WAR population numbers revealed, but what do they mean?
by Brooke Pilley 
Feb 5th 2009 at 9:00AM
Filed under: Fantasy, Business models, Culture, Warhammer Online, Opinion
Box sales in your first month are one thing, but what matters most for a subscription MMORPG is player retention. Since October 2008, EA and Mythic have remained completely silent about WAR's numbers, something that is never really a good sign. Player and industry speculation was rampant given consistent reports of an in-game exodus of players. The speculation that WAR was losing players was confirmed by a financial report released by EA stating that WAR had just over 300k subscribers as of December 31, 2008. Let a new round of speculation about what these numbers mean begin.
Join us after the cut where we'll discuss the reasons I think WAR lost so many players in such a short period of time. I'll also chat about how I think Mythic can regain those lost subscriptions and perhaps grow even larger!
First, it should be said that 300,000 subscribers is not a number to be scoffed at. Depending on which numbers floating around the MMO-sphere you believe, most people can still agree that WAR is sitting comfortably in the top 2-5 subscription MMORPGs population-wise.
It should be noted, however, that there is much speculation surrounding this 300k figure. What about all the 3- and 6-month subscribers who may not have actually been playing at the time. It may have also been boosted by holiday sales figures, where players did not make it past the first free month. This is also a number that represents total subscriptions in both North America and Europe and we have no idea how it is split up.
There are several things we know had an effect on their end-of-year numbers. First, the game had a very stable launch in NA and a horrible launch in EU (starting as early as open beta). While the game was technically sound for most people, many were experiencing constant crashes to desktop, graphical glitches, and generally poor client performance. Shortly after release, Mythic was pressured by the WAR community to add quite a few extra servers because the queues were bursting at the seams. Mythic complied, but as players left after their first free month, all but a lucky few servers had low population issues. Instead of quickly merging these servers, Mythic offered free transfers, which is a much slower process (albeit better for PR).
While the server stability may have been rock solid and performance was generally pretty good, it quickly became apparent that WAR lacked certain elements of polish that players expected at release. Examples of this include broken quests, mobs that acted funny, improperly functioning class abilities and mechanics, poor client performance controls, a lack of visual diversity in gear, etc. It may be somewhat unrealistic for players to expect a "finished" MMORPG at launch, however, there was a monumental pile of little things that really nagged people.
I must not forget to mention the most important factor affecting WAR's December '08 numbers: Wrath of the Lich King. When your goal is to compete with the 800lb gorilla of the market, it may not be the wisest decision to launch your brand new MMO against the most anticipated MMO expansion ever. There was simply not enough time to fix all the smaller issues with WAR in the two months between its launch and the release of WotLK. It should also be said that no matter how much WAR improved itself in that period, most people would have gone back to WoW anyway. What's the main reason WAR went from 750k subs in October to 300k subs in December? Everyone was rolling a Death Knight instead of playing in RvR. That said, having a better game would have mitigated some attrition.
So the big question is, where does Mythic go from here?
According to a recent investor's call, EA will be earning revenue from WAR for at least the next 12 months: "We're going to get a full year of Warhammer subscription revenue... That's a very ratable, more predictable business." Mythic recently announced that they'll be rolling out a huge "live expansion" called Call to Arms over the next five months. They have also announced 1.11, 1.2, and 1.3 patches that should address many of the remaining issues with the game. I think these things alone should help quiet the doom and gloomers predicting a 2009 shutdown of WAR's servers, but if that's not enough, there's still the fact that Mythic is one of the best developers when it comes to listening to their community. Here's hoping the players can suggest viable solutions and Mythic pays attention. My advice for the very near future? Please consolidate the servers ASAP.
It took games like EQ2 and EVE many months to catch their stride and eventually grow and stabilize their populations. I think WAR may be in for the same rocky ride. As wonderful as WotLK is, people have already experienced all it has to offer, and in the coming months, many more will be looking for something else to scratch their MMO itch. Blizzard can help offset this with content patches but it will not stop everyone from giving WAR another try.
The thing is, WAR needs to be a much better game than it was when these players left in the first place. To be quite honest, I think it needs to be a much better game than it is at the time of this posting. I believe, however, that Mythic has set themselves on a good course, and with quickly implemented continued improvements, WAR may be able to settle down at the 500k mark by December 2009.
WAR will never reach WoW in terms of numbers because it is fundamentally a niche game in comparison. That said, with a continued focus on RvR and polish, WAR can easily and dominantly plant itself in the number two spot for subscription-based MMORPGs. But they'd better act quickly (and smartly); time's a tickin'.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
Harmen said on 9:25AM 2-05-2009
'...but as players left after their first free month...'
Actually it's EUR50 for the first month, since you have to buy the game.
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Iokthemonkey said on 9:25AM 2-05-2009
Let's not forget that Mines of Moria also hit around the same time, which probably didn't help Mythic either.
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Holgar said on 9:29AM 2-05-2009
Ok time to go all Business like now:
Warcraft and Warhammer both occupy the same nieche market, Fantasy MMO more or less inspired by the Warhammer world, using EQ/MUD decendant mechanics.
Basic methods of sucess when going into compitition against another person's product that holds the same market: AKA how to beat them out: AKA why WAR is currently inferior to WoW.
Superior product accessability: Warcraft is availible in most civlizations that have internet and has a 14 day downloadable free trial. War is much less acessable no free download from Mythic, not mas many countries acessable.
Superior advertizment: Even IF Blizzard WASN'T currently in the middle of a huge TV/internet advertizing binge (I swear they practicaly PAY for Wikigaming) the sheer word of mouth from 11 million players is far greater than mythic's ability to hype.
Lower prices: Same product at a lower price will attract people, while buying all the WoW discs is currently more expensive the basic retail is about $10 and the client is free to download. War is $40-$70 for the discs. Both function under a $15 a month subcription.
Superior quality: Now for arguments sake lets agree that while certian people (Who offer to SKOOL you if you disagree) think Warhammer is the best game out there, the majority (Myself included) of the people who tried it were NOT inclined to subcribe. The primary reason being that either they thought it was not an equal or superior product or they coulden't justify paying for it.
This IS the big thing, while WAR was innovative it really felt to me at least like a beta when it was released. And the RVR areas are NOT well designed, and somtimes the systems used are not innovative but primitive. (click on flag to take town.....)
Final one occupy a different market: admitedly WAR tried, they tried to occupy a nieche in a nieche market (PVP focused, Fantasy MMO more or less inspired by the Warhammer world, using EQ/MUD decendant mechanics.)
But besides that nieche being smaller, WoW happily upgraded it's pvp a huge amount shortly after WAR's release.
In the end though it all comes down to quality and that is why Mythic has failed to entice 70% of the people who bought the box to play WAR.
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Holgar said on 9:33AM 2-05-2009
Above comment was written in a rush because I gots to get to work, however the same mechanics apply more or less to Lotro and Aoc and for that matter selling pretty much anything to anyone when somone else is trying to sell them a similar product.
lagwolf said on 9:39AM 2-05-2009
I am not surprised quite a few people did what I did and did not re-subscribe after our game included time ran out. I have yet to see anything to get me back to play... especially after the debacle of the launch of the new classes.
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Iokthemonkey said on 9:40AM 2-05-2009
The primary reason being that either they thought it was not an equal or superior product or they coulden't justify paying for it.
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How much of that is not so much "it's not as good as Wow" as "It's not Wow" though?
And I think you may be simplifying things by saying every fantasy MMO is like-for-like or in some way interchangable.
WAR has these RvR battles, PQs, some faction system different to WoW.
LOTRO has player housing, Legendary Weapons and Monster play, which again is different to WoW.
AoC has... tits in it.
Okay, AoC is a bad example but you see my point? Or do you mean the MARKET perception is that they're all much of a sameness?
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Holgar said on 9:56AM 2-05-2009
In all honesty the perception is a coke/pepsi one while a few people may consider them apples and oranges, the basics about them are by and large the same (they are both fantasy mmos, that cost $15, have similar mechanics,) WoW/WAR both occupy a nieche market (Fantasy MMO) that overlaps with AoC and Lotro.
Yes they have differences BUT the thousands of differences are likely more than made up for in the eyes of the avarage gamer by the millions of similaritys.
The products (AoC, WAR, Lotro, WoW.) are slightly different but not so different that they have totally seperate nieches in the market. There is a LARGE overlap especially between WoW/WAR.
Jethro said on 9:44AM 2-05-2009
Take the 300k subs and divide that by the number of servers = far too few players per server. Then once you spread that number further among tiers, pve, pqs, scenarios, orvr I find myself in a virtual ghostown. I think that is main thing hurting this game. When i do luck out to find a decent group/wb this game is incredibly fun.
There is nothing fun about logging in to find that scenarios i queue won't pop, no open parties to join, having tozone hop only to find no orvr then having to solo pve which is in my opinion the weakest part of the game and not why i subscribe.
Why is there no central hub for all activies? No scenario queueing in capital cities? wtf. There should also be like a war chat channel in the capital city you can join that combines all orvr zone chat into one so you can effectively find out whats going on and where along with the ability to join any orvr in that tier.
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Temploiter said on 9:47AM 2-05-2009
What other AAA title lost over half of it's subscribers in the first 4 months after release?
Except for AoC, I know of ZERO AAA MMOs that lost that much during their first 4 months:
http://www.mmogchart.com/Chart2.html
I could be wrong on that, but (except continually growing EVE and WoW) MMOs seem to continually grow in subs until about 6 months to a year and a half after release then decline slowly (or super fast if you are SWG).
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Hades said on 9:55AM 2-05-2009
Q1-2009 will tell the real story because by then the people who quit after their free 30 days and up to 3 month pre-pays will be out of the system. My best guess is that War will be in the 150k-225k range, but that's split over 2 continental server clusters so the game will continue to feel small. Many people will give a dev studio 90 paid days to get itself right, but then after that the game rapidly falls of a cliff if its not fun. AOC had 415K subs after its first 90 days, and before the next 90 days were up they downsized to 8 or 9 retail servers.
No one buys Mythic's spin on the fact the game released and they don't need so much extra help. The fact that Mark posts his BS and won't face the truth just continues to reinforce to people that Mythic is way out of touch. That's like the big Jan 29th announcement that then turned into a vague 6 month plan, and then they came back here to tell us that was their plan all along.
This game could be great if they implemented the major and reoccurring recommendations that have shown up everywhere about the boring leveling, the over emphasis on PVE to obtain gear, the dumb zone control scheme, the PVE part to move capital city assaults forward and the 5 sets of gear needed just to survive mobs, and the total unrewarding experience you get for ranking up your guild. I mean who needs a ride to mount gunbad at Guild Rank 29? Hello?
If they don't fix the game they get what they deserve, and Warhammer will haunt Mythic so bad that they will end up making niche games. Their days as a big studio will be over if they don't quickly turn around the Titanic known as Warhammer, especially after all that hype Mark Jacobs did.
I want Warhammer to succeed, but if they keep ignoring the wishes of their customers then they get what they deserve.
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Iokthemonkey said on 10:08AM 2-05-2009
AOC had 415K subs after its first 90 days, and before the next 90 days were up they downsized to 8 or 9 retail servers.
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One minor point: it was actually 415K "players not payers" as Funcom themselves pointed out. I presume from the fact that they then merged the servers and the population is rumoured to be around 100K or so now, that the number of players didn't translate into payers as they'd hoped it might.
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Iokthemonkey said on 10:23AM 2-05-2009
The products (AoC, WAR, Lotro, WoW.) are slightly different but not so different that they have totally seperate nieches in the market.
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BUT AOC HAS TITS IN IT! ;)
Point taken. I just wonder how much the market DOES perceive a difference though. I for one find them very different games, but that's probably as - WAR aside - I've played all three. I wonder how much of a difference the WoW-only players perceive...?
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Holgar said on 11:00AM 2-05-2009
Ya there is a lot of overlap if you take the time to think about it, even Runescape and WoW overlap a bit (Fantasy mmo) but a lot less because Runescape is a f2p with p2p section web browser acessable game targeted at the 12-15 year old market.
Kyoji said on 10:27AM 2-05-2009
If they'd just merger the servers it would fix a lot of what is wrong with the game right now. A game built on PvP cannot afford to have over half the servers ghost towns!
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Buckshot said on 10:28AM 2-05-2009
War needs even more RvR as it caters to a more hardcore PvP/RvR audience. That being said, people are used to the basic PvP of wow, and to a non PvPer, War can be overwhelming and possibly scare people off.
And I don't think Lich king was anticipated as much as some think, it actually was the dumbing down of WoW (think easy button) and lost a lot of the hardcore audience.
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kevin said on 10:50AM 2-05-2009
remove scenerios and the game will do better.scenerios/battlegrounds are stupid
drypulse said on 3:08PM 2-10-2009
i'd think breaking the pc game sales record for one day would indicate a pretty huge amount of anticipation. thats just me tho
JP said on 11:01AM 2-05-2009
This post sucks to have to write, but to bad, b/c I’m not one to be to proud not to admit when they’re wrong…
I’ve been an avid supporter of the game since release. I honestly expected a lot more from the 1/29 announcement. It’s left me feeling completely let down, and uninspired to play.
The RvR can be a lot of fun. But, I’ve been playing in hopes of a lot of the little things being fixed. The 1/29 announcement was going to be the “in your face” statement I’d hoped to throw at the people always talking down WAR (I’m looking at you, Mr. Angry :P) … it wasn’t. It was so far from that, that I have to eat crow, and pretty much side with !some! of the comments about how badly Mythic is handling this.
The last thing I cared to hear about or was concerned w/ was “new content” and 6 months of holiday-type events. That was a huge blow to my enthusiasm of the game. All I could muster from it was “That’s it?”
Then, I read that Mark was ‘putting together’ a list of things we’d see in 1.1.1. When that list was released, all I thought was “that’s it?”
A few days later, I read that the subscriber numbers are 300K (certainly not a terrible number, but when the game is so HEAVILY dependent on player interaction, it sucks) and I thought “that’s it?”
Yesterday, with the game in such disarray, no sign of corrections to core mechanics like broken abilities & tactics, and renown abilities that haven’t worked since launch, hemorrhaging players at the lack of fixes, an upset and frustrated community wondering why content is being added, when the current content is hardly seen by most players b/c of the previously mentioned broken mechanics, over-powered Fortress Lords, buggy Fortress keeps, and over-all poor performance in the elder game, they announce they’re CUTTING the staff? After they announce that aggressive content schedule?? Are you fucking kidding me? I have the same exact thought, that I have ALLLLLLLLL week about what’s going on w/ WAR, except this time there’s no question mark. “THAT'S IT!”
My GTC runs out on March. You have a metric shitload to do for me not to cancel, Mythic.
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Holgar said on 12:07PM 2-05-2009
Yea having given WAR another chance I like the improvments made so far BUT when my sub runs out, I am long gone unless there are some SERIOUS fixes to t4 RVR in the pipeline within by that point. Throwing more content on top of a crappy base may work for some MMOs but not one "based" on RvR content.
OH and in the 1 in 1000000 chance that somone at mythic is reading this and could pass it on to Mark Jacobs F'ING DO SOMTHING ABOUT THE GODAMN SERVER IMBALANCES ALREADY! That issue should have been delt with when it became appearent in BETA.
Gourd said on 4:38AM 2-06-2009
I agree with you, JP.
However, March is a long time away and the timeline of things looks like in the next week or two we'll see 1.2 patch notes & on the PTR. This supposedly has some huge RvR and class balance fixes in it.
By the end of Feb we'll have at least an outline on patch 1.3 which is said to be more of the same goodness.
I played at launch, then skipped a few months to come back recently... things are OK but if they haven't sorted a few things out by March (server pops) I'm gone too