Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
Let's have it, predictions: launch sales, retention, etc
This discussion has been closed.
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Comments
Best prediction in this thread and the only one guaranteed to be true. I can predict the same for myself.
Alexis
*smiles*
I just see the (properly executed) freemium model as superior to P2P. One just needs to look at successes like LoL, TF2 etc. what F2P can do to your business. I think TF2 quindupled their subscriber-base by going F2P (and its not like it was unsuccessful to begin with). LoL currently features ~30 Million subs and even if only 1% pays real money for the game (lets assume a new champion every two weeks for around 10$) thats 40$*300.000 equaling around 12 Million dollars per month of revenue which is nothing to laugh at. Even if only 0.1% pay for the game, 1.2 Million per month is still very respectful and equaling 100.000 P2P subs for 12$.
And its "just" a MOBA title.
For TOR, If the game really has to have 500.000 subs like previously stated by EA, the monthly cashflow would be 500k*15$ so around 7.5M/Month. I think this can be easily reached with a Freemium model like Turbine has with DDO (pay for story-content).
Actually, it would be absolutely perfect for SWTOR and much more lucrative if you let people buy 2$ tokens to unlock more story quests.
First month 2+ million box sale.
First 6 months 4+ million box sale.
50% retention after first month and 10% retention after 6 months (~400,000 subscribers).
Predictions can be fun, so here's mine. lol
TOR sells 2.50 million copies worldwide by launch.
1st month: TOR gains another 750,000 in sales due to word of mouth and folks seeing what all the fuss is about
2nd month: Population begins to level off at around 3 million. Bioware announces major content patch
3rd month: Population declines slightly to 2.75 million
4th month: Blizzard announces a ftp model for wow, the world explodes
This is slightly offtopic, but it's my opinion as well that a 'paying/gaming a la carte' model, where you can adjust your payment to your gaming needs and activity level and switch between F2P and P2P at will, is better than either F2P or P2P. A hybrid payment model that has enough flexibility. I don't think though that F2P is a switch that the current AAA MMO's like SWTOR will make so soon, especially since I heard BW people mention that it wasn't a model they were thinking of for SWTOR, so that doesn't seem like any implementation like that within a year will be an issue.
The ACTUAL size of MMORPG worlds: a comparison list between MMO's
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums:
Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
Here we go it was only a matter of time before the Holy Grail MMO was mentioned....
So in six months 15% of your 4 million will be playing? LMAO
Haters will hate.
If you don't like a game don't play it, and quit running to MMORPG.com to trash it.
Already F2P.
If you don't like a game don't play it, and quit running to MMORPG.com to trash it.
If i think F2P i think freemium, a la carte content, not literally -free- of course.
BTW, BW and EA can say a lot of things if the day is long btw ;D
The people who think that the largest MMO launch in history will be free to play in a year are hilarious.
They are banking on TOR not retaining a very large portion of their playerbase after launch. They are also counting on the game not picking up subs along the way. Unfortunately, nobody really knows for certain if either scenario is true or if the game is going to grow over time. At this point it's all conjecture and both scenarios (growth vs. bomb) are equally likely. What is going to be the tipping point for this game is how it develops very soon after launch. If they drag their feet and wait 5 or 6 months to add content and bring meaningful changes/bug fixes I can see folks moving on. The post launch is the great unknown in all of this.
Wont go f2p and wont kill wow, somewhere in the middle of that. And will last atleast as long a swg.
The following statement is false
The previous statement is true
I'm going to assume it retains 1-2 Million, have never seen a game other than WoW some how grow and retain.
I feel a lot of people here aren't aware what Bioware does and didn't read their interview where they pretty much remind people what they do... DLC. They talk about Massive Content patches all coming for free and an Expansion being way down the road... so I assume 4-5 Massive content patches before the first expansion.
Everything I say is my opinion or personal preference. You may or may not find it useful to your cause but regardless I am entitled to it.
Hah, funny thread here!
Heres my wild guestimate:
Around 3 million copies sold first month, 40-50% of population lost in 2 or 3 months. After 6 months or so they have about 100 000-400 000 players, and might stabilize around there.
This prediction relies on two things: 1) they follow the standard behaviour that the majority of MMO-developers have: too slow on the new content, and 2) GW2, TSW, and other games (like D3) dont suck completely when released.
The biggest and worst new feature the first GW brough to the genre will be carried over to GW2 the limited action bar. I can't stand being told "you know how to do all of these abilities, but you mysteriously forget all of them except for these 8 or so that you remember at the moment."
Hard to say but I will put this way:
People playing because it's star wars will play it years and keep alive till LA makes another SW MMO, just like with SWG.
Bioware fans will play it till Mass Effect 3 and DA3 come out.
WoW haters will play a month or two till they notice it's wannable wow.
Themepark MMOers will play it for 3-6 months and then look for the next big MMO.
Over all I would say it sells 3-5 million to start with, after a month about 90% contuine to play. Then unless bioware gets ALOT better at doing things the community(not just bioware fanboys) like, unlike they were in beta and are ALOT faster at adding content then their DLC, I would say they lose a good 5-10% a month till it gets around 400k or so.
I will not play a game with a cash shop ever again. A dev job should be to make the game better not make me pay so it sucks less.
Eveyone Keeps stating that when the story "ends" people are gonna leave in droves blah blah etc. Fact is no one knows for sure. You could argue that a good story has you far far more invested emotionaly in your character...... that might make you stay in game for far longer than you normally might have otherwise. Now what if your freinds feel the same way? So now you and your friends are playing together and you are all emotionaly invested in your characters..... sounds like a good strategy retention wise to me.
On topic: My prediction is that alot fo fukn people are gonna be playing and that the majority of them will have some form of fun doing it.
Of course, but it isn't as if a freemium model is implemented with the snap of someone's fingers, Turbine took the better part of a year to change their game to suit a freemium system and that was from the moment they decided to do it, other MMO companies also took quite some time to execute the necessary changes for the switch. Since the BW people have stated that their intentions right now are nowhere into that direction and the required time needed for such a switch, an implementation of a freemium model after a year seems highly unrealistic and contrary to anything we've seen so far in the past.
But hey, if you're certain enough of it that you'd be willing to place a 100 dollar bet on it, be my guest
The ACTUAL size of MMORPG worlds: a comparison list between MMO's
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums:
Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
If a shit game like SWG can retain 300k people I see no reason as to why TOR can't retain at least a million players.
Unless you count Battlefield Heroes and the upcoming Wrath of Heroes, I don't think EA has any F2P MMOs, so people predicting F2P within a year are way off base in my opinion. WAR, DAOC, and even UO are all still P2P.
I think SWTOR will do well. Its got alot going for it that WoW had going for it when it launched:
Popular IP
Popular Developer with good track record
Not radically different (Still uses tried and true staples of MMORPGs: Tab targeting/action bars and Holy Trinity being examples. I know there has been alot of call for innovation lately with MMOs, but I think alot of people still like the familiar standards.)
Tons of hype (Other than online sites, I hear no mention of Guild Wars 2 anywhere. SWTOR on the other hand, I have coworkers talking to me about it, I overhear people in stores/restaurants talking about, etc.)
Now retention is obvisously going to be up to Bioware and how well they release content, but I think if anyone has a chance of redoing what Blizzard did with WoW, I think Bioware probably has the best shot.
Thus my predictions are:
Launch through 1 month: 2 million
3 months: 3 million
1 year: 5 million
I think it will level off there though and maybe even start to decline at that point if they dont have an exciting expansion out or coming soon.
^^ this
I think they're going to hold over 5 million subs.
They need 400K to break even, which is lower than I anticipated.
No bitchers.
2 Million On launch day as they already have 1million box preorders solda lone .
After that who knows.
Seeing as there planing to overhaul space comabt over the year, add more guild fucntionalty add a DF down the line( I hope they dont otherwise the game just becomes a lobby game)
as well as they have stated tehre going to keep adding content. So as long as the story is engaging its all good.
It'll do pretty well and be successful, my successful I'm not meaning millions of subs but have a sustained pop and generates adequate revenue. But I'm guessing a ballpark number of subs by the end of next year to be around 2 mill subs max if that.
Why that low? Mainly because in 2012 is bringing a lot of noteworthy MMOs as in GW2, TSW, TERA, ArchAge not to mention what else comes along so the age of a dominate MMO monopoly ala WoW will be over and an age of diversity will have come. When I play SWTOR I just don't get the feel of an inovative game that many are yearning for. My money is on TSW and GW2 for games to enjoy that are innovative/different than the same ol' same ol' dredge of MMOs we have suffered for the past several years.
Really?
They were putting out content for ME2, while working on ME3. Matter of fact they took the time to update the engine, and ported it to PS3 besides.
Asking Devs to make AAA sandbox titles is like trying to get fine dining on a McDonalds dollar menu budget.
The more I've seen of the game, the more I am convinced this will quickly become the #1 MMO in terms of players and retention for the next few years.