Originally posted by Paragus1 Why would you tout a number that has no real meaning? That's like when some MMOs brag about forum accounts or other such nonsense. There is probably a reason they don't talk about the only number that really counts.
Yes, I was wondering why they are touting the term "registrations" instead of sales or subscriptions. I know F2P games tend to use this metric a lot (40M registered) but can't see why the term carried over to this title.
No matter how you look at it, lots of people are playing and enjoying this game right now, even if it isn't the WOW killer so many people think each new title should be.
SE is focusing on Registrations instead of subscriptions for very simple business reasons. MMOs have the biggest fluctuations in subscriptions in the first month, 3 months, and 6 months. The subscribers become very stable after 6 months. The people who love the game will stay for a very long time and those that wanted to try out the newest mmo have tried and moved on.
You also have a very large segment that hops from mmo to mmo.... plays 15 hours a day, and complains that the game ahs no content. There is no point to releasing subscription numbers after the first month when you know it will change the following month. The fluctuations only mean something if they are below or above industry average.
We've approached the first milestone..... how many people are continuing to subscribe after the first month. YoshiP said industry average for MMOs from 2008 until now is 35%. He said that FFXIV's retention was far higher than the industry average. The next measuring stick is the 3 month mark which will be end of November.
You're going to see less people playing until the release of patch 2.1 (HUGE CONTENT PATCH). Then you will see a gigantic spike in the number of people playing, buying the game, etc. It will go down again the last month before release of 2.2. This is the way subscription MMOS work, just like WoW/RIFT (when it was P2P).
What's important is that subscription mmos see FAR LESS fluctuations in their subscribers after the 6 month period than B2P or F2P games. After 6 months, you'll know as a company how much money, on average you are getting monthly and can plan content patches accordingly. SE has already done the in depth study. SE already knows what its' breaking point is. YoshiP has said all this game needs is 400k people paying. They have that much in JAPAN ALONE.
This game has 61 servers last time I checked. 2+ months later, I get Queues during prime time. I don't know what the numbers will be 4 months later, but this game is a huge success financially for SE (for now).
Those of you saying it will lose 90% of the subscriber base in a year and go free to play, no offense, but that's so unreasonable and delusional. Heck, Warhammer, a gigantic flop only announced its server shutdowns... and it's going for 4-5 years now.
FFXIV is a much better game, with a loyal fanbase and a worldwide release. FFXIV is going to be released in CHINA and has content patches. It's going to be released on the PS4 and the game will look like high/Max settings on PS4 as it does on PC.
This game is not something EVERYONE will enjoy, but there are enough people who love the old school feel, the group mechanics and faithful trinity system to stay. This is my opinion but the industry averages seem to show that FFXIV will be more successful than most games released in the last five years.
Some of you are failing to see the forest through the trees.
Compare this game to other subsription based games to determine if it's a successful mmo. All the F2P games with 2+ million users doesn't mean anything. It's how much money a game brings in.
Let's say there are 500k players paying for FFXIV right now ( i think it's closer to 750k but i'll assume the lower number). Look at the post above where Yoshi said they retained MORE than the industry average of players passed the first month.
500,000 players x $12.00 / month = $6 million a month x 12 months = $72 million a year.
This is GUARANTEED income. If 10 million play GW2 but no one is buying anything from the cash shop (just like I didn't buy anything in the cash shop for 4 months), then financially speaking, FFXIV is doing very well.
Yup, this game is failing alright.
So you are guaranteeing that these 500k that are playing past the first month will pay for a full year and guarantee FFXIV 72 million? Nothing in life is guaranteed.....I doubt 10 percent of those are playing after a year.....
1.5 million registrations after release. That means it's 1.5 million copies sold (combining 1.0 and ARR).
My estimations were generously based on the fact that 1 million people have left and are not playing. So you're saying that of the 500k paying now, only 10% (~50k) will stay after a year? So you're predicting that after 1 year, with 50k subscribers, FFXIV will have only retained 3% of its 1.5 million registrations? Don't you think you're being completely unreasonable ?
FFXIV 1.0, as horrible as it was, was able to triple its subscribers from when YoshiP took over to when it closed down. My prediction is in line with YoshiP.
In one year, FFXIV will have a very stable 500 - 700k player base and will be pumping out content patches every 3 months for the next 10 years. Just like FFXI.
So you are guaranteeing that these 500k that are playing past the first month will pay for a full year and guarantee FFXIV 72 million? Nothing in life is guaranteed.....I doubt 10 percent of those are playing after a year.....
There are 3 things in life that are guaranteed...
Death
Taxes
And subscription based MMO's released after 2004 will go f2p.
This doom and gloom thread was brought to you by Chin Up the new ultra high caffeine soft drink for gamers who just need that boost of happiness after a long forum session.
I'll be interested when western game publishers start giving stats out like the Koreans do, total hours played per month; and then some concurrency numbers.
The only game publisher I know of that offers some sort of honest concurrency stats is CCP with EVE. That impresses me. All the rest is just smoke and mirrors. You eat it up if you're a fanboy of the IP or you dish it if you're not. I wish we would collectively start yawning at anything that isn't meaningful.
I'm not sure why anyone would do this, particularly if they are a public company. That makes zero business sense.
Well you don't need millions of players to have money maker, if they have the 400k at 14.99 a month ( I don't play the game just going by standard mmo sub) That is $5,990,000 just off subs, yea they can do all right with that kinda income, monthly.. /shrug
Heh, I want to see some retention numbers a few months from now. It's been 2 months since launch, and the official forums are now chock full of disappointed people criticizing this or that - and that's for whatever the invisible mods allow to exist, as they've been going extremely trigger happy, even going as far as permanently banning some more critical members after they speak up, justifying the bans with completely made up reasons... I say give it a few more months. People are increasingly realizing the bullshit that SE gave us with 2.0, and if things don't change... I think the future is bleak for that game. They went with a very shortsighted approach this time around.
Thought FFXIV is P2P only with no Free players. So if they have 1.5 million registrations then everyone of them paid something at some point. There is no doubt they have made and are continuing to make a lot of money here. [mod edit]
Originally posted by NobleNerd I enjoyed my time in Eorzea up until I was hacked. The nonexistent response of SE after using all the right channels to submit my report was disappointing. At this point I wouldn't even call it a bad customer service experience... instead there was no customer experience at all!! After this I chose to not sub. any longer.
Amen, brother. Although I wasn't hacked, (I had another account related issue) their customer support has to be the friggin' worst by a country mile. Never in my 10 plus years of gaming have I met such an incompetent company in terms of customer service, that cares so little for their customers.
Originally posted by Klefth Heh, I want to see some retention numbers a few months from now. It's been 2 months since launch, and the official forums are now chock full of disappointed people criticizing this or that - and that's for whatever the invisible mods allow to exist, as they've been going extremely trigger happy, even going as far as permanently banning some more critical members after they speak up, justifying the bans with completely made up reasons... I say give it a few more months. People are increasingly realizing the bullshit that SE gave us with 2.0, and if things don't change... I think the future is bleak for that game. They went with a very shortsighted approach this time around.
If your talking about the general forums that is a tiny % of the base players. And as for the underlined please prove this because it smells of BS.
I myself got perma-banned for a post in which I explained an in-game feature to another forum member. The report said I had been banned for discrimination. A friend of mine posted something, asking for people to kindly stop reporting people for the hell of it; he got perma-banned, too. Many people have voiced how they've been banned even for stuff posted ages ago on the beta forums, or for something as silly as posting a Lady Gaga picture. Perhaps one of the most critical and (un)popular member of the forums had a ton of threads, which would usually go up to 50 pages full of insults towards him because of his opinions alone - he responded once, calling one of those insulting posts stupid, and got perma-banned. The official forums are chock-full of trolls jumping at anybody who might have a different opinion anytime, but you see someone directly criticizing an element of the game or the current direction of it, and you can bet the thread will eventually be deleted, and the OP should be lucky if he doesn't get a 10 day break or even a permanent one like myself.
Originally posted by Klefth Heh, I want to see some retention numbers a few months from now. It's been 2 months since launch, and the official forums are now chock full of disappointed people criticizing this or that - and that's for whatever the invisible mods allow to exist, as they've been going extremely trigger happy, even going as far as permanently banning some more critical members after they speak up, justifying the bans with completely made up reasons... I say give it a few more months. People are increasingly realizing the bullshit that SE gave us with 2.0, and if things don't change... I think the future is bleak for that game. They went with a very shortsighted approach this time around.
If your talking about the general forums that is a tiny % of the base players. And as for the underlined please prove this because it smells of BS.
I myself got perma-banned for a post in which I explained an in-game feature to another forum member. The report said I had been banned for discrimination. A friend of mine posted something, asking for people to kindly stop reporting people for the hell of it; he got perma-banned, too. Many people have voiced how they've been banned even for stuff posted ages ago on the beta forums, or for something as silly as posting a Lady Gaga picture. Perhaps one of the most critical and (un)popular member of the forums had a ton of threads, which would usually go up to 50 pages full of insults towards him because of his opinions alone - he responded once, calling one of those insulting posts stupid, and got perma-banned. The official forums are chock-full of trolls jumping at anybody who might have a different opinion anytime, but you see someone directly criticizing an element of the game or the current direction of it, and you can bet the thread will eventually be deleted, and the OP should be lucky if he doesn't get a 10 day break or even a permanent one like myself.
I have a friend that was perma-banned for making too much gil in too short a period of time, even though he did it legitimately. After he was banned, he was like WTF?! He tried explaining why/how he made that much gil and pleaded with them to look at his logs and they basically ignored him.
It appears they have a threshold in-game that automatically flags you if you make so much gil over a certain period of time and they auto-drop the hammer down on you.
Don't get me wrong, the game itself is great; unfortunately like some other games, it is being poorly managed. It actually reminds me of how Warhammer Online was being handled, not really in terms of banning people, but an overall disdain and lack of respect for their customers. An attitude of we're better than you, you are dirt beneath our shoes and we just want your money, not your input nor anything else!
Originally posted by NobleNerd I enjoyed my time in Eorzea up until I was hacked. The nonexistent response of SE after using all the right channels to submit my report was disappointing. At this point I wouldn't even call it a bad customer service experience... instead there was no customer experience at all!! After this I chose to not sub. any longer.
Amen, brother. Although I wasn't hacked, (I had another account related issue) their customer support has to be the friggin' worst by a country mile. Never in my 10 plus years of gaming have I met such an incompetent company in terms of customer service, that cares so little for their customers.
They are like monkeys humping a football!
I have been less than impressed with Arena Net's CS with GW2 as well...a huge step down from Blizzard's CS which has always been top notch for the 6 years I have played their games.
Originally posted by NobleNerd I enjoyed my time in Eorzea up until I was hacked. The nonexistent response of SE after using all the right channels to submit my report was disappointing. At this point I wouldn't even call it a bad customer service experience... instead there was no customer experience at all!! After this I chose to not sub. any longer.
Amen, brother. Although I wasn't hacked, (I had another account related issue) their customer support has to be the friggin' worst by a country mile. Never in my 10 plus years of gaming have I met such an incompetent company in terms of customer service, that cares so little for their customers.
They are like monkeys humping a football!
I have been less than impressed with Arena Net's CS with GW2 as well...a huge step down from Blizzard's CS which has always been top notch for the 6 years I have played their games.
Agreed.
Say what you will about how dated/tired/worn etc. WoW is as a game, but Blizzard is a fine-oiled machine when it comes to their CS, marketing, and managing of their product. There's no one better IMHO.
I believe that if other MMO companies out there managed their games in similar manner to Blizzard, those games would most likely be much more successful.
Why do people poo poo those kind of numbers? There is only one MMORPG with more than 1.5 million active players. Please ignore the 2 million or 3 million claims. I'm in the 'active player' count of Age of Conan even though I have not touched the game in 3 years.
The world is going to the dogs, which is just how I planned it!
Comments
SE is focusing on Registrations instead of subscriptions for very simple business reasons. MMOs have the biggest fluctuations in subscriptions in the first month, 3 months, and 6 months. The subscribers become very stable after 6 months. The people who love the game will stay for a very long time and those that wanted to try out the newest mmo have tried and moved on.
You also have a very large segment that hops from mmo to mmo.... plays 15 hours a day, and complains that the game ahs no content. There is no point to releasing subscription numbers after the first month when you know it will change the following month. The fluctuations only mean something if they are below or above industry average.
We've approached the first milestone..... how many people are continuing to subscribe after the first month. YoshiP said industry average for MMOs from 2008 until now is 35%. He said that FFXIV's retention was far higher than the industry average. The next measuring stick is the 3 month mark which will be end of November.
You're going to see less people playing until the release of patch 2.1 (HUGE CONTENT PATCH). Then you will see a gigantic spike in the number of people playing, buying the game, etc. It will go down again the last month before release of 2.2. This is the way subscription MMOS work, just like WoW/RIFT (when it was P2P).
What's important is that subscription mmos see FAR LESS fluctuations in their subscribers after the 6 month period than B2P or F2P games. After 6 months, you'll know as a company how much money, on average you are getting monthly and can plan content patches accordingly. SE has already done the in depth study. SE already knows what its' breaking point is. YoshiP has said all this game needs is 400k people paying. They have that much in JAPAN ALONE.
This game has 61 servers last time I checked. 2+ months later, I get Queues during prime time. I don't know what the numbers will be 4 months later, but this game is a huge success financially for SE (for now).
Those of you saying it will lose 90% of the subscriber base in a year and go free to play, no offense, but that's so unreasonable and delusional. Heck, Warhammer, a gigantic flop only announced its server shutdowns... and it's going for 4-5 years now.
FFXIV is a much better game, with a loyal fanbase and a worldwide release. FFXIV is going to be released in CHINA and has content patches. It's going to be released on the PS4 and the game will look like high/Max settings on PS4 as it does on PC.
This game is not something EVERYONE will enjoy, but there are enough people who love the old school feel, the group mechanics and faithful trinity system to stay. This is my opinion but the industry averages seem to show that FFXIV will be more successful than most games released in the last five years.
1.5 million registrations after release. That means it's 1.5 million copies sold (combining 1.0 and ARR).
My estimations were generously based on the fact that 1 million people have left and are not playing. So you're saying that of the 500k paying now, only 10% (~50k) will stay after a year? So you're predicting that after 1 year, with 50k subscribers, FFXIV will have only retained 3% of its 1.5 million registrations? Don't you think you're being completely unreasonable
?
FFXIV 1.0, as horrible as it was, was able to triple its subscribers from when YoshiP took over to when it closed down. My prediction is in line with YoshiP.
In one year, FFXIV will have a very stable 500 - 700k player base and will be pumping out content patches every 3 months for the next 10 years. Just like FFXI.
There are 3 things in life that are guaranteed...
Death
Taxes
And subscription based MMO's released after 2004 will go f2p.
This doom and gloom thread was brought to you by Chin Up the new ultra high caffeine soft drink for gamers who just need that boost of happiness after a long forum session.
Considering there is a box fee...how exactly is 1.5m registered players (I'm reading that as accounts) irrelevant?
That's at least $20 per registration for $30m?
Then put on top at minimum 35% retention, that seems like extremely strong numbers to me.
I'm not sure why anyone would do this, particularly if they are a public company. That makes zero business sense.
Well you don't need millions of players to have money maker, if they have the 400k at 14.99 a month ( I don't play the game just going by standard mmo sub) That is $5,990,000 just off subs, yea they can do all right with that kinda income, monthly.. /shrug
Amen, brother. Although I wasn't hacked, (I had another account related issue) their customer support has to be the friggin' worst by a country mile. Never in my 10 plus years of gaming have I met such an incompetent company in terms of customer service, that cares so little for their customers.
They are like monkeys humping a football!
I myself got perma-banned for a post in which I explained an in-game feature to another forum member. The report said I had been banned for discrimination. A friend of mine posted something, asking for people to kindly stop reporting people for the hell of it; he got perma-banned, too. Many people have voiced how they've been banned even for stuff posted ages ago on the beta forums, or for something as silly as posting a Lady Gaga picture. Perhaps one of the most critical and (un)popular member of the forums had a ton of threads, which would usually go up to 50 pages full of insults towards him because of his opinions alone - he responded once, calling one of those insulting posts stupid, and got perma-banned. The official forums are chock-full of trolls jumping at anybody who might have a different opinion anytime, but you see someone directly criticizing an element of the game or the current direction of it, and you can bet the thread will eventually be deleted, and the OP should be lucky if he doesn't get a 10 day break or even a permanent one like myself.
I have a friend that was perma-banned for making too much gil in too short a period of time, even though he did it legitimately. After he was banned, he was like WTF?! He tried explaining why/how he made that much gil and pleaded with them to look at his logs and they basically ignored him.
It appears they have a threshold in-game that automatically flags you if you make so much gil over a certain period of time and they auto-drop the hammer down on you.
Don't get me wrong, the game itself is great; unfortunately like some other games, it is being poorly managed. It actually reminds me of how Warhammer Online was being handled, not really in terms of banning people, but an overall disdain and lack of respect for their customers. An attitude of we're better than you, you are dirt beneath our shoes and we just want your money, not your input nor anything else!
Edit: Spelling
3 months down the line?:
FFXIV at 50,000 players strong
I have been less than impressed with Arena Net's CS with GW2 as well...a huge step down from Blizzard's CS which has always been top notch for the 6 years I have played their games.
Agreed.
Say what you will about how dated/tired/worn etc. WoW is as a game, but Blizzard is a fine-oiled machine when it comes to their CS, marketing, and managing of their product. There's no one better IMHO.
I believe that if other MMO companies out there managed their games in similar manner to Blizzard, those games would most likely be much more successful.
1.5 million people is pretty good.
Why do people poo poo those kind of numbers? There is only one MMORPG with more than 1.5 million active players. Please ignore the 2 million or 3 million claims. I'm in the 'active player' count of Age of Conan even though I have not touched the game in 3 years.
The world is going to the dogs, which is just how I planned it!