CoX player population is...?
By
Acemace,
Posted on: 2010-05-19 21:22 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
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Actually, it's not. What it is, is worthless.|
Originally Posted by TheJazMan
This is kinda disturbing news. I thought we were just under 100 000. That is a rapid decrease in population. Yikes!
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The author starts with one assumption, for which he gives zero justification or explanation, then applies math to his made-up estimate.
Paragon City Search And Rescue
The Mentor Project
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let's play a game ironblade.|
Originally Posted by Ironblade
Actually, it's not. What it is, is worthless.
The author starts with one assumption, for which he gives zero justification or explanation, then applies math to his made-up estimate. |
what is $3,000,000 divided by 3 months?
A very sad story about War Witch and the neglected kitty. http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=219670
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Originally Posted by Black_Barrier
Guess it's hard to click while actively trying to keep the drool away from the keyboard...
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a large chunk of money.
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Originally Posted by OPTICAL_ILLUSION
let's play a game ironblade.
what is $3,000,000 divided by 3 months? |
I am going to use the same tool the Massively writer used, a guess. I guess that there are 87,342.78 subscribers. Yes this in fact means that there is .78 of a person subscribing to the game!
Please feel free to discuss the future of the game whilst using my exactly perfect metric of measuring the number of subs that it has.
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How do you figure?
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Originally Posted by Severe
no matter what number you put in front of it. the numbers are lower then they ever have been. just agree on that shall we?
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
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Originally Posted by Severe
no matter what number you put in front of it. the numbers are lower then they ever have been. just agree on that shall we?
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Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
How do you figure?
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Really, Sam? I'm not adding to doom over CoX because it is where it is, and I want good things to come to this product ( in no small measure because my wife still loves it and it's still our only sub'd mmo ).
But unless you call Freedom or Virtue home, there's no masking the low server activity compared to just one year ago.
Either way though our monthly $30 is on auto pay until NCSoft stops accepting it.
I read some random article on the Yahoo front page that games in general were down lately.
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Really? Because Victory seems about the same to me. But then, I'm judging mostly by how easy it is to find a team on Victory Badges, not by what I'm seeing in the streets (a completely misleading indicator).
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Acemace can pick and choose: But unless you call Freedom or Virtue home, there's no masking the low server activity compared to just one year ago. |
Dec out.
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That's just it, I haven't noticed any of that. I play on Pinnacle and Victory, and neither server seems dead, at least no more dead than it was in 2005. Team invites haven't slowed down much, I still run across people in the streets and TFs are still being done. I'm not saying that's proof positive of nothing wrong at all, but again - how do you figure?
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Originally Posted by Acemace
Really, Sam? I'm not adding to doom over CoX because it is where it is, and I want good things to come to this product ( in no small measure because my wife still loves it and it's still our only sub'd mmo ).
But unless you call Freedom or Virtue home, there's no masking the low server activity compared to just one year ago. Either way though our monthly $30 is on auto pay until NCSoft stops accepting it. |
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
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Final Fantasy XI players just before WoW came out were better doomsayers than you guys.
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That would make sense as people have generally tightened their collective belts and trimmed discretionary spending.
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Originally Posted by all_hell
I read some random article on the Yahoo front page that games in general were down lately.
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------->"Sic Semper Tyrannis"<-------
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Sorry, we'll try harder. |
Quin shames us: Final Fantasy XI players just before WoW came out were better doomsayers than you guys. |
DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!
Dec out.
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Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
I'm not saying that's proof positive of nothing wrong at all, but again - how do you figure?
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Eh, like I mentioned;
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| Either way though our monthly $30 is on auto pay until NCSoft stops accepting it. |
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I agree with that range.|
Originally Posted by Frosticus
My personal estimations have it at 72-80k, so I disagree with that writer.
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If you do a raw divide the revenue in $US by $45 a quarter, you get about 65k players, but that estimate is out by about 10% because a lot of players actually pay under $45 a quarter though bulk payments. Historically that difference is about 10% under the actual number outside of launch periods.
This may have changed with I17, of course, and we won't know until the next set of figures is out... August, I think.
I have been concerned about player population in the past I will admit.
Recently though, my perspective has shifted to this: I want the player pop to be at whatever level will let the devs continue to add big meaningful improvements and content to the game.
I heard War Witch mention the other day that a revamp of the older starting zones would take too much money/resources currently. I'd like our population to be at whatever level makes that a non-issue.
Currently, I don't think we're there. I'd like GR to push us into that earning zone so that I can see this game reach it's full potential and never go back to the days of the Freem 15.
In any case, I'm not too keen on slowly bleeding players, because it will mean less resources to get the cool stuff we all want to see added to this game. Marketing needs to get off its butt and get word of this great game out there. I think most of the other stuff will simply correct itself once we're in the spotlight again.
http://www.informationweek.com/news/...leID=224800013
Decreased demand for portable hardware and software and an early Easter holiday this year combined to make April the fourth largest year-over-year decline for the video game industry.http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-...atestheadlines
Electronic Arts Inc. (ERTS) said videogame sales across the industry likely dropped sharply in April, more evidence that a business once seen as recession-proof is feeling the pressure of thriftier consumer spending.So the numbers may not be specific to CoX's particular situation, but rather the result of factors that effect the whole industry.
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Not to say that that isn't accurate, but does the economical situation mean that people are dropping subs to MMOs that they have been playing more than usual?|
Originally Posted by all_hell
http://www.informationweek.com/news/...leID=224800013
Decreased demand for portable hardware and software and an early Easter holiday this year combined to make April the fourth largest year-over-year decline for the video game industry.http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-...atestheadlines Electronic Arts Inc. (ERTS) said videogame sales across the industry likely dropped sharply in April, more evidence that a business once seen as recession-proof is feeling the pressure of thriftier consumer spending.So the numbers may not be specific to CoX's particular situation, but rather the result of factors that effect the whole industry. |
Sales in terms of boxes is one thing, but is the regular player base shrinking in this MMO. I'd be more interested in those specific numbers than an industry-wide blanket assessment.
I think most people who complain about the population are going on the assumption that the regulars who have been with the game for some time are leaving and that is what is affecting the population(however accurate or inaccurate that may be).
Something I wonder about is the basis that people make for saying that the population is x or y based on the ability to get on teams easily or how empty/full the streets are.
If there was, in fact, a gradual decline or increase in population, how noticeable would it really be? For example, I always get to team when I want to, but my SG/VG friends all have toons on the same servers and we generally only team with each other. There are enough of us that even if the population has dipped, we would hardly notice since we team with ourselves almost exclusively.
By the a similar token, if someone were into PUGs and suddenly found that they couldn't get a team easily or that they were getting teams more frequently, this would still not be a good indication of population. The dynamics of PUGs vary greatly and you simply might be getting on at a bad time for recruitment or it may be that a lot of people are running with a 'regular' crowd and aren't looking for additional members etc.
I still run across a fair number of folks on my 4 servers who ask me for a team invite on site, even though I'm not on a team and have no intention of teaming at the time. Does this mean that teams are harder to find across servers?
In the end...it's a crap shoot and no one can say for sure except people with concrete proof of population numbers.
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This is in agreement with another blog I found today: |
Originally Posted by GreenFIame
Well alot of Players either got bored and left for another MMo, I am Sure once Going rogue Comes, it's give our players more content to return form other MMo and back to us.
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"Its The <blank>, Stupid!
So, whats driving the decline? Some have said it is the economy and that is likely a motivator, but its a poor reason. If you have an entertainment budget, $15 a month for something that can grant numerous hours of entertainment is fantastic value assuming you are playing those hours. Outside of the repeated Valentines Day Event, Q1 2010 held no unique content for existing CoH/V players.
Goro from Mortal Kombat.
Goro may just end up suing me for name infringement.
The development focus of CoH/V is currently on the Going Rogue expansion. In my opinion, the marketing and communications around GoRo has been awful if they are looking to attract new or returning players to it. The Overview page makes GoRo seem pretty bland and is missing information that the devs have announced on the official forums (e.g. the other new powersets of Kinetic Melee and Electric Control). With launch expected in July, there isnt that much time to get in front of players and get them interested.
Even the current players I speak to appear to be adopting a wait and see approach to GoRo, because although new powersets and features like side switching and Incarnates sound interesting, there isnt that much information available on specifics. People seem most excited about Praetoria, but even information about how the gray-side is going to interact / intersect with existing blue-side and redside-systems is thin on the ground.
There are also factors like increasing competition in the MMO space, especially among free-to-play titles, that can draw players away. However, in my opinion, the key reason behind the decline is that existing CoH/V players are being given little reason to stay (at least during that Q1 2010 period)."
So to me, even from the beginning 6+ years ago, marketing hasn't been the high point of CoX. I do remember seeing ads in comic books (thats how I got started) but you don't even see those at all. I know its a different budget et al, but you see WoW commercials all the time (mr t., mohawk, etc), and while its not a fair comparison, is there anything Paragon can do to get the word out more?
Arc: 378122 "Tales of the Terran Space Marines -The Apocalypse Initiative" 5stars!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Rgl4...687B0FC89F142C
Arc: 481545 "Twilight of the Gods - The Praetorian conflict"8000+ hits!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XxJ6S...848B21E2350DCC
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you beat me to the joke!|
Originally Posted by OutRage
In the Grim darkness of the CoX 40K, there is only RWZ!
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Why do you hate the Emperor!
>:
The Nethergoat Archive: all my memories, all my characters, all my thoughts on CoH...eventually.
My City Was Gone
You can all disagree with the writer all you want. He didn't say we had 40,000 subscribers, he said at worst we had at least that much, and that was still a pretty good number.
He never said he believed that was an actual number. Sheesh, people really don't know how to read do they?
The population is down, there's no denying that no matter how easily you can find a team. Just the fact that it's an old game and we're recovering from a worldwide recession means the population is down. Population will go back up in July. How much it's down, and how much it will go back up, who knows?
my lil RWZ Challenge vid
Everything is going to be alright!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zGYYRr6DOSo
Ignoring anyone is a mistake. You might miss something viral to your cause.
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They had more reason to be. |
Originally Posted by Quin
Final Fantasy XI players just before WoW came out were better doomsayers than you guys.
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--Rad
/whereami:
Seriously, if everyone is really concerned with the population, Then might I suggest a gentle push for advertising?
Ignoring anyone is a mistake. You might miss something viral to your cause.
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LOL! that video is hilarious!!!! I sure hope that guy was kidding otherwise, I'm gonna get my toon to guard my door at night!
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Originally Posted by MrHassenpheffer
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Arc: 378122 "Tales of the Terran Space Marines -The Apocalypse Initiative" 5stars!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Rgl4...687B0FC89F142C
Arc: 481545 "Twilight of the Gods - The Praetorian conflict"8000+ hits!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XxJ6S...848B21E2350DCC
So, assuming all that money was made from selling yearly subscriptions, we could guessa-ma-tate approximately 87,878 subscribers! Then, I don't know how many of you folks out there utilize the same shopping method I do . . . soooo . . . random average of the earlier estimate of 40,000 . . .
63939 subscribers?
Would the marketing team ever, under any circumstances, release the real number? I can't think of any arguable reason that someone in marketing would be likely to agree with.