I am not playing LotRO anymore, but I read the boards every so often (EU ones, so you ll have to figure in Codemasters as source of problems too) and have 2 friends still playing it, all assuring me it never again reached the quality of content, diversity and pace of additions after MoM. Actually, as far as I can see, they havent even fully launched Mines of Moria yet, still holding back things originally slated to release half a year ago.

While I dont know numbers, that is normally not a sign of a financially successful blockbuster, esp. figuring in the very small in scale and cheaply extended (many grinds, little content) MoM expansion. Maybe they got 200 or 300k, I dont know. Its certainly an underperformer though, probably not as much as WAR, but still not near the success hoped for. I mean, never a new server, and several very empty ones is not a good sign when they used to be alive, is it?

Either way, Land of the Dead is about to hit, and I think this can easily buy WAR another two months of stable sub numbers, in which to turn around the cart and get back on the rising end of player numbers. I sincerely hope so, because there just is no game like it when it comes to PvP (fantasy, RvR-based, noninstanced), and EA can be really merciless when it comes to cash, esp. as soon as they have the money from Sims 3 under their belt, and arent forced to keep everything on life support.

Lotd *is* the "turning around of the cart" , if all LotD does is stabilize the subs for a few months that's the end of the dream that WAR will ever really pick up in any significant way anymore, because by then other, newer MMO's will start releasing and WAR will be "old news". It has benefited from a MMO "vacuum" for a long time so far, but that vacuum is coming to an end, if LotD doesn't turn the game around, I wouldn't expect anything to do so anytime soon.

I believe the EU player base is visibly shrinking.  A couple months ago the server populations on the English-speaking servers read mostly High/High and Med/Med, now they mostly read Low/Low.

Originally posted by Axxar

I believe the EU player base is visibly shrinking.  A couple months ago the server populations on the English-speaking servers read mostly High/High and Med/Med, now they mostly read Low/Low.

I'd be surprised if it was growing, but hey, if mythic can pull it off then hats off to them. 

As much as I hyped and praised warhammer and then later bitched and moaned about it, I still think the game has some sort of potential if they just redo a lot of features and aspects (which they wont because that would mean drastically changing a lot of already implemented content).

Originally posted by Khaunshar

For 100 Million you can bet EA was aiming at WoW level. WoW cost what, 65 Million? Which was considered an insane investment that only a truly daring attempt at creating a new standard would require. I mean, Vanguard was touted as very expensive at what, 30 Million?

Not to mention those 100 Million dont figure in the huge and expensive marketing, which can easily go from 50 to 100% of that figure for a worldwide campaign.

For that effort, 300.000 is really below expectations, and very, very bad. REALLY bad.

On the other hand, EVE never poured 100 Million into their game. EVE never ran huge marketing campaigns. and EVE was never overstaffed for an expected triple of active players they got now.

Its an entirely different beast, financially speaking.

We as players tend to compare all MMOs among each others with player numbers, but it really does not work like that. Games with 60k players can be really profitable (Anarchy Online for ex.), whereas a monster like WAR can be badly broken at 6 times that number.

The relevant part is, though, what the effect of this will be. LotRO is already seeing a steep decline in content, both quantity and quality, after their initial 600k sales went down to under 200k. AoC will, sooner or later, have to stop investing into the game and start downsizing too.

At that point, the question which is far more interesting than the total number of players is: Can the game with its current infrastructure, debts and everything, still be maintained at a level that is sufficient to keep those 300k players over a couple years. If the answer is yes, and Mythic gets away with producing the content they can pay for with debt + 300k subs, then everything is golden, and who cares about the numbers.

If the answer is no, and the game has a further drop in quality, or a lack of new content or whatnot, then its a downward spiral that nobody really wants to pay for anymore. That is a very real risk. But its never about the total numbers of players. Its about income vs. cost.

I have no solid evidence against your figures or conclusions, but I do have reservations on the way you manipulate the numbers to draw conclusions.

WAR and EvE may have similar sub level now, but that means a different story.  WAR sells a lot more copies right upon launch, that means a huge instant recoup of costs.  I dunno the exact number, I dare say much more than the current sub.  WAR made it to 300k sub or higher right upon launch, so it enjoys 300k x $15 a month right away.  EvE never sell that many copies as WAR did, I dare say, and it took EvE a long time to get to 300k, meaning what?  By the time WAR is as old as EvE, WAR will most likely earn a much bigger total revenue than EvE, unless the pop base of WAR vanished.

Now is WAR more profitable than EvE?  God knows.  By the time WAR is as old as EvE, we can try to compare, but that will be years later.

WAR will never be as old as EvE unless you invent some kind of device that can put EvE into a temporal stasis to prevent it aging until WAR catches up :)

Originally posted by Axxar

WAR will never be as old as EvE unless you invent some kind of device that can put EvE into a temporal stasis to prevent it aging until WAR catches up :)

Ok if you are pedentic, old means cohort.
 

It means it is fair to compare the situation of EvE at its 5th year, against WAR at its fifth year.

Originally posted by Khaunshar

For 100 Million you can bet EA was aiming at WoW level. WoW cost what, 65 Million? Which was considered an insane investment that only a truly daring attempt at creating a new standard would require. I mean, Vanguard was touted as very expensive at what, 30 Million?

Not to mention those 100 Million dont figure in the huge and expensive marketing, which can easily go from 50 to 100% of that figure for a worldwide campaign.

For that effort, 300.000 is really below expectations, and very, very bad. REALLY bad.

On the other hand, EVE never poured 100 Million into their game. EVE never ran huge marketing campaigns. and EVE was never overstaffed for an expected triple of active players they got now.

Its an entirely different beast, financially speaking.

We as players tend to compare all MMOs among each others with player numbers, but it really does not work like that. Games with 60k players can be really profitable (Anarchy Online for ex.), whereas a monster like WAR can be badly broken at 6 times that number.

The relevant part is, though, what the effect of this will be. LotRO is already seeing a steep decline in content, both quantity and quality, after their initial 600k sales went down to under 200k. AoC will, sooner or later, have to stop investing into the game and start downsizing too.

At that point, the question which is far more interesting than the total number of players is: Can the game with its current infrastructure, debts and everything, still be maintained at a level that is sufficient to keep those 300k players over a couple years. If the answer is yes, and Mythic gets away with producing the content they can pay for with debt + 300k subs, then everything is golden, and who cares about the numbers.

If the answer is no, and the game has a further drop in quality, or a lack of new content or whatnot, then its a downward spiral that nobody really wants to pay for anymore. That is a very real risk. But its never about the total numbers of players. Its about income vs. cost.

Well, EA have stated that WAR needs 250K players to not lose any money. And I guess that includes paying of debts, running the game and develop at least some patches.

It is kinda worrying since EA are very short on money now. If things go down they might sell it or close it down, neither is good.

So Mythic needs to get more players pretty soon, and to get that they need either to make the game more fun or advertise.

They could also make the game closer to the original Warhammer system but that could backfire badly (SWG anyone, it is risky to change an existing game a lot).

Whatever they will do they need to do rather fast since otherwise they might end up as Vanguard with a too small team to do much, or even worse being close down.

I don't think they will go up a lot in player just by keep doing what they are doing now since they are still losing players. They must better the long term play since many people here at least say they love the game after a week but get tired after a month or 2.

Well, I hope they get out of this, the game do have some really good parts.

Originally posted by Orthedos

Originally posted by Khaunshar

For 100 Million you can bet EA was aiming at WoW level. WoW cost what, 65 Million? Which was considered an insane investment that only a truly daring attempt at creating a new standard would require. I mean, Vanguard was touted as very expensive at what, 30 Million?

Not to mention those 100 Million dont figure in the huge and expensive marketing, which can easily go from 50 to 100% of that figure for a worldwide campaign.

For that effort, 300.000 is really below expectations, and very, very bad. REALLY bad.

On the other hand, EVE never poured 100 Million into their game. EVE never ran huge marketing campaigns. and EVE was never overstaffed for an expected triple of active players they got now.

Its an entirely different beast, financially speaking.

We as players tend to compare all MMOs among each others with player numbers, but it really does not work like that. Games with 60k players can be really profitable (Anarchy Online for ex.), whereas a monster like WAR can be badly broken at 6 times that number.

The relevant part is, though, what the effect of this will be. LotRO is already seeing a steep decline in content, both quantity and quality, after their initial 600k sales went down to under 200k. AoC will, sooner or later, have to stop investing into the game and start downsizing too.

At that point, the question which is far more interesting than the total number of players is: Can the game with its current infrastructure, debts and everything, still be maintained at a level that is sufficient to keep those 300k players over a couple years. If the answer is yes, and Mythic gets away with producing the content they can pay for with debt + 300k subs, then everything is golden, and who cares about the numbers.

If the answer is no, and the game has a further drop in quality, or a lack of new content or whatnot, then its a downward spiral that nobody really wants to pay for anymore. That is a very real risk. But its never about the total numbers of players. Its about income vs. cost.

 

I have no solid evidence against your figures or conclusions, but I do have reservations on the way you manipulate the numbers to draw conclusions.

WAR and EvE may have similar sub level now, but that means a different story.  WAR sells a lot more copies right upon launch, that means a huge instant recoup of costs.  I dunno the exact number, I dare say much more than the current sub.  WAR made it to 300k sub or higher right upon launch, so it enjoys 300k x $15 a month right away.  EvE never sell that many copies as WAR did, I dare say, and it took EvE a long time to get to 300k, meaning what?  By the time WAR is as old as EvE, WAR will most likely earn a much bigger total revenue than EvE, unless the pop base of WAR vanished.

Now is WAR more profitable than EvE?  God knows.  By the time WAR is as old as EvE, we can try to compare, but that will be years later.

You can look at it a few different ways. 

EVE developed its subs over time, which means the 300k it has, now, aren't going anywhere.  It's managed to corner the market in its genre, and similar games, even such with a branding like Star Trek, won't hurt that.  Plus, from what I've heard, their operational costs are good.  They never started out being the next monster game.  For them, everything over 100k is profit; nevermind the 300k they have now.

WAR popped into an already-saturated genre.  WoW, GW, FFXI, EQ2, DaoC, Vanguard, LotRO...all covered the genre, and they needed to make a big impression out of the gate.  Unfortunately, they made the wrong impression, and people in this genre are not very forgiving. 

If they spent 100 million on the game, plus advertising, they were big in the hole when they came out.  say an average of $15 X 300k per month gives them 4.5 million a month.  Throw in 45-50 for hard copies of the game, and add in operational costs, and they need at least two years, at 300k subs, to break even.  Don't forget, also, that they shot up to over 700k in the first few months, yet in the first 6 months dropped to 300k?  Now, if they are leveled out at that, good for them.  If they drop, even 100k more, that continues a trend that someone like EA, especially in these times, might not put up with.

WAR also has the disadvantage of being on the receiving end of fans who saw such prizes as RGTR, AoC, and Hellgate: London.  Especially after AoC, people aren't gonna put up with big flaws out of the gate.

Originally posted by haggus71

Originally posted by Orthedos

Originally posted by Khaunshar

For 100 Million you can bet EA was aiming at WoW level. WoW cost what, 65 Million? Which was considered an insane investment that only a truly daring attempt at creating a new standard would require. I mean, Vanguard was touted as very expensive at what, 30 Million?

Not to mention those 100 Million dont figure in the huge and expensive marketing, which can easily go from 50 to 100% of that figure for a worldwide campaign.

For that effort, 300.000 is really below expectations, and very, very bad. REALLY bad.

On the other hand, EVE never poured 100 Million into their game. EVE never ran huge marketing campaigns. and EVE was never overstaffed for an expected triple of active players they got now.

Its an entirely different beast, financially speaking.

We as players tend to compare all MMOs among each others with player numbers, but it really does not work like that. Games with 60k players can be really profitable (Anarchy Online for ex.), whereas a monster like WAR can be badly broken at 6 times that number.

The relevant part is, though, what the effect of this will be. LotRO is already seeing a steep decline in content, both quantity and quality, after their initial 600k sales went down to under 200k. AoC will, sooner or later, have to stop investing into the game and start downsizing too.

At that point, the question which is far more interesting than the total number of players is: Can the game with its current infrastructure, debts and everything, still be maintained at a level that is sufficient to keep those 300k players over a couple years. If the answer is yes, and Mythic gets away with producing the content they can pay for with debt + 300k subs, then everything is golden, and who cares about the numbers.

If the answer is no, and the game has a further drop in quality, or a lack of new content or whatnot, then its a downward spiral that nobody really wants to pay for anymore. That is a very real risk. But its never about the total numbers of players. Its about income vs. cost.

 

I have no solid evidence against your figures or conclusions, but I do have reservations on the way you manipulate the numbers to draw conclusions.

WAR and EvE may have similar sub level now, but that means a different story.  WAR sells a lot more copies right upon launch, that means a huge instant recoup of costs.  I dunno the exact number, I dare say much more than the current sub.  WAR made it to 300k sub or higher right upon launch, so it enjoys 300k x $15 a month right away.  EvE never sell that many copies as WAR did, I dare say, and it took EvE a long time to get to 300k, meaning what?  By the time WAR is as old as EvE, WAR will most likely earn a much bigger total revenue than EvE, unless the pop base of WAR vanished.

Now is WAR more profitable than EvE?  God knows.  By the time WAR is as old as EvE, we can try to compare, but that will be years later.

You can look at it a few different ways. 

EVE developed its subs over time, which means the 300k it has, now, aren't going anywhere.  It's managed to corner the market in its genre, and similar games, even such with a branding like Star Trek, won't hurt that.  Plus, from what I've heard, their operational costs are good.  They never started out being the next monster game.  For them, everything over 100k is profit; nevermind the 300k they have now.

WAR popped into an already-saturated genre.  WoW, GW, FFXI, EQ2, DaoC, Vanguard, LotRO...all covered the genre, and they needed to make a big impression out of the gate.  Unfortunately, they made the wrong impression, and people in this genre are not very forgiving. 

If they spent 100 million on the game, plus advertising, they were big in the hole when they came out.  say an average of $15 X 300k per month gives them 4.5 million a month.  Throw in 45-50 for hard copies of the game, and add in operational costs, and they need at least two years, at 300k subs, to break even.  Don't forget, also, that they shot up to over 700k in the first few months, yet in the first 6 months dropped to 300k?  Now, if they are leveled out at that, good for them.  If they drop, even 100k more, that continues a trend that someone like EA, especially in these times, might not put up with.

WAR also has the disadvantage of being on the receiving end of fans who saw such prizes as RGTR, AoC, and Hellgate: London.  Especially after AoC, people aren't gonna put up with big flaws out of the gate.

That is one possible theory.  As I already stated, I have no reliable info on profits and loss tables of any corporation, nor will it make sense revealing such info on a message board.
 

All I said is, 300k for WAR now is not the same story as 300k for EvE today.  It does not imply who is doing better than who, or otherwise.

Originally posted by Zorndorf

Originally posted by Orthedos

 

I have no solid evidence against your figures or conclusions, but I do have reservations on the way you manipulate the numbers to draw conclusions.

WAR and EvE may have similar sub level now, but that means a different story.  WAR sells a lot more copies right upon launch, that means a huge instant recoup of costs.  I dunno the exact number, I dare say much more than the current sub.  WAR made it to 300k sub or higher right upon launch, so it enjoys 300k x $15 a month right away.  EvE never sell that many copies as WAR did, I dare say, and it took EvE a long time to get to 300k, meaning what?  By the time WAR is as old as EvE, WAR will most likely earn a much bigger total revenue than EvE, unless the pop base of WAR vanished.

Now is WAR more profitable than EvE?  God knows.  By the time WAR is as old as EvE, we can try to compare, but that will be years later.

 

You don't need to wait "for years".

Daily update: Today's War Xfire number of players:  .... 2471 players (lowest ever).

Sep 2008 14K, Xmas 2008, 5.5 K, Mar 2009, 3.5 K ---> Today 2.4 K

That's 43% of the Xmas ("we have 300K subs !") time.

Any comments? I have one: EA better explains this evolution.

I wouldn't use Xfire figures for anything but general trends, but saying that it's the frist time it's fallen bellow 24th place.

Originally posted by Zorndorf

Originally posted by Orthedos

 

I have no solid evidence against your figures or conclusions, but I do have reservations on the way you manipulate the numbers to draw conclusions.

WAR and EvE may have similar sub level now, but that means a different story.  WAR sells a lot more copies right upon launch, that means a huge instant recoup of costs.  I dunno the exact number, I dare say much more than the current sub.  WAR made it to 300k sub or higher right upon launch, so it enjoys 300k x $15 a month right away.  EvE never sell that many copies as WAR did, I dare say, and it took EvE a long time to get to 300k, meaning what?  By the time WAR is as old as EvE, WAR will most likely earn a much bigger total revenue than EvE, unless the pop base of WAR vanished.

Now is WAR more profitable than EvE?  God knows.  By the time WAR is as old as EvE, we can try to compare, but that will be years later.

 

You don't need to wait "for years".

Daily update: Today's War Xfire number of players:  .... 2471 players (lowest ever).

Sep 2008 14K, Xmas 2008, 5.5 K, Mar 2009, 3.5 K ---> Today 2.4 K

That's 43% of the Xmas ("we have 300K subs !") time.

Any comments? I have one: EA better explains this evolution.

Xfire proves nothing.  First Xfire could be lying, who know if they are sincere.  They are in business, they have vest interests no one knows. 

Second, all you can say is, some of the Xfire ppl have stop loggin on WAR, or that they stopped loggin on Xfire when they log on WAR.  There are millions without Xfire, what do they do with WAR?  I don't know, you don't know.

Simply put, Xfire is not a representative sample of anything.  It can hardly be used to forecast or estimate anything else apart from Xfire population.

Originally posted by Newhopes

Originally posted by Zorndorf

Originally posted by Orthedos

 

I have no solid evidence against your figures or conclusions, but I do have reservations on the way you manipulate the numbers to draw conclusions.

WAR and EvE may have similar sub level now, but that means a different story.  WAR sells a lot more copies right upon launch, that means a huge instant recoup of costs.  I dunno the exact number, I dare say much more than the current sub.  WAR made it to 300k sub or higher right upon launch, so it enjoys 300k x $15 a month right away.  EvE never sell that many copies as WAR did, I dare say, and it took EvE a long time to get to 300k, meaning what?  By the time WAR is as old as EvE, WAR will most likely earn a much bigger total revenue than EvE, unless the pop base of WAR vanished.

Now is WAR more profitable than EvE?  God knows.  By the time WAR is as old as EvE, we can try to compare, but that will be years later.

 

You don't need to wait "for years".

Daily update: Today's War Xfire number of players:  .... 2471 players (lowest ever).

Sep 2008 14K, Xmas 2008, 5.5 K, Mar 2009, 3.5 K ---> Today 2.4 K

That's 43% of the Xmas ("we have 300K subs !") time.

Any comments? I have one: EA better explains this evolution.

 

I wouldn't use Xfire figures for anything but general trends, but saying that it's the frist time it's fallen bellow 24th place.

WAR is not selling well in the states, that I heard from a friend selling games, software and stuffs.

WAR just launched in Asia (Hong Kong I think).

Is WAR dying?  I hope not, but I dare not bet my retirement funds in it.

Originally posted by Orthedos 

Xfire proves nothing.  First Xfire could be lying, who know if they are sincere.  They are in business, they have vest interests no one knows. 

Second, all you can say is, some of the Xfire ppl have stop loggin on WAR, or that they stopped loggin on Xfire when they log on WAR.  There are millions without Xfire, what do they do with WAR?  I don't know, you don't know.

Simply put, Xfire is not a representative sample of anything.  It can hardly be used to forecast or estimate anything else apart from Xfire population.

I would normally agree with you about xfire being unreliable for estimating an mmo, but for some reason it has been pretty accurate for AOC/Warhammer/wow.  It shouldn't be, but somehow when the numbers are all hashed out it has shown a very good track record of matching known populations of those games. 

It really was surprising the first few times I saw people playing with the numbers.

Originally posted by Daffid011

Originally posted by Orthedos 

Xfire proves nothing.  First Xfire could be lying, who know if they are sincere.  They are in business, they have vest interests no one knows. 

Second, all you can say is, some of the Xfire ppl have stop loggin on WAR, or that they stopped loggin on Xfire when they log on WAR.  There are millions without Xfire, what do they do with WAR?  I don't know, you don't know.

Simply put, Xfire is not a representative sample of anything.  It can hardly be used to forecast or estimate anything else apart from Xfire population.

 

I would normally agree with you about xfire being unreliable for estimating an mmo, but for some reason it has been pretty accurate for AOC/Warhammer/wow.  It shouldn't be, but somehow when the numbers are all hashed out it has shown a very good track record of matching known populations of those games. 

It really was surprising the first few times I saw people playing with the numbers.

 

That is a fallacy in your argument.

I roll a dice for a year, the number 2 comes out with a 1/6 probability, the dice looks fair.

Yesterday I rolled it 5 times, got it all 2.  So suddenly the dice is loaded?

A counterexample can refute an attempt at establishing a "theory".  An example cannot establish a theory, notably a flawed one.

We all know that xfire cannot represent all games (and seriously we have yet to define what is all gamers).  That is it, we cannot suddenly establish xfire just based on a few observation.  We only see some spurious association.

Now I am not saying WAR is going good.  My friend told me it is not.  He also told me WAR is launching in Asia.  That is all I know in terms of information, anything else is a guess.

Chill guys it's just a silly game. Relax, go get some fresh air outside. It's not that serious 

Originally posted by Orthedos

Originally posted by Zorndorf

Originally posted by Orthedos

 

I have no solid evidence against your figures or conclusions, but I do have reservations on the way you manipulate the numbers to draw conclusions.

WAR and EvE may have similar sub level now, but that means a different story.  WAR sells a lot more copies right upon launch, that means a huge instant recoup of costs.  I dunno the exact number, I dare say much more than the current sub.  WAR made it to 300k sub or higher right upon launch, so it enjoys 300k x $15 a month right away.  EvE never sell that many copies as WAR did, I dare say, and it took EvE a long time to get to 300k, meaning what?  By the time WAR is as old as EvE, WAR will most likely earn a much bigger total revenue than EvE, unless the pop base of WAR vanished.

Now is WAR more profitable than EvE?  God knows.  By the time WAR is as old as EvE, we can try to compare, but that will be years later.

 

You don't need to wait "for years".

Daily update: Today's War Xfire number of players:  .... 2471 players (lowest ever).

Sep 2008 14K, Xmas 2008, 5.5 K, Mar 2009, 3.5 K ---> Today 2.4 K

That's 43% of the Xmas ("we have 300K subs !") time.

Any comments? I have one: EA better explains this evolution.

 

Xfire proves nothing.  First Xfire could be lying, who know if they are sincere.  They are in business, they have vest interests no one knows. 

Second, all you can say is, some of the Xfire ppl have stop loggin on WAR, or that they stopped loggin on Xfire when they log on WAR.  There are millions without Xfire, what do they do with WAR?  I don't know, you don't know.

Simply put, Xfire is not a representative sample of anything.  It can hardly be used to forecast or estimate anything else apart from Xfire population.

Xfire has now been proven right countless times. When companies releasse sub figures (for US & Europe) then xfire has always been spot on. The reason is simply because it has such a huge sample in comparison to a game population. TV rating companies use a sample of 1000 people to compare habits of 200 million people. In comparison, WAR had a sample of 20k people when they had 700-800k subs.

Even though xfire is not perfect, it is still pretty effective way of measuring a games western population.

Originally posted by Raztor

Xfire has now been proven right countless times. When companies releasse sub figures (for US & Europe) then xfire has always been spot on. The reason is simply because it has such a huge sample in comparison to a game population. TV rating companies use a sample of 1000 people to compare habits of 200 million people. In comparison, WAR had a sample of 20k people when they had 700-800k subs.Even though xfire is not perfect, it is still pretty effective way of measuring a games western population.

 

^ That's pretty much true, it's how people do TV ratings and poll samples.  They aren't always right, but the trend goes inline with how the game is doing. 

It honestly is no secret that WAR isn't doing as well as it had hoped.  One good thing Mythic has going their way is that they have virtually unlimited subscription base to pick from the WoW pool.  WAR modeled after WoW for the most part, except for the PvP/RvR aspect.  They did so with the intent to keep sucking in WoW subscribers as they look for something different to play.

It happens, people play games for awhile, then they either need a break or want to move on to something else.  WAR will remain a good alternative to WoW players.  But still, WAR has lost a tons of subscribers, that's a fact you can't ignore.

War is not going to launch crap in asia, its already dominated by Aion which is 10x better than this failhammer.  Only sub War is goiing to get is from free to play so they can brag about their sub in diff way.

---

Originally posted by Zorndorf
http://www.xfire.com/games/who/Warhammer_Online_Age_of_Reckoning/
Forget the 300K subs. :)))
Xfire on War shows now 2600 Xfire players during the week, That's HALF of the 5500 Xfire players they had at Xmas.
And WAY off the 15K Xfire players they had in Sep 2008.
No way José.
Xfire is a sample of "250.000" western PC players constantly on line it says more than any half hearted press conference.
Let's give us the financial reports, but oh Boy EA is lying their pants off with those subs statements.
The handful of servers with a med status show the rest.
First lawyer that finds the hole in the financial EA report calculation can make a fortune. What are you waiting for ? :))))
 

---

Oh god not another tin foil brigade reject. EA is NOT lying with their financial report. If they were that would be a near Enron level scam. They don't release those numbers for the dirty forum monkies you know, they release those numbers for their investors. Those numbers are completely spot on.

---

Originally posted by popinjay

---

Originally posted by Ogrelin
15$ * 300.000 = 4.500.000$

4,5M$ * 9 Months? = 40M

700.000 boxes * 50$?= 35M

+ the boxes they have sold since the 700.000 numbers were released.

Not that bad imho.

even if they haven't got all their investments back yet...I think it's safe to say they will eventually.

---

The way business works is you buy something cheap and sell it high.

WAR sold those 700K boxes bulk to Walmart, Best Buy, Circuit City, Gamestop etc in bulk. Meaning that those places bought probably 50k boxes here, 25k boxes there, another 100k boxes to this guy. In order to buy that many boxes, they don't buy them for $50 from Mythic and then turn around and sell them to you for... $50 as well. They'd make no money at all. A store like Walmart is pure profit. If they sell it to you for $50, you can bet they didn't pay over $25 a box or they wouldn't even stock it. They'd make a deal with someone else or would'nt sell it.

Figure they sold 700K boxes for max $20 a box profit. Now recalculate your totals and see if that's still good. Then figure that the boxes they have sold since then have all been DEEPLY discounted for as little as $10 a box. Still looking good?

The only thing that matters is subs, and they have probably dipped back under 300k. They were 300k four months ago, and now they are still at 300k AFTER opening in a whole new world market. That's not good news. All that shows is as many new people that joined WAR, that many old people just quit. Non growth.

It's safe to say ANY game running several years will make their investment back, no matter how crappy it is. I'm sure Asheron's Call made all it's money back. Why? Because it's still running. Same with Matrix Online and other crappy MMOs. WAR will be no different as long as it doesn't shut down, which it won't. WAR can survive perfectly well with 3-4 servers NA side, which is what they will eventually fall to.

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Wow. Your numbers are so horribly off. I used to work at Circuit City then Best Buy (before finally moving onto Verizon) and on average the company would buy a game for around 40$ and sell it back for 50$. 25$ a game would make the CEO of BB cream his pants.

Double post error please delete.

most likely your shop would buy it from head office for $40 and sell it for $50 and that is teh figure that you would have seen.

It means that head office can do all sorts of figures and perhaps even have some shops as franchises.

The retail industry in the US and EU works on 100% profit margins.

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Originally posted by Vagrant_Zero

Wow. Your numbers are so horribly off. I used to work at Circuit City then Best Buy (before finally moving onto Verizon) and on average the company would buy a game for around 40$ and sell it back for 50$. 25$ a game would make the CEO of BB cream his pants.

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I'm not sure if you are talking about my numbers or Ogrelin's numbers here, but at this point in WAR's status, it really doesn't matter at all.

You can already see mass interest in other games as they have been announced this month. Aion is in NA beta and if they pull 75,000 NAs from WAR, that game is done. A couple of other games are coming to release by the end of this year and WAR has not done anything significant that will pull in 50,000 or more new subs.

They've reached their highwater mark and it's all downward trends from this point forward so earnings are irrelevant now.

No matter how many people subscribe its not going to make it a good game. There is no originallity to keep a player around. After I got top level the lure diminished and I ultimately quit.

Originally posted by Raztor

Originally posted by Orthedos

Originally posted by Zorndorf

Originally posted by Orthedos

 

I have no solid evidence against your figures or conclusions, but I do have reservations on the way you manipulate the numbers to draw conclusions.

WAR and EvE may have similar sub level now, but that means a different story.  WAR sells a lot more copies right upon launch, that means a huge instant recoup of costs.  I dunno the exact number, I dare say much more than the current sub.  WAR made it to 300k sub or higher right upon launch, so it enjoys 300k x $15 a month right away.  EvE never sell that many copies as WAR did, I dare say, and it took EvE a long time to get to 300k, meaning what?  By the time WAR is as old as EvE, WAR will most likely earn a much bigger total revenue than EvE, unless the pop base of WAR vanished.

Now is WAR more profitable than EvE?  God knows.  By the time WAR is as old as EvE, we can try to compare, but that will be years later.

 

You don't need to wait "for years".

Daily update: Today's War Xfire number of players:  .... 2471 players (lowest ever).

Sep 2008 14K, Xmas 2008, 5.5 K, Mar 2009, 3.5 K ---> Today 2.4 K

That's 43% of the Xmas ("we have 300K subs !") time.

Any comments? I have one: EA better explains this evolution.

 

Xfire proves nothing.  First Xfire could be lying, who know if they are sincere.  They are in business, they have vest interests no one knows. 

Second, all you can say is, some of the Xfire ppl have stop loggin on WAR, or that they stopped loggin on Xfire when they log on WAR.  There are millions without Xfire, what do they do with WAR?  I don't know, you don't know.

Simply put, Xfire is not a representative sample of anything.  It can hardly be used to forecast or estimate anything else apart from Xfire population.

Xfire has now been proven right countless times. When companies releasse sub figures (for US & Europe) then xfire has always been spot on. The reason is simply because it has such a huge sample in comparison to a game population. TV rating companies use a sample of 1000 people to compare habits of 200 million people. In comparison, WAR had a sample of 20k people when they had 700-800k subs.

 

Even though xfire is not perfect, it is still pretty effective way of measuring a games western population.

 

Large sample alone does not guarantee good sample.  Representative sample much smaller can do the estimate job much more efficiently.

Is Xfire representative for WAR?  I don't know.  So I won't trust Xfire.  Not that I know its wrong.

You can place your bet on Xfire, no big deal.  That is your judgment.

After all, at the end of the day, no one except M Jocobs know the truth.  And he will carry the truth to the coffin with him.