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125k subscribers is a very good amount, and is fairly close to the peak player base numbers.| It still concerns me that CoH is 125,000 players, seems kinda low to me. |
Some of the others are free to play (LOTRO) or are fairly new (thus, lots of people first trying it out), or have a major playing behind them (WoW broke all records before it was released, that'll tell you something about the Warcraft brand).
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Originally Posted by ShadowNate
;_; ?!?! What the heck is wrong with you, my god, I have never been so confused in my life!
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Originally Posted by Kitsune Knight
125k subscribers is a very good amount, and is fairly close to the peak player base numbers.
Some of the others are free to play (LOTRO) or are fairly new (thus, lots of people first trying it out), or have a major playing behind them (WoW broke all records before it was released, that'll tell you something about the Warcraft brand). |
Im pretty sure that says as much about Blizzard as a game making company as it does about the Warcraft name. Just look at their record The Starcaft series, The Diablo series and other earlier games. I dislike WOW but not cause it's not good but cause it is slow paced and not my art style I prefer the more real of a city and really fast pace.
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Oh, definitely agreed. Although I've never played Diablo, I loved both Warcraft (2 & 3, both when they were new), as well as Starcraft (both 1 and 2). They have a reputation for hits in a market where 100,000 sells would be a tiny playerbase (unlike in MMOs where that was a good number, pre-WoW). They leveraged an existing playerbase that was far larger than probably the whole of the MMO market at the time, exposing a massive number of new players to the field (I would be surprised if they were the primary reason any MMO currently has more than 1 million subscribers).
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Originally Posted by Lucky666
Im pretty sure that says as much about Blizzard as a game making company as it does about the Warcraft name. Just look at their record The Starcaft series, The Diablo series and other earlier games. I dislike WOW but not cause it's not good but cause it is slow paced and not my art style I prefer the more real of a city and really fast pace.
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Originally Posted by ShadowNate
;_; ?!?! What the heck is wrong with you, my god, I have never been so confused in my life!
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The main reason WoW is as huge as it is now is because it had a playerbase before the game even existed.
There were millions of people that played the original Warcraft RTS games, so when an MMO was released that took place in the same world it was a no brainer that a lot of those people would check it out.
For CoH, a game that had no prior incarnation and no ties to any existing franchises, to reach and maintain 125k subsriptions is pretty impressive in it's own right. It's earning around 1.8 million dollars every month and 21 million a year. That's nothing to sneeze at, even in the realm of MMOs.
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Originally Posted by Dechs Kaison See, it's gems like these that make me check Claws' post history every once in a while to make sure I haven't missed anything good lately. |
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Interestingly, for a lot of us who have been following subscriber numbers for a long time, going back to when NCSoft published numbers - that 125,000 number seems surprisingly high. If it really is that high (I'm skeptical), this is extremely good news.
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Originally Posted by Stormfront_NA
Maybe its bias, giggles, but I would have thought CoH would have more than a mere 125K players. I would like to learn more on how the statistic was collected, so its true meaning can be better understood.
It seems the statistics for some of the games are solely U.S. data, while others are global in nature, not sure my perception is correct. It still concerns me that CoH is 125,000 players, seems kinda low to me. |
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Probably should be skeptical. I would think if there were 125k subs that would show up (very roughly) as 125,000 x $10/mo (min) or $15/mo (max) x 3 months and end up somwhere between $3.75mil and $5.63mil quarterly sales. Or average $4.69mil.|
Originally Posted by Ironblade
Interestingly, for a lot of us who have been following subscriber numbers for a long time, going back to when NCSoft published numbers - that 125,000 number seems surprisingly high. If it really is that high (I'm skeptical), this is extremely good news.
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CoX sales in 4Q 2010 was about $2.85 mil USD
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Does that 2.85m factor in things such as the generic NC time cards used to play CoX? I'd not be surprised if that made up a large chunk of the difference (although, I would be surprised if it made up all the difference).
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Originally Posted by Pebblebrook
CoX sales in 4Q 2010 was about $2.85 mil USD
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Originally Posted by ShadowNate
;_; ?!?! What the heck is wrong with you, my god, I have never been so confused in my life!
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And did you include all the free months in your calculations? Cuz whenever anyone adds a new edition game code to their account they get a free month.|
Originally Posted by Pebblebrook
Probably should be skeptical. I would think if there were 125k subs that would show up (very roughly) as 125,000 x $10/mo (min) or $15/mo (max) x 3 months and end up somwhere between $3.75mil and $5.63mil quarterly sales. Or average $4.69mil.
CoX sales in 4Q 2010 was about $2.85 mil USD |
CoH
CoH Collectors Edition
CoV
Good vs Evil
Mac Edition
Architect Edition
Going Rogue
That's 7 free months right there that are available to get at any time.
So how many players were using free months on their accounts in the 4th quarter of 2010 and how many of those accounts had more than one free month?
Since a quarter is only 3 months long and a player can get up to 7 months subscription free it's more than possible for players to not pay any subscription fee at all for over two full quarters.
We simply don't have enough detailed information to claim that those numbers are incorrect.
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Since those codes are one-time use per account, that seems unlikely for a significant number of existing subscribers to use them in succession over the last several quarters.|
Originally Posted by Forbin_Project
Since a quarter is only 3 months long and a player can get up to 7 months subscription free it's more than possible for players to not pay any subscription fee at all for over two full quarters.
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CoX sales last 15 months in USD
Dec-2009 3,351,182
Mar-2010 2,913,135
Jun-2010 2,989,656
Sep-2010 4,808,316 (GR sales spike)
Dec-2010 2,853,598
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where are those numbers from?
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Originally Posted by Pebblebrook
Since those codes are one-time use per account, that seems unlikely for a significant number of existing subscribers to use them in succession over the last several quarters.
CoX sales last 15 months in USD Dec-2009 3,351,182 Mar-2010 2,913,135 Jun-2010 2,989,656 Sep-2010 4,808,316 (GR sales spike) Dec-2010 2,853,598 |
"Hmm, I guess I'm not as omniscient as I thought" -Gavin Runeblade.
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Thank you everyone at Paragon and on Virtue. When the lights go out in November, you'll find me on Razor Bunny.
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Hindu-Arabia.
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Originally Posted by GavinRuneblade
where are those numbers from?
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NCSoft Earnings reports|
Originally Posted by GavinRuneblade
where are those numbers from?
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Average exchange rates. There are others but that's what i used.
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Originally Posted by Pebblebrook
Since those codes are one-time use per account, that seems unlikely for a significant number of existing subscribers to use them in succession over the last several quarters.
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Yes they did. Returning players that liked GR bought older editions they were missing to get the perks as well as new players on trial accounts.
There were even threads here on the forums from players on trial accounts where our fellow forumites went out of their way to explain why it was cheaper to buy the complete editions vs the item packs because the free month was equal to 1 months subscription fee for each edition. So they would in effect only be spending $4.99 for each edition instead of $9.99 for the item pack.
They were even referred to retailers and online stores that were selling the editions for much less than $19.99 thus saving them even more money.
That's also not considering the players that bought multiple copies for their multiple accounts because not only did we want early access to DP and DS, we wanted the free month that came with the full edition.
Then there's the players like myself that not only bought the pre-purchase GR but got the Pre-Order complete edition from Gamestop because no one knew that promotion was going to be available when the pre-purchase was offered.
So yes there were a significant number of free months being used during the 4th quarter of 2010.
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So for that quarter a significant number of people have paid maybe $50 for a serial code and 2 months sub instead of $45 for 3 month sub? Kind of?
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Originally Posted by Forbin_Project
So yes there were a significant number of free months being used during the 4th quarter of 2010.
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A large number of players pay their subscriptions 6 month or a year at a time. Those dollar figures would have been on the books 6 months to a year ago. |
Originally Posted by Pebblebrook
CoX sales in 4Q 2010 was about $2.85 mil USD |
Just because it says they have 125k subscriptions doesn't mean they are getting exactly that amount of money every month.
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Originally Posted by Dechs Kaison See, it's gems like these that make me check Claws' post history every once in a while to make sure I haven't missed anything good lately. |
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I used to think that till someone posted a correction. Will have to look for that link, i'll edit it in when i do.
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Originally Posted by ClawsandEffect
A large number of players pay their subscriptions 6 month or a year at a time. Those dollar figures would have been on the books 6 months to a year ago.
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The article you are quoting was written May 22, 2009. The Feb 2011 date is because the writer fixed a typo back in February and did an edit/republish.
I know this because I am the Managing Editor of the Gaming section on Bright Hub.
It was pretty cool to see one of our articles quoted here though. 
As long as I'm mentioning that, I should note that Bright Hub is one of the top 200 most popular sites in the US, and the gaming section alone does nearly 4 million views per month.
If anyone reading this has freelance writing skills or experience, drop me a PM. We are always looking to hire more writers. They pay is good too.
EDIT: In order to prevent any future confusion from that article, I added a "NOTE" with a date stamp for the numbers in that section.
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Looks like someone completely forgot about the Cyber Monday Sale on November 29th 2010.|
Originally Posted by Pebblebrook
So for that quarter a significant number of people have paid maybe $50 for a serial code and 2 months sub instead of $45 for 3 month sub? Kind of?
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http://www.cityofheroes.com/news/new..._cyber_mo.html
Or are you actually going to try to claim that no one bought copies of GR when it was on sale for $9.99?
When that sale started I bought 3 copies for friends as christmas gifts to get them to come back to the game, and included copies of the Architect Edition that I got off of Amazon for $5. bucks each because they came with the free booster packs.
GR complete collection was also on sale for $19.95 in November at Direct2Drive.
Those sales really screw up your math.
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I didn't forget, i have CoX related promos listed along with the numbers so i can use to correlate with the sales. If you want, for 4Q 2010 you can also add the reactivation promo in 10/7/10, the origins pack on 11/1/10, the 6mo/12mo subscription promo on 11/29/10 to 12/13/10, issue 19 in case anyone resubbed for that, the LTX CoX poster for $15 each on 12/7/10 along with that cyber monday sale with the 50% off on many select booster packs.|
Originally Posted by Forbin_Project
Looks like someone completely forgot about the Cyber Monday Sale on November 29th 2010.
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But subscription revenue has always been what consistently comprises the majority of the sales figure with occassional spikes from box releases and some promos. And depending on what promos are there, it might show up on the sales figure (assuming subs don't fluctuate enough to offset it)
Also, you might want to check that article again...they've updated it to note that the numbers are from 2Q 2009. At that time, CoX sales is about $5,179,637 which makes more sense for 125k subscribers.
Oh, just to have consistent info, that 2Q 2009 sales will also have the AE box 4/8/09, magic booster 4/17/09 and issue 14 4/8/09 and issue 15 6/29/09.
The ratio of the revenue would give us about 70K subscribers, if the 125K number is accurate.
Sounds reasonable.
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If you check my posts before you and I strted talking I never said I believed the 125k number, I just said we should save and link the article for the next doom thread. I thought it would be fun to throw it up against their depressing claims.|
Originally Posted by Pebblebrook
I didn't forget, i have CoX related promos listed along with the numbers so i can use to correlate with the sales. If you want, for 4Q 2010 you can also add the reactivation promo in 10/7/10, the origins pack on 11/1/10, the 6mo/12mo subscription promo on 11/29/10 to 12/13/10, issue 19 in case anyone resubbed for that, the LTX CoX poster for $15 each on 12/7/10 along with that cyber monday sale with the 50% off on many select booster packs.
But subscription revenue has always been what consistently comprises the majority of the sales figure with occassional spikes from box releases and some promos. And depending on what promos are there, it might show up on the sales figure (assuming subs don't fluctuate enough to offset it) Also, you might want to check that article again...they've updated it to note that the numbers are from 2Q 2009. At that time, CoX sales is about $5,179,637 which makes more sense for 125k subscribers. Oh, just to have consistent info, that 2Q 2009 sales will also have the AE box 4/8/09, magic booster 4/17/09 and issue 14 4/8/09 and issue 15 6/29/09. |
Also I have no reason to think Cambios wasn't telling the truth.
The points I mentioned in our discussion were made because I didn't know if you were taking them into consideration. It's real easy to reduce the math to the simplest formula and not consider contributing factors that might effect/affect (Sorry I get those two confused sometimes) the end result.
I'm pleased to hear that you are making the effort to be accurate, and I'll stop giving you a hard time over it.
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Not sure your assertion is correct...|
Originally Posted by ClawsandEffect
A large number of players pay their subscriptions 6 month or a year at a time. Those dollar figures would have been on the books 6 months to a year ago.
Just because it says they have 125k subscriptions doesn't mean they are getting exactly that amount of money every month. |
According to standard accounting practices, just because you have sold a service for a year in advance, does not mean for accounting purposes to support tax payments, dividends, etc. That you had made that much money there and now. The accountants actually "bank" what has been earned month by month, and report it as thus. In fact, the income received from pre-payment is accounted as a "liability" which is decremented as you provide the service, after all if you do not perform, you are liable to return the money.
Not knowing how that statistic was compiled, leaves a lot to the imagination
Sue
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Actually the agreement for this service is that you will not be getting money back. Not sure if they take that into consideration or not.
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Originally Posted by Stormfront_NA
Not sure your assertion is correct...
According to standard accounting practices, just because you have sold a service for a year in advance, does not mean for accounting purposes to support tax payments, dividends, etc. That you had made that much money there and now. The accountants actually "bank" what has been earned month by month, and report it as thus. In fact, the income received from pre-payment is accounted as a "liability" which is decremented as you provide the service, after all if you do not perform, you are liable to return the money. Not knowing how that statistic was compiled, leaves a lot to the imagination Sue |
I don't need numbers from a website. Virtue and Freedom go red every night even during normal gaming time. The last time I think I could say that was when Cov/i6 hit. Expansion packs = a good thing.