Also, the more idiots they ban from PS4 for creating racist youtube vids, who then go on to create new accounts just adds to that total figure

Pallmor wrote: »

Sakiri wrote: »

I'd wager more people play without Steam.

Not enough for less than 10,000 to turn into 10,000,000.

No, probably not, but a lot more (and i mean a lot) than on steam.
Remember, Steam version came out a lot later after the release and majority of players who played before steam release still don't use steam as you need a seperate account linked with steam iirc. Maybe for their secondary accounts perhaps which is a very tiny fraction of the entire PC playerbase on ESO. Also peak numbers don't count. People play ESO from all around the world and there is no "peak" as when 10k players are online, the other 60k or so might be sleeping and the numbers rotate. If you want accurate numbers - look for total number of unique logins in 24h/7d/30d timeframe not peak numbers at ONE point in time, to get a more accurate picture..

I'd guess it's near 300-400k with both steam/nonsteam on PC, and since ZoS themselves said last year that all platforms have roughly equal numbers - expect the same across the board.
Even then, it's quite a respectable amount, considering most other MMO's barely just chug along with numbers much smaller than that.
Obviously it's just an educated guess, as I don't have any hard data regarding this - nobody except ZoS does which is a secret, but i've been playing this game long and often enough to see the patterns and activity, also compare them to past experiences in other MMO's that did have official statistics, and while looking at live activity while checking official stats - you develop a general clue over time of what the total amount of players looks like, even if you can't see the data yourself.

MLGProPlayer wrote: »

1mirg wrote: »

Yes, those numbers are real. They are combining the consoles and pc players though, which begs the question on how many pc and console players their really are but still, that is the real deal. There is 10 million players. Why do you think you can always find a toon in a zone questing/ exploring?

MLGProPlayer wrote: »

WoW had 12 million SUBSCRIBERS (aka active players) at its peak.

Active Subscribers does not equal active players. Most "subscribers" for mmo's like WoW tend to just leave their subscriptions running long after they stopped playing the game. I met alot of friends offline that did and still do, exactly that with that game.

Active player numbers is a different story but surprise, surprise. Blizzard stopped releasing "active player numbers" long ago. Unlike FFXIv and their census.

Nobody leaves a $15/month subscription running for a service they no longer use, unless they've died and didn't have a chance to cancel.

Actually... i do... a lot... sometimes I just forget to cancel if I switch to a different game...

Skjoldur wrote: »

MLGProPlayer wrote: »

1mirg wrote: »

Yes, those numbers are real. They are combining the consoles and pc players though, which begs the question on how many pc and console players their really are but still, that is the real deal. There is 10 million players. Why do you think you can always find a toon in a zone questing/ exploring?

MLGProPlayer wrote: »

WoW had 12 million SUBSCRIBERS (aka active players) at its peak.

Active Subscribers does not equal active players. Most "subscribers" for mmo's like WoW tend to just leave their subscriptions running long after they stopped playing the game. I met alot of friends offline that did and still do, exactly that with that game.

Active player numbers is a different story but surprise, surprise. Blizzard stopped releasing "active player numbers" long ago. Unlike FFXIv and their census.

Nobody leaves a $15/month subscription running for a service they no longer use, unless they've died and didn't have a chance to cancel.

Actually... i do... a lot... sometimes I just forget to cancel if I switch to a different game...

Same here. I've had numerous sub based services still renewing, even after i no longer use them only to remember 3 months later when checking the bank statement that i've been paying for nothing :S
In ESO, luckily, even if i take a break, my sub still keeps running and i accumulate crowns and possible future loyalty rewards (who knows, right?) so it's not entirely wasted - I still have something to use after coming back to it.

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 higher this number gets, the worse story it tells (IMO).

Population is definitely healthy, but my perception has been it enjoys spikes when new content is released followed by a tailing off. That's not a controversial perception to have because most MMOs follow that pattern. The problem with this number getting higher, as I see it, is that each spike appears to be considerably lower than the last and to tail off quicker (1T was a little different, but that was essentially a merging of three servers into one). They're not converting new sales into retention, as I see it, and are 'enjoying' an increasingly bad reputation in the gaming world. Stable population feels no larger than at any time over the past few years, and my guess would be a base population of 300K-500K active players across all platforms.

They deliberately obfuscate these numbers so all we can go on is feeling, but I wouldn't be surprised if many active players were day one players. Looking at the friendslist for each of my accounts, the majority of them were around at launch and still play. I'm constantly adding new friends and removing inactive ones, but my friendslist looks pretty much as it did a few months after launch. New players, as I see it, don't stick around. They don't seem to get far into the context, either, which is free after purchase. That's worrying if they want to grow their active player count, but I don't think it's down to the game/content. My personal opinion is that it's down to bugs, particularly with group finders (even when they work, they're useless for anything but dungeons), grind (the grind on a three-year-old game is worse than the grind on 10-year-old Asian grinders), and an atrocious UI. All in all, I think their problem is a disconnect between what a new player wants to do/work towards and their ability to do it. Offering shortcuts through the crown store doesn't work - it drives the new player away. "A-ha!" they think, "It's all a ploy to get me to spend more money". They're not invested in the game, so why would they?

Or something.

I think one thing we know is that 10M is laughably inaccurate. People who never tried ESO but consider themself part of the gaming community probably laugh at that too. They need to be careful banding numbers like this around, and I say that as someone who adores ESO.

IvorySamoan wrote: »

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

Disappointing or even pissing off about 90% of that is just as impressive.

vyndral13preub18_ESO wrote: »

Roovin wrote: »

I like how over half the posts in this thread are veiled attempts to bash ZOS.

This game is as healthy as ever.

Hopefully more healthy then ever. Since launch we have had major direction changes. Major content reworks. And major changes in pricing. That does not scream a game in great health. Unless you are of the mind that the game has always been really really healthy and ZOS just decided they were not getting enough of your money.

Im of the mind ZOS is not out to screw us on purpose(usually), so the changes lead me to think the game has never been as successful as they hoped. So here is hoping the game is MORE successful then ever.

You know, I hate to say it that way, but in every single MMO I played (WoW, SWTOR, AION to mention examples) the game was dying according to the forums. There were always threads that the game had too little players, servers were empty, players were leaving in doves, the recent changes drove players away.... do I need to continue?

MLGProPlayer wrote: »

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

I'm glad you capitalized the most important part about this statement, because it's something I can agree with.

If ESO ever went sub again, those "10 million" would drop to about 3 million overnight.

ZoS deliberately catered this game to the console generation. Nothing wrong with that, but it's crystal clear as long as they remain sub free, the game will always be focused on the whales, not the critical updates which are now long overdue.

I haven't yet had a chance to play the game with the new update, but so far, I'm not hearing good things. As seems to be the norm, it's the glitches causing the mechanics to fail, not the changes.

If I get into it and the game has glitched on me, my subscription ends.

In all honesty, I'm getting tired of carrying the whales. It's crystal clear none of our subscriptions is working to help improve the game's performance or fixing the glitches which have been around for over to patches now.

I no longer see any reason to subscribe. I can defend "paying for the game".

I'll never defend "supporting the whales".

DAoC had 800 players PvP'ing during peak hours across 3 realms. That was more than enough to reflect the beauty of solo, smallmans, 8v8 and zerg fights.

Elvenpath wrote: »

You know, I hate to say it that way, but in every single MMO I played (WoW, SWTOR, AION to mention examples) the game was dying according to the forums. There were always threads that the game had too little players, servers were empty, players were leaving in doves, the recent changes drove players away.... do I need to continue?

Well technically "dying", as in the trend being a declining playerbase is the long term trend for nearly every MMORPG with the odd very rare exception like WoW or EVE Online (at least for several years).

The reality of most MMORPGs is launch to hype, hold on to those numbers for a matter of months, then enter a pattern of declining playerbase that is only interrupted by short term temporary boosts by things like a game going F2P, an expansion, etc.

I mean why do you think so few of them publish meaningful data on numbers and give out meaningless nonsense like number of accounts over the entire game's history that are just PR spin? (that is rhetorical by the way).

It sort of sums up the poor state the MMORPG genre is in, that games where long term play is a big feature of them, can't for the most part actually grow their playerbases in the way LoL, DOTA 2, CS:GO, Minecraft, etc manage to, but then I guess that so few AAA MMORPGs have been released in recent years and the two biggest (Titan & Everquest Next) were cancelled, says it all.

Yeahhhh no way the game has 10 million active players hahahaha i know people have said this already buy... yeah... no. In fact, considering the fact that now vet zones and normal zones are combined and there still aren't as many players now as there were before when vet zones and normal zones were separated, I'd say the player base has decreased significantly. There used to be so many pvp campaigns too. And most, if not all, used to be full on and off US prime time. I honestly doubt there are even half a million players active across platform and region. PvP right now is like visiting your distant relatives. Same faces but different hair lol

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.