Free Realms officially hits 5m users
by Shawn Schuster 
Sep 16th 2009 at 1:00PM
Filed under: Events, real-world, Events, in-game, MMO industry, News items, Free-to-play, Free Realms, Massively Event Coverage
There was also some interesting data released about the top five marketplace items and jobs in the game. Not surprisingly, all of these top five jobs are available to free players, with Brawler taking that number one spot. Look for our complete write-up of Smed's keynote, which involves much more than just Free Realms, coming soon.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
JP said on 1:10PM 9-16-2009
/em eye roll
It's 5 mil registered accounts. That's it. Not 5 mil concurrent users. Horse shit, these F2P games numbers are.
Not that it ISN'T a success, but it's not nearly the success they make it out to be.
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Tyranor said on 1:17PM 9-16-2009
Yup, what he said. What we need is users who've actually bought something over the last month, or who've played for more than one hour over the last month.
Jack said on 1:43PM 9-16-2009
Tyranor to release that numbers is like take a shotgun and shoot your stockholders in the feeds!
Pingles said on 1:49PM 9-16-2009
They've been very open about it. It's the number of people who have rolled a toon.
The fact that 5 million folks have bothered to go that far is still a big deal that any F2P game would kill for.
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Atnor said on 1:58PM 9-16-2009
Yeah, I'm sure it's considered successful at some level internally, and it is what it is... but it still irks me that just because my wife and I created accounts and rolled up a couple toons for a couple of hours one afternoon at its launch, we are now part of that "5 million" number.
After seeing how poorly Smed is supporting the development teams on some of their other titles *cough* Vanguard *cough*, it leaves a bad taste in my mouth to have to be part of their "success". :(
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random said on 2:14PM 9-16-2009
Same goes for WoW. Even if you haven't played in years you are still counted among its 11 million players.
Holgar said on 2:24PM 9-16-2009
@ random as has been proven many times that is false, WoW dose not count former accounts, trial accounts, banned accounts or multiple accounts registered to a single person.
Better luck next time.
Chris said on 2:06PM 9-16-2009
It is really funny how you guys care so much that you are putting Free Realms down. Like some how you are invested in how much money it makes or your current MMO is under attack because they have 5 million users and your MMO only has 300,000??
You guys make no sense unless you work for some MMO company.
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JP said on 2:42PM 9-16-2009
I don't doubt Free Realms is successful. I doubt they way in which they exaggerate and boast their success. Therefore, it's less my vested interest and more my angst for deceitful information.
If they said something like “we have 500,000 players logging in every month” I’d be less (less, not completely) dismissive. But, to say 5 mil accounts? I know zero people that actively play the game. Where a game w/ only 300K subs, I know a few people that play.
It’s the perspective spin they put on it that makes me cringe.
Tyranor said on 4:03PM 9-16-2009
I just don't like people posting BS figures...especially when my "account" is being used to justify popularity. Free Realms is good fun, but I want real numbers! Sure, we all made an account, but does anybody play for more than 2 hours? I know that I didn't.
Holgar said on 2:27PM 9-16-2009
We arn't bashing it because we are sore it has that many, most of us are pointing out that it dosen't the numbers are inflated much like the claim that "152 MILLION people have tried maple story."
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Dblade said on 4:06PM 9-16-2009
Those aren't inflated numbers, a LOT of accounts have been created for Maple Story over it's lifespan. The problem is retention rate.
However, with 5 million accounts, even a 10% retention rate is 500,000 players, which is very much a success for any MMO, f2p or sub. The 5 million is an important figure, because it means a lot of people have tried it, and the more that do the higher the amount of people willing to stay and spend money.
People dismiss accounts made, but unless Free Realms turns over 90% of its playerbase per month, it's still extraordinarily impressive, especially in such a short span of time.
Green Armadillo said on 2:49PM 9-16-2009
"Not surprisingly, all of these top five jobs are available to free players, with Brawler taking that number one spot."
Isn't Brawler the only free combat job? That's going to skew the data substantially.
More to the point, the five jobs listed are five earliest jobs a new player will encounter - Chef and Brawler in the tutorial, the first quest out of the tutorial sends players to get Pet Trainer so that SOE can start trying to hawk virtual pets and products, and the quest after that sends players to unlock the two car jobs. Seeing five jobs that players will get in their first hour in-game dominate the rankings doesn't really do much to discourage the view that 4+ million of the registered users haven't been back since that first hour.
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House said on 4:14PM 9-16-2009
Spot on.
Grimwell said on 4:30PM 9-16-2009
"Chef and Brawler in the tutorial, the first quest out of the tutorial sends players to get Pet Trainer so that SOE can start trying to hawk virtual pets and products, and the quest after that sends players to unlock the two car jobs"
Actually, the new player quest flow has been changed for a bit now. You don't start in that special tutorial zone these days.
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Grimwell said on 4:36PM 9-16-2009
Though it does not change the jobs the immediate quest flow sends you after all that much; but people can easily ignore that and go their own way.
$0e said on 6:13PM 9-16-2009
Chris: "It is really funny how you guys care so much that you are putting Free Realms down. Like some how you are invested in how much money it makes or your current MMO is under attack because they have 5 million users and your MMO only has 300,000??
You guys make no sense unless you work for some MMO company."
No, it actually makes perfect sense if you've followed the industry for more than six months. Sony's online games division has a history of dubious customer service, shoddy management of sure-fire IP's, and even a clear-cut bait and switch (Trials of Obi-Wan).
People have long memories, and a lot of gamers don't like what SOE did to EQ, and then to SWG, and so they root for them to fail and chortle when they crow about numbers that don't really mean anything. Kinda human nature to root against those you perceive as the bad guy.
If anything doesn't make sense here, it's you defending SOE, unless you work for them. If you're just a consumer that enjoy their games, good for you and go play them. But don't act surprised when people who have been burned by them in the past enjoy a few snickers at their expense.
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Omega2k3 said on 4:35AM 9-17-2009
Not to mention what they did to MxO, may it rest in peace.
Wjowski said on 8:41PM 9-16-2009
Dishonesty. You're doing it right.
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Cyspeth said on 8:27PM 9-19-2009
When FR hit 1m, people said the same thing as when it hit 2m and 3m and 4m and 5m. My question is all those that say the numbers dont mean anything how many individual users do you all think it has?
I mean are the same 100 people making accounts over and over and over?
FR is clearly growing, and I don't play it but I don't I don't know why so many begrudge success in the MMO industry.
Alot of AAA pay per month MMO's could learn something from the polish of FR, and however individual users it has odds are it's more then LOTR, CO, COH, AOC and WAR has sub's.
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