Swtor at its highest subscriber level in 3 years

[Transcendent]

Yeah there's so much denial about the game's success and given how the responses to this thread are so few I think a lot of delusional people got gut-punched by that wonderful thing called the truth.

 

You can't base the success of anything on one single quarter of results, especially with a change in the business model with regards to monthly story instalments going forward. So before you start to crow, perhaps wait for the financials for the next 2-3 periods to see where everything sits? No-one knows how this is going to work, it'll either work very well (everyone stays subbed), or not perform as they expect (people unsubscribe and return later to get the rest of the story content, due to lack of other content).

 

It could also purely be an increase based on there only being 3 types of Star Wars titles, Battlefield (FPS) / SW:TOR (MMORPG) and Galaxy of Heroes (Mobile).

 

Also of note in the report, is the low income provided by subscriptions over the whole set of SKUs, 10% lower due to a decline in BF:Hardline, but I'd hardly say that SW:TOR is contributing heavily overall. Considering that subscriber numbers are the highest in nearly 3 years for this title, that's not good performance, and certainly not enough to offset the decline in other areas.

[ludoviccb]

That just means people aren't playing a whole lot, not that they unsubbed. My wife is one of those folks who plays maybe 10 hours a week, but has maintained a continuous sub for close to 4 years. My kids have a sub too, but their so busy during the school year, they don't get to play much.

 

Rather than the sky is falling, it's also quite possible that folks aren't playing until the next chapter drops. We'll see if there's a pickup over the next few weeks

 

The TOR Status data, which is consistant on all the NA servers for the last 30 days show a decrease in activity on all servers. To compare to your wife exemple, it would be that instead of playing 10 hours a week, she drop to 7. That's what the data currently show.

 

It can be that players play less like the previous exemple, or that there is a decrease in the number of players. If it's the first, subscritions shouldn't change by much, but CM sales could drop since people won't pay for CC if they don't play very often. If it's the second, there will be a drop in subscription. The next chapter could bring them back, but nothing is sure about it.

 

If my guild is any indication, it's a bit of both, players in my guild play less and there is queue a few that don't log on or let their subscription lapse.

[psikofunkster]

Those sub numbers are largely from the release of the movie. Sure some came back for kotfe, but let's be honest here, everything is not rainbows and Gummi besrs. We are in the critical months here, because churn being what it is, we will mostly likely lose most of those sub gains unless the devs hit the ground running. As these new players get into end game realize there is nothing left to do in the end game, they will drop this game like a bad habit. Also the report isn't totally current. It is for their previous quarter, which means we might have already lost some of those subs.

 

^ This pretty much, now i'd love to see the Q1 2016 numbers next May.....

 

Swtor at its LOWEST subscriber level in 3 years

Edited January 29, 2016 by psikofunkster

[EnkiduNineEight]

That 10% revenue loss was across EA as a whole, not SWTOR only, read it again

 

I know it was not SWTOR only, never said it was. I was just noting that on their subscription side, they are down 10% from prior.

 

I well understand that is across the whole. It is still a significant loss of revenue. and my point is, they don't seem to be making up for lost money by adding subs.

[bobmcbo]

Game is dying, unsub

 

I would say it's finally doing better.

The game was REALLY dying when it went free-to-play.

[DanNV]

Highest in three years means all those people who did 60 day subs or cards may now be gone. I know my guild is shedding people like crazy, most going preferred but not actually logging on very often. We're down a lot of raid teams, used to have a 2 or 3 on most nights, now it's 4 or 5 active once or twice a week and the imp side of the guild has none left as far as I know. Those people aren't playing the new "content", they are playing other games.

 

BW had a great idea in more story and in scaling so that people who hadn't played all of the endgame content could now and have it be challenge (HM, SM is pretty easy.) However, they really screwed up by not also putting out new endgame content suitable for people who had completed the previous endgame. Now, those people are leaving which means you are losing the people who were writing guides, doing streams and podcasts and teaching new guild members how to play the endgame content. Many waited until Jan to see if BW would announce any new endgame content, but the answer was "We'd like to do some more". Then the head of the ops team moved to a differnet EA studio, Ost of the people who were long time endgame riders could see the writing on the wall and are leaving as subs run out and aren't logging in in the mean time,

[Sarfux]

Lots of armchair analysts and financial planners/forecasters in this thread

[VedaRa]

I love how the naysayers keep saying wait for next qrt for the last 2 qrts. Just face it, the world doesn't revolve around Raiding. And this shows that must players are casuals that play for the story. Edited January 29, 2016 by VedaRa

[Sarfux]

I love how the nay sayers how been keep saying wait for next qrt for the last 2 qrts. Just face it, the world doesn't revolve around Raiding. And this shows that must players are casuals that play for the story.

 

Exactly. And the naysayers will ALWAYS move the goalposts to better fit their situation they have in their head

[psikofunkster]

Same applies to the fanbois for the matter and you don't have to be an analyst to know that Edited January 29, 2016 by psikofunkster

[Dewlmenow]

I love how the nay sayers how been keep saying wait for next qrt for the last 2 qrts. Just face it, the world doesn't revolve around Raiding. And this shows that must players are casuals that play for the story.

 

Everybody was saying that their subscription numbers were going to peak during this past quarter due to how they gated their content with KOTFE. The question was retention, and there is nothing here that says anything about that.

[BrianDavion]

I know it was not SWTOR only, never said it was. I was just noting that on their subscription side, they are down 10% from prior.

 

I well understand that is across the whole. It is still a significant loss of revenue. and my point is, they don't seem to be making up for lost money by adding subs.

 

and according to them the loss in sub numbers is due primarily to battlefield 4.

[Transcendent]

Everybody was saying that their subscription numbers were going to peak during this past quarter due to how they gated their content with KOTFE. The question was retention, and there is nothing here that says anything about that.

 

^^That's all that really needs to be said.

 

/thread

[Costello]

It would be great if this leads to more and better content.

 

However it doesn't appear there is any end game content in the works outside a 45 min chapter every month for Kofte and a possible alliance alert to get another non basic speaking companion.

 

Thanks no doubt in part to the force awakens and in part to they hype of new story content they have increased subscriber numbers, the 'rewards' program may help keep some but the current content and the lack of anything to do with end game is going to see next quarter as having a massive reduction in the subscriber figure. Something I suspect BW are well aware of hence the subscriber or more accurately future subscribe reward program.

[trancejeremy]

All I can say is that Bergeron Colony has gone from Light 90% of the time (except orice time hours on the weekend) to hitting standard pretty much every night during the prime time hours and a bit beyond.

 

Instead of 60 people on fleet, there is 160+

 

I suspect it's mostly the movie, but with a new Star Wars movie out every year, that's going to be the new normal. Star Wars has gone from a nearly dead property (in how it was used) to a blockbuster one, with a big marketing push constantly.

[Malkosha]

The last expansion really doomed "Insert Game Name Here" and the end is near. Yes the company puts out a report trying to convince us that "Insert Game Name Here" is doing well and has a bright future but we know the truth about "Insert Game Name Here". Anyone can play with the numbers but for quite a while now "Insert Game Name Here" has been bleeding subs and my guild is bleeding players with more and more leaving "Insert Game Name Here" on a daily basis. "Insert Game Name Here" is dying and the dev's can do nothing about it.

[bobmcbo]

The last expansion really doomed "Insert Game Name Here" and the end is near. Yes the company puts out a report trying to convince us that "Insert Game Name Here" is doing well and has a bright future but we know the truth about "Insert Game Name Here". Anyone can play with the numbers but for quite a while now "Insert Game Name Here" has been bleeding subs and my guild is bleeding players with more and more leaving "Insert Game Name Here" on a daily basis. "Insert Game Name Here" is dying and the dev's can do nothing about it.

 

i cri evury teim

 

Also in all my years of MMO experience, I've never seen a guild I was in survive longer than 6 months after I joined, making the common "my guild is losing people so the game is too" argument a joke.

[BrotherJohn]

its a stock report earnings release. they are never correct nor are they actual real world data. they are designed to appease the buyers and sellers of their stock. Please don't ever forget that.

 

two those numbers are largely due to the 4.0 release and forcing people to sub to play the game which is counter to the previous models of the game. give it another cycle and I am going to say those numbers fall off HUGE, due to the BS that this game is right now.

[MeNaCe-NZ]

I love how the naysayers keep saying wait for next qrt for the last 2 qrts. Just face it, the world doesn't revolve around Raiding. And this shows that must players are casuals that play for the story.

 

It does? I read the report, read what you quoted and I couldn't find it saying anything about story anywhere.

 

How do you know it wasn't the changes to raiding that has an increase in subs? That's right, you don't.

 

It could well be an increase in subs for October for KoTFE, all polished it in a few days but thanks to operation changes they remained subbed for the next 2 months and to date.

 

Now you can sit there and poo poo people who say wait for the next quarterly results all you like but the fact is that is that you're going to need those results to start to be able to judge the success of this story episodic content experiment.

 

Personally I hope that:

And this shows that must players are casuals that play for the story.

is wrong because you basically saying that now we only get 1 chapter a month and can resub in 7 months time to get it all for the price of one all those people you speak of will leave the game and so will the older regulars due to no new end game content.

 

I hope the players who came for the story also enjoy operations etc. so they keep subbing to maintain the long term viability of the game because if you are right and most subs are only here for the story ... then the future is looking gloomy indeed.

[MeNaCe-NZ]

Now also not to be a supposed naysayer ( retarded terminology really for people expressing a differing view ) but it's interesting to read between the lines of what was posted ...

 

Subscriptions to it's highest point in 3 years yet not one word about it actually earning more money which for an investor report would be far more important than how many subscribers you had.

I wouldn't care if subscribers were up 50% if my revenue was down 10% personally.

 

I find it odd they didn't mention revenue in regards to swtor is all ... I personally jump to the conclusion that revenue is down and we have the CM changes to thank for it.

 

Anyway we really don't know a lot until the next report once this new game model has some time under it's belt and they won't say anything either way if it's bad ... if it doesn't get mentioned you know it's bad though.

[psikofunkster]

I love how the naysayers keep saying wait for next qrt for the last 2 qrts. Just face it, the world doesn't revolve around Raiding. And this shows that must players are casuals that play for the story.

 

and why do you hate riding so much? have you been kicked many times? mmmm?

[BrianDavion]

its a stock report earnings release. they are never correct nor are they actual real world data. they are designed to appease the buyers and sellers of their stock. Please don't ever forget that.

 

.

 

 

 

you do realize lying to your stock owners about profits etc is a felony right?

[psikofunkster]

you do realize lying to your stock owners about profits etc is a felony right?

 

and what about the lies and the broken promises from the owners and developers of this game to their clients? do they count too or we don't? mmm?

Edited January 30, 2016 by psikofunkster

[Sarfux]

And just like the poster that said his server has been sitting at standard and moderate and lots more people, I can confirm on Ebon Hawk, there are a ton more people

[MWidowmaker]

and what about the lies and the broken promises from the owners and developers of this game to their clients? do they count too or we don't? mmm?

 

customers never count. only shareholders. its like that for every large corporation from bank of america to comcast.