Originally posted by Rasputin

Originally posted by Vax44

from their prepared notes for conference call:

Let me provide you with an update on Star Wars:
Through the end of the quarter, approximately 2.4 million units have sold through. In our last
call we indicated that we had 1.7 million active subscribers, and as of the end of April we now
have 1.3 million, with a substantial portion of the decrease due to casual and trial players
cycling out of the subscriber base, driving up the overall percentage of paying subscribers.
We have already launched a number of initiatives designed to grow subscriptions. The initial
responses have been positive and we are encouraged by the gaming community’s reaction.
In summary, we delivered an extraordinary launch of a solidly profitable long-term franchise,
which contributed to both our gross and operating margin improvements in fiscal 12. We expect
this title will further expand our margins in fiscal 13 as we get the full year benefit of subscription
revenue.
Let us give you two additional points of perspective as it relates to our current subscriber base
and its impact on our fiscal 13 guidance. First, the current number of active subscribers, 1.3
million, is very consistent with the original assumptions we made when we acquired BioWare in
2008. Second, while this franchise is very profitable, it only represents a mid-single digit
percent of our total profitability in fiscal 13.

 

They defined trial and casual players in the q&a as non-mmoers who were driven to try the game due to it being Star Wars.  According to them the "hardcore" mmoers are still playing.

 

So let me get this straight:

They talk about 1.7 million active subscribers, and this number has fallen, "due to casual and trial players cycling out of the subscriber base"?

Does that mean, that they are counting trial players as subscribers?

Does that mean, that the people, that got 30 days for free, but may already have uninstalled and never returned, also are counted? Maybe that was the reason for the 30-days-free at exactly this time: Extend all subscriptions, so they are counted in the report.

 

Not sure about the last one, but I find it quite concerning, that they seem to have been counting trial players as subscribers.

The answers to your questions are yes and yes.

SWTOR vs. WoW time played on XFire

Yellow line = SWTOR's time played on XFire, 100% = WoW's time played on XFire

Both WoW's and SWTOR's numbers have experienced a huge drop. WoW has dropped 28% in last 3 weeks and SWTOR 39% in the same time.

SWTOR's announced subscribtion number on Dec 31 was 1,7 million subcribers. Assuming each subcriber would generate same amount of time played, WoW had 1,9 million subcribers at the start of the year. On March 31st SWTOR had 1,3 milloin subcribers, counting with the same assumption WoW had 5,2 milloin subcribers. This assumption is of course wrong, but it's still intresting to count.

Originally posted by Vax44

from their prepared notes for conference call:

Let me provide you with an update on Star Wars:
Through the end of the quarter, approximately 2.4 million units have sold through. In our last
call we indicated that we had 1.7 million active subscribers, and as of the end of April we now
have 1.3 million, with a substantial portion of the decrease due to casual and trial players
cycling out of the subscriber base, driving up the overall percentage of paying subscribers.
We have already launched a number of initiatives designed to grow subscriptions. The initial
responses have been positive and we are encouraged by the gaming community’s reaction.
In summary, we delivered an extraordinary launch of a solidly profitable long-term franchise,
which contributed to both our gross and operating margin improvements in fiscal 12. We expect
this title will further expand our margins in fiscal 13 as we get the full year benefit of subscription
revenue.
Let us give you two additional points of perspective as it relates to our current subscriber base
and its impact on our fiscal 13 guidance. First, the current number of active subscribers, 1.3
million, is very consistent with the original assumptions we made when we acquired BioWare in
2008. Second, while this franchise is very profitable, it only represents a mid-single digit
percent of our total profitability in fiscal 13.

 

They defined trial and casual players in the q&a as non-mmoers who were driven to try the game due to it being Star Wars.  According to them the "hardcore" mmoers are still playing.

 

lol.   They're full of crap.   What's worse, the churn rate only gets worse as an MMO ages.    The players that adopt early will most likely develop into your hard-core base.  They are the ones MOST INTERESTED in the franchise.   The causuals come later.   If the game gets a good 'buzz' from the hardcores.  They try, some stick, but mostly they leave.  

Take Eve Online.   In their first couple of years, they retained 70% of people the first year.   Now they lose 70% of people in the first month.    WoW has the same problem.   Very close to the same issue.   The people started playing in the first year mostly stuck.   Now they have these free trials and what-not.  They mostly leave.   But losing this many hardcores this fast.  That's  bad news.

Anyway, I like the spin.  Lying at its finest.    The bottom line is, and remains, 900,000 of the first 2,000,000 subs quit (not everyone was elible to quit.  It may have been even less.)  In 70 days.  

45% of your population quit in 70-days.   Let's wrap our minds around that.  And then imagine how bad it would of been if there'd been 90 days available for sub-losses....   If the game launched December 2nd, the first quit day would have been January first.   We'd have had the whole quarter.   Not 7/9ths.

Would they have broken a million losses?   I think they might of.  But even if they didn't, they still set a record for most MMO losses in a quarter.   Which is pretty impressive seeing as how they had 20 fewer days than WoW to accomplish it...

But beyond that, it will only get worse.   Sales are abysmal.   Retention is pathetic.   The game is contracting and will ultimately be judged another failure.

Originally posted by Monorosso

Originally posted by RefMinor

Originally posted by Metentso

Brace yourselves for another 100 pages of improductive discussions.

Meanwhile, here is the graph for last week. First week under 3000 for SWTOR. Wow seems to recover the deep fall but still in decline. Tera is closing up with Aion,  and GW2 is sleeping, soon will it awake.

 

So subs went from about 1.7m end of Jan = 7000ish XFire users to 1.3m end of March = 4000ish XFire users. Anyone care to tell me XFire is meaningless?

Doesn't even seem like you even know how to read a chart? Xfire is at about 8,400 players at the end of Jan, not 7,000 like you claim. Xfire then shows about 3,800 players for 3/31.

So while Xfire showa a drop of around 55%, the actual rate dropped less than half that (24.5%).

So people who have been saying take xfire numbers with a huge grain of salt from the beginning were right on.

 

Nope.   There are a lot of reasons that subs will be over-stated to users.

First and foremost, subs are not players.    Subs give you the right to be player.  But a sub doesn't mean there is an active player behind it.   It's an accounting measurement of future service obligations.   That's all.   It's not the player base.

Second,  when players quit games they frequently leave active subs.  Take WoW.  As of 2010, when a WoW player quits, TWENTY-THREE PERCENT of them will leave their subscripion ACTIVE for upto a year.   It could be longer, it's just the study ended at one year.   You also have walk-away active, non-renewal subs.   I'm one of those.    When we quit, we quit.   I've left time on SWTOR.  I left time on LOTRO (quit a week after I did a quarterly renewal).   I left time on DDO.   I left time on Eve Online.   I left time on Fallen Earth.   In WoW that 47% of the player base that quits.   You understand?  Forty-seven percent, as of 2011, of WoW players that quit do so with sub-time left.   They're not like the 23% on auto-renewal.  But they do leave money on the table..  

So, yes, subs > players.    XFire doesn't track subs.   It tracks active players, e.g. the player base.    XFire will always, in any sub-based game, be a predictor of future subscription trends.   But will not tell you subscriptions from an accounting perspective because, and this is important, active players and active subscriptions are not the same thing.  

The trick is to figure out the correlations of XFIRE BASE to Subs and then determine the lag between quitting (XFire) and reporting.  

Oh, and the drop rate isn't 24.5% like you calculated it.   There are mutiple trends and saying 24.5% understates the true drop rate.

2.2 million units were sold of which 2.1 million of those units, if they were CC activated, the player could drop before March 31st.   On March 31st, 1.3 million were left, of which 100K could not possibly have dropped leaving 1.2 million voluntary (possibly less but that's another issue) subscribers.

900K drops from 2,100K is a 43% drop (57% retention) rate.   Not a 25% drop rate.   You're measuring from the 1.7 million December number.  But that drop rate is understated by 500K sales during the quarter ending March 31st, 2012. 

Which is why EA says 'only 400K loss in subs for the quarter."   Sounds a lot better than 'We lost 900K subs in 70 days" which is far, far more accurate a reflection of how many quit vis the total purchases.

Originally posted by Vrika

SWTOR vs. WoW time played on XFire

Yellow line = SWTOR's time played on XFire, 100% = WoW's time played on XFire

Both WoW's and SWTOR's numbers have experienced a huge drop. WoW has dropped 28% in last 3 weeks and SWTOR 39% in the same time.

SWTOR's announced subscribtion number on Dec 31 was 1,7 million subcribers. Assuming each subcriber would generate same amount of time played, WoW had 1,9 million subcribers at the start of the year. On March 31st SWTOR had 1,3 milloin subcribers, counting with the same assumption WoW had 5,2 milloin subcribers. This assumption is of course wrong, but it's still intresting to count.

I don't know why you keep updating this plot.  It's pointless as of course the highest ratio will be at launch and then will go down until the population settles.  This isn't nearly as interesting as the other plot.

Originally posted by RefMinor

Originally posted by gervaise1

No; sales as at the end of April stood at 2.4 million - so that is 2.4M "subs". Have to read all the presentation stuff and compare it (carefully) to the last lot. However:

First point: on the 1st Feb EA said they had sold in excess of 2M copies. So in the Feb/Mar/April period they sold something approaching 400k.

An odd somment: As of the end of April they had 1.3M subs - OK - with a substantial portion of the decrease due to casual and trial players cycling out of the subscriber base. Not sure I understand the reference to 'trial' players - they are not subs surely. Not sure how EA know what a 'casual' player is either.

Have to search through the Q&A; see how EA are counting subs. Remember they have given out lots of 30 days - so they are, presumably, still subs.

Edit: I am also ignoring the subs are not players debate; we don't know but early on players and subs will be pretty much one and the same thing. (Yes I know a drop in subs will lag behind a drop in players.)

 

END OF MARCH was 1.3m, I haven't managed to find the Q&A for Q4 yet.

One of the analysts did ask about GW2 or maybe it was D3... asked about the potential impact of a big-name competitor that could launch in the next few months...

EA - "there will be no reduction in subs!"

Originally posted by fadis

One of the analysts did ask about GW2 or maybe it was D3... asked about the potential impact of a big-name competitor that could launch in the next few months...

 

EA - "there will be no reduction in subs!"

 

 

If I as EA I would be shitting myself over MoP.

GW2 and Diablo 3 will give, at the very least, a hit in SWTORs activity. But Blizzard even giving a MoP release date will kick SWTOR in the teeth.

Hell, all Blizzard would have to do is offer 20% off MoP if you resub within a certain time and SWTOR will wither even further.

Originally posted by fadis

One of the analysts did ask about GW2 or maybe it was D3... asked about the potential impact of a big-name competitor that could launch in the next few months...

 

EA - "there will be no reduction in subs!"

Does anyone ask tough questions such as:

1) Why are you including trial players, people on their first month or on a free week/month in your subscriber numbers?

2) Of the 1.3 million subs, how many were from question #1

3) What are each of the monthly income values for SWTOR in this reported quarter?

Xfire has malfunctioned.

I am unable to log in and Xfire saying my user (and others) is unknown or unable to retrieve data.

This is going to stuff up stats

Xfire killed by hackers?

2264 today.

Fast approach to the 2000 watermark, and much faster than I anticipated. We can reach it already this week, but probably early next week.

Originally posted by Rasputin

2264 today.

Fast approach to the 2000 watermark, and much faster than I anticipated. We can reach it already this week, but probably early next week.

Yes it's going back to the descending trend started in february. 80% drop from max today. But doesn't look like this figures mean much if they have 1.3M subs.

Originally posted by Metentso

Originally posted by Rasputin

2264 today.

Fast approach to the 2000 watermark, and much faster than I anticipated. We can reach it already this week, but probably early next week.

Yes it's going back to the descending trend started in february. 80% drop from max today. But doesn't look like this figures mean much if they have 1.3M subs.

I would say those 1.3 million subs are counting the free 30 days they gave away.  I got a fealing its more like 750k subs that might be playing if even that.

I think the people in this thread secretly love SWTOR but are afraid to admit it.  That's why they can't stop talking about it.

Originally posted by Rasputin

2264 today.

Fast approach to the 2000 watermark, and much faster than I anticipated. We can reach it already this week, but probably early next week.

That low figure was probably down to the malfunction which ruined the stats. You can not add to the stats if you can not log in.

The problem seemed to last for 6 hours looking at the first post to the time the Xfire Engineer posted saying it is all working again.

There was no change in position on the charts, so all games would have been affected equally. If there was no malfunction, and the figure was still 2264, then it probably would dropped in position.

Originally posted by sirphobos

I think the people in this thread secretly love SWTOR but are afraid to admit it.  That's why they can't stop talking about it.

 I think they're simply bored at work at and school. So that is why they talk about all types of things on forums.

Originally posted by erictlewis

Originally posted by Metentso

Originally posted by Rasputin

2264 today.

Fast approach to the 2000 watermark, and much faster than I anticipated. We can reach it already this week, but probably early next week.

Yes it's going back to the descending trend started in february. 80% drop from max today. But doesn't look like this figures mean much if they have 1.3M subs.

I would say those 1.3 million subs are counting the free 30 days they gave away.  I got a fealing its more like 750k subs that might be playing if even that.

 

But that doesn't matter because people in 30 day free month are also reflected in xFire, so when they disappear, they will also disappear from xfire (in whatever proportion).

Originally posted by Metentso

Originally posted by erictlewis

Originally posted by Metentso

Originally posted by Rasputin

2264 today.

Fast approach to the 2000 watermark, and much faster than I anticipated. We can reach it already this week, but probably early next week.

Yes it's going back to the descending trend started in february. 80% drop from max today. But doesn't look like this figures mean much if they have 1.3M subs.

I would say those 1.3 million subs are counting the free 30 days they gave away.  I got a fealing its more like 750k subs that might be playing if even that.

 

But that doesn't matter because people in 30 day free month are also reflected in xFire, so when they disappear, they will also disappear from xfire (in whatever proportion).

Well if those with free 30 days still don't play they won't be counted on X-fire anyways. :) And I think there is a large amount of players that got the free 30 days that aren't playing.

Originally posted by altair4

Originally posted by Metentso

Originally posted by erictlewis

Originally posted by Metentso

Originally posted by Rasputin

2264 today.

Fast approach to the 2000 watermark, and much faster than I anticipated. We can reach it already this week, but probably early next week.

Yes it's going back to the descending trend started in february. 80% drop from max today. But doesn't look like this figures mean much if they have 1.3M subs.

I would say those 1.3 million subs are counting the free 30 days they gave away.  I got a fealing its more like 750k subs that might be playing if even that.

 

But that doesn't matter because people in 30 day free month are also reflected in xFire, so when they disappear, they will also disappear from xfire (in whatever proportion).

Well if those with free 30 days still don't play they won't be counted on X-fire anyways. :) And I think there is a large amount of players that got the free 30 days that aren't playing.

Yes that's true but don't think it can explain the difference between a 24% drop and a 70% drop. Specially if we consider that the free month was after the 31-march.... :)