WarGame Posted April 24, 2013 Share Posted April 24, 2013 Number of servers means nothing, and yet people bring it up like it means anything. EVE has one server, ESO will have one server. Does that mean they are/will be both failures? Unless you can guarantee that each server on each game can and does house the same amount of players then it's just apples and oranges. What matters is the number of players. Alternatively if server numbers mean so much I could just release a text based multiplayer game with 100,000 servers to choose from. It may only have 2 players, but it'll totally be the best game ever with all those servers! They matter when the server populations are fairly comparable. And I'm not talking about eve or any other niche game, I'm talking about wow. The game that has been putting out 40 dollar expansions every yearish and advertising them on tv regularly. This game isn't on that ones level yet, although I'm sure they would love to be in the future. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Selenial Posted April 24, 2013 Share Posted April 24, 2013 (edited) That is pretty much the reality yes In the recent "State of the Game" article I believe it was, James Ohlen (I think it was, about to pull it up) said SWTOR was the top grossing game EA currently has in terms of micro transactions.... Edit: not sure it was state of the game afterall, can't find it. Anyone remember? Edited April 24, 2013 by Selenial Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tzagheru Posted April 25, 2013 Share Posted April 25, 2013 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 how everybody quotes you, including me what you said is actually true, cartel market is the only thing this game has left. I think it has come to the point where ppl consider the CM packs as content updates, lol. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OKandrew Posted April 25, 2013 Share Posted April 25, 2013 Bioware hasn't said how many subs they have but they have said this. http://massively.joystiq.com/2013/03/29/gdc-2013-james-ohlen-on-how-f2p-saved-swtor/ I know this is pretty vague, but I am really interested as to what they meant by this "The plan is to introduce items into the game that do not exist in current MMOs." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BJWyler Posted April 25, 2013 Share Posted April 25, 2013 (edited) I'm sorry to tell you this, but what I linked is an official call, and they are not mentionning it. What you linked is the Financial report, which took some highlights of the official earnings call. It is not the complete earnings call. You can find these (and all transcripts) here: http://investor.ea.com/events.cfm?list=Past Quoted from page 4 of the transcript: "Extra content and free to play contributed $185 million, up 50%, led by FIFA and Madden Ultimate Teams and Star Wars - The Old Republic. These revenues relate to businesses on PCs or consoles where consumers pay for additional digital content, including virtual characters, map packs and microtransactions associated with browser-based games or MMOs like Star Wars. As a reminder, on November 15, we launched our free to play option for Star Wars - The Old Republic. Very early indications have been positive, and we are pleased with the initial results. But it's still too early to know how successful this will be in the long-term." Edited April 25, 2013 by BJWyler Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tzagheru Posted April 25, 2013 Share Posted April 25, 2013 (edited) I know this is pretty vague, but I am really interested as to what they meant by this "The plan is to introduce items into the game that do not exist in current MMOs." stuff never seen before in mmos, hmm now where did i hear something similar before... http://i.imgur.com/Yc6so.jpg Edited April 25, 2013 by tzagheru Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeweledleah Posted April 25, 2013 Share Posted April 25, 2013 from a perspective of someone who is playing both WoW and TOR currently. when I play Tor, I constantly see other people on a variety of planets. and then when I check my map - I see at least 2-3 instances on leveling planets, more on high level ones. my flashpoint queues are pretty healthy. as are my pvp queues. this is just my server. from the log in screen, my server is about standard in terms of player load. when I play WoW - my queues are healthy and I see people around... except those people 70% of the time are from other servers. mind you, I rolled on a decently active server, according to statistic, and it shows still active. TOR's solution to underpopulation was to merge servers. WoW solution? cross realm zones and group finder merges from cross realm but limited to a single battlegroup to merging multiply battlegroups in a single queue. sure they have loads and loads of servers. but 1. currently unless you are looking to join a specific raiding guild, which server you play on doesn't matter. like at all. not even when you have friends on different servers. if you have them on your real ID list? you can play together. 2. because of cross realm functionality its damn near impossible to tell just how well populated each server is. even with raiding guild stats. is WoW a better game? that is entirely subjective and subject to personal preference. is it a more polished game? those of you who complain about bugs and maintenance times and not 100% smooth patches - should really try to play WoW. close to a decade and they STIll cannot release a content patch without it being delayed and barely playable few days after. what it is is an older more established game. and people tend to stick with more easy to proven quantity vs newcomer. neither game is perfect. neither game can possibly be everything to everyone. as for subscription numbers for TOR? I'm not sure they matter to me. what matters is the frequency of new content as well as general feel of the population. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shingara Posted April 25, 2013 Share Posted April 25, 2013 (edited) That is pretty much the reality yes very much so, at what is it, close to £50 for a bundle pack of the new cartel pack, how many you think bought one or two. Lets say on average a subscriber pays £8 a month, yes im just doing average between 1 month and 6 month. each of those people buying a bundle cover what 6.2 subscribers, so times that buy your guess and then add the number of people who bought those packs and you have the money they just got this morning for a 'cartel pack. hell to with just subs, thats so last week. Edited April 25, 2013 by Shingara Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Twickers Posted April 25, 2013 Share Posted April 25, 2013 from a perspective of someone who is playing both WoW and TOR currently. when I play Tor, I constantly see other people on a variety of planets. and then when I check my map - I see at least 2-3 instances on leveling planets, more on high level ones. my flashpoint queues are pretty healthy. as are my pvp queues. this is just my server. from the log in screen, my server is about standard in terms of player load. when I play WoW - my queues are healthy and I see people around... except those people 70% of the time are from other servers. mind you, I rolled on a decently active server, according to statistic, and it shows still active. TOR's solution to underpopulation was to merge servers. WoW solution? cross realm zones and group finder merges from cross realm but limited to a single battlegroup to merging multiply battlegroups in a single queue. sure they have loads and loads of servers. but 1. currently unless you are looking to join a specific raiding guild, which server you play on doesn't matter. like at all. not even when you have friends on different servers. if you have them on your real ID list? you can play together. 2. because of cross realm functionality its damn near impossible to tell just how well populated each server is. even with raiding guild stats. is WoW a better game? that is entirely subjective and subject to personal preference. is it a more polished game? those of you who complain about bugs and maintenance times and not 100% smooth patches - should really try to play WoW. close to a decade and they STIll cannot release a content patch without it being delayed and barely playable few days after. what it is is an older more established game. and people tend to stick with more easy to proven quantity vs newcomer. neither game is perfect. neither game can possibly be everything to everyone. as for subscription numbers for TOR? I'm not sure they matter to me. what matters is the frequency of new content as well as general feel of the population. You sir (or ma'am) may have posted the most intelligent post in here. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andryah Posted April 25, 2013 Share Posted April 25, 2013 (edited) ^This. People who speak about active and non-active accounts in a F2P game don't understand how F2P works account-wise. Anyone can have multiple accounts, at any time. That goes for legit players as well as china farmers and so on. Open up an account, let it untouched for a few months. Is it active? No? Whoops, you just logged in? Active now? Yes? Whoops, gone for a few more months? So, what is this account now, active or not? How could anyone measure this? 2 million new accounts is keen and all that, but uh ... how many of these accounts are actually in use and generate money? And of those that generate money, how much do they generate? What's the sum? <-- That's the important question in a F2P game. What matters is average revenue per month per active account. This is the industry standard of measure for games that are not strictly subscription based. Active account numbers DO matter, because they are used as part of the calculation of this metric.. as is total monthly revenue. Secondary measures such as conversion rates (players that are non-sub that sub) is also a key metric for a freemium style business model. There are several other business performance metrics as well.. but none of you give a rats backside about them. Total number of accounts is irrelevant for SWTOR as well as for WoW or any other MMO... because inactive accounts are strictly a list of promotional targets (as any WoW player who has taken a break from the game is well aware of). Because of the way Bioware has implemented the freemium model for SWTOR, subscriptions will still be an important part of their total revenue. And so will the cartel market. The exact split between revenue types associated with the game will never be known and really do not matter to players other then to create stumps to piss on (and frankly... thin air seems to be enough for many of you in this regard). Edited April 25, 2013 by Andryah Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Splurged Posted April 25, 2013 Share Posted April 25, 2013 This game = 100x better than WoW Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DarthTHC Posted April 25, 2013 Share Posted April 25, 2013 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? Unsure of your point. EA counts every forum account ever registered as a player, even though some have been dormant since October 2008 and others that may have played a few days in December 2011 have been dormant since. And their number was "over 2,000,000 WHEE!" 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. LOL! If we could get EA and Blizzard to provide real numbers as of end of Q1 2013, I would bet my net worth against yours on the under of 27.5%. Real numbers being accounts that are a) owned by different people based on address -OR- subscribers AND b) are subscribers -OR- logged in for no less than 20 hours during the quarter. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fantazm Posted April 25, 2013 Share Posted April 25, 2013 I honestly don't care how many people are or aren't playing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Applicator Posted April 25, 2013 Share Posted April 25, 2013 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 mean how the lag took down entire servers for days at a time. Yup WoW was awesome at launch! In my opinion, there is not one thing in WoW that is not done better in SWTOR. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shingara Posted April 25, 2013 Share Posted April 25, 2013 You mean how the lag took down entire servers for days at a time. Yup WoW was awesome at launch! In my opinion, there is not one thing in WoW that is not done better in SWTOR. you beat me to it, was gonna say i remember being in 4 hour q's to get on doomhammer then to be dced after 20 mins and start again, no warzones and citys being wiped out by a virus. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CosmicKat Posted April 25, 2013 Share Posted April 25, 2013 very much so, at what is it, close to £50 for a bundle pack of the new cartel pack, how many you think bought one or two. Lets say on average a subscriber pays £8 a month, yes im just doing average between 1 month and 6 month. each of those people buying a bundle cover what 6.2 subscribers, so times that buy your guess and then add the number of people who bought those packs and you have the money they just got this morning for a 'cartel pack. hell to with just subs, thats so last week. 100,000 subscribers equals $1.5M per month. Roughly 1.5M lost subscribers since launch equals $22.5M in "lost" revenue, per month. The CM is likely not making anywhere close to what 100k subscribers would net them, let alone the 1.5M they lost. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Angedechu Posted April 25, 2013 Share Posted April 25, 2013 (edited) Willfully ignorant. Fantastic. http://massively.joystiq.com/2013/01/31/ea-pleased-with-swtor-f2p-so-far/ Are you saying EA and the media are both lying about the investor call? I didn't think so. And just in case you need to dig, the source is right there. It's linked in black and white. Try again pal. Keep them coming. I love knockin them down. I obviously can make the difference between a full transcript of the investment call and a summary. But tell me : if TOR is making so much money, why EA mention it in the full transcript (that is of course way more accurate) but not in the summary (which will be the thing that most investors will read ?) ? And to repeat myself, it's really rich to mock WOW ''ah ah ah, half their subs are in asia, so they don't count'' when our game have a huge chunk of the playerbase without any sub at all. If you don't count an Asian guy who pay by the hour, why you count someone who don't pay at all ? Edited April 25, 2013 by Angedechu Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AndasKastor Posted April 25, 2013 Share Posted April 25, 2013 I obviously can make the difference between a full transcript of the investment call and a summary. But tell me : if TOR is making so much money, why EA mention it in the full transcript (that is of course way more accurate) but not in the summary (which will be the thing that most investors will read ?) ? And to repeat myself, it's really rich to mock WOW ''ah ah ah, half their subs are in asia, so they don't count'' when our game have a huge chunk of the playerbase without any sub at all. If you don't count an Asian guy who pay by the hour, why you count someone who don't pay at all ? Actually Angedechu you linked an investment report, not the call. If you read the link you provided you will see: Conference Call and Supporting Documents Electronic Arts will host a conference call on January 30, 2013 at 2:00 pm PT (5:00 pm ET) to review its results for the third quarter ended December 31, 2012 and its outlook for the future. During the course of the call, Electronic Arts may disclose material developments affecting its business and/or financial performance. Listeners may access the conference call live through the following dial-in number: 773-799-3213 (domestic) or 888-677-1083 (international), using the password "EA" or via webcast at http://ir.ea.com. EA will also post a slide presentation that accompanies the call at http://ir.ea.com. A dial-in replay of the conference call will be provided until February 14, 2013 at the following number: 203-369-0099 (domestic) or 866-356-3373 (international). A webcast replay of the conference call will be available for one year at http://ir.ea.com. This is copied from your linked document. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Angedechu Posted April 25, 2013 Share Posted April 25, 2013 (edited) As I don't pretend to understand much about finance, I admit cheerfully that there must be a difference between the two. Still, you could also admit that the fact that EA is not mentionning TOR in the short version of the summary is probably not a good sign, since the short summary is what most people will read. Edited April 25, 2013 by Angedechu Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AndasKastor Posted April 25, 2013 Share Posted April 25, 2013 As I don't pretend to understand much about finance, I admit cheerfully that there must be a difference between the two. Still, you could also admit that the fact that EA is not mentionning TOR in the short version of the summary is probably not a good sign, since the short summary is what most people will read. I actually don't have any opinion on the matter. I play the games that I enjoy until I don't enjoy them anymore. It is just a pet peeve of mine when people post inaccurate information and insist that it is correct. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Angedechu Posted April 25, 2013 Share Posted April 25, 2013 I actually don't have any opinion on the matter. I play the games that I enjoy until I don't enjoy them anymore. It is just a pet peeve of mine when people post inaccurate information and insist that it is correct. My information was correct. I said ''in the latest investor call, EA is not even naming TOR''. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AndasKastor Posted April 25, 2013 Share Posted April 25, 2013 (edited) My information was correct. I said ''in the latest investor call, EA is not even naming TOR''. But what you linked was a report, not a call. If you had linked the call (A webcast replay of the conference call will be available for one year at http://ir.ea.com ) then you may have been correct - assuming that they do not mention Star Wars in the call. I admit that I haven't done my due diligence by listening to the call - I don't want to register for it. Edited April 25, 2013 by AndasKastor Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Callaron Posted April 25, 2013 Share Posted April 25, 2013 TL;DR the whole thread. However, I do seem to recall James Ohlen, or someone else, stating that they are currently the second biggest MMO out there. So I'd say the game definitely isn't doing bad! Too bad for all the fail trolls and haters trying to have fun. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grafikk Posted April 25, 2013 Share Posted April 25, 2013 WoW was more polished at release than this game is 1.25 years after release Someone didn't play WoW at release ... because otherwise you would know it was a horrific train wreck. Nothing more annoying than WoW fanboys. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Draekos Posted April 25, 2013 Share Posted April 25, 2013 Does any game other than WoW(who doesnt really either with Asian non sub accounts) post sub numbers these days? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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