<a href="http://www.corpnews.com/news/fullnews.cgi?newsid1081411764,6286,">Lots of work</a>. I mean, holy <i>fuck</i>.

Edit: I also deserve a big cookie for having to format it all.

What about that Korean game Mu Online? I've heard numbers out of Asia as ridiculous as 20 million on that one.

And to be fair, the way they tally subs for Lineage is waaaaaaaay different than the way they tally subs for NA games as I understand it. Since the Asian subscription system is much different and all.

Excellent article.

BTW, the AC:DM client is now available from Turbine through Fileplanet. $13 for the software with a free month. Which solves the problem of our product is not actually available to the public that they had once MS stopped offering the AC download.

Nice read.

So they fixed the stability in Shadowbane, huh? Is it feasible to start from scratch in the game or do you basically need to have a pre-existing network of friends to be in any way viable? Given the lack of usefull information on the net, I had a hell of a time when I played it back when.

Is there a particular server that has a higher population? Outside of the test server, most of the live servers were barren wastelands, where I was lucky to see two people during my gaming session. While this meant I had all the spawns to myself, after around 15th level, I found myself at something of a loss as to how to continue from that point, as most mobs either weren't worth killing, or just whooped my ass. There was also a noticable lack of gear that was any better than the stuff sold at the merchants in the starting towns.

Awesome article. I eagerly await the next 2 parts.

The summary of Everquest was... generous. I'd describe it a the game that tripped and fell into the money truck, and pandering to the LCD can overcome a lack of skill and talent, but then ahm not so fond of Everquest.

No mention of Shadowbane's horrible bugs and crappy servers? None at all? That's the prime reason why I ran screaming from the beta.

Still, a good update. I'd call it... Mostly Harmless.

I disagree, with the collection of any statistics, and their actual display of how many players. Everquest may have 400k accounts, but I highly doubt each one is an individual player. In SWG I knew at least four persons with multiple accounts, and also have a real life friend with two DAoC accounts (a game I never played, excepting beta).

Taking into consideration mutliple accounts, players of multiple games, and actual subsciber numbers, there is significantly less "growth" to the "actual" mystery numbers than any chart I've yet to see accurately depict.

Yes, growth, but possibly doubling in number of subscibers, but no where over triple at best.

Is it just me, or is Ragnorok Online missing from the North American graph entirely, and Lineage clocks in at a whopping 0%?

Why not fold those two into the "Other" category?

I'm more curious where the determinedly niche games like ATITD fit in.

Tao,

Since these games launched the debate over subscriber numbers has included the issue of mutiple accounts. Even back to the first year of UOs release every bitched at the numbers saying "Bullshit. I know so and so with 5 accounts, and I bet most people have duplicates!". Studies have been done on the percentage of players with multiple accounts and it's lower than many people think. I did, however, take that into account when listing numbers. If you notice the subscriber numbers that I list are lower than the oficial tallys you would get from the companies involved. I applied a precise mathamatical formula, ran a series of projections and then finally sacrificed a goat to dark elder gods to arrive at the numbers I did.

As for Shawdowbane, I based my synopsis on personal experience with a trial version and an extrapolation of customer feedback on various forums. Personally I found the game very stable and customer complaints on client/server issues are low enough to be insignifigant, making the game stable as far as I can determine.

Is Shadowbane fun for new players? Not really. Fun with a group, not an easy game to go solo in. Then again, it wasn't intended to be. A better matching system for new players could be a worthwhile devlopment goal.

With regards to EQ I have to admit upfront that I hate the game with a passion I normally reserve for boy bands. Still, it's hard to argue with results. Many people play the game, and many people love it.


MU online? Don't know. To be honest it slipped my radar. No surprise since the murky asian market is a mystery to all. Every game over there claims a million, gazllion subscribers. If every game was being honest it sems that the total population of Korea, Japan and China spend every waking moment playing MMOGs. I'll look into it and revise the article if I have to.

Well, see, I was assuming the numbers were low ball approimations, not that you'd already adjusted for possible multi-boxing. I still think that the players who owns/plays more than one game will skew the total subscriber base and growth of the industry numbers alot. I know your estimate was 2.5 to 6 million, but IMO it's a stretch for that 6 million number.

Also just one more note about Lineage, the game lounges of the East buy up multiple accounts for use, and likely those accounts could have more than one player!?!

I dunno, I'm just skeptical that this genre is actually growing in enormous proportions, but I'm not a good with numbers person anyway.

Without a doubt. That's why I put Lineage at 500,000-1,000,000 subscribers as opposed to 4 MILLION that NCsoft claims. Think that's inflation? Ragnorak Online claimed at one time to have 10,000,000 accounts. There is no doubt that millions of people in Asia are playing online game. I just doubt it's the 40 million claimed by the comapnies involved.

Game companies over there negotiate their sales with the game rooms. If you run a cafe you subscribe to dozens upon dozens of accounts. Like most package deals the more accounts you buy the more perks you get and the better overall price. This is why the numbers appear 4 or 10 times higher than the actuall player population.

Well that's the point. They can show tens of thousands of avatars in the game. Whether or not they're getting the money from all the people that are in the game or not, eh we know they're not.

From a design standpoint, it's interesting that all those wily asians can be retained by only a few games. Someone is doing something right, to that demographic.

Boy, that Other game sure is popular in Asia. Oh, and Gbob:You might want to fix that Freudian slip. I think the word is usually 'basement'...

Haven't you ever met a shadowbane fanboi?

Quick suggestion, Gbob. Pie graphs are good for visual representations of a whole, but how about adding the % next to the games name, along with the colors. As it is now I have a hard time distinguishing between EQ, Lineage and DAOC's colors. For those with less than acute color perceptions or actual color blindness the graphs are useless.

Bob, I love you and all, but, um, what do you think I <a href="http://www.darkageofcamelot.com">do all day</a>?

(edit: D'oh, missed your note, didn't realize more live games were coming. Carry on.)

Bob, a question. Where do you get the 450 billion figure from? The best figures I can find online are 11.2 billion in sales last year for video games, although that may be a figure for America only.

With 1.5 million subscriptions, at an average of $12 a month, that comes to roughly 216 million a year. Just a case of too many zeros?

And yes, missing DAoC on that list is TEH FUNNEY.

It's part one folks. We still have a numberof other games to cover...and then we hit the soon to be released games.

DAOC, AO, PS, Horizons, and even eve have to be covered in the next part and then some more work on breaking down the numbers for industry growth.

I wanted one major game to be in the next part and DAOC fits the bill.

Oh, and Soul that's 450 million not billion. I thought that was how it was posted but looking at the article it does imply the opposite. That needs to be fixed.

Let's see.

SWG is not in bad shape. Hearing Raph tell the story, it's actually a modest success. It just isn't the blockbuster everyone expected it to be. Don't fall into the trap of listening to those who have left the game; they may not like it, but it doesn't appear to floundering nearly as much as your article says.



No. Just... no. You also missed that the early stability problems became months long problems and drove lots of players away. The current design team has big ideas, but nothing that has made it in yet.

Your numbers, as you said, cannot be confirmed, or at least won't be by the people who are in a position to actually confirm them.

Didn't they just launch the 2.0 patch? Siege spires and Divine Favor seem like big ideas.