[MMO] Quarter Reports? Why the *%$^ should I care?

[ScytheRexx]

There has been a trend I have noticed getting larger and larger with the MMO scene, and that is certain people sitting in on the quarter reports for publishers (like Activision and EA) to get an idea of subscription numbers. They then report these numbers on the various news websites or message boards so everyone knows if the game is either dropping or growing.

Now, I know businesses like to post numbers when they go up, but I don't remember it being such a big trend to report losses. It seems to be something only the players/ex-players get into a damn frothing craze over. When did this happen? Why should I even care?

I guess I am just annoyed, because all it does it create a huge backlash of shit throwing. Just yesterday posts were coming out that WoW has stabilized at over 10 million, while SWTOR has lost 400k subscribers. How is knowing this information going to help anyone? SWTOR players or anti-WoW players are now coming out of the woodwork to bitch about "falsified, unfair" information and troll, while the WoW players are just acting like cocky doofuses waving their MMO E-Peen around and making the community once again look like a bunch of asshats.

Come on people, let's leave the BUSINESS REPORTS to the businesses and get back to playing the games we like because we like them, not because it has more numbers then the other guy. Who cares if a game loses subscribers, as long as you have people to play with at all it shouldn't matter.

Sorry, just had to get that off my chest somewhere that I know wouldn't turn into a further shit slinging fest.

 

[SpecialKO]

It is a tad ridiculous; I'm fairly sure that most of the audience at Massively aren't investors, or potential investors, in either Activision or EA. And the ones who are have better places to get business analysis.

That said, little worried about SWTOR (not actually worried, just intellectually). That's a big drop when you consider they are probably still gaining new subs at a decent pace. I suspect there's a lot of reasons (like a larger proportion of players than normal finishing the main content too quickly), but what it comes down to is that SWTOR is having the beginning of what could be a long-term retention problem. They're still in very good shape, to be sure, as their subs are well above what they need to be to stay in the black (purportedly), but they may need to change their approach to content delivery when they're delivering content faster than almost anyone ever and they're still losing people.

 

[Gared]

What gets me is why MMO players seem to think that newly launched MMOs will hurt their favorite games, if they're not exactly the same, or think that if someone doesn't like their favorite game, it means that the person is wrong. I like fantasy MMOs (WoW, Warhammer Online, LotRO before it went free-to-play, RIFT if they hadn't screwed up the drop rate on their stupid crystals, Tera even though the bastards wouldn't hire me), I'm not a fan of superhero MMOs (CoH, DCUO), and I've had a mixed reaction to sci-fi MMOs (liked Tabula Rasa, didn't like SWTOR, haven't played EvE Online). Obviously though, there's a large enough market out there to provide some market share for each of these games and game types. But whenever a new game launches, especially during pre-release play, the chat channels are full of people deriding the new game because it's not "insert person's game of choice here." During the open beta of Tera (same weekend as the open beta of Diablo 3, so I always had something to play even if the D3 servers were down), you had to turn off the area channels because all you read was "This game sucks, (WoW or SWTOR) is so much better. Give it some time and you'll realize the truth and abandon this shit hole and come back to a real game, like (WoW or SWTOR)."

Who the fuck cares if you think WoW is better? Better yet, if you think WoW is better, go enjoy WoW and leave the people here who want to play this game alone. Have you been banned from your favorite game for trolling so many times that you have to go troll a new fanbase?

 

[SpecialKO]

Part of that is because of how a lot of business talk, like "audience cannibalization", has made it into public games discourse. When pubs say it, they're really just talking about the ability of a game to maintain subscriptions/spending in the face of other games, regardless of actual playtime. That's it. It's important, to be sure, but when it trickled down into the public eye it got 'roided-up into meaning "WHEN GW2 COMES OUT, IT WILL KILL WOW OMGWTFBBQ!!1" or some shit, prompting people to fight the good fight in favor of their preferred MMO.

 

[Bowielee]

I think it wasn't until the explosion that was WoW that anyone cared about numbers.

To be honest, though, WoW did largely redefine the MMO genre, in some positive ways, in some negative ways.

On the positive side, they removed some of the worst conventions, such as inordinately steep death penalties (god, I remember corpse runs in EQ and losing literally days worth of playing from one death).

On the negative side, due to the tremendous amount of subscribers, the suits stood up and took notice and much of the competition turned into "how do we beat their numbers". That has trickled down to the community news itself.

On the could be good/could be bad side of things, WoW also is pretty much responsible for the creation of the F2P model because it was the only way many MMOs could stay afloat when in direct competition with WoW. Personally, I like the F2P model in a lot of ways being a casual gamer. DCUO is perfect for me. I can play whenever I have the time, no subscription and just for buying at least one of the Xpacs, it upgrades your membership to the mid-tier.

 

[Bubble181]

Sorry, just had to get that off my chest somewhere that I know wouldn't turn into a further shit slinging fest.

Sooo....This is the most *polite* community you're part of? We sling the *least* amount of shit? Man... Now I understand. Halforums is a gateway drug forum between regular people and rabid-fanboy-tards. It makes so much sense!

That aside, I do agree with you fully. I don't give a crap if WOW loses or wins a couple of thousand users. I care if/when a game's empty or losing money and closing down. Otherwise...Why should I care? Company management will decide what the "best way to keep/gain/... new customers" without understanding their userbase anyway.

 

[Adam]

Playing an MMO is an investment of time and resources, potentially months put towards an intangible goal. Understanding that SWtOR, for example, is leaking players like a sieve, makes me less likely to re-up a subscription while recognizing that WOW is maintaining or even building on a strong player base makes me think that if I were to start playing again, I wouldn't have to fear a situation where it could be shut down in the shorter term.

That said, that's me looking at it from a logical angle, the same reason why I'd still play Enemy Territory but have no desire to buy a new copy of NHL 2004; the multiplayer component, th community aspect of a game is incredibly dependent on a thriving player base, especially as more and more companies shut down their 'legacy' games to save money. Knowing that DICE for example, is getting rid of many of their public servers should serve as a warning to potential BF3 purchasers that it is a game with a life cycle on the wane.

Also some people like to wave their epeens.