players search.
Have played: CoH, DDO EQ2, FFXI, L2, HZ, SoR, and WW2 online
Have played: CoH, DDO EQ2, FFXI, L2, HZ, SoR, and WW2 online
Because they have debt.
I'm not trying to talk down to you. You seem like a nice enough guy. It looks like you don't understand how the process works. If you do, ignore the next little bit.
Turbine is not a publicly held company. They have no wellspring of stockholder money to use to make a game. To produce a product, they have to secure bank loans and venture capital from investors. All of that has to be paid back. And unlike a credit card complany, the banks and capitalists won't let you string along with just paying the minimums. They expect their investment, with interest, returned to them in a timely manner. There are dates in contracts where payments must be made, and if Turbine fails to make those dates there are penalties that must then be paid by Turbine.
If that happens enough times you have serious issues. To secure bank loans you have to have collateral. If you don't pay the loan, the collateral is claimed by the bank. What do you suppose Turbine has to use as collateral that a bank could sell at a foreclosure sale for to get their money back? Servers ... buildings ... things of this nature.
That is why they are being so aggressive with things like ad campaigns (which cost money) and free trials. They aren't making the money they need, and are grasping at straws trying to come up with a way to do it.
I hate to break it to you, but during the first stress test .. which was a weekend event .. I got a character to 3.3. That was when I knew the game had long term playability issues. I wasn't even trying to advance the character... and at my age the last thing I'd ever be considered is a powergamer.
It's just not that hard to level. DDO is not much of a game. What it boils down to is that Stormreach is a city with a bad pest problem, and you're the exterminator. You get a call, you show up at the caller's doorstep, you exterminate the pests, you go grab a bite to eat. Then you do it all again, more often than not at the same house where the same pests have re-appeared in exactly the same spots (come to think of it, you must be a lousy exterminator if the pests come back to the same spots that fast
). That's it ... that's all there is to do in DDO.
When all there is to a game is grinding XP, levelling happens quickly.
It has *nothing* to do with whether people get paid or not. The game cost them a LOT of $$$ to develop. To the tune of about 15-20 million. That money was LOANED to them and they used profits from Asheron's Call as the collateral.
The game has to cut a profit or they lose profits from AC, which have been keeping them afloat. Furthermore it has to cut enough of a profit to be profitable AFTER they:
1) Split profits with Atari and Wizards of the Coast
So it's not *good enough* to just be profitable. I don't know the details of the license agreement but it wouldn't surprise me to learn that they're expected to play X Million a year to continue to use the license. Wouldn't surprise me at all. Thus any profit they make is not only split into thirds (and they only get 1/3, maybe less actually, depends how the contract works, but it's likely about 1/3) they also probably have to pay a license fee for the AD&D brand as well.
So while it may very well be cutting a profit the question is: Is it cutting a BIG ENOUGH profit? The fact that they're throwing free trials and reducing box price tells me it's not. How bout you?
Currently Playing: Dungeons and Dragons Online.
Sig image Pending
Still in: A couple Betas
It's not that simple. In addition to those 20 programmers/artists you mentioned, the game needs to make enough money to support the people working in Accounts Payable, Accounts Receivable, the janitorial staff, the landscapers, the front office (receiptionists), the CFO, the CEO... you get the idea.
To top if all off, the game has to MAKE money. If the company brings in $9 million, and it costs $9 million to pay staff and the other bills, I guarantee you the game will be seen as a dismal failure. A business is not a 'not-for-profit' institution.
Edit: only a few posts of the 3+ pages of posts loaded when I first went into this thread, so I didn't see that other people have covered this point.
The game has to cut a profit or they lose profits from AC, which have been keeping them afloat. Furthermore it has to cut enough of a profit to be profitable AFTER they:
1) Split profits with Atari and Wizards of the Coast
So it's not *good enough* to just be profitable. I don't know the details of the license agreement but it wouldn't surprise me to learn that they're expected to play X Million a year to continue to use the license. Wouldn't surprise me at all. Thus any profit they make is not only split into thirds (and they only get 1/3, maybe less actually, depends how the contract works, but it's likely about 1/3) they also probably have to pay a license fee for the AD&D brand as well.
So while it may very well be cutting a profit the question is: Is it cutting a BIG ENOUGH profit? The fact that they're throwing free trials and reducing box price tells me it's not. How bout you?
i dont think turbine have to pay any kind of royalites to hasbro. since atari is the one that have the license to have anything related of DnD made into games. i dont know what went on between turbine and atari for turbine to get the job in making DDO. it could have been anyone, hell they could have picked SOE of all people to make DDO instead.
Atari would have most likely would have funded probably least 70% of the development cost of DDO while turbine could have done the rest. turbine might have gotten an investment company to help fund the rest of the money that is needed. that would have been something manageable for turbine to do. since atari isnt in the business in developing games, they pay other companies do that for them. look at how many other companies have produce DnD related games. you got bioware, obsidian, liquid, and other independent developers all created DnD games for atari.
i dont think giving a seven day trial will hurt anything. its just a way for turbine to expose the product to people. if they were to have say 10,000 people playing the trial last week and 4,000 decide to stay, thats 4,000 new customers. in the long run it could be beneficial for turbine because if they were to get 4,000 new customers every week, that will quickly add up to a larger player base.
it seems the mmo retail boxes have the worst retail value of all genre games. all they want is to put people on their servers so they keep on generating revenue every month from subscription fees.
Have played: CoH, DDO EQ2, FFXI, L2, HZ, SoR, and WW2 online
Those 5 players remain because they think their elite and trying to find a reason to keep going by joining up with others with the same cause. This is how the process works, in reality you're not producing 100 players a week, but 5 players per month.
Have played: CoH, DDO EQ2, FFXI, L2, HZ, SoR, and WW2 online