Hey all,
A few key changes :
- In previous update I removed the Top 10 chart and now I removed the Market share chart. This because I feel that atm I do not have enough mmo's listed and many mmo's are not up to date to keep the TOP 10 and Market Share charts relevant.
This also means I am less pressured to make an estimate, if the last mmo datapoint is old, it does not matter as much as before, so I can make an estimate when I feel I have enough information.
- I have reviewed all MMO's, estimates and accuracy ratings.
- I divided the PCU chart in 2 charts, similar to the Subscription charts, so it will be less cluttered and more easely readable.
- I have added and revised many datapoints and mmo's, a lot of Q3-09 and Q4-09 info was processed and many charts and sheets were expanded to Januari 2010.
Version 2.4-2.7 notes :
General Changes :
- Added PCU datapoints for EVE Online.
- Added Subscriptions datapoints for EVE Online.
- Added "Giant Online" to the PCU chart.
- Added "Shou Xue Fei Teng" to the PCU chart.
- Added "Conquer Online" to the PCU chart.
- Added "Zero Online" to the PCU chart.
- Added PCU datapoints for WoW.
- Added PCU datapoints for Westward Journey Online II.
- Added PCU datapoints for Fantasy Westward journey.
- Added PCU datapoints for Eudemons.
- Added, Revised and Updated Aion datapoints with the Q3-09 NCSoft report and Conference call findings and other new information.
- Updated WAR estimated datapoint.
- Slightly revised estimated EQ datapoint.
- Added estimated datapoint for AoC, based on the Q3-09 report's financial data.
- Combined WoW China and WoW West PCU datapoints.
- Split PCU chart into 2 charts : 0-500k and 500k-3m.
- Expanded axis to 2010 for some charts.
- Completed Glossary page.
- Removed some MMO links from the frontpage.
- Forwarded http://mmodata.net to the news page instead of the general page.
- Removed Market Share Chart.
- Removed Contribution Chart.
- Removed WoW from genre chart ( it is now once more included in Fantasy ).
- Reviewed Accuracy ratings.
- Made various other cosmetic changes.
Internal only Changes :
- Expanded all the sheets to Januari 2010.
- Made seperate EVE Online Sheet.
- Moved, added and revised EVE comments, they are now all on the seperate EVE Online sheet.
- Added Monthly PCU, PCU Peak, Monthly Trials, Monthly Subs and Monthly Active players to the EVE Online sheet.
- Revised WoW comments.
- Moved all WoW comments to WoW Sheet.
- Added WoW PCU datapoints to WoW sheet.
- Moved all SL comments to SL Sheet.
- Added datapoints to SL.
- Compared PCU Cluster sheet with SL sheet and added missing datapoints.
- Made various other internal changes.
- Added more source links and information for Aion, LOTRO, EVE Online and some others.
Sunday, January 31, 2010
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
EVE Online back on track with new PCU record
A few months after the Unholy Rage EVE Online did not only regain it's numbers ( with less bots ) but now once more breaks it's PCU record with 54181 Peak Concurrent Users.
Check the source here : New PCU Record
My personal opinion on this is that, EVE Online is one of the few examples of how an mmorpg should be run :
By slowly but steadily improving all aspects of the game; gameplay, content, graphics, sound ( okay sound still needs a bit more work :p ) , ... and not making old content obsolete but part of the larger picture.
By inclusion, with one server ( not counting China ) where players from all over the world can play together. With no instances, so the players can go to any place they want. With free but obligatory expansions, putting everyone on the same level ( all content is accessible by everyone ) and no short term goals to be able to sell the expansion, as is often the case in other mmo's.
By a reassuring long term vision, so you know your investment in time, money and emotion will be there for years to come and will not be degraded as it was in SWG with the NGE for example. Sure DUST514 scared me a bit, but up until now CCP has yet to dissapoint me, so I'll take a leap of faith.
So I feel EVE Online deserves these growing numbers.
Check the source here : New PCU Record
My personal opinion on this is that, EVE Online is one of the few examples of how an mmorpg should be run :
By slowly but steadily improving all aspects of the game; gameplay, content, graphics, sound ( okay sound still needs a bit more work :p ) , ... and not making old content obsolete but part of the larger picture.
By inclusion, with one server ( not counting China ) where players from all over the world can play together. With no instances, so the players can go to any place they want. With free but obligatory expansions, putting everyone on the same level ( all content is accessible by everyone ) and no short term goals to be able to sell the expansion, as is often the case in other mmo's.
By a reassuring long term vision, so you know your investment in time, money and emotion will be there for years to come and will not be degraded as it was in SWG with the NGE for example. Sure DUST514 scared me a bit, but up until now CCP has yet to dissapoint me, so I'll take a leap of faith.
So I feel EVE Online deserves these growing numbers.
Thursday, November 5, 2009
LOTRO, another alternative for WoW in China?
Hey all,
While surfing the net, looking for usefull numbers I found this one, already a month old, but still news to me :
http://www.jlmpacificepoch.com/newsstories?id=157317_0_5_0_M
With 2,9 million registered users in alpha a 3000 PCU per server and ready to be deployed server farm to support 100 shards, Lord of the Rings Online shows potential to become a worldwide player. If the 100 shards get medium to high populated then we can expect around 1 million Chinese players / subscriptions.
This is of course speculation, but it is nice to see there is interest in another Western MMO.
Meanwhile, WoW is back fully operational since sept. 19, but there seems to be a power struggle between several Chinese government organisations, most notably the MoC and the GAPP, to gain control over the lucrative and prestigious Online Gaming sector.
The GAPP says it did not gave green light for WoW:The Burning Crusade, while the MoC did gave permission to Netease to run the game commercially.
To me it looks like the GAPP ( the ones that want to close down WoW again ) will be on the short end of the stick, as the central government gave MoC more jurisdiction and the GAPP less, concerning online games.
http://www.jlmpacificepoch.com/newsstories?id=158547_0_5_0_M
Either way, the biggest loss is for Netease and the Chinese WoW players, I hope for them that it will get sorted out sooner rather than later.
While surfing the net, looking for usefull numbers I found this one, already a month old, but still news to me :
http://www.jlmpacificepoch.com/newsstories?id=157317_0_5_0_M
With 2,9 million registered users in alpha a 3000 PCU per server and ready to be deployed server farm to support 100 shards, Lord of the Rings Online shows potential to become a worldwide player. If the 100 shards get medium to high populated then we can expect around 1 million Chinese players / subscriptions.
This is of course speculation, but it is nice to see there is interest in another Western MMO.
Meanwhile, WoW is back fully operational since sept. 19, but there seems to be a power struggle between several Chinese government organisations, most notably the MoC and the GAPP, to gain control over the lucrative and prestigious Online Gaming sector.
The GAPP says it did not gave green light for WoW:The Burning Crusade, while the MoC did gave permission to Netease to run the game commercially.
To me it looks like the GAPP ( the ones that want to close down WoW again ) will be on the short end of the stick, as the central government gave MoC more jurisdiction and the GAPP less, concerning online games.
http://www.jlmpacificepoch.com/newsstories?id=158547_0_5_0_M
Either way, the biggest loss is for Netease and the Chinese WoW players, I hope for them that it will get sorted out sooner rather than later.
Sunday, November 1, 2009
MMOData Charts version 2.3 Live !
Hey all,
MMOData Charts version 2.3 is live !
Version 2.1-2.3 notes :
- Majorly revised datapoints for Dofus.
- Added datapoints for EVE Online ( both PCU and Subs )
- Removed some datapoints for EVE Online to make the chart less cluttered.
- Added datapoint for SWG.
- Revised / Added datapoints for Aion.
- Added datapoint for DAoC.
- Slightly revised estimated datapoint for WAR.
- Removed a datapoint for Everquest that looked like an anomaly.
- Revised / Added datapoints for Ultima Online.
- Removed some datapoints for Ultima Online to make the chart less cluttered.
- Revised datapoint for FFXI
- Added datapoint for Pirates of the Burning Sea
- Added PCU datapoint for Dofus
- Added PCU datapoints for Fantasy Westward Journey
- Removed incorrect PCU datapoint for Zhengtu
- Rearranged the mmo's and charts, charts are now : 1m-12m, 150k-1m, 40k-150k, 0-40k.
- Expanded the PCU chart to 2,6m to accomodate Fantasy Westward Journey.
- Removed Dungeon Fighter Online from MMOData.net because it was not in line with the MMO definition.
- Revised accuracy ratings for : PotBS, SWG and Dofus.
- Moved the Source links into comments to datapoints in the excel and cleaned them up, for now the source links will no longer be public until I have time to put them back.
- Renamed Accuracy Rating and Source Links into MMO and Accuracy List.
- Added MMOG Contribution chart.
- Removed Top10 chart, this may return again later.
- Renamed PCU : Single Cluster Servers into PCU : Largest Shards.
- Placed "MMOData.net" and version number on the charts.
- Replaced macros with build-in functions ( internal ).
- Changed the look of the datapoints on the charts.
- Moved away from uniform colors across charts.
- Made various other cosmetic changes.
- Made various other internal changes.
MMOData Charts version 2.3 is live !
Version 2.1-2.3 notes :
- Majorly revised datapoints for Dofus.
- Added datapoints for EVE Online ( both PCU and Subs )
- Removed some datapoints for EVE Online to make the chart less cluttered.
- Added datapoint for SWG.
- Revised / Added datapoints for Aion.
- Added datapoint for DAoC.
- Slightly revised estimated datapoint for WAR.
- Removed a datapoint for Everquest that looked like an anomaly.
- Revised / Added datapoints for Ultima Online.
- Removed some datapoints for Ultima Online to make the chart less cluttered.
- Revised datapoint for FFXI
- Added datapoint for Pirates of the Burning Sea
- Added PCU datapoint for Dofus
- Added PCU datapoints for Fantasy Westward Journey
- Removed incorrect PCU datapoint for Zhengtu
- Rearranged the mmo's and charts, charts are now : 1m-12m, 150k-1m, 40k-150k, 0-40k.
- Expanded the PCU chart to 2,6m to accomodate Fantasy Westward Journey.
- Removed Dungeon Fighter Online from MMOData.net because it was not in line with the MMO definition.
- Revised accuracy ratings for : PotBS, SWG and Dofus.
- Moved the Source links into comments to datapoints in the excel and cleaned them up, for now the source links will no longer be public until I have time to put them back.
- Renamed Accuracy Rating and Source Links into MMO and Accuracy List.
- Added MMOG Contribution chart.
- Removed Top10 chart, this may return again later.
- Renamed PCU : Single Cluster Servers into PCU : Largest Shards.
- Placed "MMOData.net" and version number on the charts.
- Replaced macros with build-in functions ( internal ).
- Changed the look of the datapoints on the charts.
- Moved away from uniform colors across charts.
- Made various other cosmetic changes.
- Made various other internal changes.
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Chinese WoW players pay less ... so ?
Sure they do pay less than US and EU players, but not as little as some people think.
It is always funny when people claim my site has no validity and then show how they are pretty clueless themselves.
We had this little discussion here on mmorpg.com and one of the claims was that the 11,6m number from Blizzard is invalid because Chinese players pay less.
Well I disagree, first of all they pay a lot more than claimed here : wolfsheadonline.com
That article is pretty biased and incorrect
Yes Blizzard does get a lot less money from the Chinese subscribers, but that is not only because the Chinese pay less, but also because Blizzard is not allowed to run online games in China by itself and has to use expensive Chinese providers to run the game for them.
That is also why Blizzard changed from the The9 to the Netease provider, because they would get more royalties.
According to the Gamasutra article here : Gamasutra Blizzard will get around $140 million in royalties annually, at the time China had around 5 million subs. ( 6,5m subs for Asia ). $140m devided by 5m chinese players equals $28, devided by 12 months equals $2,3. Blizzard gets around 55% of the royalties, so the average Chinese player pays around $5 per month. That is assuming the royalties are calculated on the total revenue, otherwise it could be even more.
$5 per month may not be much to our standards, but you have also to take into consideration that employees in China are a lot cheaper, so they have less operational costs compared to the EU or US.
If you go look at the source Wolfsheadonline used : Gamasutra then there it is clear that the 6% revenue is because of the 22% royalty deal with The9 ( as in Blizzard gets only 22% of the money made from the Chinese players ), this actually results in $1 royalty per month per Chinese player, which is consistent with the other article, because if the royalty is more than doubled ( from 22% to 55% ) then we get around $2,5 doubled again to get the total of around $5 per Chinese player.
These are rough calculations, and hovers around $5 per month per Chinese player, but it certainly is not $1 like Wolfsheadonline claims.
In the same way, Europeans pay quite a bit more than Americans because of the strong Euro. If you take into account the lower salaries of the Chinese, the difference between China 5$ and the US 15$ is not that much bigger than the difference between the US 15$ and the EU 20$. So should we not take into account the American players?
Imho even tho the Blizzard numbers are not perfect, they are pretty valid, including the Asian part.
It is always funny when people claim my site has no validity and then show how they are pretty clueless themselves.
We had this little discussion here on mmorpg.com and one of the claims was that the 11,6m number from Blizzard is invalid because Chinese players pay less.
Well I disagree, first of all they pay a lot more than claimed here : wolfsheadonline.com
That article is pretty biased and incorrect
Yes Blizzard does get a lot less money from the Chinese subscribers, but that is not only because the Chinese pay less, but also because Blizzard is not allowed to run online games in China by itself and has to use expensive Chinese providers to run the game for them.
That is also why Blizzard changed from the The9 to the Netease provider, because they would get more royalties.
According to the Gamasutra article here : Gamasutra Blizzard will get around $140 million in royalties annually, at the time China had around 5 million subs. ( 6,5m subs for Asia ). $140m devided by 5m chinese players equals $28, devided by 12 months equals $2,3. Blizzard gets around 55% of the royalties, so the average Chinese player pays around $5 per month. That is assuming the royalties are calculated on the total revenue, otherwise it could be even more.
$5 per month may not be much to our standards, but you have also to take into consideration that employees in China are a lot cheaper, so they have less operational costs compared to the EU or US.
If you go look at the source Wolfsheadonline used : Gamasutra then there it is clear that the 6% revenue is because of the 22% royalty deal with The9 ( as in Blizzard gets only 22% of the money made from the Chinese players ), this actually results in $1 royalty per month per Chinese player, which is consistent with the other article, because if the royalty is more than doubled ( from 22% to 55% ) then we get around $2,5 doubled again to get the total of around $5 per Chinese player.
These are rough calculations, and hovers around $5 per month per Chinese player, but it certainly is not $1 like Wolfsheadonline claims.
In the same way, Europeans pay quite a bit more than Americans because of the strong Euro. If you take into account the lower salaries of the Chinese, the difference between China 5$ and the US 15$ is not that much bigger than the difference between the US 15$ and the EU 20$. So should we not take into account the American players?
Imho even tho the Blizzard numbers are not perfect, they are pretty valid, including the Asian part.
Sunday, October 25, 2009
ETA for MMOData Charts v2.2
Hey all,
v2.1 is ready, but won't go live, instead I will go straight to v2.2
I hoped to get it ready today, but I am not going to make it. So my eta for v2.2 is now Sunday 25/10/2009
v2.1 is ready, but won't go live, instead I will go straight to v2.2
I hoped to get it ready today, but I am not going to make it. So my eta for v2.2 is now Sunday 25/10/2009
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
EVE Online and Second Life Peak Concurrent Users
Hey all,
Well it looks like it will take a while before we see a new Peak Concurrent User record in the "Peak Concurrent Users on the Largest Single Cluster servers" from either EVE Online or Second Life.
However, there are good reasons for this, and it is not because the mmo's are getting less popular ...
For EVE Online it is because of the heavy fight from CCP against illegal RMT and the accompanied macroers and account hackers, also called "The Unholy Rage".
The impact during this summer was very big in certain areas of the server, and in one instance during the unholy rage, the overall PCU dropped around 5k.
You can read this in the CCP dev blog here :
CCP Devblog Unholy Rage
For Second Life it is because of the new Bot policy. Which restricts the use of traffic and camping bots. The PCU dropped around 8k initially and will probably drop even more as landbots will be slowly replaced by web tools.
You can read about it here :
Second Life blog about the economy
And here :
Second Life blog about bots
Still both operations will result in an overall better and healthier gaming experience for both games. In EVE Online you can already see the PCU is slowly getting back to the level where it was in June, I will not be surprised if we see a new record soon. Also Second Life will certainly go up again, and the PCU will consist of a lot more actual players and less bots.
Well it looks like it will take a while before we see a new Peak Concurrent User record in the "Peak Concurrent Users on the Largest Single Cluster servers" from either EVE Online or Second Life.
However, there are good reasons for this, and it is not because the mmo's are getting less popular ...
For EVE Online it is because of the heavy fight from CCP against illegal RMT and the accompanied macroers and account hackers, also called "The Unholy Rage".
The impact during this summer was very big in certain areas of the server, and in one instance during the unholy rage, the overall PCU dropped around 5k.
You can read this in the CCP dev blog here :
CCP Devblog Unholy Rage
For Second Life it is because of the new Bot policy. Which restricts the use of traffic and camping bots. The PCU dropped around 8k initially and will probably drop even more as landbots will be slowly replaced by web tools.
You can read about it here :
Second Life blog about the economy
And here :
Second Life blog about bots
Still both operations will result in an overall better and healthier gaming experience for both games. In EVE Online you can already see the PCU is slowly getting back to the level where it was in June, I will not be surprised if we see a new record soon. Also Second Life will certainly go up again, and the PCU will consist of a lot more actual players and less bots.
Sunday, October 4, 2009
Part of the Dofus numbers were incorrect
Well, it looks like I made a mistake with the Dofus numbers.
What happened is that when Ankama talked about "Subscribers" in their press releases, they actually meant "Monthly active players". They did make a clear distinction between "Subscribers" and "Registered Users", that is how I made the mistake.
So while the 800k, 1,5m and now 3m numbers were not paying subscribers, they are Monthly Active Users, and still a nice number to have.
Their actual active paying subscriber number is 500k at the moment, still a very respectable number. Obviously this will be fixed in v2.1 of MMOData.net, and I will do my best to avoid flaws of this magnitude in the future.
Here are the links ( new one and the old ones ) :
Gamasutra Interview, 500k subscribers
Ankama press release 1,5m subscribers
Gamasutra interview, 800k subscribers
What happened is that when Ankama talked about "Subscribers" in their press releases, they actually meant "Monthly active players". They did make a clear distinction between "Subscribers" and "Registered Users", that is how I made the mistake.
So while the 800k, 1,5m and now 3m numbers were not paying subscribers, they are Monthly Active Users, and still a nice number to have.
Their actual active paying subscriber number is 500k at the moment, still a very respectable number. Obviously this will be fixed in v2.1 of MMOData.net, and I will do my best to avoid flaws of this magnitude in the future.
Here are the links ( new one and the old ones ) :
Gamasutra Interview, 500k subscribers
Ankama press release 1,5m subscribers
Gamasutra interview, 800k subscribers
Friday, October 2, 2009
EVE Online subscription data and great feedback.
CCP will provide me with subscription data directly from now on, updated monthly. Aren't they a nice bunch? :) This shows how confident they are.
I have already received all the datapoints from release up to and including September 2009, and to no surprise they perfectly match with what Sir Bruce and myself had already. Of course I can now fill some gaps from the latest months. These will be included in v2.1 of mmodata.net.
As more developers and publishers do this, MMOData.net grows to become the place to be for reliable mmog numbers and the ones that do not, well we can assume they have something to hide :)
Also getting a lot of feedback lately, mostly constructive and/or positive, I am very happy with that, don't be afraid to send me some more e-mails :p I have received some good ideas to improve MMOData.net already and implemented some of them.
Lastly I had some requests to get my excel data. If you are from the mmo industry and can provide mewith numbers for one or more mmo's, then I will be happy to give you my data in return.
I have already received all the datapoints from release up to and including September 2009, and to no surprise they perfectly match with what Sir Bruce and myself had already. Of course I can now fill some gaps from the latest months. These will be included in v2.1 of mmodata.net.
As more developers and publishers do this, MMOData.net grows to become the place to be for reliable mmog numbers and the ones that do not, well we can assume they have something to hide :)
Also getting a lot of feedback lately, mostly constructive and/or positive, I am very happy with that, don't be afraid to send me some more e-mails :p I have received some good ideas to improve MMOData.net already and implemented some of them.
Lastly I had some requests to get my excel data. If you are from the mmo industry and can provide mewith numbers for one or more mmo's, then I will be happy to give you my data in return.
Thursday, October 1, 2009
Aion West is Live
Aion West has been live for a few days now and it seems pretty popular. The 25 servers that are currently running Aion in the EU and the USA are packed.
Because of this, I have set a new estimate for Aion worldwide at 3,6 million subscribers, this will be included in my upcomming version 2.1 of the MMOData charts.
I believe this is a conservative estimate, and I would not be surprised that the actual number is larger, but since NCSoft is no longer providing subscription numbers in their quarterly reports, I have no choice but to be conservative.
Because of this, I have set a new estimate for Aion worldwide at 3,6 million subscribers, this will be included in my upcomming version 2.1 of the MMOData charts.
I believe this is a conservative estimate, and I would not be surprised that the actual number is larger, but since NCSoft is no longer providing subscription numbers in their quarterly reports, I have no choice but to be conservative.
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