Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
TOR sub stablizes at 1.7M subs
nariusseldon
Member EpicPosts: 27,775
http://www.joystiq.com/2012/03/09/mass-effect-ships-3-5-million-worldwide-890-000-sold-in-na-swt/
And I quote "The MMO currently has 1.7 million active subscribers. Those keeping score will remember that this is the same number EA reported last month. The important distinction is that now, according to Riccitiello, the "vast majority" of players have passed the free 30 day trial period that comes with new copies of the game, meaning they are now paying subscribers."
Oh, on a side note, Mass Effect 3 sold a ton 890k on launday day.
This discussion has been closed.
Comments
Not bad for a game that has "failed."
Currently Playing: World of Warcraft
true......not bad at all......still playing it and loving it.
Cant wait for patch 1.2 and see what happens.
Haters will refuse to accept this as facts about the game. THey will speculate on "Vast Majority" and whether those people are using 60 day time cards blah blah blah.
[mod edit]
Let the fantastic times and educated debate regularly found on MMORPG Ensue!
(I'm sorry Mod, this is what I MEANT to say.)
Don't get this post wrong, I am currently subbed to SWTOR, I do not care if others hate it or what they do with their time.
However, didnt they have 1.7 million last month? Either they didnt grew or they are using last months figures for today. Either way I am not seeing this as a big deal and certainly nothing that will end any debates.
Something isn't right about the figures, Xfire and actual server populations are clearly dropping.
Why say 1.7 again? It would have more credibility if they said they had over 1.5 million. I just do not know what to think of these numbers.
Star Trek Online - Best Free MMORPG of 2012
When I first got access, took me 1 1/2 hours in queue at night to get into my pve easy cost server, Shadowlands or something.
3week later im on Hoth for 6 hours and the only Republic person I see...
I am skeptic of 1.7 million players for certain, unless they are all Empire.
The Stranger: It's what people know about themselves inside that makes 'em afraid.
the figures they quote are open to interpretation, they are a bit vague at best, misleading at worst, do they have 1.7m active paids subs at the moment, extremely doubtful, that would imply a near 100 percent player retention.
the interesting thing is that for the same period, they also quoted having around 850k subs in an interview, i think that figure was probably overly positive too
given current apparent lack of population, all these subs must be people who are paying and somehow, neglecting to actually play the game, enviable, im sure there are a lot of MMO developers out there that would like that type of player
They may or may not have 1.7 million subsribers, but you really do have to take into account the people that are subscribed through a 60 day time card. I know my sub ends in 3 days on the 19th, and i'm pretty sure many other's do as well. Total subsribers don't really mean jack squat though. i go off the amount of people i see on my server and the amount of light and standard servers now, compared to just a month ago, when most were very heavy and heavy with a few standards and lights during peak hrs.
To be honest, i just deleted the game off my hard drive yesterday and decided to not buy another time card. As much as i loved KOTOR in the past and as big a fan as i am for anything SW, i just couldn't stomache another minute logged into TOR. If someday Bioware decides to open the game world up and actually incorporate some sandbox systems, that actually will help the game become more social and help build a community, i might resub. For those that are still having fun and stuff, that's cool and hope you continue to enjoy the game.
Weird, when I started to play SWTOR i had to wait for 2-3h before I could play on Basilis Droid. I chose the server for the longest queues expecting the server to be lively. Earlier I was in Hoth (server was medium status) and it had 11 people total of which I saw zero. Where the hell does everybody hide if nobody quit the game according to EA/Bioware?
lol. The inability of Joystick to comprehend what he said doesn't makt the Joystiq article right. He did not say the game has stablized at 1.7 million subs. If you read the press release which Joystiq draws from to write the article, it doesn't mention subs at all. The off-the-cuff remark was He was referring to the December 1.7 million number. He said 'the vast majority' of those 1.7 million are subscribers now.
There are a number of problems with that assertion. First, is 'vast majority' is a meaningless term. One person's simple majority is another 'vast majority.' For example, if 60% renewed and 40% didn't, it would 60%/40% = 1.5 the number renewed over quit. That is 50% more renewed than quit. Sounds like a good conceptual candidate for 'vast majority' for one person and 'majority' for another.
Second, as we all know to activate the game, you had to use a credit card or a game card. About 20% of subscribers use game cards. All the game card people are locked in for a minium of 90 days. So already you have a built-in 20% retention. Even if they're long gone from the game. These are, basically, legacy subs that will clear and may or may not renew in the future, but clearly distort our picture in the present.
To illustrate the distortion and the meaninglessness of the 'early sub counts', we need to look at those who CAN cancel at will (Credit card users) and at what rate they renewed. For example, if half renewed (80% * 50% = 40% of the abosolute populatin renewed Add back the 20% absolute population who can't cancel until no earlier than March 20th and suddenly you're a 60% vast majority" while in reality only half-those eligible actually renewed. Now, I'm not claiming any of those rates, though I'm pretty sure the 50% renewal rate is pretty close. Raother, I'm trying to, as simply as possible, illustrate the effects of the two different populations along with the meaningless of 'vast majority' which is not a defined term. Majority is defined, we know that to be one-half plus one. But vast majority is a gamed term that is, in fact, both relative to the speaker, relative to proportion and, effectively, meaningless from this position.
Ultimately, we won't have even a decent handle on the actual number of subs until early May.
What I focus on is server load and XFire PEOPLE (not time) playing. Server load is both an accurate indicator of active players and an accurate predictor of future subscription losses. XFire population trends are a good short-term (one-year and under) predictor of current and future subs. Based on what I've seen, this game has a 50% one-month churn rate.
Anyway, if you look at EA's investor relations page and drill down to the financial information, this is the ONLY time EA has ever given us numbers: http://investor.ea.com/results.cfm If you look at their press releases here: http://investor.ea.com/releases.cfm They do not, anywhere, mention subscriptions. At all.
So, if you choose, keep bringing up the completely screwed up interpretation of the off-the-cuff remarks. That's ok. The servers are still emptying on a daily bases and people are still migrating to the few high-pop servers left. Eventually all the BS will come out in the wash and you'll see the people who did the math were right. And it certainly won't include a bunch of fourth-rate gamer 'journalists.'
I am a TOR fan, and what you say is correct about numbers of folks online being down. YOu can see it in the primetime server status.
How does that reflect to subs though? Some of the folks obviously cancelled, but do all of them? I know I only play a couple times a month on avg, and usually not during prime time. The first month though I put in mega hrs.
I have completed Amalur(49 of 50 cheivs), FF 13-2(18 of 31), and ME3(45 of 52) since the launch of TOR. I will be picking up Dragon's Dogma at the end of the month, and need to play thru Witcher before picking up Witcher 2 next month for 360.
I go thru a ton of new games per yr, and yet I still carry my TOR sub. I am sure there are others like me, and where I have other games taking up my time, a typical casual person has things like family/work/school/social/whatever that limits them to a few days a month.
Which is something nice about the game....it isnt a "play everyday or get left in the dust" type game. You can go at your own pace.
Somewhere between the "hater" spin, and the EA/fanboy spin is the actual number of active subs. I simply look at 2M plus sold, and another 20k per week. EA/BW should be getting close to break even soon, and from there it is pure gravy. Will it be a big enough ROI for them? I happen to think it will, but then again that is one persons opinion.
Asking Devs to make AAA sandbox titles is like trying to get fine dining on a McDonalds dollar menu budget.
That it is, but if your pace has been cranked up loads, and only dedicate time to SWTOR, then you are done with the game fast, but with that attitude, I can see people still sticking with SWTOR. In SWG it did at times get a bit stressful dealing with harvestors, and think I paid up enough, but did not, and then get busy with other stuff, and they then gone poof when return to them, or spend hours setting them up on a spawn, and then a few hours later it all dries up. Then it makes you paranoid, and just keep checking on them daily or even more frequently than that.
Although, after playing other P2P MMOs, especially SWG, SWTOR is just not worth the subscription fee. If they start adding in things that kept people subbing to SWG into SWTOR, and it did not mess with SWTOR that you and everyone else enjoys, then there is no harm, and SWTOR will get more subs.
SWG was a very simple game, and I even managed to run 8 clients on one old PC, but still had 2 / 3 more PCs to run SWG but those others could not handle more than 4 clients though. Creating loads of characters in SWG gave me my "companions" and multi boxed them. SWTOR struggles now to run one client. Even City of Heroes struggles to run 2 clients on one PC.
There was so much you do in SWG, even after 8.5 years and virtually putting in tonnes of hours each day, I still did not get all that SWG had to offer. SWTOR is just too restrictive.
STO is good for its space (not as good as SWG but better than SWTOR), and also STO has a decent companion system too where you have Bridge Officers that support and act like droids on your ship in SWG, or join you in Away missions, and can have several with you at once, which satisfies my multi-boxing interest. You can also have Duty Officers which you then use to send on missions to acquire stuff and get XP. I was quite pleased to hear that SWTOR was going to have companions but are restricted to having one out at a time, so I think STO wins over SWTOR with the companion system too.
I do not hate SWTOR yet as there is still hope that LA/Bioware may sandbox SWTOR up a bit, considering LA shut down SWG to make way for SWTOR, to try and force SWG players into SWTOR. If SWG carried on for a bit longer and together with SWTOR without SWG pending closure, then SWTOR would have been viewed more so as a separate game in its own right, and there would be less desire to make it into SWG 2, but as SWG shut down right before SWTOR launched, SWG players had their game pulled from under them, with no adequte replacement, and SWTOR is only the only hope for trying to get it back, by adding SWG elements to SWTOR. If LA wants SWG players to move to SWTOR, then SWTOR needs to be beefed up, and not remain in its simplistic mediocre form.
Star Trek Online - Best Free MMORPG of 2012
EA released a disclaimer on the remarks made at Wedbush.
During the course of the presentation, Electronic Arts may make forward-looking statements regarding future events or the future financial performance of the company. Statements including words such as "anticipate", "believe", "estimate" or "expect" and statements in the future tense are forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual events or actual future results to differ materially from those set forth in the forward-looking statements. Please refer to Electronic Arts' latest Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2011 and Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for the fiscal quarter ended December 30, 2011 for a discussion of important factors that could cause actual events or actual results to differ materially from those discussed during the presentation. These forward-looking statements speak only as of the date of the presentation; Electronic Arts assumes no obligation to, and does not necessarily intend to, update these forward-looking statements.
SOURCE: Electronic Arts Inc.
Also note how EA leaped to a June speculation completly ignoring the March 31st Q coming up where this same group estimated 800k subs. TBH, I don't think Ritticello will be around come June. Call it a hunch. The only thing I could even think of for Ritticello to make such an absurd and ludicrous prediction, is he has a deal in the works with mainland China.
lol. The inability of Joystick to comprehend what he said doesn't makt the Joystiq article right. He did not say the game has stablized at 1.7 million subs. If you read the press release which Joystiq draws from to write the article, it doesn't mention subs at all. The off-the-cuff remark was He was referring to the December 1.7 million number. He said 'the vast majority' of those 1.7 million are subscribers now.
There are a number of problems with that assertion. First, is 'vast majority' is a meaningless term. One person's simple majority is another 'vast majority.' For example, if 60% renewed and 40% didn't, it would 60%/40% = 1.5 the number renewed over quit. That is 50% more renewed than quit. Sounds like a good conceptual candidate for 'vast majority' for one person and 'majority' for another.
Second, as we all know to activate the game, you had to use a credit card or a game card. About 20% of subscribers use game cards. All the game card people are locked in for a minium of 90 days. So already you have a built-in 20% retention. Even if they're long gone from the game. These are, basically, legacy subs that will clear and may or may not renew in the future, but clearly distort our picture in the present.
To illustrate the distortion and the meaninglessness of the 'early sub counts', we need to look at those who CAN cancel at will (Credit card users) and at what rate they renewed. For example, if half renewed (80% * 50% = 40% of the abosolute populatin renewed Add back the 20% absolute population who can't cancel until no earlier than March 20th and suddenly you're a 60% vast majority" while in reality only half-those eligible actually renewed. Now, I'm not claiming any of those rates, though I'm pretty sure the 50% renewal rate is pretty close. Raother, I'm trying to, as simply as possible, illustrate the effects of the two different populations along with the meaningless of 'vast majority' which is not a defined term. Majority is defined, we know that to be one-half plus one. But vast majority is a gamed term that is, in fact, both relative to the speaker, relative to proportion and, effectively, meaningless from this position.
Ultimately, we won't have even a decent handle on the actual number of subs until early May.
What I focus on is server load and XFire PEOPLE (not time) playing. Server load is both an accurate indicator of active players and an accurate predictor of future subscription losses. XFire population trends are a good short-term (one-year and under) predictor of current and future subs. Based on what I've seen, this game has a 50% one-month churn rate.
Anyway, if you look at EA's investor relations page and drill down to the financial information, this is the ONLY time EA has ever given us numbers: http://investor.ea.com/results.cfm If you look at their press releases here: http://investor.ea.com/releases.cfm They do not, anywhere, mention subscriptions. At all.
So, if you choose, keep bringing up the completely screwed up interpretation of the off-the-cuff remarks. That's ok. The servers are still emptying on a daily bases and people are still migrating to the few high-pop servers left. Eventually all the BS will come out in the wash and you'll see the people who did the math were right. And it certainly won't include a bunch of fourth-rate gamer 'journalists.'
EA released a disclaimer on the remarks made at Wedbush.
During the course of the presentation, Electronic Arts may make forward-looking statements regarding future events or the future financial performance of the company. Statements including words such as "anticipate", "believe", "estimate" or "expect" and statements in the future tense are forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual events or actual future results to differ materially from those set forth in the forward-looking statements. Please refer to Electronic Arts' latest Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2011 and Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for the fiscal quarter ended December 30, 2011 for a discussion of important factors that could cause actual events or actual results to differ materially from those discussed during the presentation. These forward-looking statements speak only as of the date of the presentation; Electronic Arts assumes no obligation to, and does not necessarily intend to, update these forward-looking statements.
SOURCE: Electronic Arts Inc.
Also note how EA leaped to a June speculation completly ignoring the March 31st Q coming up where this same group estimated 800k subs. TBH, I don't think Ritticello will be around come June. Call it a hunch. The only thing I could even think of for Ritticello to make such an absurd and ludicrous prediction, is he has a deal in the works with mainland China.
TL;DR version, Anything we say outside financial reports should be taken with a large pinch of saltOr:
Anything we say is most likely a lie and this prevents us from being sued under the guise of being "guestimated".
"Censorship is never over for those who have experienced it. It is a brand on the imagination that affects the individual who has suffered it, forever." - Noam Chomsky
Wrong and not even close. SWG vets were wanting this to be SWG 2 from the very moment that the game was first announced. When it was revealed that TOR was not going to be SWG part 2, the vets littered this forum for many months with their hate filled diatribes. This all happened LONG before the announcement of SWG's demise.
And once again, this is not the SWG forums. Please either let it go or take it to the proper forums.
Currently Playing: World of Warcraft
Everyone talks about fanboi spin. But come on there is nothing like hater spin, They call the people at ea lyers, they claim the joystiq people just mis heard or mis interpreteted what was said.
They go out of there way to claim they have the real numbers and ea doesnt
Its all pretty funny.
i was on at 2 am i was at fleet on an est server at est time and there were over 120 phases at fleet alone, I ran into about 30 people running around in my phase also.
so if this game is dying as some claim why is the population on fleet so high at an off hr? LOok im not saying tor is at 1.7 million subs right now,
Im just saying this game isnt down to 200k subs some claim or going free 2 playin a month. This game is doing pretty well and i dont see a max exodus of people that so many do.
They may not have 1.7 million players on at once but that doesnt mean they dont have 1.7 million subs between all there regions at this time just because u hate this game.
Strange as according to this site the games dead, been mutilated, had it's head cut off and stuck on a pike outisde MMO town as a warning to, 'bad' developers....
I suppose next we'll be told it's a zombie, so there's a double reason why it needs to die!!!!
This looks like a job for....The Riviera Kid!
They said "Majority" last month too......when answering details about the earnings call
Gibeau ... "I can't tell you that the majority of the 1.7 million are paying subscribers for us currently, which is great considering"
Most people took the "CAN'T" as a typo mistatement and that he actualy meant to say CAN....but I always maintained I wasn't so confident about that... spokesmen tend to be rather tricky/purposefull about thier wording.
http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/post/4735868#4735868
No one is claiming 200k subs or even treble that bar one or two madmen. People are pointing out that EA have not claimed 1.7m but used weasel words to imply that, no one will know the truth until the q4 financial figures are out after the end of March sometime as those figures EA cannot spin.The only problem is the guy at joystiq has got it wrong. Quoting him just perpetuates a myth. The actual press release is at the biottom of his nonsence or you can read it direct from EA http://investor.ea.com/common/download/download.cfm?companyid=ERTS&fileid=551887&filekey=ca9480c7-3ca8-4472-bf6e-e85b4a135294&filename=655978.pdf notice no mention of SWToR subs. Lol I suppose.
To ge honest I left the, 'debate' after the whole, 'reviewers who agree with me are legit others who like it have been bought off', debacle.
Some people just can't accept other opinons are different then theres, so it's best just to leave them to it :P
This looks like a job for....The Riviera Kid!
Because sub numbers does not equal people playing. I can only speak for my relatively small guild but during the first month we would have 20-30 people online at prime time, now it's 5 or 6, HOWEVER I know from reading on our forums that very people actually quit, they're just waiting for more content having done all the existing end game content a lot already. Some also wanted to make more alts but are waiting for the Legacy system to do that. So they're taking a break for now.
Personally I've been through many MMO launches and I've learned there is never enough end game content so I took my time and just reached 50 last week so I still have a lot of content to get through. As a PVE player I've discovered this past week that I really enjoy the PVP Warzones so I've been doing that quite a lot. So much fun (when we don't run up against pre-mades).
Really? Now arguing about game subscription rates and company financials?
What ever happened to just playing a game or not playing it because you don't enjoy it?