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

[Richard Aihoshi aka Jonric]

At 07:22 AM 22/05/01 -0700, Freeman, Jeff wrote:
>>  From: Richard Aihoshi aka Jonric [mailto:jonric at vaultnetwork.com]

>>  This line of thinking would seem to be based on the assumption of
>>  similar play patterns;

> I start with the assumption that referring to people who do not
> subscribe to the game as "subscribers", is inherently inaccurate.

I start with a question rather than an assumption.  That question is
whether it's possible to reconcile Lineage's accounts with the US
games' subscribers, at least close enough to make comparisons
reasonably meaningful.  I agree that accounts and subscribers are not
the same.


>>  i.e. about 15 to 20 hours average per person per week.  However,
>>  if we assume the great majority of Korean players are paying by
>>  the hour, it seems reasonable to assume that the average playing
>>  time is lower.

> A "subscriber" to EQ, AC and UO is a guy (or gal, or a guy
> pretending to be a gal), that pays $10 per month.  What's a
> subscriber for Lineage?  Someone paying anything from a penny on up?

Lineage does have subscribers who pay monthly fees, although they are
in the minority.  The amount varies somewhat with length of
subscription, but rather interestingly, my understanding is that after
factoring in currency exchange, they pay quite a bit more per month,
closer to $20 than $10.


>>  If it's half, to use a simple figure, then ratio between the
>>  concurrent user and total user numbers should also be half.  So if
>>  EQ's ratio is around 4 (90k concurrent to 370k total) with 15-20
>>  hours per week average usage, then **IF** Lineage's average usage
>>  is 7.5 - 10 hours, the expected ratio would be about 8.  Extending
>>  this, 180k concurrent users would project to 1.44 million total
>>  users.  Dropping the average usage to 5 to 7 hours makes the ratio
>>  12, and 12 times 180K equals 2.16 million.

> But comparing those users to EQ's users and concluding that Lineage
> is therefore a whopping 5 times larger than EQ - when it only ever
> has about twice as many people actually playing it at one time - is
> what strikes me as being inaccurate.  This is comparing apples to
> grapes.  Even with the same volume of food, of course it's a lot
> more grapes.  But is that at all meaningful?  If you were comparing
> the amount of grapes imported to the amount of apples imported,
> would you just count them and conclude that grapes were 5 times more
> popular than apples?

I made no conclusion that Lineage has five times the unique users of
EQ.  I merely postulated that **IF** the average Lineage player plays
less than the average EQ player, it's reasonable to assume that the
ratio of total users to peak users will be less than EQ's 4 to 1
(370K: 90K rounded off).  If people play less on average, then it's
likely that a smaller proportion of the total will be on at peak.
Unfortunately, I am unaware of any information on Lineage's average
playing time.


>>  Two million active users for Lineage may seem unlikely, but having
>>  more than EQ, UO and AC combined does seem credible, at least to
>>  me.

> Seems like one of those "From a certain point of view" deals.  :)

>From one point of view, it's easy enough to say "Lineage is not as big
as they say they are" based on the use of the word subscriber.  From
another, it seems more important to ask "Why is Lineage as big as it
is, no matter what the exact size may be, in a market that's far
smaller?"


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