Two Simple Truths about SWTOR's Success

[HoosierDuke]

As of February 1, 2012, there are 1.7 million active subscribers.

 

As of February 1, 2012, that number is GROWING.

 

Thank you.

 

p.s. Before you jump in with a comment about how the press release is a lie, please note that material misstatements by a US publicly listed company (covered by the SEC) in press releases may constitute a violation of Section 17(a) of the Securities Act of 1933, Sections 10(b) and 13(b)(5) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, and Exchange Act Rules 10b 5 and 13b2-1. Unless you are suggesting that EA is risking violation of federal securities laws just to boost their numbers, the press release is credible.

 

p.p.s. My point is simply this: clearly SWTOR is not going anywhere for a while. In fact, all indications (and statements by EA, who would have their monthly management accounts indicating subscriber trends) show that the base is GROWING (unless, again, you believe EA would lie and risk the wrath of the SEC and shareholder lawsuits including big institutional investors and banks with an army of lawyers).

 

Not that they would lie per say, but as we all know, its pretty easy to twist numbers around to suit your needs. My actual ingame experience is quite contrary to this report. I have to be skeptical.

 

FYI, WAR was still going strong after the first month as well.... and its still online. No doubt, TOR will be online for a good long time to come. The question is, how much of a player will it be, 6 months, 12 months, down the road. Time will tell ...

[LogicalPremise]

They used baseless accusations backed with false information for their "Tortanic" ideology. The OP simply puts into context what was said in the press release, informing others that as his job is to analyze such releases, he knows a great deal of information about this. Putting the facts out there is not using the same "limited metric" that failed for those who were, as I already stated, using baseless accusations backed with falsified information for their claims.

 

The press release is factual, present information. I would say the game is currently a success and is by no means in trouble regardless of all the naysayers that flood these forums daily. Keep in mind that the Facebook counter is almost at 1.6 million people alone. I think that has to say for something about the success of this game.

 

No, no no.

 

I also used to deal in investment analysis for a living before I moved to going after fraud waste and abuse. What I see, quite frankly, is a press release.

 

One cannot argue that the numbers are what they are.

One cannot argue that the numbers do not represent CURRENT fact.

One cannot argue, although some wit will certainly try, that the numbers don't indicate the community has full faith in Bioware.

 

But to assume from the fact that people were willing to resub at least one month that "the game can't fail" or that there aren't serious issues is just as bad , and relying upon spurious meta-arguments, as those Tortanic clowns.

 

I can take these numbers and suggest a buy rating for the stock. I can't take them and say "in three months the game will be in great shape" because I have -- and neither does the OP -- any information on :

 

- how many of these are 1 month subs? 3 month? Six month?

- how many people resubbed with the intent of never leaving?

- how many people resubbed only to see if they fix the problems?

- What concrete fixes to issues will be rolled out in the next two months?

 

I have no problems with people crowing about the trolls being trolls and deriding their chop-logic "arguments" (if you consider badly spelled screed invectives laced with profanity an argument and not a childish tantrum) but at the same time, I find it disingenuous to take incomplete data and try to craft some rosy picture out of it.

 

We. Do. Not. KNOW.

 

I'm certainly not about to go into a rant about communication or the number of issues that affect various segments of the population because that would be off topic. I am going to say that this is the second unplanned fix to a fix we've had in as many weeks, and that indicates they're either patching too fast to test properly because their worried , or they are fixing systems they don't understand and throwing other things off.

 

Play game. Enjoy game. Snicker at the Blizzard Defense Force. But I worry far too much that assumptions of success will cost us in the long run if there IS a stumble.

[LogicalPremise]

Not that they would lie per say, but as we all know, its pretty easy to twist numbers around to suit your needs. My actual ingame experience is quite contrary to this report. I have to be skeptical.

 

No, you don't. You have to assume that the penalties for twisting the numbers , in terms of what it would do to the stock, their game, their reputation, and investors, would always far outstrip any benefits , and that these people are greedy.

 

They're not twisting anything. You're looking at a max of about 8,000 people per server, with lots of people probably having paid for a sub and yet aren't playing, people working nights not being on at peak hours, half the number being on the opposite side and invisible to you, and a spread out sharded population.

[Drakinor]

This isn't as of February 1st, this was taken at the end of the year for EA's quarterly finance report. This still includes players who had the free month of gameplay.

 

It's been a little less than 1 month and 1/2 since the game came out; this is very premature to decide how successful this MMORPG really is.

 

Rift seemed very successful upon launch, but 3 months down the road the game was desolate. Stop allowing your fanboyism to blind you.

 

I got a free month from rift, logged in and found it far from desolate....

[iheartnyc]

No, no no.

 

I also used to deal in investment analysis for a living before I moved to going after fraud waste and abuse. What I see, quite frankly, is a press release.

 

One cannot argue that the numbers are what they are.

One cannot argue that the numbers do not represent CURRENT fact.

One cannot argue, although some wit will certainly try, that the numbers don't indicate the community has full faith in Bioware.

 

But to assume from the fact that people were willing to resub at least one month that "the game can't fail" or that there aren't serious issues is just as bad , and relying upon spurious meta-arguments, as those Tortanic clowns.

 

I can take these numbers and suggest a buy rating for the stock. I can't take them and say "in three months the game will be in great shape" because I have -- and neither does the OP -- any information on :

 

- how many of these are 1 month subs? 3 month? Six month?

- how many people resubbed with the intent of never leaving?

- how many people resubbed only to see if they fix the problems?

- What concrete fixes to issues will be rolled out in the next two months?

 

I have no problems with people crowing about the trolls being trolls and deriding their chop-logic "arguments" (if you consider badly spelled screed invectives laced with profanity an argument and not a childish tantrum) but at the same time, I find it disingenuous to take incomplete data and try to craft some rosy picture out of it.

 

We. Do. Not. KNOW.

 

I'm certainly not about to go into a rant about communication or the number of issues that affect various segments of the population because that would be off topic. I am going to say that this is the second unplanned fix to a fix we've had in as many weeks, and that indicates they're either patching too fast to test properly because their worried , or they are fixing systems they don't understand and throwing other things off.

 

Play game. Enjoy game. Snicker at the Blizzard Defense Force. But I worry far too much that assumptions of success will cost us in the long run if there IS a stumble.

 

I agree and disagree with some of what you said. This is not just an ordinary press release. As I'm sure you understand, this is the press release announcing QUARTERLY EARNINGS, which will most definitely be heavily parsed over, scrutinized, and analyzed by an army of analysts and investors and lawyers. It is always a gamble to actually put down numbers in a press release, and it would be ludicrous to lie. Which is why companies often say, "we are doing fine, we are doing better than exepcted, we expect robust growth, etc.etc." as vaguely as possible without stating any numbers unless they need to. Good lawyers will tell you not to put down any forward-projecting statements in press releases. EA actually put hard numbers down, and said that number is growing, which to me, says a lot.

 

Also, some people don't look at press releases carefully. I do. And I think that companies tend to be CONSERVATIVE in press releases, so as to avoid any liability in the future. And so do others. Take a look at how some of the banks that said, "We're doing fine" on investor calls right before they failed or got bailed out are faring right now in terms of government investigations and lawsuits.

Edited February 2, 2012 by iheartnyc

[LogicalPremise]

As I'm sure you understand, this is the press release announcing QUARTERLY EARNINGS, which will most definitely be heavily parsed over, scrutinized, and analyzed by an army of analysts and investors and lawyers. It is always a gamble to actually put down numbers in a press release, and it would be ludicrous to lie.

EA actually put hard numbers down, and said that number is growing, which to me, says a lot.

 

They put hard numbers down about the revenue accruals and cash flows. They are not and did not and will not break out in their 10k what portion of subscriptions are what time frame. That's the information we don't know. The analysts are looking at this as a gestalt figure just like any other cash flow. They have to frame predictions around future growth, which was carefully hedged by the usual risk factors , one of which is that the numbers are pending no future distortions in future subscription rates.

 

Of course they put down hard numbers for the CASH, they aren't complete fools. They don't need to lie, and doing so could cost them their company and hard jail time. The people claiming "they lied!" and "the numbers are from December" aren't familiar with SOX. But they can't accrue revenue in this FY from last FY. And that means the numbers are at least current through January.

 

Now, I don't know if the 2 million includes online sales or not, I haven't had time to go delving, but even if it doesn't, the bottom line is there is a high retention rate after one month. That's it. We can't take that and say "tralala, game will crush WoW".

 

We can certainly however say that the game isn't failing. I agree with that fully.

 

Also, some people don't look at press releases carefully. I do. And I think that companies tend to be CONSERVATIVE in press releases, so as to avoid any liability in the future. And so do others. Take a look at how some of the banks that said, "We're doing fine" on investor calls right before they failed or got bailed out are faring right now in terms of government investigations and lawsuits.

 

I think EA made a big gamble on this property and have had a lot of misses in their product line outside of SWTOR. They aren't going to be conservative if they can help it because there is no law that says you can't project aggressive growth.

 

My own company is predicting 30% growth coming off a year where we missed street numbers by 12 million, and we have about as much chance of hitting that as I do getting lucky with Beyonce and Rihanna at the same time. But it's not lying or illegal since we can forecast "optimal" growth rates and point to our disclaimers about "adverse market changes" if we stumble. The stock may get pummeled, but most of these class action lawsuits about misrepresented earnings forecasts are by companies who reaped millions in short term gains by doing so. I don't think EA would do that.

[TyphoonMidget]

I would sit here and argue with you all, but I have a game to play............see you in there

[iheartnyc]

They put hard numbers down about the revenue accruals and cash flows. They are not and did not and will not break out in their 10k what portion of subscriptions are what time frame. That's the information we don't know. The analysts are looking at this as a gestalt figure just like any other cash flow. They have to frame predictions around future growth, which was carefully hedged by the usual risk factors , one of which is that the numbers are pending no future distortions in future subscription rates.

 

They also put down hard numbers about numbers of active subscribers, and stated (not a projection) that the number is growing. I've seen a lot of "expected growth" language for the upcoming reporting period, but a flat out, "number is growing" statements is pretty ballsy. If that number falls flat, you can bet there will be questions to the CEO next call, "you said that the number was growing..."

 

I think EA made a big gamble on this property and have had a lot of misses in their product line outside of SWTOR. They aren't going to be conservative if they can help it because there is no law that says you can't project aggressive growth.

 

My own company is predicting 30% growth coming off a year where we missed street numbers by 12 million, and we have about as much chance of hitting that as I do getting lucky with Beyonce and Rihanna at the same time. But it's not lying or illegal since we can forecast "optimal" growth rates and point to our disclaimers about "adverse market changes" if we stumble. The stock may get pummeled, but most of these class action lawsuits about misrepresented earnings forecasts are by companies who reaped millions in short term gains by doing so. I don't think EA would do that.

 

Yes, there is no restriction on projecting growth. But the CEO actually stated, "with more than 1.7 million active subscribers and growing". The way I read that, it's not a projection. It's a promise to investors that as of now, the game is growing. A bit of a nuance from, "we expect to continue to grow." Surprised the lawyers let that in there.

 

Also, theoretically, you're right, the disclaimers to provide a level of protection. However, it is a very imperfect defense, as even the threat of litigation (no matter how futile) may result in high costs for EA. In addition, a disclaimer does not change the fact that you can't make a material misstatement or omission (there is a regulation against disclaiming against violations of federal laws, I can't recall what it is but it's there). Example would be, you can't say "we are the world's greatest company in the whole wide world" and disclaim that by saying, "mere puffery is not meant to be taken as truth or investment advice..." and expect to be free of liability.

 

p.s. I think you will appreciate this, but my legacy name is "EBITDA"

Edited February 2, 2012 by iheartnyc

[iheartnyc]

I would sit here and argue with you all, but I have a game to play............see you in there

 

I'm at work (slow day), wish I was home playing too

[Roechacca]

I have no idea what we're talking about but...

 

everyone on the internet is an expert. I just printed out my diploma. Thank you MSPaint.

 

Go ahead, check my credentials!

[Zilvafein]

Let me spell it out for you. MY JOB is to interpret financial results and press releases. Statements contained in press releases are AS OF THE DATE OF THE PRESS RELEASE (February 1). FINANCIAL RESULTS are filed SEPARATELY or as an EXHIBIT to the PRESS RELEASE.

 

Simple enough?

 

Also, financial statements (IS/BS/SCF and notes thereto) typically do NOT contain "subscription base" numbers, as those are NOT financial numbers and CANNOT be audited by accountants (and thus, cannot be submitted for filing to the SEC). Subscription numbers are OPERATIONAL numbers, which are stated by the filing company, and released through other means including press releases, or periodic monthly management account filings to the SEC.

 

I work with communication, and I have a word for you: Apples and oranges, you are unclear in your definition of success. You are being critized for claiming that the game is successful without making a description on what you term as a success.

 

Here is how subscription numbers work:

They are a measure of active subscriptions.

 

Thats it. They are not a measurement of how many players play the game, they are not a measurement of long term success, they are a measurement that it has a successfull launch. The long term success cannot be measured before the initial months hype has died out and before we have seen if those subscribers stick around or not.

 

Really, for a guy that works with financial results you should know to be a little more clear, the initial success is indisputeable, but your original post implied the long term success, which we cannot be certain of yet.

[LogicalPremise]

They also put down hard numbers about numbers of active subscribers, and stated (not a projection) that the number is growing. I've seen a lot of "expected growth" language for the upcoming reporting period, but a flat out, "number is growing" statements is pretty ballsy. If that number falls flat, you can bet there will be questions to the CEO next call, "you said that the number was growing..."

 

Not at all. If he had 1.74 million at January 1st and 1.75 at January 31st because some people on free game time resubbed, he could legitmatelly claim growth and no one could call him on it.

 

But I don't doubt there will be some growth, with more advertising and the SW movies and live-action show and all that.

 

All I am saying is we don't know if of the 1.7 million if 1.5 million are one month and .2 are six month, or if half are six month, or what.

 

If we have anything over 700k to 900k in 6 month subs, the trolls are doomed. If we have anything under 100k in six month subs then March becomes a make or break period for the game.

 

I'm worried not because of the numbers but because of the haste in throwing out patches so messily that we have to repatch them a day later with unplanned downtime.

[Jagax]

I would sit here and argue with you all, but I have a game to play............see you in there

 

Good luck with that, servers are down

[EverlongAU]

Is anyone else kind of scared by the power of fanboism to distort people's view of reality?

 

No, I'm worried about people like you who write off other peoples' opposing views to yours as being a fanboy. Just because someone dosn't mindless agree with your pessimism does not make them a fanboy. Stop being so glib.

[Golarz]

 

As of February 1, 2012, that number is GROWING.

 

Today is February 2 2012. So how can You tell if that nuber had gone up from yesterday ?

 

 

Specialists estimate that EA/BioWare put 300mln dolars in this game.

2 millions sold at 60$ give 120 mln. If You add average subscription fee for 2 months for 1,7 mln active subscribers You get 51 milions. Thats 171 milions of dolars. They are still missing 129 milions to get even and the game is dying.

Thats hardly a sucess.

[iheartnyc]

I work with communication, and I have a word for you: Apples and oranges, you are unclear in your definition of success. You are being critized for claiming that the game is successful without making a description on what you term as a success.

 

Here is how subscription numbers work:

They are a measure of active subscriptions.

 

Thats it. They are not a measurement of how many players play the game, they are not a measurement of long term success, they are a measurement that it has a successfull launch. The long term success cannot be measured before the initial months hype has died out and before we have seen if those subscribers stick around or not.

 

Really, for a guy that works with financial results you should know to be a little more clear, the initial success is indisputeable, but your original post implied the long term success, which we cannot be certain of yet.

 

I don't think you and I are on the same page. I'm not sure how to respond to you, as I'm not sure what you're saying, but here goes. In the world of finance, we think in terms of quarters, not some vague, future "long-term" (well, a few lucky few people do, but that is a luxury that most don't have, with bosses and investors demanding immediate returns or else you're fired type of thing). And frankly speaking, as of the date of the press release, SWTOR is a huge success.

 

I'm not a research analyst so I can't make a buy/sell recommendation or predict future growth. All I am stating is, the game is not failing, and in the contrary, it is trending upwards (at least as of recently). Some people (uninformed) would take that and infer that I was implying something that I'm not (predicting success). My role in this post, as I stated in my OP (you should read again, the p.p.s.), is simply to interpret the press release accurately so that its meaning is not twisted around by trolls. I could hand you a stock chart showing that it is trending up as of 20 minutes ago, but only a fool would take that as a sign to buy such stock.

[Barakk]

:confused:

 

 

 

Not saying you or EA is a liar, but I have a hard time imagining where those 1.7 million people are hiding..

 

I know there are a lot of servers and not everyone plays at the same time, but still..

 

 

But after the downfall of population on servers since BETA/Launch I am noticing that servers are getting more busier again, which is a good think

 

 

If they have really hit 1.7 million then kudos to them and with this rate maybe sometime in the distant future they will be able to pay of the development cost and actually make some profit on the game

 

To address your point about the downturn of server population there are two points to consider:

1) Populations on ALL MMO games rise sharply during the holidays as more people have free time and then fall again as the start of the new year presents a lot of new tasks to fulfill. If it is on the rise now things are starting to look good.

 

2) How you judge your population fluxuations means a lot. Server caps were raised across the board to eliminate queue times, so if you base it on the fact that you don't have queue times there might be a perception issue. It might also be that as the "newness" wears off players are regulating play times, meaning lower population spikes but more people on throughout the whole day. Additionally, as friends and family start playing some servers may see a shift in population as "trial toons" are forgone for a reroll on another server.

 

Until we hear hard numbers, such as was in the press release, its impossible for any one of us to decide what the server pops are.

 

edit- its late, used the wrong word

Edited February 2, 2012 by Barakk

[Vecke]

No, no no.

 

I also used to deal in investment analysis for a living before I moved to going after fraud waste and abuse. What I see, quite frankly, is a press release.

 

One cannot argue that the numbers are what they are.

One cannot argue that the numbers do not represent CURRENT fact.

One cannot argue, although some wit will certainly try, that the numbers don't indicate the community has full faith in Bioware.

 

But to assume from the fact that people were willing to resub at least one month that "the game can't fail" or that there aren't serious issues is just as bad , and relying upon spurious meta-arguments, as those Tortanic clowns.

 

I can take these numbers and suggest a buy rating for the stock. I can't take them and say "in three months the game will be in great shape" because I have -- and neither does the OP -- any information on :

 

- how many of these are 1 month subs? 3 month? Six month?

- how many people resubbed with the intent of never leaving?

- how many people resubbed only to see if they fix the problems?

- What concrete fixes to issues will be rolled out in the next two months?

 

I have no problems with people crowing about the trolls being trolls and deriding their chop-logic "arguments" (if you consider badly spelled screed invectives laced with profanity an argument and not a childish tantrum) but at the same time, I find it disingenuous to take incomplete data and try to craft some rosy picture out of it.

 

We. Do. Not. KNOW.

 

I'm certainly not about to go into a rant about communication or the number of issues that affect various segments of the population because that would be off topic. I am going to say that this is the second unplanned fix to a fix we've had in as many weeks, and that indicates they're either patching too fast to test properly because their worried , or they are fixing systems they don't understand and throwing other things off.

 

Play game. Enjoy game. Snicker at the Blizzard Defense Force. But I worry far too much that assumptions of success will cost us in the long run if there IS a stumble.

 

I agree with about 90% of what you're saying here.

 

You're right in that we don't have enough data to know whether the game will be standing strong in 3 months, but we do have enough information (that you haven't mentioned here) to make an educated guess. We can't say for certain, and we definitely can't claim it'll be "huge", but there are a few assumptions that would be logical.

 

You're absolutely right in that we need more time to know how successful this game will be.

 

However, we have enough information to reasonably conclude it won't be a complete failure in 3 months, because the one bit of information you're not considering is the fact that this game has already broken records. This game has already sold more copies at launch than any other MMO in history. This game is already above every other MMO at this point after launch (excluding WoW).

 

You're right that we don't have enough information to make any definitive statements about its ultimate success or failure. But it's not at all unreasonable to suggest it's more likely than not that this game will last longer than other games that started well, then crashed, simply based on the fact that it has already started with a pool of players far, far greater than those other games. This game would have to lose a much higher percent of players than Rift to be where Rift is today.

 

I'm not making any grandiose predictions here, but I am saying we have enough information to conclude that this game will not be, say, free to play in 3 to 5 months, because even if they have the average loss of subs between then and now, they started strongly enough to push them a little further.

 

So it's not entirely accurate to say we don't have enough information to make ANY predictions. We do, by looking at its launch numbers and the trends of other games 3 to 5 months later in regards to their launch numbers.

 

And I'm sure any reasonable analyst would agree that while we don't have enough information to conclude the eventual success, we do have enough information to reasonably predict that it's very unlikely that this game will be a "complete failure" or even Free to Play in 3 months... which is the OP's point.

Edited February 2, 2012 by Vecke

[Tsaritsin]

As of February 1, 2012, there are 1.7 million active subscribers.

 

As of February 1, 2012, that number is GROWING.

 

Thank you.

 

p.s. Before you jump in with a comment about how the press release is a lie, please note that material misstatements by a US publicly listed company (covered by the SEC) in press releases may constitute a violation of Section 17(a) of the Securities Act of 1933, Sections 10(b) and 13(b)(5) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, and Exchange Act Rules 10b 5 and 13b2-1. Unless you are suggesting that EA is risking violation of federal securities laws just to boost their numbers, the press release is credible.

 

p.p.s. My point is simply this: clearly SWTOR is not going anywhere for a while. In fact, all indications (and statements by EA, who would have their monthly management accounts indicating subscriber trends) show that the base is GROWING (unless, again, you believe EA would lie and risk the wrath of the SEC and shareholder lawsuits including big institutional investors and banks with an army of lawyers).

 

I am tempted to call Shill on this,

 

Did you get paid to write this ?

 

If you think you can judge the success of an MMO after such a short period of time then quite frankly your living in cloud cuckoo land.

 

Come back in year, then we can carry on the chat

 

And, no, I am not a SWTOR hater, I think it's a good game, bugged to hell, rushed release, but good.

[iheartnyc]

Today is February 2 2012. So how can You tell if that nuber had gone up from yesterday ?

 

 

Specialists estimate that EA/BioWare put 300mln dolars in this game.

2 millions sold at 60$ give 120 mln. If You add average subscription fee for 2 months for 1,7 mln active subscribers You get 51 milions. Thats 171 milions of dolars. They are still missing 129 milions to get even and the game is dying.

Thats hardly a sucess.

 

1) Major companies maintain management accounts (internal unaudited corporate snapshots of the company's results and positions), which are updated either monthly, weekly or sometimes even daily. The CEO probably got this number from his COO or CFO, who got it from some VP who got it from some manager who had a team of employees produce it. Such numbers are generally highly confidential, but are publicly filed/released by some companies on a monthly basis. I took a look at EA's filings and they do not do so.

 

2) "Putting" 300mm into the game can mean anything. How much of that is tax deductible as a business expense? What other deductions/exemptions are there? How is that 300mm amortized? And assuming that your figures are correct, if EA has recouped 171 million (that's over 50% of the initial investment) in roughly 1 month, that is freaking amazing. For major projects, companies typically issue bonds or raise capital and it takes years for them to recoup their costs and start turning a profit (a relevant example maybe the XBOX360 or PS3). In any event, without understanding how the investment into the game was funded or how it is treated from an accounting or tax standpoint, we have no way of knowing whether this game is financially profitable as of now or as of when or anything really.

 

But I can assure you, EA most likely had highly talented accountants, lawyers and bankers structure the package as effeciently as possible prior to getting board sign-off and dumping the cash into the game.

Edited February 2, 2012 by iheartnyc

[Darth_Grissom]

Im glad to see that the game as of right now is doing well and is a success.

 

Let us hope that this continues through the future and even more come into the game.

Edited February 2, 2012 by Darth_Grissom

[iheartnyc]

I am tempted to call Shill on this,

 

Did you get paid to write this ?

 

If you think you can judge the success of an MMO after such a short period of time then quite frankly your living in cloud cuckoo land.

 

Come back in year, then we can carry on the chat

 

And, no, I am not a SWTOR hater, I think it's a good game, bugged to hell, rushed release, but good.

 

Wish I got paid, or at least mailed some cool gear for my character

 

Again, this post was in reaction to the people stating that the game was losing subscribers and that people are rushing to quit the game. I have no idea (can only hope) if the game will be successful in a year. But as of now, today, the game is a success according to the EA press release.

[Elror]

Today is February 2 2012. So how can You tell if that nuber had gone up from yesterday ?

 

 

Specialists estimate that EA/BioWare put 300mln dolars in this game.

2 millions sold at 60$ give 120 mln. If You add average subscription fee for 2 months for 1,7 mln active subscribers You get 51 milions. Thats 171 milions of dolars. They are still missing 129 milions to get even and the game is dying.

Thats hardly a sucess.

 

First they said the game was 200 millions cost.

Second you didnt count the CE and DE which sold for ±150$ and ±80$.

And third, they said that they need at least 500K suscriber in order to make profit.

[LoneRebel]

First they tried to dispute the factual accuracy of the OP.

 

Then, when they failed at that, they tried to claim that any statistics released this early in the game's life have no bearing on its long-term success.

 

Yeah, they don't. But guess what? They do say something about the game's short-term success. Which is the only thing we can accurately discuss at this time. And I bet many of these naysayers are the same people who said that the game would fail in the short-term (to say nothing of the long term). This thread is no different from what they tried to do, which is make a statement about the game's success or lack of it. Except that this thread has better evidence to support its conclusion.

 

Having participated in the Tortanic "iceberg of fail" meme, and ended up with pie all over their faces, the haters simply can't admit that they're wrong.

 

Haters gonna hate.

[Aisar]

I don't care what any numbers say, people hardly even talk in general anymore. I went afk last night for about 10 minutes during peak hours, came back and not 1 new msg in general.

 

People are leaving or not talking or sometihng. Pretty strange..