Official: Over 1.7 million active subs, 2 + mil sold

[Mekrath]

Somehow I doubt many people buying a game so close to it's launch and with such a big IP as Star Wars is going to have so much of a ho-hum attitude towards it that it just sits there. Maybe a handful, but not hundreds of thousands.

 

Right, it accounts for a portion of the 300k, not all of it. The other guy is claiming not a single person would do this though, and for some reason he feels REALLY strongly about it.

[Drewser]

Gotta love the spin. Now an implied 85% retention rate is low, and is a problem for the game.

 

L O L.

 

Haters are scrambling to come up with why reasons the numbers are "bad".

[Enevolist]

http://web.archive.org/web/20051029025007/http://www.blizzard.com/press/050829-wow.shtml

 

Nice try

 

Again your reading skills fail. In the first paragraph of that page you linked it says the game reached 1.5 million in North America. Bringing worldwide subscription total to over 4 Million. Thanks for making my point though

[Jimer_Lins]

Oh, here we go- consumer reaction to SWTOR.

 

I'll paraphrase what I hear.

[Scar]

You are reading that report wrong.

 

I'm reminded from a line from Naked Gun: "Use your open eye, Frank"

[knightblaster]

Yup. Using 213 servers in calculation.

 

They don't all play at the same time.

 

If it is still around 300k concurrent users (which would be close if the implied retention rate is 85%), that's around 1400 at any one time. That is quite a credible number, keeping in mind that it is not at all equally spread between servers, and isn't always at that level.

[priest]

It's not incorrect, it's my opinion so right/wrong don't enter the equation. Like the guy I quoted was typing his opinion and you're typing your own.

 

Only facts we can ever have are the ones released by EA or Bioware. To base an entire argument on negating these facts as 'lies' seems silly to me....regardless it's his opinion as I posted mine.

 

Opinion and experience are two seperate things. While I might have the opinion on whether or not the game is going to succeed or fail, Facts found in financial statements with commentary (like this financial statement) can be and are wordsmithed to paint the picture the author wants to. If you look at aggrigate data, its more difficult; however we don't have that here, so we are dependent on the subjective perspective of the author; which is Bioware. Thus, as a responsible company, they're not going to say things like, "sorry, we've got a net loss of subscribers." nothing illegal or immoral here- but they are being very particular in their wording

[zrinking]

It's over, jeeez. Just accept that this game is a total flop and waste of money. Best thing is: it was predicted years before, because this desing ist just doomed.

 

What?

[Uthic]

yeah 1,700,000 players after the first month is SUCH a flop.

 

Sorry mate. It's called "biggest success in the history of the MMORPG market"

 

It's way too early days for anyone to call this the biggest success in market history, no? I guess now everything depends on Bioware churning out stuff to do at endgame.

Edited February 1, 2012 by Uthic

[Mekrath]

You're the one trying to spin it. He's talking about ACTIVE subscibers. And it says clearly that the game sold more than two million copies. Unless you somewhat assume that 300000 people bought the game but didn't activate it (which is absolutely ludicrous), your theory sinks.

 

They retained 1,700,000 copies. And you're mad.

 

Wow it's hard to argue with people with 0 reading comprehension so I won't bother.

 

As far as mad, if you read my other posts you would know that I hope the game does phenomenally well. Been looking forward to this game for a long time, I hope they get 50 million subscribers and invest the profits heavily into the game.

[Phaedrynn]

lol you honestly believe a multi million dollar company won't falsify financial reports to investors in order for them to invest more money. Are you serious?

 

Do you have any idea how illegal such activity is? What the penalties for doing so are? You do know that quearterly financial statements are legal documents right? These are not just PR fluff.

[Blotter]

Somehow I doubt many people buying a game so close to it's launch and with such a big IP as Star Wars is going to have so much of a ho-hum attitude towards it that it just sits there. Maybe a handful, but not hundreds of thousands.

 

Indeed. My point exactly. The person arguing this ASSUMED it was a "significant" number. There's nothing, not even theory, that supports that would be the case for purchases made so close to a release of a product. Sure, I'll grant that maybe some people out there got it for Xmas and said "I'll wait for reviews" or "I want to finish Skyrim first" or something, assuming it was a significant, meaningful number of people...i.e., that the 300K difference may be comprised of some people who are still waiting to subscribe...that makes no sense....too convoluted and speculative.

[VoXPCS]

This is hilarious. I can't stop laughing.

 

Anyone in business knows first hand how corporate suits manipulate numbers for reporting.

 

There are numbers you show your management team, the numbers you report and then the real numbers that, if you're responsible for, attempt generate bigger ones to match one of the other two numbers.

 

That's a fact. Call it Fuzzy Math. 1+1 = 3. Somehow.

 

Point is, there is NO way there are 1.7 million ACTIVE anything in this game.

 

Anyone that believes otherwise in for a rude awakening come end of Q2.

 

Then you'll see. Save this post.

Edited February 1, 2012 by Meluna

[Tekkoclarky]

Can you post on these forums if your sub is inactive?

[Scar]

They don't all play at the same time.

 

If it is still around 300k concurrent users (which would be close if the implied retention rate is 85%), that's around 1400 at any one time. That is quite a credible number, keeping in mind that it is not at all equally spread between servers, and isn't always at that level.

1,200-1,400 is a fairly credible number by all accounts and correlates with people coming back with zone numbers during prime times. All huge rounding of numbers and guesstimating, but nothing seems out of the realm or ordinary.

[Akilae]

Sorry, but with this statement you just lost all credibilty as a reliable contributer to this thread.

 

You're telling me that you work for a "multi-billion dollar company" presubably a US company, who's management sanction falsifying company figures to ensure they get thier bonues...

 

Sorry, but without wishing to flame, you clearly do not have a grasp of the legalities involved here and the types of sanctions the CotB, CEO, COO, CFO, etc could face if your claims were true...

 

There's a difference between falsifying and reporting information with a positive spin and doing everything you can to make it look good. It's done all the time, especially when it comes to presenting quarterly results to shareholders. Business is business, nothing new here.

 

Also before the real conspiracy clowns, aka fanboys, cry out that I'm out to get the game, I have a 6 month subscription and I'm happily playing it regularly. That doesn't mean I can't look at information presented to me from financial management and be objective about it while using common sense about how corporate businesses are run.

[Thaed]

no servers open in asia/aus

 

no mac support

 

if BW address above 2, u could see sub #s explode. Since credits are not as vital to player success in SWTOR compared to gold in WoW, i also doubt the credit farming industry will really take off.

 

Game is launching in Australia in March iirc. Not sure if they're including Asia in that.

 

That said, the boom won't be quite as big since many of us Aussies interested the game have already bought it.

[CupieFoxtail]

Anyone in business knows first hand how corporate suits manipulate numbers for reporting.

.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarbanes%E2%80%93Oxley_Act

Knowledge is power!

[FAAK]

there lying ! theres only 100k subs and the game took 2 trillion dollars to make!

 

2 trillion dollars...really?! Yes it's the most expensive game so far but 2 trillion dollars...again really?! You could have came up with a better fake number.

Edited February 1, 2012 by Meluna

[lowizi]

Bought 60 days + 30 free days.

Played 40 amd quit. Got 50 left now.

Theoretically an "active subscription".

But I'm not playing the game.

Just reading the forums and laugh

[gtmach]

Facts are facts. The numbers are there. Deal with it.

 

Why do you guys hate the fact that people love this game????

 

I thought being in the minorty meant you were special and unique.

 

All I'm seeing here is people hating on the game and trying to conjure up ways to deny numbers presented.

 

What you should be asking, is "Why am I part of those numbers when I hate this game?"

 

Like you take Twilight for instance. I've never seen that movie. But it blew up into this whole franchise with millions of fans around the world. Do I feel threatened by that? Does it anger me so bad that I can't sleep at night? No.

 

It's just not my cup of tea but I can accept the fact that people out there are into it...

[mufutiz]

Yeah i know the company says the game is thriving and people are increasing. Now in game the players notice mass exodus guilds are empty no server is heavy most are in the yellow or green. You have a flist of over 50 people who don't log in anymore. Shouts to form high level Fp go from 15-20 min to form to over an hour if at all...but the game is thriving. Most 3 prty forums and even this forum is filled pissed off customers but the game has people subbing by the masses lmao gfto. Post a report and people will believe anything.

 

you are wrong. Something in your perception must be broken.

 

just look at the numbers. You can't deny those numbers. excited voice: YOU CANNOT DENY THOSE NUMBERS! *cough* *cough*

[Jimer_Lins]

Talking about BF3 right now...

I don't care about FIFA 12...

Here it comes.

 

"BioWare has delivered a game that millions will play for a long time"

 

My paraphrasing of what was said about SWTOR's launch on the conference call:

 

• Sold-through 2 million units since December.
  
• 1.7 million active subs. Rest have not started yet or have opted out.
  
• Metrics suggest players are loving game.
  
• Unique logins 1 million per day, average playtime 4 hours per day.
• Server performance allowed introduction of players faster than expected in pre-order.
  
• Server stability has been excellent.
  
• Lack of congestion was not sign of slow participtaion. Shortly after launch, server efficiency was doubled, allowing servers to handle far more players and lifting the limits previously experienced.
  
• Next phase- new content, frequent releases and aggressively courting new subs.
  
• Another major update in March, larger than most recent one.
  
• Adopting rates are trending favorably.
  
• Ambitious plan to reach broader market with new marketing buys, will be seeing that soon.
  

[Master-Nala]

The actual press release:

 

EA's press release

 

And their SEC filing in connection with the earning's report:

 

Form 8-K

 

 

Make your own mind up folks, but it's pretty clear to me that they are talking about having 1.7 million subs as of today.

[Enevolist]

Can you post on these forums if your sub is inactive?

 

No you cant post if your sub isn't active. So, people posting now have already made at least one payment.