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Mobile MMO TibiaME hits 10,000 subscribers
This isn't one of those "Wow, this game has only been out for X days and already has Y subscribers!" posts. TibiaME (the ME means Micro Edition) is certainly not a new title. In fact, the mobile MMO was released all the way back in 2003. What makes its latest milestone of 10,000 premium subscribers more notable is the rate at which the game's playerbase has been growing in recent times. 2008 saw the number of subscribers double, and 2009 has been extremely strong so far too. Off the top of our heads, we would say the rising popularity of smartphones would be a contributing factor, but apparently a collaboration with a large Indonesian mobile phone network has been a huge help as well.TibiaME bills itself as "the first massive multiplayer online role-playing game for mobile phones". After this latest news, Andreas Weikl (marketing manager from the game's German developer CipSoft) thinks it might be time to add another achievement to the list: "Altogether, TibiaME now has an active player base of around 40,000 players. As far as we know, TibiaME is therefore not only the first but by now as well the biggest mobile MMORPG in the world."
NPD: World of Warcraft has sold 8.6 million boxes at retail
Gamasutra has received an interesting stat from the good folks at NPD: after hearing that The Sims 3 sold over 800,000 copies in its first month, they were curious to see what kind of unit sales our own World of Warcraft has experienced. And the numbers are pretty big: among the original game and all of the expansion packs since the vanilla release over four years ago, NPD says 8.6 million boxes of WoW have been sold in the US. That's a little misleading if you're comparing it to actual subscription numbers: remember that this is over three different releases (so the actual number of all-time players, not current players, is probably 1/3 of that), and it includes different collectors' editions of each of the three game editions. So there are nowhere near 8.6 million US players of WoW -- that's just how many times players have come through the retail line with the various releases.What that is, however, is a lot of money. Gamasutra estimates that at an average of $30 for each unit sold (the vanilla game currently retails at $20, but the expansions all sell at $40, and of course the original game was more expensive once upon a time), that's $258 million in income for Blizzard. In short, Blizzard's making a mint at the retail counter, even before they sign anyone up for subscriptions.Then again, if you look at their own costs, those aren't insubstantial, either -- Activision's Bobby Kotick claimed that anyone starting up an MMO to compete with WoW would have to throw at least half a billion dollars into the mix just to get started, so we can presume Blizzard has spent at least $500 million on their staff, development, and hardware. So it's not like they're taking it all to the bank, though we can at least presume they're sitting firmly in the black.
Blizzard moves from #47 to #1 in studio rankings
According to a recent list by Develop magazine, Blizzard has dethroned Nintendo to become the most bankable game studio in the world. I'm surprised they weren't there already, but I guess it's just this side of possible that Nintendo is hard to budge. Develop's top 100 is compiled by their editorial team and accounts for total sales, reputation within the industry, and a variety of other criteria. When all was said and done, the editors wrote, Warcraft "continues to do the sort of numbers previously reserved for crime syndicates and smaller members of the United Nations." Nicely put, but what I find most bizarre about the list is that Blizzard jumped from #47 to #1 within the space of a year (you'll find Blizzard's 2008 listing on page 82 of a highly annoying-to-navigate Issuu archive). While part of that's due to the merge with Activision, Develop claims that Wrath of the Lich King being the fastest-selling PC game in history was the greatest contributing factor. Hang on. WoW was doing just fine even before Wrath hit, so how did Blizzard manage to get itself ranked behind do-little studios with sales of around $1-2 million per game on the 2008 list?
Activision conference call: WoW still at 11.5 million subscribers
The OC Register has a great breakdown of what Activision said on their earnings conference call today. Perhaps the biggest WoW-related stat to come out of the call is that the number of subscribers to the game has apparently leveled off: they're holding steady at 11.5 million. Which is nothing to cough at, but it's what we were told four months ago, and if, as Ghostcrawler claimed, the numbers are still going up, then they're going up very, very slowly. Morhaime says that numbers are growing everywhere, but that China will be a main focus of growth this year as Wrath of the Lich King releases there soon.In non-WoW Blizzard news, the Starcraft 2 beta will start this summer and will be the "final" phase of development for that game. The new Battle.net interface will be tested then as well, so keep an eye out for that. And Blizzard expects big things there in China also -- NetEase, the company that will now be handling Wrath's launch, is already set up to run both Diablo III and Starcraft 2 out there, so it'll all be under one umbrella.In short, there's no really bad news from Blizzard, but no really great news either -- the best news to come out of the call is that even in the slow economy lately, Blizzard is holding steady. Not a bad thing at all, but we probably won't see any spikes in player interest in Blizzard or WoW until they announce what's next on the content plate, whether that be at BlizzCon or before.
Netflix Q1 results: Unprecedented growth, 10.3 million subs, improving testing for cracked discs
We're not saying it's all good news for Netflix, but even someone with our limited financial knowledge can tell that this quote from CEO Reed Hastings in its Q1 results means things are going pretty well: "We added more net subscribers than in any previous quarter in our history and grew year-over-year GAAP EPS by 76 percent." We don't have to know what GAAP EPS is (earnings reported according to generally accepted accounting principals, and in our Wikipedia-based financial opinion we're concerned this may not truly reflect the earnings of the company until we can evaluate the operating cash flow per share - but this isn't that kind of blog) to recognize the company has a hit on its hands with Watch Instantly, even while its biggest competition is struggling. After busting through 10 million subscribers in February, the company is up to 10,310,000, adding 920,000 to its ranks in Q1 alone. Other news from the earnings call: Streaming only subscriptions are still being "considered" but not planned right now, the company is rolling out a new machine to test discs for scratches and cracks, and the company's biggest threat, just like we discussed on the podcast, is the spread of rental kiosks. You can check the reports for the rest of the details but if, like us, you're more interested in finding out when more HD and surround audio are coming to the streaming service, you'll be disappointed, because they're not in there.[Image courtesy of TooMuchNick / WireImage, via Hacking Netflix]
MetroPCS sees huge influx of customers, intros GroupLINE
We'd already heard that right about now was a great time to be in the prepaid cell business, and that's being proven quite definitively by MetroPCS' Q1 subscriber results. We're told that the firm saw a net addition of 684,000 customers in the first three months of 2009, representing an astounding 51 percent increase year-over-year. While celebrating mightily, the company also saw fit to introduce a "one-call communication solution targeted at families and friends who are trying to save money in today's economy by 'cutting the cord' and replacing their landline telephones with wireless phones." Said "landline replacer" is called GroupLINE, which enables up to five MetroPCS Family Plan subscribers to receive calls on a shared GroupLINE number while still maintaining their individual mobile numbers -- all for just $5 per month. So, anyone looking to tighten the belt by going prepaid? Your options are getting good.[Via GigaOM]Read - MetroPCS resultsRead - GroupLINE launch
The best of WoW Insider: March 31 - April 7, 2009
That big baddie above is rumored to be the second boss in the Vault of Archavon, an instance in Northrend that can only be reached when either the Horde or the Alliance conquer the contested territory of Wintergrasp. He looks dangerous, no? But worry not -- whether you're fighting for the Orcs or the Humans, Joystiq's WoW Insider has tips, tricks, and everything you need to conquer the Vault of Archavon or anywhere else in the World of Warcraft. Read on for some of our most popular posts. News WoW Insider's Guide to Patch 3.1We're closer than ever to the next big content patch -- which means we know more than ever about what's in it. April Fools 2009 roundupA bevy of Warcraft-related jokes from the 4/1 holiday last week. WoW subscriber numbers still increasing, multiboxers trivialThe devs confirm that the number of people in Azeroth is still going up. Noblegarden tentatively rescheduled for April 26thBlizzard goes a little late on a patch, so it actually reschedules the in-game Easter holiday. Battle.net login servers down again tonightBlizzard just recently transferred lots of player accounts onto the new Battle.net servers, but apparently they weren't quite up to the job. Features Opinion: 25-man gear should not be better than 10-man gearThe 10-man raids are actually harder than the 25-mans. So why is the gear worse? WoW Rookie: Gaming terminology 101Don't know your "LFG" from your "PST"? Let WoW Rookie help. The Art of War(craft): Wintergrasp in patch 3.1 and beyondAll the news that's fit to print on the changes to the game's most popular battleground. Guildwatch: A kinder, gentler GWFor April Fool's Day, our guild drama column decides to focus on the positive instead. Lichborne: Tradeskills for Death KnightsProfession help for former members of Arthas' army.
WoW subscriber numbers still increasing, multi-boxers trivial
There has been a long thread about WoW and the philosophical changes and approaches over the past four years, and in particular to some of the larger design decisions made recently (dual specs). In it Ghostcrawler makes an offhand remark about WoW's subscriber numbers:"Wrath of the Lich King is still selling very well and our subscribers are increasing."Now I want to be clear that this was made off-hand and is not from an official earnings statement. But that doesn't discount it from being full of truthiness; and nonetheless, this is rather significant in that it's been a while since we last heard any indication of current subscriber numbers. To some this news won't be very surprising, given that Wrath of the Lich King has been a huge hit. But others might raise an eyebrow that after five months of Wrath things are still up-ticking.He also mentions the ever hot topic of multi-boxers:
EVE Evolved: The secret of EVE Online's success
When it launched in 2003, space-borne MMO EVE Online wasn't an overnight success. It launched to far less fanfare than newer titles are accustomed to and claimed only 50,000 subscriptions by late 2004. EVE was aimed at a relatively untested sci-fi niche within the MMO market and the number of players in that niche who would be interested was impossible to accurately estimate. To make matters worse, World of Warcraft was released in late 2004 and a large portion of the MMO market latched on to it, spelling disaster for its competitor's subscription numbers. Despite all of these initial problems, EVE Online has been a massive success with consistent subscriber growth. So what has been the secret to their success?With just a few days to go until the Apocrypha expansion and box copies of EVE being released in stores, I take a look back at the choices CCP made and suggest what other developers could learn from EVE's success story.
Darkfall's forums and chat brought down due to heavy traffic, servers finally online
Well the awaited hour has finally come true, Darkfall is online. While the delays have been numerous and the resulting traffic has basically crippled the Darkfall website, people are queuing up in the log in server to get a taste of what Agon has to offer them.The delay was due to two problems -- the pre-order load and the staff had caught a critical bug in the game at the last moment. The heavy volume of pre-orders had taken longer to process than Aventurine had anticipated, leading them to delay the launch so more pre-orders could be properly processed. Afterwards, they delayed the launch again due to the wish of the development team to fix that last bug.The heavy volume of players interested in the game's release had crippled the forums, shooting traffic to over double what it was at the launch of beta. Aventurine made the decision to bring down the game forums, instead only displaying a message regarding launch status on the forums page. This, in turn, brought more people into the Darkfall chat room run by Stratics, overloading that server and forcing Stratics to temporarily bring down the official chat.Aventurine plans to relaunch the forums sometime today, with the hopes that they can keep the system online under all the duress. All current subscribers (those lucky few with boxes) will be given 33 days of subscription time instead of 30 to cover for all the delays.
RIM selling gobs of BlackBerrys, profits just so-so
Just under a week ago, we found that RIM had sold its 50 millionth BlackBerry, and while that's all fine and dandy, Wall Street only cares about what you've done for it lately. Thus, traders were none too pleased to hear Research In Motion suggest that its fourth fiscal quarter earnings would come in at the low-end of expectations despite anticipating a higher-than-forecast number of new subscribers. So, what's it all mean? In simple terms, it appears that RIM's making less off of each phone sold, with Todd Coupland of CIBC Capital Markets surmising that the firm may simply be selling more of its lower-priced devices. And honestly, that makes perfect sense given the economy. Still, we can think of much, much darker places for RIM to be in than this, and these days, just coming out in the black is a victory.[Via Wall Street Journal]
2008 wasn't a good year for MMOs
One of the blog posts over at the Hellforge community that is getting some traction is Agamemnon's look back at the MMO failures of 2008. Included are looks into why Tabula Rasa, Hellgate: London, Age of Conan, and Pirates of the Burning Sea either outright failed (in the case of Tabula Rasa and Hellgate) or were unable to get the subscriber numbers they expected with their launches.What separates this blog post from the myriad of other posts on the same subject is that the article ends with the many things that these games all did wrong and other developers should learn from. Little things, like listening closely to the feedback from your beta testers, fostering a community, and learning to stay away from the concept of "we'll patch it to perfection." It's a good analysis of the many failures of other games, and a kind tip of the hat to the things an MMO can do right, such as Mythic's openness with Warhammer Online.
Developer resolution for 2009: Beat Warcraft
Our friends at GameDaily have a nice set of resolutions for game developers next year, and it's definitely worth a read if you're interested in seeing where they think the game industry might improve in 2009. But number three is the most interesting one for us: they suggest that game developers (and MMO devs in specific, we'd imagine) should make this the year that something else beats World of Warcraft.It seems much more unlikely than last year: last year, we were looking down the barrel of Age of Conan and Warhammer Online, and wondering if either one of those might cause a road bump in WoW's traffic. Age of Conan was called the steak to our game's McDonald's, but in the end, WoW players didn't do much more than give it a cursory glance. And while Warhammer seemed like a good contender to the throne, it hasn't come close to taking a bite out of Azeroth. This year, it doesn't even seem like there will be any MMO contenders. GameDaily cites Bioware's Star Wars MMO, but that's not coming out in 2009, and while The Agency and DC Universe Online might be getting close to finished, it's unlikely we'll see them on the shelves this year either.This might be a year of recuperation, for both Blizzard and their competitors. Lord of the Rings Online is doing well, so their big task is just to keep the content moving, and unlike last year, Blizzard has no real impetus this year to really push their playerbase to stick with the game. As with everything, we'll have to see what happens, but I'd expect a much more subdued year this go-around for the MMO market. When the MMOs in progress now come to fruition in 2010, then things will likely get more interesting.
World of Warcraft reaches 11.5 million subscribers
Blizzard Entertainment announced today that World of Warcraft has reached 11.5 million subscribers, meaning Azeroth has surpassed the great state of Ohio's population. Clearly people were clamoring to see the Lich King's wrath, as the game's second expansion sold 2.8 million copies in 24 hours, and went on to sell over 4 million copies in its first month. Blizzard also stated it's currently hiring more staff to keep pace with the game. With all the layoffs going around the industry, hopefully some folks can find a relatively stable job over at Blizzard's compound -- we hear it's made of gold and diamonds.
AT&T plans to more than double U-verse TV availability by 2010
Upping the stakes, are we AT&T? Just weeks after proudly announcing that it had successfully reached its goal of netting one million U-verse TV subscribers before the end of 2008, a tidbit on the outfit's official U-verse portal clearly makes known its plans for future expansion. The operator has been rolling service out to all new areas at a frenzied pace, and now we know why: it's hoping to pass around 30 million living units by the end of 2010. To put that into perspective, U-verse TV is currently available to 14 million living units, meaning that it is aiming to over double availability in just over two years. Good on you, AT&T -- now let's make it happen (and ahead of schedule, if possible).
Netflix snatches 9 millionth subscriber, says Watch Instantly still not profitable
While snagging 500,000 Blu-ray subscribers is admirable, the big picture helps to explain Netflix's dominance even more. Sometime during the third quarter of 2008, the rental giant managed to secure its nine millionth customer. Needless to say, the DVD rental portion of the business is doing just fine, but CFO Barry McCarthy confessed that its Watch Instantly digital delivery aspect was still "a tax on the P&L." Essentially, he reiterated that it was an investment in the future, noting that if it didn't start it, someone else would have. He also proclaimed that more content could easily be added to its library of online-accessible titles, but that it wouldn't come free. At present time, we suspect Watch Instantly isn't really hurting for users, which means you could very well be hurting for a new wave of content for some time to come.
AT&T hits goal of one million U-verse TV subscribers
Just a day after announcing that U-verse TV was lit in select areas of Raleigh and Orlando, AT&T has reached its long-time goal of securing one million U-verse TV subscribers before the end of 2008. And yeah, the outfit's chief executive of telecom operations totally called this last week, but we're willing to bet he had access to some pretty confidential (and telling) figures. At any rate, the milestone has been hit less than 2.5 years after the service first launched, reaching some 79 major markets in 16 states. Kudos AT&T -- now how's about you get those expansion efforts moving forward at a frantic pace? You know you want two million by July.
The Daily Grind: Will the new campaign bring you home to FFXI?
It didn't surprise us when Square Enix said that the "Return Home to Vana'diel" campaign was back by "popular demand" -- old subscribers demanding access to deleted characters must be a fairly popular query for their customer service team to handle. Complaining about the policy won't do much good though, as it seems to be here to stay. In other words, if you've at all considered returning to FFXI in the near future, it would make sense to do it while the campaign is running.However, MMOs are really competing for subscribers these holidays. A number of the biggest titles have just had expansions released, and others are churning out major patches to keep up. If you are someone who would benefit from this campaign (ie., you've played FFXI before but have been un-subscribed long enough to lose your characters, and could now recover them), do you see yourself taking this opportunity before it goes away in April of next year, or are you currently too wrapped up in one of the other MMOs out there?
AT&T operations chief says it'll hit one million U-verse TV subs next week
It had its doubters, and this economy didn't help matters, but AT&T will reportedly convince its one millionth convert that fiber is the best way next week. According to the outfit's president and chief executive of telecom operations John Stankey, it will hit its goal of having one million U-verse TV customers by the end of the year. He was quoted as saying that "operationally, [the firm] has hit its stride," noting that it was slated to make the fiber-based programming service available to some 17 million American homes before 2009. Kudos on (almost) reaching a milestone, AT&T -- now, when's the next big wave of expansion?
MultiChoice sees 26% increase in South African subscribers, eyes more HD for next year
Things may not be all peaches and cream for every programming provider out there, but we'd say the cards are playing out just fine for Africa's MultiChoice. The carrier has just recently reported a 26% increase in subscribers over the past year, bringing its total installed base to 830,000 in South Africa. Of course, bigwigs are already looking for ways to get that figure up even higher, and expanding high-def is obviously on the brain. Eben Greyling, CEO of MultiChoice Africa has noted that more HD should be seen around September of next year once the outfit has "migrated to a new satellite which supports the HD format," and it'll also be bringing video-on-demand with it in 2009. Atta way to show 'em how it's done, MultiChoice.
