Subs down 25%

[Oddzball]

What's with the bizarre assumption some are making that the subs will magically stop bleeding once the "casuals" are gone?

 

 

Nobody intelligent expects that. Most of the "Analysts" are now projecting less then 1 million subs by next year.

[Dezzi]

Those people either have access to data we don't, have been in this exact situation before and had it end up that way, or are too stubborn to believe that "Teh Best Game Evar!!1!1!" can fail and might actually be dying.

 

No one can honestly believe the game is dying, can they?

 

I'm given the impression that the ~25% drop is significant (regardless of how you want to compare it to other games) and that the downward trend is at best troublesome for server populations, and at worst will amount to less development dollars for the team to work with. But no where do I get the impression that this decline will result in the death of SWTOR.

 

How's that, Andryah? Am I doing it right?

Edited May 8, 2012 by Dezzi

[Tuscad]

No one can honestly believe the game is dying, can they?

 

I'm given the impression that the ~25% drop is significant (regardless of how you want to compare it to other games) and that the downward trend is at best troublesome for server populations, and at worst will amount to less development dollars for the team to work with. But no where do I get the impression that this decline will result in the death of SWTOR.

 

How's that, Andryah? Am I doing it right?

 

I actually doubt it is dying too, but I don't have access to their statistics and such so I can't really say.

[Vlaxitov]

A. You mean except that it's illegal for a publicly traded company to lie in the forum they used to communicate those numbers, right?

 

I don't know many people who really like video games that have not watched EA exploit and ruin a franchise or developing studio they used to love. Thats what EA does and you think they would be afraid to cook subscription numbers in a mmo? lulz...

 

I'll say it again,

 

A. I wonder what the real numbers are.

 

B. I wonder what the real numbers would be if this didn't have the star wars name on it.

[DarthVindictus]

No one can honestly believe the game is dying, can they?

 

I'm given the impression that the ~25% drop is significant (regardless of how you want to compare it to other games) and that the downward trend is at best troublesome for server populations, and at worst will amount to less development dollars for the team to work with. But no where do I get the impression that this decline will result in the death of SWTOR.

 

How's that, Andryah? Am I doing it right?

 

Less development dollars will still result in the death of the game sooner rather than later.

[Tuscad]

I don't know many people who really like video games that have not watched EA exploit and ruin a franchise or developing studio they used to love. Thats what EA does and you think they would be afraid to cook subscription numbers in a mmo? lulz...

 

I'll say it again,

 

A. I wonder what the real numbers are.

 

B. I wonder what the real numbers would be if this didn't have the star wars name on it.

 

A. Probably closer to 1 mil

 

B. As many as warhammer seeing as how the Warhammer team seems to have designed most of this.

[Alkiii]

What I don't understand about all of this, is the fact that I play 3 toons on 3 different servers and all 3 servers are showing much MUCH more than a 25% loss.

 

All 3 servers have anywhere between a 20-45 minute queue for Warfronts as Empire.

1 month ago, these queues were less than 10 minutes with one of them being almost instant every time I queued.

 

What was once 100-125 people on Fleet during peak times is now around 10-15.

 

 

25%?

 

Why do I have a feeling that they're using the "free month" subs to help boost their numbers even though a good portion of them have already un-subbed?

[Bakinpacman]

Honestly before you reply you should learn to read and calculate.

 

I could be like most people in this thread and state 90% of the people posting are incorrect in their posts and do not have any idea what the hell they are on about however i will not.

 

What i will say in my own thought is that yes the game has lost subscribers however linking that to something like the free months given out to active subscribers that had to have been active in the reporter anyway is completely irrelevant.

 

This report was for the time frame before that had happened and if you want to state conspiracy theories i recommend you try using data from within the correct time frame that is being reported.

 

Now this is my own though but i believe that BIOWARE had a surge of players come back for the Rakghoul plague event that came live in the unrecorded quarter that is just beginning and will hopefully retain and build up more subscriber when they release the ranked war-zones and dungeon group finder tool next patch which should be at the end of the month if they follow through.

[Vlaxitov]

B. As many as warhammer seeing as how the Warhammer team seems to have designed most of this.

 

They may have coded it, but to say they designed it is pushing the envelope.

 

IMHO, they looked at what WoW was during it's preak in subs and tried to copy that with a star wars skin.

 

Aside from cosmetics, the only thing I see in the game they can actually claim is their design is the kotor dialog wheel.

[Dezzi]

Honestly before you reply you should learn to read and calculate.

 

I could be like most people in this thread and state 90% of the people posting are incorrect in their posts and do not have any idea what the hell they are on about however i will not.

 

What i will say in my own thought is that yes the game has lost subscribers however linking that to something like the free months given out to active subscribers that had to have been active in the reporter anyway is completely irrelevant.

 

This report was for the time frame before that had happened and if you want to state conspiracy theories i recommend you try using data from within the correct time frame that is being reported.

 

Now this is my own though but i believe that BIOWARE had a surge of players come back for the Rakghoul plague event that came live in the unrecorded quarter that is just beginning and will hopefully retain and build up more subscriber when they release the ranked war-zones and dungeon group finder tool next patch which should be at the end of the month if they follow through.

 

The population numbers were as of the end of April...

Through the end of the quarter, approximately 2.4 million units have sold through. In our last call we indicated that we had 1.7 million active subscribers, and as of the end of April we now have 1.3 million, with a substantial portion of the decrease due to casual and trial players cycling out of the subscriber base, driving up the overall percentage of paying subscribers.

 

http://files.shareholder.com/downloads/ERTS/1675578999x0x566984/c10f605c-3487-488e-ad86-b5bb74fe2408/Q4_FY12_Script.pdf

 

(page 7)

[Alkiii]

Honestly before you reply you should learn to read and calculate.

 

I could be like most people in this thread and state 90% of the people posting are incorrect in their posts and do not have any idea what the hell they are on about however i will not.

 

What i will say in my own thought is that yes the game has lost subscribers however linking that to something like the free months given out to active subscribers that had to have been active in the reporter anyway is completely irrelevant.

 

This report was for the time frame before that had happened and if you want to state conspiracy theories i recommend you try using data from within the correct time frame that is being reported.

 

Now this is my own though but i believe that BIOWARE had a surge of players come back for the Rakghoul plague event that came live in the unrecorded quarter that is just beginning and will hopefully retain and build up more subscriber when they release the ranked war-zones and dungeon group finder tool next patch which should be at the end of the month if they follow through.

 

You may be right. However, with games like Tera (available now) and Diablo 3 (launching in a week), it's going to be hard for players to stay.

 

I'm one of them. I thought I would hate Tera, but I'm a gamer, so I just have to try everything out at least once. Turns out, I absolutely fell in love with the game.

 

I'm the biggest fanboy this game has. I love SWTOR. But after playing Tera, the flaws of the Hero Engine I've been unaware of, have become quite apparent.

 

I'll re-sub to SWTOR when server xfers open up and test the waters. My fear is that it might be too late for me to come back. I'm sure many will feel the same way ... unfortunately.

Edited May 8, 2012 by Alkiii

[Stalkobot]

No one can honestly believe the game is dying, can they?

 

I'm given the impression that the ~25% drop is significant (regardless of how you want to compare it to other games) and that the downward trend is at best troublesome for server populations, and at worst will amount to less development dollars for the team to work with. But no where do I get the impression that this decline will result in the death of SWTOR.

 

How's that, Andryah? Am I doing it right?

 

Dying is subjective, every breath we take is one step closer to the end. Warhammer has been dying due to poor management choices for a LONG time now, I suspect due partially to EA just wanting to **** block the license to prevent a competent development house from doing something useful with the license. Problem is this game is heavily leveraged in terms of costs, not just from development loan servicing costs but just think how much money Lucas must be pulling down from the IP licence. Yeah its current got more subs than a lot of MMOs but jebus, its got a monster IP license with associated brand loyalty, cost an astronomical amount and needs more than other MMOs just to keep ticking over. You just cant compare it to Rift or others.

 

Warhammer was a massive license with a huge fanbase and EA were happy to let the corpse fester just to prevent others doing something useful with it, why wouldnt they do that with SW?

Edited May 8, 2012 by Stalkobot

[Goretzu]

Dying is subjective

 

Well it is right up until you're dead, then it's pretty absolute.

[Zsavooz]

You may be right. However, with games like Tera (available now) and Diablo 3 (launching in a week), it's going to be hard for players to stay.

 

I'm one of them. I thought I would hate Tera, but I'm a gamer, so I just have to try everything out at least once. Turns out, I absolutely fell in love with the game.

 

I'm the biggest fanboy this game has. I love SWTOR. But after playing Tera, the flaws of the Hero Engine I've been unaware of, have become quite apparent.

 

I'll re-sub to SWTOR when server xfers open up and test the waters. My fear is that it might be too late for me to come back. I'm sure many will feel the same way ... unfortunately.

 

so nice to hear a positive comment about Tera vs. the typical troll remark, I hate Asian grinders, without actually even playing the game. See you online.

[CrunkShizzle]

so nice to hear a positive comment about Tera vs. the typical troll remark, I hate Asian grinders, without actually even playing the game. See you online.

 

i dont know,Tera must not be very grindy for an asian grinder if a bunch of casuals on sw tor talk about it

[Tuscad]

They may have coded it, but to say they designed it is pushing the envelope.

.

 

That's fair, I always think of designing and coding as one in the same even though I know its not.

[Zsavooz]

i dont know,Tera must not be very grindy for an asian grinder if a bunch of casuals on sw tor talk about it

 

you said that yesterday. Anything new?

[Catch_TwentyTwo]

EA just released their earnings and Star Wars subs are down 25% for the quarter. This can't be a good thing. Can we get server mergers ASAP?

 

Added link

 

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/ea-sales-beat-targets-star-wars-takes-hit-2012-05-07?siteid=yhoof2

I want to say I am shocked, but to be honest, I just can't.

 

Not before the flaming starts, I do not say this because I do not like the game, far from it, I am an avid player who hope to be able to play SWTOR for many years to come.

 

No, the reason I say I am not surprised is because of what I see in the forums. Let's face it, there are clearly a segment of people who are genuinely unhappy with the game as it was delivered. Now whether it was because they had expectations that were too high, or whether it is because BW have genuinely screwed up, I can't say.

 

As indicated at the beginning of my post, I love SWTOR and, for me, it provides everything I expected it would. There are, for sure, things that I would like to see changed, but they are not deal breakers for me, because I do trust the Devs to listen and evolve the game.

 

Examples of things I hope will change would be the Market system and the lack of any kind of player owned housing, be that as ships or instanced housing. As I say, these are not deal breakers for me.

 

Other people probably have other elements that they are unhappy with; populations issues spring to mind, but I am on Tomb of Freedom Nadd, so that doesn't impact me at all. Perhaps it is these people whop decided the game was not for them at this time.

 

Bottom line, 1.3 million is still a healthy number for 6 months in, but BW and EA need to address this, but with a clear, thought out approach, NOT a knee jerk reaction that appeals to the lowest common denominator. SOE did this with SWG and it serioously backfired on the, not one, not twice, but THREE times...

 

Onwards and Upwards people!

[Jmerrill]

Merge Servers, add LFG/Cross server BG's is what it is going to take. A lot of the Legacy free month expires around June 10-20th. If TOR hasn't done anything by then I'm really worried for the franchise.

[tkinnunzero]

'John Riccitiello - Electronic Arts Inc. - CEO

That was me that made the comment a number of different times. What I basically said is 0.5 million subs, we could break even at the margin. 1 million subs would be meaningfully profitable, but nothing to write home about. It certainly would not make us feel good about the investments to date.'

 

If WoW lost 400k subs in three months that would be a 4% drop, to put things in perspective.

 

Here's why 25% drop is scary, if it becomes a trend:

 

April: 1.3m subs (-25%)

July: 975k subs (-25%) ("would not make us feel good")

October: 731k subs (-25%)

January 2013: 548k subs (-25%) ("could break even at the margin")

April 2013: 411k subs (-25%) Losing money!

[Alkiii]

i dont know,Tera must not be very grindy for an asian grinder if a bunch of casuals on sw tor talk about it

 

We cleared everything this game had to offer pre-1.2. We cleared everything in those "other games" with world top 20 rankings. Today, us "casuals" are trying our hand out at a different game. That game happens to be Tera. Not one of us thought the game would be any good ... funny thing is, we're all having fun again. So while you sit here and label everyone "casuals," some of us are enjoying ourselves elsewhere ... plowing through content in the same manner in which we've always done.

 

In the end, it's about entertainment. Something that SWTOR just isn't delivering to us right now. We're gamers, we game. We don't over analyze games and write-up huge blogs about our dislike for games. We simply play together and have fun. When that fun begins to fade, we move on.

 

But I'll gladly take the title of "casual" if it makes you feel superior because you're not one ...

Edited May 8, 2012 by Alkiii

[LordSkyKnight]

so nice to hear a positive comment about Tera vs. the typical troll remark, I hate Asian grinders, without actually even playing the game. See you online.

 

Maybe you should look closer, leveling is pretty easy in the game. Fellow guild members were already in their 30s in the headstart period.

[Torcer]

No one can honestly believe the game is dying, can they?

 

 

 

People with characters stuck on one of the many Low Pop Servers would reasonably conclude just that based on their own observations. “Dying” is a bit hyperbolic, but TOR isn’t growing and is bleeding subscribers at a rate that would average out to nearly 100,000/month. TOR won’t continue to lose subscribers at such a high rate, but that magnitude of subscriber loss isn’t a good sign, no matter how its spun, or whether TOR will eventually reach a stable subscriber base.

[Catch_TwentyTwo]

People with characters stuck on one of the many Low Pop Servers would reasonably conclude just that based on their own observations. “Dying” is a bit hyperbolic, but TOR isn’t growing and is bleeding subscribers at a rate that would average out to nearly 100,000/month. TOR won’t continue to lose subscribers at such a high rate, but that magnitude of subscriber loss isn’t a good sign, no matter how its spun, or whether TOR will eventually reach a stable subscriber base.

I think a lot of the losses may be from the lower pop servers, though by no means all.

[Zsavooz]

Maybe you should look closer, leveling is pretty easy in the game. Fellow guild members were already in their 30s in the headstart period.

 

what's your point?