Subs down 25%

[JeramieCrowe]

Except this isn't March 1, 2011, when Rift released. Rift has since successfully aped many, if not all, of the major features of WoW.

 

So there's WoW, the MMO "king" in terms of subs, that stole most of its best parts from other MMOs and then added a few things in on its own, and there's Rift, which is now a very strong contender in terms of form and function but relegated to a small playerbase due to a weak launch that it will never recover from, and there's TOR.

 

They all cost the same 14.99$ a month right now and right now TOR is the inferior product of the three.

 

That's the problem. TOR was pushed out the door before the game even worked on a technical level, let alone quality of content and play experience issues being hammered out. That's something you just don't recover from. I think, as of 1.2, TOR is a really solid, fun game, but multitudes of potential subscribers will never experience it because they were burned by a craptastic, pay-to-beta Christmas-rush launch.

 

And MMO hoppers should really not a play an MMO right after it releases, if this is going to be your viewpoint, of comparing new MMOs to ones that have been out for years. It's not only pointless, but really quite unfair and unrealistic.

 

After all, it's unrealistic expectations that have led to all the hate. And it's this continued unrealistic expectations of GW2 that led to all the hate for it already, and will only get worse if people can't learn from their own mistake of having unrealistic expectations.

[Rezakh]

Uh, dude, seriously, those claims were all over the place. I appreciate the financial data, but what he's reporting is actually fairly common knowledge. They were written up in some interviews and spoken and recorded in videos too. This isn't an APA document, citations on common knowledge are not needed.

 

I appreciate the backup. However, it may not be common knowledge to some people that started following TOR the last year of development. But for those of us that were following this well before Walton ever left, yeah, this is a major disappointment. I remember when Walton and Ohlen were talking in one interview and one of them tried to be humble saying something like, "we don't want to kill WoW, we just want to compete" I was cheering them on hoping they would not be so meek and crush Blizzard.

 

That was during TBC when it didnt seem like anything would touch WoW and a lot of us hoped that Blizzard would finally get to eat a little humble pie.

 

Been so long I cannot remember the exact wording of that interview.

[Sanxxx]

even if we drop to 250k players thats still good. not every mmos need 10million players.

 

Nope , needs 1m + for a profit that 'is nothing to write home about'

[JeramieCrowe]

Firstly I never said I disbelieved it I merely suggested that no one seem to have posted any numbers to support it and secondly I have plenty of reason to disbelieve it.

 

Just because I havn't read the Bible doesn't mean I have to believe in God.

 

Actually, I did post numbers, you just missed it. RIFT peaked at 600k subs, then dropped to 250k in a few months. That's a 58% drop. 25% isn't so bad.

[limenutpen]

AFAIK Bioware and EA stated in 2011 that they needed just 1 to 1.2 million subs average the first year to make the development costs of the game return.

 

Actually loosing 25% is acceptable considering the Buzz of game launch has passed. If peeps don't know we are nearly five months since Star Wars The Old Republic launched.

If the rated WZ would have been included in 1.2 the number would have been minimum half to that. Everyone I know who is leaving is because of these not included in the second major patch....

 

So lets make some basic calculations for SWTOR;

2.3 million boxes sold at 50$ equals = 115 million (till March)

1.7 million subscribers till 20 March = 19 million (for simplification I used 1.7 x 10US$ x 2 months as number here)

1.3 million til April = 13 million (same as above due to the various packages x 1 month)

This game is not loosing money as yet.....

 

Saying all this numbers sub numbers will become the more important as time passes. I really hope SW:TOR can grow, as I like what I see and how it is developing.

Upcoming major patches also look awesome, so from here I really hope they can pull it off, and that they really can do it.

 

If you like the game like I do lets cross our fingers and have faith in BioWare!

[mothermonterr]

my friend just started playing the other day when the game was on sale and when he choose a server to play on, he honestly thought they were just hiding the servers that said "FULL" and only showed the STANDARD and LIGHT servers so that new players would use those.

he had no idea that they were showing me all the servers. Upsetting. Just start merging them.

 

1.3 mill subscribers, i'll give you that, but actually being used/played? probably less.

[MasterBalrog]

Isn't 1.3 mil subs still second best result of MMO currently?

According to mmodata.blogspot.com, SWTOR currently has the 3rd-highest number of subscribers of any mmo (AION apparently still has about 2.4 million, but those numbers are a few weeks old).

 

As I said before, for a game at this point in its lifecycle though, 1.3 million subs is still very good, though it will take data from another quarter going by to really start identifying a trend.

[JeramieCrowe]

The numbers are alright. Higher than I expected. Good for them.

 

That doesn't mean they shouldn't merge servers, however. Improving the play experience should still be priority number one, and low population is a huge detriment to that.

 

Completely agreed. What is an atypical trend is an upward increase of subs from here. EA just said that's what they're next intent is. If they are to have any hope of doing this, they need to cull servers (which will very likely happen using transfer/shut-downs), get more endgame content here, get the ranked warzones in post-haste, and finish up their open-world PvP.

 

If they don't, the best they can hope for is to hold steady, but not likely.

Edited May 8, 2012 by JeramieCrowe

[mikphobos]

So since SWTOR is not in the top 5 of EA atm, how long before they even drop from the top 10? next quarter?

 

if they already not giving they full and real support translate in money to the developers, then.. we should be really worry. no money means no new stuffs, they may as well go free to play, so i can move on instead of be waiting for a miracle while i still give my 15 bucks to bioware for try to save this game.

 

its sad because now more that ever Bioware need support for make something great and try to get more people, but.. if EA already is losing hope on this project then they may not have resources for do it.

 

sad, they had the full support and money once.. and what they did? they did 1.2 hehe.

still hoping they come with something soon.... until then the silence of the Devs worry me.. a lot.

[Anakronist]

Sounds good, can I have some of those 1.3mil onto Niman and Chuundar plox? =) EU side.

[Sanxxx]

And MMO hoppers should really not a play an MMO right after it releases, if this is going to be your viewpoint, of comparing new MMOs to ones that have been out for years. It's not only pointless, but really quite unfair and unrealistic.

 

After all, it's unrealistic expectations that have led to all the hate. And it's this continued unrealistic expectations of GW2 that led to all the hate for it already, and will only get worse if people can't learn from their own mistake of having unrealistic expectations.

 

I'm not seeing ' all the hate' for GW2 anywhere near as much as SWTOR . The unrealistic expectations for SWTOR were just as much to blame on the devs as the players.

[DarthVindictus]

just wait until Diablo 3 releases.

 

Then wait another month and a half until GW2 and TSW releases.

 

I really hope Bioware gets their cross realm PvP and server transfers going fast. Not that it matters for me, I'm canceled and just waiting for one of the 3 above games to come out.

 

That's an optimistic release date for GW2. I mean, I love the design of the game and what they have out is pretty polished, but there's still a long ways to go as far as content, and testing content. I anticipate the release date of December 22nd, 2012. Yes 1 day after the end of the world, and yet stil fitting inthe promised 2012 release.

 

Seattle Developers are *very* loose about their development schedules and release dates. It's called Valve time but it could be as easily called Seattle Time as Anet does it too.

[Ghaiana]

I think SWTOR is doing great, its hell alot better then other MMO's, other MMO's cannot even reach 400k subs!

 

I personally think that other things like chat bubbles, lagacy updates, more pve content / pvp features (warzones/world pvp) etc can wait till like 1.4 / 1.5 - because people cannot play the game in its current state (notably server populations).

 

I disagree partly. Transfers (not merges) are needed to get people from low population servers, but I think pushing out new playable content is also very important to keep the game healthy and I'm not talking about chat bubbles, but new pve and pvp content, not just features, but new warzones, new quests (group- and solo), new events, new planets eventually.

[JeramieCrowe]

I'm not seeing ' all the hate' for GW2 anywhere near as much as SWTOR . The unrealistic expectations for SWTOR were just as much to blame on the devs as the players.

 

Not yet, of course. But the simple fact that it is as much as it is after just a beta is quite telling. Once it launches, mark my words, people are going to find out it's just another MMO with an incredible grind and deride it to the ends of the earth.

[schmerzbringer]

Well, let's talk profit and use only the official numbers as reference:

 

First there were 2.4 Millions sales for an estimated average of 60 USD each, which means they grossed 144 Million USD from box sales only. Then there was at least one months with 1.7 Million paying subscribers, which adds up to 25.5 Million USD and lastly three months with at least 1.3 Million subscribers, which means additional 58.5 Milliion USD revenue. So all in all they made at least 228 Million USD in their first four months, which means they have earned the costs of develeopment and have broken even fairly fast.

 

I don't know if that's enough for EA to keep on funding the game, but at the moment it seems to generate a steady income and supposedly earns its costs, so why wouldn't they?

 

Sorry, I am German, so no native speaker.

 

But you are wrong! It is much less you have calculated.

Monthly fees for servers

Monthly wages for employees

Marketing cost

taxes

overhead cost etc. pp.

 

So, after four month breakeven point still far away ^^

[Hellmet]

The game is sinking fast. Losing players is NOT a good sign, lol. Edited May 8, 2012 by Hellmet

[Sanxxx]

According to mmodata.blogspot.com, SWTOR currently has the 3rd-highest number of subscribers of any mmo (AION apparently still has about 2.4 million, but those numbers are a few weeks old).

 

As I said before, for a game at this point in its lifecycle though, 1.3 million subs is still very good, though it will take data from another quarter going by to really start identifying a trend.

 

As a total number it's good, but when you need 1m+ to make a reasonable profit and the trend is very much downwards there isn't much room to play with.

[Sickith]

I anticipate the release date of December 22nd, 2012. Yes 1 day after the end of the world, and yet stil fitting inthe promised 2012 release.

 

Not another "End of the World" scam! We had that last year!

[Sibonk]

Hello there!

 

This thread has received over 1,000 posts and we have recreated it. Please continue the discussion here:

Subs down 25%

 

Thanks!