[MUD-Dev] [News] NCSoft + Richard Garriott

[Freeman]

> On 5/18/01 at 1:22 PM Dave Kennerly wrote:

>> "[NCSoft's] Lineage now has more subscribers than Ultima Online,
>> Everquest(tm) and Asheron's Call combined."

Many of Lineage's users access the game via internet cafe's, which pay
for the game while the users do not, directly.  The number of
subscribers is a guess based on how many accounts have been used in
some undisclosed period of time and doesn't equate at all to the
number of subscribers playing EQ, AC or EQ: where we know X people are
paying $10/month each, so that's X subscribers.

What makes me think the 2 million claim is a little on the high side:

Based on 2 million subscribers, Lineage is ove 5 times larger than
EverQuest and bigger than AC, EQ and UO all together.

Based on the number of concurrent users, however (180k), Lineage is
"only" about twice as large as EQ.

That's a very large discrepency which makes me question the validity
of the 2-million subscribers claim.  More to the point, it makes me
think that "number of subscribers" for Lineage is a fairly meaningless
number.  Like "10 million people have signed up for The Station."

In January, on this very list, Raph Koster and Jake Song exchanged
emails indicating that Lineage revenue last year was about equal to
EQ's:

	http://www.kanga.nu/archives/MUD-Dev-L/2001Q1/msg00085.php

Comparisons of revenue, number of concurrent users (on average), or
some other x-factor I'm just not thinking of would be a lot more
valid, IMO, in determining just how much bigger Lineage is than
everyone else.  I submit that it is not larger than AC, UO and EQ
combined, however.  Although I imagine we'll be seeing that quote
every time Lineage is mentioned anywhere from now 'til the end of
time, regardless of whether it's actually true or not.

Of course, I'm not saying that Lineage is small.  I'm just saying that
I've heard "Lineage is bigger than AC, EQ and UO combined" about 900
times now, and I don't believe that's quite correct.  Not with only
180k concurrent users.  That seems to be a much more accurate
assessment of a game's "size" than "number of subscribers" for a game
that doesn't have 75% of its users actually, you know, subscribe.
Particularly one designed deliberately to keep people online for as
long as possible, since under Lineage's business model, that makes
them more money:

	http://www.kanga.nu/archives/MUD-Dev-L/2001Q1/msg00273.php

It's not as if EQ is exactly designed to encourage casual play itself,
and yet it manages 90k concurrent users with a "mere" 370k subscribers
(or so).

Anyway, I can't wait to see what Destination Games is going to do,
apart from Localizing Lineage and trying to get people to pay
$15/month for it.  I hope it's something neat. :)
_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev