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  1. #21
    Quote Originally Posted by Grym View Post
    SWTOR hit 1mil I believe, not sure about current figure or if they even publish that. GW2 definitely has more but they do not have sub so number doesn't affect their monthly earning as much (but still affect number of people using the cash shop).
    SWTOR has 2.3 million initial sales/subscribers, then dropped to 1.7, then to 1.3, then they stopped reporting numbers. Last we heard since it went F2P they were around 400k and doing very well for themselves. Remember though, that's a game with a bigger development/marketing budget than anything released to-date.

    Quote Originally Posted by Grym View Post
    EVE I thought had a lot more than 500k? Or at least it did have. And game like FFXI had like 500k sub pretty much throughout, but those games I would not call "successful", but healthy and can manage itself well.
    EVE only hit 500k recently, and while I've not seen any recent numbers on FFXI, I know that it's definitely under 500k subs. EVE has been very successful for CCP (like, very successful), and FFXI was very successful in its hayday, and is still doing well today.

    If you don't call either one successful, then your bar for success is insanely high.

  2. #22
    Dreadlord Rageadon's Avatar
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    What i feel when i play new mmo's is that everyone rush to max lvl to raid and all that, because thats how wow is now... but most fresh games does not have enough content when you hit max level and leveling in itself goes to fast, but anyway, when people hit max they have nothing to do... but what i heard wow did in vanilla was that leveling was hard as shit and you could do a lot when you was lvling to max, it was no point rushing it before .

  3. #23
    Quote Originally Posted by Edge- View Post
    EVE only hit 500k recently, and while I've not seen any recent numbers on FFXI, I know that it's definitely under 500k subs. EVE has been very successful for CCP (like, very successful), and FFXI was very successful in its hayday, and is still doing well today.

    If you don't call either one successful, then your bar for success is insanely high.
    Didn't EVE Online's profits allow CCP to fund Dust 514 pretty much all by themselves or close to that? I mean, that game has its issues, but it can't have been exactly cheap to develop, specially with another game running concurrent to it.
    Nothing ever bothers Juular.

  4. #24
    they also had to lay ppl off and stop spending eve money on world of darkness if i remember.

    i think its only successful if it makes a profit and obviously keeps gaining new subs to replace the ones who move on.

    thats the point of an mmo though right, its much more cost effective to make a game which is designed to be expanded upon, and then slowly inject content into it, instead of making a game that has limited content gain so many sales and then using what profit you do make to create an entirely new game.
    Last edited by Heathy; 2013-08-19 at 09:04 PM.

  5. #25
    I am Murloc! Grym's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Sarac View Post
    Also, almost every big title MMORPG was a succes including SWTOR and whatnot. If you get more money out of something then you put in it then it was a succes, how big the succes was is debatable I guess.
    WRONG!!!!!

    When you start a project, you would have a budget, or target, to reach for. Making money (above breakeven on bottom line) is good, but is never good enough. Unless you reach budgeted figure or quota when you set the project, then that project is deemed failure because that time and money could have been used to do a more profitable project.

  6. #26
    Deleted
    This thread coats the definition 'succesful' with everything disgusting in this world to the point of withering.

  7. #27
    Deleted
    "Successful":
    -Has a loyal playerbase
    -Makes profit or can at least financially exist on its own
    -Has Servers that feel "alive" (this is one point is still dont get in WoW... it has over 10 times the players of other MMOs still a lot of servers feel dead because blizzard doesnt want to merge them... connected realms wont change this)

  8. #28
    Quote Originally Posted by Rucati View Post
    I'd say that if a game has to entirely change its model, then it failed.
    In some instances, your right, in others, not so.

    I'm making Y profit as a subscription based game and am still profitable.

    I can make Y+(Yx.5Y) as a F2P game. As a company interested in making money, I'm going to make the rational decision to use the more lucrative business model.

    There's nothing really complex about it.

    - - - Updated - - -

    Quote Originally Posted by Holtzmann View Post
    Didn't EVE Online's profits allow CCP to fund Dust 514 pretty much all by themselves or close to that? I mean, that game has its issues, but it can't have been exactly cheap to develop, specially with another game running concurrent to it.
    Not 100%, but I believe they didn't need to seek out much in the way of investment for the development of that game.

    They're also still working on the World of Darkness MMO (have been for years), so they have/had a number of projects cooking.

    Quote Originally Posted by Kasami View Post
    This thread coats the definition 'succesful' with everything disgusting in this world to the point of withering.
    Such as?...

  9. #29
    What concerns B2P/F2P/P2P, for me either is fine, for as long as it holds to its principles, ala f2p with cash-shop, p2p without cash-shop.

    More important factors imo, is what game offers as its content. So far many released games are just clones of WoW. You can't go make crafter or explorer, etc. and not feel inferior to someone who participates in raids with massive emphasize on "non-trade" items. It also should encourage players' cooperation rather than making everyone compete with each other over limited resources, rares, quest mobs.

    UO had nice approach, which could be polished and improved, but widespread PvP-grieving didn't make it enjoyable place for most players as well as some other issues.

  10. #30
    Quote Originally Posted by Edge- View Post
    They're also still working on the World of Darkness MMO (have been for years), so they have/had a number of projects cooking.
    Really? I thought that one had been buried for good a while ago. Good to know, though! I loved the Old World of Darkness (with a few exceptions).

    Quote Originally Posted by Kasami View Post
    This thread coats the definition 'succesful' with everything disgusting in this world to the point of withering.
    By all means, enlighten us as to whatever you may mean by such a wonderful statement.


    EDIT:
    Quote Originally Posted by Ferocity View Post
    What concerns B2P/F2P/P2P, for me either is fine, for as long as it holds to its principles, ala f2p with cash-shop, p2p without cash-shop.

    More important factors imo, is what game offers as its content. So far many released games are just clones of WoW. You can't go make crafter or explorer, etc. and not feel inferior to someone who participates in raids with massive emphasize on "non-trade" items. It also should encourage players' cooperation rather than making everyone compete with each other over limited resources, rares, quest mobs.

    UO had nice approach, which could be polished and improved, but widespread PvP-grieving didn't make it enjoyable place for most players as well as some other issues.
    How many players do you think a game would require to be successful and healthy, regardless of how it got to that level? Design choices can be debated until the cows come home, but quite a few people seem to hold subscription/player numbers as the most basic rule of thumb for game success.
    Last edited by Holtzmann; 2013-08-19 at 09:39 PM.
    Nothing ever bothers Juular.

  11. #31
    Quote Originally Posted by Holtzmann View Post
    Really? I thought that one had been buried for good a while ago. Good to know, though! I loved the Old World of Darkness (with a few exceptions).
    Yeah, it's been in the works for years, but last I remember they were still a long ways off having anything concrete to share/show.

  12. #32
    There are more successful MMOs than people realize. The nature of the Wildstar discussion has probably lead to me repeating the mistaken idea that there aren't.

    A success means the MMO is making money, and pushing out content. A success means the MMO hangs around and has a userbase that likes the game. Not everything needs to be in the millions. Rift was a success, I think LOTRO is a success for Turbine (though I don't know their numbers these days), and many smaller MMOs have had success. If a MMO goes F2P, people see it as a failure, when its possible that they found that there was greater success through a different business model.

  13. #33
    Deleted
    Quote Originally Posted by Bardarian View Post
    So I guess everquest and ultima online and swg and eve just don't exist
    The MMORPG market wasn't in a growth during Everquest, at least not as much as it was compared to when WoW was released.

    This situation is a lot like Counterstrike and then CoD/BF taking over the market the right time.

    Nothing to do with being so much better games back then, they just released at the right moment. (now they are higher quality games though, since due their popularity they have money to create quality products)

    Quote Originally Posted by Grym View Post
    WRONG!!!!!

    When you start a project, you would have a budget, or target, to reach for. Making money (above breakeven on bottom line) is good, but is never good enough. Unless you reach budgeted figure or quota when you set the project, then that project is deemed failure because that time and money could have been used to do a more profitable project.
    I don't think you understand how it works. And don't understand how to read either, otherwise you wouldn't have made such a stupid comment to what I said.

  14. #34
    Obviously successful is the game that gives profit to its creators. If 2/3 of dev team is fired in a year after release, like was in swtor, the game obviously failed hard.
    The big problem nowadays in the market is WoW. Everybody try to make their game as successful as WoW, which leads to horrid death of yet another wow killer. Devs just don't realise that it is impossible to compete with Blizzard in numbers; while the only thing they actually need is something new, original, with fresh ideas in gameplay.

  15. #35
    As far as i Know Eve is the second most popular SUBSCRIPTION game that dosn't have a F2P option.

    EDIT

    FFXI has more

    - - - Updated - - -

    Did some searching on Google

    http://www.alteredgamer.com/pc-gaming/35992-mmo-subscriber-populations/

    World of Warcraft – 12,000,000 (2011)
    Aion - 3,400,000 (mid 2010)
    Runescape – 1,300,000 (2009)
    Lineage – 750,000 (2009)
    Lineage II – 750,000 (2009)
    Dofus – 520,000 (mid 2010)
    Final Fantasy XI – 350,000 (mid 2010)
    Eve Online – 325,000 (2011)
    Lord of the Rings Online – 210,000 (mid 2010)
    City of Heroes/Villains - 125,000 (2009)
    Age of Conan – 120,000 (mid 2010)
    Ultima Online - 100,000 (2009)
    Everquest - 100,000 (mid 2010)
    Warhammer Online – 80,000 (2010)

  16. #36
    Quote Originally Posted by Flame6 View Post
    As far as i Know Eve is the second most popular SUBSCRIPTION game that dosn't have a F2P option.

    EDIT

    FFXI has more

    - - - Updated - - -

    Did some searching on Google

    http://www.alteredgamer.com/pc-gamin...r-populations/

    World of Warcraft – 12,000,000 (2011)
    Aion - 3,400,000 (mid 2010)
    Runescape – 1,300,000 (2009)
    Lineage – 750,000 (2009)
    Lineage II – 750,000 (2009)
    Dofus – 520,000 (mid 2010)
    Final Fantasy XI – 350,000 (mid 2010)
    Eve Online – 325,000 (2011)
    Lord of the Rings Online – 210,000 (mid 2010)
    City of Heroes/Villains - 125,000 (2009)
    Age of Conan – 120,000 (mid 2010)
    Ultima Online - 100,000 (2009)
    Everquest - 100,000 (mid 2010)
    Warhammer Online – 80,000 (2010)
    Those numbers are very out of date, and many of the estimates are far off.

    WoW: Down to 7.7 Million.
    Aion: Well under 3 million now, probably closer to a million tops primarily centered in Korea where they use a different subscription model than the West (It's F2P in the West)
    Runescape: Don't have any data on that one.
    Lineage: Probably still up there, though it did shut down in the West in 2010.
    Lineage II: Again, probably lower as it's seen contractions in Korea and has gone F2P in the West.
    Dofus: Don't have any data.
    FFXI: I'd be surprised if it still had numbers that high. I'd expect at least a slight contraction in recent years.
    EVE Online: It's over 500k subscribers now, meaning it's surpassed FFXI.
    LOTRO: I'd again, expect contracting, placing it closer to 150k on the high end.
    CoH: Game is shut down.
    AoC: It's F2P now so subscribers aren't the only metric, but I'd bet they still have a pretty solid subscriber base of around 80k+
    Ultima: Surprising to see the estimate that high. I'd be blown away if it actually was.
    EQ1: I could see it being somewhere in the 100k ballpark.
    Warhammer: Yeah, this is definitely much lower nowadays. They're down to 1 server per region and only one active guild per faction (from what I've heard).

    Redit: Oh lawd, his only reference was MMOdata -_-

  17. #37
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    @Flame6

    EverQuest 2 isn't on your list and it went from 500k subscribers before going Free 2 Play to 1.5 million now - which is almost as many as it had at launch. That's pretty impressive.

    It's kind of a bizarre caveat to suggest EVE is the second highest subscription-only MMO: WoW is Free 2 Play to level 20, do you exclude it?

    Rift was I think down to around 200,000 subscribers - and now they are back up to 1M+ after going F2P.

    SW: The Old Republic went from I think ~1.5 million subscribers when it was subscription-only - up to 3.5 million now since going F2P.


    Every MMO we've both listed is profitable / successful. People talk about the death of WoW just because subscriptions drop - and they do drop sharply - but WoW still generates 1.5 Billion dollars a year in Revenue. I can't imagine the cost of servers and a new expansion once every 3 years is really going to come to anything even remotely close to that. Even if it costs 500 million dollars a year to keep the servers up and running, and pay the dev team - they're profiting a billion dollars a year off it. That's insane - it's not quite Oil Company money - but it's pretty damned close, and that's just one of their three main franchises.
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  18. #38
    Quote Originally Posted by Yvaelle View Post
    EverQuest 2 isn't on your list and it went from 500k subscribers before going Free 2 Play to 1.5 million now - which is almost as many as it had at launch. That's pretty impressive.
    Where did you find those numbers? >.>

    Quote Originally Posted by Yvaelle View Post
    It's kind of a bizarre caveat to suggest EVE is the second highest subscription-only MMO: WoW is Free 2 Play to level 20, do you exclude it?
    That's a trial, not a F2P option. WoW is a subscription based MMO.

    Quote Originally Posted by Yvaelle View Post
    Rift was I think down to around 200,000 subscribers - and now they are back up to 1M+ after going F2P.
    Where...where are you finding these? Trion has never publicly released subscriber numbers. And with the altered form of the Patron pass (3/15/30 days), you can't really count people under it as subscribers.

    Quote Originally Posted by Yvaelle View Post
    SW: The Old Republic went from I think ~1.5 million subscribers when it was subscription-only - up to 3.5 million now since going F2P.
    Seriously, where are you getting these numbers? They were around 500k when they went F2P (well under a million) and they've not released any data about their post F2P subscriber numbers.

  19. #39
    It's kinda funny thinking about what subscription numbers used to be like, and what people are saying about it today.

    Like this quote from wikipedia about asherons call...

    Asheron's Call launched nine months after Everquest[14] on November 2, 1999. After its release Asheron's Call had 80,000 players by the end of its first year.[15] By the end of 2000 its subscription rate was third behind Ultima Online and Everquest, with 90,000 subscribers from 200,000 box sales.[15] While neither Turbine nor Microsoft have been forthcoming in releasing exact subscription counts, it is believed that Asheron's Call peaked in popularity in early 2002 at about 120,000 accounts and has since dropped to below 10,000.[16] Dark Age of Camelot had 200,000 subscribers in May 2002, taking Asheron's Call's spot as third most popular virtual world
    The third most popular mmo at that time and it only had 120k subs at its peak. I feel like in this day a lot of people would consider 120k unsuccessful, but the game is still up and running, still adding content and progressing the story with patches, and still charging a monthly fee. The game was released 14 years ago, probably has less than the 10k subs it mentioned in the quote, but like I said they still charge a monthly fee. I think it's Turbines only p2p game, and also their oldest game. I don't really know where I'm going with this I just find it rather funny that people started calling for f2p in wow already, but there's a game like AC out there still charging a sub.

    I think you kind of need to look at each MMO individually and see what they were trying to achieve, see what they actually achieved, and then see how people responded to it. You can't really set a bunch of parameters and then apply it to every mmo.

    Also I feel like a lot of players say games failed just because it didn't beat the goliath freak that is wow, or it didn't make their individual expectations.

  20. #40
    Profit, satisfied playerbase, and continual development = a success in my eyes.

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