How many max subs?

[harkonen]

I really couldnt call this. Most of the people I know playing wow, will not even look at another game, they are obsessed. Also Guild wars 2 is going to throw a huge spanner in the mix. I think TOR will be a success but I just couldnt pick a number. 3-5mill would be a guess.

[devidoll]

WOW is down to about 10 million according to their last statement to stockholders. First year I bet it will be around 3 mil.

I'm of the mindset that people are just like me, they have been looking for a new game to play or a replacement for wow. Nothing has really lived up to that and I always end up going back to wow because it's a solid game with competitive raids. Right now though their encounters are getting longer (like 10 min+) for the final encounters and learning those types of fights is excruciatingly painful. Those who progressed through Heroic Rag before it's health and damage was nerfed know what I'm talking about. I prefer the 6 minute fights and thought that was a real sweet spot when learning them.

As for SWTOR subs they might have a lot to start but I'm really hoping that the game grows. I know tons of people that are going to get the game to play on the side (and still play wow) and once those people are done with the story and there isn't as much to do pvp or pve wise at endgame they are probably going to cancel their subs. We're just going to have to see how it goes.

[Sephiracle]

First year? 3-5 million. Past that completely depends on the content they deliver.

[georgevonfranken]

I was actually impressed with Activision when EA was doing 'lol above the call' and 'we hope COD dies' and activision was like 'more good FPSes are better for the industry, and we have faith in our game'.

Except Activision was doing the same thing has EA, it was DICE and Inifinity ward that would say things like that.

OT:I voted 3 mill

[shewkoi]

i think it'll jump up. way up to close to 6 million in the next 12 months, then probably settle down to 4-5 million then gradually climb from there to a steady 70 million or so by 2020.

ok that last part might be a bit much...

[Grantji]

well I don't know ...
I guess they're goind to hit the 2-3 million subs by february/march 2012 ... and then those 2-3 millions will tell their friends and/or guildmates from other mmos they've been playing HOW F****** AWESOME this game is, tv ads will be running, etc.
I suppose there will be >5 million subs by the middle of 2012 if EA/Bioware doesn't screw up everything.

[Elian]

The lower the number of Subs the better the community is going to be, i don't want this to kill XXXX game, that would mean that the players of the XXXXX game will come here and try to ruin my experience. 2 million subs should be enough i would say.

[Humungo]

You can't seriously think that's representative though. I mean I just pass over those polls because the very idea that MoP is going to lose a mass amount of players is idiotic at best.

[Roxinius]

with the way wow just took a massive dump all over the lore of the game i believe the chances for more to come to TOR just went up

[vizzle]

2-3 mil at launch. If Bioware updates endgame properly, then the game will rise to 4-5 mil before 2013.

[anewok]

Really hard to say without seeing how end game is. But if i had to venture a guess i would put it in the 3-4 mil range.

[flarecde]

I think 3-5 million peak, then stable around 1.5 to 2, if end game wraps up to be solid. If it doesn't I expect it'll drop to 0.5 after a couple months.

[Crowe]

People really need to gain some perspective before making uninformed decisions.

WoW has 10 Mio. players world-wide. That includes large parts of Asia, South America, North America, Europe and Australia.

Based on the unreliable information we have about subscribers, roughly 40-50% of them are located in NA and EU. That's 5 Mio subscribers in those 2 regions.


SWTOR is only being released in NA and EU for now. Estimating 5 Mio. players would mean it would surpass WoW. Very unlikely.

If SWTOR goes really well, it could potentially peak at 3 Mio. subs for a short period. That's still 60% of WoW's player in NA and EU. I think 2 Mio. is more realistic.

[Given]

jup voted 12m, should of read the whole post before voting -.-
anyway, I'm guessing 12m at its alltime high in the next few years.

[Sephiracle]

jup voted 12m, should of read the whole post before voting -.-
anyway, I'm guessing 12m at its alltime high in the next few years.

He probably should've added 'in first year' in the post. I almost did the same until I read the post.

[Direknyte]

5 Million easily.

[Murphlord]

3 million if it gets good word of mouth. Then it'll more than likely increase if they release it in Asia.

[Eurhetemec]

It'll never get WoW numbers for two reasons:

1) WoW is huge in the East, particularly China, and counts subs in a way no other company does. They're honest and open about how they count them (anyone paying for even a single hour of play in the last month counts as a sub), but it's not something other companies have done. Unless SWTOR is planning an Eastern launch and to count subs the same way, I don't see it getting anywhere near 10-12m.

2) SWTOR isn't as relatively fun, compared to other games, as WoW was, in the early days. WoW's basic second-to-second combat gameplay and so on was far ahead of the time when it came out and indeed wasn't really matched for 2-3 years (and then only matched, not exceeded). Whereas SWTOR just more or less matches WoW, second-to-second gameplay-wise. It has the stories, which make the game hugely more INTERESTING than WoW, but I don't think those are likely to lead to long-term subs in the same way.

So I'm think 5m max, assuming no major Eastern launch. More likely 2-3m, and only that if it gets good word-of-mouth, and right now the word-of-mouth is more positive than other MMOs, but not as positive as the word-of-mouth WoW used to get. I don't think it'll capture the "angry teenager" (who may be in their twenties) crowd who are strong drivers of word-of-mouth in gaming, as it's bit slower-paced and more subtle than WoW.

[jearle]

2 Million subs would be an idea resting place for the game after a year, in my eyes.

It will surely be far above that in the first 3 months simply due to people buying it to play as a single player BW RPG.

I think 2 million is enough to keep the companies profit high enough to deliver content updates on a regular basis (3 months max hopefully) and keep the player count low enough that the game does not get watered down by trying to appeal to the masses and the lowest common denominator.

That is what happened with WoW, that extra 2-3 million players bring in a heap more issues, complaints, and expectations that can cause massive changes (some good some bad) to a game.

They claim that the game will be profitable with 500k subscribers, so Im happy with any number between 500k and 2m.

[nogard46]

i dunno about you guys but thats all I hear in wow is people leaving for SWTOR. Call it trendy call it sheepish, call it what you like but its the momentum of the community. I just wish people would take the subjective out of this (even though yes I know thats futile) but be more objective and lets all be happy the better game wins in the end, whether its wow of SWtor.


But I really think the winds are in SWTOR's Favor, there aren't any strong MMO releases within the next year, MOP is probably a 2013 release, GW2 is either late 2012 or later. That plus the release of all 6 SW movies in 3D will draw in a lot more fans and gamers.

A quake has been felt in the middle of the Pacific ocean and I think a Tsunami is coming, and its about to be huge, how shocked will people be when SWTOR breaks even WOW's record for SUBS? And becomes as popular and socially acceptable to play as Facebook and Angry Bird? And it reaches heights even blizzard dared not imagine? Imagine that? Let that blow your mind for a couple hours.