So who stuck around?

[Keta]

You catch that last paragraph on that page? Here it is.

 

 

Well, what does xfire say about the subs? Here you go;

http://beta.xfire.com/games/swtor

 

 

 

Personally I haven't used Xfire in years and neither has anyone else in our guild. It's hardly an accurate assessment of anything in SWTOR, pro or con.

[Fugara]

Fellow members of SWTOR Nation:

 

SWTOR may have set many records at it's release, in terms of numbers, but that was purely becuase of hype. With the first official quarter of the new year drawing to a close, I'm actually pretty curious as to what the Retention Rate of the game has been in respect to remaining subscribers. Is anyone else curious about this?

 

I haven't had much time to search around, so if they have already reported new numbers I apologize for the pointless post.

 

Peace,

Chef[/quote

 

"Special" people for the most part. This is one of the main reasons they left the UI so large. For special people with physical/mental disabilities?

[DorkTrooper]

Everything and anything is being done to make it look like the game is not tanking.

 

Will it make you angry if the game does well?

[Ujest]

Hence dumping of Sith on the Republic and tossing lore out the window....

 

Everything and anything is being done to make it look like the game is not tanking.

 

Tossing what Lore? This game is set Three Thousand (3,000) Years BEFORE the Star Wars Lore you speak of. So what ever lore it has is what the writers make it.

Edited March 7, 2012 by Ujest

[TKMaster]

Not many people stuck around.

 

Bioware won't give exact numbers, EA will have to at their next investors meeting.

 

Bioware did say 3.3 millions characters have been created so far. Everyone I know makes 8 chars just to reserve names, so divide that by 8 is 412000, then knock off a bunch of those who unsubbed, probably 2/3 and you're at 272000 accounts probably active. I'd expect that number to keep plummeting. *The 272k is probably fairly accurate looking at numbers so far extrapolated by the community*

 

It shows too with their scheduled changes. Least amount of work to make as many patch notes as possible to make it look like a lot of work. It's obvious theyre scaling back support for the game.

 

No new races, just make the races we have available to all. No neutral gear just remove all the restrictions. No better engine to have more than 8 people in a warzone, just reskin a current warzone and call it new. On and on.

 

Game is finito. TORtanic.

 

Not sure if srs.

[TKMaster]

Personally I haven't used Xfire in years and neither has anyone else in our guild. It's hardly an accurate assessment of anything in SWTOR, pro or con.

 

After playing MMO for 12 years now...i know mabey 3-4 ppl that still use it, it's very out of style now.

[Koalachan]

Not many people stuck around.

 

Bioware won't give exact numbers, EA will have to at their next investors meeting.

 

Bioware did say 3.3 millions characters have been created so far. Everyone I know makes 8 chars just to reserve names, so divide that by 8 is 412000, then knock off a bunch of those who unsubbed, probably 2/3 and you're at 272000 accounts probably active. I'd expect that number to keep plummeting. *The 272k is probably fairly accurate looking at numbers so far extrapolated by the community*

 

It shows too with their scheduled changes. Least amount of work to make as many patch notes as possible to make it look like a lot of work. It's obvious theyre scaling back support for the game.

 

No new races, just make the races we have available to all. No neutral gear just remove all the restrictions. No better engine to have more than 8 people in a warzone, just reskin a current warzone and call it new. On and on.

 

Game is finito. TORtanic.

 

Not everyone stuck around. Everyone I know rolls two characters. They said 3.3 million characters made, divide that by 2 per account, that means 1.7 million players. My math is just as accurate as yours.

[Stejo]

Ok, the facts. They sold 2 million copies in the first month. Out of those 2 million copies, everyone who bought it in January was necessarily still subscribed when the last figures were released. Everyone who doesn't use a credit card and had to buy a gamecard to play the free month was also necessarily still considered a subscriber.

 

From the numbers floating around it's estimated that they sold about 1.5 million units in December. Out of those 1.5 million we can only guess how many were credit card users. Let's assume a 50-50 split. That would mean that out of 750k people that could have unsubbed before Feb 1, 300k did actually unsub. That's almost 40% in the first month.

 

The really funny numbers gonna appear in the next report.

[Darka]

While Fanbois say 5 Million, and the Drones say 500 players

I am having fun, and thats the most important thing out there

[Icebaron]

Personally I haven't used Xfire in years and neither has anyone else in our guild. It's hardly an accurate assessment of anything in SWTOR, pro or con.

 

So it is your assumption that Xfire users are disproportionately anti swtor and those numbers are there because of it?

 

The forums I can understand. But Xfire users have something against swtor for some reason? Because that is the only way this game is growing while xfire shows it dying.

[Holden_Dissent]

So it is your assumption that Xfire users are disproportionately anti swtor and those numbers are there because of it?

 

The forums I can understand. But Xfire users have something against swtor for some reason? Because that is the only way this game is growing while xfire shows it dying.

 

I think he's saying that noone uses Xfire anymore. I would say he's right.

[Icebaron]

I think he's saying that noone uses Xfire anymore. I would say he's right.

 

That's a subject dodge if ever there was one. I didn't ask what he said, I asked what he thought about xfire stats and how they relate to the health of SWTOR.

[Dayfax]

So it is your assumption that Xfire users are disproportionately anti swtor and those numbers are there because of it?

 

Maybe not, but it does present a huge self selection bias that skews all of their data to such a degree that it becomes meaningless.

[Sevvy_Boo]

The game isn't dying. Yes, sales have evened out, yes many people have un-subbed, yes some servers are extremely low population, but that doesn't mean the game is dead or dying.

 

I think people's definition of what a successful subscription number is is far too bloated. If it's not in the millions of millions, people begin the doomsaying. Word of Warcraft completely skewed the definition of "success." WoW wasn't a typical game, it evolved into a pop culture phenomenon. Expecting everything else to reach that benchmark is ridiculous.

 

Even if you don't specifically mention WoW, by throwing your hands up and saying the game is dying based on the fact that perhaps over 3 million people aren't playing it is absurd, especially when you don't even have any hard data, and the only way you could've acquired the idea of such a ridiculous standard is from WoW. That's the only game to achieve such critical, long-term success. Using X-Fire statistics and watching your Fleet population at peak hours doesn't make you some informed analyst. If makes you a half-cocked nerd.

 

I believe Trion has claimed that Rift is a profitable venture for them and is successful with far less than 1 million subs. I know SW:TOR cost much more to develop, but they moved boxes, and despite what you might think, people are still playing.

[Icebaron]

Maybe not, but it does present a huge self selection bias that skews all of their data to such a degree that it becomes meaningless.

 

I don't know if I buy that. But it could represent a different type of player (fps fans and the like) that may not be inclined to play well with mmorpgs. Or it could be that xfire is such a resource hog that people turn it off before playing SWTOR.

[Anthya]

That's a subject dodge if ever there was one. I didn't ask what he said, I asked what he thought about xfire stats and how they relate to the health of SWTOR.

 

Here's what I think of them:

 

They're far too small a sample size to be indicative of the general subscriber trend. It'd be like doing a poll of 1000 people on their political views and expecting that to be accurate across the entire population.

The biggest problem isn't the sample size, though. It's the inherent lack of random sampling that comes from X-fire data. Out of the tens of millions of people who play MMOs, how many do you think use Xfire? Hell, only 15000 xfire users play WoW every day. WoW still has 10 million subscribers as of the last investor report.

 

The only people who have the real numbers are EA Bioware. Anything else is educated speculation at best, foolishness at worst.

[DalrisThane]

This is mostly addressed to people that still like the game… there really isn’t a point about arguing for the game about subscriptions, because, regardless of the outcome, you will not get the desired result. Not using any numbers on purpose.

 

Outcome-1 = The Game Dies Fast

So now, all those that hate the game will be gleefully (though correctly) say the game is dead. Also, based on a lot of forum posts and insults therein, many will be ecstatic that we can’t play a game we like. (Joy at someone else being miserable should totally be a “would you like to step outside?” offence, but I digress)

 

Outcome-2 = The Game Goes on Life Support and goes FTP

Now, although the game isn’t destroyed, it’s treading water until it remakes its investment. The game can still objectively be declared a failure, and those hating it can still try and remove enjoyment from us by repeating the fact that it didn’t progress, and thus, rub salt in our wound.

 

Outcome-3 = The Game Does OK

Not great. Not the best thing ever. Just ok. A big patch / expansion per year. Enough core followers to keep it viable, but not stellar. Then, those that hate it will say that, with the Star Wars IP, the $300+ million budget, and the advertising, it would have failed if it didn’t have all 3. It therefore doesn’t stand on its own 2 feet. So again, posts about, how the game cheated its way to average. And average is mediocre. And mediocre is a fail.

 

Outcome-4 = The Game Does Great (I don’t think it will, but putting it here for completeness)

So now, lets say it does absolutely great. Heck lets be even more flight of fancy, lets say it passes wow. Then the comments will be about how “the masses sucks” and, we’re sheep, and we don’t know about quality if we love this, and a big diatribe on how catering to the masses is terrible, etc…

 

So, no matter what happens to the game (much as I love the game, I think it will be Outcome-2), you are never, and I mean NEVER going to get a “Gee, I guess you were right.” from the people posting, predicting, and wanting the game’s demise.

 

Me? I loved the story part. I’m not into the MMO part, but the boards are heavy with MMO players not being happy.

 

Considering it’s marketed as a story driven MMO, and they got story, and not MMO, that’s a 50% hit rate, just from the marketing, let alone the nitty gritty. I just happen to be lucky enough that I feel I’m the target market for this game.

 

(Shameless Self Plug = read

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=332954

for my own biased analysis)

 

However, maybe it’s me, but I think there’s a horde of difference between “I think this game is going to fail” and “HA. FANBOY. Your game is going to fail. You’re going to lose something you like! HA!!!” either implied, or outright stated in some cases. Hopefully, we’ll see hard numbers for subs soon.

 

But, even in the extremely unlikely event that we get Option-4, don’t expect an apology, or even a “Guess you were right.”. In the near impossible event that TOR would reach 20 mil subs in the next 5 years, what I expect to hear is…

 

“20 mil? For TOR? Proof humanity sucks.”

 

TL;DR = Me? I’d settle for people being right about the game going downhill, but not being such BLANKS about it…

Edited March 7, 2012 by DalrisThane

[KAYRED]

This is one of the most idiotic analyses I have ever seen. Thank you, it made me laugh.

 

Yeah the first thing I thought was "this is the biggest piece of ******** statistics I ever seen". I have some statistics of the people I know they have 4 Galactic Republic characters and 1 sith alt, so the majority of people should be playing Galactic Republic mains right?

 

However to be on topic, I'm sticking with this game for the long haul, this game hasn't been out 3 months yet and people are already calling it a failure, let's give em 6 months to a year and see how it is doing, I'm pretty sure they know what they are doing. This is a new field for BW, they can't be perfect from the start however they've done a pretty good job.

[Kthx]

SWTOR may have set many records at it's release, in terms of numbers, but that was purely becuase of hype.

 

I reject your hypothesis. I wasn't at all interested in the game, and didn't follow it at all during development. I signed up for the forums and signed up for beta, and that was about it. It wasn't until I got a beta invitation for the second to last weekend beta that I read up on it, tried it and was hooked!

[Vlaxitov]

Fanboys who run apologetic campaigns in mmo forums are just as annoying as doomsayers.

[Hokonoso]

well i bought 2 CE and 2 6mo subs so im here until the next game i guess *sigh*

 

no reason to even talk quitting since it wont do me anything.

[Esaru]

I can't believe so many of you think this game has 3 million subs. Are you that deluded? Kind of sad really, lol

 

I'm going to guess 1 million (come March 20th, that is). I guarantee there's been a huge drop-off from the original 2 million subs. This doesn't include Asia, who are essentially going through hype/launch

Edited March 7, 2012 by Esaru

[Jamus_Divinus]

I highly doubt that TOR has 3mil current active subs. I'd guess 2mil would be more likely. Mine is an opinion based on nothing concrete...just a hunch.

[Voqar]

I apologize for the pointless post.

 

If you knew it was pointless, and mostly your wild and most likely incorrect opinion, then why post?

[Icebaron]

I highly doubt that TOR has 3mil current active subs. I'd guess 2mil would be more likely. Mine is an opinion based on nothing concrete...just a hunch.

 

You are still way off. Look around on the internet (avoid actual SWTOR fansites, they have monetary interests in the game succeeding).

 

Check twitter, blogs, mmorpg.com forums, massively commentary, video blogs. The entire internet knows this game is sinking. Just search Tortanic and look at all the links.

 

I would say 800k subs. Game will stabalize in 4-5 months at around 500k subs and be stuck there.