Originally posted by DarkPony

Sure looks like it.

But the single number I'm most interested in most would be;

% of sub retention after the first quarter.

 

 

Exactly.  This is the kind of thing I'd want to see too.  Pre-orders aren't indicative of game quality, nor how many people will stick around after the first month megabuzz of a huge new world to explore.  But by then, most people won't care about numbers, or threads about numbers.

"I don't care" should be an option.  Launch numbers have never been a good indicator of whether a game will last.

I think it's possible it could be the largest launch ever. I'm not sure about having the most subscriptions ever.

Biggest launch, yes (by far).

Most subs...no.  No MMO will EVER beat WoW at its peak.

Originally posted by Squiggie

Biggest launch, yes (by far).

Most subs...no.  No MMO will EVER beat WoW at its peak.

SWTOR will beat WoW western sub markets.

Originally posted by Precusor

Originally posted by Squiggie

Biggest launch, yes (by far).

Most subs...no.  No MMO will EVER beat WoW at its peak.

SWTOR will beat WoW western sub markets.

Ehhhhh, I dunno, WoW has still got around 3.5 to 4 million western market subs I think.  Still, SWTOR will make them sweat a bit.  

Anyway, as far as launch, I'm going with a very conservative 2.5 million, but would not be surprised if more.  

Originally posted by Precusor

Originally posted by Squiggie

Biggest launch, yes (by far).

Most subs...no.  No MMO will EVER beat WoW at its peak.

SWTOR will beat WoW western sub markets.

I was talking total subs.  I don't see any MMO ever topping 11M again.

I agree that TOR will likely eventually pass up WoW in the West, though.

Originally posted by Biggus99

Ehhhhh, I dunno, WoW has still got around 3.5 to 4 million western market subs I think.  Still, SWTOR will make them sweat a bit.  

Anyway, as far as launch, I'm going with a very conservative 2.5 million, but would not be surprised if more.  

Their western sub numbers are probably around the 2 million mark.

Originally posted by Squiggie

I was talking total subs.  I don't see any MMO ever topping 11M again.

I agree that TOR will likely eventually pass up WoW in the West, though.

Is SWTOR being released in Asia with some sort of fcked up paying model?

Originally posted by Zylaxx

Nope pretty sure WoW and Rift both opened up with higher numbers but I could be wrong.

Yup, you are...wrong, that is.

Originally posted by Precusor

Originally posted by Biggus99

Ehhhhh, I dunno, WoW has still got around 3.5 to 4 million western market subs I think.  Still, SWTOR will make them sweat a bit.  

Anyway, as far as launch, I'm going with a very conservative 2.5 million, but would not be surprised if more.  

Their western sub numbers are probably around the 2 million mark.

I haven't been keeping track, but if the 2 million mark is correct, you may very well be right about SWTOR overtaking them.

Originally posted by Biggus99

Originally posted by Precusor

Originally posted by Biggus99

Ehhhhh, I dunno, WoW has still got around 3.5 to 4 million western market subs I think.  Still, SWTOR will make them sweat a bit.  

Anyway, as far as launch, I'm going with a very conservative 2.5 million, but would not be surprised if more.  

Their western sub numbers are probably around the 2 million mark.

I haven't been keeping track, but if the 2 million mark is correct, you may very well be right about SWTOR overtaking them.

By a mile. Simple maths tbh:

More than 800k US box orders, current trends are around 50% of total sales = digital so US only is more than 1.6 million sales a month before launch, add EU and the rest of the world and you can practically double that number: 3.2 mil + ... a month before launch.

wtf does subscription matter for honestly, you know if it were to hit 11 mill most of you people would turn away from it and be like "it's to mainstream, they don't care about the real fans." or "they just want your money." A game with 11mill subs feels the same as a game with 1mill, since in fact all 11mill subs aren't online and a server can only hold a few thousand at once so....wtf. It's not like the game is running for presidency and subs are votes. 

To answer your question though I'd say No. Star Wars is big yes, but it is for a niche' of people, it isn't broad enough and being behind such a big IP you have to be careful how you go about things in game because if you don't the hadcore fans will be disenchanted and not want to play at all. Also i feel that not many people are interested in sci/fi, after all the arguably the biggest sci-fi game is halo. 

Ok so it might have a chance at being the biggest launch to date, but it will be hard AION was pretty huge, and well I'm not to sure on WoW but I can't imagine how many people hopped on from warcraft. But I feel that either "titan" or possibly POSSIBLY gw2 will be bigger... however w/e titan is will most likely be huge. 

Originally posted by marinrider

Cataclysm is not an MMO launch, its an expansion launch.  You would have to compare SWTOR's launch to WoW vanilla launch.

Not sure you could draw a relevant conclusion from that comparison.

The total player market is 10 million (roughly) larger than it was in 2004.  But that includes a lot of asian market that was never relevant to the west before '04.  Any direct comparison gets complex in a hurry, the sort of things marketers love to spin in whatever direction is most favorable to themselves.

Expansions are not the same thing so CATAs numbers shouldn't be compared to TORs.

So yes, TOR will be the largest MMO launch so far. I think Titan and GW2 will give it a run for the money though.

Originally posted by Precusor

Originally posted by Biggus99

Ehhhhh, I dunno, WoW has still got around 3.5 to 4 million western market subs I think.  Still, SWTOR will make them sweat a bit.  

Anyway, as far as launch, I'm going with a very conservative 2.5 million, but would not be surprised if more.  

Their western sub numbers are probably around the 2 million mark.

It is really hard to say since we have no official numbers from Blizz. 2 M sounds rather small to me but I can't say I can give any numbers myself. Well, maybe between 1,5 and 4M.

I wish Blizz could give us some regional numbers...

Granted most people on the internet love making up statistics, but it seems a little extreme in this thread.

It's generally accepted that WoW did launch with a few hundred thousand players in late 2004, however they cracked 1 million in early 2005, and by the one year mark had between 4 and 5 million players. So saying it took them a year to just get a million isnt really all that close.

Linkage

It's hard to project what subscriptions are unless a company tells you, and also defines what they constitue as a subscription. (Not some companies give box sales, forum account sign-ups but not people who are actually paying for a monthly service.)

You can argue the accuracy, but again, here is a link Sub's 150k to 1 million that is at least a reasonable starting point, and before the fight ensues, they also give an "accuracy" grade.

Here are some highpoints for recent releases:

Age of Conan- 700k
Warhammer Online- 800k
Rift- 600k

Note all those numbers where right after release.

To the original question, will it be the largest MMO release ever? I definitely think so, and we wont really know how well it is retaining players until 60-90 days have passed. (If we know at 30, it's likely because it is dipping.)

Originally posted by Baikal

To the original question, will it be the largest MMO release ever? I definitely think so, and we wont really know how well it is retaining players until 60-90 days have passed. (If we know at 30, it's likely because it is dipping.)

Depends on the moving goalposts, would be my guess.

{x} million in the first month-- "Good, but not good enough, won't be until you beat {other game's record} for three months!"

(rinse and repeat)

I'm going to say it again: Eleventy billion subs for 50 years. Mark my words.

EDIT: Also, I can't believe people are actually saying no in the poll. *eyes closed, fingers in ear* LALALA I'm not listening! LALALALA I can't hear you. 

And people say us fanboys have blinders on. HA!