subscribers
Latest
Apple Music recruits 11 million trial users in six weeks
Over 11 million people are now using Apple Music following the June 30th launch. "We're thrilled with the numbers so far," Apple senior VP Eddy Cue told USA Today. The service is in a free trial phase until September, so nobody has paid for it yet. The number of users is actually higher, though, as Apple said that 2 million of those folks are on the family plan, which allows six people to use it at once. Still, is 11 million free subscribers a lot? Everyone who updated an iPhone or iPad to iOS 8.4 was nagged to sign up, and it remains to be seen how many will opt out once they have to pay.
Despite artist tension, Spotify subscriptions are growing quickly
At the end of 2014, artists like Taylor Swift pulled their music from Spotify citing inadequate compensation and music being made available to non-subscribers free of charge. Those vocal lashings didn't stymie growth though, as the streaming service has added 2.5 million paying users since November, bringing its paid tally to 15 million. During that time, the total user count grew to 60 million -- up from 50 million in two months. What's more, the growth is accelerating: It took about 17 months for Spotify to move from 5 to 10 million, but roughly half that time to hit 15 million. This means that only a quarter of the company's active users are paying customers, a percentage that's remained consistent for a while now.
FFXIV, FFXI, and Dragon Quest 10 subscribers total(ed) 'nearly' 1M
Square-Enix has released its summary of 2014's finances with the start of the new year, and the good news is that it looks pretty rosy. According to the summary of the financial year that ended in March of 2014, the company's fortunes had improved immensely. Of more specific interest to the MMO market, of course, is the fact that the report gives some idea of the subscribers for Final Fantasy XIV, Final Fantasy XI, and the currently Japan-only title Dragon Quest X. According to the report, all three titles together boasted "nearly" one million subscribers, with the lion's share likely belonging to Final Fantasy XIV. Specifics are not discussed, nor does the report clarify whether these subscriber numbers are from the end of the financial year in March or the end of the calendar year in December (we assume the former). The most recent official word from Square-Enix was 2.5 million registered accounts for FFXIV in December 2014.
Final Fantasy XIV has 2.5 million registered accounts
At the very end of Final Fantasy XIV's Eternal Bond trailer on Tuesday, there's a small line imploring watchers to join 2.5 million adventurers worldwide. The last official word from the game on numbers was two million registrations back in April. It was easy to miss that line at the end, but it was caught by blogger Syncaine, and we reached out to Square-Enix to confirm that the game has indeed passed the 2.5 million mark in registrations. Registered accounts is obviously not the same thing as active subscriptions, but it's still a milestone for the game, especially with an expansion on the way in spring of next year. That's good news for both the Final Fantasy XIV team and the players who will have plenty of other people to adventure with.
World of Warcraft bounces back to 7.4 million subscribers
The launch of Warlords of Draenor is still a month away, but just the approach is enough to bump the numbers for World of Warcraft. Blizzard Entertainment announced that the game is at 7.4 million subscribers as of the end of September, a bump of 600,000 over the previous announcement of 6.8 million subscribers. As this is a statement from Blizzard rather than the usual earnings calls with subscriber numbers, no reasons are given for the upswing; since the subscriber numbers were listed as of September 30th, the jump occurred before the pre-expansion patch. Regardless, it's another point of data for those who are tracking these things with a chart.
World of Warcraft back up to 7.4 million subscribers
Though Activision Blizzard's quarterly earnings call isn't for another month, Blizzard has released their latest subscriber numbers a little early. As of October 14, World of Warcraft sits at 7.4 million subscribers, up 600,000 from their previously reported 6.8 million. Warlords of Draenor's impending release is having an effect -- players are finding a renewed interest in the game. More than ever, it's clear that the long wait between content releases is Warcraft's worst enemy. If you build it, they'll come. But in the meantime, they'll have fun somewhere else.
EVE Evolved: Fixing EVE's player activity
It's been a sort of running gag in EVE Online throughout the years that players spend inordinate amounts of time docked in stations and spinning their ships around in the hangar, but this is oddly close to the truth. Those of us who have been hooked to EVE for years know just how intense the game can get at its most frantic and how incredible it is to be present for historic events and important PvP battles, but those moments are rare, and there's typically a lot of downtime between periods of activity. For every PvP battle fought, incursion fleet formed or wormhole op organised, players often have to spend hours in stations or in space amusing themselves or doing busywork. With gamers now spreading their increasingly limited free time across a growing catalogue of online games, some EVE players log in for only a few minutes per day to queue skills, chat with corpmates, and see if anything interesting is happening. The recent announcement that the upcoming Phoebe release will contain infinite length skill queues has some players concerned that people will lose the motivation to pop their heads into New Eden each day and see what's going on. Since the best sandbox gameplay is emergent in nature, just getting players to log in so they're available to take part in something awesome when it happens is extremely important. In this edition of EVE Evolved, I ask whether EVE is in trouble due to its recent decline in player activity, look at the impact of people with just a few hours per week to play, and suggest a new app idea that could help solve all of those problems.
Hearthstone hits 20 million registered players
Blizzard hit a milestone recently with the free-to-play digital card game Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft breaking 20 million registered players. For scale, that's double the number of players WoW had at its peak during Wrath of the Lich King in 2010. The most amazing thing about that is Hearthstone has yet to release on all intended platforms: Android tablet, Android phone, and iOS phone versions are still forthcoming. All in all, the registration numbers indicate that there is very widespread interest in Hearthstone indeed, and for good reason. It's a ton of fun to play!
World of Warcraft down to 6.8 million subscribers
According to today's Activision Blizzard earnings call, World of Warcraft is down to 6.8 million subscribers. That's a loss of 800,000 subscribers since the previous quarter. Once more, the losses are said to have occurred primarily in the Eastern market. We think it's safe to say a year without any new content carries the bulk of the blame for these losses. Historically, since WoW's subscriber peak in 2011, content droughts tend to see the largest drop in subscribers. It's also safe to say some of the losses will return with the release of Warlords of Draenor, though it's unlikely that all lost subscribers will be recovered -- and it remains to be seen how long recovered subscriptions will hang around.
World of Warcraft down to 7.6 million subscribers
Today's Activision Blizzard investor call, covering the first quarter of 2014, revealed that World of Warcraft stands at 7.6 million subscribers. That's a 200,000 subscriber drop as of the most recent call, which set subscribers at 7.8 million. All things considered, that seems to be a mild drop for the state of the game -- players collectively waiting for Warlords of Draenor without so much as an ETA.
Sprint loses hundreds of thousands of customers due to 'service disruption'
Now that T-Mobile has upped its game, Sprint is left as the only major US carrier still struggling with financial losses. That didn't get much better this quarter, as the company lost 364,000 pre-paid and 231,000 valuable postpaid customers. It says the losses were anticipated, and were largely due to widespread annoyance at disruptions to its service, caused by the ongoing overhaul of its network infrastructure. Whatever the reason, the end result was the same old story: It finished with a net loss of $151 million for the quarter. The good news, however, is that Sprint's losses seem to be getting smaller as time ticks on -- it actually lost four times as much money in the same period last year.
Final Fantasy XIV surpasses 2 million registrations
There are two million people playing Final Fantasy XIV right this second. All right, maybe not quite that many, but it's certainly possible. The launch of the game's PlayStation 4 version has seen the game climb to surpass two million registered accounts, an increase of 500,000 over the 1.5 million stated in November. No hard data have been offered on how many of those accounts are subscribing to the game at this point, although an interview with Naoki Yoshida in March stated 500,000 players were logging into the game daily. With a recent patch and a new platform, the revitalized game seems to be doing quite well for itself as it approaches the one-year mark for its relaunch. [Source: Square-Enix press release]
Sony Online Entertainment changes benefits for subscriptions
It's a fairly common model for free-to-play games that offer a subscription -- subscribers get an allowance of cash-shop currency in addition to other benefits. It's how Sony Online Entertainment's games have worked for as long as they've had the model. But EverQuest II and PlanetSide 2 subscribers are seeing a new version of subscriber benefits, one that removes the usual Station Cash allowance and replaces it with an item worth the equivalent amount or more. Every month, players are given a choice between one of several items worth up to 2000 Station Cash. This item must be selected on a monthly basis, as benefits do not carry over from month to month. While the net amount of rewards should be functionally identical, it will mean fewer options about what you acquire on a monthly basis, especially as Player Studio items are listed as exclusions from the list. If you're unhappy with the change, you've got time to say so, as the change is not going into effect until February 3rd. [Thanks to Balsbigbrother for the tip!]
Hulu Plus passes 5 million subscribers, plans to double its original content
New Hulu CEO Mike Hopkins chimed in this week with the video streaming site's yearly recap, and pointed out a few big numbers as evidence it's headed in the right direction. In 2013 Hulu will top $1 billion in revenue and 5 million paying customers for its Hulu Plus service, which compares to $695 million and 3 million subscribers in 2012, and 4 million subscribers back in April. That's not a bad haul for a site that was almost sold -- again -- and lost former CEO Jason Kilar this year, but while those numbers are up, they were going up faster last year. All the while its competition is getting stronger as Netflix has over 40 million subscribers, Amazon pushes its Prime subscription service with licensed content and new original shows, and the TV networks that feed Hulu roll out streaming sites of their own (Fox Now, Watch ABC). Still, Hulu's trump card is that it offers current season TV shows many others don't have yet, and Hopkins proudly notes it has seven of the current top ten TV shows ready for streaming at any time. Right now Hulu hosts over 2,900 TV series, with plans to take this year's 20 original series and double that number "over the next few years." Like Netflix and Amazon, Hulu isn't posting viewer numbers, but Hopkins says original shows like The Wrong Mans, Behind the Mask and The Awesomes performed "extremely well" and are among the top 10 shows viewed. We think Hulu could use a drama like House of Cards to pull in viewers next year, but one more year of sale or IPO rumors about it splitting off from owners Disney, Fox and NBC Universal could be just as entertaining.
Star Wars: The Old Republic launches Galactic Starfighter for subscribers
Subscribers to Star Wars: The Old Republic don't have to wait another day to start fighting across the stars. Galactic Starfighter early access is now live for subscribers, with Preferred players getting access on January 14th, 2014, and free players allowed in on February 4th, 2014. Yes, if you want to blow up other ships today, subscribing right now will still let you start blasting away, and you won't even have to hit a certain level to be eligible. The goal with Galactic Starfighter as explained in one of two new development blogs was to allow all players access to the content even if they're not as interested in the story. Progressing through the leveling game will unlock companions, though, and the other development blog details how your crew members can help your overall performance. There's also a new trailer just past the cut showing off how you can customize your ship, perfect if you're deciding whether you want to subscribe or if you prefer to wait to start playing.
Azeroth and beyond: Nine years of World of Warcraft
In 1999, Blizzard Entertainment was well on its way to becoming something of a titan in the PC gaming space. Riding high on hits like Diablo, Warcraft II, and the barely-a-year-old StarCraft, Blizzard had established itself as a purveyor of quirky, well-made, and entertaining games mostly of the RTS variety. However, something else was brewing behind closed doors at Blizzard's Irvine campus. While sequels to Warcraft, StarCraft, and Diablo were all in development (and hotly anticipated), the company had also quietly started work on a brand-new massively-multiplayer online game set in one of the studio's existing game universes. That game, of course, was World of Warcraft. And nine years ago tomorrow, it completely changed the face of MMO gaming.
World of Warcraft's lead content designer on the future of the game and the franchise
World of Warcraft has had a tumultuous time. The past three years have seen the game shed about five million players, but it still counts 7.6 million subscribers, far more than its closest competitor. And the most recent expansion announcement has certainly generated plenty of interest. But lead content designer Corey Stockton explained in a recent interview that the game still has more places to go. He mentions exploring the recent trends toward user-generated content and procedural content to allow more variety at the top levels, something to ameliorate how quickly players consume the elaborately designed dungeons and raids of the game. Stockton doesn't see that sort of content ever replacing the core of the game, of course, but he does note that there's a persistent issue with new content not coming out as fast as players can go through it. He goes on to explain that the developers would like to have a new expansion out every year, certainly at a faster rate than the team's previous content releases, and that the current goal is to work several expansions ahead rather than focusing on the immediate future. For more details and talk about the potential for Warcraft IV, take a look at the full interview.
RIFT sees a player surge thanks to Steam
The near-ubiquity of Steam as a distribution platform can certainly drive players to your game. A little less than a week after RIFT launched on Steam, Trion Worlds is reporting that RIFT and Defiance have seen a combined influx of 250,000 new players, beating out the numbers reported both for the launch of Storm Legion and RIFT's free-to-play conversion. It's the largest influx of players the game has ever seen since its original launch, for that matter: Trion says it made for the "highest single day gain in new users" since the game first opened its doors. What does that mean for the long run? That's the eternal question. RIFT launched its most recent major patch yesterday, but whether or not it will encourage players new to the game to subscribe or buy things in the cash shop is up for debate. Regardless, it's a good sign of health for the game as a whole, so congratulations are in order to the RIFT team on the number bump. [Source: Trion Worlds press release]
World of Warcraft sheds another 100,000 subscriptions
Everyone is pretty certain that the next World of Warcraft expansion is going to be announced very soon. Tomorrow, probably. So it serves as an interesting counterpoint to note that the game has lost 100,000 subscribers over the past three months, dropping the game's total to 7.6 million subscribers and serving as a rather inelegant coda to the game's most recent expansion, Mists of Pandaria. Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick stated the numbers during a post-earnings call while noting that "new and exciting content" is on the way for the game. While 7.6 million subscribers is still more than enough to make hats out of money, it's a far cry from the game's subscription height. It remains to be seen whether or not the next expansion will help launch the game back upward or not -- and whether the game is currently undergoing a slump or is simply beginning to decline.
Final Fantasy XIV producer letter talks classes, cheating, and housing
A hefty two-and-a-half hour live Final Fantasy XIV producer's letter has tackled a wide range of questions from the community, including issues regarding class balance, anti-cheating efforts, and housing details. While free company housing is coming soon, the producer said that it will be another half-year or so before individual housing arrives. One of the big topics of the day was how the team is dealing with the disagreeable elements arising from the use of the duty finder. Square-Enix is considering changes to add a bulletin board-style system for more specific groups, better communication options for group participants, and an MVP voting system that will allow players to give points to good teammates that can be later spent on rewards. Executive Producer Naoki Yoshida also addressed the question of whether the game's subscriber numbers are decreasing: "As FFXIV:ARR is a subscription-based business model, naturally there will be players who will not play anymore once they finish the main scenario. MMORPGs that launched after 2008 with a subscription based model retained a maximum of 35% of their users during the first month of subscriptions. However, FFXIV:ARR has surpassed this number by a wide margin." There's a lot covered for Final Fantasy XIV players who want to be in the know, so check it out!
