Predictions: 1m+ players 3 days out; how about in January 2013?

[UnSub]

Here's the press release crowing about how well SWOR is doing. At 3 days post-launch, it had over 1 million active subs (including those who started during the pre-order period). But both WAR and AoC both saw big active sub numbers at launch too.

So, how many active subs do you think SWOR will have on January 1, 2013? If you want to record a prediction, let's lock it in by the end of the first week of January so that hopefully everyone is using the same publicly available information.

My belief is that SWOR will have about 400k players worldwide on that date - respectable for any other title, but another MMO disappointment for EA.

[Hawkbit]

400k is a good number.  I'm going with 600k, but this title is weird because I don't really know how long the average person is going to take to consume the content.  I'll see more as I play, I guess.

400k is better.  I think that's a really good guess.

[Ratman_tf]

I'm having trouble with my crystal ball. It's not a train wreck, but it doesn't seem that sticky either. When does the next WoW expansion come out?  

Oh.

Over 3 billion NPCs killed

[Amaron]

I'll be the optimist this time.  I'm going to call it over a million and climbing after January is over.   

[Cyrrex]

Yeah, I'll go with a cool million.  I think the big wave they just had has at least one more coming behind it.  Because that's how waves work.  I guess what I am saying is that TOR is like water.  Because of the waves and also because of how wet it makes me.

[rattran]

He said January 2013, the Hump will be long over by then. I couldn't even guess the numbers, it's fun, but can they keep the fun at end game going to keep people for a year?

[Ashamanchill]

I'm actually surprised it's only a million. Hell, it felt like there was a million people alone doing the same stupid destroy ten computer thingys as me, on my under populated server on the Republic side.

[luckton]

I'm actually surprised it's only a million. Hell, it felt like there was a million people alone doing the same stupid destroy ten computer thingys as me, on my under populated server on the Republic side.

Well we did just have Christmas.  I suspect that sometime this week or next they'll gloat about another milestone.

[Lantyssa]

Not enough data for me to make a prediction.  For the mass market it's probably what SWG should have been the first go-round, so keeping a million wouldn't surprise me, but they have plenty of time to bugger it all up.

Between Star Wars and not being a buggy nightmare, it'll keep a lot of people though.

[Draegan]

Are we doing just US and EU numbers?  Because they are going to do an Aussie launch in about 5 months or so.  (Spring 2012)

Anyway, I'm going to guess 1.5 million with the caveat that they will add a dungeon finder, dual spec, and UI customization in the first year.

[Amaron]

He said January 2013, the Hump will be long over by then. I couldn't even guess the numbers, it's fun, but can they keep the fun at end game going to keep people for a year?

Yea I missed the 2013.  I'll call it at least 2 million worldwide by January 2013.   It's WoW but the end game is far more accessible and that is going to be enough for a lot of people.

[Sky]

I'll call it north of a million, but most of the mmo vets here will be playing something else. Probably not WoW after they panda it up for a month and then quit while bitching about how shitty the implementation of something was.

[Distinct]

450k If it stays as a Pay Monthly

1.5m "Active" if it goes to a Micro trans model towards the end of the year 

[Numtini]

I expect a two million announcement by next month and then probably a slow fade. I don't think it will collapse like Conan or War, more like the kind of slow bleeding you have with Rift. A year from now, there will be no numbers available, but there will be demands to merge servers and people asking why the game is empty. It will, by that point, probably be under a half a million, maybe under a quarter of a million.

I went and counted and right now the front pages of the general discussion are 1/3 to 1/2 complaints and negatives. And that's with mods very actively removing threads--I clicked on one and it was already gone. That doesn't sound like high retention to me.

[El Gallo]

I'll say 1.5M.  It's fucking Star Wars man.  And BioWare.

 It's WoW but the end game is far more accessible and that is going to be enough for a lot of people.

I have an alt that completed Dragon Soul (the highest raid zone in WoW) via the automated looking for raid feature without being in an guild and without ever having stepped into a raid before in less time than it took me to get groups for and complete two low-level flashpoints in SWTOR.  Now I know the hardcores probably don't think LFR-difficulty raids count as "end game content" but I killed that stupid dragon and it's hard to imagine a more accessible diku endgame.  Maybe SWTOR will be, but I don't think the jury's in on how casual- or pug-friendly the endgame content will be once it's tuned.

[Sky]

I went and counted and right now the front pages of the general discussion are 1/3 to 1/2 complaints and negatives. And that's with mods very actively removing threads--I clicked on one and it was already gone. That doesn't sound like high retention to me.

Or it's AN OFFICIAL FORUM. Outside the lunatic fringe, people don't go there for general discussion, they go there to bitch. People who enjoy the game play the game. Look how drastically my posting here goes down when I'm not at work. Because I'm enjoying the game.

[El Gallo]

I went and counted and right now the front pages of the general discussion are 1/3 to 1/2 complaints and negatives. And that's with mods very actively removing threads--I clicked on one and it was already gone. That doesn't sound like high retention to me.

Or it's AN OFFICIAL FORUM. Outside the lunatic fringe, people don't go there for general discussion, they go there to bitch. People who enjoy the game play the game. Look how drastically my posting here goes down when I'm not at work. Because I'm enjoying the game.

You need to stop liking it so you can get back to full time posting.  Your fans here need you. 

[Threash]

A year from January i peg them at around 500k, third place behind WoW and Rift.  Not counting GW2 in there because without a subscription you only have box sales to go on and that gives much higher numbers.

[naum]

On the plus side, it is Star Wars.

OTOH, no Mac client, no big ad campaign(s), etc.… …see Blizzard for game company that does this properly.

However 1M is definitely attainable.

[Numtini]

no big ad campaign(s)

We must watch different tv networks, I'm seeing their adverts all over the place.

[naum]

no big ad campaign(s)

We must watch different tv networks, I'm seeing their adverts all over the place.

No doubt.

My television viewing is limited to sports, comedy channel (TDS, CN solely, though) and news channels (MSNBC or CNN) I happen to absorb as background when Mrs. Naum is watching… …maybe I just ingested too many Google Chrome and Google+ commercials over the holidays… 

[Wolf]

Since they are going with the raiding endgame, they're in a unique position where they can poach wow's high end raiding scene at the moment, if they can get out decent raiding content before the pandas are out. There's quite a bit of grumbling on the higher end over dragon soul and how certain aspects of the tier were handled. Not going to happen with the fights that are in the game currently though.

[Mrbloodworth]

It would be in their best interest to ignore "end game" and worry about fluffing out the low to mid game.

EDIT: Clarification. The strong point in this game for me is the story, the ability for it to branch ( Black Talon ). This needs to be expanded on greatly, and also applied to low level areas to expand the options in your personal story. If they were able to create content for 3-5 different avenues per decision point as you level, vastly different story's could be created by players.

Raiding is such a one path leveling treadmill of boredom, it would get trumped quickly.

[Paelos]

If they fix the AH, do some work on tradeskill usefulness/balance, use their commendation system effectively, and add a few story elements into raiding, they will be fine.

If they just sort of release you into a raid zone with no dialogue options, they will have missed the point.

[Montague]

2 million subs worldwide. The base game isn't strong enough to become WoW II Robot Jesus but it is good enough to hold the accumulated WoW burnouts, SW fans, Bioware fans etc. provided Bioware is on the ball with content, fixes and quality of life improvements.

[Miasma]

I thought the rumours about preorders were in the 1.7 to 2 million range, 1 million seems low.  There are too many variables for this what with guild wars, horrible panda expansion, will there be a swtor expansion in that time?

I dunno, 525,000.

[Morfiend]

I really think a lot depends on how and when Guild Wars 2 and MoP come out. There are a lot of people who really dont dig sci-fi (yes, I know Star Wars is Space Fantasy, but to them it doesnt matter). I think if the dev team is quick and steady in fixing the annoying little issues and adding content other than "here is another raid dungeon" they could be at 1.5 to 2 mil next Jan. If they dont do the quality of life fixes and GW2 does really well and/or MoP is released next Nov/Dec, I think we could see SWTOR drop to 200 to 400k subs.

[sam, an eggplant]

They had 800k preorders. 1 million is indeed quite low-- it means that most of the people playing the game preordered it, and it's not performing well at retail. If they had 1.5 million players, that press release would have said "almost 2 million".

It's not a disaster or unrecoverable, but subs need to substantially grow ver time.

[Murgos]

I thought the rumours about preorders were in the 1.7 to 2 million range, 1 million seems low.  There are too many variables for this what with guild wars, horrible panda expansion, will there be a swtor expansion in that time?

I dunno, 525,000.

Analyst estimates just looking at numbers and regression analysis put sales at 2 million with 1.5 million of those converting  by the end of January 2011 (see any finance website).

I'll put sub numbers @ 2 million plus and steadily growing by jan 2013.

[Lakov_Sanite]

Star wars is not the golden goose that people seem to think it is.  Retail sales being low is not surprising at all to me.  I am gonna be conservative though and say by next year it'll still be number two with 800-900k subs of loyal customers that are coming off their panda and diablo highs to return to their favored sci-fi setting.

I don't think numbers will be released next year however.

[Draegan]

They had 800k preorders. 1 million is indeed quite low-- it means that most of the people playing the game preordered it, and it's not performing well at retail. If they had 1.5 million players, that press release would have said "almost 2 million".

It's not a disaster or unrecoverable, but subs need to substantially grow ver time.

They had more than 800k.

[Simond]

Over a million but F2P.

[Sjofn]

I went and counted and right now the front pages of the general discussion are 1/3 to 1/2 complaints and negatives. And that's with mods very actively removing threads--I clicked on one and it was already gone. That doesn't sound like high retention to me.

Or it's AN OFFICIAL FORUM. Outside the lunatic fringe, people don't go there for general discussion, they go there to bitch. People who enjoy the game play the game. Look how drastically my posting here goes down when I'm not at work. Because I'm enjoying the game.

This. You can't use the forums as much of a gauge beyond "what is pissing some people off." WoW's boards were always full of bitching, even in its peak years.

[Modern Angel]

700k

[Sky]

WoW's boards were always full of bitching, even in its peak years.

Even when I was at my highest mark of theorycrafting in EQ2 and would brave the Shadowknight and Wizard boards there...it made me really wonder how people enjoy the game at all. I mean, I can see things it would be nice to change, but I'm not going ballistic over lack of multi (lolduo) spec. Even the companion bar bug that hits me every ten minutes is just a minor inconvenience I've trained to habit now.

Hell, I'm considering not reading THIS subforum because it's so depressingly out of step with my awesome experiences in the game. I kind of look forward to the end of the free month and hope the people playing who dislike the game (or would like it if it were more like WoW or whatever) will just go on to dislike something else, rather than hang on posting about a game they don't like in the bizarre f13 tradition.