When will we see new active sub numbers?

[Toat]

Are they required to report this? On the wikipedia page all I see is this quote:

 

By July 2012, the subscriber base fell below 1 million, prompting EA to convert the game to free to play. EA stated that 500,000 subscribers were needed to make the game profitable saying that they were "well above" that number.

 

Has there been an update from EA since then?

[DarthTHC]

They are not required to report on this. They stated at the time they went f2p that they wouldn't.

 

They do, however, like to comment on the number of accounts they have which in no way represents the number of players who have ever tried the game (forum accounts created and abandoned since October 2008, multiple accounts per player), the number of players currently active (abandoned whenever), or the number of players currently paying anything to play the game.

 

For their mandated quarterly reports, they don't even report financials at a game level. They lump SWTOR revenue in with other games.

 

In short: we'll never know.

[tanerb]

I wouldn't expect any updates on that from now on

[Arlon_Nabarlly]

dont worry. the game will likely shut down in about 6 months to a year. everyone will go back to wow, which has over 9 million subscribers, because its better in every aspect.

 

Fail troll is fail.

 

Game is almost as healthy as launch, it's biggest problem now is getting over the black eye it got from the first year problems.

 

WoW sucks, some people might go back but I for sure never will. This game is better than WoW in most respects, the only thing WoW is better at is the polish of having like 10 years to work out bugs.

Edited April 24, 2013 by Arlon_Nabarlly

[Journeyer]

Active sub numbers? Is there a new submarine mini-game somewhere?

 

I assume that this "active sub numbers" has something to do with new content in the game, and isn't merely an over-frustrated cry for some useless data to draw meaningless speculation from. 'Cuz if we're talking about "subscriptions" then...who cares? My brother-in-law is an active subscriber--has been since day one. Guy goes entire weeks without logging in thanks to real-life stuff, but enjoys the game when he's on. And there's non-subscribers (one is a friend of mine) who are on all the time. The flat numbers mean nothing; mindfulness of the game means everything. Head in the game!

[DarthTHC]

Fail troll is fail.

 

Game is almost as healthy as launch, it's biggest problem now is getting over the black eye it got from the first year problems.

 

WoW sucks, some people might go back but I for sure never will. This game is better than WoW in most respects, the only thing WoW is better at is the polish of having like 10 years to work out bugs.

 

WoW was more polished at release than this game is 1.25 years after release.

 

But yes, this is a more fun game. For some people. Like... under a million to WoW's 10+ million. *shrug*

[Andryah]

dont worry. the game will likely shut down in about 6 months to a year. everyone will go back to wow, which has over 9 million subscribers, because its better in every aspect.

 

I'm definitely detecting lag in this post. It looks to be lagged by about a year..... and just as wrong as it ever was.

[Pistols]

Fail troll is fail.

 

Game is almost as healthy as launch, it's biggest problem now is getting over the black eye it got from the first year problems.

 

You can't call someone a "Fail troll is fail" when you post something like that (underlined above).

 

Seriously, not even close. : |

[Ten_Ton_Hammer]

I don't see why customers would feel entitled to know the number of active subscriptions. They don't have to share that information at all.

[Andryah]

But yes, this is a more fun game. For some people. Like... under a million to WoW's 10+ million. *shrug*

 

You do know that ~70% of WoWs subs are in Asia right? And that they report any account opened in Asia (which are pay as you go accounts) as an active account.. even though many are dormant?

 

My point? With regard to scale... this MMO appears to be at an activity level (active accounts) somewhere in the range of 25-30% of WoW now that the Panda frenzy has worn off. And if we consider only NA and EU (which is frankly the only sub numbers in SWTOR that are significant) The active account level of this MMO could be approaching half of WoW NA/EU (which was never more then 4 million even at it's peak years ago). This are ranged estimates.. so I'm not debating actual specific numbers, but more on the order of scale.

 

OP... they have never reported formal subscription numbers for this MMO. Now that it is freemim... subscription numbers are of secondary importance anyway. What matters is active accounts and average revenue per active account per month.

[TheNahash]

dont worry. the game will likely shut down in about 6 months to a year. everyone will go back to wow, which has over 9 million subscribers, because its better in every aspect.

 

Yes and also...

WOW WAS THE FIRST MMO

[Pistols]

I don't see why customers would feel entitled to know the number of active subscriptions. They don't have to share that information at all.

 

Have to agree with this sadly. Essentially, I look at it like this:

 

If a game is doing well, it will gladly boast how their numbers are doing, from time to time.

 

If a game is doing poorly, you won't hear much of anything.

 

It's up to each individual to choose which logic to follow above in the game they're currently playing.

[goldnuggets]

wow was at 9.6 million people in february. this game had to go free 2 play because it was below 1 million. i guarantee they make faaar less money.

[Andryah]

You can't call someone a "Fail troll is fail" when you post something like that (underlined above).

 

Seriously, not even close. : |

 

Really?

 

So you put more importance on a million+ transient players (many of whom never subbed to the game and who frankly just chase every new MMO or console launch) as higher quality of business for Bioware then the currently active, stable, and expanding population of players on the game today? The current superservers have active accounts of ~50K per server (some more, some less)... stable.. and consistent.... month after month.

 

Mind boggling.

[jedimasterjac]

dont worry. the game will likely shut down in about 6 months to a year. everyone will go back to wow, which has over 9 million subscribers, because its better in every aspect.

 

Funny you should say this! I was on DK yesterday, and we were talking about our times with World of Warcraft. People said they loved World of Warcraft (I did too, the little bit I played), but that Mists of Pendara and Cataclysm ruined the game for them. They talked about how they gladly turned to SW:TOR, and love playing the game. So, no, this game is not going to fail anytime soon.

[Selenial]

You can't call someone a "Fail troll is fail" when you post something like that (underlined above).

 

Seriously, not even close. : |

 

Funny thing is, people have got the general numbers from dev comments, and there's more Active accounts than launch whilst some of them are freepers, the freepers spend enough money monthly on Cartel coins, as do the subs. To be honest, all in all, it's like launch, just no cartel market in terms of money, maybe more.

[Andryah]

wow was at 9.6 million people in february. this game had to go free 2 play because it was below 1 million. i guarantee they make faaar less money.

 

We talking gross revenue? or net revenue?

 

7 million of those are in Asia and earn less then $1 US per month.... and who knows how many are even active there anymore. So really.. on an apples to apples basis... WoW has perhaps 3M total in NA/EU... though server activity suggests even that is not true. SWTOR... somewhere between 1M and 1.5M active accounts in EU/NA.

 

WoW is still larger.. but none of us know what the revenue comparisons between the two games are on an active account basis... so your "guarantee" is somewhat hollow. All we know is Bioware is very happy with the direction things are going now with SWTOR.

Edited April 24, 2013 by Andryah

[Hizoka]

dont worry. the game will likely shut down in about 6 months to a year. everyone will go back to wow, which has over 9 million subscribers, because its better in every aspect.

 

ok there slick... you know that wow has less then 3 million subs between US and Eurpoe now right... over 6 million are in asia, on top of that blizzard makes more money from the 3 million EU and UA subs then the 6+ mill in asain.... Right now SWTOR is making more money then WoW is.

 

THey also do have to report the number of subbed account to their share holders, they do not have to make press releases about it. however they have said more then 2 million accounts have been made in the last 9 months. The game is not close to closing its making a crapton of money for EA now.

 

 

Also if you were actually at the launch of wow you would know that even the massive pooch screw that was EAs launch of this game it was still far better then the launch of wow...

[Viperswhip]

WoW was more polished at release than this game is 1.25 years after release.

 

But yes, this is a more fun game. For some people. Like... under a million to WoW's 10+ million. *shrug*

 

You must be drunk. This game at release was more stable than WoWs lol

 

I remember taking a week off of work for that debacle. I had the time off for Swotor as well and had my character to max within 3 days or something with minor issues, but then I wasn't on a super heavy server.

 

WoW, I remember those queues, and I remember the crashes, the downtime and all the other nonsense. Rose coloured glasses much? Swotor was in fact one of the best MMO releases I've experienced, although Diablo 3 went off without hitch for me recently, which is a Blizzard first in my experience.

[BrianDavion]

wow was at 9.6 million people in february. this game had to go free 2 play because it was below 1 million. i guarantee they make faaar less money.

 

yeah but how many of those accounts are gold sellers?

 

 

thing is WoW's population isn't because of a better game,

 

1: A degree of.... Inertia I guess would be the term. WoW was the first MMO to really go big time mainstream. chances are if you've played MMOs you've played WoW. while WoW isn't perfect most people have an investment in the game. they've made friends. they've got geared up. goin to a new MMO means starting a new character from scratch AND reforging social links. this is a big thing and a lotta people go back to WoW ultimately because "I kinda miss my friends. and I've got things I wanna finish up"

 

2: their large prescence in the asian market. BW hasn't really persued Asia at all byond australia and New Zealand (thing is I suspect most aussie players bought the game online at launch and where happy to play on the NA servers)

 

3: Brand name reckongization. Warcraft was a hot property and blizzard had a solid rep. granted SW:TOR has this advantage as well.

 

4: lowered expectations. people just didn't have as rediculasly high expecations when WoW came out

[Arlon_Nabarlly]

WoW was more polished at release than this game is 1.25 years after release.

 

But yes, this is a more fun game. For some people. Like... under a million to WoW's 10+ million. *shrug*

 

I didn't play during Vanallia, but I've heard it wasn't very polished and the early days were just as bad.

 

You can't call someone a "Fail troll is fail" when you post something like that (underlined above).

 

Seriously, not even close. : |

 

Personal opinion I guess. I know populations have gone up, a ton of launch members from my guild have returned, some for the first time since launch, and are reporting the game is much better and they are likely to stay. Forums even seem to be generally less negative (this thread is now the exception, versus it being the rule before). Even the gold sellers are returning. All these are good signs of good health. Without hard numbers I have nothing else to go on but stuff like this.

[Andryah]

I didn't play during Vanallia, but I've heard it wasn't very polished and the early days were just as bad.

 

Depends on what you mean by polished.

 

It was very polished in terms of content and attention to detail. Quests were beyond state of the art for the time... though not bug free. There was no real endgame for a while... but nobody cared back in those days.

 

But yeah.. it was NOT smooth player experience at launch and I remember days of being stuck in game or not being able to even get in. Starter zones were over-run because there was no instancing to balance population density. And servers off line for emergency patches with little or no notice (A Lot).

 

By today's standards.. the vanilla launch of WoW was bad. People tend to forget about that though.. becasue in 2004... if you could log in.. you were happy in an MMO. And if you could not log in.. you waited patiently until you could. They got things smoothed out after a month or two though.

Edited April 24, 2013 by Andryah

[MarvelZombie]

You'll never see sub numbers again. I can't think of any P2P --> F2P transition I've played where they gave out numbers after F2P. In some ways, it's not relevant: only revenue matters, regardless if it's Cartel transactions or sub fees. I'm guessing sub fee revenue is more predictable, and I'm sure investor's would like to know that number, but I still doubt you'll ever see it. All that number does now is bring negative perception and WoW subscription number comparisons...why publish it?

 

I'll I know is that my server is packed, fleet is packed, Makeb is packed, and queues are great.

Edited April 24, 2013 by MarvelZombie

[AzuthTheHighOne]

Bioware hasn't said how many subs they have but they have said this.

 

When free-to-play launched in November, it "blew all expectations out of the water," said Ohlen. Subscriptions started going up again. Concurrent players on the servers went way up. Both of those statistics continue to rise. As Ohlen put it, TOR is the second biggest subscription MMORPG in the western world, it has had two million new accounts since the F2P launch, thousands of new players try out the game everyday, and TOR is one of the largest microtransaction money-makers for publisher EA.

 

http://massively.joystiq.com/2013/03/29/gdc-2013-james-ohlen-on-how-f2p-saved-swtor/

[Arkerus]

Depends on what you mean by polished.

 

It was very polished in terms of content and attention to detail. Quests were beyond state of the art for the time... though not bug free. There was no real endgame for a while... but nobody cared back in those days.

 

But yeah.. it was NOT smooth player experience at launch and I remember days of being stuck in game or not being able to even get in. Starter zones were over-run because there was no instancing to balance population density. And servers off line for emergency patches with little or no notice (A Lot).

 

By today's standards.. the vanilla launch of WoW was bad. People tend to forget about that though.. becasue in 2004... if you could log in.. you were happy in an MMO. And if you could not log in.. you waited patiently until you could. They got things smoothed out after a month or two though.

 

Pretty much this. Because of WoW now, people make comparisons right or wrong.

 

This game is very healthy now and is directly comparable to WoW in terms of NA subs. I think its fair to say TOR isn't the same product it was on day one and practically needs to be completely reevaluated as a product.