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Q4 2007: NCsoft's subscription numbers & Tabula Rasa's financial flop
NCsoft crunches their numbers every financial quarter and releases this information in the open since they are publicly traded company. With all this information it provides a fantastic insiders look at one of the biggest MMOG publishers in the world. Another Massively writer already reported on the gist from the latest round of numbers, but with all the recent hoopla surrounding Tabula Rasa, let's take a closer look at NCsoft's subscription numbers across the board, and come up with a subscription number for Tabula Rasa. Lineage [Worldwide]: 1,049,763 subscriptions (down 93,936 from Q3)[North America]: 6,414 subscriptions (down 585 from Q3)Lineage 2 [Worldwide]: 926,570 subscriptions (down 4,693 from Q3)[North America & Europe]: 79,986 subscriptions (up 943 from Q3)City of Heroes/Villains [North America & Europe]: 136,250 (-3,063 subs from Q3)Guild Wars[North America & Europe]: 4,878,000 boxes sold (+378,000 from Q3)Subscriptions continue to decline, but the impact isn't very noticeable unless you look at the loss over a greater period. Over a million subscriptions have been lost since the Lineage franchise peaked. No exact subscription numbers are given for Tabula Rasa, but an educated guess is discernable with the available projections given by NCsoft's CFO Lee Jae-ho. Tabula Rasa's given projection stands at 16 million for 2008. Its subscription fee is the standard $15 a month, added up for the year that amounts to $180. 180 into the projected 16 million and you get 88 thousand users.
G4 writer: Every MMOG since WoW is an epic failure
Insert "I pick whatever," and that list can be found on every webbed nook and seedy cranny. But this is the best list ever. Says Who? Anyone with a blog! Normally these lists are the opinions of one person, but the overall outlook is held to the site they scribble on. I don't remember taking a vote for "Massively's" Top 5 Sci-Fi MMOs," (although EVE would be my top pick) but it's possible other Massively writers voted. (You wouldn't believe how much we spam each other.) Well, this list by G4's Sjohnson entitled "Epic Fail: Gaming Failures" is turning a few heads. At the top of the heap, the writer boldly chooses the #1 failure as being: "Every North American MMO Since World of Warcraft." What? It gets better. To solidify their opinion Johnson uses the all-to-familiar Star Wars Galaxies debacle ("Don't NGE me bro!") and points to the mega flopped Sims Online. Both power-players with established franchises, and their own built-in fanbases that should have thawed out the Frozen Moses and blew the genre to smithereens. What about actual MMOGs that were released after World of Warcraft? Johnson failed to list one. Maybe his list would have been better titled, "Every MMO ever released except World of Warcraft." Lastly, World of Warcraft's 9 million total sub count is cool and all, but it doesn't mean a MMOG with 200k subs isn't successful in its own right. If you want to make a list about MMOG failures and base it on subs alone, it's only fair to include all those grindtastic ones based in Asia that have millions of subscriptions too. I wouldn't touch those MMOGs even if you imprisoned me on a gold farm with a thousand Natalie Portman cylons. (Wait a minute...) Still, I think these lists are fun and it leaves room for great debate. I want to know what you guys think. Has every single MMOG since World of Warcraft failed? Should LotRO have over a million subscriptions by now? What about the trouble regarding countless MMOG cancellations and delays over this past year-- is World of Warcraft to blame? Let us know in the comments.[via, Random Battle]
EVE Online passes the 200k subscription mark
CCP announced earlier that EVE Online has surpassed the 200,000 subscription count, (a number CCP has been flirting with for many months now) which does not include more than 45,000 trial accounts in effect. I'm not sure how many trial accounts were active six months ago, but given the release of the Mac and Linux clients there a lot of new capsules floating out there in space. Not to diminish this accomplishment, it's important to note that these are subscriptions and not unique subscribers. CCP has been pushing "The Power of 2" heavily on their current playerbase and hundreds if not thousands have several subscriptions. I also believe CCP could have already hit their ultimate goal to have a bigger subscription base than Iceland's population, 300k, if they had retuned the newbie experience. Free game client; free expansions; decent rookie help channel; all this ease-to -accessibility is fantastic, but it still isn't enough, and I'm sure CCP has some telling numbers on how many players didn't get past the tutorial. CCP is addressing a small part of this problem in 2008 and beyond with a planned in-game EVE-pedia, but I am a bit surprised they haven't emphasized more focus on improving the newbie experience aside from the newbie tutorial revamp, which could be a lot better. EVE may not be the behemoth WoW is, but EVE has proven to keep a slow steady growth since it launched in 2003, which normally isn't the case for most MMOGs. The last true pinnacle point in overall subscriptions occurred in early 2006 when EVE reached 100,000 subscriptions. The players drive this game. The players are the content. I'm looking forward to the day when EVE actually breaks 300k unique subscribers.
