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LOTRO Numbers
Kyntor
Member Posts: 280
Recently, www.mmogdata.com updated the subscription numbers on some of the MMORPGs that they track. Among these were LOTRO. Now, I think LOTRO is doing pretty good and I like the game, but I am more than a little suspicious of 800k. It just seems a little too high. Maybe MMOGdata is counting total subscribers instead of current subscribers.
Does anyone else think this number is a little high?
"Those who dislike things based only on the fact that they are popular are just as shallow and superficial as those who only like them for the same reason."
Comments
Way too high.
They probably took that number from that recent article written by some clueless journalist. I forget where I read it, but it made claims like this, too. I think Turbine recently announced something with that number, too, but it was not subscribers. Regardless, this number is taken from a source that is either unreliable or out of context.
It would be 800K if they, like you said, counted total accounts made, including the free ones. There is simply no way there are 800K paying, concurrent subscribers on that few servers.
Hi Guys,
The numbers are from the news article as this is the best information available. As you wil see from the underlying spreadsheet they are ranked as low confidence. Unfortunatly, at the moment, this is the best source of numbers for LOTRO.
Also keep in mind that they sold a good number of lifetime subs which are counted in the subscriber numbers regardless if they have logged in or not - this does sku the numbers.
VTL
www.psfei.com
For a P2P game 800k would make LOTRO like the 3rd most popular game ever. I have serious doubts that this game is that popular, 300k would be pushing the realm of believability for active subs....
Presentation for new MMORPG economics concept http://www.slideshare.net/talin/mmo-economics-concept-v-10
I would like to see subs for P2P broken out of F2P and B2P....
Perhaps even by monthly cost, <$10, >$10, per month
Also is it possible to pick only the games I want to see compared?
Presentation for new MMORPG economics concept http://www.slideshare.net/talin/mmo-economics-concept-v-10
Subs I don't know. Copies sold? I wouldn't doubt it. You must consider that LOTRO based its entire game to be "Ex-WoW-Friendly" basically allowing for people to quickly convert over from WoW if any were looking for something new (which I'm sure a lot did... at first anyways). If you notice the correlation between WoW Subs and LOTRO Subs you will see WoW flatten as LOTRO rises.
"They essentially want to say 'Correlation proves Causation' when it's just not true." - Sovrath
It's my belief that if they really had a good size player base (500k+ paying subs) they'd be bragging about it in their marketing rather than touting how many characters have been created.
Of course, when trying to look good next to WOW's numbers anything under 1M is going to look a bit weak.
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Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
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While Turbine hasn't released their subscriptions numbers they have stated that they were the second most popular MMO in NA. Which would put them over 300K but less then 1.5m
War Beta Tester
Agree.
As with most of thier claims it was qualified quite a bit - I recall it starting out as him (turbine's CEO) saying it was the 2nd largest then he stammered to qualify it to made in NA and then qualified it further. in short - it was spin just like the claim they made of characters created and the ads saying you can 'play with millions of players'. All non specific spin intended to sound like they are the biggest thing ever without saying anything that can specifically be discredited because in the end it is a meaningless claim.
Obviously the sub base being so large is questionable by the fact that they have yet to add a single server, and given Turbine's inclination to try to claim they are the 2nd biggest MMO (ads, statements, etc) if they actually achieved subs of more than 200k or 300k I have no doubt they would have announced it officially. Recall the old saying 'me thinks thou doest protest to much', it easily can be restated to 'me thinks thou doest brag too much'.
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Agree.
As with most of thier claims it was qualified quite a bit - I recall it starting out as him (turbine's CEO) saying it was the 2nd largest then he stammered to qualify it to made in NA and then qualified it further. in short - it was spin just like the claim they made of characters created and the ads saying you can 'play with millions of players'. All non specific spin intended to sound like they are the biggest thing ever without saying anything that can specifically be discredited because in the end it is a meaningless claim.
Obviously the sub base being so large is questionable by the fact that they have yet to add a single server, and given Turbine's inclination to try to claim they are the 2nd biggest MMO (ads, statements, etc) if they actually achieved subs of more than 200k or 300k I have no doubt they would have announced it officially. Recall the old saying 'me thinks thou doest protest to much', it easily can be restated to 'me thinks thou doest brag too much'.
I would agree with you there if you can find me one official statement by Turbine announcing the Subscription numbers for any game they have ever released. So a press release from Turbine stating official numbers for AC1, AC2, DDO, or LOTRO. IF so then yes they are trying to spin. If not then no they aren't they are guarding corporate information just like pretty much most of the MMO companies do.
Don't try and claim that MMO companies are so forthcoming about their numbers. I am sure when WoW starts to lose subscribers we won't see any press releases from Blizzard mentioning subscription numbers anymore. Whether that is this year, next year, or ten years from now.
I will even give you a helping hand. www.turbinegames.com/index.php
There is the link for Turbinegames press releases. They have them listed back to DDO and they don't mention subscriber numbers.
War Beta Tester
I will show you the press release if you can show me a game they have made that has been into million subs territory. It is easy to say we don't release numbers when you are a company who has games that don't generate the kind of numbers that upon release attract more people (the whole bandwagon thing), but LotRO is supposed to be different. None of those previous games where marketed as being 'millions' of players - clearly things have change with LotRO in terms of the claims, I have NO doubt that had Turbine come anywhere near achieving the success they predicted or seem to try to imply that they would capitalize by releasing numbers to generate bandwagon interest. Simply put - if you have nothing of major note to announce then it is easy not to make an announcement.
Mind you, I am not flaming LotRO, and not saying it is a failure - but you simply do not launch and add no servers after months of being live and achieve those kinds of numbers. You also don't become the 2nd or 3rd most populated MMO ever without announcing it and providing proof.
Lastly, I never mentioned WoW - why must you compare LotRO to WoW in this thread?
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I was preempting anyone pointing out the fact that blizzard releases their numbers. That is unusual for any game company.
www.soepress.com/release.asp
An example of a EQ2 press release that states "Join hundreds of Thousands of players online" but never gives a hard number.
NCsoft has press releases stating how many copies of Guild Wars sold, but I couldn't find a press release stating how many subscribers they have. Not even an estimate for any of the games.
We already know that Turbine doesn't release the information. Its pretty safe to say that SOE doesn't either. EA Mythic released at least one stating they had hit the 250K mark back in 2004.
So as we can see it is pretty acceptable either way. So just because Turbine hasn't been trumpeting their subscription numbers doesn't mean anything.
They could very well have 800K and that might not be good enough for their investors, so they don't want to advertise it. For all we know the investors into Turbine on this project might of thought that lOTRO would definitely do better then WoW.
War Beta Tester
CoH/CoV has their sub numbers (total and concurrent) listed with their quarterly business report(NCSoft's, I believe). It's one of the few major mmo's that consistantly tells you how many folks are playing.
Kudos to them.
True on the rarity of it - but I think the reason WoW did so was because of the achievement the numbers represented. And once they announced the massive sub numbers it drew in tons of other people, even traditionally non gamer types. Believe me, any MMO that got to 500k or 1 million would be broadcasting it anywhere they could. Bandwagong advertising, especially in games, is particularly effective. Aside from that, if you had achieved something only one other game had achieved before you would brag about it, officially.
This just makes no sense. Turbine cannot hide the success or failure of a game from shareholders by not announcing the sub numbers publicly. Shareholders don't give to spits what the subs are, they care about share price and return on investment. No company can 'hide' that. Besides that, announcing something to the public and answering to powerful shareholders or investors is two different things entirely - I guarantee you that at all sorts of companies there is a BIG difference between what the public knows and what insiders, investors, and shareholders of note know.
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It wouldn't be the 3rd most popular mmorpg every, more like number 6 or 7.
That site a furball
LotRO peaked at about 180k active subs a few months ago and the active subs have now declined a little.
This 800k figure is about three times the amount of game boxes sold world wide.
It's sad or funny depending on your point of view that mmogdata.com can't check the amount sold of the game and come to the conclusion that it's nowhere near 800k.
FWIW, CCP also posts their numbers for EVE.
IMO, LotRO lacks that compelling something that makes people want to keep playing forever and ever. The setting is not enough, IMO (and I'm a die-hard fan of Middle-earth.) That's my personal opinion of it.
Also, like many others, I doubt they've hit anything close to 800K subs. I wonder how many peeps they can have concurrently logged in to one server? Multiply that number by the total number of servers and you'll get the max they could possibly have at the moment. I doubt that number will allow for 800K active subs.
MMOgdata is like a poling firm. As such they do not , nor can not gauruntee the accuracy. Also, it is in the companies best interest to make it look like the game is doing great and is a huge success. Players will flock to games which have the hype of being 'huge' and will stay away from games dubbed 'dying'. I wouldnt be suprised if the LOTRO devs payed some extra money to inflate the numbers a bit
Of course, perhaps this is just me being cynicle.
Torrential
Torrential: DAOC (Pendragon)
Awned: World of Warcraft (Lothar)
Torren: Warhammer Online (Praag)
LotRO peaked at about 180k active subs a few months ago and the active subs have now declined a little.
This 800k figure is about three times the amount of game boxes sold world wide.
It's sad or funny depending on your point of view that mmogdata.com can't check the amount sold of the game and come to the conclusion that it's nowhere near 800k.
I highly doubt that it peaked at 180K subs. Where is your proof of this number?Turbine's CEO wouldn't be making any statements at all that even inferred that they were one of the top MMOs in NA if that was the case. It would be a blatant lie that would bite them in the ass.
So I think you are either a Turbine hater or misinformed.
War Beta Tester
So 24 servers times 9000 people equals 216,000 at a bare minimum.
The high estimate with servers capable of holding 5K people at once and holding 10% of the server population at any given time would give us
24 servers time 50,000 people equals 1.2 million subscribers at pretty much the maximum.
So 800K is quite possible on their given equipment.
(A good example is the fact that EvE currently has around 200,000 subscribers but they only have a peak population of around 30K at any one time. This means approximately 15% of their server population is pretty much the cap for their server. )
War Beta Tester
It wouldn't be the 3rd most popular mmorpg every, more like number 6 or 7.
800k subs, doubtful. If I had to guess based on the "feel" of the population and activity of the servers I have characters on, I'd put it a little less than FFXI (another game I play). So, maybe like 300k-400k across all servers... which is fine, it's not hard to do shit in either game, but you need to put your time in.
Most MMOs max out around 8k to 10k per server with an optimal active at any given time around 2500 to 3500 from what I have read.
None of us really know what their numbers are but looking at things we do know we can pretty accurately say what they likely are not. For one, servers are the same as at launch as I understand and also as I understand waits to log in have declined - so it is safe to say the game is NOT growing notably. There has been no announcement from Turbine about reaching any record setting plateaus in terms of subs despite Turbine's very vocal pre and post launch claims that LotRO was to be very big so it is a safe bet that they have not reached such numbers.
LotRO is probably making Turbine a nice bit of money, and it probably has a solid base of dedicated fans - but there is NOTHING to indicate that it is in any way remarkable in terms of big time subs or that it is even better than average in that regard. The fact that they haven't added servers, and that load queues are not on the increase suggest things are steady and not growing. Turbine's ads even suggest they do not have big time sub numbers - I mean why would you parse comments such as the 4 million character remark trying to look like something rivaling WoW if you actually where rivaling WoW. Clearly LotRO is just another MMO - for its fans I am sure it is great and more power to them, but can we please put an end once and for all to the LotRO is second best in terms of subs - it is just COMPLETELY unfounded.
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Sorry to say but you are flat out INSANE if you actually believe that is possible, let alone likely. Most MMOs max out around 8k to 10k per server with an optimal active at any given time around 2500 to 3500 from what I have read.
None of us really know what their numbers are but looking at things we do know we can pretty accurately say what they likely are not. For one, servers are the same as at launch as I understand and also as I understand waits to log in have declined - so it is safe to say the game is NOT growing notably. There has been no announcement from Turbine about reaching any record setting plateaus in terms of subs despite Turbine's very vocal pre and post launch claims that LotRO was to be very big so it is a safe bet that they have not reached such numbers.
LotRO is probably making Turbine a nice bit of money, and it probably has a solid base of dedicated fans - but there is NOTHING to indicate that it is in any way remarkable in terms of big time subs or that it is even better than average in that regard. The fact that they haven't added servers, and that load queues are not on the increase suggest things are steady and not growing. Turbine's ads even suggest they do not have big time sub numbers - I mean why would you parse comments such as the 4 million character remark trying to look like something rivaling WoW if you actually where rivaling WoW. Clearly LotRO is just another MMO - for its fans I am sure it is great and more power to them, but can we please put an end once and for all to the LotRO is second best in terms of subs - it is just COMPLETELY unfounded.
No reason you need to make personal attacks.It is very possible. EvE has hit around 30K on at one time. So the server technology is there for servers to hold 5K people. Eve has 30K on at one time and has a population of around 210K I think. Which means that about 14% of their total population is actually logged in at one time.
So nothing I said is not possible. I said those numbers would be the absolute maximum. 5K on at any given time and 50K total per server are not impossible numbers. Did I say that was what it was? No of course not I think I have said in other threads as well that I would guess above 300K but less then 800K, so maybe 500K subs currently.
Lets use World of Warcaft as an example. They have approximately 221 US servers currently and 2million US players (population from the Blizzard Press release, server number from counting them by hand) So that gives us approximately 10K people per server on a World of Warcraft server. So that is what I used for my low end speculation. Since world of warcraft has way too many servers (notated by the mass amount of low population ones where people have been complaining and wanting server mergers) And I used EvE as the high end example for each server population.
War Beta Tester
EVE is unique, black empty space and all. And while I was kidding come one - you may be insane if you think LotRO is squeezing 30k or 50k people per server.
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