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Enter at Your Own Rift: Happy half-birthday, RIFT!
It's hard to believe -- but amazing nevertheless -- that RIFT is almost a half-year old. Six months ago, hundreds of thousands of gamers rushed through the gates to become the first to explore Telara, included me, and we were introduced to what's become one of the most dominating MMOs of the year. Following this smooth release (and it was smooth), Trion Worlds set a remarkable standard for itself by pumping out meaty content updates at a steady, rapid pace and marketing RIFT out the wazoo. We've already witnessed two live events, numerous subscription specials, the addition of a ginormous raid, and my not having hit 50 yet -- to my eternal embarrassment. Of course, there have been bumps in the road as well: a lackluster initial world event, a segment of disgruntled players and opponents, and the looming specter of several heavy-hitting MMOs waiting in the wings. But for right here and right now, this is Trion's time, and the company is taking advantage of this half-year milestone to light the fireworks and lay out the good china in celebration. We got on the phone with Scott Hartsman and his Justice League to talk about what the studio has up its sleeves for this event -- and what's next for this rapidly expanding title.
Age of Conan: Unchained conquers 300,000 new players, doubles revenue in a month
The secret is out and the jig is up: MMO studios have solid evidence that adding a free-to-play option on top of a subscription model is the way to bring in hordes of new players. Age of Conan: Unchained proved this today as Funcom announced the addition of over 300,000 players to its bloody family in the first month of service. Apparently the servers are packed full and Funcom is raking in the moolah, too. The studio announced that servers have quadrupled activity during this time period, and revenues have more then doubled. This is certainly good news for the 2008 title, which is now being supported by a mix of subscription and cash shop options. Funcom CEO Trond Arne Aas is pleased as (a) punch: "The launch of the hybrid business model has been very successful so far. The activity levels on the servers are booming with a fourfold increase in players during July, we more than doubled the revenue generated from the game, and we have experienced a positive development in subscriber numbers. This definitely gives us great hope for the game's future." Age of Conan is set to release a movie tie-in update later this month called Savage Coast of Turan to take advantage of the Conan the Barbarian movie coming to theaters on the 18th.
Spotify reported to have 175,000 paid-up Americans, valued at $1.1 beeellion
Seems like America's doors are still wide open to new musical immigrants, because Spotify's stateside foray has just boosted its overall valuation to $1.1 billion. That's based on its two most recent investment rounds, which racked up another $100 million from new and old investors who are clearly convinced that the streaming platform can carve out a niche between existing rivals like Rhapsody and new entrants like Google Music and iCloud. Meanwhile, AllThingsD are reporting figures from an unnamed source who says that the London-based company now has 1.4 million US subscribers, of which 175,000 are coughing up $10 per month for premium features like mobile access. If accurate, that equates to a conversion rate of 12.5-percent -- not quite as high as the 15-percent it achieved in Zamunda Europe, but still impressive.
World of Warcraft subscriptions continue a downward trend
"No king rules forever, my son." Those words were a big part of the capstone event for World of Warcraft's last expansion, but they may be equally appropriate for the game itself. According to reports from the company, WoW's subscription numbers have continued to drop in the quarter ending June 30th, with the game now holding approximately 11 million subscribers worldwide. It's a slower rate than the game had been bleeding players, but it's still a definite decrease. According to president Mike Morhaime, the reason for the drop can be traced back to the time since the last expansion release, but even Morhaime admits that this is the fastest drop the game has seen during its run. There are obviously rumors that the next expansion is not so far away, but as it stands, WoW's longstanding grip on the MMO market is no longer quite as strong as it once was.
Netflix rises to 25 million subscribers in Q2, thinks DVD business has already peaked
If you were still wondering why Netflix chose right now to split apart its unlimited DVD and streaming movie plans you need look no further than the just released Q2 financial report. According to the numbers, 75 percent of new subscribers were picking streaming only plans, while the total number of people on the hybrid DVD / streaming plan had actually decreased slightly, even as it breached 25 million subscribers worldwide. Of course, it did notice the intense backlash to the new rates, but predicts that after the hit of cancellations by the end of the third quarter it will still have 22 million people subscribed to streaming, 15 million total subscribed to DVDs, and about 12 million customers with both. Waiting on that Facebook integration? Don't hold your breath, while the new features are due to launch soon in Canada and Latin America, it claims ambiguous wording in the Video Privacy Protection Act is holding things back domestically. Other details include confirmation it will not look into purchasing Hulu, and that it's still negotiating a renewal of its deal with Starz. While the DVD business may have peaked, it's not quite dead yet and Netflix indicated it will start marketing that feature again in the fourth quarter. Click the source link to paw through the PDF yourself, we'll be keeping an ear tuned to the investor call later to find out exactly what the company's executives are thinking.
Verizon, AT&T celebrate subscriber growth, new features rolled out in Q2
When earnings for AT&T and Verizon came out we mostly focused on their cellphone related business, but both are also major players in the pay-TV space these days. Verizon's FiOS TV segment (minus the parts sacrificed to Frontier) added 184,000 customers in the last quarter, bringing it to a total of 3.4 million subscribers and crossing over 30 percent of potential penetration. AT&T's U-verse TV added 202,000 subscribers and reached 3.4 million in total, while also rolling out a few new features. We'll have to wait until next week to get most of the other pay-TV numbers, but who's betting there will be a new round of "cable cutting" predictions to go around?
Turbine sweetens the deal for DDO subscribers
Dungeons and Dragons Online's free-to-play model has been the belle of the F2P ball since it was released in 2009, but that doesn't mean that Turbine's given up on luring players into subscribing. Today, the studio announced a "summer gift" to those who sign up for VIP status: double bonus points per month from July 11th through September 11th. This means that every month a player is subscribed, he or she will receive 1,000 Turbine Points to spend in the DDO store instead of 500 TP. Turbine's also made sure that the price point for VIP subscriptions is attractive, as it's offered players the ability to sign up for three months at $29.97 (effectively $9.99 a month). By taking advantage of both deals, players can enjoy three months of VIP status and earn 3,000 Turbine Points for just $30. VIP status means that all of DDO's adventure modules are available to enjoy, including the new ones that came with Update 10.
Hulu CEO lays out Q2 results, 875,000 paying subscribers for potential buyers
Five months after laying out Hulu's battle plan, CEO Jason Kilar showed off the company's Q2 stats in an apparent bid to impress potential suitors and possibly secure his own future with the company. The above graph shows Hulu Plus subscriber growth, now above 875k and heading towards the 1 million he predicted it would reach this year by the end of the summer. Other key stats mentioned are the roughly $8 per subscriber that's being paid out to content creators from subscription fees and ad revenues, as well as the 25 million additional devices that have become Hulu Plus enabled in the last several months. Not mentioned in that list are LG TVs, which a separate blog post announced have just received a Hulu Plus app that is even compatible with their Magic Motion gesture control remote. Now that the numbers are laid out and buyers are perusing Hulu's wares, it's simply a matter of time until someone writes a check and we find out what the next chapter of the video streaming site's future holds, whether it fits Kilar's existing vision or something entirely new from whoever purchases it.
Half of iPad subscribers willing to share information
At first, publishers were wary of the terms of publishing for Apple's iPad that would require them to ask consumers whether or not they could use their information. In traditional magazine publishing, magazines would get access to their subscribers' information, and publishers worried that they wouldn't under this new deal. But it turns out those worries were unfounded. According to Forbes, Apple has confirmed that 50 percent of subscribers are providing their information anyway. Mark Edmiston of Nomad Editions says, "what was an insurmountable obstacle no longer is." Go figure. 50 percent is still less than 100 percent, which is what publishers had with their original paper subscription plans. But it's also better than nothing, which is what publishers were worried they would end up with. With a little tweaking, offering things like free content or other incentives to share that information, publishers could get a great rate of return. Just goes to show that while there are certainly obstacles for publishers to overcome in this new age of digital publishing to tablets, not all of them are "insurmountable."
AT&T reports best-ever first quarter for smartphone sales with 5.5 million, 60 percent of them are iPhones
We've been waiting for this one, the first indicator of the mythical Verizon iPhone's impact on the fortunes of the formerly exclusive Applephone carrier, AT&T. As it turns out, business is rolling along as usual over on the blue team, where AT&T spent Q1 2011 activating a total of 3.6 million iPhones, a nice round million more than the same period last year. Also interesting is AT&T's note that somewhere around 40 percent of its smartphone sales come from Android, BlackBerry and Windows Phone 7 devices, leaving the iPhone to account for the remaining 60-ish percent. Taken as a whole, that group totaled up 5.5 million sales in the quarter, a new best for AT&T in the first three months of the year, and the smartphone segment is now said to account for 46.2 percent of the company's postpaid user base. Jump past the break for more details in AT&T's press release.
Smedley: Free Realms on track to 100 million players
What's up, World of Warcraft? You think you're so big and bad with your 12-million-strong-and-then-some player base? You won't be quite so intimidating if Sony Online Entertainment head John Smedley's vision for Free Realms comes to fruition. In a recent interview with GamesIndustry, Smedley said, "I think it could take five or six years - that should give you some idea [of the time frame we're looking at]. But I don't see any reason why it can't go to 100 million [players], because there are so many kids out there." The game's current player base stands at 17 million, which should increase naturally with the game's recent launch on PS3. However, though we appreciate Smedley's "children are our future" outlook, we think it's gonna take a little something extra to net the other 83 million he's hoping for. That's right. It needs more unicorns.
EVE Evolved: Power players and player retention
As I mentioned in our coverage of the EVE Online Fanfest, the best part of the experience for me was discussing EVE with players who are as involved in and enthusiastic about the game as I am. On my first night there, I got into a fascinating discussion with a few players on a topic I hadn't really considered before -- power players. Every MMO has players who get heavily involved in their chosen game. EVE's Fanfest really highlighted this, as around a thousand of EVE's power players flew to Iceland just to talk about the game, contribute ideas in roundtable discussions and find out what the future holds for the game. Ultimately, the fate of EVE lies in its community. EVE's main strength as an MMO is the fact that with so many players in one game universe, people form very real ties with each other. Corporations and alliances are more than just collections of people; they're sub-communities with their own aspirations, internal politics, playstyles, personalities and even senses of humour. These organisations give people support and a place to call home in an unforgiving universe, and it's the power players of EVE who make all of that possible. In this week's EVE Evolved, I explore the importance of power players in MMOs and what the concept means for EVE's development.
New York Times reveals labyrinthine subscription plans, Canadian readers already hitting paywall
We knew it was coming, and now The New York Times has followed through on its promise to erect a paywall for online content, which means no more free news -- kind of. Starting today in Canada and March 28th in the US, NYTimes.com will ask visitors reading more than 20 articles per month to pay for their info fix. The new plan offers monthly subscriptions of $15 with a smartphone app, $20 with tablet app, or $35 for complete digital access -- subscribers with a physical subscription will be granted a full pass, except on e-readers. Further convoluting the pay structure, entry from sites like Twitter and Facebook won't face the same restrictions, and access via Google is set at five free visits per day. Other news sources, including The Wall Street Journal, have already started charging for online content in the face of declining ad revenue, but this is certainly one of the most elaborate systems we've seen so far. The subscription plan was unleashed in Canada today, allowing the paper to iron out any kinks before hitting the US, which means you've got just under two weeks to hit NYTimes.com completely free -- after that, prepare to be confused.
DirecTV announces positive Q4 results; no word on new HD channels, DirecTiVo or 24/7 ESPN 3D
While its cable competition deals with fears of cord cutting and losing customers DirecTV's Q4 results reveal it's continuing to add subscribers, growing by 289,000 in the US alone and even more in Latin America. Of course, good news for investors doesn't necessarily mean anything for customers, as news on any new HD channels and the much-anticipated DirecTiVo were notable in their absence. However, our friends at ZatzNotFunny points out both a tweet by the official DirecTV account suggesting the DVR could be delayed (again & again & again) to the second half of the year, and a forum post on DBSTalk that pictures what might be the final hardware and suggests it could end up shipping with the classic TiVo interface. One more interesting note? DirecTV hasn't picked up the 24/7 feed of ESPN 3D, opting to keep it live events only for now for unknown reasons, according to Explore 3DTV.
Comcast pushes back fears of cord-cutting customers with strong Q4 results
Fresh off its absorption of NBC Universal, Comcast had good news for investors today when it announced it lost only 135,000 subscribers. That doesn't sound like good news, but it's fewer than it lost in the year or quarter preceding, and may push back some of the talk of the trend of "cord-cutting" as the remaining subscribers continue to opt for bundled services with high speed internet and phone contributing to rising profits. We'll check back next quarter see if its Xfinity offerings are enough to keep more customers hanging around, or if the cable-cutter rhetoric comes back stronger than ever.
European newspaper publishers unhappy with Apple's publication requirements
A few European publishers have heard from Apple about subscription arrangements on the App Store, and they're not happy at all. The agreement isn't that surprising -- just as with the current setup in iTunes for software developers, Apple is asking that all subscriptions go through them, and that they take their usual 30 percent cut. But that has European publishers quite angry -- not only is the price higher than they want to pay, but they say it's because Apple will cut them out of access to things like subscriber demographics and other inside information that they'd have if they ran subscriptions themselves. All fair points. Apple definitely doesn't want to "lose control" of any possible in-app subscriptions, and since it already controls access to the App Store, these publishers are at Apple's whims anyway. If publishers try to run a subscription scheme Apple doesn't agree with, their apps likely won't stay on the App Store for long. Of course, the real meter here is The Daily -- while it got a nice reaction at launch, if that model doesn't prove itself to be profitable or workable, publications may not bother with the App Store anyway. Even if they don't run apps through Apple's subscription channels, there's still Mobile Safari and conventional paywalls. [via App Advice]
The "big bet": EA aims at a half-million subscribers to make SWTOR profitable
"It's a big bet, but it's the right kind of bet to make for EA." These are the words of BioWare's Ray Muzyka, responding to a conference call to EA investors in which the company admitted that Star Wars: The Old Republic will need to pull in at least 500,000 subscribers to become profitable. This is substantially less than the two million subscriber mark that industry analysts previously predicted. During the conference call, EA CEO John Riccitiello drew a line in the sand between financial failure and victory for The Old Republic: "At half a million subscribers, the game is substantially profitable, but it's not the sort of thing we would write home about. Anything north of one million subscribers is a very profitable business. Essentially it turns on a dime from being quite sharply negative in terms of its EPS [Earnings Per Share] impact to positive the day the product ships. So it's our view that we can be very successful without fundamentally challenging the market leader [World of Warcraft] because we think we'll probably hit the smaller competitors harder when we get out there. Of course, we have no particular ambition to be a distant number two. Our ambitions are higher than that, but we throttle back a little bit relative to our financial projections." While Riccitiello admitted that the title has seen "significant development costs," he claims that costs proposed by the public are far higher than the actual costs of The Old Republic's development. He declined to share the actual costs or the number of staff working on the game. EA also announced that The Old Republic's release date will be in calendar 2011. BioWare has as recently as this January targeted a spring 2011 release. EA's estimate puts its launch somewhere between March 31st and December 31st of this year.
Visualized: the state of the smartphone wars
As AT&T's iPhone exclusivity reluctantly teeters on the brink of oblivion, it seems a good time to take one last look at the smartphone playground, the way it is before V-Day. The New York Times has handily done that job for us with the above chart, which simultaneously gives us a sense of scale when comparing US carriers and lays out the concentration of Android devices across those networks. It also shows a big fat bump of iOS on AT&T, making it the biggest carrier in terms of combined iPhone and Android users -- nothing shocking there, but the real fun will be in taking a look at this same data a few months from now. Will the iPhone fragment itself all over the four major networks? Will AT&T's Android stable ever be respectable? Tune in to your next installment of "fun, but mostly irrelevant statistics" to find out.
ComScore: Android jumps ahead of iOS in total US smartphone subscribers
We've seen plenty of data to show that Android is the hottest-selling smartphone OS among US buyers today, but now we have a stat point to show that it's doing pretty well in cumulative terms as well. According to ComScore's latest estimates, Android had 26 percent of all US smartphone subscribers in the quarter ending November 2010, bettering Apple's iPhone for the first time. The major victim of Android's ascendancy has actually been RIM's BlackBerry, whose lead at the top contracted by 4.1 percentage points (nearly 11 percent less than the share it had in the previous quarter). Guess those Verizon iPhones and dual-core BBs had better start arriving pretty soon.
EA puts faith in The Old Republic's lifespan and profits
With all the cries of doom and gloom against Star Wars: The Old Republic -- not to mention accusations of a wildly bloated production budget -- one may be led to believe that TOR will fail even before it sees the light of day. EA, on the other hand, is expressing a calm confidence in the game's potential longevity and financial success. According to Eurogamer, EA's CFO Eric Brown predicts that TOR will not only last over a decade, but will be profitable even if there are fewer than a million subscribers: "Our assumptions for break-even and profitability are not seven-digit subscribers. We think we can run and operate a very successful and profitable MMO at different levels. The key thing here is to really perfect the product. We're shooting for an extremely high quality game experience. We view this as a 10-year opportunity." Brown previously admitted that TOR is the single largest project in the history of EA, and industry analysts have predicted that the title would need at least a million subscribers to break even.
