jvd said:
Just from numbers floating around .
eq 312k
uo 301k
swg 275k
enb 25k
THose are the ones i remember of the top of my head .
Everquest hit 400k at some point in 2002 I believe, and its most recent
press release for its 5-year celebration lists it as 420k. I was pretty sure I'd heard them hitting the 500k mark it some point, which might still be the case since they have massive churn (the same release mentions 250k new subscribers every year)--they could always have burned off some. (And it could also have been from people just getting their information wrong. Jupiter Research did clock them at at least 460k at one point, however. Summer/Fall 2003 I believe.)
Ultima Online was at 230k back when UO2 first got cancelled (back in 2001), and as far as I knew it remained fairly even. When EA announced a new expansion and talked about UXO in February they were at
225k, and I can't imagine they've increased much since then.
If SWG's at 275k, then it means they're burning off a bit, but still remain pretty healthy--and when the space expansion hits will have a lot more room to maneuver. (Since that's one of the major things that attracts people to the SW universe to begin with, and will make it a much more unique MMORPG.) They may burn off more people before then, however, especially with the likes of CoH coming out, which will appeal to the gamers sick of fantasy environments. (Of course it may well snag more people from the likes of Earth & Beyond ending, and EVE Online not doing too well, as SWG is the only genuinely healthy sci-fi themed MMORPG out there. AO keeps looking better though, and has plenty of history, so it remains an option. ^_^ I'd still like to know where you're pulling your numbers from, as I haven't been able to find anything outside of the few press releases covering SWG's initial milestones.
Eq is about 5 years old now . 200-400k is where its numbers have stayed each month for 5 years paying 10$ each is a crap load of money
It's exactly 5 years old, actually. It just ended it's 5-year anniversary events.
And yes, craploads of money. They've also spread themselves better and have a more fanatic community, which is what keeps the flow-through. I think the most-thriving "real-to-virtual" economy, to boot. <chuckles> Scary, no?
Same with uo . Uo was all over the map at some times , mostly between 200-300k 10$ a month for 6 years .
I'm unaware of too much fluctuating--it seems to have mainly been staying solid with the same fanbase for years; I don't think they have the same turnover.
On the other hand ff has been at 0-500k through the last 2 years at i guess its 15$ a month if the average guy has 2.5 guys per account .
So to say its successfull who knows. We also don't know how many of the people who got the usa versions will stay or leave.
Oh, well if you're talking about success merely in the amount of money that's been raked in so far, then of FFXI can't compare yet--it can't compare to 5-6 years of revenue streaming. (And the investments that can be made on said capital over the extra time...) But FFXI's kept solid growth--even at a higher cost--and seems like it's still a bit shy of where it will more likely cap. It has great brand exposure, and the ability to play the silly thing almost limitlessly (finished one job...? do another! Lose nothing!
), so it probably has good retention of those it's managed to suck in already. Offhand, I consider that quite successful.
In the usa there are a ton of mmorpgs coming out.
Eq is going to take a huge hit (eq2 ) ultima is going to get hit with uxo .
Depends. AC2 showed that it's not easy to attract your old players with a new game that's too different than the old, and EQ2 in many ways is shaping up to be quite different. (And of course the people playing EQ constantly are the experience they have
now, and if things are too different with EQ2...) Not to mention their subscribers are probably going to have weird counting at that point, as people are much more likely to pick up the All-Advantage and be "actively subscribed" to EVERYTHING! Heh. It's just the "online simultaneously" numbers that would have to be tracked to see where the players are--and that's hard to track. With UO and UXO I'm not sure... Offhand I think it's a lot likelier to attract people away from the old to the new just because UO's engine is so ancient, and UXO will be moving them at least to the fully 1st-person, immersive MMORPG feel. (Yes I know you'll be able to play in 3rd-person as well, but you know what I mean.) But if they playstyle is--again--too different from what the hardcore like about the original game...? No new one can match the content, so they're apt to spurn it. The games may end up being more likely to drag people from other MMO's (or out of not playing any at all) than from their originals. Hehe...
Wow is going to hit everyone . Guild wars will hit everyone too. A mmorpg where u don't pay monthly. You just buy the expansions ala diablo 2 is going to cut into everyone.
WoW will certainly have quite an impact, and will drag a lot more people who haven't played MMORPG's at all in simply because of who's developing it and what license it's using. It's also less likely to affect some games (SWG, CoH, non-fantasy) than others.
Guild Wars I find a lot more interesting just because of their payment concept--though I have no idea of they can make it technically feasable.
They look great so far, and if they can continue to look great without adding a subscription cost, they'll probably get a lot of attention and users, but if they're forced to eventually cave in...? Then it's back to stage one.
Also don't forget lineage 2 and coh .
...and Vanguard when it shows up.
Swg took the hit cause of ff in the states .
Offhand, SWG doesn't seem to have taken much of a hit, and I think it took its lumps mainly from taking a while to add certain features to the game, taking a while with its balance problems, taking too long to figure out how to make some classes worthwhile... and mainly not having enough content to satisfy the gamers who burn through it at an alarming rate. AC2 suffered from that
extremely but was also a lot worse-designed a game, and SWG isn't suffering nearly to that extent. FFXI might have "taken" people from being a nice new shiny MMORPG to try out, but the genres are different--which lowers the impact--and I think SWG was much more likely to lose people from disinterest.
There isn't enough subscribers to support this many games
This is very true, though there are more and more people joining in all the time, and licenses like SWG and WoW and LotR: Online and the Matrix Online and other concepts bring in people who wouldn't think about it otherwise anyway. The pool is still getting bigger.
Regardless, in the long run we don't know how ANY of the games will ultimately perform. UXO might make for a beautiful transition, and UO get mostly abandoned. New games might not succeed to any real degree--even the major-looking ones. Some older ones just hanging on to a few tens of thousands might eventually give up the ghost and their players will filter elsewhere. And there are all sorts of "former players" who may be waiting for the right time to jump back in.
"Success" however, is judged in the here and now. It's filtered through different circumstances, but there's no need to downplay something due to future uncertainty, since it affects ALL games. By all accounts, at this point FFXI is extremely successful, and though SWG's taking some lumps it's still quite healthy. "Overall success" will be measured later, when the situation changes. We can make predictions now, sure, but there's too much to keep track of, so it's typically best to look at things at each step of the way.
