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Quarterly Producer Letter for Q2 2024 ×

When will we see new active sub numbers?

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Kilora

Kilora

Posted
Posted

So, lets add some simple non-emotional talk to the mix, maybe?

 

SWTOR was released in 2011.

WoW was released in 2004.

 

WoW is the longest running MMO with a large subscriber base. Why?

 

~Great Marketing

~They got into the market before it was saturated

~They were able to pump enough money into it

~With almost 10 years of experience under their belts, and a proprietary engine, they have fewer problems with development

 

It's simple, really. Right place, right time, enough money and enough talent. Look at Apple -- are they innovating? NOT at all. But, between marketing, timing, and money -- they've managed to suck in millions of people. Once they have you, the focus isn't on continued innovation -- it's on doing as little as possible to keep you around, and giving them your money.

 

That goes for EVERY business. Innovation only happens when another company threatens your profit margin.

 

So -- BW will continue to work on this game until it is no longer profitable. Or, until Disney finds a way to stop renewal of the license.

 

Look at WoW. They're struggling now -- not in the same way that most other games are, but still. In comparison to launch, or even the peak of the game, they're still constantly losing active subscribers. It's less of a worry for them, but they're also focusing much more on Titan (hopefully). They've cut back development for WoW by millions of dollars, and for good reason. They looped people in, and are sitting back and watching the money roll in while they wait to release another game.

 

TL;DR (I know, still a tad long)

I'll stick with a game if I find enjoyment in it. I have no hopes of something being a "WoW Killer" or "SWTOR Killer" or anything like that. Why? I want them ALL to do well. I want healthy competition -- not a market in the shadow of a behemoth. Business people are too afraid to drop enough cash into development, because they know they have to compete with a game that's been running strong for almost 10 years.

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DarthTHC

DarthTHC

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thats just wrong, what we had at early release is what we basically had when low pop xfers had been done. The merges was when they created the higher pop servers. For player retention every mmo has influx and reduction including wow so its not native to swtor only.

 

Every MMO has influx and reduction. This MMO saw 75% of the people who paid between $60 and $150 for a box decline to pay 50 cents a day after 3 months. That's not a normal MMO reduction. That's a cliff.

 

Had the game had something approaching normal MMO reduction, the server populations would have been OK. Maybe a few would have had to have been adjusted, but we certainly wouldn't have had to close 90% of them.

 

It's important that people who would like to learn from the mistakes here understand the reality of the situation. People didn't quit because they had to pay 50 cents a day (as EA said to justify f2p), they quit because the game wasn't worth 50 cents a day. Big difference. There's one way to solve the first situation. There is more than one way to solve the second.

 

Likewise, the launch was spectacularly managed and the pace at which they brought on servers was reasonable. The problem with "too many servers" wasn't that they brought too many up; it was that player retention after 3 months was 25% or less. It's a retention problem, not a number of servers problem.

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Andryah

Andryah

Posted
Posted (edited)
So, lets add some simple non-emotional talk to the mix, maybe?

 

SWTOR was released in 2011.

WoW was released in 2004.

 

WoW is the longest running MMO with a large subscriber base. Why?

 

~Great Marketing

~They got into the market before it was saturated

~They were able to pump enough money into it

~With almost 10 years of experience under their belts, and a proprietary engine, they have fewer problems with development

 

It's simple, really. Right place, right time, enough money and enough talent. Look at Apple -- are they innovating? NOT at all. But, between marketing, timing, and money -- they've managed to suck in millions of people. Once they have you, the focus isn't on continued innovation -- it's on doing as little as possible to keep you around, and giving them your money.

 

WoW also effectively expanded the total player base as well by making the barrier to entry to MMOs lower then MMOs before it. They made it casual friendly while maintaining traditional hardcore MMO values (at least through the first expansion) So in essence they introduced and trained millions of NEW players to play MMOs and to accept user friendly casual MMO play.

 

The only thing keeping WoW afloat today is it's installed base. Many players are invested in WoW and won't leave their investment easily. Blizzard takes advantage of that... as they should. If it was launching today..... it would have to compete with every other MMO in the market place on even footing and it would suffer accordingly...where it would suffer similar post launch attrition curves, etc. etc.

 

The other thing WoW did was teach the player base that it was OK to quit, wait for a huge patch or expansion and come back. It did not used to be that way in MMOs... as most players would commit to and play and MMO until it shut down or was way past it's prime. WoW changed that.

 

Does anyone actually believe that Blizzard will launch another subscription only MMO property into today's market? If you do.. I have waterfront property in the desert you might be interested in.

Edited by Andryah
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islander

islander

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Posted
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*

 

Wow's 10 million is predominantly all of eastern asia

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Shingara

Shingara

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Posted
Every MMO has influx and reduction. This MMO saw 75% of the people who paid between $60 and $150 for a box decline to pay 50 cents a day after 3 months. That's not a normal MMO reduction. That's a cliff.

 

Had the game had something approaching normal MMO reduction, the server populations would have been OK. Maybe a few would have had to have been adjusted, but we certainly wouldn't have had to close 90% of them.

 

It's important that people who would like to learn from the mistakes here understand the reality of the situation. People didn't quit because they had to pay 50 cents a day (as EA said to justify f2p), they quit because the game wasn't worth 50 cents a day. Big difference. There's one way to solve the first situation. There is more than one way to solve the second.

 

Likewise, the launch was spectacularly managed and the pace at which they brought on servers was reasonable. The problem with "too many servers" wasn't that they brought too many up; it was that player retention after 3 months was 25% or less. It's a retention problem, not a number of servers problem.

 

SWTOR was the fastest growing mmo in history, the chances of all those people staying are extremly low. The only flaw in your statement is you saying this game isnt worth 50 cents a day, the flaw is your still here so it must be. So your statement should be it wasnt worth it from some of them. To this we dont even know how many of those people who intially left actualy came back nor what the numbers are right now.

 

I also have to dispute your 75% as this game may have sold 2.4 mil in the 1st month or something but the peak in subscribers was only 1.7 mil. Last one we had was active subs of just under a million is that right ? so where exactly are you getting 75% from.

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Andryah

Andryah

Posted
Posted (edited)
Every MMO has influx and reduction. This MMO saw 75% of the people who paid between $60 and $150 for a box decline to pay 50 cents a day after 3 months. That's not a normal MMO reduction. That's a cliff.

 

Actually, based on MMO releases in the last three years... 60-70% attritiion early in the life cycle of an MMO IS NORMAL.

 

Even Rift, A smaller player base MMO, generally accepted in the playerbase as a modern subscription MMO suffered extremely similar attrition curves. Many guilds inside Rift were collapsing within 3-4 months due to people leaving the game...and Trion rushed to institute server transfers and consolidations. I personally experienced a large guild collapse in month three of Rift... almost all veteran MMO players.... quit... not enough content, substandard PvP, yada, yada.... the same linear list of reasons as other MMOs post launch attrition.

 

There are number of factors for why modern MMO releases have such high attrition curves early on before they stabilize.... and not all MMOs suffer exactly the same.. but the attrition result is roughly the same.

 

ALSO... look at any modern MMO released in the last few years... and you will see steep early attrition followed by either closing down or reaching a stability point. Those that survive.. do not reach a stability point until 9-11 months after launch.

 

This is today's market. Even WoW expansions are susceptable to it. WoW though can draw upon installed base to mitigate the impact to some degree though (a benefit of 9 years in the market).

Edited by Andryah
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Kilora

Kilora

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Posted
WoW also effectively expanded the total player base as well by making the barrier to entry to MMOs lower then MMOs before it. They made it casual friendly while maintaining traditional hardcore MMO values (at least through the first expansion) So in essence they introduced and trained millions of NEW players to play MMOs and to accept user friendly casual MMO play.

 

The only thing keeping WoW afloat today is it's installed base. Many players are invested in WoW and won't leave their investment easily. Blizzard takes advantage of that... as they should. If it was launching today..... it would have to compete with every other MMO in the market place on even footing and it would suffer accordingly...where it would suffer similar post launch attrition curves, etc. etc.

 

The other thing WoW did was teach the player base that it was OK to quit, wait for a huge patch or expansion and come back. It did not used to be that way in MMOs... as most players would commit to and play and MMO until it shut down or was way past it's prime. WoW changed that.

 

Does anyone actually believe that Blizzard will launch another subscription only MMO property into today's market? If you do.. I have waterfront property in the desert you might be interested in.

 

I agree with everything except the last sentence! :-D

 

I DO believe they will launch another MMO. Subscription? No idea. "Today's Market"? Probably not -- I see them being patient, and waiting until WoW is almost completely dead, and/or when there is a gaping hole in competition.

 

But I agree -- WoW brought the MMO world to the masses. If anything, I still give them credit for that -- because it is the sole reason we have games like SWTOR that could easily survive for years to come, even without being a "WoW Killer".

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Icebergy

Icebergy

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Posted
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 did not play Vanilla WoW.

 

You also need to realize that WoW's 8 million players (it is not over 10 anymore) are all over the world. They report their global numbers to make themselves look better, every other MMO only reports their western numbers. If you were going to compare the two, it would be more like SWTOR's 1 million to WoW's 3 million.

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Kilora

Kilora

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Posted
You did not play Vanilla WoW.

 

You also need to realize that WoW's 8 million players (it is not over 10 anymore) are all over the world. They report their global numbers to make themselves look better, every other MMO only reports their western numbers. If you were going to compare the two, it would be more like SWTOR's 1 million to WoW's 3 million.

 

I think someone said it, but not sure.

 

Doesn't WoW also report "accounts" and not *active* accounts? I mean, it's smart from a marketing standpoint -- but I feel a good portion of the gaming community has learned to listen closely.

 

But I agree with the whole "global" thing -- everyone I know in the US thought Aion died -- but not at all. They just have an incredible number of Korean accounts -- and that's where they found traction quickly and easily.

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LasherC

LasherC

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Posted (edited)

Doesn't WoW also report "accounts" and not *active* accounts?

 

No, that doesn't make sense. If they did, numbers would never go down, and the number would be way higher than 10m. I wouldn't be surprised if swtor had about half of that in total accounts before f2p.

 

Maybe there's some weirdness with the numbers going on in Asia, since apparently they have a different payment model, but I've seen no proof of that.

Edited by LasherC
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Icebergy

Icebergy

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Posted
If WoW supporters are going to continue to use the 8 or 9 million number with all the Chinese game room players, then I am going to say SWTOR has 4 million. It sold 2million boxes, and they said that 2million more accounts were created with the free to play option.
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DarthTHC

DarthTHC

Posted
Posted (edited)
SWTOR was the fastest growing mmo in history, the chances of all those people staying are extremly low. The only flaw in your statement is you saying this game isnt worth 50 cents a day, the flaw is your still here so it must be. So your statement should be it wasnt worth it from some of them. To this we dont even know how many of those people who intially left actualy came back nor what the numbers are right now.

 

I also have to dispute your 75% as this game may have sold 2.4 mil in the 1st month or something but the peak in subscribers was only 1.7 mil. Last one we had was active subs of just under a million is that right ? so where exactly are you getting 75% from.

 

-I- never said this game wasn't worth 50 cents a day. I've been paying 50 cents a day since pre-release.

 

I said that 75% of the people who paid between $60 and $150 for the box determined the game to not be worth 50 cents a day within 3 months of that purchase.

 

The game sold 2.4 mil... peak subs irrelevant... then was between 500k and 1 mil 3 months later. Let's split it and call it 750k subs meaning that 1.65 million people who bought it didn't subscribe. That's 68.75%. At 750k. If we think EA was being vague to cover a bigger problem and it was 600k, that's 1.8M buyers choosing not to subscribe which is... 75%!

 

Which number is correct? We'll never know, because after the 1.4 million number, EA would never give us a number with less than a 100% margin of error.

 

But we do know they went into fire-drill mode to implement free-to-pay, so that says something about EA's belief that the game could attract and retain players willing to pay 50 cents a day for it to keep them over the 500k number they said would be comfortably profitable.

Edited by DarthTHC
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Shingara

Shingara

Posted
Posted (edited)
-I- never said this game wasn't worth 50 cents a day. I've been paying 50 cents a day since pre-release.

 

I said that 75% of the people who paid between $60 and $150 for the box determined the game to not be worth 50 cents a day within 3 months of that purchase.

 

The game sold 2.4 mil... peak subs irrelevant... then was between 500k and 1 mil 3 months later. Let's split it and call it 750k subs meaning that 1.65 million people who bought it didn't subscribe. That's 68.75%. At 750k. If we think EA was being vague to cover a bigger problem and it was 600k, that's 1.8M buyers choosing not to subscribe which is... 75%!

 

Which number is correct? We'll never know, because after the 1.4 million number, EA would never give us a number with less than a 100% margin of error.

 

Actually subs is all the counts with box sales, who says who buys the box's. shops ebay and amazon vendors. stall holders, over seas shop who knows, only the people who actually created an account are the ones that matter in those counts before f2p hit.

 

And i love how people always go well they said its between 500k and 1 mil. so why do they auto pick 500k ? when they said it was specifically just under 1 mil.

Edited by Shingara
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DarthTHC

DarthTHC

Posted
Posted (edited)
Actually subs is all the counts with box sales, who says who buys the box's. shops ebay and amazon vendors. stall holders, over seas shop who knows, only the people who actually created an account are the ones that matter in those counts before f2p hit.

 

I had something like 8 forum accounts, which count as game accounts, before the game even went live. Counting accounts is irrelevant.

 

And i love how people always go well they said its between 500k and 1 mil. so why do they auto pick 500k ?

 

They said they would be profitable at 500k. They went into fire-drill mode to implement a cash shop to fund the game and fired a huge percentage of the staff.

 

They knew they were headed for way under 500k.

Edited by DarthTHC
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Shingara

Shingara

Posted
Posted (edited)
I had something like 8 forum accounts, which count as game accounts, before the game even went live. Counting accounts is irrelevant.

 

unless you had 8 active accounts not beta accounts it doesnt matter, if you had 8 active accounts on live it would be a dif matter wouldnt it.

 

They said they would be profitable at 500k. They went into fire-drill mode to implement a cash shop to fund the game and fired a huge percentage of the staff.

 

They knew they were headed for way under 500k.

 

So bioware have never stated between 500k and 1 mil then, people are just auto going to the profit margin number not the numbers stated and your using that for your 75% figure :confused:

Edited by Shingara
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DarthTHC

DarthTHC

Posted
Posted (edited)
unless you had 8 active accounts not beta accounts it doesnt matter, if you had 8 active accounts on live it would be a dif matter wouldnt it.

 

Forum accounts never changed. If I could find the login info, I could log into all of them right now.

 

Point is, any number of people can have any number of accounts. Accounts is irrelevant to the discussion because they're free. The presence of an account does not in any way represent revenue.

 

So bioware have never stated between 500k and 1 mil then, people are just auto going to the profit margin number not the numbers stated and your using that for your 75% figure

 

EA did state the 500k-1M number, a 100% margin of error, mind you. However, the point is their ACTION that followed it was fire-drill mode to implement a cash shop to fund the game.

 

Their words do not match their actions which is a sure sign of deception.

 

Words: "We'll be profitable with a subscription model at 500k".

 

More words: "We have between 500k and 1,000k subscriptions."

 

Action: "We're putting everything else on hold to implement a cash shop to fund the game."

 

Does not compute.

Edited by DarthTHC
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Shingara

Shingara

Posted
Posted
Forum accounts never changed. If I could find the login info, I could log into all of them right now.

 

Point is, any number of people can have any number of accounts. Accounts is irrelevant to the discussion because they're free. The presence of an account does not in any way represent revenue.

 

Of course you could, the game is now F2P but we arnt discussing after F2P went live are we.

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JediJonesJr

JediJonesJr

Posted
Posted (edited)
It won't be a pure subscripton product. Prove me wrong...I've got real estate to sell you. :)

 

 

prove me wrong you are saying that i am so lets see you don't know , all i know is they are working on this project and will soon see announcements..

 

fact is you can't you are just speculating what they have in mind if you did you would not even make remarks on it.

Edited by JediJonesJr
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