Official forum activity is a better indicator. You don't have to download anything either. Throw in in-game visual population estimates and you're set. Also to the guy above me's point, a lot of people don't use x-fire. I don't, everyone I know (From games) doesn't.
Official forum activity is a better indicator. You don't have to download anything either. Throw in in-game visual population estimates and you're set. Also to the guy above me's point, a lot of people don't use x-fire. I don't, everyone I know (From games) doesn't.
GW2 players have left in droves by the way.
Official forum activity is usless for determining population.
I play mmos since meridian 59, thats like 15 years. Played almost every AAA mmo, clearing the endgame. And never used Xfire. Almost no one i know uses it and i run a gaming community for 10 years.
You obviously underestimate the real hardcore playerbase that done bother with usless toys like that.
Well in my experience since UO's troubled launch I've learned to not get too far up on a high horse before I get too carried away with myself.
Xifre users average 5 hours per session on SWTOR. That's hardcore.
Also, xfire's proven to be relevant in the past year. Try reading this then get back to us. Enjoy.
I play mmos since meridian 59, thats like 15 years. Played almost every AAA mmo, clearing the endgame. And never used Xfire. Almost no one i know uses it and i run a gaming community for 10 years.
You obviously underestimate the real hardcore playerbase that done bother with usless toys like that.
Well in my experience since UO's troubled launch I've learned to not get too far up on a high horse before I get too carried away with myself.
Xifre users average 5 hours per session on SWTOR. That's hardcore.
Also, xfire's proven to be relevant in the past year. Try reading this then get back to us. Enjoy.
I dont think anyone disputes that xfire is at least a decent indicator of population trends, but this thread is about population estimates.
And xfire is useless in determinging the populaton of game X based on information we have from game Y.
I play mmos since meridian 59, thats like 15 years. Played almost every AAA mmo, clearing the endgame. And never used Xfire. Almost no one i know uses it and i run a gaming community for 10 years.
You obviously underestimate the real hardcore playerbase that done bother with usless toys like that.
Well in my experience since UO's troubled launch I've learned to not get too far up on a high horse before I get too carried away with myself.
Xifre users average 5 hours per session on SWTOR. That's hardcore.
Also, xfire's proven to be relevant in the past year. Try reading this then get back to us. Enjoy.
Most of the guys i know plays 10-12h a day. I talk about hardcore. Not Softcore.
I play mmos since meridian 59, thats like 15 years. Played almost every AAA mmo, clearing the endgame. And never used Xfire. Almost no one i know uses it and i run a gaming community for 10 years.
You obviously underestimate the real hardcore playerbase that done bother with usless toys like that.
Well in my experience since UO's troubled launch I've learned to not get too far up on a high horse before I get too carried away with myself.
Xifre users average 5 hours per session on SWTOR. That's hardcore.
Also, xfire's proven to be relevant in the past year. Try reading this then get back to us. Enjoy.
Most of the guys i know plays 10-12h a day. I talk about hardcore. Not Softcore.
Originally posted by Gaia_Hunter I have a question.
Which one of the following games is dying?
Now question number 2.
WoW in January 2012 had 90K hours played.
Now WoW in January 2013 has 25K hours played.
So should we expect a loss of 2.5M is subs soon (60% of the 4M rumoured west subs)?
If not, does that mean XFire users are shrinking?
Are launch and special events/patchs peaks a good starting point to measure population decline or rise?
By the way large/good enough aren't characteristics of a random population.
Polling 1000 male gamers if they think female characters are oversexualized in games will be no different than polling 10000 male gamers, when the objective is what do gamers think about it.
this came from a different thread but its better discussing here - esp Xfire as a population tool
Using Xfire is like believing in political polls. And I do believe the "polls" continually showed that Obama would lose. Polls do afterall take "samples" from a segment of the population and make estimations based on those samples.
Sorry buds, but I can stand outside a Phish concert, and ask everyone leaving what color the sky is, and, since a large portion of them are going to be tripping on some type of hallucinogen, find that most of them think the sky is pink, or purple...or rainbow colored.
Does this sample mean that MOST PEOPLE THINK THE SKY IS NOT BLUE!
No.
So, come up with a poll asking about something that has to do with a world view.
Ask 50,000 people each from New York, Los Angles, Biloxi, London, Tokyo...and watch how end up with 5 very different results.
data samples are only valid when the samples are taken from equal pools of data, polls and samples from websites do not represent the whole because the variables are far too great.
I hope we shall crush...in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations, which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength and bid defiance to the laws of our country." ~Thomes Jefferson
Originally posted by Yamota TERA is showing a big bump which is most likely due to the 7 days reactivation of accounts. Let's see if it lasts until the game goes F2P in a month or so.
Tera does not support Xfire, users have to manually go in and change their game files for Xfire to detect Tera.
Originally posted by Gaia_Hunter I have a question.
Which one of the following games is dying?
Now question number 2.
WoW in January 2012 had 90K hours played.
Now WoW in January 2013 has 25K hours played.
So should we expect a loss of 2.5M is subs soon (60% of the 4M rumoured west subs)?
If not, does that mean XFire users are shrinking?
Are launch and special events/patchs peaks a good starting point to measure population decline or rise?
By the way large/good enough aren't characteristics of a random population.
Polling 1000 male gamers if they think female characters are oversexualized in games will be no different than polling 10000 male gamers, when the objective is what do gamers think about it.
this came from a different thread but its better discussing here - esp Xfire as a population tool
for me, #2 show the flaws of Xfire as a population tool
That's on xfire. The 5.0.4 patch changed the WoW executable and dx renderer. I think the only way to get xfire to work now is to move the wow exe. around and change the renderer.
XFire got a little more interesting now that Anet claims GW2 sold 3 million copies.
It says GW2 has 3255 players on per day. Is that an average? I don't know how they arrive at that number.
For SWTOR it shows 1488 players per day.
Either way it looks like GW2 players have left in droves or SWTOR has more players than alot of people think.
Maybe ToR just turned F2P recently (barely over 1month ago ) while GW2 does not even have a regular trial yet, neither free nor by invitation, neither a cheap entry level price like i.e. WoW or Rift at 5$ or any F2P game and those first two factors obviously inflate SWToRs activity (SWToR was below 700 before F2P transition, would be below ~600 now at previous rate and declines faster than GW2 due to F2P rush fading off), while the later reduces GW2's activity compared to any low entry level title like SWTOR, leave alone xfire could as usual just be far off from reality because its hard to believe SWToR has almost a third or at least much more than a quarter of WoWs playerpase even after it turned F2P, but hey must be too much input at once forcing to admit too many baseless assumptions made during the "calculations".
Lets better ignore all that and pretend its irrelevant if anyone asks.
GW2 revenue also imcreased from 3Q12 to 4Q12 from some $40M to $110M.
Sure, 3Q12 for GW2 was a few days in August and September, but by the beggining of September they had done 2Million of their 2012 3Million box sales.
GW2 seems to have at least some high gem shop usage which would counter players leaving in droves - either that or there are thousands spending hundreds every month.
Without the profile of XFire users and how they compare to each individual game population, it will never be a precise tool to estimate total population.
Currently playing: GW2 Going cardboard starter kit: Ticket to ride, Pandemic, Carcassonne, Dominion, 7 Wonders
Originally posted by Gaia_Hunter I have a question.
Which one of the following games is dying?
Now question number 2.
WoW in January 2012 had 90K hours played.
Now WoW in January 2013 has 25K hours played.
So should we expect a loss of 2.5M is subs soon (60% of the 4M rumoured west subs)?
If not, does that mean XFire users are shrinking?
Are launch and special events/patchs peaks a good starting point to measure population decline or rise?
By the way large/good enough aren't characteristics of a random population.
Polling 1000 male gamers if they think female characters are oversexualized in games will be no different than polling 10000 male gamers, when the objective is what do gamers think about it.
this came from a different thread but its better discussing here - esp Xfire as a population tool
for me, #2 show the flaws of Xfire as a population tool
That's on xfire. The 5.0.4 patch changed the WoW executable and dx renderer. I think the only way to get xfire to work now is to move the wow exe. around and change the renderer.
Even if that is true (and I believe a XFire patch fixed that), WoW was around 70K hours/10K players after the release of MOP and is now back to 20-25K hours and 5K players.
Currently playing: GW2 Going cardboard starter kit: Ticket to ride, Pandemic, Carcassonne, Dominion, 7 Wonders
XFire got a little more interesting now that Anet claims GW2 sold 3 million copies.
It says GW2 has 3255 players on per day. Is that an average? I don't know how they arrive at that number.
For SWTOR it shows 1488 players per day.
Either way it looks like GW2 players have left in droves or SWTOR has more players than alot of people think.
Maybe ToR just turned F2P recently (barely over 1month ago ) while GW2 does not even have a regular trial yet, neither free nor by invitation, neither a cheap entry level price like i.e. WoW or Rift at 5$ or any F2P game and those first two factors obviously inflate SWToRs activity (SWToR was below 700 before F2P transition, would be below ~600 now at previous rate and declines faster than GW2 due to F2P rush fading off), while the later reduces GW2's activity compared to any low entry level title like SWTOR, leave alone xfire could as usual just be far off from reality because its hard to believe SWToR has almost a third or at least much more than a quarter of WoWs playerpase even after it turned F2P, but hey must be too much input at once forcing to admit too many baseless assumptions made during the "calculations".
Lets better ignore all that and pretend its irrelevant if anyone asks.
GW2 revenue also imcreased from 3Q12 to 4Q12 from some $40M to $110M.
Sure, 3Q12 for GW2 was a few days in August and September, but by the beggining of September they had done 2Million of their 2012 3Million box sales.
GW2 seems to have at least some high gem shop usage which would counter players leaving in droves - either that or there are thousands spending hundreds every month.
Without the profile of XFire users and how they compare to each individual game population, it will never be a precise tool to estimate total population.
The next report will be more interesting since we can compare 2 full quarters. If it keeps growing GW2 is on the right track. If revenue drops Anet is in trouble.
XFire got a little more interesting now that Anet claims GW2 sold 3 million copies.
It says GW2 has 3255 players on per day. Is that an average? I don't know how they arrive at that number.
For SWTOR it shows 1488 players per day.
Either way it looks like GW2 players have left in droves or SWTOR has more players than alot of people think.
Maybe ToR just turned F2P recently (barely over 1month ago ) while GW2 does not even have a regular trial yet, neither free nor by invitation, neither a cheap entry level price like i.e. WoW or Rift at 5$ or any F2P game and those first two factors obviously inflate SWToRs activity (SWToR was below 700 before F2P transition, would be below ~600 now at previous rate and declines faster than GW2 due to F2P rush fading off), while the later reduces GW2's activity compared to any low entry level title like SWTOR, leave alone xfire could as usual just be far off from reality because its hard to believe SWToR has almost a third or at least much more than a quarter of WoWs playerpase even after it turned F2P, but hey must be too much input at once forcing to admit too many baseless assumptions made during the "calculations".
Lets better ignore all that and pretend its irrelevant if anyone asks.
GW2 revenue also imcreased from 3Q12 to 4Q12 from some $40M to $110M.
Sure, 3Q12 for GW2 was a few days in August and September, but by the beggining of September they had done 2Million of their 2012 3Million box sales.
GW2 seems to have at least some high gem shop usage which would counter players leaving in droves - either that or there are thousands spending hundreds every month.
Without the profile of XFire users and how they compare to each individual game population, it will never be a precise tool to estimate total population.
The next report will be more interesting since we can compare 2 full quarters. If it keeps growing GW2 is on the right track. If revenue drops Anet is in trouble.
Last quarter the story was "next quarter without the hype sales will be the real test".
Anet won't be in trouble - with $150M they at least doubled and probably tripled or quadrupled the investment in GW2.
Most of their team already moved to the xpac - whatever they make is pure profit.
Currently playing: GW2 Going cardboard starter kit: Ticket to ride, Pandemic, Carcassonne, Dominion, 7 Wonders
Is there a way to get this removed as a sticky? It's a dead topic. It's just taking up space on the first page! I figure if someone can ask for it to be stickied, we can ask for it to be un-stickied!
Originally posted by Yamota TERA just passed SW:TOR to be the third most popular MMO after WoW and GW 2. I guess their F2P relaunch worked.
SWToR passed them back up. However, TERA's f2p has brought them a large number of new players. Hopefully, TERA is doing well with the f2p revenue as well.
Originally posted by Yamota TERA just passed SW:TOR to be the third most popular MMO after WoW and GW 2. I guess their F2P relaunch worked.
SWToR passed them back up. However, TERA's f2p has brought them a large number of new players. Hopefully, TERA is doing well with the f2p revenue as well.
TERA was doing well but it seem to have gone back down. However there seems to be two Tera's on XFire now. TERA Rising and TERA: Exiled Realm of Arborea, so not sure what is going on there.
SW:TOR seems to be clinging on though, have around half the playerbase of Guild Wars 2, which has half the playerbase of WoW. If WoW has 4 million players in the West, that would give GW 2 around 2 million, SW:TOR 1 million, and Tera 500k. Sounds pretty reasonable.
On related news, Defiance is way, way down with only 21 players per day. So it does not seem to be doing well at all, even though the Defiance PR team boasted of 1 million registered accounts. Observe that they did not say 1 million sold copies.
In more news regarding how fail using xfire data is in estimating population, a month or so ago a team using primarily xfire data made a bold and later proven falst statement that Dota2 had a higher population thatn League of Legends. They were so far off that even League of Legends lowest activity server was still ahead of the peak population record that dota holds.
In the article there is a link in the first paragraph which leads to this interesting tidbit
"Update: Riot have questioned DFC’s findings, telling Games Industry that League of Legends sees “over 500,000 peak concurrent players every day on just the EU West shard.” Note that Dota 2′s highest ever concurrent player count, according to SteamGraph, is 325,897 users worldwide."
So yeah, screw xfire. Its totally bogus and cannot follow a trend.
XFire got a little more interesting now that Anet claims GW2 sold 3 million copies.
It says GW2 has 3255 players on per day. Is that an average? I don't know how they arrive at that number.
For SWTOR it shows 1488 players per day.
Either way it looks like GW2 players have left in droves or SWTOR has more players than alot of people think.
Maybe ToR just turned F2P recently (barely over 1month ago ) while GW2 does not even have a regular trial yet, neither free nor by invitation, neither a cheap entry level price like i.e. WoW or Rift at 5$ or any F2P game and those first two factors obviously inflate SWToRs activity (SWToR was below 700 before F2P transition, would be below ~600 now at previous rate and declines faster than GW2 due to F2P rush fading off), while the later reduces GW2's activity compared to any low entry level title like SWTOR, leave alone xfire could as usual just be far off from reality because its hard to believe SWToR has almost a third or at least much more than a quarter of WoWs playerpase even after it turned F2P, but hey must be too much input at once forcing to admit too many baseless assumptions made during the "calculations".
Lets better ignore all that and pretend its irrelevant if anyone asks.
GW2 revenue also imcreased from 3Q12 to 4Q12 from some $40M to $110M.
Sure, 3Q12 for GW2 was a few days in August and September, but by the beggining of September they had done 2Million of their 2012 3Million box sales.
GW2 seems to have at least some high gem shop usage which would counter players leaving in droves - either that or there are thousands spending hundreds every month.
Without the profile of XFire users and how they compare to each individual game population, it will never be a precise tool to estimate total population.
The next report will be more interesting since we can compare 2 full quarters. If it keeps growing GW2 is on the right track. If revenue drops Anet is in trouble.
A.Net is not in trouble. There have been reposrts in the industry that other games are planning to use A.Net's streaming system since it patches faster than almost any game out there.
BLAH, BLAH, BLAH - people said that with GW1 also. Didn't happen then, won't happen now.
This entire conversation is quite silly. The only people who use XFire are console gamers and many of those generally don't play MMO's. So any statistics derived from such are bogus. Means zilch when the vast majority of players do not use it!
Originally posted by Ozmodan This entire conversation is quite silly. The only people who use XFire are console gamers and many of those generally don't play MMO's. So any statistics derived from such are bogus. Means zilch when the vast majority of players do not use it!
So if you look at a chart for a game about the time of release, you notice a massive spike in population on release day. You would tell us that information is bogus.
Kyleran: "Now there's the real trick, learning to accept and enjoy a game for what
it offers rather than pass on what might be a great playing experience
because it lacks a few features you prefer."
John Henry Newman: "A man would do nothing if he waited until he could do it so well that no one could find fault."
FreddyNoNose: "A good game needs no defense; a bad game has no defense." "Easily digested content is just as easily forgotten."
LacedOpium: "So the question that begs to be asked is, if you are not interested in
the game mechanics that define the MMORPG genre, then why are you
playing an MMORPG?"
Originally posted by waynejr2 Originally posted by OzmodanThis entire conversation is quite silly. The only people who use XFire are console gamers and many of those generally don't play MMO's. So any statistics derived from such are bogus. Means zilch when the vast majority of players do not use it!
So if you look at a chart for a game about the time of release, you notice a massive spike in population on release day. You would tell us that information is bogus.
You could say "there's a big spike in sales", but that doesn't tell you how many people are playing the game. It certainly doesn't tell you how many people bought the game. The only thing you can compare XFire numbers to is XFire.
For instance, if the XFire population of a game drops 80%, does that mean the overall game's population drops 80%? No. Look at SWToR's numbers. Look at any MMO post release for that matter. In order for there to be a comparable drop in actual game numbers, the games would have to start with double or triple the number of players they actually start with.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
Comments
Official forum activity is a better indicator. You don't have to download anything either. Throw in in-game visual population estimates and you're set. Also to the guy above me's point, a lot of people don't use x-fire. I don't, everyone I know (From games) doesn't.
GW2 players have left in droves by the way.
Official forum activity is usless for determining population.
Well in my experience since UO's troubled launch I've learned to not get too far up on a high horse before I get too carried away with myself.
Xifre users average 5 hours per session on SWTOR. That's hardcore.
Also, xfire's proven to be relevant in the past year. Try reading this then get back to us. Enjoy.
I dont think anyone disputes that xfire is at least a decent indicator of population trends, but this thread is about population estimates.
And xfire is useless in determinging the populaton of game X based on information we have from game Y.
Most of the guys i know plays 10-12h a day. I talk about hardcore. Not Softcore.
(Retired)- Anarchy Online/Ultima Online/DAoC/Horizonsz/EQ2/SWG/AC1&2/L2/SoR/WoW/TMO/Requiem/Atlantica Online/Manibogi/Rift+(SL)/Lol/Hon/SWTOR/Wakfu/Champions Online/GW/Lotr/CO/TcoS/Tabula Rasa/Meridian 59/Vanguard/Shadowbane/Fury/SotW/Dreamlords/HGL/RoM/DDO/FFXI/Aoc/Eve/Warhammer Online/Gw2/TSW/Tera/Defiance/STO/AoW/DE/Firefall/Darkfall/Neverwinter/PS2/ESO/FF14/Archeage/Gw2
That's not hardcore. That's sad. Seriously.
this came from a different thread but its better discussing here - esp Xfire as a population tool
if you click on the charts, they enlarge
regarding #2
WoW in January 2012 had 90K hours played.
Now WoW in January 2013 has 25K hours played.
WOW claimed 10.2m in Q1 2012, lost some in summer, and was back up to 10 million in November 2012
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/120552-World-of-Warcraft-Subscriptions-Rise-to-10-Million
for me, #2 show the flaws of Xfire as a population tool
EQ2 fan sites
Using Xfire is like believing in political polls. And I do believe the "polls" continually showed that Obama would lose. Polls do afterall take "samples" from a segment of the population and make estimations based on those samples.
Sorry buds, but I can stand outside a Phish concert, and ask everyone leaving what color the sky is, and, since a large portion of them are going to be tripping on some type of hallucinogen, find that most of them think the sky is pink, or purple...or rainbow colored.
Does this sample mean that MOST PEOPLE THINK THE SKY IS NOT BLUE!
No.
So, come up with a poll asking about something that has to do with a world view.
Ask 50,000 people each from New York, Los Angles, Biloxi, London, Tokyo...and watch how end up with 5 very different results.
data samples are only valid when the samples are taken from equal pools of data, polls and samples from websites do not represent the whole because the variables are far too great.
I hope we shall crush...in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations, which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength and bid defiance to the laws of our country." ~Thomes Jefferson
Why would people use Xfire when Raptr has a significantly higher sample?
Tera does not support Xfire, users have to manually go in and change their game files for Xfire to detect Tera.
That's on xfire. The 5.0.4 patch changed the WoW executable and dx renderer. I think the only way to get xfire to work now is to move the wow exe. around and change the renderer.
GW2 revenue also imcreased from 3Q12 to 4Q12 from some $40M to $110M.
Sure, 3Q12 for GW2 was a few days in August and September, but by the beggining of September they had done 2Million of their 2012 3Million box sales.
GW2 seems to have at least some high gem shop usage which would counter players leaving in droves - either that or there are thousands spending hundreds every month.
Without the profile of XFire users and how they compare to each individual game population, it will never be a precise tool to estimate total population.
Currently playing: GW2
Going cardboard starter kit: Ticket to ride, Pandemic, Carcassonne, Dominion, 7 Wonders
Even if that is true (and I believe a XFire patch fixed that), WoW was around 70K hours/10K players after the release of MOP and is now back to 20-25K hours and 5K players.
Currently playing: GW2
Going cardboard starter kit: Ticket to ride, Pandemic, Carcassonne, Dominion, 7 Wonders
The next report will be more interesting since we can compare 2 full quarters. If it keeps growing GW2 is on the right track. If revenue drops Anet is in trouble.
DAoC - Excalibur & Camlann
Last quarter the story was "next quarter without the hype sales will be the real test".
Anet won't be in trouble - with $150M they at least doubled and probably tripled or quadrupled the investment in GW2.
Most of their team already moved to the xpac - whatever they make is pure profit.
Currently playing: GW2
Going cardboard starter kit: Ticket to ride, Pandemic, Carcassonne, Dominion, 7 Wonders
Is there a way to get this removed as a sticky? It's a dead topic. It's just taking up space on the first page! I figure if someone can ask for it to be stickied, we can ask for it to be un-stickied!
My gaming blog
SWToR passed them back up. However, TERA's f2p has brought them a large number of new players. Hopefully, TERA is doing well with the f2p revenue as well.
TERA was doing well but it seem to have gone back down. However there seems to be two Tera's on XFire now. TERA Rising and TERA: Exiled Realm of Arborea, so not sure what is going on there.
SW:TOR seems to be clinging on though, have around half the playerbase of Guild Wars 2, which has half the playerbase of WoW. If WoW has 4 million players in the West, that would give GW 2 around 2 million, SW:TOR 1 million, and Tera 500k. Sounds pretty reasonable.
On related news, Defiance is way, way down with only 21 players per day. So it does not seem to be doing well at all, even though the Defiance PR team boasted of 1 million registered accounts. Observe that they did not say 1 million sold copies.
My gaming blog
In more news regarding how fail using xfire data is in estimating population, a month or so ago a team using primarily xfire data made a bold and later proven falst statement that Dota2 had a higher population thatn League of Legends. They were so far off that even League of Legends lowest activity server was still ahead of the peak population record that dota holds.
http://www.pcgamer.com/2013/04/11/dota-2-most-played-report-challenged-by-riot-we-investigate/
In the article there is a link in the first paragraph which leads to this interesting tidbit
"Update: Riot have questioned DFC’s findings, telling Games Industry that League of Legends sees “over 500,000 peak concurrent players every day on just the EU West shard.” Note that Dota 2′s highest ever concurrent player count, according to SteamGraph, is 325,897 users worldwide."
So yeah, screw xfire. Its totally bogus and cannot follow a trend.
A.Net is not in trouble. There have been reposrts in the industry that other games are planning to use A.Net's streaming system since it patches faster than almost any game out there.
BLAH, BLAH, BLAH - people said that with GW1 also. Didn't happen then, won't happen now.
So if you look at a chart for a game about the time of release, you notice a massive spike in population on release day. You would tell us that information is bogus.
Epic Music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAigCvelkhQ&list=PLo9FRw1AkDuQLEz7Gvvaz3ideB2NpFtT1
https://archive.org/details/softwarelibrary_msdos?&sort=-downloads&page=1
Kyleran: "Now there's the real trick, learning to accept and enjoy a game for what it offers rather than pass on what might be a great playing experience because it lacks a few features you prefer."
John Henry Newman: "A man would do nothing if he waited until he could do it so well that no one could find fault."
FreddyNoNose: "A good game needs no defense; a bad game has no defense." "Easily digested content is just as easily forgotten."
LacedOpium: "So the question that begs to be asked is, if you are not interested in the game mechanics that define the MMORPG genre, then why are you playing an MMORPG?"
You could say "there's a big spike in sales", but that doesn't tell you how many people are playing the game. It certainly doesn't tell you how many people bought the game. The only thing you can compare XFire numbers to is XFire.
For instance, if the XFire population of a game drops 80%, does that mean the overall game's population drops 80%? No. Look at SWToR's numbers. Look at any MMO post release for that matter. In order for there to be a comparable drop in actual game numbers, the games would have to start with double or triple the number of players they actually start with.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.