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Sub Numbers - Are all MMOs in decline, or is there one that is growing?

DonY81DonY81 Member UncommonPosts: 398

All i see on the forums is people mentioning how games sub numbers are in decline.

TSW sub numbers declining

WoW - declining,

AOC - Decline,

GW2??

Rift overall -......yup declining.

 

Where are people going what are they playing?

Heres the question is there an MMO where subs are increasing?

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Comments

  • muffins89muffins89 Member UncommonPosts: 1,585
    there are so many options nowadays that people can switch between games with ease.  there are also more mmo's without a subscription then there are with one. 
  • HefaistosHefaistos Member UncommonPosts: 388
    f2p is winning this days and mmos are losing subs.Usually in December and when its Summer if no mmo is release people resub to whatever they've used 2 play. 
  • NitthNitth Member UncommonPosts: 3,904


    Originally posted by DonY81
    All i see on the forums is people mentioning how games sub numbers are in decline.TSW sub numbers decliningWoW - declining,AOC - Decline,GW2??Rift overall -......yup declining. Where are people going what are they playing?Heres the question is there an MMO where subs are increasing?

    I beleive eve is at an equilibrium or still maintains positive numbers..

    image
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  • TalinTalin Member UncommonPosts: 918

    There is so much saturation of options (not a bad thing from a player perspective), including a massive F2P market now. Subs are likely on a global decrease because of this, but it doesn't mean the actual number of people playing MMOs is decreasing.

    That said, if you cross-referenced against the rise in popularity of mobile gaming, you could likely draw some indirect conclusion about a time investment shift between where people play their games (computer/console/mobile) which could also account for a decline in this area. Of course, anyone who really calls those aweful time-locked, feature-limited "Mafia" type games as MMORPGs should be shot. :)

  • muffins89muffins89 Member UncommonPosts: 1,585

    also those games you listed are either old,  brand new,  or don't have a sub.

     

    games die over time and mmo's rarely increase numbers before they decrease.  rift's population is arguably stable.  although they might be growing due to the xpac.

  • fenistilfenistil Member Posts: 3,005

    Mmorpg's overall are declining in popularity, losing in popularity to lobby games.   It cannot be stopped. Mmorpg huge growth in west was because in 2004 there was very little non-fps online games without totally f**ed up matchmaking (battle.net was exception). 

     

    Now it is just slowly returning to normal.  Mmorpg's is becoming niche again.   General playerbase audience is slowly going into lobby-like or / and single or co-op online experience in some cases mixed with limited mmo-lite elements.   

  • stayontargetstayontarget Member RarePosts: 6,519
    Originally posted by DonY81

    All i see on the forums is people mentioning how games sub numbers are in decline.

    TSW sub numbers declining

    WoW - declining,

    AOC - Decline,

    GW2??

    Rift overall -......yup declining.

     

    Where are people going what are they playing?

    Heres the question is there an MMO where subs are increasing?

    Forget WoW, that was a one time deal thats never going to happen again.  Everything now is niche,  nothing wrong with that its just that people still expect "the next wow" to come along.

    Velika: City of Wheels: Among the mortal races, the humans were the only one that never built cities or great empires; a curse laid upon them by their creator, Gidd, forced them to wander as nomads for twenty centuries...

  • ElsaboltsElsabolts Member RarePosts: 3,476

    All in Decline, you can thank F2p and Item shops. The only one that is not is Blizzard's WoW but subs seem low.

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  • 3-4thElf3-4thElf Member Posts: 489

    Most any noteworthy game release, be it on PC, console, mobile, contains all of the novel aspects that MMORPGs used to exclusivly offer.

    MMOs aren't on the decline. They're just spread really thin now.

    It does range from crafting / collecting players playing casual social games like Farmville, and compeditive PVPers finding more action on games like League of Legends, to explorers and world shapers finding better experiences on games like Skyrim.

    The MMORPG as a single entity is archaic tech now.

    MMORPG developers haven't progressed what so ever in the last decade with MMO design. Other game platforms have.

    a yo ho ho

  • HefaistosHefaistos Member UncommonPosts: 388
    Originally posted by Elsabolts

    All in Decline, you can thank F2p and Item shops. The only one that is not is Blizzard's WoW but subs seem low.

    image

    You are right. The total ammount of gather bots, chinese farmers, chinese gold sellers, pvp bots, leveling bots is aroud the same. The total ammount of player base is so small you wont believe it. 

  • TheLizardbonesTheLizardbones Member CommonPosts: 10,910

    Video games in general individually decline. There are very few exceptions to this. WoW and Eve are the only exceptions to this that I can think of. Oddly enough, even though every video game released declines in numbers, the overall number of gamers increases. Not sure if that's true for MMORPG as well, but it certainly seems possible.

    I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.

  • DSWBeefDSWBeef Member UncommonPosts: 789
    I thought rift was up due to the successful release of SL? Maybe it still wasnt enough.

    Playing: FFXIV, DnL, and World of Warships
    Waiting on: Ashes of Creation

  • DibdabsDibdabs Member RarePosts: 3,203
    Originally posted by muffins89
    there are so many options nowadays that people can switch between games with ease.  there are also more mmo's without a subscription then there are with one. 

    Nicely summed up. As you say, this makes it trickier to say which game is in decline or growing.

    I have several 'free' MMOs (I'm including B2P and games I used to sub to which I now don't pay a sub for in this category for convenience) on my hard drive (LOtRO, Champions Online, GW1, GW2, SWtOR, DC Universe, Conan) and because I am not compelled to get my moneys-worth for a monthly sub I just play whichever one I feel like.  So, rather than playing one MMO almost exclusively, I'm spreading my playing time around to a lot more games.

  • kevjardskevjards Member UncommonPosts: 1,452
    sub numbers go up and down .itreally depends on the person.i go through phases where i play lotro..then i take a break and go to gw2..then i move to TSW.i,m sure i,m not the only one when it comes to this.all in all mmo subs will eventually decline badly because noone company is goin to rule the market once wow is gone.never again will sub numbers ever be that high..even when they release titan or whatever its called.there are way too many mmo's on the go which inevitably thins out the sub numbers to different games.
  • ShakyMoShakyMo Member CommonPosts: 7,207
    Planetside 2 servers are growing, all were high or full last night.
  • nariusseldonnariusseldon Member EpicPosts: 27,775
    Originally posted by DonY81

    All i see on the forums is people mentioning how games sub numbers are in decline.

    TSW sub numbers declining

    WoW - declining,

    AOC - Decline,

    GW2??

    Rift overall -......yup declining.

     

    Where are people going what are they playing?

    Heres the question is there an MMO where subs are increasing?

    Very simple.

    1) WOW gained back 1M sub to 10M .. so not declining.

    2) People don't sub, they play F2P. The evidence is clear that F2P is getting more and more of the MMO market.

  • OnomasOnomas Member UncommonPosts: 1,147
    Originally posted by nariusseldon
    Originally posted by DonY81

    All i see on the forums is people mentioning how games sub numbers are in decline.

    TSW sub numbers declining

    WoW - declining,

    AOC - Decline,

    GW2??

    Rift overall -......yup declining.

     

    Where are people going what are they playing?

    Heres the question is there an MMO where subs are increasing?

    Very simple.

    1) WOW gained back 1M sub to 10M .. so not declining.

    2) People don't sub, they play F2P. The evidence is clear that F2P is getting more and more of the MMO market.

     

    Thats because newer mmorpg's offer no value because they lack even the basic features. Even older rpg's with 300-500k subs did much better than most these newer mmorpg's that fall or go f2p just to try to bait new players to buy from their cash shops.

  • nariusseldonnariusseldon Member EpicPosts: 27,775
    Originally posted by Onomas
    Originally posted by nariusseldon
    Originally posted by DonY81

    All i see on the forums is people mentioning how games sub numbers are in decline.

    TSW sub numbers declining

    WoW - declining,

    AOC - Decline,

    GW2??

    Rift overall -......yup declining.

     

    Where are people going what are they playing?

    Heres the question is there an MMO where subs are increasing?

    Very simple.

    1) WOW gained back 1M sub to 10M .. so not declining.

    2) People don't sub, they play F2P. The evidence is clear that F2P is getting more and more of the MMO market.

     

    Thats because newer mmorpg's offer no value because they lack even the basic features. Even older rpg's with 300-500k subs did much better than most these newer mmorpg's that fall or go f2p just to try to bait new players to buy from their cash shops.

    So? Whatever the reason is .. F2P is taking over a large market share, and growing. And that is a reason why subs are declining. And if they are succesfful to get players buy from their cash shop, more power to them.

    It is a free world.

  • bizoux86bizoux86 Member UncommonPosts: 85

    I agree with many of the commentors in this thread.... There are just so many MMO options these days that people are playing several different games - of course numbers will go up and down depending on what games people are subscribed to or playing for free for that particular month.  I myself am playing Aion, but am subbed to WoW - I also dabble in other games too.  I feel like a lot of MMO players probably jump around quite a bit because of the extensive options available to us! 

     

  • nariusseldonnariusseldon Member EpicPosts: 27,775
    Originally posted by bizoux86

    I agree with many of the commentors in this thread.... There are just so many MMO options these days that people are playing several different games - of course numbers will go up and down depending on what games people are subscribed to or playing for free for that particular month.  I myself am playing Aion, but am subbed to WoW - I also dabble in other games too.  I feel like a lot of MMO players probably jump around quite a bit because of the extensive options available to us! 

     

    I will also add that more and more non-MMOs have MMO features, and may suit the playstyle of some players previosuly only play MMOs. LOL and WOT are good examples.

    The choices of online entertainment are many. There is no need to focus on just MMOs.

  • maplestonemaplestone Member UncommonPosts: 3,099

    Is it really fair to expect a publisher to come out shouting "look at our succesful business model and growing profit margin!  Clone us!  Clone us!"?

  • AxiosImmortalAxiosImmortal Member UncommonPosts: 645
    MMOs are declining nowadays because its easy to get burn't out from it when old MMOs it was hard to get burn't out

    Looking at: The Repopulation
    Preordering: None
    Playing: Random Games

  • XiaokiXiaoki Member EpicPosts: 3,823


    Originally posted by nariusseldon
    So? Whatever the reason is .. F2P is taking over a large market share, and growing. And that is a reason why subs are declining. And if they are succesfful to get players buy from their cash shop, more power to them.It is a free world.
    Free to play MMOs are growing and taking over the market because nearly all new MMOs are horrible and not worth $15 a month so they are forced to adopt the Free to play model or perish.


    What does it say about the MMORPG genre as a whole when "Horrible" has become the majority?


    Oh yeah, look at the thread title.

  • TealaTeala Member RarePosts: 7,627
    They're all mediocre at best, even WoW has losts its shine, so yeah...I'd say MMO's are on the decline.    Until games designers of this genre go back to making persistent virtual game worlds - these games will continue to decline in popularity.   
  • WayshubaWayshuba Member UncommonPosts: 72

    I think this is a result of a few things.

     

    1.) There are more MMOs on the market than ever before, so getting players really requires a fresh approach to long term engagment.

     

    2.) Along with the above statement, games have been doing a TERRIBLE job at taking this fresh approach. They all seem very similar with just different skins.

     

    3.) The F2P model encourages this types of behaviour.

     

    I mean the MMO market is currently noted as $1.6B in the US and about $6.5B Worldwide. With like 300 MMOs out there that leaves about $18M in annual revenue if each had equal market share. Unfortunately, most MMOs need to hit about the $50M to $60M mark to both turn a profit and deliver content at a steady enough pace. So the F2P model is meant to get increasing levels of cash from a smaller player base.

     

    It's a tough market now, and I personally believe the F2P model is NOT the one for the future. I think MMOs charge for the initial game, give away the sub and go with charging for content updates on a regular basis. Not the micro-transactions of today.

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