The Daily Grind: What's a good player retention level?

by Adrian Bott Sep 10th 2008 at 8:00AM

It's curious how the exact same data can be taken as brilliant news, confirming a game's enduring appeal, and terrible news, dooming the game to oblivion, depending upon who you ask. Take Age of Conan, for example. Not so long ago, we saw a video that confirmed AoC's current subscribers at around the 400,000 mark. With 800,000 boxes sold, that's around a 50% retention rate. Yay, we win at math.

But what's far less cut and dried is whether this figure is really bad, or really good. Everyone, it seems, has an opinion on the matter. It's worth observing here that you can't expect everyone who picks up a game to stick with it. If a game loses half its players every quarter, that's terrible; but if it keeps half of all players who buy it, that's a very different story.

So we're throwing the question open to the players: what do you think is a healthy retention level for an MMO, in terms of keeping players after their first free month? And while we're on the subject, has a game ever surprised you with its retentiveness? Have you ever tried to quit and gone back after a while?

Tags: age-of-conan, aoc, retention, the-daily-grind

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Scopique said on 9:27AM 9-10-2008

What it really comes down to is: Is the game sustainable from a financial perspective? It really doesn't matter if the trolls on the forum delight in hearing that a game is loosing players. So long as the folks who put in the time to make the game have a regular paycheck to feed their families, then it's all good as far as I'm concerned.

Considering that MMOs are notorious for coveting their subscriber numbers, I don't think that anyone on the street can really say with certainty that they're suprised about retention rates, since we don't know what they started at, or what they really are at any given time. Instead, since there ARE many MMOs which have gone under due to low subscribership, I think it might be surprising to see which games have been generally throught of as "doomed" which are still going strong. Vanguard is one, for certain. Even Anarchy Online, which had such a horrible time at launch is still going. Even Ultima Online is still going.

I'd consider the fact that these are still operating, despite the prognostication of some people who think they have their fingers on the pulses of these games, is encouraging.

pufonthis said on 9:01AM 9-10-2008

Yes, as long as the game is making at least some money it will probably stay active for a long time. But the question does ask what is a "healthy" level of retention.

I guarantee Funcom wishes more people stayed around. I think for a large number of people Age of Conan was kind of a hold-over until WAR came out. I know many people who said "I'll try Conan and if I like it I might not go to WAR". But Conan came out, had so many problems that people just didn't even bother cause they knew something else was just around the corner.

Now that WAR is here and it's stable, fun and has great style and content the people who have stuck with Conan may jump ship.

Tateru Nino said on 9:09AM 9-10-2008

I hear figures anywhere from 0.5% to 10%. Some say "Well, 2.5% is really a good retention rate" ... but nobody wants to quote their *own* retention. Maybe they just don't measure up to what they *think* is a good figure.

Xeph said on 9:13AM 9-10-2008

I disagree with the above. If the game is "sustainable" but has little or no growth, it's not a terribly wise business decision to keep it around. You end up with a two-fold problem. First, lower numbers of subscribers mean less word of mouth, fewer positive reviews and simply not as much activity on the servers, which all lead to a lessening of dev support for new features. Secondarily, you have the problem of having resources utilized for a "sustainable" game instead of scrapping it and developing a "profitable" game.

I don't know if I'd consider Vanguard of Anarchy Online to be "going strong". I mean, I guess then that Ultima Online and Star Wars: Galaxies are still "going strong" as well. Hardly...

Cody said on 9:26AM 9-10-2008

Ultima Online is still going strong. It has never had a lack of players or development. In most peoples minds it is the only game could challenge WoW for best MMO ever. There are freeshards run by players that have 600-1000 people on ever night.

You're right about your other point though, I just had to stick up for UO.

scopique said on 10:28AM 9-10-2008

OK, maybe not "going strong", but there were probably more "this game is doomed" comments per capita for VG and AO at their launches then you'd normally see, yet they're still going, and still being built upon.

The point, though, is that a consumer opinion of what is a "healthy" subscribership means nothing: we don't have access to the facts that would allow us to make those kinds of decisions. That some games are around at all when a lot of consumers were predicting failure (which happens for all games, but in different proportions) means that the consumer view is uninformed. And it's a favorite subject of trolls :D

Jim said on 9:44AM 9-10-2008

This is more a failure of the marketing then the game. It was hyped beyond what it was and its not appealing to all the people that bought into the hype.

Its a negative on the game but should be manageable. It will make money but, did the company buy into their own hype and overspend? Or did the marketing just get a little overplayed and they are where they thought they would be?

KingJames said on 11:42AM 9-10-2008

I think losing half of your playerbase in 3 months is next to terrible in a MMO. Hell I've never cancelled one without giving it 6 months until AOC. The devs and the leadership on that game is absymal. I don't think I have ever seen as large a player exodus as over there other than games that tanked i.e. Tabula Rasa, Hellgate London and Vanguard. So 4 out of the last 4 MMO's launched are terrible? I guess WoW has set the bar so high these dev teams are going to have to fight to give their games more polish. I think WAR is the closest anyone has got to having WoW like polish but only time will tell its lasting appeal. I guess the key thing here for these companies is quit pushing out crap and give players something worth sticking around for.

nicholsml said on 11:48AM 9-10-2008

Well said KingJames... I can't imagine that Funcom's numbers are very accurate. I'm guessing conservatively that they retained maybe 10-15% of the people who purchased the game. Out of the 20 or so people that I started that game with 2 are still playing, and even they are frustrated with the game.

Mythic said on 12:48PM 9-10-2008

Guild Wars managed to draw me back for the first two expansions (Factions and Nightfall).

I also have friends who plan to return to game with me in LOTRO for Mines of Moria, even though they are also loving WAR. I think the social aspect of gaming with your friends can make it easy to return to games like WOW, EQ, or LOTRO where you have connections when a new expansion comes out.

Ranto said on 9:23AM 9-11-2008

From a box that's pretty terrible - you'd want to retain around 60-70% of people buying the box otherwise you get into negative churn pretty quickly (more people leaving than new people coming in) which is bad :)