Originally posted by Malickiebloo Originally posted by Makane Originally posted by Malickiebloo Originally posted by Makane Originally posted by Chessack Originally posted by Makane clip
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That's like saying, "I have an inside source, my fathers, brothers, uncles, nephews, cousins, former roommate, who says SOE is releasing Pre-CU servers in July FTW!!1!". He can quote inside sources all he wants, but his stuff is all guesswork and I honestly don't know if he has sources...I just really don't care.
I already answered for his reasons...money.
Not exactly considering his main source to his guess was Smedlys own words . Not his sister in law three times removed .
Yes, but there lies the error. He got the numbers from Smed?? I have even less faith in the numbers.
The 190k note is actually quite alarming. Considering that in each 'revamp' that new players join as well as old players leave, it's curious as to exactly how many members were lost through the CU and NGE. Looking at the sheet, SWG also posted 217,000 subs in Dec 05 - that's almost 40,000 (!) lost after the NGE/ToOW fiasco.
My guess is that CU3 brought back a lot of vets, and SWG is probably back over 200,000 again. They might be adding subs, but they're definitely NOT outpacing the vets walking out, even if they're managing to pull them back in.
Considering that SWG's long term strategy plan is not very "good," and you've got a number of MMOs coming out this fall, in addition to WoW's expansion, it's safe to say that SWG's heading into very dark waters. SOE is quite literally bleeding customers, and continuing down paths that will only further butcher the game from it's wonderful inception.
Honestly, everyone in charge of strategical management for SWG at SOE AND LucasArts should be fired. What a disgrace.
-- xpaladin
[MMOz] AC1/2, AO, DAoC, EQ1/2, SoR, SWG, UO, WAR, WoW
Originally posted by Obraik I don't think he's paid by the MMO companies, afterall he is asking for donations
I believe he gets paid by companies interested in those numbers, and by trying to predict successful MMO based on those numbers. I saw a news story on him a while ago.
Originally posted by Makane Originally posted by Obraik I don't think he's paid by the MMO companies, afterall he is asking for donations
I believe he gets paid by companies interested in those numbers, and by trying to predict successful MMO based on those numbers. I saw a news story on him a while ago.
Errr.. no.
The numbers are available for anyone to download on his site. If he were making money off the data alone, he'd not have a website where you could download them freely.
He might get paid, being an analyst, for "best practices" reports, or reports based on the numbers he attains. But that work is speculative and requires hard data to perform. There's nothing wrong with that at all. But that would be all the reason more for the numbers to be as accurate, else he'd be facing the ire of many companies and be publicly flogged as a fraud.
Yeah, it's good to be skeptical, but if he were shady, he'd act a bit more shady I think. Pad the numbers up, require membership for download, etc. As a fellow analyst, I can say that from his work, it looks to me like he's doing the best job he can to get numbers. I happen to disagree with some of his analytic review here and there, but the data seems hard-fought for, and I can't find any reason to disprove it.
-- xpaladin
[MMOz] AC1/2, AO, DAoC, EQ1/2, SoR, SWG, UO, WAR, WoW
190,000 is a disasterous loss of subscribers (I think I est. something along these lines a few weeks back) Going from aprx 255k to 190k in about 5 months. (thats about 65k in sub lose, very bad)
The chart shows a sharp decline from July 05 to Jan 06. That would say to me (because no one knew of the NGE until Nov) that the game was nose divingbefore the NGE.
Also keep in mind the game is at its 3 year mark, its in its decline no matter how you slice it now.
it would be interesting to see what it is right now. I would guesstamate about 170-180k total subs. That would put its loses since last July at about 70-80,000 lost subs. That is a very large amount of people and thats why the servers "look" empty to the vets who do pop in for a look.
With no major releases over this summer you will likely see some stablization for awhile.
Being a person who plays FFXI religiously since release, and on over 4 servers, I can confidently say that those numbers are pure, utter bullshit
Considering there's usually at least around 3000 people on at any given time, although certain servers have 6k plus at peak time, and there's around...what, 24 servers or so...
That's just including the names I can see. Considering when you go /anon, you aren't counted in a /sea all, we'll have to add a significant margin of error.
I would say the number presented on that chart are at BEST questionable, but more than likely, pulled out of thin air.
Waiting for something fresh to arrive on the MMO scene...
Im baseing it on having played all 3 of those games within the last year for at least 3 months. I played CoV for 3 months, FFXI for about 5 and EQ2 for around 7. You are right, its not fact, but I can assure even you that what I said is legit from what I saw in those games. I have no reason to lie, I dont currently play any of those 3 anymore.
CoV is less than a year old. I'm guessing you likely played it fairly close to launch. That would skew your numbers. I mean, you left after three months. So did a lot of people. CoV also has only a few servers and a smaller world with a few specific population choke points per zone, which means you are far more likely to "feel" the population than something like SWG, which can have several hundred players and you'd never see a single one of them. I don't think you can trust what you SEE if you are incapable of factoring in these types of things.
The chart shows a sharp decline from July 05 to Jan 06. That would say to me (because no one knew of the NGE until Nov) that the game was nose divingbefore the NGE.
The chart shows a decline because there isn't data between June '05 (255000) and December '05 (217000). It is not possible from the data to attribute what portion of the decline was due to the CU and what was due to the NGE. It could have been a steady decline all summer or it could have been a step change in November. All one can conclude is that the latter half of 2005 was disastrous.
Originally posted by Makane Also, anyone can take numbers from the press releases that companies spew out about sub numbers. That doesn't mean they are accurate or that the company is not fudging it's numbers.
Well, since no one but the company itself can possibly know the exact numbers, if you hold the position that the company's numbers themselves are suspect and that the company is likely to lie about its numbers, then there will never, under any conditions, be ANY source of subscriber numbers you could believe.
This means, of course... WoW saying it has 6+ million subs? You can't believe that, since they might be fudging.
GW saying it has 1 mil accounts? Can't believe that -- they might be fudging.
And COH reporting it has 180k accounts -- can't believe that either. They might be fudging.
Of course, since these companies often are coporations and have to report to shareholders, openly lying about their subscription numbers is probably a criminal offense in most countries, and certainly in the United States.
The best bet is, if the company reports numbers, those numbers are (to the best of the company's knowledge) accurate. If there's something in the numbers that the company doesn't want you to see -- as has been the case with SWG for a long time now -- the company just won't release the numbers, or will release partial data, so you can't really know. But I don't think any company would say, "We have 1 million subs" when they in fact have 1,000... doing so could be actionable if they're a publicly traded entity.
That said, the guy doing mmorpgchart.com has put out numbers that are as accurate as is humanly possible given all the constraints. You're free to disbelieve them if you want, but I don't think you'll find a more complete and accurate set of estimates anywhere in the world.
Originally posted by Spathotan I figured it was just a matter of time before the resident know-it-all showed up. Anyways ill enlighten you.
Im baseing it on having played all 3 of those games within the last year for at least 3 months. I played CoV for 3 months, FFXI for about 5 and EQ2 for around 7. You are right, its not fact, but I can assure even you that what I said is legit from what I saw in those games. I have no reason to lie, I dont currently play any of those 3 anymore.
Your observations as you play the game are anecdotal and are not statistical evidence of anything. You're basing what you think about the subscription numbers of a game on, essentially, what you "feel" is right or wrong.
At one point on the COH forum we tried a little game. People asked, "How popular are the ATs?" (archetypes). Well, there's no way to know exactly how many of each is made, but a bunch of people went out and did some server surveys -- doing searches by AT type at different times of day on different servers. BEFORE the survey, everyone predicted Blasters would be tops, followed by Scrappers, with tankers and defenders at the bottom.
It turned out, when we actually did the statistics, that Scrappers were far and away on top, Blasters were a solid number 2, and the other three ATs were statistically tied. By "feel" nobody predicted that. But when you actually did a large survey, those were the results.
This shows how your "feelings" are not always correct. I'd have been willing to bet a rather large sum of money that COH's number of subs has plummeted in the last 3-4 months. That's because the activity I have personally seen on the servers seems for all the world like it's waning rather substantially. However, the subs numbers do not bear this out. There has been a slight dip (from 197k in December to 182k in March), but nowhere near the scope I had expected. If "feels" like at best the server population is a quarter of what it once was... clearly that cannot be the case if they have retained 90% of their subscriber base. So my feelings, my personal experience, are off from what the statistics are.
Also remember that subs may be maintained without lots of activity. For example, about half the people on my SG have active subscriptions but log in maybe once a week if that. They are bored with the game, but there is a new publish coming and they are biding their time waiting for that. I wouldn't be surprised if 90 out of the 180k are still subscribing but not playing much -- which would make the numbers on the NCSoft website dove-tail with my "feelings" from playing in-game. (Also NCSoft reports daily and weekly access and those numbers ARE way down, from 67k logins/day in December to 45k logins/day in March, which again dovetails with the idea that accounts are being maintained but used less intensively.)
One has to be careful in ascribing one's "feelings" to anything more than that. The human brain is notoriously good at picking up "patterns" -- but sadly it is good at picking up patterns where none exist. That's why we have statistical methods in the first place.
No matter how you slice it, no matter how imperfect the mmorpgchart.com numbers are, they are far better and far more likely to be accurate than how you "feel" based on having logged into a game and mucked around in it for a few months (or even years).
Originally posted by Cymdai Being a person who plays FFXI religiously since release, and on over 4 servers, I can confidently say that those numbers are pure, utter bullshit
Considering there's usually at least around 3000 people on at any given time, although certain servers have 6k plus at peak time, and there's around...what, 24 servers or so...
That's just including the names I can see. Considering when you go /anon, you aren't counted in a /sea all, we'll have to add a significant margin of error.
I would say the number presented on that chart are at BEST questionable, but more than likely, pulled out of thin air.
What exactly does this prove? You're claiming 6k at peak time x 24 servers -- this would work out to roughly 144k concurrent users per day. It would therefore be possible if every single user logged in every single day, for there to be as few as 144k subscribers and your numbers to still bear out.
According to mmorpgchart.com, FFXI had 650k subscibers at last check-in -- though for some reason that one has not yet been updated past July of '05 or so. This could easily fit with the 144k concurrent users you are estimating.
Let's look at numbers we DO have -- NCsoft, who publishes their details. At peak in December, they were at around 197k total subs for COH/V, and 66k concurrent users. That means that about 1 in 3 subscribers are logged in each day (or looked at another way, the average subscriber logged in once every 3 days). If you assume a similar daily login rate for FFXI (no reason not to, unless you have some data to indicate otherwise), you would expect something on the order of 450k subs total. That's today of course... He's estimating 650k from a year ago.
Given the amount of slop in your estimate (you admit you can't see everyone, meaning daily concurrent could be higher, say around 200k, which would mean 600k probable total subscriptions or thereabouts), I don't see how your guesses in any way invalidate the (outdated, admittedly) mmorpgchart.com numbers. In fact, I'd say it looks pretty good all things considered.
Originally posted by xPaladin Some perspective for SWG:
The 190k note is actually quite alarming. Considering that in each 'revamp' that new players join as well as old players leave, it's curious as to exactly how many members were lost through the CU and NGE. Looking at the sheet, SWG also posted 217,000 subs in Dec 05 - that's almost 40,000 (!) lost after the NGE/ToOW fiasco.
I was expecting it to be way less then 190k. from what im hearing, it sounds people left SWG in droves. I like to see what SWG final numbers been after a year NGE was released. that way people who have six months and year subscripitions will let them run out. i bet the SWG will bottom around 80,000 or so.
Have played: CoH, DDO EQ2, FFXI, L2, HZ, SoR, and WW2 online
Originally posted by Spathotan That guys numbers are bullshit. I know for a fact FFXI, EQ2 and CoH/V have more subscriptions than that.
This guys numbers are much more credible. They come from inside sources, most of the insiders are in the company. This guy isnt looking to put bogus numbers on his site. He is making sure the numbers he gets are correct and accurate as possible. If you know for a fact you are right and he is wrong, why dont your prove it?
Have played: CoH, DDO EQ2, FFXI, L2, HZ, SoR, and WW2 online
I find it interesting that the guy who runs the site sent me an email stating he wouldnt have any numbers for SWG because his source left SOE.
He must have made a total guess or just regurgitated SOE's statement of 5th largest MMO they claimed last month.
190k is total BS regardless. Anyone who played pre-nge saw the game had much more players around. The numbers were 225k then and therefore no way they only lost 35k accounts.
SOE is counting all-access passes obviously. And most of those are EQ2 players wanting extra character slots and have never created a SWG account.
Originally posted by Torak 190,000 is a disasterous loss of subscribers (I think I est. something along these lines a few weeks back) Going from aprx 255k to 190k in about 5 months. (thats about 65k in sub lose, very bad) The chart shows a sharp decline from July 05 to Jan 06. That would say to me (because no one knew of the NGE until Nov) that the game was nose divingbefore the NGE. Also keep in mind the game is at its 3 year mark, its in its decline no matter how you slice it now. it would be interesting to see what it is right now. I would guesstamate about 170-180k total subs. That would put its loses since last July at about 70-80,000 lost subs. That is a very large amount of people and thats why the servers "look" empty to the vets who do pop in for a look. With no major releases over this summer you will likely see some stablization for awhile.
These are up until May, so it's only out by a week or two.
Also Riker, where are you getting this pre-nge 225k sub number from?
Originally posted by Jd1680a Originally posted by Spathotan That guys numbers are bullshit. I know for a fact FFXI, EQ2 and CoH/V have more subscriptions than that.
This guys numbers are much more credible. They come from inside sources, most of the insiders are in the company. This guy isnt looking to put bogus numbers on his site. He is making sure the numbers he gets are correct and accurate as possible. If you know for a fact you are right and he is wrong, why dont your prove it? I can create a site, post numbers I think are correct, and say the data is derived from inside sources. People put too much into his guesses.
That's not to say MMOGChart is no more credible than Spathotan or myself. I don't know other MMO's, but I do know SWG and I have followed every word, press release, and news item since its inception. To put things into perspective:
MMOGChart says "Inside sources offer a more precise but incomplete picture; as of March 2006 SWG only had 120,00 monthly paying subscribers, but this number does not include those who are subscribed to the game via game time cards or SOE station pass subscriptions. Based on previously known data, I’ve put the total number of subscribers for SWG at 190,000 for March 2006, but the actual number could be anywhere from 175,000 to 225,000."
By his own admission, he guesses based on previous data and an "inside source" that SWG has 190,000 subs. He is also counting time cards, which haven't been sold since early this year, and station access, which he has stated he believes hovers at 50,000 total for all games. Quoted from earlier in this thread "There are only 50K or so station passes anyway; they don't really effect the numbers that much."
So, we have an insider source with 120k, and 70k remaining for cards and station access. I'm thinking it's actually closer to 120k, including station access, and no game cards...and I did the exact same thing he does...guess.
Originally posted by Obraik Well, the guy at MMOChart has updated his stats up until May 2006 and he has SWG sitting at 190k subs, a tad above CoH/CoV... http://www.mmogchart.com/
Well SoE never shows their numbers (at least not for us ) so I think it's just a guess from a person that doesn't log.
I have paid the fee just one month to make sure my houses don't dissapear, and every place I visit seems really empty compared to the game before the combat upgrade. (or even after).
Originally posted by Ospek Originally posted by Torak
The chart shows a sharp decline from July 05 to Jan 06. That would say to me (because no one knew of the NGE until Nov) that the game was nose divingbefore the NGE.
The chart shows a decline because there isn't data between June '05 (255000) and December '05 (217000). It is not possible from the data to attribute what portion of the decline was due to the CU and what was due to the NGE. It could have been a steady decline all summer or it could have been a step change in November. All one can conclude is that the latter half of 2005 was disastrous.
Yes, I completely agree that the later half of 05 was very bad for SWG. From the look of the chart (it is difficult to see because the months are not broken down) The decline was happening before the NGE announcement.
If you can see the tiny chart At launch SWG peaked very quickly (looks like about 2 or 3 months after launch) then platues off at about 300k. It roughly holds that for about 1 year (apprx) In Sept of 04 the game begins its decline and never pulled out of it. It has a few minor stablizations but nothing for any real length of time.
Seeing as this in a Star Wars license and not generic fantasy world 1001, you can imagine why Sony reacted the way they did. There was no reason, aside from a poor game design, that this game should have done as badly as it did. At the time 300k was a respectible amount of subs (remember this is pre-WoW) BUT it should have been a runaway hit. It should have hit 1 million.
It wasn't NGE that killed SWG, it was the crappy game design from the beginning and the numbers show that.
You can see a similar pattern forming in EQII. My guess would be it is the instability SOE creates within its customer base with its revamps that causes the failure of its games. Rather then tweek an exsisting system they choose to rip out a mechanic and replace it. This pisses people off who worked hard to do something. SOE games will ALWAYS be in a state of decline shortly after launch because of this. (at least until they stop it)
The Devs need to stick to their guns and not radically change the games at the drop of a hat. SWG could have been salvaged very early on but they chose a different route. A much more difficult and PR destroying route unfortunately.
Obraik, like I said it will will stablize throughout the this summer as there are no major releases. The people who don't like the NGE left long ago, the NGE backlash has ended a few months back. There might even be some minor increases as some vets come back to take a look.
The game is a bit more interesting to play then it was in the past but not much. Its enough to keep you "engaged". It is still missing any real amount of content, the "new" classes still need to be fleshed out, the primary focus of SW lore, the Galactic civil war, is still missing and the technical issues need to be resolved.
From what I can see, they are adding content slowly but surely (the quality is in question though, but anything is better then grinding Bols) The GCW looks like it may be getting addressed soon. I don't know about the classes, my smuggler is a generic pistol user. He has no role or purpose whatso ever (he is still cool though) and its much less buggy where content is concerned then in the past. (pre-NGE a large percentage of "quest" where bugged compared to now. Many of the old quest walkthroughs had "quest bugged" in the first line.
Again SWG main problem in the future is going to be the overly critical customer base and the Devs ability to produce a quality feature. I have my doubts on both.
Originally posted by kairaene Dang! How did I not see this thread go to 7 pages in a day without seeing it...lol. Stealth posting!
I would those numbers are a bit slanted. Prolly including station access pass subs even tho they never logged in or installed the game.
Heh, I've found with these forums it's a good idea to max out the number of posts that will show per page so you don't have to go through mass amounts off pages to read a thread
Originally posted by Spathotan Originally posted by Elnator Originally posted by Spathotan That guys numbers are bullshit. I know for a fact FFXI, EQ2 and CoH/V have more subscriptions than that.
Just exactly what factual data are you basing that on? I'd like to know because I'm interested in that kind of factual data about games from a purely academic standpoint.
I figured it was just a matter of time before the resident know-it-all showed up. Anyways ill enlighten you.
Im baseing it on having played all 3 of those games within the last year for at least 3 months. I played CoV for 3 months, FFXI for about 5 and EQ2 for around 7. You are right, its not fact, but I can assure even you that what I said is legit from what I saw in those games. I have no reason to lie, I dont currently play any of those 3 anymore.
Ive read all the post after the one ive quoted here, and I saw the stuff X person said about CoH/V and I ackwoledge that, thanks for the info. Ive also seen you tell one person you KNOW UO has at least those said numbers because you have a friend who plays. You dont even play the game yourself, so you are going by what he/she tells you, yet you attempt to "learn me" by challenging my statement? At this point im realizing your post was merely flamebait, but im not gonna delete all this.
I wasn't attempting to "learn" you. I was merely asking how you think your numbers are more accurate than SirBruce's? He lists exactly how he gets his numbers. A LOT of insider folks give him information on a fairly regular basis. Hell, major gaming companies use him as a consultant. So your 'gut' is more accurate than his numbers? I didn't say my friend told me there were 120k players in UO... I said the information he tells me (as he does play regularly) gives him the feeling that there is no reason to doubt the numbers about UO.
The difference between you and I is that while I may or may not like the numbers I see for a certain game unless I have better information on a game then I will take SirBruce's numbers over some yoyo who is wagging a guess at how many people are playing a game based on his experiences on 1 server on a game during the limited time he is logged in with no factual data to back it up.
And, as I said, I didn't doubt you, I was just curious where you got your information from because I do like to get factual data. I used to write MUDS and even did some work on MMO's as well. I no longer do, because I detest programming to a schedule, I do network engineering now... much less stressful... But I still retain an interest in the industry and still have numerous friends working in the industry. So when someone comes out and says they know for a fact that a site that I rely on for data is wrong I am curious where they get their information because I like to have accurate data. So if they have a more reliable source of information I want to get access to it.
Obviously... from your rather heated reply... you don't have a more accurate source and were just talking out of your ass and got caught. I didn't even mean to 'catch you' at it. But there it is. I wasn't accusing you of anything. I merely asked an honest question. The tone and hatred in your reply tells me you don't know what you're talking about because, quite frankly, there was no need to rip my head off over a simple question.
Currently Playing: Dungeons and Dragons Online. Sig image Pending Still in: A couple Betas
hmm *IF* those numbers are right ... after 1year from first CU we slowly went from 250k to 190k subs, that doesnt seem as breaking strategy, the fact is this game will NEVER be among the chart leaders (certainlly on PCs), the important thing is what is "enough" for SOE/LA
Originally posted by Chessack Originally posted by Makane Also, anyone can take numbers from the press releases that companies spew out about sub numbers. That doesn't mean they are accurate or that the company is not fudging it's numbers.
Well, since no one but the company itself can possibly know the exact numbers, if you hold the position that the company's numbers themselves are suspect and that the company is likely to lie about its numbers, then there will never, under any conditions, be ANY source of subscriber numbers you could believe.
This means, of course... WoW saying it has 6+ million subs? You can't believe that, since they might be fudging.
GW saying it has 1 mil accounts? Can't believe that -- they might be fudging.
And COH reporting it has 180k accounts -- can't believe that either. They might be fudging.
Of course, since these companies often are coporations and have to report to shareholders, openly lying about their subscription numbers is probably a criminal offense in most countries, and certainly in the United States.
The best bet is, if the company reports numbers, those numbers are (to the best of the company's knowledge) accurate. If there's something in the numbers that the company doesn't want you to see -- as has been the case with SWG for a long time now -- the company just won't release the numbers, or will release partial data, so you can't really know. But I don't think any company would say, "We have 1 million subs" when they in fact have 1,000... doing so could be actionable if they're a publicly traded entity.
That said, the guy doing mmorpgchart.com has put out numbers that are as accurate as is humanly possible given all the constraints. You're free to disbelieve them if you want, but I don't think you'll find a more complete and accurate set of estimates anywhere in the world.
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Actually COH/COV and Guild Wars numbers are as close to 100% accurate as you're going to get. They're reported every quarter by NCSOFT as part of their quarterly stockholder's release. They can't fudge them... well ok they can.... but only if they want to get shut down for fraud.
Currently Playing: Dungeons and Dragons Online. Sig image Pending Still in: A couple Betas
Originally posted by teleprior hmm *IF* those numbers are right ... after 1year from first CU we slowly went from 250k to 190k subs, that doesnt seem as breaking strategy, the fact is this game will NEVER be among the chart leaders (certainlly on PCs), the important thing is what is "enough" for SOE/LA
Well, out of all the MMO's he has listed, it's ranked 8th out of 16.
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That's like saying, "I have an inside source, my fathers, brothers, uncles, nephews, cousins, former roommate, who says SOE is releasing Pre-CU servers in July FTW!!1!". He can quote inside sources all he wants, but his stuff is all guesswork and I honestly don't know if he has sources...I just really don't care.
I already answered for his reasons...money.
Not exactly considering his main source to his guess was Smedlys own words . Not his sister in law three times removed .
Yes, but there lies the error. He got the numbers from Smed?? I have even less faith in the numbers.
The 190k note is actually quite alarming. Considering that in each 'revamp' that new players join as well as old players leave, it's curious as to exactly how many members were lost through the CU and NGE. Looking at the sheet, SWG also posted 217,000 subs in Dec 05 - that's almost 40,000 (!) lost after the NGE/ToOW fiasco.
My guess is that CU3 brought back a lot of vets, and SWG is probably back over 200,000 again. They might be adding subs, but they're definitely NOT outpacing the vets walking out, even if they're managing to pull them back in.
Considering that SWG's long term strategy plan is not very "good," and you've got a number of MMOs coming out this fall, in addition to WoW's expansion, it's safe to say that SWG's heading into very dark waters. SOE is quite literally bleeding customers, and continuing down paths that will only further butcher the game from it's wonderful inception.
Honestly, everyone in charge of strategical management for SWG at SOE AND LucasArts should be fired. What a disgrace.
-- xpaladin
[MMOz]
AC1/2, AO, DAoC, EQ1/2, SoR, SWG, UO, WAR, WoW
I don't think he's paid by the MMO companies, afterall he is asking for donations
Errr.. no.
The numbers are available for anyone to download on his site. If he were making money off the data alone, he'd not have a website where you could download them freely.
He might get paid, being an analyst, for "best practices" reports, or reports based on the numbers he attains. But that work is speculative and requires hard data to perform. There's nothing wrong with that at all. But that would be all the reason more for the numbers to be as accurate, else he'd be facing the ire of many companies and be publicly flogged as a fraud.
Yeah, it's good to be skeptical, but if he were shady, he'd act a bit more shady I think. Pad the numbers up, require membership for download, etc. As a fellow analyst, I can say that from his work, it looks to me like he's doing the best job he can to get numbers. I happen to disagree with some of his analytic review here and there, but the data seems hard-fought for, and I can't find any reason to disprove it.
-- xpaladin
[MMOz]
AC1/2, AO, DAoC, EQ1/2, SoR, SWG, UO, WAR, WoW
190,000 is a disasterous loss of subscribers (I think I est. something along these lines a few weeks back) Going from aprx 255k to 190k in about 5 months. (thats about 65k in sub lose, very bad)
The chart shows a sharp decline from July 05 to Jan 06. That would say to me (because no one knew of the NGE until Nov) that the game was nose diving before the NGE.
Also keep in mind the game is at its 3 year mark, its in its decline no matter how you slice it now.
it would be interesting to see what it is right now. I would guesstamate about 170-180k total subs. That would put its loses since last July at about 70-80,000 lost subs. That is a very large amount of people and thats why the servers "look" empty to the vets who do pop in for a look.
With no major releases over this summer you will likely see some stablization for awhile.
Considering there's usually at least around 3000 people on at any given time, although certain servers have 6k plus at peak time, and there's around...what, 24 servers or so...
That's just including the names I can see. Considering when you go /anon, you aren't counted in a /sea all, we'll have to add a significant margin of error.
I would say the number presented on that chart are at BEST questionable, but more than likely, pulled out of thin air.
Waiting for something fresh to arrive on the MMO scene...
This means, of course... WoW saying it has 6+ million subs? You can't believe that, since they might be fudging.
GW saying it has 1 mil accounts? Can't believe that -- they might be fudging.
And COH reporting it has 180k accounts -- can't believe that either. They might be fudging.
Of course, since these companies often are coporations and have to report to shareholders, openly lying about their subscription numbers is probably a criminal offense in most countries, and certainly in the United States.
The best bet is, if the company reports numbers, those numbers are (to the best of the company's knowledge) accurate. If there's something in the numbers that the company doesn't want you to see -- as has been the case with SWG for a long time now -- the company just won't release the numbers, or will release partial data, so you can't really know. But I don't think any company would say, "We have 1 million subs" when they in fact have 1,000... doing so could be actionable if they're a publicly traded entity.
That said, the guy doing mmorpgchart.com has put out numbers that are as accurate as is humanly possible given all the constraints. You're free to disbelieve them if you want, but I don't think you'll find a more complete and accurate set of estimates anywhere in the world.
C
At one point on the COH forum we tried a little game. People asked, "How popular are the ATs?" (archetypes). Well, there's no way to know exactly how many of each is made, but a bunch of people went out and did some server surveys -- doing searches by AT type at different times of day on different servers. BEFORE the survey, everyone predicted Blasters would be tops, followed by Scrappers, with tankers and defenders at the bottom.
It turned out, when we actually did the statistics, that Scrappers were far and away on top, Blasters were a solid number 2, and the other three ATs were statistically tied. By "feel" nobody predicted that. But when you actually did a large survey, those were the results.
This shows how your "feelings" are not always correct. I'd have been willing to bet a rather large sum of money that COH's number of subs has plummeted in the last 3-4 months. That's because the activity I have personally seen on the servers seems for all the world like it's waning rather substantially. However, the subs numbers do not bear this out. There has been a slight dip (from 197k in December to 182k in March), but nowhere near the scope I had expected. If "feels" like at best the server population is a quarter of what it once was... clearly that cannot be the case if they have retained 90% of their subscriber base. So my feelings, my personal experience, are off from what the statistics are.
Also remember that subs may be maintained without lots of activity. For example, about half the people on my SG have active subscriptions but log in maybe once a week if that. They are bored with the game, but there is a new publish coming and they are biding their time waiting for that. I wouldn't be surprised if 90 out of the 180k are still subscribing but not playing much -- which would make the numbers on the NCSoft website dove-tail with my "feelings" from playing in-game. (Also NCSoft reports daily and weekly access and those numbers ARE way down, from 67k logins/day in December to 45k logins/day in March, which again dovetails with the idea that accounts are being maintained but used less intensively.)
One has to be careful in ascribing one's "feelings" to anything more than that. The human brain is notoriously good at picking up "patterns" -- but sadly it is good at picking up patterns where none exist. That's why we have statistical methods in the first place.
No matter how you slice it, no matter how imperfect the mmorpgchart.com numbers are, they are far better and far more likely to be accurate than how you "feel" based on having logged into a game and mucked around in it for a few months (or even years).
C
According to mmorpgchart.com, FFXI had 650k subscibers at last check-in -- though for some reason that one has not yet been updated past July of '05 or so. This could easily fit with the 144k concurrent users you are estimating.
Let's look at numbers we DO have -- NCsoft, who publishes their details. At peak in December, they were at around 197k total subs for COH/V, and 66k concurrent users. That means that about 1 in 3 subscribers are logged in each day (or looked at another way, the average subscriber logged in once every 3 days). If you assume a similar daily login rate for FFXI (no reason not to, unless you have some data to indicate otherwise), you would expect something on the order of 450k subs total. That's today of course... He's estimating 650k from a year ago.
Given the amount of slop in your estimate (you admit you can't see everyone, meaning daily concurrent could be higher, say around 200k, which would mean 600k probable total subscriptions or thereabouts), I don't see how your guesses in any way invalidate the (outdated, admittedly) mmorpgchart.com numbers. In fact, I'd say it looks pretty good all things considered.
C
I was expecting it to be way less then 190k. from what im hearing, it sounds people left SWG in droves. I like to see what SWG final numbers been after a year NGE was released. that way people who have six months and year subscripitions will let them run out. i bet the SWG will bottom around 80,000 or so.
Have played: CoH, DDO EQ2, FFXI, L2, HZ, SoR, and WW2 online
Have played: CoH, DDO EQ2, FFXI, L2, HZ, SoR, and WW2 online
I find it interesting that the guy who runs the site sent me an email stating he wouldnt have any numbers for SWG because his source left SOE.
He must have made a total guess or just regurgitated SOE's statement of 5th largest MMO they claimed last month.
190k is total BS regardless. Anyone who played pre-nge saw the game had much more players around. The numbers were 225k then and therefore no way they only lost 35k accounts.
SOE is counting all-access passes obviously. And most of those are EQ2 players wanting extra character slots and have never created a SWG account.
35-50k accounts at the very most is all SWG has.
These are up until May, so it's only out by a week or two.
Also Riker, where are you getting this pre-nge 225k sub number from?
I can create a site, post numbers I think are correct, and say the data is derived from inside sources. People put too much into his guesses.
That's not to say MMOGChart is no more credible than Spathotan or myself. I don't know other MMO's, but I do know SWG and I have followed every word, press release, and news item since its inception. To put things into perspective:
MMOGChart says "Inside
sources offer a more precise but incomplete picture; as of March 2006 SWG only
had 120,00 monthly paying subscribers, but this number does not include those
who are subscribed to the game via game time cards or SOE station pass
subscriptions. Based on previously
known data, I’ve put the total number of subscribers for SWG at 190,000 for
March 2006, but the actual number could be anywhere from 175,000 to 225,000."
By his own admission, he guesses based on previous data and an "inside source" that SWG has 190,000 subs. He is also counting time cards, which haven't been sold since early this year, and station access, which he has stated he believes hovers at 50,000 total for all games. Quoted from earlier in this thread "There are only 50K or so station passes anyway; they don't really effect the numbers that much."
So, we have an insider source with 120k, and 70k remaining for cards and station access. I'm thinking it's actually closer to 120k, including station access, and no game cards...and I did the exact same thing he does...guess.
Well SoE never shows their numbers (at least not for us
I have paid the fee just one month to make sure my houses don't dissapear, and every place I visit seems really empty compared to the game before the combat upgrade. (or even after).
Yes, I completely agree that the later half of 05 was very bad for SWG. From the look of the chart (it is difficult to see because the months are not broken down) The decline was happening before the NGE announcement.
If you can see the tiny chart
At launch SWG peaked very quickly (looks like about 2 or 3 months after launch) then platues off at about 300k. It roughly holds that for about 1 year (apprx) In Sept of 04 the game begins its decline and never pulled out of it. It has a few minor stablizations but nothing for any real length of time.
Seeing as this in a Star Wars license and not generic fantasy world 1001, you can imagine why Sony reacted the way they did. There was no reason, aside from a poor game design, that this game should have done as badly as it did. At the time 300k was a respectible amount of subs (remember this is pre-WoW) BUT it should have been a runaway hit. It should have hit 1 million.
It wasn't NGE that killed SWG, it was the crappy game design from the beginning and the numbers show that.
You can see a similar pattern forming in EQII. My guess would be it is the instability SOE creates within its customer base with its revamps that causes the failure of its games. Rather then tweek an exsisting system they choose to rip out a mechanic and replace it. This pisses people off who worked hard to do something. SOE games will ALWAYS be in a state of decline shortly after launch because of this. (at least until they stop it)
The Devs need to stick to their guns and not radically change the games at the drop of a hat. SWG could have been salvaged very early on but they chose a different route. A much more difficult and PR destroying route unfortunately.
Obraik, like I said it will will stablize throughout the this summer as there are no major releases. The people who don't like the NGE left long ago, the NGE backlash has ended a few months back. There might even be some minor increases as some vets come back to take a look.
The game is a bit more interesting to play then it was in the past but not much. Its enough to keep you "engaged". It is still missing any real amount of content, the "new" classes still need to be fleshed out, the primary focus of SW lore, the Galactic civil war, is still missing and the technical issues need to be resolved.
From what I can see, they are adding content slowly but surely (the quality is in question though, but anything is better then grinding Bols) The GCW looks like it may be getting addressed soon. I don't know about the classes, my smuggler is a generic pistol user. He has no role or purpose whatso ever (he is still cool though) and its much less buggy where content is concerned then in the past. (pre-NGE a large percentage of "quest" where bugged compared to now. Many of the old quest walkthroughs had "quest bugged" in the first line.
Again SWG main problem in the future is going to be the overly critical customer base and the Devs ability to produce a quality feature. I have my doubts on both.
I would those numbers are a bit slanted. Prolly including station access pass subs even tho they never logged in or installed the game.
I figured it was just a matter of time before the resident know-it-all showed up. Anyways ill enlighten you.
Im baseing it on having played all 3 of those games within the last year for at least 3 months. I played CoV for 3 months, FFXI for about 5 and EQ2 for around 7. You are right, its not fact, but I can assure even you that what I said is legit from what I saw in those games. I have no reason to lie, I dont currently play any of those 3 anymore.
Ive read all the post after the one ive quoted here, and I saw the stuff X person said about CoH/V and I ackwoledge that, thanks for the info. Ive also seen you tell one person you KNOW UO has at least those said numbers because you have a friend who plays. You dont even play the game yourself, so you are going by what he/she tells you, yet you attempt to "learn me" by challenging my statement? At this point im realizing your post was merely flamebait, but im not gonna delete all this.
I wasn't attempting to "learn" you. I was merely asking how you think your numbers are more accurate than SirBruce's? He lists exactly how he gets his numbers. A LOT of insider folks give him information on a fairly regular basis. Hell, major gaming companies use him as a consultant. So your 'gut' is more accurate than his numbers? I didn't say my friend told me there were 120k players in UO... I said the information he tells me (as he does play regularly) gives him the feeling that there is no reason to doubt the numbers about UO.
The difference between you and I is that while I may or may not like the numbers I see for a certain game unless I have better information on a game then I will take SirBruce's numbers over some yoyo who is wagging a guess at how many people are playing a game based on his experiences on 1 server on a game during the limited time he is logged in with no factual data to back it up.
And, as I said, I didn't doubt you, I was just curious where you got your information from because I do like to get factual data. I used to write MUDS and even did some work on MMO's as well. I no longer do, because I detest programming to a schedule, I do network engineering now... much less stressful... But I still retain an interest in the industry and still have numerous friends working in the industry. So when someone comes out and says they know for a fact that a site that I rely on for data is wrong I am curious where they get their information because I like to have accurate data. So if they have a more reliable source of information I want to get access to it.
Obviously... from your rather heated reply... you don't have a more accurate source and were just talking out of your ass and got caught. I didn't even mean to 'catch you' at it. But there it is. I wasn't accusing you of anything. I merely asked an honest question. The tone and hatred in your reply tells me you don't know what you're talking about because, quite frankly, there was no need to rip my head off over a simple question.
Currently Playing: Dungeons and Dragons Online.
Sig image Pending
Still in: A couple Betas
This means, of course... WoW saying it has 6+ million subs? You can't believe that, since they might be fudging.
GW saying it has 1 mil accounts? Can't believe that -- they might be fudging.
And COH reporting it has 180k accounts -- can't believe that either. They might be fudging.
Of course, since these companies often are coporations and have to report to shareholders, openly lying about their subscription numbers is probably a criminal offense in most countries, and certainly in the United States.
The best bet is, if the company reports numbers, those numbers are (to the best of the company's knowledge) accurate. If there's something in the numbers that the company doesn't want you to see -- as has been the case with SWG for a long time now -- the company just won't release the numbers, or will release partial data, so you can't really know. But I don't think any company would say, "We have 1 million subs" when they in fact have 1,000... doing so could be actionable if they're a publicly traded entity.
That said, the guy doing mmorpgchart.com has put out numbers that are as accurate as is humanly possible given all the constraints. You're free to disbelieve them if you want, but I don't think you'll find a more complete and accurate set of estimates anywhere in the world.
C
Actually COH/COV and Guild Wars numbers are as close to 100% accurate as you're going to get. They're reported every quarter by NCSOFT as part of their quarterly stockholder's release. They can't fudge them... well ok they can.... but only if they want to get shut down for fraud.
Currently Playing: Dungeons and Dragons Online.
Sig image Pending
Still in: A couple Betas