[MUD-Dev] Counting Massive Multi Players

[David Kennerly]

Daniel Anderson wrote:

> I thought the order of most popular went Lineage, EverQuest, and
> then Ultima Online, not The Kingdom of Winds? (I suspect SWG will
> also carve its spot in there too)

> Doesn't UO have over 200,000 subscribers?

> I could be totally off though :)

As far as I know it does.  And DAoC around the same as UO.  Our peer
here, Sir Bruce gave me the best speculation for the US that I've
seen:

    http://pw1.netcom.com/~sirbruce/Subscriptions.html

But that's mostly the US.  No Korean game appears.  Because of the
business model, it might be incomparable, based on subscriptions.
Since many MMOGs in Korea employs diverse business models, even
within the same game, I believe it more reflective to compare
average concurrent players online than subscribers.  Many Korean
players don't subscribe to the game at all.  They go to an internet
cafe that subscribes to the game.  It makes a big difference.
Otherwise, as Lineage has publicized before, there'd be a
ridiculously large claim of subscriptions; and it's been discussed
here years ago.  For example:

    http://www.kanga.nu/archives/MUD-Dev-L/2001Q2/msg00973.php

Of course, really, annual customer revenue is the true indicator.
But that's even less available, and also might have gray areas, like
merchandising revenue that somehow gets counted as subscription
revenue.

I apologize for confusing anyone.  I mean playing online at the same
time.  I think I read that EverQuest has had peaks over 100,000
concurrent players.  At this same time they had about 400,000
(concurrent) subscribers?  I forget the exact amount.  Since many
MMOGs in Korea employs diverse business models, even within the same
game, I believe it more reflective to compare average concurrent
players online than subscribers.  Many Korean players don't
subscribe to the game at all.  They go to an internet cafe that
subscribes to the game.  It makes a big difference.  Otherwise, as
Lineage has publicized before, there'd be a ridiculously large claim
of subscriptions; and it's been debated here.  So I believe average
concurrent players online is the more important of the two
indicators.  I believe average concurrent players is best, but peak
concurrent players is easier information to come by; such as in
press releases.

So my reasoning is, if peak user volume can indicate then it follows
like this:

  Lineage, EverQuest, The Kingdom of the Winds.  I don't know the
  exacts, but I believe that's the ballpark.

    Lineage: 300,000 peak and ?,???,??? subscribers (The same report
    boasts 3.5 M subscribers, but the ratio doesn't make as much
    sense when compared to EverQuest and others in the US.  That
    would be less than 10-to-1, subscribers-to-peak, whereas
    EverQuest has a ratio of about 4-to-1, subscribers-to-peak.)

      http://cosmos.kaist.ac.kr/cs540/seminar/TJ-seminar-kaist.ppt
      Page 10.

    EverQuest: 98,000 peak and 420,000 subscribers

      http://eqlive.station.sony.com/library/faqs/faq_pop.jsp

    The Kingdom of the Winds: 80-100,000? peak ???,??? subscribers

      http://cosmos.kaist.ac.kr/cs540/seminar/kjj_nexon02.ppt Page 8.

    There's no direct quote of TK, but the total for Nexon is
    500,000 concurrent for their 17 games in Korea.

David
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