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Ithar
Member Posts: 20
Anyone know any resource (website?) which tracks MMORPGs and how many subscribers they have? I am really curious (especially with the recent press release about Shadowbane / Wolfpack) just how good / bad some of these MMORPGs are doing relative to others.
Really, with so many MMORPGs are available with even more coming soon it's gonna get very competitive.
How is AC, EQ and UO doing these days?
Is DAoC hanging on?
WoW being the beast with over 6 million subscriptions I'd imagine some of these are feeling the hurt.
DDO is starting to seem like a ghost town. Maybe level 10 can be reach very quickly! 
Comments
I've seen a pie chart that shows the market share of most well known mmorpgs, but that doesn't say much about whether they are the "Top" mmorpgs. Subscriptions certainly do indicate that people are paying for the game, but it doesn't always mean that they are enjoying it.
Some of the smaller market mmorpgs are really starting to shine now. Saga of Ryzom, Eve Online, and others are still not competing with WoW in subscribers, but they are winning over the players that they have.
Almost every mmorpg has a place in the market and has it's loyal fanbase. It really should come down to which one you like best, and I would call that one the "Top" mmorpg.
Well, yeah, no question about it. For me it's UO. No other game has the flexibility and content. Forget the pretty eye-candy graphics!
But, seriously though, that's not the concern.
Question is, we know AC2 was shutdown. Now ShadowBane is nearing extinction. I'd take a bet SWG is on life support. DDO ain't doing so well for a game that blew the doors off just a couple months ago.
If players aren't playing it, and thus aren't paying, the developer will have to shut it down.
How close are these games to being shutdown? 100k players, probably not. 35k users with the overhead say...SWG has? Hmm...makes you think?
I did a search on Google, but can't find anything.
http://www.mmogchart.com/ is the only semi-credible source of subscription information. You can find more detailed graphs at the site.
Yes. WoW dominates all.
I'm surprised FFXI is steadily rising in subscription. Also surprising that CoH does as poorly as it does.. it wasnt my cup of tea personally but I'd found it to be a decent casual MMO on par with most others.
:Laugh: at EQ2 not doing nearly as well as EQ.
MMO Fav List:
Lineage 2 | 5x Silver Ranger, 7x Shillien Elder <- Active
WoW | 6x Rogue, 1x Priest
Anarchy Online | 8x MetaPhysicist
Saga of Ryzom | Matis Light Armourer
Waiting for: Age of Conan, Lineage 3
Oh alright, I misunderstood what you meant. I see now, and I agree that mmorpgs must have paying customers to keep the servers up and running.
I fear for a brand new mmorpg that I really like, but has very few players. Auto Assault is a refreshing breath of air, and I was totally surprised by how much fun I have playing it, but I never really see other players, the servers are constantly on Very Low population, and I read the forums everyday a main topic being the current populations on the games servers. Without the subscriptions, this game cannot go on, can it?
Star Wars Galaxies may not be doing as badly as most people would like to think (which does not support my opinion of it). However, even if it is doing badly and not making much money from subscribers, SOE has the Station Access Pass, which they just raised the price. This may cover them, allowing a low-profit mmorpg to stay alive. They earn more than enough between their flagship mmorpg, Everquest II, and Everquest which still has a decent amount of subscribers, I think.
Some smaller companies that run mmorpgs which may not be as popular tend to have a very loyal fanbase. Maybe that's enough for them to hang on and keep the game alive?
I don't think we'll ever really know about the situations of mmorpgs that are marginal and may be close to shutting down until the actual announcement that the game will indeed close. Why would they tell us, "our game is failing due to a lack of interest and not many subscribers?" I think they would take steps to make improvements and try to get more players to subscribe.
This is what leads me to beleive that Star Wars Galaxies may really have been struggling before the NGE. maybe SOE needed to make a change to boost subscriptions? Could that be true? After the fact, I don't think so, not after hearing all the complaints from vets who loved the original game and feel cheated. I think SWG has been doing fine all along, even now after the game has been totally changed, it is probably doing alright.
I'm just guessing really, but I think there is more to it than just subscriptions, too. There are other factors that may be involved in a companies decision to close a mmorpg. Was AC2 really doing that badly? I played the trial and thought it was a good mmorpg. I saw many dedicated players in the community. Was it a matter of money, or a change in the companies direction and the need to use AC2's resources to achieve other goals?
Whatever it is, we are not as secure as we might think when it comes to our favorites mmorpgs. As we've recently seen with SWG, they can be changed a the drop of a hat.
The mmocharts only take into account games that feature monthly subscriptions, however, many asian mmos use x hours gameplay prepaid cards. Also the subscriber numbers comes from press releases of the game companies, so the figures are pretty arbitrary.
Around 2003 the biggest mmos were said to be Legend of Mir and Mu online. I have no figures for mir, but mu claimed to have 54 million players, quite a lot more than wow. There is a common misconception that mu was free to play back then. There was a free version of Mu, Mu global, but it only had 2 million players. The rest were localized asian servers in thailand, japan, korea, and china (massive amount of players in china) and other countries
Excellent post Tym! This is the discussion I am looking for. Thanks for the link Ell, that is exactly what I was trying to find.
I think SWG is doing ok relative to other MMORPGs, but not for the dollars / man-power invested and resulting return on investment.
With the licensing fees, the number of expanions, the number servers, the community and dev team, the web site overhauls, etc, etc, you can see SOE is dumping money into this sarlaac pit trying to make it fly.
The overhead SOE must have for SWG is comparable to WoW by my guess (i'd say it's even higher because of licensing), yet the revenue is obviously much smaller than WoW. Someone(s) important at SOE is seeing this and that is why all these revamps are happening. They keep trying to "get it right".
I'd guess a Star Wars license is millions of dollars. Whereas, Blizzard owns the Warcraft universe and are spinning the fiction into books and even movies now! Aye Carumba!
I think AC2 had multiple problems.
If my memory serves me, Turbine tried to do it alone. Whereas, they had Microsoft backing them for AC1. That's tough because the folks at Turbine are game makers not financial wizards. This the Vanguard boys are finding out.
They thought "Well, AC has 100,000 players, so AC2 will have more than 100,000, right?" Well, that didn't happen. AC players didn't leave for AC2. They were attached to their AC1 home. Like me, then probably played the first month free, then thought, "I doubt wanna pay $20/month for both, so I'll just stick with AC1." (more on this coming up)
They tried some experimental ideas. Like the economy being completely player driven, players had to rebuild cities, etc, etc. Great ideas if you ask me, and kudos for Turbine for trying them, but just those two require an already established player base. Really hard to have a player controlled economy when you have no players.
Same thing is happening with EQ2. EQ players didn't jump onto EQ2. Origin / EA thought this too, so they scraped UO2 not only once, but twice. I thought the original UO2 was gonna be hella-awesome.
I guess if you want a sequel to an MMORPG, you gotta shut down the first one.
SOE had the right idea, with the all access subscription. Honestly, I don't have it so I don't know all the details, but let's look at Turbine. They have AC and DDO. Soon to come is MEO. Hmm...$10 / month for AC, $15 / month for DDO and what another $15 / month for MEO? Ain't gonna happen, Turbine! You gotta have a $20-$25 / month for all of them type-deal.
You're right.. I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of those MMOs that are based out of mainland China have far more players than WoW, and since Runescape is included in the list at MMO charts I don't see why the other games shouldn't be listed. I presume it's because of the lack of accurate numbers coming from those games.
MMO Fav List:
Lineage 2 | 5x Silver Ranger, 7x Shillien Elder <- Active
WoW | 6x Rogue, 1x Priest
Anarchy Online | 8x MetaPhysicist
Saga of Ryzom | Matis Light Armourer
Waiting for: Age of Conan, Lineage 3
AC has about 40-50k subs, has for at least the past 2 years.
EQ still has over 300k subs.
UO still has around 150k subs.
DAOC has about 250k subs and according to Mythic it's growing again.
DDO probably has less than 40k subs but Turbine won't say
Currently Playing: Dungeons and Dragons Online.
Sig image Pending
Still in: A couple Betas
Excellent post Tym! This is the discussion I am looking for. Thanks for the link Ell, that is exactly what I was trying to find.
I think SWG is doing ok relative to other MMORPGs, but not for the dollars / man-power invested and resulting return on investment.
With the licensing fees, the number of expanions, the number servers, the community and dev team, the web site overhauls, etc, etc, you can see SOE is dumping money into this sarlaac pit trying to make it fly.
The overhead SOE must have for SWG is comparable to WoW by my guess (i'd say it's even higher because of licensing), yet the revenue is obviously much smaller than WoW. Someone(s) important at SOE is seeing this and that is why all these revamps are happening. They keep trying to "get it right".
I'd guess a Star Wars license is millions of dollars. Whereas, Blizzard owns the Warcraft universe and are spinning the fiction into books and even movies now! Aye Carumba!
I think AC2 had multiple problems.
If my memory serves me, Turbine tried to do it alone. Whereas, they had Microsoft backing them for AC1. That's tough because the folks at Turbine are game makers not financial wizards. This the Vanguard boys are finding out.
They thought "Well, AC has 100,000 players, so AC2 will have more than 100,000, right?" Well, that didn't happen. AC players didn't leave for AC2. They were attached to their AC1 home. Like me, then probably played the first month free, then thought, "I doubt wanna pay $20/month for both, so I'll just stick with AC1." (more on this coming up)
They tried some experimental ideas. Like the economy being completely player driven, players had to rebuild cities, etc, etc. Great ideas if you ask me, and kudos for Turbine for trying them, but just those two require an already established player base. Really hard to have a player controlled economy when you have no players.
Same thing is happening with EQ2. EQ players didn't jump onto EQ2. Origin / EA thought this too, so they scraped UO2 not only once, but twice. I thought the original UO2 was gonna be hella-awesome.
I guess if you want a sequel to an MMORPG, you gotta shut down the first one.
SOE had the right idea, with the all access subscription. Honestly, I don't have it so I don't know all the details, but let's look at Turbine. They have AC and DDO. Soon to come is MEO. Hmm...$10 / month for AC, $15 / month for DDO and what another $15 / month for MEO? Ain't gonna happen, Turbine! You gotta have a $20-$25 / month for all of them type-deal.
This assumes there is a license. SOE is listed as the developer of the game, which could possibly mean LucasArts pays SOE to do all the development stuff for them
I can't imagine there isn't a license fee. I know Bioware had to pay for KoToR, and Turbine had to pay for LOTR and D&D. Lucas is a rich man, and he got that way by selling Star Wars everything.