It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
http://www.ccpgames.com/en/public-relations/press-releases/article/en-US/10
I found this part of particular note
"In addition to the game’s relaunch in China, CCP also announced that the recent launch of the game’s 18th free expansion, EVE Online: Retribution, has also helped the game cross the 450,000-subscriber mark for the first time in its nearly ten-year history. "Because of the tremendous effort of the team at CCP, we can proudly say that EVE Online has grown every year since its launch in 2003,” added Pétursson."
Whenever I've said this on these forums I was accused of lying because I could never find the statements from CCP to back it up at the time
Yes, even WiS, their most disasterous expansion, STILL saw them grow.
Even the most harshest critic is forced to recognise this fact.
Just sayin! dont be mad bro.
Comments
The announcement is misleading.
450k subs includes global subscribers - "western" and China servers. Just look at login graphs of Tranquility...there is no growth since Incursion expansion in 2010, on the contrary subs are bleeding.
http://eve-offline.net/?server=tranquility
Looks pretty stable to me. For some, the glass might be half empty because the subs are not growing on tranq, but for me a 10 year old MMO that has been able to keep a stable active and pretty large playerbase for so long is a success with any measure.
The chinese server had trouble breaking 1/10th of the concurrent users tranquility had, and from its launchday on it was bleeding subs like a pig.
Yes, until CCP has changed their Chinese publisher in summer 2012. Currently, Serenity is hosting about half population Tranquility does.
Currently serenity is in its first 30 days of being a paid service because it was a open beta till the 6th december. Lets see if tian can address the issues that plagued the old serenity and make the game actually attractive to players.
Sure, however point still being that it was rather Chinese "subscribers" getting CCP closer to mark of 450k subs rather than underperforming "western" subscribers.
Yeah maybe, but it was the relaunch of EvE Retribution in china that helped them cross the 450k subs, i mean its not like they just opened EvE in china. I kinda doubt it would have gotten a boost in subs in china if they had relaunched the same version players could play there before. So imho CCPs point still stands, Retribution = sub record and growth.
EVE China isn't running same build as Tranquility. Their expansions are delayed due translations and other technicalities.
Serenity spiked up already with their open beta starting in summer and currently they have more subs than ever so yeah, changing a publisher made a huge impact.
Launch of Retribution in "west" made little to no difference.
Source? >54k concurent users last weekend seems like a pretty significant bump to me. Alot higher than pretty much anything we have ever seen. But im not a statistics guy, so maybe it wasn't a pcu record.
Source:
http://eve-offline.net/?server=tranquility
Check Serenity, that's what you call a bump
Serenity used to have like 4k concurrent users but now they peak 20k PAYING customers.
Do we know for sure that everyone on serenity is a paying customer, or is there maybe a graceperiod or free service period or somesuch running? Not dissing the numbers, but we got awefully little on serenity and subscriber numbers.
Edit: Atleast some of those have to be running trial accounts, since the game just relaunched with supposedly big advertising going on.
Good point, but...EVE Online China indeed offer trial but so does EVE Online "west" so it pretty much evens out on concurrent user numbers(assuming ratio of trial accounts is about the same).
What I was pointing at is that they kept their high user base from open beta.
Which is suspicious to me. I mean since when does amount of open beta players directly translate into paying subscribers? Usually you either get way more due to official launch, ads etc, or you have significiantly less since people now have to pay to play.
Im more wait and see, maybe something fishy is going on like open beta players getting a free month or something, to help ease actual new players in or something. Im going to wait and see, however it would be awesome if EvE china had good userbase.
Sure, however point still being that it was rather Chinese "subscribers" getting CCP closer to mark of 450k subs rather than underperforming "western" subscribers.
Does that matter to anyone outside of these forums? They added a good number of subscribers. Instead of being a money sink, that server is now generating money. Why wouldn't they brag about it?
I don't think I could care less about how misleading their statements are. I don't play Eve, and I never will. However, this means they'll have more money that they can push into World of Darkness, which I would like to play before my fingers get arthritis so bad that I can't use the keyboard.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
If you would ask CCP ex-employees that got laid off last year, I think at least they do care.
However, misleading was probably not the right word, I just wanted to clear out the confusion of OP.