EVE Online has interestingly had a very nice growth pattern. The initial launch netted under 20,000 subscribers, rising to only 50,000 within the first year and hovering about that figure for a while. Since then, however, EVE has had an impressive a steady increase, reaching just over 300,000 now.
The interesting part of that is that it seems many developers don't understand how MMO subscriber numbers work. You have an initial surge at launch but few MMOs hold onto those players. The real test of an MMO is whether subscriber numbers continue to fall or if they grow. EVE Online has grown organically from that initial 20,000 subs to 300,000 but because it's consistently growing, it's in a much better position than WAR with the same number of subs. Launch numbers aren't important, in the long term (which I'd bloody hope every MMO company is concerned with) what matters is whether the active subscription numbers are being sustained and if they're increasing or decreasing. In that respect, just stating a figure of 300k like this for WAR's sub numbers is no real indicator of how the game is performing. The sad part is that investors don't understand that either and it's their money on the line.
Mark Jacobs has a whole slew of famous quotes now backfiring on him, such as the quote on server merges. There was this assumption that server merges were an indicator that an MMO was failing but no well-advertised MMO is going to retain 100% of its launch players. Heavy advertising draws in more players for the launch but those players may not all stay. Server merges should have been a predicted and naturally accepted part of the game's post-launch life cycle.
Reader Comments (1)
Posted: May 6th 2009 11:33PM Brendan Drain said
The interesting part of that is that it seems many developers don't understand how MMO subscriber numbers work. You have an initial surge at launch but few MMOs hold onto those players. The real test of an MMO is whether subscriber numbers continue to fall or if they grow. EVE Online has grown organically from that initial 20,000 subs to 300,000 but because it's consistently growing, it's in a much better position than WAR with the same number of subs. Launch numbers aren't important, in the long term (which I'd bloody hope every MMO company is concerned with) what matters is whether the active subscription numbers are being sustained and if they're increasing or decreasing. In that respect, just stating a figure of 300k like this for WAR's sub numbers is no real indicator of how the game is performing. The sad part is that investors don't understand that either and it's their money on the line.
Mark Jacobs has a whole slew of famous quotes now backfiring on him, such as the quote on server merges. There was this assumption that server merges were an indicator that an MMO was failing but no well-advertised MMO is going to retain 100% of its launch players. Heavy advertising draws in more players for the launch but those players may not all stay. Server merges should have been a predicted and naturally accepted part of the game's post-launch life cycle.