New updated sub numbers (Official)

[Kinrain]

Good points guys, what will the next doom prophesy be?

 

Every one used so far has fallen flat.

 

It does make me wonder what the real motivation is for these hater posts. We're well past the free month so they have to actually be paying to contaminate the forums with thier doom and gloom posts. Why?

 

If they really hate the game so much why are they still here complaining about it? I've never been back to WoW since I decided to quit, and I didn't play out my game time either, when I decided to quit I cancelled my account and never looked back. What possible motivation can they have for sticking around?

 

Why are they still here?

[DarthRavnos]

EA has confirmed that BioWare's first MMO is almost at 2 million users

 

Electronic Arts CEO John Riccitiello has told investors that BioWare's Star Wars: The Old Republic (SWTOR) is up to nearly 1.7 million monthly subscribers as of the end of February. A "vast majority" of players have passed beyond the free month of playtime that comes with the game and are in full-on paid subscription mode.

 

Cowen and Company analyst Doug Creutz is estimating 2 million monthly subscribers by the end of June 2012.

 

"We continue to feel comfortable with our Star Wars estimates which are an important part of our street-high FY13 non-GAAP EPS estimate of $1.36. We estimate 2MM paying subs by the end of June 2012 (and then sustained for the remainder of the year). We also note that the company plans to launch Star Wars in the Asia-Pacific region later this month," Creutz said in a statement.

 

Overall, the success of SWTOR has Cowen and Company rating EA shares to Outperform.

 

EA's quarter 3 results confirm this article's validity. You can see the report at the following link:

 

http://files.shareholder.com/downloads/ERTS/1691067882x0x538997/0bdba9f2-8364-4394-9a21-563bd460d841/EA_Q3FY12_Earnings_Release_2_1_12_12.15PM.pdf

 

From the Guild Summit this past Monday (3/5/2010) they stated the following:

 

SWTOR has sold over 2 million copies and is the fastest growing subscription-based MMO ever! With each player averaging over 5 hours of playtime in game each day and over 3.8 million characters created!

 

My curiosity is that they have sold 2 million units but only have 1.7 million subscribers? So there are 300,000 players who are not actively subscribed?

[JerokTalram]

Not quite. At the ned of January, a portion of the 1.7M hadn't fully subscribed and were in their first month. The fact that a month later they have done so is good news, which is precisely why the haters and pantwetters are desperately trying to message about it being a bad thing in order to drown out the reality that it's actually a good thing.

 

SIGNED UP AND PLAYING IS FULLY SUBSCRIBED. They bought the box, they signed up and they are playing so they are subs. It doesn't matter whether they cancelled after the free subcription month or not. They were still subscribed. Stop trying to rationalize to make your point. A sub is a sub.

Edited March 9, 2012 by JerokTalram

[Blotter]

EA's quarter 3 results confirm this article's validity. You can see the report at the following link:

 

http://files.shareholder.com/downloads/ERTS/1691067882x0x538997/0bdba9f2-8364-4394-9a21-563bd460d841/EA_Q3FY12_Earnings_Release_2_1_12_12.15PM.pdf

 

From the Guild Summit this past Monday (3/5/2010) they stated the following:

 

 

 

My curiosity is that they have sold 2 million units but only have 1.7 million subscribers? So there are 300,000 players who are not actively subscribed?

 

Sold 2M. Subscribed 1.7M. This means 300K or so just decided it wasn't for them. In other words, about 15% attrition. That beats any launch ever.

[Lethality]

Well it shows that the attrition rate is steady. Which is better than most MMO launches fare. Obviously still nothing like the trajectory Blizzard realized when WoW was released of course. But that doesn't mean TOR isn't successful.

[Gohlar]

Sold 2M. Subscribed 1.7M. This means 300K or so just decided it wasn't for them. In other words, about 15% attrition. That beats any launch ever.

 

Which is a great reason to wonder why the servers are so empty.

 

Something is clearly not adding up. It seems to be EA's numbers. There was a clear and obvious decline in population and according to those numbers there wasn't.

 

But yes it's all in our heads, nobody has left. They are all just invisible perhaps?

Edited March 9, 2012 by Gohlar

[Holden_Dissent]

Which is a great reason to wonder why the servers are so empty?

 

Something is clearly not adding up. It seems to be EA's numbers. There was a clear and obvious decline in population and according to those numbers there wasn't.

 

But yes it's all in our heads, nobody has left. They are all just invisible perhaps?

 

They probably rerolled on other servers already

[Meldwyn]

Good points guys, what will the next doom prophesy be?

 

Every one used so far has fallen flat.

 

It does make me wonder what the real motivation is for these hater posts. We're well past the free month so they have to actually be paying to contaminate the forums with thier doom and gloom posts. Why?

 

If they really hate the game so much why are they still here complaining about it? I've never been back to WoW since I decided to quit, and I didn't play out my game time either, when I decided to quit I cancelled my account and never looked back. What possible motivation can they have for sticking around?

 

Why are they still here?

 

I think there are new people carrying that banner now. The folks that originally were totally over the top angry about the game aren't posting since the first month ended.

 

Could be that folks love it then hate it, for some reason. Maybe the disconnect between leveling and end game, maybe something else. Dunno.

[Gohlar]

They probably rerolled on other servers already

 

That would mean there should be a decent number of populated servers and there aren't.

 

US is almost all standard/light. Mine is standard and is a ghost town.

[Blotter]

SIGNED UP AND PLAYING IS FULLY SUBSCRIBED. They bought the box, they signed up and they are playing so they are subs. It doesn't matter whether they cancelled after the free subcription month or not. They were still subscribed. Stop trying to rationalize to make your point. A sub is a sub.

 

Nope, sorry. Back on Feb 1st, EA specifically stated that about 300k-400k of the 1.7M were still in their first free month and had not fully subscribed (i.e., had not fully committed to playing) to become fully paying customers with a monthly or other periodic payment cycle. They now have done so according to this new release. That is good news. Nice try mischaracterizing it though in an attempt to gloss it over.

 

A sub is not a sub. They have different characteristics and the change in characteristics of the 1.7M to be almost all fully subscribed paying customers, as opposed to about 20% of them still being in their first free month, shows that people are staying, not leaving, and that they are getting new people to replace those who do leave. Don't like it or don't like the game? YOU can always leave. Make your statement that way...by cancelling and going away...instead of trying to ruin the forums with desperate pleas for everyone to feel as negatively as you do.

[Lethality]

Which is a great reason to wonder why the servers are so empty?

 

Something is clearly not adding up. It seems to be EA's numbers. There was a clear and obvious decline in population and according to those numbers there wasn't.

 

But yes it's all in our heads, nobody has left. They are all just invisible perhaps?

 

Well, the servers seem empty yes... but perhaps BioWare's intent to spread players around and the design of the world is having more an effect than they intended. It also _seems_ like the servers themselves have lower population caps. I know WoW's servers seem to hover around 25k characters, but these don't feel anywhere close to having that capacity. Who knows.

[Logisitcs]

Which is a great reason to wonder why the servers are so empty?

 

Something is clearly not adding up. It seems to be EA's numbers. There was a clear and obvious decline in population and according to those numbers there wasn't.

 

Re-rolling to a new server is most likely.

 

If you enjoy the game but you're server is dead you have a couple options:

a.) Whine and complain and do nothing about it because you're "friends" are on the server with you. You end up quitting and being jaded

OR

b.) Pick yourself up and move to a populated server, you can space bar through all the quests and you'll find leveling much more enjoyable with all the chatter in each world

 

I'm guessing most (reasonable) people picked option B. On weekends, some servers are very heavy/full

Edited March 9, 2012 by Logisitcs

[Devlonir]

Which is a great reason to wonder why the servers are so empty?

 

Something is clearly not adding up. It seems to be EA's numbers. There was a clear and obvious decline in population and according to those numbers there wasn't.

 

But yes it's all in our heads, nobody has left. They are all just invisible perhaps?

 

Nope, they just play less. Doesn't mean they arent subscribers.

 

Active players =/= Subscribers =/= Customers.

 

A customer is someone who bought the game

A subscriber is someone who paid the subscription fee

An active player is one that is playing the game right now

 

Currently, I am not playing the game. I am a subscriber though. I bet at least 9 out of 10 people in this forum right now are not actively playing the game right now. So they are not in the servers. Yet, they are subscribers. What are the odds eh?

[Stormnut]

Good points guys, what will the next doom prophesy be?

 

Every one used so far has fallen flat.

 

It does make me wonder what the real motivation is for these hater posts. We're well past the free month so they have to actually be paying to contaminate the forums with thier doom and gloom posts. Why?

 

If they really hate the game so much why are they still here complaining about it? I've never been back to WoW since I decided to quit, and I didn't play out my game time either, when I decided to quit I cancelled my account and never looked back. What possible motivation can they have for sticking around?

 

Why are they still here?

 

Some are "mercenaries" that come on this board and spread miss information in carefully coordinated attacks. I've seen it on every MMO launch that I have followed (DCOU and STO). Same messages are spread, same propaganda about other games is distributed. I feel like a tinfoil hat type but I have seen it too much for it not to be true.

 

Some are people that have nothing better to do in between raid days than to bash the games that they see taking away there raid runners. SWTOR happens to be the biggest threat right now. As soon as GW2 comes online I am sure they will redirect there focus on that game.

 

A good majority have legit issues that they want to see fixed but are either hijacked by the above 2 groups or are only able to communicated in a way that seems like attacking the game.

[Vlacke]

Well it shows that the attrition rate is steady. Which is better than most MMO launches fare. Obviously still nothing like the trajectory Blizzard realized when WoW was released of course. But that doesn't mean TOR isn't successful.

 

What are you talking about?

WoW wasn't even this successful 3 months after release by far.

[Defdaddy]

Well I have news for you this game is way too casual friendly to have people play for the long run.

 

'Don't try to tell me this games operations and pvp have any holding power. Getting geared in record time isn't going to keep subscribers. This game is too damn easy and there is no carrot on the stick incentive to keep playing since you can get geared so fast.'

 

 

First time MMO player here, I hit 50 2 weeks ago I don't know if that qualifies me as casual, but I'm definately not in the HARDCORE/Super Human crowd.

 

I don't understand the stereotypical argument of "getting geared being the carrot on the stick" 'so once your fully geared there is no incentive to play'. I love PvP, to a certain degree gear is definitely a carrot, so once I have a full set of max tier PvP gear I'm going to pat myself on the back and say game over and not play anymore? Wrong, good gear enhances the experience, gear IS NOT the experience. Regardless of gear, I will stop playing in the same fashion I stop playing every other game. IT GETS OLD.

 

Which brings me to my 2nd point NOTHING GETS OLDER FASTER, THAN GRINDING. Grinding is not fun, that's why its a grind. I think there is a lot of balance in this game and as far as GAMEPLAY MECHANICS go in PvP I think it is terrific and this is coming from a guy who historically plays multiplayer FPS games.

[Goretzu]

Nope, we have the numbers now that prove you and a host of others were wrong in the other thread.

 

I am not going to get into all the reasons why because they have been thoroughly covered.

 

 

Again all it suggests is that a lot of people are subbing still, but not playing, which the torstatus trend suggested (the not playing bit anyway).

 

As to the still subbing, well maybe SWTOR has broken the mould, I wouldn't bet on it though.

[Gohlar]

Nope, they just play less. Doesn't mean they arent subscribers.

 

Active players =/= Subscribers =/= Customers.

 

A customer is someone who bought the game

A subscriber is someone who paid the subscription fee

An active player is one that is playing the game right now

 

Currently, I am not playing the game. I am a subscriber though. I bet at least 9 out of 10 people in this forum right now are not actively playing the game right now. So they are not in the servers. Yet, they are subscribers. What are the odds eh?

 

Yeah this is me too. I think a lot of people got gift cards for Christmas, that's what happened to me.

 

All I know is there aren't that many people playing in the US. It isn't selling well here either. Down to under 5k copies in a week.

[DarthRavnos]

Regarding the 300k missing subscriptions...

 

The rest have either not started playing yet or have opted out.

 

And regarding "server congestion" the following was also said by Mr. Gibeau...

 

I want to take a second to correct reports which speculated that a lack of congestion was a sign of slow participation. Shortly after launch, we doubled the efficiency of

each server, allowing us to handle twice as many players and remove the waiting lines. The lack of congestion is a function of great engineering.

[Goretzu]

Sorry, but you don't seem to understand the concept of averages. Or well, you seem to do as you explain it wonderfully after this, but then use the explaination as a reason for his numbers being bad.

 

Odd..

 

 

You can't average hours per day across a 24 hour period.

 

It just doesn't work like that.

 

It's not odd, it's just how it is!

[Blotter]

Which is a great reason to wonder why the servers are so empty.

 

Something is clearly not adding up. It seems to be EA's numbers. There was a clear and obvious decline in population and according to those numbers there wasn't.

 

But yes it's all in our heads, nobody has left. They are all just invisible perhaps?

 

NUmber of subscriptions is just raw data as to how many paying customers they have who have committed themselves to playing the game. A drop in activity could just be an indication that people are playing less hours per day than they were or logging in less frequently such that there are, on average, less concurrent logins. Also, it may be that they had too many servers at start, but haven't started addressing the population being spread out too much because it's so early and they hope to grow in the coming few months. It makes perfect sense altho it does result in a little consternation for people already playing. Also, many servers are quite busy...if you're on a server that started filling up later than others (like I am) then it's bound to feel a bit more empty....and those who are experiencing that are going to be the vocal ones, not people (as some have reported is their own experience) who see 200 people on fleet on a regular basis during prime time.

[Tservo]

Why is the article talking about the expansion into the Asia-Pacific region later this month?

[Devlonir]

Again all it suggests is that a lot of people are subbing still, but not playing, which the torstatus trend suggested (the not playing bit anyway).

 

As to the still subbing, well maybe SWTOR has broken the mould, I wouldn't bet on it though.

 

Stop saying that nonsense. They are NOT 'not playing', or at least that is not the definite and only answer to the servers being less full with subscriptions staying equal.

 

The only real thing to see is that people are generally playing less. Less being anywhere between 1 second less each day, to not a single second anymore. It has nothing to do with people not playing anymore at all.

 

No matter how many times you repeat it, it doesn't make it more true nor definite.

[Goretzu]

I can only make assumptions here but it is something to think about:

 

• Star Wars is what... 35 years old?
  
• This may indicate that a percentage of 'older' gamers are playing this game
  
• Some of these older gamers have a life outside of the game and can't afford (time wise) to spend every waking minute of every day on the game
  
• The game is also focussed heavily on casual gaming
  
• Casual gaming means that you don't have to play 24 hours a day to achive end game or stay up with everyone else. There is no need to be on every night or even every week
  
• Lets face it, it's Star Wars
  
• Just the trademark means you will attract players from other games
  
• And then there are those who don't fit into the above categories, who are enjoying the game, and just want to hang around to see how things pan out
  

 

And if you don't fit into any of those, you are some one who wants to leave but have subbed for 6 months. The numbers add up.

 

I for one grew up with Star Wars, work away from home for weeks at a time, have a family and can't dedicate any more than a few hours a week to the game (if I am lucky). I don't have a 50 yet and am in no hurry to get there. I am enjoying the game as a way to relax when I get a chance. All of my guild are in the same boat - some put in alot of time, others can only get on when they have a chance.

 

I am sure there are many explainations for the 1.7 mil subs. But as so many have said. Who really cares? If you don't like the game, don't play and leave. If you do like the game, continue playing. Nobody should be influenced by anything that is said on these forums.

 

 

 

 

 

It could be that.

 

However the reason why people should care though is because if it's not that, then unless Bioware gets improving subs may start to plummet, which no one that wants to see SWTOR be all it can maybe be wants to see.

[Blotter]

Again all it suggests is that a lot of people are subbing still, but not playing, which the torstatus trend suggested (the not playing bit anyway).

 

As to the still subbing, well maybe SWTOR has broken the mould, I wouldn't bet on it though.

 

Tostatus is complete and utter garbage. Anyone with a rudimentary understanding of statistics and 3rd grade algebra skills can understand that. And no, don't give me some carzy rationalization about "trending." It shows absolutely nothing.