Rifts development costs were not that huge (I think it was something around 60M$) and together with the initial box sales Rift 200K players is still fine. Few P2P MMOs besides Wow are even close to that.
Less than 100K and it is time to be a sad panda, then F2P ain't far away but if it can keep 200K this year it is nothing to be sad about, it is still a good number.
While I doubt Rift is going f2p anytime soon, LOTRO was around the 200k sub mark when it went f2p and EQ2 was in the 150k neighbourhood when it launched eq2x. So 200k is hardly a safe number, but both LOTRO and EQ2 went f2p for business reasons and not population reasons. It was the DDO domino effect.
But this year is clearly Rift's challenge. GW2, and now TSW is picking up steam. If Trion ends the year with the number of subs they have now I bet they would be beyond ecstatic. Can they pull it off? absolutely, but it will take a mammoth expansion pack for it to happen.
According to player numbers (not time played) on the western Xfire tracking tool, US/EUplayer numbers is around:
- WOW 4 M ($ 330 M in latest quarter only is a simple verify check ...) (coming from 5M)
- EVE 250 K (and slightly losing ground seen in player activity on their server tracking tools).
- SW TOR 1.9 M (sold copies digital + boxes (see VGChartz methodoloyand latest report)
- Aion 200K
- Lotro 200K
- Rift under ... 80K (huge server collapse and huge Xfire collapse (93% loss of Xfire players over one year).
- AOC / WAR etc a few 10 K's at the most.
Of course everyone now jumps on me , but I don't care as all can trace those player numbers and relations between them yourself.
Edit
My Sep prediction for SW TOR was 2.2M-2.5M at launch with a 500K subscription by summer time.
I now downgrade that to 2M - 2.2M at launch (first month) and 400K subscriptions in 6 months.
Rift will go F2P in about 4-5 months. If I remember well: Aion will be F2P as of next month.
XFire numbers always have to be talen with a huge grain of salt, as it is rather a minority among gamers using it.
If we'd say that only every 5th gamer uses xfire, the overall player numbers per title would be five times bigger. That does not apply to every title though, as WoW doesn't have 20mio EU/US players while Rift could very well run around the 350k mark.
80K is a bit low, same with 10 for AOC. Hasn't Failcom recently bragged about quadrupled numbers since F2P? Don't nail me down on that, but there was something.
Rift is not going the common F2P route, but i expect some "F2P with a twist", since everything Trion does has a twist so they can spin on their PR ("trial servers, CE upgrade"). I predict some "freemium/VIP"-whatever hybrid model with which they can once again "proof" the major success of Rift, incl. those interviews in which they state about "how excited everyone is about that latest move" and "how great things run". Especially considering that they now need like 40+ trial servers for a semi announced huge influx of players.
Lotro was 2nd western MMO according to Nielson ratings pre Tor, so now that would make it # 3 with eve #4.
I left out f2p games because they are endless and would prove just how spread out we are now. If you make that list you have to consider LoL, Eq2, LOTR, DCUO. There are tons of them out there hogging up the time of the playerbase. You add in something like Skyrim also D3 if that ever launches.
It is not exactly a 1:1 ratio here if some leaves WoW they goto Rift or TOR.
Rift is trash anyway, just go look at their OWN server status page through the day, you'l be lucky to see 1 server on high and i mean lucky, the rest of the time you'll be lucky to see more then 3 medium servers at one time the rest are low population servers including European servers, there is no way they even have 50000 players since a heavy server is no more then 1500 people at most and they never have a heavy server.
Rift is trash anyway, just go look at their OWN server status page through the day, you'l be lucky to see 1 server on high and i mean lucky, the rest of the time you'll be lucky to see more then 3 medium servers at one time the rest are low population servers including European servers, there is no way they even have 50000 players since a heavy server is no more then 1500 people at most and they never have a heavy server.
not after they did there sever merges. now you get 1 full about 4 on high about 6-10 on mid and the rest low. no new players just some shuffleing of players to make the game seem like theres alot more people playing.
From the hate im seeing here I would guess RIft is doing better than some would like. Perhaps people leaving TOR to go back to RIft has the fanobis upset? Dont know but when a game gets this much hate (see WOW) its usually a sign its pretty healthy. And no, I no longer play Rift.
Really? This game sucks and Im not having fun? Im going to unsub right now. Thanks for the tip.
not after they did there sever merges. now you get 1 full about 4 on high about 6-10 on mid and the rest low. no new players just some shuffleing of players to make the game seem like theres alot more people playing.
What would you do? Pray that the people who left for TOR come back or make sure the ones who stayed are happy? TOR players returning will be returning to some trial servers. Like I have said people can not just expect a game to pause because they wanted to go try another game.
I know a guild where the officers basically told the members they were going to TOR for just one month. Pretty much every one in the guild left because of their stupidity. Now they come back crying that their successful raiding guild is dead.
How do we know this? Rift has never publically released sub numbers (and as a private company - they are not obligated to release anything)
Unless you can come up with a solid link - it's mere speculation, and as the previous poster said...200K is no shabby number at all - they are definately profitable!
lmao rift will be here for a long time i just rerolled a new toon and i was fighting for kills with 15-20 other people who just started playing rift.. the only problem rift has is that they started with to many servers and wont close them because people think the game is dieng so they make them trial servers.
not after they did there sever merges. now you get 1 full about 4 on high about 6-10 on mid and the rest low. no new players just some shuffleing of players to make the game seem like theres alot more people playing.
What would you do? Pray that the people who left for TOR come back or make sure the ones who stayed are happy? TOR players returning will be returning to some trial servers. Like I have said people can not just expect a game to pause because they wanted to go try another game.
I know a guild where the officers basically told the members they were going to TOR for just one month. Pretty much every one in the guild left because of their stupidity. Now they come back crying that their successful raiding guild is dead.
I didnt say anything that wasent true. they moved people from this sever to that sever for w/e reason. Now some severs are showing higher player rates. That all. Nothing more. Had nothing to do with people leaving TOR and comming back to Rift. You keep talking about TOR. Not me. I dont even Play TOR. Was just responding to someones post about the sever pop in Rift.
Comments
While I doubt Rift is going f2p anytime soon, LOTRO was around the 200k sub mark when it went f2p and EQ2 was in the 150k neighbourhood when it launched eq2x. So 200k is hardly a safe number, but both LOTRO and EQ2 went f2p for business reasons and not population reasons. It was the DDO domino effect.
But this year is clearly Rift's challenge. GW2, and now TSW is picking up steam. If Trion ends the year with the number of subs they have now I bet they would be beyond ecstatic. Can they pull it off? absolutely, but it will take a mammoth expansion pack for it to happen.
Considering the quality of SWTOR - I don't think you will have to wait long for a bunch of people to come back
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u3Rrk6lgi24
XFire numbers always have to be talen with a huge grain of salt, as it is rather a minority among gamers using it.
If we'd say that only every 5th gamer uses xfire, the overall player numbers per title would be five times bigger. That does not apply to every title though, as WoW doesn't have 20mio EU/US players while Rift could very well run around the 350k mark.
80K is a bit low, same with 10 for AOC. Hasn't Failcom recently bragged about quadrupled numbers since F2P? Don't nail me down on that, but there was something.
Rift is not going the common F2P route, but i expect some "F2P with a twist", since everything Trion does has a twist so they can spin on their PR ("trial servers, CE upgrade"). I predict some "freemium/VIP"-whatever hybrid model with which they can once again "proof" the major success of Rift, incl. those interviews in which they state about "how excited everyone is about that latest move" and "how great things run". Especially considering that they now need like 40+ trial servers for a semi announced huge influx of players.
Lotro was 2nd western MMO according to Nielson ratings pre Tor, so now that would make it # 3 with eve #4.
Source:
http://www.nielsen.com/us/en/insights/top10s/video_games.html
I left out f2p games because they are endless and would prove just how spread out we are now. If you make that list you have to consider LoL, Eq2, LOTR, DCUO. There are tons of them out there hogging up the time of the playerbase. You add in something like Skyrim also D3 if that ever launches.
It is not exactly a 1:1 ratio here if some leaves WoW they goto Rift or TOR.
Rift is trash anyway, just go look at their OWN server status page through the day, you'l be lucky to see 1 server on high and i mean lucky, the rest of the time you'll be lucky to see more then 3 medium servers at one time the rest are low population servers including European servers, there is no way they even have 50000 players since a heavy server is no more then 1500 people at most and they never have a heavy server.
not after they did there sever merges. now you get 1 full about 4 on high about 6-10 on mid and the rest low. no new players just some shuffleing of players to make the game seem like theres alot more people playing.
From the hate im seeing here I would guess RIft is doing better than some would like. Perhaps people leaving TOR to go back to RIft has the fanobis upset? Dont know but when a game gets this much hate (see WOW) its usually a sign its pretty healthy. And no, I no longer play Rift.
Really? This game sucks and Im not having fun? Im going to unsub right now. Thanks for the tip.
What would you do? Pray that the people who left for TOR come back or make sure the ones who stayed are happy? TOR players returning will be returning to some trial servers. Like I have said people can not just expect a game to pause because they wanted to go try another game.
I know a guild where the officers basically told the members they were going to TOR for just one month. Pretty much every one in the guild left because of their stupidity. Now they come back crying that their successful raiding guild is dead.
Or Mortal Online with 200
lmao rift will be here for a long time i just rerolled a new toon and i was fighting for kills with 15-20 other people who just started playing rift.. the only problem rift has is that they started with to many servers and wont close them because people think the game is dieng so they make them trial servers.
I didnt say anything that wasent true. they moved people from this sever to that sever for w/e reason. Now some severs are showing higher player rates. That all. Nothing more. Had nothing to do with people leaving TOR and comming back to Rift. You keep talking about TOR. Not me. I dont even Play TOR. Was just responding to someones post about the sever pop in Rift.
There is *no way* Rift's NA/EU numbers are lower than Aion.