How Many players in ESO currently?

starlizard70ub17_ESO · September 2014

I honestly couldn't care less about the numbers magnusnet or anyone else comes up with. It doesn't matter if there are 30K or 300K or more players in ESO, all that matters to me is that I still like playing the game. If the game collaspes tomarrow, so be it, I'll find something else to do. Personally I think ESO has at least a few years to go, if not longer.

TehMagnus · September 2014

Aett_Thorn wrote: »

magnusnet wrote: »

http://connachttribune.ie/galway-jobs-blow-300-gone-software-firm/

300 people fired by ZOS from Customer support.

(*) (*) Game is going peachy (*) (*)

Sigh. You know that this has been discussed and disregarded as an actually useful bit of info since it was first posted back in June, right? These people were hired to be customer support for the initial release, and the console release, which got pushed back. Why would you keep people on for the console release when it got pushed back?

SUuuuuuuurreeeee they hired them in APRIL on 6 months contracts. The game launched in April.

Releasing a game to console isn't done in 1 month or even 2. You gotta make the DVDs, ship them, get them to the stores. When they Hired those people, they already knew console was delayed.

Please tell me more stories

.

TehMagnus · September 2014

starlizard70ub17_ESO wrote: »

I honestly couldn't care less about the numbers magnusnet or anyone else comes up with. It doesn't matter if there are 30K or 300K or more players in ESO, all that matters to me is that I still like playing the game. If the game collaspes tomarrow, so be it, I'll find something else to do. Personally I think ESO has at least a few years to go, if not longer.

I agree and hope you're right. But people thinking this game has more than 250K users per server are just delusional.

And the number of player is important. Under a certain number, ZOS won't be making money and when companies stop making money, things go south...

Potenza · September 2014

"If game is doing well all they have to do is publish numbers, that would make criticism go down and maybe even bring more players in because "if x people play it, it must be good!". "

No, no mmo ever publishes the numbers. And they should not ever because honestly, you don't need to know. Your decision to play the game has nothing to do with it and if it does then you need to rethink why you are playing the game altogether. You should be playing the game because YOU think its good, not because OTHER people think its good. And if you don't think its good - don't play it and don't grief it on the forum because other people think otherwise.

Talrenos · September 2014

Yall want numbers? Ok. Numbers it is...

Im going out on a limb here, but lets say ESO has 75,000 paying subs right now. (I know its an inflated number, but we'll go with it) BTW: Im not figuring in EURO or the upcoming console disaster.

That means they make per month about $1,121,250. A very nice figure

But gotta factor in overhead:

two ESO offices: 10k monthly rent ea = 20k
Office space amenities including utilities and support staff: 8k a month ea= 16k
Dev cost (unknown how many, I will use 100) Devs are not cheap, 75k a year is lowballing them, but that means they bring in about $1400 a week for $5600 a month per dev times 100 devs = $560,000 a month
Executives overseeing Devs for ZOS are horribly expensive, but go with 200k a year, and we will say there's 10 of them. They bring in $3846 a week for a whopping $15,384 a month, times 10 equals $153,840 a month.
Lastly consider the massive data pipe called the internet. I will just assume it costs them $5000 a month for that. (I know that's low figure, I checked online at costs)

SO our total per month is: $754,840 COST to run ESO. Minus out intake and you get $366,410 per month.

Still a very nice profit number, but remember I'm prolly not charging enough for people, devs and rents. Then there other things I did not even think of in the few minutes it took to write this. Im quite sure I forgot all kinds of monthly expenses they have.

Point is, ZOS is getting closer and closer to not making profit. When that happens, something bad will happen to ESO.

Talrenos · September 2014

j.murro2ub17_ESO wrote: »

No, no mmo ever publishes the numbers.

WRONG. EVE online does! everytime you login it tells you the exact amount of players in the world, and EVE has no problem releasing their actual sub count twice a year.

bosmern_ESO · September 2014

The max amount of players you can see on your screen at any given time is 200. If there wasn't phasing every area would be flooded with people, making it so you can't find NPC's, can't kill monsters, there are no resources, etc.

It's estimated that the population numbers are around 700k, and that was a person who actually did samples of PvP and each zone.

mutharex · September 2014

magnusnet wrote: »

mutharex wrote: »

@magnusnet yeah the game is dying, I were in you I'd quit right now before it's too late AND delete my forum account. Especially the second part, that's the most important one

Nah, on the contrary we should just accept the fact that launch of "the next best thing" was a failure and we should try to see why it failed, why so many people left and how to fix it.

People in denial saying everything is peachy is one of the main issues we have.

ROFL

Potenza · September 2014

Talrenos wrote: »

j.murro2ub17_ESO wrote: »

No, no mmo ever publishes the numbers.

WRONG. EVE online does! everytime you login it tells you the exact amount of players in the world, and EVE has no problem releasing their actual sub count twice a year.

Yes how many are playing at the time your online however how true it is that they publish their sub accounts I don't know but why would I believe the numbers if they did? But it doesn't matter - because like I said before, you don't need to know - it should not have an impact on whether you play the game or not.

fromtesonlineb16_ESO · September 2014

magnusnet wrote: »

AlexDougherty wrote: »

magnusnet wrote: »

Bleakraven wrote: »

Well, you're kind of arguing against yourself. You're only taking into account the people you see online and around your zone, not counting Cyrodiil, etc. The game is doing fine, really.

If the game was doing fine:
- ZOS would publish a recap of how many players the game has to prove it's awesome and many people are playing it and that it beats this and that game.
- They wouldn't be implementing new Areas to try to keep people from leaving once they hit level cap and have gotten all the best sets from trial runs.
- They wouldn't be trying to lure people in (loyalty rewards, pets with steam purchase, selling the special editions for an even longer time than originally planed).

If game is doing well all they have to do is publish numbers, that would make criticism go down and maybe even bring more players in because "if x people play it, it must be good!".

The fact they aren't doing it is actually kinda scary because it means that even if they cheat to a reasonable extend where it's actually believable (who's gonna go check if they say the truth? On the other hand if they claim to have more than 500k weekly users everybody knows it's BS) numbers would still be bad.

Nope, a number of flawed assumptions here.
Firstly ZOS doesn't need to prove anything.

Secondly Tracking the figures is usually misleading.

Thirdly, of course they would be adding new areas, every MMO adds new stuff regularly. MMOs that don't add new stuff die.

Fourthly, of course they would be trying to lure people in, even WOW tries to get new players. An MMO wants new players, otherwise it's just a matter of time before they pull the plug.

Fifthly, who the hell plays a game because so many people play it, if it was we would all be playing Korean MMOs.

Sixthly, only ZOS knows the actual numbers, all the figures on the internet are either derived figures or just plain made up, and as such highly dubious.

June 2014:
http://www.lazygamer.net/general-news/these-are-the-most-played-pc-games/

July 2014:
http://caas.raptr.com/most-played-pc-games-july-2014-summers-winners-and-losers/

Real statistics that don't lie. People play more Skyrim, Civ 5 and even SWTOR than TESO.

Please educate yourself how to validate statistics as meaningful, if you think those numbers mean anything you're delusional.

Moonscythe · September 2014

magnusnet wrote: »

AlexDougherty wrote: »

magnusnet wrote: »

Statistics taken from Raptr'. Not all the gamers use Raptr,

Up until now I had not even heard of Raptr, not planing on using it any time soon.

Program comes with Catalyst so people using AMD video cards with updated catalyst are more likely to have it installed.

No matter how many people use it, it still acts like a survey does. Taking a small amount of the population and observing what they are playing.

Yes, and a survey is so unbiased depending as it does on how large the sample is how diverse the sample is, how the questions are asked. I could say ESO is dying because the numbers of people playing as proven by some sample set I gleaned from a source that is only available on a Mac is low. It means nothing in the wide world of reality. Just because you trust your sample doesn't make it a valid sample.

[Moderator Note: Edited quote to match moderated version]

TehMagnus · September 2014

fromtesonlineb16_ESO wrote: »

magnusnet wrote: »

AlexDougherty wrote: »

magnusnet wrote: »

Bleakraven wrote: »

Well, you're kind of arguing against yourself. You're only taking into account the people you see online and around your zone, not counting Cyrodiil, etc. The game is doing fine, really.

If the game was doing fine:
- ZOS would publish a recap of how many players the game has to prove it's awesome and many people are playing it and that it beats this and that game.
- They wouldn't be implementing new Areas to try to keep people from leaving once they hit level cap and have gotten all the best sets from trial runs.
- They wouldn't be trying to lure people in (loyalty rewards, pets with steam purchase, selling the special editions for an even longer time than originally planed).

If game is doing well all they have to do is publish numbers, that would make criticism go down and maybe even bring more players in because "if x people play it, it must be good!".

The fact they aren't doing it is actually kinda scary because it means that even if they cheat to a reasonable extend where it's actually believable (who's gonna go check if they say the truth? On the other hand if they claim to have more than 500k weekly users everybody knows it's BS) numbers would still be bad.

Nope, a number of flawed assumptions here.
Firstly ZOS doesn't need to prove anything.

Secondly Tracking the figures is usually misleading.

Thirdly, of course they would be adding new areas, every MMO adds new stuff regularly. MMOs that don't add new stuff die.

Fourthly, of course they would be trying to lure people in, even WOW tries to get new players. An MMO wants new players, otherwise it's just a matter of time before they pull the plug.

Fifthly, who the hell plays a game because so many people play it, if it was we would all be playing Korean MMOs.

Sixthly, only ZOS knows the actual numbers, all the figures on the internet are either derived figures or just plain made up, and as such highly dubious.

June 2014:
http://www.lazygamer.net/general-news/these-are-the-most-played-pc-games/

July 2014:
http://caas.raptr.com/most-played-pc-games-july-2014-summers-winners-and-losers/

Real statistics that don't lie. People play more Skyrim, Civ 5 and even SWTOR than TESO.

Please educate yourself how to validate statistics as meaningful, if you think those numbers mean anything you're delusional.

they mean more than empty statements like this one and 90% of the snip you write on this forum.

P.S.: Remember to send me your stuff in game before quitting when Update 4 hits next week pelase.

TehMagnus · September 2014

Moonscythe wrote: »

magnusnet wrote: »

AlexDougherty wrote: »

magnusnet wrote: »

Statistics taken from Raptr'. Not all the gamers use Raptr,

Up until now I had not even heard of Raptr, not planing on using it any time soon.

Just because you're an ignorant (by your own admition) doesn't mean the stats are less true . Program comes with Catalyst so people using AMD video cards with updated catalyst are more likely to have it installed.

No matter how many people use it, it still acts like a survey does. Taking a small amount of the population and observing what they are playing.

Yes, and a survey is so unbiased depending as it does on how large the sample is how diverse the sample is, how the questions are asked. I could say ESO is dying because the numbers of people playing as proven by some sample set I gleaned from a source that is only available on a Mac is low. It means nothing in the wide world of reality. Just because you trust your sample doesn't make it a valid sample.

It's still a sample and two other samples showing the same tendency where posted here.

Neizir · September 2014

ESO currently has around 800k subscribers, if a report from a reputed source in the industry is anything to go by.
Wildstar, on the other hand, has about 400k.

TehMagnus · September 2014

Neizir wrote: »

ESO currently has around 800k subscribers, if a report from a reputed source in the industry is anything to go by.
Wildstar, on the other hand, has about 400k.

Link?

.

Akula · September 2014

Here's my calculations:

I saw approximately 100 people in town yesterday. Times the 1 million differnt phases at that time (give or take 100 or so) times two servers is......200 million people in town....at one time....yesterday afternoon.

Yay science.

gclifton58ub17_ESO · September 2014

At least one, including myself.

NukaCola · September 2014

I play on Eu server. Based on observation with my own eyes, i can't say it looks too good. It can take anything from 20mins to 1h to find a group for a Veteran dungeon. This is end game content. It should not take so long and this has nothing to do with phasing mechanics.

Cyrodiil. I did all the quests in the zone and i got ganked maybe twice? I also walked into other alliances bases trough the main gate alone and took the skyshards. Nobody stopped me.

Kl3mzyy · September 2014

Remember, most of eso playerbase is above 18, they don't use steam, xfire or do any survies. Wait that zeni gives numbers out and then complain.

smacx250 · September 2014

magnusnet wrote: »

Link? .

In july it was reported there were about 770K subscribers. Don't know how that translates to today:

http://gamerant.com/elder-scrolls-online-subscriber-numbers-revenue

Crowzer · September 2014

There are 245.785 players who have an active sub.
Source: my pillow.

kevlarto_ESO · September 2014

No one knows but ZOS everything else is speculation could be hundreds of thousands playing could be a handful I know when I am on I see a lot of players. /shrug

TehMagnus · September 2014

smacx250 wrote: »

magnusnet wrote: »

Link? .

In july it was reported there were about 770K subscribers. Don't know how that translates to today:

http://gamerant.com/elder-scrolls-online-subscriber-numbers-revenue

SuperData refused to say how they got those numbers and they have removed them from their website since.

http://www.superdataresearch.com/blog/us-digital-games-market/ <= this was the link showing those numbers if I remember well. Nothing anymore.

Nestor · September 2014

Nazon_Katts wrote: »

Here's ESO: http://www.steamcharts.com/app/306130

The only problem with that is, the game released on Steam about 3 months after the initial release. So, they just grabbed a portion of the people who would have bought the game in the 3rd or 4th month. These numbers would be a better predictor if the game had come out on Steam at the same time as everywhere else. What I would like to see is how many people bought on Steam and how many of them are playing it regularly. That would be be a decent indicator of the longevity of the game for all sales.

pahajuju · September 2014

vgchartz.com/article/251826/elder-scrolls-online-developer-hit-with-layoffs/

Hope they didn't layoff some of the better workers.

About the numbers, my friends lists is showing a bit of a drop in log ins, Update 3 wasn't a big win, but maybe Update 4 will bring back people.

I just log in to put research on. Cyrodiil isn't fun and no point doing pve-content at the moment.

ers101284b14_ESO · September 2014

Guess it must be true. I mean if you cant trust a random guy on the Internet who read it on the Internet who can you trust?

stefan.gustavsonb16_ESO · September 2014

The only area where we have anything close to hard numbers is Cyrodiil. Each campaign is phase-less, and has a hard cap of 500 players per faction. Six campaigns per server, twelve in total, means a maximum of 18,000 players can be accommodated to do PvP in Cyrodiil. I have never seen all servers chock full for all factions at once. They can be pretty crowded, but if there was a clear and immediate need for more campaigns, they would have added them.

Now, how large is the portion of players doing PvP, and how many are mostly doing PvE? We have to leave that to guesswork, but if 1 in 20 thinks Cyrodiil is worth their time and all the others are doing PvE and trials, the game could have around 500,000 players. On the other hand, if the number of people doing PvP is comparable to the number of people doing PvE, we are looking at a game with only 50,000 active players

ZOS knows the true numbers, and could easily provide us with the exact number of unique logins for the past week if they thought it would do them any good. The true numbers probably aren't all that impressive, but that is pure speculation on my part.

Neizir · September 2014

magnusnet wrote: »

Neizir wrote: »

ESO currently has around 800k subscribers, if a report from a reputed source in the industry is anything to go by.
Wildstar, on the other hand, has about 400k.

Link? .

eurogamer.net/articles/2014-07-18-elder-scrolls-online-has-775-000-subscribers-report
These were the subscribers in the month of June, so it makes sense they'd be at 800k now in September.

Now Wildstar, on the other hand...

https://forums.wildstar-online.com/forums/index.php?/topic/108290-wildstar-population-ncsoft-2nd-quarter-2014-earnings-report/

TehMagnus · September 2014

Nestor wrote: »

Nazon_Katts wrote: »

Here's ESO: http://www.steamcharts.com/app/306130

The only problem with that is, the game released on Steam about 3 months after the initial release. So, they just grabbed a portion of the people who would have bought the game in the 3rd or 4th month. These numbers would be a better predictor if the game had come out on Steam at the same time as everywhere else. What I would like to see is how many people bought on Steam and how many of them are playing it regularly. That would be be a decent indicator of the longevity of the game for all sales.

http://www.steamcharts.com/app/306130#All

You can take a look @ the chart on the website with numbers since launch on steam (3k => 800 players,peak). Note that the numbers dropped heavily on Sept 1 after the end of vacation. So Steam lost 50% (at the very least) of peak time users since launch and it seems to have stabilized to ~800 -1k concurrent users.

Nothing much can be said about it in such sort time I suppose since it's normal after a launch for the population to decrease slightly, still, this means that a lot of people bought the game on steam and stopped before even getting to VR ranks..

AlexDougherty · September 2014

magnusnet wrote: »

BBSooner wrote: »

magnusnet wrote: »

BBSooner wrote: »

magnusnet wrote: »

BBSooner wrote: »

So wait, a 3rd party counter said 750k + were playing (to which multiple people raced to the forums to post about). Which 3rd party are we supposed to trust again? Or do we just choose the one that fits our rhetoric and tout it as infallible.

The 3rd party who took numbers out of nowhere, refused to say where they got their numbers and everybody said you couldn't trust?

At least here we know how the numbers are retrieved: Hours played.

Hours played on 'raptr'?!? Are niche products with minute customer bases platforms for evidence regarding total population now? Pick your poison with 3rd party numbers, I'm sure yours is the one that's true ... lol.

If you care to read, there are also Xfire and Steam statistics (2k players peak last week xD) which all concur with Raptr's analysis. Moreover, League of Legends is (or at least was since DOTA 2 is catching up) the most played MMOG in the world and WOW the most player MMORPG which is shown in Raptr's statistics (So I guess the niche 3rd party product that gives statistics based on the user's playtime isn't totally wrong?).

Do YOU have any kind of survey that explains how they did their count that shows TESO having a healthy and high number of players?

I do not, numbers not taken from the source - especially with regards to how fragmented your evidence proves the process is - are unreliable at best. Like I said, grab whatever sources you need to spin your rhetoric, you can even bury your head when you come across the high counts, just don't fool yourself into thinking that "evidence" gives you a legitimate idea of how well or how poorly the game is doing.

It's not unreliable, once again it's just like a survey. You take small amounts of players from all horizonts and see what they play and how long. Numbers show that most popular games are on top and TESO is at thee bottom if even present.

NUMBERS from a % of players.

Not Denial bla bla without any proof.

Actually it is unreliable, yes I get that it's a survey, and they use proportional maths (not actual terminology but it's been over twenty years since I used correct terms, I remember the maths though). But the problem is they make assumptions, that's were it becomes unreliable, ie you can't rely on it for any sort of decision.

Even if they get the proportion of players using it right, which is hard to do in the first place (because nobody tracks the numbers of people who don't use it), it's still a shot in the dark about the rest.

Plain fact statistics are unreliable, no matter what the source or who does them.