Broken Bottle, CoH actually hit 300,000 a couple months after launch, and were thrilled. (This was before WoW came out, and the 300K mark was considered "hit" status.) The game continued to grow over the following year, eventually topping out at over 700,000 subscribers before WoW came out.

In other words, the game started strong and grew for quite some time.

By comparison, CO peaked early and has been losing subs ever since. It's closer to a Vanguard or an WAR than another CoX. Of course, Vanguard has steadily gotten better since its rocky start, but it never recovered due to the combination of bad aftertaste in people's mouths and stiff competition in the marketplace. WAR is in a similar situation. In fact, if anything its parallels with CO are quite strong. WAR has been considered by many to be a WoW rip-off, while CO has been considered by many to be a CoX rip-off. WAR and CO both had very successful launches, followed by attrition due to lack of endgame content and other issues. WAR and CO both offer some new things, but none of it was spectacular enough to engage the majority of players long-term.

One other factor to consider is Cryptic's upcoming release of STO. Yes, it's a totally different genre. However, both CO and STO are similar in that they appeal to a demographic that's had enough with elves and orcs. :) What's more, Cryptic has to a certain extent set CO up for hard times by how they're piggy-backing STO onto CO with programs like the 6-month and lifetime sub beta guarantees. Put another way, they have deliberately cannibalized CO's player base to promote STO. That will reasonably be expected to have an impact on CO in the long run.

Please understand that this is not saying CO is a flop. WAR continues to do well with subscriber numbers that are similar to what we're guessing CO is at. But it also shows that CO has a long phase of slow growth ahead of it. However, with the upcoming launches of two other super hero games as well as the rejuvenation of the genre's grandpappy, the question is whether these modest numbers are going to be enough for CO to remain genuinely viable. Or will it end up following the course of Matrix Online? Or even Vanguard, for that matter?