Age of Conan

Thanks to DeathZeroII from Gamespot for this calculation.....

www.gamespot.com/pc/rpg/ageofconanhyborianadventures/show_msgs.php

I bring this up again on news that Funcom is planning to merge the servers after a record four months after the game's release. On one hand, the fanboys are saying "My server's fine, I have a lot of people in my guild and never have any trouble finding a group." On the other hand, Funcom wouldn't merge the servers if they weren't lacking in players, because the effort to do so and the negative publicity it will generate wouldn't be worth it unless it was absolutely vital.

Funcom has only released two population figures (as far as I know) thus far. They were:

May: 800,000
August: 415,000

Since then, they have left customers and investors in the dark. So where are we now?

My estimate is somewhere between 55,000 to 159,000 players. Where did I come up with this range?

The lower bound:

1) Warhammer: Online has 500,000 subscribers according to Mythic:

www.warhammeronline.com/pressreleases/20080926.php

2) Xfire Activity Figures:

www.xfire.com/games/

Warhammer: Online has 46,742 logged hours among Xfire users (#5 overall). Age of Conan has 5,099 logged hours among Xfire users (#40 overall). Thus, we get this equation:

46,742/5,099 = 500,000/X

What it means is, if Warhammer: Online has 500,000 users and a total logged hours figure of 46,742 hours, then if Age of Conan players are logging 5,099 Xfire hours, the total population should be around 55,000 (rounded to the nearest thousand). Of course, Warhammer: Online is a new game, so each player is likely playing it more than each Age of Conan player, so it's just a lower bound for our range rather than the correct answer.

The upper bound:

1) Funcom's Q2 2008 Report:

www.funcom.com/funcom/frontend/files/CONTENT/Funcom_Q208_report.pdf

In this report, Funcom states they had 800,000 players in May, and 415,000 players in August. This means the game is losing roughly 128,000 players every month. If this trend continues for two more months into October, we get 159,000 subscribers. This number is the upper bound because Funcom's numbers may possibly be inflated a bit to assuage investors and customers, and their methodology may have neglected other factors (such as people who still had active accounts but canceled the renewing subscription).

Thus, we can estimate with fairly good accuracy that the current amount of remaining Age of Conan subscribers lies somewhere between 55,000-159,000. The average of the two bounds is 107,000, which sounds like a realistic number given the current amount of activity in the Age of Conan community.

Feel free to dispute my methodology if you wish (in fact, I invite criticism), but thus far it's the most accurate subscription range we're going to get unless Funcom decides to announce their own figures.

I know that statistics aren't always correct, But I think that deathzero have a good point.

Although I personally dont think this estimate is far from the truth(somewhere between 150-200k), The methods in which he used to get these numbers have very obvious flaws in them and by no means can be used to predict the amount of subscribers. Also who cares how many subscribers there are(Aside from Funcom) as long as there are enough to make the game fun. You can only have a few thousand per server tops at any one time anyways.

Yeah, I'm with Ganton on this one.  Using an incorrect formula and incorrect data just means you guessed what most of us know... 100k subscribers.  Also in your secondary formula, you used linear subtraction of losing 128k players per month.  You would be much better off using a percentage decrease every month rather than a flat number.  Like.. AOC lost 50% the first month, then 50% the second month etc etc.  The 50% model also mirrors xfire.  So if AOC had 415k subscribers in June, then xfire lost 50% in July, and another 50% in August, you can put AOC at 100k at the beginning of September.  The dynamic has changed since then though, AOC  only lost 30% in the begginning of September and appears to even be reducing that the last two weeks.   The 3month subscribers have already left, the Warhammer people have already left.. there's not much reason for current players to leave in masse any more.

You can't really use Warhammer numbers because of the very reason you stated.  War is a new game and it is being played more hours per player than a AOC.  Warhammer also is not at 400k currently, probably closer to 300k.  Warhammer ANNOUNCED that number, but has shown a rather significant decrease over the past two weeks (15%) and will drop significantly once the free month is over.

Why not use WOW xfire numbers and WOW at 5M subscribers (NA/EU).  If you do the math, you'll get the same number (100k) but you removed many more variables.

In any event.  AOC is at 100k  +/- 25k  

That's fewer than EQ2, I somehow doubt that. Played EQ2 a lot on different servers.

Most of AoC players are PvE players and tey don't often use X-fire when they are not raiding.

WARs players are mainly PvPers and there is X-fire more needed.

Also the game is losing a lot less people lately then it did the first 3 months, the last month 1 of my guildies have quit (we are a bit over 100). A few monts ago things were a lot worse. If you continue with the curve and only use the 2 reference ponts then the game would be dead in 30 days, that sounds very unlikely.

250K sounds likely anyhow. +-50K

Originally posted by Azrile

Yeah, I'm with Ganton on this one.  Using an incorrect formula and incorrect data just means you guessed what most of us know... 100k subscribers.  Also in your secondary formula, you used linear subtraction of losing 128k players per month.  You would be much better off using a percentage decrease every month rather than a flat number.  Like.. AOC lost 50% the first month, then 50% the second month etc etc.  The 50% model also mirrors xfire.  So if AOC had 415k subscribers in June, then xfire lost 50% in July, and another 50% in August, you can put AOC at 100k at the beginning of September.  The dynamic has changed since then though, AOC  only lost 30% in the begginning of September and appears to even be reducing that the last two weeks.   The 3month subscribers have already left, the Warhammer people have already left.. there's not much reason for current players to leave in masse any more.

You can't really use Warhammer numbers because of the very reason you stated.  War is a new game and it is being played more hours per player than a AOC.  Warhammer also is not at 400k currently, probably closer to 300k.  Warhammer ANNOUNCED that number, but has shown a rather significant decrease over the past two weeks (15%) and will drop significantly once the free month is over.

Why not use WOW xfire numbers and WOW at 5M subscribers (NA/EU).  If you do the math, you'll get the same number (100k) but you removed many more variables.

In any event.  AOC is at 100k  +/- 25k  

I agree with this number also.

We have seen an influx of players though who came back after WAR as people realized it was all the same old mechanics all over again...albeit slower even for combat.

And visually WAR also did not work out. as even though it has muddy looking graphics, people are having a lot of texture issues and what not...bizarre.

Now, all Funcom needs to do is get Patch 3.0 out by the end of October, offer a return in November or December, and try to fix the stupid mess they made (thanks a lot Gaute...you idiot!@)

OP, great work trying to make your post sound official somehow. LOL..

Now lets see..... Gee... I think I gonna say 382 000    + 54000, - possibly 75000. How did that sound?

The methodology is garbage, but the guess is probably pretty accurate.  Realistically it's going to be on the lower end of the scale, 100K or less.

My question is.. who cares? I mean whats your point? Are you just another aoc hater? I mean damn.. that shit is old now!