Why the disappointed don't leave...

[TheNahash]

how Southside White Sox fans are - they are just like the people like the op - they are only truly happy when they are MISERABLE. When everything is great, and life is good, that is when they are most unsettled because they NEED the drama, they NEED to be able to complain about something. THEY NEED THE ABILITY TO QQ LIKE HUMAN BEINGS NEED AIR.

 

Well, that's a common human trait.

Definitely not restricted to Southside White Sox fans

[LordArtemis]

Right now, SWTOR has the second largest sub total of active MMOs.

 

Active western MMO population. Aion and Lineage beat out SWTOR for the 2 and 3 slot, but only because of eastern numbers. For numbers in the west, WoW is 1st, SWTOR is 2nd. I may be in error, but that is from the latest information available that I am aware of.

[Dokar]

Active western MMO population. Aion and Lineage beat out SWTOR for the 2 and 3 slot, but only because of eastern numbers. For numbers in the west, WoW is 1st, SWTOR is 2nd. I may be in error, but that is from the latest information available that I am aware of.

 

EVE online might actually be no 2.

[Jandi]

" The best single player MMO "

 

The second most coveted award in the industry. First being...

 

" Best multiplayer game of Solitaire. "

 

That's where the industry has been heading for years. You might think it's ridiculous but believe me, a large portion of the players never group with others at all. They simply keep playing the leveling content with different classes. Which is one reason it's doing as well as it is. As silly as it sounds, it's the reality whether you like it or not.

[LordArtemis]

EVE online might actually be no 2.

 

You may be right...the new numbers should be posted soon. It will be interesting to see where they stand...last I checked they were somewhere around 400k.

[Andryah]

Active western MMO population. Aion and Lineage beat out SWTOR for the 2 and 3 slot, but only because of eastern numbers. For numbers in the west, WoW is 1st, SWTOR is 2nd. I may be in error, but that is from the latest information available that I am aware of.

 

When discussing MMO populations, you need to separate East from West. They are fundamentally different markets and operated on different business models and different player drivers/desires. They are both "fruit" but they are essentially apples and oranges. The now defunct MMOdata.net made this distinction transparent years ago when they deliberately separated WoW East and WoW west.

[Dokar]

You may be right...the new numbers should be posted soon. It will be interesting to see where they stand...last I checked they were somewhere around 400k.

 

I thought I heard someplace that they broke the 500k mark but could be wrong.

[Andryah]

EVE online might actually be no 2.

 

Could be. They ebb and flow around 500K +/-, and are subscriber only. In terms of "active accounts", they are likely number 4 right now given SWTOR is running ~1M and Rift is probably north of 600K right now with their F2P surge.

 

EVE is however the 800lb gorilla of PvP in western MMOs though IMO. If you want a true sandbox PvP fix.. EVE is the only AAA show in town IMO.

Edited June 19, 2013 by Andryah

[sdgiasyui]

It's also the best single player MMO out there. If you're an RPG fan and like to "play" your characters there's no substitute in the MMO market.

 

I guess this is your first MMO ever.Try Guild Wars 2 for example, or Rift, or even The secret world, then you will change your mind.

[sdgiasyui]

Thats good you won't be missed alot of us are getting tired with the people who stay her and just moan and moan

 

Oh, feeling sad? because if some other new MMO will take more players from SWTOR? Makes no difference really.

SWTOR will not die because of that.It will end up being like SWG playerbase.less then 100k in a couple of years.

[curtkram]

where are you getting mmo population numbers?

[ZionHalcyon]

Active western MMO population. Aion and Lineage beat out SWTOR for the 2 and 3 slot, but only because of eastern numbers. For numbers in the west, WoW is 1st, SWTOR is 2nd. I may be in error, but that is from the latest information available that I am aware of.

 

the point is, it is still damn healthy.

 

All my main points stand.

[CosmicKat]

That's where the industry has been heading for years. You might think it's ridiculous but believe me, a large portion of the players never group with others at all. They simply keep playing the leveling content with different classes. Which is one reason it's doing as well as it is. As silly as it sounds, it's the reality whether you like it or not.

 

It is ridiculous. It's why MMO's are at best stagnating and at worst a dying genre.

 

The industry headed that way because it is easier and cheaper to make a solo game than to make a true group-oriented game. Now they are finding out that people aren't willing to pay a subscription to play solo games because there are zillions of solo games out there that you don't need a subscription for. Modern MMO's offer nothing unique from solo games. They have devolved into solo games with semi-regularly released DLC.

 

As always, this is not to say that a solo-friendly option is a bad thing, but when it is the only option, what's the point?

[Arkerus]

where are you getting mmo population numbers?

 

EA released numbers recently on TOR. I am paraphrasing here...so bear with me...I might be slightly off.

 

TOR has around 500,000 sub accounts and close to 2M free/preferred accounts.

 

That easily puts it in 2nd or 3rd, especially when you consider the massive amount of free players this game has even if 50% of those accounts are inactive.

[ZionHalcyon]

EA released numbers recently on TOR. I am paraphrasing here...so bear with me...I might be slightly off.

 

TOR has around 500,000 sub accounts and close to 2M free/preferred accounts.

 

That easily puts it in 2nd or 3rd, especially when you consider the massive amount of free players this game has even if 50% of those accounts are inactive.

 

Yup. What I love is the argument that free players dont count. This short-sighted answer ignores that free players are the ones spending the most in the cartel markets. The game is not a pure sub game anymore, so looking at it from only a pure sub perspective is incredibly asinine. The cartel market is pulling in gobs of cash.

[sdgiasyui]

EA released numbers recently on TOR. I am paraphrasing here...so bear with me...I might be slightly off.

 

TOR has around 500,000 sub accounts and close to 2M free/preferred accounts.

 

That easily puts it in 2nd or 3rd, especially when you consider the massive amount of free players this game has even if 50% of those accounts are inactive.

 

They are counting how much new accounts are created not how much are cancelled. The funny thing is till now you cannot really cancel an account with EA/WARE so their number show a lot of accounts that are really not active at all. Only the payment sub can be cancelled but not the whole account. I, as many other people have tried to totally cancel my account, as to have my data erased from their servers, unfortunately that is not possible. Yay for corporate manipulation of artificially keeping their sub numbers high!

[Arkerus]

It is ridiculous. It's why MMO's are at best stagnating and at worst a dying genre.

 

The industry headed that way because it is easier and cheaper to make a solo game than to make a true group-oriented game. Now they are finding out that people aren't willing to pay a subscription to play solo games because there are zillions of solo games out there that you don't need a subscription for. Modern MMO's offer nothing unique from solo games. They have devolved into solo games with semi-regularly released DLC.

 

As always, this is not to say that a solo-friendly option is a bad thing, but when it is the only option, what's the point?

 

A dying genre? You mean the deluge of MMOs is a dying genre? Every developer on the PLANET wants a piece of the MMO pie. The genre is hardly dying. Its bigger than its ever been...and that's part of the problem. The player base is spread over many, many games and each game has a thin population.

 

Except for WoW, every game is fighting for a piece of the pie.

 

The genre isn't dying and its not stagnating. These are buzzwords that uninformed gamers throw around when they just want to say "I don't like the games that are coming out because they don't fit MY definition of an MMO".

[ZionHalcyon]

A dying genre? You mean the deluge of MMOs is a dying genre? Every developer on the PLANET wants a piece of the MMO pie. The genre is hardly dying. Its bigger than its ever been...and that's part of the problem. The player base is spread over many, many games and each game has a thin population.

 

Except for WoW, every game is fighting for a piece of the pie.

 

The genre isn't dying and its not stagnating. These are buzzwords that uninformed gamers throw around when they just want to say "I don't like the games that are coming out because they don't fit MY definition of an MMO".

 

well put

[Andryah]

They are counting how much new accounts are created not how much are cancelled. The funny thing is till now you cannot really cancel an account with EA/WARE so their number show a lot of accounts that are really not active at all. Only the payment sub can be cancelled but not the whole account. I, as many other people have tried to totally cancel my account, as to have my data erased from their servers, unfortunately that is not possible. Yay for corporate manipulation of artificially keeping their sub numbers high!

 

That was new accounts since F2P launch. But that is beside the point because they also stated they had a run rate of active accounts at ~1M too.

[Andryah]

Yup. What I love is the argument that free players dont count. This short-sighted answer ignores that free players are the ones spending the most in the cartel markets. The game is not a pure sub game anymore, so looking at it from only a pure sub perspective is incredibly asinine. The cartel market is pulling in gobs of cash.

 

I got the impression from Bioware comments that subscribers are actually the larger buying force in the CM. Which actually makes sense. That said...it is also clear that nonsubs are significant buyers as well... to get a bump to preferred status, to gain unlocks to expand their Free features, etc.

 

In the end though...none of that matters. What matters is average revenue per month per active account. This is the industry measure of Freemium games. Game companies like to see a nice distribution across the player demographics in terms of revenue, but in the end.. the macro measure is the aggregate average per active account per month. They also like good conversion rates (which is rate of conversions from free to sub in the active base), and they have made it clear that this metric is exceeding their expectations (ie: better then planned for). Conversion rate tells them how well their free component of the business model is doing (ie: how well it draws in new subs). Sci Fi MMOs tend to have better conversion rates then fantasy in the industry, and Europe tends to have better conversion rates then NA, and conversion rate indicates how well tuned your freemium model actually is. The industry as a whole targets 25% from my recollection of the research papers on the subject.

Edited June 19, 2013 by Andryah

[CosmicKat]

A dying genre? You mean the deluge of MMOs is a dying genre? Every developer on the PLANET wants a piece of the MMO pie. The genre is hardly dying. Its bigger than its ever been...and that's part of the problem. The player base is spread over many, many games and each game has a thin population.

 

Except for WoW, every game is fighting for a piece of the pie.

 

The genre isn't dying and its not stagnating. These are buzzwords that uninformed gamers throw around when they just want to say "I don't like the games that are coming out because they don't fit MY definition of an MMO".

 

Is that why nobody has released an MMO in 10 years that has succeeded without having to give the game away for free? Many of them have failed outright.

 

When there hasn't been a single, concrete success in a decade, the genre is stagnant.

[TheNahash]

It is ridiculous. It's why MMO's are at best stagnating and at worst a dying genre.

 

The industry headed that way because it is easier and cheaper to make a solo game than to make a true group-oriented game. Now they are finding out that people aren't willing to pay a subscription to play solo games because there are zillions of solo games out there that you don't need a subscription for. Modern MMO's offer nothing unique from solo games. They have devolved into solo games with semi-regularly released DLC.

 

As always, this is not to say that a solo-friendly option is a bad thing, but when it is the only option, what's the point?

 

No, the reason why MMOs are at best a dying genre is that the novelty wore off.

Much like the music games (Guitar Hero) in the early 00s or pure adventure games in the 90s. Sure, new MMOs come out all the time, but let's be honest, they are all the same thing: some are more focused on PVE others on PVP, some copy a few ideas from Wow and have 1-2 new ideas, others just blatantly copy everything etc. Nothing has really felt "brand new" for a long time now.

When a new genre is introduced, it's cool and exciting. Doing a raid or grinding for gear used to be considered awesome content that people were looking forward to. Now, it's more like "meh, what else is new?".

 

Meanwhile, companies know that MMOs are slowly becoming less and less relevant and that they don't appeal to younger ages the same way they used to. So they try to make them more casual, while copying some of the stuff other successful MMOs have done in the past. And I don't really blame them - they don't want to lost money.

 

But I do blame the players.

Companies follow their lead and apparently a "casual" approach to MMOs is what they want. They have no desire to stay anywhere. They're always looking for the "next big thing" (which used to be Swtor, then GW2, now Wildstar and ESO, tomorrow...who knows?) which they are always so sure that it will be the best thing since bread came sliced.

 

I remember, back in the 90s, games had truly awful, game-breaking bugs. But we waited patiently for them to fix them, we didn't scream bloody murder every time one chestpiece had two hoods. We had some unbelievably frustrating times with those games, but at the end of the day, we really, really, honest to God, enjoyed playing them.

Edited June 19, 2013 by TheNahash

[ZionHalcyon]

I got the impression from Bioware comments that subscribers are actually the larger buying force in the CM. Which actually makes sense. That said...it is also clear that nonsubs are significant buyers as well... to get a bump to preferred status, to gain unlocks to expand their Free features, etc.

 

In the end though...none of that matters. What matters is average revenue per month per active account. This is the industry measure of Freemium games. Game companies like to see a nice distribution across the player demographics in terms of revenue, but in the end.. the macro measure is the aggregate average per active account per month. They also like good conversion rates (which is rate of conversions from free to sub in the active base), and they have made it clear that this metric is exceeding their expectations (ie: better then planned for). Conversion rate tells them how well their free component of the business model is doing (ie: how well it draws in new subs). Sci Fi MMOs tend to have better conversion rates then fantasy in the industry, and Europe tends to have better conversion rates then NA, and conversion rate indicates how well tuned your freemium model actually is. The industry as a whole targets 25% from my recollection of the research papers on the subject.

 

True enough

[Andryah]

Is that why nobody has released an MMO in 10 years that has succeeded without having to give the game away for free? Many of them have failed outright.

 

When there hasn't been a single, concrete success in a decade, the genre is stagnant.

 

The only thing stagnant about the genre CK is your personal view about it.

 

A fluke of timing, opportunity, IP and commercial success called WoW forever changed the paradigm of MMO as a genre (in the west, as east is a different market with different drivers). Others tried to build on the success to prove it could be scaled and leveraged... and failed. Why? Because WoW was not a trend, but a unique event of circumstances and timing (as was Everquest before it, and in scale to the timeframe). SO..... the market adapted and adjusted to find customers, broaden the offerings, and create choices. And a decade later.... the MMO population base is much much larger then it was and creating much much more commercial success in total in the genre....just not in the manner that you personally demand. You are bent that it's evolved (or devolved in your view I bet) to the Hello Kitty generation of short attention span make it easy to do product... but you know what... that is true of many things in the world of entertainment these days.

 

Seriously... you want the old days. Too bad... the old days are gone. You can cry in your beer about it and taunt the forum about it all you want.. but it will change nothing. Products and the markets they serve change over time. In a free market.. they follow consumer demand. You clearly do not represent the current distribution of consumer demand. You are an outlier... for a long as you choose to be an outlier. Adapt or become extinct to the context of MMOs. The choice is yours to make. The beer crys, forum taunting and snarky demands are simply for show on your part IMO.

 

But hey... at least you have your vinyl record collection to play while digging in heels right?

Edited June 19, 2013 by Andryah

[ZionHalcyon]

The only thing stagnant about the genre CK is your personal view about it.

 

A fluke of timing, opportunity, IP and commercial success called WoW forever changed the paradigm of MMO as a genre (in the west, as east is a different market with different drivers). Others tried to build on the success to prove it could be scaled and leveraged... and failed. Why? Because WoW was not a trend, but a unique event of circumstances and timing (as was Everquest before it, and in scale to the timeframe). SO..... the market adapted and adjusted to find customers, broaden the offerings, and create choices. And a decade later.... the MMO population base is much much larger then it was and creating much much more commercial success in total in the genre....just not in the manner that you personally demand. You are bent that it's evolved (or devolved in your view I bet) to the Hello Kitty generation of short attention span make it easy to do product... but you know what... that is true of many things in the world of entertainment these days.

 

Seriously... you want the old days. Too bad... the old days are gone. You can cry in your beer about it and taunt the forum about it all you want.. but it will change nothing. Products and the markets they serve change over time. In a free market.. they follow consumer demand. You clearly do not represent the current distribution of consumer demand. You are an outlier... for a long as you choose to be an outlier. Adapt or become extinct to the context of MMOs. The choice is yours to make. The beer crys, forum taunting and snarky demands are simply for show on your part IMO.

 

But hey... at least you have your vinyl record collection to play while digging in heels right?

 

Ha, now that is VERY eloquently said, and dead on.