Only problem is that i don't call a freebie a subscriber because if he/she had to pay they would be gone.
Your numbers are off anyhow,you don't have every single subscriber on at the same time.The numbers would be around the 20:1 ratio over time but being brand new content,yes it might be a lot closer.
Unless a server has some way of showing current players online and which are freebie you could be way off on numbers,not 5% more like 50 % off and either way.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
Oft times people ask how many SWTOR players are subscribers and how many are Free-To-Players.
Well, odds are if you were playing in Makeb, you were a subscriber.
Many people stated that Makeb had 30 instances (albeit with 50 people per instance.)
For shits and giggles, that means, on the generous side, 17 servers (leaving out the paltry APAC servers) times 30 instances, times 50 players, equals a max concurrent number of 25,500 players.
30 (instances) x 50 (players) x 17 (servers) = 25,500 players.
Since Makeb was new, it's pretty fair to assume that at least 10% of the people who ponied up the money to play it were playing it.
Even with erring on a generous side, that would mean SWTOR has around 255,000 subscribers. (Assuming a 10% concurrent population.)
Want to argue only 5% of the players played the game at the launch of the expansion, well that's 510,000 subscribers. (Which I find unlikely.)
Feel free to poke holes in my observations. I would guess EVE has more subscribers, and that SWTOR is funded a ton through the cartel shop and not a rush of new subscribers.
Prepare yourselves for 2.1 "Customization".
Your math is wrong. When a planet shows you the number of people in your instance it's only showing you your faction, you can double your numbers.
Excellent point and very short-sighted of me. Doubling my numbers would put my estimate at 510,000 to 1,020, 000 subscribers. Close to EVE's number of subscribers.
Hat's off to you for recognizing my error.
I still think that's is giving SWTOR more subs then it has, but it still is a useful exercise.
Makeb may very well show what the true subsciber base number is. (Ballpark at any rate.)
Actually we know for a fact that SWTOR has more subs than Eve because Bioware has said they are second behind WoW in terms of sub numbers. I think between 500k and 1 million is a fair estimate and it was in the range previously provided. The rest of the population is made up of free to play and preferred players. When you add in extra revenue from subs on top of whatever free players are spending on the market I'd say SWTOR is quite healthy. 1 million was one of their target benchmarks and that only included sub money and not additional revenue from the store.
that would mean roughly 3 mio swtor players,,thats more, than at launch
and they would have to fit into 1/10 of the servers
this doesnt seem right,,even with the new super servers
and some devs inflate their numbers,,blizzard surely does
Actually we know for a fact that SWTOR has more subs than Eve because Bioware has said they are second behind WoW in terms of sub numbers. I think between 500k and 1 million is a fair estimate and it was in the range previously provided. The rest of the population is made up of free to play and preferred players. When you add in extra revenue from subs on top of whatever free players are spending on the market I'd say SWTOR is quite healthy. 1 million was one of their target benchmarks and that only included sub money and not additional revenue from the store.
still, EVE is thriving and having more players on the server then SWTOR has
"going into arguments with idiots is a lost cause, it requires you to stoop down to their level and you can't win"
Actually what Bioware said was (something like) second largest sub based game in the west. Which got me thinking.
Ignoring the fact that EA won't (shouldn't) actually know the sub numbers for other manufacturers games - so its an opinion - what are the other "western" sub based games?
Technically Eve is a worldwide game - it was originally released in Europe and US in 2003 but then CCP distributed in digitally "worldwide". So on that basis it would be excluded from the comparison - as is WoW strictly speaking.
Even SWTOR itself is not, strictly speaking, a western mmorpg - although with the closing of the ANZAC servers the population outside the EU and US is probably small.
Bottomline: there are not very many "western" only sub based games.
If SWTOR was "second to WoW" and ahead of Eve - implying that SWTOR had more than 500k subscribers - we can be very, very sure that EA would have shouted it from the rooftops and let everyone know.
So what did EA assume? That SWTOR was second to Eve - when anyone talks about WoW subs they are talking worldwide afterall. Or maybe that WAR is number 1 and SWTOR number 2 .....
I suspect they might have been were saying smaller than Eve and WoW but bigger than all other sub based games (so no Lineage in the west, Final Fantasy, LoL, Clone Wars, Runescape, AoC etc etc).
Which, frankly, is no big deal. Bigger than WAR, DAoC, UO - numbers they would know - and bigger than Darkfall (an assumption) and a few other, even smaller, games.
Originally posted by Ahnog Your figures do not take into account all the people on other planets.
The basic assumption is that subscribers will have purchased the expansion and will be playing on Makeb - because its new and they have just purchased the expansion - and that F2P people have not purchased the expansion and are limited to the other planets. Its an assumption but I think it is reasonable.
Been playing for few weeks. So far so good. There are always multiple instances running in most planets I've been playing on so far. GTN is going fine.
Actually what Bioware said was (something like) second largest sub based game in the west. Which got me thinking.
Ignoring the fact that EA won't (shouldn't) actually know the sub numbers for other manufacturers games - so its an opinion - what are the other "western" sub based games?
Technically Eve is a worldwide game - it was originally released in Europe and US in 2003 but then CCP distributed in digitally "worldwide". So on that basis it would be excluded from the comparison - as is WoW strictly speaking.
Even SWTOR itself is not, strictly speaking, a western mmorpg - although with the closing of the ANZAC servers the population outside the EU and US is probably small.
Bottomline: there are not very many "western" only sub based games.
If SWTOR was "second to WoW" and ahead of Eve - implying that SWTOR had more than 500k subscribers - we can be very, very sure that EA would have shouted it from the rooftops and let everyone know.
So what did EA assume? That SWTOR was second to Eve - when anyone talks about WoW subs they are talking worldwide afterall. Or maybe that WAR is number 1 and SWTOR number 2 .....
I suspect they might have been were saying smaller than Eve and WoW but bigger than all other sub based games (so no Lineage in the west, Final Fantasy, LoL, Clone Wars, Runescape, AoC etc etc).
Which, frankly, is no big deal. Bigger than WAR, DAoC, UO - numbers they would know - and bigger than Darkfall (an assumption) and a few other, even smaller, games.
So you are comparing EVE; a 2003 game, single server with 500k players, 100% sandbox where players make a difference on the gameworld to SWTOR which is a themepark, scripted, levelbased, no full loot pvp, no impact on the gameworld by the players and which has tens of servers with like a maximum of 1000 players on it...adds to that that all servers are exact copies of each 'star wars universe'?
Makes sense.
"going into arguments with idiots is a lost cause, it requires you to stoop down to their level and you can't win"
Been playing for few weeks. So far so good. There are always multiple instances running in most planets I've been playing on so far. GTN is going fine.
In other words: the game is in healthy condition.
I dare to say that SWTOR is most populated game after WOW
Been playing for few weeks. So far so good. There are always multiple instances running in most planets I've been playing on so far. GTN is going fine.
In other words: the game is in healthy condition.
I dare to say that SWTOR is most populated game after WOW
proof.
"going into arguments with idiots is a lost cause, it requires you to stoop down to their level and you can't win"
Originally posted by Ahnog Your figures do not take into account all the people on other planets.
The basic assumption is that subscribers will have purchased the expansion and will be playing on Makeb - because its new and they have just purchased the expansion - and that F2P people have not purchased the expansion and are limited to the other planets. Its an assumption but I think it is reasonable.
Not when you take into account that a lot of new content from that expansion takes place on the other planets. Both the bio and the mining questlines have you going across the other planets as do the new dailies. So yes, if you're going to make "assumptions" on numbers then you need to count the other planets.
Originally posted by Ahnog Your figures do not take into account all the people on other planets.
The basic assumption is that subscribers will have purchased the expansion and will be playing on Makeb - because its new and they have just purchased the expansion - and that F2P people have not purchased the expansion and are limited to the other planets. Its an assumption but I think it is reasonable.
Not when you take into account that a lot of new content from that expansion takes place on the other planets. Both the bio and the mining questlines have you going across the other planets as do the new dailies. So yes, if you're going to make "assumptions" on numbers then you need to count the other planets.
The problem is someone wants to use numbers to make a statement, and for that assumptions on numbers are used.
That makes it totally useless. Numbers should be based on hard facts.
"going into arguments with idiots is a lost cause, it requires you to stoop down to their level and you can't win"
Originally posted by Ahnog Your figures do not take into account all the people on other planets.
The basic assumption is that subscribers will have purchased the expansion and will be playing on Makeb - because its new and they have just purchased the expansion - and that F2P people have not purchased the expansion and are limited to the other planets. Its an assumption but I think it is reasonable.
Not when you take into account that a lot of new content from that expansion takes place on the other planets. Both the bio and the mining questlines have you going across the other planets as do the new dailies. So yes, if you're going to make "assumptions" on numbers then you need to count the other planets.
The problem is someone wants to use numbers to make a statement, and for that assumptions on numbers are used.
That makes it totally useless. Numbers should be based on hard facts.
Usually I would agree with you on that but since Bioware has not released sub numbers in the last year, people are left to speculate. My guess would be somewhere around 300 k.
Just want to throw this in there, i am a current subscriber to SW;TOR, i even have the RotHC expansion.. but.. i havent been to makeb yet, i'll get around to it eventually, but, it might take me a couple of months.. perhaps if you checked out Makeb again in 3 or 4 months time you might get a better idea of figures, maybe.. tbh, unless EA starts giving out figures, all the OP is doing is guesswork, and even less valid than a xfire statistic would be
Actually we know for a fact that SWTOR has more subs than Eve because Bioware has said they are second behind WoW in terms of sub numbers. I think between 500k and 1 million is a fair estimate and it was in the range previously provided. The rest of the population is made up of free to play and preferred players. When you add in extra revenue from subs on top of whatever free players are spending on the market I'd say SWTOR is quite healthy. 1 million was one of their target benchmarks and that only included sub money and not additional revenue from the store.
still, EVE is thriving and having more players on the server then SWTOR has
Eve's numbers are skewed because everyone is running 2 or 3 (or more) accounts. Difference between active subscribed accounts and active subscribed players:
SWTOR: 1:1 or close to it (I know of no one that has more than 1 sub to SWTOR)
EVE: 2:1 or 3:1 (I myself *had* 2 accounts for Eve, know of many people who had/have multiple accounts).
So if you see that 50,000 online for Eve, that's really more like 20,000 players. Heh.
Actually we know for a fact that SWTOR has more subs than Eve because Bioware has said they are second behind WoW in terms of sub numbers. I think between 500k and 1 million is a fair estimate and it was in the range previously provided. The rest of the population is made up of free to play and preferred players. When you add in extra revenue from subs on top of whatever free players are spending on the market I'd say SWTOR is quite healthy. 1 million was one of their target benchmarks and that only included sub money and not additional revenue from the store.
still, EVE is thriving and having more players on the server then SWTOR has
Eve's numbers are skewed because everyone is running 2 or 3 (or more) accounts. Difference between active subscribed accounts and active subscribed players:
SWTOR: 1:1 or close to it (I know of no one that has more than 1 sub to SWTOR)
EVE: 2:1 or 3:1 (I myself *had* 2 accounts for Eve, know of many people who had/have multiple accounts).
So if you see that 50,000 online for Eve, that's really more like 20,000 players. Heh.
I have sub in EVE but login only to get skills up... soon though EVE will have minus one sub... it's beyond boring (aka not my kind of fun).
Yes this was all speculation on my part, but I did think it was an interesting exercise.
Makeb is unique in the Freemium world (I think) in that it is an expansion in that it is both a new area and a new level cap.
(Other Freemium games have DLC new areas, but not level caps which are tied to subscriptions.)
I saw Makeb as a way to ballpark subscription numbers when Makeb was new.
As to those saying that I didn't include fleets, other planets, etc; if anything, I erred in SWTOR's favor.
The most populated servers were reporting 30 instances of Makeb. (Servers vary in population, you can look on TOR Status to see this if you want)
I baked into my speculation that 17 (I excluded APAC) all were running 30 instances of Makeb, including Jung-MA, and the German PVP server, etc.
I also think that I could easily have guessed that a new expansion would have a 20% concurrency, but again erred in SWTOR's favor to 5-10%
If anything my speculative exercise's numbers are inflated.
As to EVE, they claim 500,000 subs. Wheter people have multiple accounts (But are still paying for them) doesn't really matter; that is the sub number they state and Bioware says they have more of, but without disclosing sub numbers.
As to EVE, they claim 500,000 subs. Wheter people have multiple accounts (But are still paying for them) doesn't really matter; that is the sub number they state and Bioware says they have more of, but without disclosing sub numbers.
Bioware never states they have more subs, they just state that Swtor has more players, 100% sure they are counting F2P players aswell. They just call Swtor a subscription MMO, eventhough it has a F2P option, and then try and compare it to subscription based only games.
F2P hasn't saved Swtor and it won't either. Only thing that could possibly save Swtor is that they manage to keep the crazy people that not only are paying a monthly fee but also spending loads on the Cartel Shop. But that will drop off over time for sure.
As to EVE, they claim 500,000 subs. Wheter people have multiple accounts (But are still paying for them) doesn't really matter; that is the sub number they state and Bioware says they have more of, but without disclosing sub numbers.
Bioware never states they have more subs, they just state that Swtor has more players, 100% sure they are counting F2P players aswell. They just call Swtor a subscription MMO, eventhough it has a F2P option, and then try and compare it to subscription based only games.
F2P hasn't saved Swtor and it won't either. Only thing that could possibly save Swtor is that they manage to keep the crazy people that not only are paying a monthly fee but also spending loads on the Cartel Shop. But that will drop off over time for sure.
"As Ohlen put it, TOR is the second biggest subscription MMORPG in the western world". -Joystiq
As tiefighter25 says this is just a speculative exercise; and a reasonable fun one imo.
And Olsen did indeed refer to subs - he didn't say what game SWTOR was number 2 (in the west) to however. I definitely feel that if SWTOR had more subscribers than Eve - so more than 500k - EA would have reported this in its quarterly results.
To put 500k+ into context post-launch SWTOR had 850k subs. EA gave out a 1.7M number last Feb and then "clarified" in March that "just about half" were recurring subscribers". So if the game still has/had 500k this would be significant good news. (And that is without the F2P contribution.) Considering how little good news they had to present with their last quarterly results I find it very unlikely that they would have "forgotten" to say so if this was the case.
(In reply to Muke above: the only reference to Eve is in regard to sub numbers, not whether one game is a sandbox etc. etc.)
i'm curious if anyone knows the actual sales numbers for ROTHC.
i find it interesting that i cannot find it anywhere.
it's not a good sign if EA doesn't want to disclose it.
No. EA don't, as a general rule, provide sales numbers for any of their titles. If they have a big hit - based on past quarterly results something that sells 1M+ inthe period after launch - these tend to get a mention but other than that they don;t bother.
What will be telliing is future content - players having been told that how well Makeb did would have an impact on future "stuff". If they start turning out quarterly "expansions" + frequent fluff packs (as they tend to do with the Sims say) then one can assume that things are going well - what they said they were going to do in fact! Small, infrequent releases however would suggest less well - less income = fewer staff = slower, smaller releases etc.
Comments
Only problem is that i don't call a freebie a subscriber because if he/she had to pay they would be gone.
Your numbers are off anyhow,you don't have every single subscriber on at the same time.The numbers would be around the 20:1 ratio over time but being brand new content,yes it might be a lot closer.
Unless a server has some way of showing current players online and which are freebie you could be way off on numbers,not 5% more like 50 % off and either way.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
that would mean roughly 3 mio swtor players,,thats more, than at launch
and they would have to fit into 1/10 of the servers
this doesnt seem right,,even with the new super servers
and some devs inflate their numbers,,blizzard surely does
still, EVE is thriving and having more players on the server then SWTOR has
"going into arguments with idiots is a lost cause, it requires you to stoop down to their level and you can't win"
Actually what Bioware said was (something like) second largest sub based game in the west. Which got me thinking.
Ignoring the fact that EA won't (shouldn't) actually know the sub numbers for other manufacturers games - so its an opinion - what are the other "western" sub based games?
Technically Eve is a worldwide game - it was originally released in Europe and US in 2003 but then CCP distributed in digitally "worldwide". So on that basis it would be excluded from the comparison - as is WoW strictly speaking.
Even SWTOR itself is not, strictly speaking, a western mmorpg - although with the closing of the ANZAC servers the population outside the EU and US is probably small.
Bottomline: there are not very many "western" only sub based games.
If SWTOR was "second to WoW" and ahead of Eve - implying that SWTOR had more than 500k subscribers - we can be very, very sure that EA would have shouted it from the rooftops and let everyone know.
So what did EA assume? That SWTOR was second to Eve - when anyone talks about WoW subs they are talking worldwide afterall. Or maybe that WAR is number 1 and SWTOR number 2 .....
I suspect they might have been were saying smaller than Eve and WoW but bigger than all other sub based games (so no Lineage in the west, Final Fantasy, LoL, Clone Wars, Runescape, AoC etc etc).
Which, frankly, is no big deal. Bigger than WAR, DAoC, UO - numbers they would know - and bigger than Darkfall (an assumption) and a few other, even smaller, games.
Ahnog
Hokey religions are no replacement for a good blaster at your side.
The basic assumption is that subscribers will have purchased the expansion and will be playing on Makeb - because its new and they have just purchased the expansion - and that F2P people have not purchased the expansion and are limited to the other planets. Its an assumption but I think it is reasonable.
Been playing for few weeks. So far so good. There are always multiple instances running in most planets I've been playing on so far. GTN is going fine.
In other words: the game is in healthy condition.
So you are comparing EVE; a 2003 game, single server with 500k players, 100% sandbox where players make a difference on the gameworld to SWTOR which is a themepark, scripted, levelbased, no full loot pvp, no impact on the gameworld by the players and which has tens of servers with like a maximum of 1000 players on it...adds to that that all servers are exact copies of each 'star wars universe'?
Makes sense.
"going into arguments with idiots is a lost cause, it requires you to stoop down to their level and you can't win"
I dare to say that SWTOR is most populated game after WOW
proof.
"going into arguments with idiots is a lost cause, it requires you to stoop down to their level and you can't win"
Not when you take into account that a lot of new content from that expansion takes place on the other planets. Both the bio and the mining questlines have you going across the other planets as do the new dailies. So yes, if you're going to make "assumptions" on numbers then you need to count the other planets.
Currently Playing: World of Warcraft
The problem is someone wants to use numbers to make a statement, and for that assumptions on numbers are used.
That makes it totally useless. Numbers should be based on hard facts.
"going into arguments with idiots is a lost cause, it requires you to stoop down to their level and you can't win"
Usually I would agree with you on that but since Bioware has not released sub numbers in the last year, people are left to speculate. My guess would be somewhere around 300 k.
Currently Playing: World of Warcraft
Eve's numbers are skewed because everyone is running 2 or 3 (or more) accounts. Difference between active subscribed accounts and active subscribed players:
SWTOR: 1:1 or close to it (I know of no one that has more than 1 sub to SWTOR)
EVE: 2:1 or 3:1 (I myself *had* 2 accounts for Eve, know of many people who had/have multiple accounts).
So if you see that 50,000 online for Eve, that's really more like 20,000 players. Heh.
I would like to add that time zones and peak hours are also variables to consider.
There are many aspects left out in the OP's calculations..
I have sub in EVE but login only to get skills up... soon though EVE will have minus one sub... it's beyond boring (aka not my kind of fun).
Sith Warrior - Story of Hate and Love http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sxKrlwXt7Ao
Imperial Agent - Rise of Cipher Nine http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OBBj3eJWBvU&feature=youtu.be
Imperial Agent - Hunt for the Eagle Part 1http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQqjYYU128E
Hey guys, OP here.
Yes this was all speculation on my part, but I did think it was an interesting exercise.
Makeb is unique in the Freemium world (I think) in that it is an expansion in that it is both a new area and a new level cap.
(Other Freemium games have DLC new areas, but not level caps which are tied to subscriptions.)
I saw Makeb as a way to ballpark subscription numbers when Makeb was new.
As to those saying that I didn't include fleets, other planets, etc; if anything, I erred in SWTOR's favor.
The most populated servers were reporting 30 instances of Makeb. (Servers vary in population, you can look on TOR Status to see this if you want)
I baked into my speculation that 17 (I excluded APAC) all were running 30 instances of Makeb, including Jung-MA, and the German PVP server, etc.
I also think that I could easily have guessed that a new expansion would have a 20% concurrency, but again erred in SWTOR's favor to 5-10%
If anything my speculative exercise's numbers are inflated.
As to EVE, they claim 500,000 subs. Wheter people have multiple accounts (But are still paying for them) doesn't really matter; that is the sub number they state and Bioware says they have more of, but without disclosing sub numbers.
Bioware never states they have more subs, they just state that Swtor has more players, 100% sure they are counting F2P players aswell. They just call Swtor a subscription MMO, eventhough it has a F2P option, and then try and compare it to subscription based only games.
F2P hasn't saved Swtor and it won't either. Only thing that could possibly save Swtor is that they manage to keep the crazy people that not only are paying a monthly fee but also spending loads on the Cartel Shop. But that will drop off over time for sure.
"As Ohlen put it, TOR is the second biggest subscription MMORPG in the western world". -Joystiq
I will edit this later.
As tiefighter25 says this is just a speculative exercise; and a reasonable fun one imo.
And Olsen did indeed refer to subs - he didn't say what game SWTOR was number 2 (in the west) to however. I definitely feel that if SWTOR had more subscribers than Eve - so more than 500k - EA would have reported this in its quarterly results.
To put 500k+ into context post-launch SWTOR had 850k subs. EA gave out a 1.7M number last Feb and then "clarified" in March that "just about half" were recurring subscribers". So if the game still has/had 500k this would be significant good news. (And that is without the F2P contribution.) Considering how little good news they had to present with their last quarterly results I find it very unlikely that they would have "forgotten" to say so if this was the case.
(In reply to Muke above: the only reference to Eve is in regard to sub numbers, not whether one game is a sandbox etc. etc.)
i'm curious if anyone knows the actual sales numbers for ROTHC.
i find it interesting that i cannot find it anywhere.
it's not a good sign if EA doesn't want to disclose it.
No. EA don't, as a general rule, provide sales numbers for any of their titles. If they have a big hit - based on past quarterly results something that sells 1M+ inthe period after launch - these tend to get a mention but other than that they don;t bother.
What will be telliing is future content - players having been told that how well Makeb did would have an impact on future "stuff". If they start turning out quarterly "expansions" + frequent fluff packs (as they tend to do with the Sims say) then one can assume that things are going well - what they said they were going to do in fact! Small, infrequent releases however would suggest less well - less income = fewer staff = slower, smaller releases etc.