"The only number we saw was 1 million, which referred to Rift accounts pre-launch. That didn't mean 1 million people had bought the game, nor did it mean 1 million were paying an £8.99 a month subscription.
Hartsman declared Rift "is absolutely profitable", but there's a tendency to believe that if the developer/publisher hasn't shared numbers, then those numbers weren't worth shouting about. Had Rift more than 1 million subscribers, we believe we'd have heard about it by now.
We've seen this kind of behaviour before. Dungeons & Dragons Online, The Lord of the Rings Online, Age of Conan, Champions Online, DC Universe Online and soon Star Trek Online all withheld subscriber numbers. Then, months - sometimes years - down the line, each game eventually reinvented itself as a free-to-play MMO."