well, i looked them up....absolutely nothing comes up in a google for The Boourns incident in SWG. and i couldnt find any leaked letter about raph koster either. so unless you can give us some links with proof, i dont think im going to believe you. i have had nothing but good service from SOE. the three years that i played everquest, any cs ticket i ever put in was answered promptly and they were always willing to help. whether it was about something that happened (like missing quest piece or someone harassing me) they always replaced the piece or calmed the situation down. i also played SWG, and although i admit it was a bit tougher to get ahold of the cs team, they always sent me back a mail within a reasonable amount of time. some people blow things out of proportion, and even if thier was a letter from this guy named raph koster, does he represent the whole of SOE...i think not. so if you have some kind of vendetta against them, thats your problem. they are a huge company and its hard to cater to hundreds of thousands of players, so when your perfect come back and try again.
Yea, also couldn't find anything 'useful' about that Boourns thing. Only seen a mention of someone being forced to change his name [which is usually a good thing by the looks of the -crap- names people run around in MMORPGs these days].
As for Raph Koster, couldn't find any 'leaked' presentation either, but i've read alot of his stuff regardless. He is Chief Creative Officer for SOE and alot of the things he says DO make sense [and i tend to agree with it]. Whether he actually has the power to "force" what he has written books about at SOE is probably doubtful [corporates run the show in the end, not the creative officers].
Some of the more "controversial" laws he mentions :
Koster's Law (Mike Sellers was actually the one to dub it thus) The quality of roleplaying is inversely proportional to the number of people playing.
Hyrup's Counter-observation The higher the fee, the better the roleplayers. (And of course, the smaller the playerbase.)
Enforcing roleplaying A roleplay-mandated world is essentially going to have to be a fascist state. Whether or not this accords with your goals in making such a world is a decision you yourself will have to make.
Lambert's Laws: # As a virtual world's "realism" increases, the pool of possible character actions increase. # The opportunities for exploitation and subversion are directly proportional to the pool size of possible character actions. # A bored player is a potential and willing subversive. # Players will eventually find the shortest path to the cheese.
I think we need to define 'failure' i.e. Horizons and Wish are MMOGs that I describe as 'failures', for different reasons. Do we have any acccurate figures to subscriber levels on a month by month basis, so we can plot the relative popularity of a particular game? Or is this mere anecdotal evidence? I never trust the official forums but always gauge the temperature of a game from the various server boards (or did so in EQ).
Is it the case that the MMORPG.com community is not the typical demographic who play either SoE 2nd Gen games (SWG and EQ2), as well as Blizzard's 2nd Gen offering, WoW?
I personally have no real axe to grind against SoE one way or another. Whilst I will not touch a SoE product after SoL [Shadows of Luclin] was released for EQ, unless SoE radically changed their game dynamic, there are 100s of thousands of players who like the SoE vision. Also, if you look at the market-place at the moment, there is really only WoW that can accommodate a mass SoE exodus (or maybe CoH, when CoV is released). The MMOG market is starting to mature and we've already witnessed the crunch with quite a few games going to the wall.
Whether we like it or not, the industry needs SoE to appeal to the mass-market in the same way that Blizzard does (although Blizzard do appear to have beat SoE at their own game). There will be a lot of disaffected players who are not turned on by either of these products, who drift into 'alternative' or nice products created by 'indie' developers (I'm using CCP's EVE Online as an example). Occasionally, you may get a few cross-over products that appeal to both sets of demographics.
The danger is that there is ever increading hype and pressure on the releases of 'alleged' 3rd gen products such as Dn: and Vanguard. Also, it will be interesting to see how D&D Online, The Matrix Online, as well as ME Online all fare i.e. will the developers visions of the products match the player's expectations?
Regards, Riotgirl
P.s. Is there a rough baseline of minimum subscribers that MMOGs would need to reach before it could be considered stable? What subscriber number would players call the minimum threshold?
"If you think I'm plucky and scrappy and all I need is love, you're in way over your head. I don't have a heart of gold or get nice. There are a lot nicer people coming up. We call them losers."
My thanks to ianubisi for posting the link to MMOGChart.com in this thread to allow us to feed some quantitive analysis into this debate and support our suppositions with figures. The charts are not perfect because Lineage, Lineage2 and Ragnarok Online are omitted, but from this chart, EQ and DAoC have a slightly bigger market share (subscriber numbers) than EQ2 and WoW (the 2nd gen games).
This chart plots active subscribers over 120,000 mark. The chart plotting subscriber base between 120,000 and 600,000 is more relevant to comparing non-Asian MMOGs, and roughly plotting player numbers between 1st gen games and 2nd gen games. Note: the figures for the 2nd gen subscriber base cannot be considered reliable. Also, there is too insignificant a timeline to properly extrapolate conclusions from these figures. Interesting nevertheless.
What's interesting is that the author of this analysis of MMOG subscription growth doesn't have confidence in the data for WoW's subscriber base. Therefore, it would be interesting to plot the subscriber patterns of EQ2 and WoW 6 months after release on a month by month basis.
Going to have a look at the Excel files and see if I can play around with the data and re-plot it on a month by month basis.
Needless to say, the Asian MMOGs (Lineage and their ilk) are the biggest MMOGs in the world by subscriber base.
Regards, Riotgirl
"If you think I'm plucky and scrappy and all I need is love, you're in way over your head. I don't have a heart of gold or get nice. There are a lot nicer people coming up. We call them losers."
btw, Templarx, legendmud.org?!?! man, i used to play that game 10 years ago. maybe even more than 10 years
Heh, guess then you know how Raph Koster's thinking goes then? So even if the site points towards a MUD [and i STILL mud actually :P] , this is probably a proimenet quick bio on Raph Koster [for in case no one went to his site] :
I work at Sony Online Entertainment as creative director at the Austin studio; nonetheless, all views expressed on this site are my own, and not necessarily endorsed by any former or current employer.
I make massively multiplayer games, which are basically large-scale graphical virtual worlds. My current project is Star Wars Galaxies, an online version of the Star Wars universe. Previously, I was the lead designer for Ultima Online.
In the Ultima Online community, I am known as Designer Dragon, but the text mud community knows me better as Ptah, one of the implementors for LegendMUD. My Star Wars handle is Holocron, but lately I've just been using my real name more and more.
PS, yes it seems rather outdated...might be related to how well things were going dunno.
Originally posted by Thinman After the way that they have treated the players, and their lack of morality in their business practices, it is nice to see them going down the tubes. Who agrees?
I thought this thread was going to die and sink and "fail". Because as someone already posted, the creator of this thread is boarderline trolling. Thinman never even attempts to post any of his sources.
If anyone does not like SOE then guess what? Do NOT play any of their games!
Next, according to Mr. Reality, SOE is the most successful gaming company on the planet. SOE has EQ, PS, SWG, and EQ2. 4 MMORPGs by the same parent company. ALL of them ARE successful. All have made back all money invested into them, and all are now turning a true profit. (EQ2 is on track to re-couping all its investment money. By its 1yr mark, it should be making a true profit.Right on scheduale.)
Go to school, go talk to your economics teacher, and your math teacher. Ask them what IS success. Success you see is making back whatever money one invested + then making a true profit.
Guess what the most successful movie is in movie history? It is the movie Deep Throat. (about to be re-released in mainstream movie theaters by the end of Febuary 2005.) It cost roughly 28,000.oo to make. And made back over 600 MILLION. Star Wars, Titanic, Spider-Man, Batman, all cost between 25 million to 100 million to make. They made back roughly 600 million to 800 million. All are successful.
EQ2 is on track to recouping its investment money. It is NOT about which is doing better EQ2 or WoW. It IS about which is recouping its investment money. EQ2 and WoW right now are both F-A-I-L-U-R-E-S. They have yet to ro-coup all investment money. BUT EQ2 and WoW are both on track to recouping all investmen money, and then start making a true profit. Learn you someting about buisness and economics.
SOE is not failing. Not even close. EQ alone cost 5 million to make. 30 million for SOE to buy it back from Varant after SOE fired McQuaid and McQuaid later came back to SOE selling EQ back to SOE. So 35 million total SOE spent on EQ. EQ then made over a half BILLION. Enough true profit for SOE, to fund PS, SWG, and EQ2.
Blizzard on the other hand is currently on shaky ground. Diablo 1 is a lost cause. Hackers OWN that game inside out. Diablo 2 is barely owned by Blizzard, hackers have repeatedly raided D2. Blizzard has only won 60% of the war vs hackers in Diablo 2. The rest of Blizzard's games are 1 time sellers. NEXT 50% of ALL players of Blizzard games play without ever buying any of Blizzards games. They use cracks. This is VERY prevelant in Asia (where half of Blizzard's players are) and in Asian communities in other countries (like the USA, Europe, etc...). They go to PC Bangs. The PC Bang buys 1 copy of Diablo2, or any other Blizzard game, and cracks it open. Allowing it to be played on hundreds of computers at the exact same time, off 1 account/CD-Key.
SOE has roughly 600k to 1 million actual accounts that pay monthly fees. That is a recurring cash cow. Blizzard has roughy 8 million total game boxes sold for all their games. That is a one time only cash cow. Blizzard right now has 1 MMORPG that has yet to break even, THEN start turning a true profit. SOE has 4 MMORPGs, with 3 of them long ago breaking even, and now turning a true profit.
SOE is doing just fine financially. As far as customer service goes... well, no one really knows. Since SOE by law cannot discuss in public each customer's rants. Only SOE and each customer knows for sure what happened. But in the end, if anyone does not like a product, do not play it. Play some other product. It is called capitalism.
Originally posted by Riotgirl Regards, Riotgirl P.s. Is there a rough baseline of minimum subscribers that MMOGs would need to reach before it could be considered stable? What subscriber number would players call the minimum threshold?
Nice post. Good to see not everyone is reacting to the original creator of this thread. MMORPGs are a buisness. Money gets invested. That money must first be re-couped. Then the buisness/mmorpg starts to make a true profit. Any mmorpg that has not re-couped its investment money is a bona-fid failure (Asheron's Call 2 is the most obvious example. It is roughly 2 years old and has roughly 6k total players. No chance in heaven or hell of it recouping the roughly 20 million it cost to make it.)
There is a minimum baseline of subscribers that a MMORPG needs to reach for it to be considered stable:
1. Raph Koster made one of the most famous game DEV posts on the old SWG forums. It was titled "The Longest Post". (some fansites still have it up and archived.) He stated that the intended shelf life of a MMORPG is 5years. With that in mind, a mmorpg is intended to start turning a true profit within 2 years of release.
2. EQ cost 5 million to make. It needed 50k accounts in order to be on track to re-couping its investment money aka to be successful. Same with AC.
AO, DAoC, cost roughly 15 million to make. SWG, AC2, cost between 20 million to 25 milion to make. Right now, a mmorpg needs 50k accounts to have a chance in heaven or hell of re-couping its investment money. So 50k accounts is the bare minimum baseline of subscribers needed to be considered stable. Aka it is not in danger of having the plug pulled.
100k accounts is considered a hit mmorpg. The mmorpg is on track to re-couping all investment money 1 year after release. Anything more than 100k players is a incredible runaway hit success.
Sources:
A. "The Longest Post" by Raph Koster aka Holocron. On the old SWG forums. (Now archived in the Way Back Machine. Or on many major SWG fansites.)
B. Buisness 2.0 Magazine article "The Sorcerer of Sony". With interviews with EQ co-founder and moneyman behind EQ, the one and only Smeadly. He's the one who got Hideki Idea (sp) to fund EQ after he got kicked out of Sony's offices numerous times before.
C. Sir Bruce's site. Which gives exact to rough to estimated number of players for every major MMORPG. He goes into detail on how he obtained the numbers for each mmorpg on his charts.
Well EQ2 is not failing, they are like the microsoft of mmorpgs. Look at how many games they have made, and every single one has gotten popular to some degree. I have never been treated bad by them. The all acess pass was a good idea, I can play any of their games now for 21 bucks.
What a stupid thread. Just how much mileage can some of you idiots get out of this bizarre hatred of a corporation. It's a frickin business, for god's sake ... just like every other business out there ... good employees, bad employees, good and bad ideas, some good things and some mistakes, trying to pay the rent, pay the salaries, make a profit, etc. And in case you haven't noticed, customer service in ALL areas of business is damn near non-existent in the current world. Grow up already.
Originally posted by Riotgirl Needless to say, the Asian MMOGs (Lineage and their ilk) are the biggest MMOGs in the world by subscriber base. Regards, Riotgirl
No they are not. The subject has been brought up before. The Asian MMORPGs are successful. But IF they are more equal to having 200k accounts vs the "mainstream" mmorpgs. The Asian mmorpgs exist in a very unique market:
1. Korea leads the world in internet access for the masses. They have 24hour computer places called "PC Bangs" (what they are called when translated into English). Anyone, any age, no matter how poor they are, can play just about any game, anytime day or night. And they do not have to buy the game. Asia does not recignize copyright laws. PC Bangs will buy 1 copy of a game, then crack it. Allowing them to use the game on hundreds to thousands of computers at the same time. You can go play Lineage at a PC Bang in Korea without ever having to buy Lineage. Just pay roughly 5 bucks and you are in the game, playing for a few hours until your computer time runs out.
Compare to the USA, Europe, and the rest of the world. Most people age 5 to 17 have to have parents permission to pay for their mmorpg acccounts. To sign up for them. To buy a computer. It is far more difficult for the masses to get online. Especially those under 17 who have more freet ime.
2. Korea, and the rest of Asia, practice anti-American, anti-European, anti-Non-Asian, economics. Here is an example:
In Japan, the Japanese rice farmers are super successful. They outsell rice from other countries. Is it because their rice is better? Or is it because the Japanese goverment makes it near impossible for the better, cheaper, American rice to be sold in Japan? Japanese rice farmers exist in a vacume or near-vacume market.
Same with non-Asian based MMORPGs that try to market in Asia. EQ and others are not given the same chance as Lineage, El Karidian, etc... to market in Asia by Asian goverments. Thus Lineage, etc... exist in a vacume, or near vacume, market.
3. Non-Asian mmorpgs on purpose do not try to aggressivly target the Asian market. In Computer Gamiing Magazine (the issue with AC2 on the cover. I think it was Fall 2002?) They profiled every mmorpg. The EQ team heard about Lineage being made after EQ. But they considered Asia to not exist. Anarchy Online was the first ever non-Asian mmorpg to activly pursue the Asian market. But even right now, the majority of mmorpgs still ignore the Asian market. So of course the Asians are going to make their own mmorpgs instead of waiting another 100 years for them to be noticed. LOL!
3b. There are still large markets being ignored right now: Central America, South America, Canada, Eastern Europe/Soviet area, Africa, and Middle East (India for example, which has roughly 30% of the world's computer techs. Many US computer companies outsource to India.)
4. FFXI counts each player character as a player. Compare to other mmorpgs which counts each account as a player. Each account allows a single player to make 1-12 seperate characters. Going by FFXI's thinking, EQ actually has 8 million acconts LOL! Since each player can make 8+ characters on each server in EQ, FFXI also forces higher level players to create more characters because inventory space is limited. Half of all the "players" in FFXI are mules. FFXI is still a successful MMORPG, but on the level of 200k - 300k accounts.
So those are the reasons why Lineage, and the rest of the Asian mmorpgs are not in the "same market" as the rest of the mmorpgs. Why they have a "fake" amount of success. (Just ask JD Rockefeller when he OWNED America for roughly 20 years through Standard Oil in the vacume or near-vacume market he had.
Wonder where the origianl starter of the thread got his facts? I don't see SOE failing as they are a profitable company that owns a large share of the mmorpg gaming industry. That being said SOE may be successful at producing games, but they aren't that great when it comes to customer service. That's not to say they don't care about their customers, but they need to find a better way of providing customer service. Hince forth why I haven't played any of their games since EQ1.
That being said if SOE improved on their customer service, I wonder how much bigger of a share of the mmorpg and gaming industry they'd own? I never want to see a company fail unless it is corrupt and/or harmful to society and/or people. Jobs are lost which hurt individuals that are like you me who are just trying to make a dollar to provide for themselves and/or families so NO, it is not good when I see a company fail. Let's face it, competition, the more the better, is good for us the consumer as well.
Originally posted by RabidWerWolf I never want to see a company fail unless it is corrupt and/or harmful to society and/or people. Jobs are lost which hurt individuals that are like you me who are just trying to make a dollar to provide for themselves and/or families so NO, it is not good when I see a company fail. Let's face it, competition, the more the better, is good for us the consumer as well.
Amen to that. Also since SOE will be acting as producer for Turbine now, which includes the highly anticipated D&D Online I hardly see them closing their doors anytime soon.
People can say what they like about SOE and EQ2, but pretty much every couple of days there is a bug fix and there has been loads of free content recently added. EQ2 is in a very healthy state and the introduction of WoW probably hasn't made much of a difference. If the thread had been "It's nice to see EA failing" I would have had more sympathy, but both these companies are far bigger than their MMORPG's.
Originally posted by Benden Next evil bloodsuckers = EA. Wait, they produced Sims on line already
Don't disrespect the best selling game in the world The Sims
BTW, As Star Wars Galaxies being my first MMORPG. I really really enjoyed it.... but if their not doing somthing they should be doing and didn't do it. I guess they get what's coming to them. I don't want them to fall tho.
Originally posted by Rikimaru_X Originally posted by Benden Next evil bloodsuckers = EA. Wait, they produced Sims on line already Don't disrespect the best selling game in the world The Sims
Who cares if its the best selling game in the world, its the biggest scam ever.
Also, I LOVE it when someone starts a retarded thread, get their ass handed to them, and then never post in it again.
I am not a loyal follower of EQ II, in fact I was one of their most vocal critiques during the whole length of beta. But fail...? I think not. They have gotten a really rough wake up call, and maybe next time they will listen to their playerbase during beta times when they point out the flaws that was so obvious back then, even though the fan bois screamed like maniacs that we were lying.
I had people hunting me for weeks during beta telling me how stupid I was, until they had played themselves a few weeks and the hype was settling, the blindfolods off and they finally saw what they were sitting with. Suddenly they as well stood there on the barricades saying the same thing I had said all along ( And of course, not remembering anything about calling it "bullsnot" a few weeks back)
But now... Finally. They are beginning to see the same flaws, but seeing them in their wallet instead of a forum. And I must say it seems they are patching like crazy to make it all work. Kudos to them. Good work, I hope it all works out for them.
Just.. I hope they remember this in their next game... Never listen to those that only follow the hype. Never take advice from those that say 100% of a game is perfect in a beta, they are of no use to anyone anywhere at any time... Stop believing in the fanatics and start listening to those that actually study the game with open eyes. Constructive critique is a way to say "I care about your game, I want it to work better".
So hopefully, they are a good experience richer. And hopefully it will all work in the end.
Me? I am still waiting for a game developer that listen to those that want a game to succed and not to those that scream "Its perfect!" no matter what junk is actually there. I have seen all the betas out right now, and played them all. So far, only one can brag about having a real product. The rest is just all hype and no content. It is a sad future...
"This is not a game to be tossed aside lightly. It should be thrown with great force"
Originally posted by Wickes Yeah, only 300k+ subscribers after 6 weeks ... bummer. Some of you people should try visiting earth one day .... reality isn't all that bad once you get used to it.
You seem to be getting a little too worked about about people's opinions over something like a game and the company who made it. You and a lot of others I would think, including and especially some of the WoW and Blizz fanboys who start breathing fire whenever someone "dares" to disrespected their precious game. They're just opinions though, opinions about games, and not to risk having a hernia over for. I think that's about as "real" as someone can get, IMHAO.
I'm sorta happy... but at the same time I'm not. Star Wars Galaxies was probably the greatest MMORPG ever made for anyone that doesn't consider staying with it for more than 6 months cause it lacks too much freaking content and SOE always failed on giving us more.
In a way I'm happy SWG is dying cause I sorta want SOE to lose money and to keep having more people switch over to World of Warcraft. But in a way, I don't want SWG to die entirely cause one day (probably in 1-2 years knowing SOE) I might wanna come back if there is actually new places to explore, no more bugs, the combat balance and NO JEDI...
But I guess I just don't care anymore. The hundreds of people I talk to in WoW that switched from SWG or WoW is incredible. They all agree the game is sh1t, but would consider going back if they get bored of WoW (and it's hard to get bored) or SOE really did something godlike to make SWG feel like a new game with lots of new things to do.
But hey... SOE kept promissing, they never delivered... I lost faith in'em.
In terms of where they thought they would be, and where they are now, they have failed, in my viewpoint.
The letters which they have written to the fanbase, after SWG and EQ2, are both good signs of how they feel they are doing.
Read between the lines of the overall picture and you can see how they're doing as compared to how they thought that they would do.
I personally hate capitalism at its core, and SOE is the perfect example of how bad a company can be, in the context of a capitalist structure.
Take a look at the poll results.
And with that, I will once again leave you, my fair feathered friends. I don't like to get into flame wars, which opinions which aren't popular tend to bring about, so I bid you adeu.
I just wanted to see how many people agreed with this viewpoint, and we have the results now.
Currently the poll is at: 31% agreeing that SoE has failed. 26% agreeing to a point. (We'll call this the middle ground). 14% saying no. 15% also saying no. 13% also saying no.
so... 31% yes, 26% middle, and 42% no.
Hmm... even if the middle was tallied as a solid yes, thats hardly an overwhelming majority of this opinionated community 'agreeing with you'. Anyone who remembers what... the few months ago before the games came out, could tell you that the community has always leaned towards World of Warcraft (arguably because of the age/maturity of the community), so its not suprising that people will hope on the bash-SoE bandwagon.
Comments
Yea, also couldn't find anything 'useful' about that Boourns thing. Only seen a mention of someone being forced to change his name [which is usually a good thing by the looks of the -crap- names people run around in MMORPGs these days].
As for Raph Koster, couldn't find any 'leaked' presentation either, but i've read alot of his stuff regardless. He is Chief Creative Officer for SOE and alot of the things he says DO make sense [and i tend to agree with it]. Whether he actually has the power to "force" what he has written books about at SOE is probably doubtful [corporates run the show in the end, not the creative officers].
For those that is interested in Koster's writings : http://www.legendmud.org/raph/gaming/
A more direct link to some very interesting 'observations" or as he calls it, "Laws" of online worlds can
be found here : http://www.legendmud.org/raph/gaming/laws.html
Some of the more "controversial" laws he mentions :
People spending 4 or 5 years of thier life pouring thier heart and soul into a project, only to evetually see it fail??
Makes me laugh every time....
I think we need to define 'failure' i.e. Horizons and Wish are MMOGs that I describe as 'failures', for different reasons. Do we have any acccurate figures to subscriber levels on a month by month basis, so we can plot the relative popularity of a particular game? Or is this mere anecdotal evidence? I never trust the official forums but always gauge the temperature of a game from the various server boards (or did so in EQ).
Is it the case that the MMORPG.com community is not the typical demographic who play either SoE 2nd Gen games (SWG and EQ2), as well as Blizzard's 2nd Gen offering, WoW?
I personally have no real axe to grind against SoE one way or another. Whilst I will not touch a SoE product after SoL [Shadows of Luclin] was released for EQ, unless SoE radically changed their game dynamic, there are 100s of thousands of players who like the SoE vision. Also, if you look at the market-place at the moment, there is really only WoW that can accommodate a mass SoE exodus (or maybe CoH, when CoV is released). The MMOG market is starting to mature and we've already witnessed the crunch with quite a few games going to the wall.
Whether we like it or not, the industry needs SoE to appeal to the mass-market in the same way that Blizzard does (although Blizzard do appear to have beat SoE at their own game). There will be a lot of disaffected players who are not turned on by either of these products, who drift into 'alternative' or nice products created by 'indie' developers (I'm using CCP's EVE Online as an example). Occasionally, you may get a few cross-over products that appeal to both sets of demographics.
The danger is that there is ever increading hype and pressure on the releases of 'alleged' 3rd gen products such as Dn: and Vanguard. Also, it will be interesting to see how D&D Online, The Matrix Online, as well as ME Online all fare i.e. will the developers visions of the products match the player's expectations?
Regards,
Riotgirl
P.s. Is there a rough baseline of minimum subscribers that MMOGs would need to reach before it could be considered stable? What subscriber number would players call the minimum threshold?
"If you think I'm plucky and scrappy and all I need is love, you're in way over your head. I don't have a heart of gold or get nice. There are a lot nicer people coming up. We call them losers."
My thanks to ianubisi for posting the link to MMOGChart.com in this thread to allow us to feed some quantitive analysis into this debate and support our suppositions with figures. The charts are not perfect because Lineage, Lineage2 and Ragnarok Online are omitted, but from this chart, EQ and DAoC have a slightly bigger market share (subscriber numbers) than EQ2 and WoW (the 2nd gen games).
This chart plots active subscribers over 120,000 mark. The chart plotting subscriber base between 120,000 and 600,000 is more relevant to comparing non-Asian MMOGs, and roughly plotting player numbers between 1st gen games and 2nd gen games. Note: the figures for the 2nd gen subscriber base cannot be considered reliable. Also, there is too insignificant a timeline to properly extrapolate conclusions from these figures. Interesting nevertheless.
What's interesting is that the author of this analysis of MMOG subscription growth doesn't have confidence in the data for WoW's subscriber base. Therefore, it would be interesting to plot the subscriber patterns of EQ2 and WoW 6 months after release on a month by month basis.
Going to have a look at the Excel files and see if I can play around with the data and re-plot it on a month by month basis.
Needless to say, the Asian MMOGs (Lineage and their ilk) are the biggest MMOGs in the world by subscriber base.
Regards,
Riotgirl
"If you think I'm plucky and scrappy and all I need is love, you're in way over your head. I don't have a heart of gold or get nice. There are a lot nicer people coming up. We call them losers."
unfortunately SOE s holding the biggest share of the market atm.
http://www.mmogchart.com/
btw, Templarx, legendmud.org?!?! man, i used to play that game 10 years ago. maybe even more than 10 years
edited: oops ianubisi has allready mentioned mmogchart.
They deserve it
Heh, guess then you know how Raph Koster's thinking goes then? So even if the site points towards a MUD [and i STILL mud actually :P] , this is probably a proimenet quick bio on Raph Koster [for in case no one went to his site] :
PS, yes it seems rather outdated...might be related to how well things were going dunno.
I thought this thread was going to die and sink and "fail". Because as someone already posted, the creator of this thread is boarderline trolling. Thinman never even attempts to post any of his sources.
If anyone does not like SOE then guess what? Do NOT play any of their games!
Next, according to Mr. Reality, SOE is the most successful gaming company on the planet. SOE has EQ, PS, SWG, and EQ2. 4 MMORPGs by the same parent company. ALL of them ARE successful. All have made back all money invested into them, and all are now turning a true profit. (EQ2 is on track to re-couping all its investment money. By its 1yr mark, it should be making a true profit.Right on scheduale.)
Go to school, go talk to your economics teacher, and your math teacher. Ask them what IS success. Success you see is making back whatever money one invested + then making a true profit.
Guess what the most successful movie is in movie history? It is the movie Deep Throat. (about to be re-released in mainstream movie theaters by the end of Febuary 2005.) It cost roughly 28,000.oo to make. And made back over 600 MILLION. Star Wars, Titanic, Spider-Man, Batman, all cost between 25 million to 100 million to make. They made back roughly 600 million to 800 million. All are successful.
EQ2 is on track to recouping its investment money. It is NOT about which is doing better EQ2 or WoW. It IS about which is recouping its investment money. EQ2 and WoW right now are both F-A-I-L-U-R-E-S. They have yet to ro-coup all investment money. BUT EQ2 and WoW are both on track to recouping all investmen money, and then start making a true profit. Learn you someting about buisness and economics.
SOE is not failing. Not even close. EQ alone cost 5 million to make. 30 million for SOE to buy it back from Varant after SOE fired McQuaid and McQuaid later came back to SOE selling EQ back to SOE. So 35 million total SOE spent on EQ. EQ then made over a half BILLION. Enough true profit for SOE, to fund PS, SWG, and EQ2.
Blizzard on the other hand is currently on shaky ground. Diablo 1 is a lost cause. Hackers OWN that game inside out. Diablo 2 is barely owned by Blizzard, hackers have repeatedly raided D2. Blizzard has only won 60% of the war vs hackers in Diablo 2. The rest of Blizzard's games are 1 time sellers. NEXT 50% of ALL players of Blizzard games play without ever buying any of Blizzards games. They use cracks. This is VERY prevelant in Asia (where half of Blizzard's players are) and in Asian communities in other countries (like the USA, Europe, etc...). They go to PC Bangs. The PC Bang buys 1 copy of Diablo2, or any other Blizzard game, and cracks it open. Allowing it to be played on hundreds of computers at the exact same time, off 1 account/CD-Key.
SOE has roughly 600k to 1 million actual accounts that pay monthly fees. That is a recurring cash cow. Blizzard has roughy 8 million total game boxes sold for all their games. That is a one time only cash cow. Blizzard right now has 1 MMORPG that has yet to break even, THEN start turning a true profit. SOE has 4 MMORPGs, with 3 of them long ago breaking even, and now turning a true profit.
SOE is doing just fine financially. As far as customer service goes... well, no one really knows. Since SOE by law cannot discuss in public each customer's rants. Only SOE and each customer knows for sure what happened. But in the end, if anyone does not like a product, do not play it. Play some other product. It is called capitalism.
Nice post. Good to see not everyone is reacting to the original creator of this thread. MMORPGs are a buisness. Money gets invested. That money must first be re-couped. Then the buisness/mmorpg starts to make a true profit. Any mmorpg that has not re-couped its investment money is a bona-fid failure (Asheron's Call 2 is the most obvious example. It is roughly 2 years old and has roughly 6k total players. No chance in heaven or hell of it recouping the roughly 20 million it cost to make it.)
There is a minimum baseline of subscribers that a MMORPG needs to reach for it to be considered stable:
1. Raph Koster made one of the most famous game DEV posts on the old SWG forums. It was titled "The Longest Post". (some fansites still have it up and archived.) He stated that the intended shelf life of a MMORPG is 5years. With that in mind, a mmorpg is intended to start turning a true profit within 2 years of release.
2. EQ cost 5 million to make. It needed 50k accounts in order to be on track to re-couping its investment money aka to be successful. Same with AC.
AO, DAoC, cost roughly 15 million to make. SWG, AC2, cost between 20 million to 25 milion to make. Right now, a mmorpg needs 50k accounts to have a chance in heaven or hell of re-couping its investment money. So 50k accounts is the bare minimum baseline of subscribers needed to be considered stable. Aka it is not in danger of having the plug pulled.
100k accounts is considered a hit mmorpg. The mmorpg is on track to re-couping all investment money 1 year after release. Anything more than 100k players is a incredible runaway hit success.
Sources:
A. "The Longest Post" by Raph Koster aka Holocron. On the old SWG forums. (Now archived in the Way Back Machine. Or on many major SWG fansites.)
B. Buisness 2.0 Magazine article "The Sorcerer of Sony". With interviews with EQ co-founder and moneyman behind EQ, the one and only Smeadly. He's the one who got Hideki Idea (sp) to fund EQ after he got kicked out of Sony's offices numerous times before.
C. Sir Bruce's site. Which gives exact to rough to estimated number of players for every major MMORPG. He goes into detail on how he obtained the numbers for each mmorpg on his charts.
Well EQ2 is not failing, they are like the microsoft of mmorpgs. Look at how many games they have made, and every single one has gotten popular to some degree. I have never been treated bad by them. The all acess pass was a good idea, I can play any of their games now for 21 bucks.
No they are not. The subject has been brought up before. The Asian MMORPGs are successful. But IF they are more equal to having 200k accounts vs the "mainstream" mmorpgs. The Asian mmorpgs exist in a very unique market:
1. Korea leads the world in internet access for the masses. They have 24hour computer places called "PC Bangs" (what they are called when translated into English). Anyone, any age, no matter how poor they are, can play just about any game, anytime day or night. And they do not have to buy the game. Asia does not recignize copyright laws. PC Bangs will buy 1 copy of a game, then crack it. Allowing them to use the game on hundreds to thousands of computers at the same time. You can go play Lineage at a PC Bang in Korea without ever having to buy Lineage. Just pay roughly 5 bucks and you are in the game, playing for a few hours until your computer time runs out.
Compare to the USA, Europe, and the rest of the world. Most people age 5 to 17 have to have parents permission to pay for their mmorpg acccounts. To sign up for them. To buy a computer. It is far more difficult for the masses to get online. Especially those under 17 who have more freet ime.
2. Korea, and the rest of Asia, practice anti-American, anti-European, anti-Non-Asian, economics. Here is an example:
In Japan, the Japanese rice farmers are super successful. They outsell rice from other countries. Is it because their rice is better? Or is it because the Japanese goverment makes it near impossible for the better, cheaper, American rice to be sold in Japan? Japanese rice farmers exist in a vacume or near-vacume market.
Same with non-Asian based MMORPGs that try to market in Asia. EQ and others are not given the same chance as Lineage, El Karidian, etc... to market in Asia by Asian goverments. Thus Lineage, etc... exist in a vacume, or near vacume, market.
3. Non-Asian mmorpgs on purpose do not try to aggressivly target the Asian market. In Computer Gamiing Magazine (the issue with AC2 on the cover. I think it was Fall 2002?) They profiled every mmorpg. The EQ team heard about Lineage being made after EQ. But they considered Asia to not exist. Anarchy Online was the first ever non-Asian mmorpg to activly pursue the Asian market. But even right now, the majority of mmorpgs still ignore the Asian market. So of course the Asians are going to make their own mmorpgs instead of waiting another 100 years for them to be noticed. LOL!
3b. There are still large markets being ignored right now: Central America, South America, Canada, Eastern Europe/Soviet area, Africa, and Middle East (India for example, which has roughly 30% of the world's computer techs. Many US computer companies outsource to India.)
4. FFXI counts each player character as a player. Compare to other mmorpgs which counts each account as a player. Each account allows a single player to make 1-12 seperate characters. Going by FFXI's thinking, EQ actually has 8 million acconts LOL! Since each player can make 8+ characters on each server in EQ, FFXI also forces higher level players to create more characters because inventory space is limited. Half of all the "players" in FFXI are mules. FFXI is still a successful MMORPG, but on the level of 200k - 300k accounts.
So those are the reasons why Lineage, and the rest of the Asian mmorpgs are not in the "same market" as the rest of the mmorpgs. Why they have a "fake" amount of success. (Just ask JD Rockefeller when he OWNED America for roughly 20 years through Standard Oil in the vacume or near-vacume market he had.
Wonder where the origianl starter of the thread got his facts? I don't see SOE failing as they are a profitable company that owns a large share of the mmorpg gaming industry. That being said SOE may be successful at producing games, but they aren't that great when it comes to customer service. That's not to say they don't care about their customers, but they need to find a better way of providing customer service. Hince forth why I haven't played any of their games since EQ1.
That being said if SOE improved on their customer service, I wonder how much bigger of a share of the mmorpg and gaming industry they'd own?
I never want to see a company fail unless it is corrupt and/or harmful to society and/or people. Jobs are lost which hurt individuals that are like you me who are just trying to make a dollar to provide for themselves and/or families so NO, it is not good when I see a company fail. Let's face it, competition, the more the better, is good for us the consumer as well.
I miss DAoC
People can say what they like about SOE and EQ2, but pretty much every couple of days there is a bug fix and there has been loads of free content recently added. EQ2 is in a very healthy state and the introduction of WoW probably hasn't made much of a difference. If the thread had been "It's nice to see EA failing" I would have had more sympathy, but both these companies are far bigger than their MMORPG's.
Don't disrespect the best selling game in the world The Sims
BTW, As Star Wars Galaxies being my first MMORPG. I really really enjoyed it.... but if their not doing somthing they should be doing and didn't do it. I guess they get what's coming to them. I don't want them to fall tho.
-In memory of Laura "Taera" Genender. Passed away on Aug/13/08-
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RISING DRAGOON ~AION US ONLINE LEGION for Elyos
-M-A-X--L-V-L--C-H-A-R-S-
-EQ: Exxar - 60 Wizard (Karana)
Quit - Scars of Velious
-DAOC: Sethir - 50 Bard (Percival)
Quit - Foundations
-In memory of Laura "Taera" Genender. Passed away on Aug/13/08-
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RISING DRAGOON ~AION US ONLINE LEGION for Elyos
Who cares if its the best selling game in the world, its the biggest scam ever.
Also, I LOVE it when someone starts a retarded thread, get their ass handed to them, and then never post in it again.
I am not a loyal follower of EQ II, in fact I was one of their most vocal critiques during the whole length of beta. But fail...? I think not. They have gotten a really rough wake up call, and maybe next time they will listen to their playerbase during beta times when they point out the flaws that was so obvious back then, even though the fan bois screamed like maniacs that we were lying.
I had people hunting me for weeks during beta telling me how stupid I was, until they had played themselves a few weeks and the hype was settling, the blindfolods off and they finally saw what they were sitting with. Suddenly they as well stood there on the barricades saying the same thing I had said all along ( And of course, not remembering anything about calling it "bullsnot" a few weeks back)
But now... Finally. They are beginning to see the same flaws, but seeing them in their wallet instead of a forum. And I must say it seems they are patching like crazy to make it all work. Kudos to them. Good work, I hope it all works out for them.
Just.. I hope they remember this in their next game... Never listen to those that only follow the hype. Never take advice from those that say 100% of a game is perfect in a beta, they are of no use to anyone anywhere at any time... Stop believing in the fanatics and start listening to those that actually study the game with open eyes. Constructive critique is a way to say "I care about your game, I want it to work better".
So hopefully, they are a good experience richer. And hopefully it will all work in the end.
Me? I am still waiting for a game developer that listen to those that want a game to succed and not to those that scream "Its perfect!" no matter what junk is actually there. I have seen all the betas out right now, and played them all. So far, only one can brag about having a real product. The rest is just all hype and no content. It is a sad future...
"This is not a game to be tossed aside lightly.
It should be thrown with great force"
Yeah, only 300k+ subscribers after 6 weeks ... bummer.
Some of you people should try visiting earth one day .... reality isn't all that bad once you get used to it.
You seem to be getting a little too worked about about people's opinions over something like a game and the company who made it. You and a lot of others I would think, including and especially some of the WoW and Blizz fanboys who start breathing fire whenever someone "dares" to disrespected their precious game. They're just opinions though, opinions about games, and not to risk having a hernia over for. I think that's about as "real" as someone can get, IMHAO.
I'm sorta happy... but at the same time I'm not. Star Wars Galaxies was probably the greatest MMORPG ever made for anyone that doesn't consider staying with it for more than 6 months cause it lacks too much freaking content and SOE always failed on giving us more.
In a way I'm happy SWG is dying cause I sorta want SOE to lose money and to keep having more people switch over to World of Warcraft. But in a way, I don't want SWG to die entirely cause one day (probably in 1-2 years knowing SOE) I might wanna come back if there is actually new places to explore, no more bugs, the combat balance and NO JEDI...
But I guess I just don't care anymore. The hundreds of people I talk to in WoW that switched from SWG or WoW is incredible. They all agree the game is sh1t, but would consider going back if they get bored of WoW (and it's hard to get bored) or SOE really did something godlike to make SWG feel like a new game with lots of new things to do.
But hey... SOE kept promissing, they never delivered... I lost faith in'em.
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Stealth - Ambush - Hemorrhage - Sinister Strike x2 - Cold Blood - Eviscerate - Vanish - Preparation - Cold Blood - Ambush - ... you're dead! :P
In terms of where they thought they would be, and where they are now, they have failed, in my viewpoint.
The letters which they have written to the fanbase, after SWG and EQ2, are both good signs of how they feel they are doing.
Read between the lines of the overall picture and you can see how they're doing as compared to how they thought that they would do.
I personally hate capitalism at its core, and SOE is the perfect example of how bad a company can be, in the context of a capitalist structure.
Take a look at the poll results.
And with that, I will once again leave you, my fair feathered friends. I don't like to get into flame wars, which opinions which aren't popular tend to bring about, so I bid you adeu.
I just wanted to see how many people agreed with this viewpoint, and we have the results now.
That is all.
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Looking forward (cautiously) to: Age of Conan, Dark Solstice, Armada Online.
Will soon try: Guild Wars
Overall: Amazed and bewhildered at the current sad state of the artform of gaming.
Currently the poll is at:
31% agreeing that SoE has failed.
26% agreeing to a point. (We'll call this the middle ground).
14% saying no.
15% also saying no.
13% also saying no.
so...
31% yes, 26% middle, and 42% no.
Hmm... even if the middle was tallied as a solid yes, thats hardly an overwhelming majority of this opinionated community 'agreeing with you'. Anyone who remembers what... the few months ago before the games came out, could tell you that the community has always leaned towards World of Warcraft (arguably because of the age/maturity of the community), so its not suprising that people will hope on the bash-SoE bandwagon.