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MMORPG Subscriber Stats?
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RPGDot Forums > MMORPGs General

Author Thread
Pattern Recognition
Village Dweller
Village Dweller




Joined: 08 Jun 2003
Posts: 3
MMORPG Subscriber Stats?
   

Heya forum,

I'm looking for statistics on MMORPG subscription rates, anything with a rough ballpark is fine(ie; Everquest: 100,000, AC: 50,000 or whatever). More or less just trying to break down market share in the genre.

I've been looking for a while but can't find any sort of real resource for this type of data, hopefully the fine RPGDot folks can help me out.

Cheers,
PR.
Post Sun Jun 08, 2003 10:50 pm
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Ekim
Eagle's Shadow
Eagle's Shadow




Joined: 27 May 2002
Posts: 2365
Location: Montreal, Canada
   

I really don't think you'll find any kind of hard data on that... I never saw anything except some mention on the companies' press releases. I can confidently say that EQ probably holds 35% to 40% of the player base, and DAoC is probably right behind it with a little less, and the "other" set of games sharing the rest of the pie.

But this is a hard figure to correctly gauge. See, many players have accounts with 2 or more MMORPGs How do you take them into account?
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Post Mon Jun 09, 2003 2:24 pm
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Dhruin
Stranger In A Strange Land
Stranger In A Strange Land




Joined: 20 May 2002
Posts: 1825
Location: Sydney, Australia
   

During one of my news runs I came across a PDF file linked to Square; it was market research for Final Fantasy (whichever one is online) and appears to include some numbers for Everquest and UO. I still have the file but it's in Japanese so I don't know the context.
Post Mon Jun 09, 2003 2:40 pm
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Pattern Recognition
Village Dweller
Village Dweller




Joined: 08 Jun 2003
Posts: 3
   

quote:
How do you take them into account?



Yeah, I had given that some thought - but in the end decided that it was best to put a footnote stating that an unknown quantity of players use multiple games. Far from perfect but still more useful than the 'no data at all' situation I currently have.

At this rate I may be best off just running a survey myself and using it as a representative fraction. But the overall numbers would be better.

Food for thought: http://www.nickyee.com/hub/full.html

Here are some interesting studies on MMORPG issues. It does include the following info: 'Of the responses collected, about 72% were EQ players, 13% were DAOC players, 10% were UO players, 3% were AC players, and 2% were AO players.' which while dated is a good start, fun reading anyway.

Cheers,
PR.
Post Mon Jun 09, 2003 4:45 pm
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Ekim
Eagle's Shadow
Eagle's Shadow




Joined: 27 May 2002
Posts: 2365
Location: Montreal, Canada
   

quote:
Originally posted by Pattern Recognition
Here are some interesting studies on MMORPG issues. It does include the following info: 'Of the responses collected, about 72% were EQ players, 13% were DAOC players, 10% were UO players, 3% were AC players, and 2% were AO players.' which while dated is a good start, fun reading anyway.

Sounds very dated... I hardly think that over 500k subscribers for DAoC accounts for only 13% of the player base. But that brings another question to mind. Do you want to know what are the subscriber numbers (people who have currently active accounts at the time of the polling) or the amount of people actually playing the game?

In my experience, there are plenty of people who pay for 3 months subscriptions that will only drop in the game once or twich in a month, just to "check things out" in case something fun happens, or a super patch makes things more interesting. In the mean time they play another online game a little more actively. That hardly counts as an active player, but it is a subscriber.

Last hard numbers I saw about subscribers was around 700k to 800k for EQ and 500k to 600k for DAoC, and that was at the beginning of the year if memory serves.

I don't want to be prying into what doesn't concern me or anything (and please let me know if I am) but why would you even want such statistics? What use would they be? Just curious

EDIT:
I just thought of something else: those numbers that you quote probably don't take into account all the smaller indy and marginal games out there either, which could be the reason for such a large number for the one game. Those numbers just seem very wrong to me...
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Post Mon Jun 09, 2003 7:25 pm
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vaticide
Put food in here
Put food in here




Joined: 21 Feb 2002
Posts: 1122
Location: One step behind a toddler bent on destruction.
   

I seem to remember seeing some rough numbers in the recent (nonRPGDot) interview of Richard Garriott. Maybe it was someone else but that rings a bell.

-vaticide
Post Mon Jun 09, 2003 10:24 pm
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Darkhosis
Village Dweller
Village Dweller




Joined: 12 Jun 2003
Posts: 2
   

http://pw1.netcom.com/~sirbruce/Subscriptions.html
Post Thu Jun 12, 2003 7:01 am
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Val
Risen From Ashes
Risen From Ashes




Joined: 18 Feb 2002
Posts: 14724
Location: Utah, USA
   

2000 subscribers in A Tale in the Desert. Yeah, we're barely a blip on the radar screen.
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Post Sun Jun 15, 2003 7:44 pm
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Pattern Recognition
Village Dweller
Village Dweller




Joined: 08 Jun 2003
Posts: 3
   

Thanks, exactly what I was after Darkhosis
Post Mon Jun 16, 2003 3:26 am
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