1 million preorders would be a realistic number. Whoever truly believes it won't reach even 500,000 should do their research. Nuff' said.

Too bad the game's still in beta. I was kinda waiting for "solid X-Fire guestimations". :D

Originally posted by Mortemia

Too bad the game's still in beta. I was kinda waiting for "solid X-Fire guestimations". :D

 How is that a solid estimation?  Some people don't play games with x-fire on... I know I usualy dont'.

{Mod edit}

The game will sell at least as much as Aion and due to its end game and western style will steadily grow.

10 and 20 man raids are already in place at release for end game.

Some people will be dissapointed if they think Rift will Fail.

Originally posted by Torgrim

I would say Rift will do the AoC style, sell massive amount of boxes then 3 months down the road the servers are half emty 6 months later server merges and another 6 months it's on life support.

Might be the case, unless they're ahead of the current trend of MMO's and have some additional content on the pipeline, ready to be pushed into the retail :)

Originally posted by Beachcomber.

10 and 20 man raids are already in place at release for end game.

 

 

 

10 man raids will not be in for launch, as they stated in a podcast and 20 man raids, I think only 1 will be in at launch (at least, if  the official forums are to be trusted), as well as raid rifts.

That said, my prediction: 300k-1.5m

300k in the "worst" case, I do think it will sell 500k+ copies though. I do think over 1m sold preorders is very much possible; Rift is polished, fun and word of the mouth goes a long way.

Originally posted by Kerkeres

Originally posted by Beachcomber.

10 and 20 man raids are already in place at release for end game.

 

 

 

10 man raids will not be in for launch, as they stated in a podcast and 20 man raids, I think only 1 will be in at launch (at least, if  the official forums are to be trusted), as well as raid rifts.

 

That said, my prediction: 300k-1.5m

300k in the "worst" case, I do think it will sell 500k+ copies though. I do think over 1m sold preorders is very much possible; Rift is polished, fun and word of the mouth goes a long way.

You should've paid more attention to the podcast, they removed 10 man raids and "remade" them into 10 man and 20 man dungeons, instead of raids.

Originally posted by Fusion

 

You should've paid more attention to the podcast, they removed 10 man raids and "remade" them into 10 man and 20 man dungeons, instead of raids.

"In our original design we also preferred to have both available. But at least for now we are moving all instanced Raids to be tuned for 20-players. We may add the 10-man versions back in post-launch but I'm not making any promises. This is has not been a quick decision. We have been discussing this option for awhile. Below is the "short version" of some of the main reasons we changed our design.

1. We're providing significantly more raid content then we originally scoped. This has allowed us to provide parties of both sizes content that is uniquely tailored to them.

2. We took a close look at the feedback and questions we received from our player-base AND took a very close look at "other-game(s)" that provided content with multiple raid sizes. Our general consensus is that there can be significant negative effects on the players and guilds as they try to both maximize their gear acquisition and straddle the two different raid-sizes.

3. Making this change streamlines our design process. There is a significant time investment in trying to balance difficulty and rewards to the two raid sizes. What we didn't want was there to be an "easier path" to progression. We knew this ahead of time and were prepared for it. But now this frees up our resources to provide a higher-quality experience and more content overall... or as I like call it "MoreBetter".

For those of you in smaller guilds we totally understand your concerns. We have several designers on the instance team that play in 10-man guilds. But we do hope that you can participate in the 20-man content either by joining forces with another small guild or perhaps growing the size of your own. Even if you don't there will still be a lot of 10-man content to enjoy throughout Rift."

(sorry for derailing the thread)

I think it will sell around 800k for initial sales. It would do well to retain 300k-400k subscribers after 6 months (not because it is a bad game but because that is what history has shown us other than the 800 lb gorrilla). It doesn't quite have the appeal that Age of Conan and Warhammer had but the equalizer is that it is releasing at a very opportune time.

Originally posted by bastionix

Originally posted by Riftsoldier

We are now in the home stretch. My estimate based on some old data combined with projections and forcasting....and a crystal ball of course.

 

1,208,321 copies have already been sold worldwide thru the several retailers that are out there as pre-orders.

The store shelves will be empty in the first month from people that found out from friends late or wanted to grab one from the local store.

So post launch store purchase will see another 800k to 1.5million in sales in the first month or two.

 

Then there will be the tests at 3 month mark, 6 month mark, and new game release times.

My year from now prediction is 2.5 million players with churn when new games release that drops it to 1.8million.

People don't stay in touch with reality. Starcraft II, 700k sales in the U.S. Rift is a U.S. game with a few fans in Europe.

You are saying Rift has sold more right now, than Starcraft II did in the US when it was retail.

Come back to Earth please.

"with a few fans in Europe" doesn't rly fit. im living in Germany and everybody i know, who is playing computer games, knows about rift and is pretty interested in this game

Originally posted by Beachcomber
Some people will be dissapointed if they think Rift will Fail.

 

No it won't fail but it won't succeed either, it will endup in the mass produced mediocre themepark bing.

dunno, from the beta i don't think so, i think rift will do well and be around and in the upper echelon for some time actually.

Originally posted by Torgrim

Originally posted by Beachcomber
Some people will be dissapointed if they think Rift will Fail.

 

 

No it won't fail but it won't succeed either, it will endup in the mass produced mediocre themepark bing.

By definition of this forum that is every MMO ever produced so it could easily be taken as a compliment.

Originally posted by Leucent

Originally posted by Riftsoldier

We are now in the home stretch. My estimate based on some old data combined with projections and forcasting....and a crystal ball of course.

 

1,208,321 copies have already been sold worldwide thru the several retailers that are out there as pre-orders.

The store shelves will be empty in the first month from people that found out from friends late or wanted to grab one from the local store.

So post launch store purchase will see another 800k to 1.5million in sales in the first month or two.

 

Then there will be the tests at 3 month mark, 6 month mark, and new game release times.

My year from now prediction is 2.5 million players with churn when new games release that drops it to 1.8million.

 1.2 million copies pre ordered? I highly doubt that. If you re right I m sure alot have cancelled. I know many personally that have. As well, many pre orders are counted by dropping $5 at EB Games or other stored just to try it out. Many people just cancel it and put it towards something else in the store.

Originally posted by lizardbones

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Originally posted by heerobya

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Originally posted by bastionix
People don't stay in touch with reality. Starcraft II, 700k sales in the U.S. Rift is a U.S. game with a few fans in Europe.
You are saying Rift has sold more right now, than Starcraft II did in the US when it was retail.
Come back to Earth please.

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SC2 may have sold only 700k in the US, but Cataclysm sold millions.
The market for MMO games is arguably bigger then the market for strategy/RTS games.
 
Gamasutra said SC2 sold 1.5 million copies in the US and Europe in 48 hours. 
It is not hard to believe that a well marketed and well hyped game such as Rift could sell 1.5 million + boxes within the first couple of days.

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There are no public sales figures for Rift right now. Anything you hear is going to be "from a friend" kind of thing. I would think the sales figures will exceed a million, but that's just based on the people I work with who are going to buy it. Out of 10 people who are currently playing WoW, 5 of them are buying Rift. A million doesn't seem unreasonable.

The only thing I know for sure is the number will be more than 80,000, since right now, roughly 80,000 people are in the beta and I would expect more people to actually order than are in the betas.

Originally posted by Locklain

Originally posted by Torgrim

Originally posted by Beachcomber
Some people will be dissapointed if they think Rift will Fail.

 

 

No it won't fail but it won't succeed either, it will endup in the mass produced mediocre themepark bing.

By definition of this forum that is every MMO ever produced so it could easily be taken as a compliment.

Sad but true the word AAA in MMO industry means mediocre.

Originally posted by arenasb

I think it will sell around 800k for initial sales. It would do well to retain 300k-400k subscribers after 6 months (not because it is a bad game but because that is what history has shown us other than the 800 lb gorrilla). It doesn't quite have the appeal that Age of Conan and Warhammer had but the equalizer is that it is releasing at a very opportune time.

I think Rift is doing a pretty decent job at advertising and should get some respectable sales, but it is true that after a 6 month period there could be a drop in subscribers not necessarily due to people becoming uninterested, but rather because of the release of other games like GW2 (fingers crossed that is is soon!)

Originally posted by EvilAnimal

Originally posted by bastionix

Originally posted by Riftsoldier

We are now in the home stretch. My estimate based on some old data combined with projections and forcasting....and a crystal ball of course.

 

1,208,321 copies have already been sold worldwide thru the several retailers that are out there as pre-orders.

The store shelves will be empty in the first month from people that found out from friends late or wanted to grab one from the local store.

So post launch store purchase will see another 800k to 1.5million in sales in the first month or two.

 

Then there will be the tests at 3 month mark, 6 month mark, and new game release times.

My year from now prediction is 2.5 million players with churn when new games release that drops it to 1.8million.

People don't stay in touch with reality. Starcraft II, 700k sales in the U.S. Rift is a U.S. game with a few fans in Europe.

You are saying Rift has sold more right now, than Starcraft II did in the US when it was retail.

Come back to Earth please.

"with a few fans in Europe" doesn't rly fit. im living in Germany and everybody i know, who is playing computer games, knows about rift and is pretty interested in this game

I live in Norway. All of my game-playing friends knows about Rift, no one is buying it.

Btw, Germany is a weird market, and it certainly doesn't set the standards for Europe. For example, even though Runes of Magic is a game that's free to both download and play, the boxed version sold loads in Germany. Nowhere else.

As for the sales estimate, that's extremely hard to say. The marketing campaign has been excellent. But it competes with other well established titles, which have released several expansions and/or content patches. Any new game *will* have limited contents compared to older games. And most players knows this, of course.

I believe they will sell well, though I personally doubt it will pass 1 million. How many players they can hold on to, that's an entirely different issue.

Originally posted by Riftsoldier

We are now in the home stretch. My estimate based on some old data combined with projections and forcasting....and a crystal ball of course.

 

1,208,321 copies have already been sold worldwide thru the several retailers that are out there as pre-orders.

The store shelves will be empty in the first month from people that found out from friends late or wanted to grab one from the local store.

So post launch store purchase will see another 800k to 1.5million in sales in the first month or two.

 

Then there will be the tests at 3 month mark, 6 month mark, and new game release times.

My year from now prediction is 2.5 million players with churn when new games release that drops it to 1.8million.

Sir, with all due respect, where did you get such an EXACT sales figure for the pre-orders? 

I mean if you work for Trion Worlds I understand its in your best interests to "save face" in this discussion.  But otherwise I simply cannot understand how you could uncover that type of information.