Over 10 Million Players?

Vizikul

Yes, those 10 millions are accounts and not actual players.

Before ESO I played Neverwinter and the developers shared that they had 12 million accounts across all platforms. Though, estimated 80% of those accounts were suspended bot accounts. How do I know this? Xbox live shows the account wide achievements for a game and the amount of other players that have acquired the same achievement. For instance, there was one achievement that was granted for accumulating a total of 50K astral diamonds (probably like 100k Eso gold), which is one of the easiest achievements. Due to its easiness to acquire one would assume that at least 90% of the player base have this specific achievement unlocked. Though, xbox live revealed that less than 10% had this one and therefore it was displayed as a rare achievement.

Neverwinter has some good aspects but the game itself simply cannot compete with ESO. It has bad comic-like graphics, bad voice acting, horrible game music, no weather or day & night systems and it is a heavily instanced game. There is no way that Neverwinter has more players than a game like ESO but developers still choose to present the best-looking numbers to make the game more attractive than it actually is.

Rickter

pretty sure thats how many accounts have been created. active subscriber means nothing in a B2P title. so the question is, can any retail monitoring site confirm number of copies sold? Will we ever find out if that number doesnt reflect digital copies?

Zenimax is a privately owned business, they dont have to publish any numbers. I cant imagine the corporate evil that goes on in a massive company like Zenimax when its privately owned.

Elsonso

SantieClaws wrote: »

Khajiit thinks they mean that 10 million people have travelled in Tamriel at some point or another. This probably includes the free weekends.

As to the number of travellers presently in Tamriel - this one she thinks we will never ever know for sure. But as long as the gods they are happy and we are (sometimes) happy it probably doesn't matter.

Yours with paws
Santie Claws

Yes, and they aren't really saying anything more than that. 10 million through the door over the last three years. It's like 19 million visiting Disney World in a year. No one expects to go there and find them all standing in line to ride Pirates. (Although, it might seem that way) The don't come back every week, either.

The thing is that this classifies ESO as a successful game for them.

Dragonnord

They may be counting BOTS too.
 

IZZEFlameLash

Real playing and active =/= total accumulated numbers. Enough said. Besides copies sold =/= players. For all we know, it could be 5 copies per gold farmer running bots and etc. These numbers don't tell the entire story. And those presenters can present numbers that will make them look good. Basic stats 101.

POps75p

I highly doubt that currently less than 1m people are currently playing this game on a regular basis. I know that one of my guilds has dropped well over 100 players in the past few weeks. I've been playing since day one, and will be dropping my ESO plus before july 15th, game is fine but ZEN is a lying money grabbing ***

andreasv

Merlin13KAGL wrote: »

Only way to be certain is to count them. I'll go first:

"One..."

... Two ...

Wifeaggro13

Shadzilla wrote: »

Can anyone confirm this? I mean I just do not think this game has that kind of population, even across all 6 servers... Is there any hard data on current population? In all honestly if that is just total number of accounts created over the last 39 months that is pretty rough... I would be interested to see the raw data on current active accounts played in the last 3 months. Not the total amount of people that have played, and quit soon after due to bugs/balance/server performance/poor development.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nFo6GRX-T7k

Developers always try to sell their population of registered accounts.The game has no where near that many active players. i would be shocked if they had 1 million active. none of the 30 plus guild i have joined since launch have anyone playing. i got half way through Morrowind and couldnt stomach the Matt Fior online RPG anymore.

mb10

All you have to do is look at the population in game to answer that question lol
It's definitely not active players. 3 platforms 2 servers each that's still more than a million per server and that's definitely definitely not the case

IronCrystal

I don't think there's much to say on this topic that hasn't been already said.

10 million has to be total number of accounts created. And as some mentioned, it could include free accounts from free weekends as well.

The steam stats are pretty low (about 10k average players, although one website mentioned about 1 mil unique players per day, don't know the truth in that). But I believe most "day one" players still are using the exe downloaded from this website (I know I am).

I can't say for other platforms, but they did mention all platforms are about equal.

Bots very well could be included, which knowing other games that are infested with bots (looking at Runescape), bots are the majority of players.

What I do know from my personal experience in the game though, is that it still takes quite a bit of time to find groups to do group content. Maybe the vast majority of players are solo, or just play with friends, but zone chat can be disappointing at times, considering the group finder is broken. And I'm not even talking about the few people who play vet trials.

Aeladiir

- 10 million accounts created (normal players, bots, free weekend accounts)
- check Steamdb
- 1.2 million owners via Steam, roughly 14% of the community active in the past two weeks
- 14% of 10 million = 1.4 million

I'd say 1.4 million active players is an okay estimate, albeit not accurate. It will drop when the Morrowind hype cools down.

Dividing that on SIX servers, that's 233.333 players per server. On average.

medusasfolly

Lol, even at 2 million players, you'd think it would take seconds to find a group instead of 1hr+

MrBeatDown_

Taysa wrote: »

MrBeatDown_ wrote: »

That's all? 10 million? When D3 was released it sold over 40 million copies in the first week. I wouldn't be too proud to only be having 10 million in over 3 years.

Diablo 3? That's a load of ***. It sold 6.3 million units in its first week, not 40 million.

That's a big difference, bro.

You right Bro. My bad. To date they have sold over 30 million copies of the game with the ROS expansion included.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diablo_III

"Diablo III set a new record for fastest-selling PC game selling over 3.5 million copies in the first 24 hours of its release,[6] and was the best selling PC game of 2012, selling over 12 million copies during the year.[7] It has sold, along with Reaper of Souls, 30 million copies across all platforms. Diablo III received critical acclaim from critics, although its digital rights management that requires an internet connection at all times was criticized.[8]"

https://www.diabloii.net/blog/comments/diablo-iii-30-million-copies-sold

"Also, compare to other Blizzard titles. World of Warcraft has sold an estimated 14m copies, including the original game and all 5 expansion packs, and it was released 8 years before Diablo 3. (Monthly sub fees matter, obviously.) Also, Starcraft + Starcraft 2 have sold about 17m copies combined. So tell me again, who run Bartertown?"

https://www.polygon.com/2015/8/4/9097497/diablo-3-sales-30-million-units

"Diablo 3 publisher Activision Blizzard has sold more than 30 million copies of the action role-playing game, the company announced today.

The figure represents worldwide sales to customers of Diablo 3 since the game's debut in May 2012, said Activision in the earnings report for the second quarter of its 2015 fiscal year. Activision's second quarter ended June 30, meaning Diablo 3 reached the 30 million sales mark in just over three years."


Still in the top 10 for number of game unites ever sold.

point is, 3 years later this game should have sold much more than 10 million copies. At least blizzard has the balls to post sales figures. ZOS is secretive about it so they can manipulate commercials and create whatever number suites there fancy.

The only reason why diablo 3 sux is because the federal government got involved, and thats because of the real money auction house that blizzard created. Blizzard decided it didn't want to get involved with the tax liabilities associated with it and had to change the game up and rip the fun out of it. Such a shame. They dumbed everything down to the lowest common denominator, and started pushing big numbers on gear to make the old gear people were selling for money obsolete before the release of ROS and many people quit playing that game after that.

You will probably never hear of this game or Zos ever being so good at what they do that the Feds had to jump in and trash it. The population and sells just aren't here. This game is past its peak. At the 3 year mark it hasn't even sold 1/3rd as many copies that a game from 2012 has sold. Pathetic.

Korah_Eaglecry

SantieClaws wrote: »

Khajiit thinks they mean that 10 million people have travelled in Tamriel at some point or another. This probably includes the free weekends.

As to the number of travellers presently in Tamriel - this one she thinks we will never ever know for sure. But as long as the gods they are happy and we are (sometimes) happy it probably doesn't matter.

Yours with paws
Santie Claws

Oh we would know if the number was something ZOS felt was worth boasting about. But the fact theyre giving us misleading numbers and talking about upfront game sales says their active player numbers, even during content release isnt that much.

Elsonso

Aeladiir wrote: »

- 10 million accounts created (normal players, bots, free weekend accounts)
- check Steamdb
- 1.2 million owners via Steam, roughly 14% of the community active in the past two weeks
- 14% of 10 million = 1.4 million

I'd say 1.4 million active players is an okay estimate, albeit not accurate.

Dividing that on SIX servers, that's 233.333 players per server. On average.

Not an unreasonable series of steps to arrive at this. I do have to wonder whether the 14% retention rate from Steam matches the other platforms. It is not unreasonable to assume it does, for the purpose of this sort of estimate, but I am curious.

It also makes me wonder how many of the estimated 1.4 million are ESO Plus.

Sadly, we will never know the true numbers.

MrBeatDown_ wrote: »

point is, 3 years later this game should have sold much more than 10 million copies.

Yeah, but it does not have to. 10 million is a respectable number. Bethesda is big and popular, but this is mainly due to just a few games. By this, I am mainly referring to Fallout and Skyrim. I doubt that Doom has sold much more than 4 million copies in the last year, and that game is more popular than Dishonored, Brink, Rage, The Evil Within, and Wolfenstein. Of all of the buy-to-play titles that Bethesda Softworks publishes, my guess is that ESO is a good candidate for Number 3 right now.

Korah_Eaglecry

IvorySamoan wrote: »

MLGProPlayer wrote: »

IvorySamoan wrote: »

Um, Bethesda just confirmed it?

They were at 8.5 sold units half way through last year, so they've sold 1.5 million since then: super impressive, going to hit 12 I reckon soon with Morrowind just releasing and getting pretty great word of mouth.

ESO, actually now looking like that WoW killer it was touted to be so long ago lol.

WoW had 12 million SUBSCRIBERS (aka active players) at its peak. No game will ever reach those numbers again, or get even close.

By WoW Killer, I just meant getting into anywhere near the realm of WoWness, not actually killing it (it was tongue in cheek).

After the start in life ESO had, to get to 10 million base game sales is pretty *** impressive if you ask me.

Just to reiterate the point: I didn't say it had 'killed WoW', I was (unsuccessfully it seems) trying to be /s a little.

Korah_Eaglecry wrote: »

Pay attention to the wording.

Last year they claimed that the game had 7 million accounts.
- They never specified if those accounts were active.
- They never specified if those accounts were unique.
- They never specified if those accounts were being counted without bot accounts or with.

This year they claimed 10 million players have experienced ESO.
- They never specified if those players were active.
- They never specified if those players were unique accounts.
- They never specified if those players were counted without bot "players" or with.


Im willing to wager that I likely contributed to numerous counts of either the account or the player statistic. Because it looks better than if I had not been added in numerous times.

Ive bought ESO for myself a total of 3 times. 1 on PC, and 2 on Console. I also bought Morrowind twice...1 of which adding to the ESO count.

I also have 3 accounts total. 1 on PC, and 2 on Console. Currently my PC and my 2nd Console account are not active. But none the less they add up to 3 accounts and 3 players if ZOS is counting the way I believe they are counting.

Ive also bought the game for at the very least 3 other people. 1 of which I know for sure created an account.

I see nothing wrong with counting those sales as accounts at all...unless I"m missing something?

When F2P games claim account numbers I always just laugh since it's a useless metric considering there's no monetary barrier to entry with them, but B2P (even at discounts which we got for getting PS4 ontop of our PC ones etc) is a different beast altogether: 10 million of any game selling in those numbers is impressive AF.

People in this thread actually saying 10 million is not impressive blows my mind, it's crazy good considering how life started for ESO (in the mud, covered in said mud, eating the aforementioned mud).

The point is the number is misleading. It leaves people with a false impression about the game and communitys health. Therye free to claim that accomplishment. But the way theyre wording it and the way they are presenting it creates a false narrative.

jcaceresw

They may even considering those accounts created on the free weekend. But the hard truth is that PC/NA population have diminish a lot. Probably because they are in their houses but I miss the times where we put in chat "LFM for today pledges". Now I can't do them anymore because there aren't people doing these unless in their guilds.

Dominoid

This is the wording from last year, so expect a similar metric:

Since we commercially launched at the end of March 2014, we have had seven million people acquire the game, create accounts and play. Please note that this number does NOT include beta players (who played the game before we launched) and it also does not include players from our free trial(s)

Source

Pops_ND_Irish

hehe its just a number !

jcaceresw

Dominoid wrote: »

This is the wording from last year, so expect a similar metric:

Since we commercially launched at the end of March 2014, we have had seven million people acquire the game, create accounts and play. Please note that this number does NOT include beta players (who played the game before we launched) and it also does not include players from our free trial(s)

Source

I acquired the game 10 times in order to create my own guild banks. I only play in just one account. The other ones will not be touched again because they are for just the guild bank. That don't mean there are 10 players. Their numbers aren't accurate.

Totes-Bode

So weird then that you can only ever find the same 100 people to group with at end game? Maybe over time they all assimilate one another like amoebas or the Borg.

Skjoldur

MrBeatDown_ wrote: »

The only reason why diablo 3 sux is because the federal government got involved, and thats because of the real money auction house that blizzard created. Blizzard decided it didn't want to get involved with the tax liabilities associated with it and had to change the game up and rip the fun out of it.

That was not the main reason. The game is at its core a loot game. If you can just buy everything, the main incentive to play is gone.

Watch the post mortem video about D3 from the Games Developer Conference.

Also if taxes had been the reason, they would have kept the gold auction house.

Nothing to do with the actual topic, so back to bashing ZOS marketing for the insanely exaggerated / misleading numbers.

theamazingx

Comparing the WoW and ESO playerbase is odd to me. For the purpose of picking which game you want to play, they're both active "enough" and so incredibly different that your personal preference will be clear long before reducing it to a population comparison.

Victoria_Marquis

Are we still comparing every MMO to WoW? Seriously!!??
WoW is so old and outdated now, graphics looks like a five year old colored it.... WoW is dead now that 4k tv graphics are coming out, new beautiful words with ultra high-end graphics and now VR.

Before WoW there was a little game called Ever Quest... It sold Billions of copies...

There is only one game that will kill WoW,... And that is Fallout VI online our GTA VI...

Elsonso

jcaceresw wrote: »

But the hard truth is that PC/NA population have diminish a lot. Probably because they are in their houses but I miss the times where we put in chat "LFM for today pledges". Now I can't do them anymore because there aren't people doing these unless in their guilds.

Yeah, that does not appear to be a "truth". The number of people in the world now seems to be more than what we had back at the beginning of the year.

Pallmor

Vizikul wrote: »

Neverwinter has some good aspects but the game itself simply cannot compete with ESO. It has bad comic-like graphics, bad voice acting, horrible game music, no weather or day & night systems and it is a heavily instanced game. There is no way that Neverwinter has more players than a game like ESO but developers still choose to present the best-looking numbers to make the game more attractive than it actually is.

Neverwinter may not look as good as ESO, but it does have a FAR superior auction house system. And their events system is one of the best I've ever seen in an MMO. Neverwinter's events blow ESO's away. There is always some interesting event going on or coming up every weekend in Neverwinter and their quarterly events are a blast.

Unlike ESO, Neverwinter's big quarterly events are like actual festivals--new areas with fun events and games for everyone to participate in. The summer festival, for instance, features stuff like crop hunting competitions, races, monster killing competitions, a soccer-type game for everyone to play, etc. And they reward you with stuff like unique mounts and trophies for participating every day. ESO's events are downright primitive in comparison. Even Neverwinter's little weekend events are usually better than ESO's quarterly events.

So Neverwinter definitely has its advantages. And it's a lot of fun to play, particularly on Xbox. It has a real strong sense of community and group participation.

MrBeatDown_

Skjoldur wrote: »

MrBeatDown_ wrote: »

The only reason why diablo 3 sux is because the federal government got involved, and thats because of the real money auction house that blizzard created. Blizzard decided it didn't want to get involved with the tax liabilities associated with it and had to change the game up and rip the fun out of it.

That was not the main reason. The game is at its core a loot game. If you can just buy everything, the main incentive to play is gone.

Watch the post mortem video about D3 from the Games Developer Conference.

Also if taxes had been the reason, they would have kept the gold auction house.

Nothing to do with the actual topic, so back to bashing ZOS marketing for the insanely exaggerated / misleading numbers.

You didn't even finish my quote of how the game was dumbed down to the lowest common denominator. I also said "They dumbed everything down to the lowest common denominator, and started pushing big numbers on gear to make the old gear people were selling for money obsolete before the release of ROS and many people quit playing that game after that."

And yes, they removed the Auction house system because of the Federal Government. No one wants to come out and tell the public that they were avoiding taxes they owed the government. With both Blizzard (The owner of the digital proprietary items) and then the consumer who also farmed/crafted and or sold the same Digital proprietary items, it was unclear as of to who was responsible for the unpaid taxes of the items being sold in the auction house. This changed everything for that game. Blizzard had no choice but to dumb the game down, upset as many people as possible to get them to quit playing, throw large numbers on gear that dwarfed the old items, and change the progression of the game through development to leave out features that they promised to existing customers. They have been caught removing there own post, taking down official blizzard videos of future updates, and many other things. Several screen shots of removed post still exist. There is also still video evidence of the bait and switch that they got away with since launch of the game. The population crucified Jay Wilson over it too. He was the official fall boy for this fiasco.

Something similar is going on with this game. The combat of this game is being watered down, Rich lambert claims its for the health of the game, The population is shrinking, and Eric Wrobel is the official fall boy over this fiasco. I'm seeing a trend here but can only assume that its just mis management in the highest of highs. Superbowl commercials are tax deductible. Bethesda probably payed for that too. Im pretty sure that the contract with ZOS has been carefully worded so that Bethesda could even in fact take over the game if ZOS fails at keeping it afloat. Lots of companies writing things off as losses just to keep this sinking ship floating.

That's probably whats going on here right now. Zos is on there last legs, so Bethesda is having to get involved (this is a disaster when a large corporate company like that takes over your game). The crash landing is immanent.

My theory is, This group is working in the red, Bethesda is keeping them alive, and that's why we keep getting substandard updates that are heavily watered down. They simply do not have the resources to properly develop this game. They are tossing around large numbers with out providing any evidence to the claim on how many people are playing the game.

All signs point to a loss with these people.

Elsonso

MrBeatDown_ wrote: »

That's probably whats going on here right now. Zos is on there last legs, so Bethesda is having to get involved (this is a disaster when a large corporate company like that takes over your game). The crash landing is immanent.

My theory is, This group is working in the red, Bethesda is keeping them alive, and that's why we keep getting substandard updates that are heavily watered down. They simply do not have the resources to properly develop this game. They are tossing around large numbers with out providing any evidence to the claim on how many people are playing the game.

All signs point to a loss with these people.

It is interesting how different perceptions of the game can lead to wildly different projections for the future.

I honestly believe that revenue from ESO is currently in the Top 5 for Bethesda titles, when compared across all of their titles. That includes revenue from the millions of copies of Fallout 4, Skyrim, ESO, and all of the other games, and various digital accessory sales that generate revenue from these games and the free to play titles that they have. There are successful games being published by Bethesda that are probably generating less revenue than ESO.

ESO is a successful title.

What they are doing with all of that money is anyone's speculation.

DaveMoeDee

Avran_Sylt wrote: »

They might just be counting total number of accounts. Maybe not even active accounts. I'd love to know the active users on a [x] day basis across all platforms, but I'm pretty sure they won't disclose that information for fear of turning away potential investors (or something, I've no clue).

I have 2 accounts with valid game codes (one was from the most recent sale an is only for emergency usage) and 8 I created on steam during free access during anniversary, none of which have codes.

I now there are a lot of people with multiple accounts, especially on console. Some on console are legitimately used by other people. Others are just getting to 10 accounts for a guild bank of their own.

Malmai

15k on steam and 15k non steam i would say, and u get the picture xD