i was looking thru wiki today about EQ and they had a numbers/subscription area where they said the player base hit a peak of around 450K players and the over all average was 200k
I have also read that EQ hit a peak of 550K players, so I am not sure what is accurate there. Then you have the monster that is WoW that hit 13 million.
I don't think a 'niche' game is going to hit 10+ million, but what does it take to be considered a success? 100K? 200k?
Those of us that are not in the business, have no idea what it costs to maintain servers and a team to work on expansions.
Is there a "target" number you guys are hoping for? EQ in 2017 likely has less than 100K subs and it still seems to be moving along. (and it's Very 'Niche')
Of course I KNOW you would love 10 million players, who wouldn't want that kind of income.
My brother and I keep talking about this and he thinks that Pantheon will hit 4-5 million and I keep telling him that I think it will be closer to 1 million at start with 700K sticking around.
of course BOTH of us are pulling those number straight out of our rear ends.
Do you guys have any idea what type of numbers you are expecting?
Would the game still be successful with 300k long term subs?
I have always been curious about this since I have no idea what it takes financially to maintain a big game like this.
I look at is like this: 100K x $15 a month = 1.5 mill a month. to me that seems like a decent number. lol
It's almost impossible to really answer, as it varies greatly from game to game, depending on the production costs. Some games are way more expensive than others and therefore require more income to be profitable. And exact numbers are not made public for business reasons. But here's a quote you'll probably find interesting...
From Aradune:
"If we can reach a reasonable percentage of those who already do love Pantheon AND those who would once given a chance to experience it, then we will have success, the game will grow, expansions with new content and crazy new features will be released, and we'll have another game on our hands that's still running even 17 years after launch. 15 million online gamers (a conservative number, btw)? 10% is still 1.5M. 1% is 150,000 gamers. EQ was very successful and profitable at 150,000 gamers, peaking at 550k. Small numbers yes when compared later to WoW, but plenty large enough to employ a dedicated dev team, live teams, expansion teams, support and GM/CS teams, etc. etc. Especially a company like Visionary Realms, where we run lean and mean. We don't have huge overheads, a publisher who takes a huge cut, needless bureaucracy, 9-5ers, people who won't wear multiple hats and do whatever it takes.
And while I'm convinced we will be much closer to 10% than 1%, probably even higher, the point is that while we don't need a massive ton of people to achieve success, we do need to make a large number of people aware and familiar with the game."
(Source: https://www.pantheonmmo.com/content/blogs/151/178/how-to-get-through-to-people-who-just-don-t-get-it)
good link Baz. I have always wondered what it cost to maintain a game like Pantheon.
I was hoping for something closer to the 750K to 1 mill mark so that Brad could hire people to do stuff and he could be purely supervisional and not have to sit and code for hours a day.
At some point, I want Brad to sit back and relax and enjoy playing the game instead of always "working" on the game.
I imagine with 150k+ then this game will be a success. Warhammer Online was able to muster 750k for the first month, retaining 300k for the first year and apparently stayed within 200-300k until EA pulled the plug for not killing WoW.
Naim said:I was hoping for something closer to the 750K to 1 mill mark so that Brad could hire people to do stuff and he could be purely supervisional and not have to sit and code for hours a day.
At some point, I want Brad to sit back and relax and enjoy playing the game instead of always "working" on the game.
While I can't speak for him obviously, I don't think that is what Brad wants based off this:
"Between the years 2000 and 2001, Brad continued his involvement with SOE as both head of the Premium Games department and Executive Producer of EverQuest, EverQuest Online Adventures, EverQuest 2, and Planetside. In 2001, however, after being further promoted to the company's Chief Creative Officer, Brad began to seriously miss hands-on game development. Despite the challenges, fame, and fortune associated with climbing the corporate ladder, he slowly but surely realized that for him true happiness came from focusing on fewer games and in the environment of a smaller company (by this time SOE dwarfed Verant's original size). And so with both SOE and Brad's recognition of the situation, SOE permitted Brad to exit his contract and leave the company amicably. As extremely difficult as it was, both professionally and emotionally, Brad resigned from SOE in October, 2001 after five years of service. He was determined to do some soul searching, most probably to return to online game development, albeit in a different capacity. "
The game is a success if VR hits their projected target subscriber base and the game is profitable. WoW is increadibly unique in that it hit at the absolute PERFECT time. High speed internet access, and internet access in general was much more common place than it was when EQ launched. Millions more people now had broadband and had been introduced to the internet. At the same time Blizzard was already a HUGE developer with a massive online gaming presence and the Warcraft IP had been around for years. Everquest was an unknown IP at the time. All of this coupled with the fact that Blizzard pushed WoW into the "main stream" with marketing, drawing in people who would have never heard about the game. This all coupled together got WoW the MASSIVE subscriber base they enjoyed for so many years.
I honestly doubt we will ever see another MMO hit those numbers as its just not the "right time". The market is saturated with MMOs. Some are good, some are not so good. Even WoW has had a drastic decline in subscribers in recent years.
All that counts as far as success is hitting your own goals.
1) Is the game what you evisioned it to be?
2) Are the customers / fans happy with the product?
3) Is the game turning a profit?
If you can say yes these questions I would consider the game a success.
It would be a massive undertaking to draw millions of people to an mmo again. It will probably require VR and an enormous budget to create a game that appeals to a variety of different types of players. Today, even the biggest games are struggling to even top EQ's peak subscriber-base.
If Pantheon launches in a quality state with adequate content and most of it's features intact and fleshed out, they will easily achieve profitability. How many people exact will really depend on how high that quality actually is, and how close they stay to their original philosophy. I personally believe they will have greater success by being more niche, because mainstream mmos developed upon convenience have done nothing but struggle for over a decade.
To leapfrog off of Bazgrim,
Here's what Aradune said about EQ back in 01/14/15,
"Just some EQ factoids: EQ peaked at ~550k subscribers. EQ cost $8M to make, and took three years. EQ is one of the most, if not the most, profitable enterprises Sony has ever created. It has made over $500M for the company. EQ remains to this day a profitable game, with enough subscribers to pay for Expansions and a decent sized dev team."
And yes, Amsai, I stand by the quote! Once people experience the "hook" from Pantheon, if the developers build it, subscribers will come.
