Congratulations ZOS on hitting 18 million Tamrielians!

stewhead2ub17_ESO · March 2021

"In today's Bethesda Joins Xbox Roundtable, ZeniMax Online Studios Studio Director Matt Firor mentioned just how big their MMORPG, The Elder Scrolls Online, has become. Firor states that in 2020 alone the MMORPG added 3 million "new residents" to the online world of Tamriel, with accounts totaling over 18 million over the 7 year life of ESO." - MMORPG

I think this is awesome! I've been here since beta & ESO continues to provide me countless hours of entertainment. @ZOS_GinaBruno please pass on my thanks to all the ZOS employees & a hearty congratulations!

Tannus15 · March 2021

in before people start banging on about "active accounts"

18 mil is an amazing achievement for games sales alone, never mind active players

Enemy-of-Coldharbour · March 2021

But just how many are inactive accounts? The world my never know...

Alurria · March 2021

Congratulations ZOS! You manage a good size city! 18 million people to manage is nothing to sneeze at people. Now you know why these forums do not represent all of people who play this game.

Elsonso · March 2021

Enemy-of-Coldharbour wrote: »

But just how many are inactive accounts? The world my never know...

Roughly 18 million...

Seriously, congrats ZOS. That is an awesome achievement!

stewhead2ub17_ESO · March 2021

Enemy-of-Coldharbour wrote: »

But just how many are inactive accounts? The world my never know...

@Enemy-of-Coldharbour it really doesn't matter. If you read the quote you will notice it said "18 million over the 7 year life of ESO". So regardless of how many "active" subs there may be IMO it's an achievement to have had 18 million pass through the doors.

bluebird · March 2021

Tannus15 wrote: »

in before people start banging on about "active accounts"

I mean... those numbers would indeed be quite a bit more useful from a player perspective.

How many people purchases the base game has very little effect on us, since ZOS's main income doesn't even come from base game sales. They also do regular 'free play' events so many of those 18 million accounts didn't even pay for the game, let alone played it. Last time I checked, only 15% of ESO owners had the 'reached level 50' achievement on consoles.

Not to mention there was a global pandemic last year that lead to unprecedented surges in forced freetime and engagement with the entertainment industry... so is it good for ZOS that they have more registered accounts in their overall list? Sure. But is that 18m number relevant to the health or the future of the game? Not really.

stewhead2ub17_ESO · March 2021

bluebird wrote: »

Tannus15 wrote: »

in before people start banging on about "active accounts"

I mean... those numbers would indeed be quite a bit more useful from a player perspective.

How many people purchases the base game has very little effect on us, since ZOS's main income doesn't even come from base game sales. They also do regular 'free play' events so many of those 18 million accounts didn't even pay for the game, let alone played it. Last time I checked, only 15% of ESO owners had the 'reached level 50' achievement on consoles.

Not to mention there was a global pandemic last year that lead to unprecedented surges in forced freetime and engagement with the entertainment industry... so is it good for ZOS that they have more registered accounts in their overall list? Sure. But is that 18m number relevant to the health or the future of the game? Not really.

This thread is not a discussion about the health or future of the game. It's simply a worthy achievement that I felt deserved recognition.

bluebird · March 2021

stewhead2ub17_ESO wrote: »

bluebird wrote: »

Tannus15 wrote: »

in before people start banging on about "active accounts"

I mean... those numbers would indeed be quite a bit more useful from a player perspective.

How many people purchases the base game has very little effect on us, since ZOS's main income doesn't even come from base game sales. They also do regular 'free play' events so many of those 18 million accounts didn't even pay for the game, let alone played it. Last time I checked, only 15% of ESO owners had the 'reached level 50' achievement on consoles.

Not to mention there was a global pandemic last year that lead to unprecedented surges in forced freetime and engagement with the entertainment industry... so is it good for ZOS that they have more registered accounts in their overall list? Sure. But is that 18m number relevant to the health or the future of the game? Not really.

This thread is not a discussion about the health or future of the game.

Sure, but since we're on the forums where there is a relatively large concentration of actual players who actively engage with ESO, I just thought the activity and current community of the game would be more relevant to most of us. For example what I'd congratulate ZOS for is how many old players they managed to retain, not how many accounts they registered. But that doesn't stop you from being happy for them;

it's just a wish more useful data.

Sarannah · March 2021

Congrats, ESO deserves to be big!

Even if only 10% of those 18 million accounts are main/active player accounts, that is a really huge accomplishment.

stewhead2ub17_ESO · March 2021

bluebird wrote: »

stewhead2ub17_ESO wrote: »

bluebird wrote: »

Tannus15 wrote: »

in before people start banging on about "active accounts"

I mean... those numbers would indeed be quite a bit more useful from a player perspective.

How many people purchases the base game has very little effect on us, since ZOS's main income doesn't even come from base game sales. They also do regular 'free play' events so many of those 18 million accounts didn't even pay for the game, let alone played it. Last time I checked, only 15% of ESO owners had the 'reached level 50' achievement on consoles.

Not to mention there was a global pandemic last year that lead to unprecedented surges in forced freetime and engagement with the entertainment industry... so is it good for ZOS that they have more registered accounts in their overall list? Sure. But is that 18m number relevant to the health or the future of the game? Not really.

This thread is not a discussion about the health or future of the game.

Sure, but since we're on the forums where there is a relatively large concentration of actual players who actively engage with ESO, I just thought the activity and current community of the game would be more relevant to most of us. For example what I'd congratulate ZOS for is how many old players they managed to retain, not how many accounts they registered. But that doesn't stop you from being happy for them; it's just a wish more useful data.

" I just thought the activity and current community of the game would be more relevant to most of us."

& by all means start a discussion thread on that very topic. I look forward to reading it.

Toc de Malsvi · March 2021

By comparison when examining unique accounts, ESO released in April 2014 and reached 18 million. FF14 A Realm Reborn was released in August 2013, and reached 20 million.

World of Warcraft released in November 2004, and in January of 2014 had reached 100 million.

It’s good for ESO to be favorably compared with FF14. But it’s not some amazing achievement.

bluebird · March 2021

stewhead2ub17_ESO wrote: »

bluebird wrote: »

stewhead2ub17_ESO wrote: »

bluebird wrote: »

Tannus15 wrote: »

in before people start banging on about "active accounts"

I mean... those numbers would indeed be quite a bit more useful from a player perspective.

How many people purchases the base game has very little effect on us, since ZOS's main income doesn't even come from base game sales. They also do regular 'free play' events so many of those 18 million accounts didn't even pay for the game, let alone played it. Last time I checked, only 15% of ESO owners had the 'reached level 50' achievement on consoles.

Not to mention there was a global pandemic last year that lead to unprecedented surges in forced freetime and engagement with the entertainment industry... so is it good for ZOS that they have more registered accounts in their overall list? Sure. But is that 18m number relevant to the health or the future of the game? Not really.

This thread is not a discussion about the health or future of the game.

Sure, but since we're on the forums where there is a relatively large concentration of actual players who actively engage with ESO, I just thought the activity and current community of the game would be more relevant to most of us. For example what I'd congratulate ZOS for is how many old players they managed to retain, not how many accounts they registered. But that doesn't stop you from being happy for them; it's just a wish more useful data.

& by all means start a discussion thread on that very topic. I look forward to reading it.

stewhead2ub17_ESO wrote: »

Toc de Malsvi wrote: »

By comparison when examining unique accounts, ESO released in April 2014 and reached 18 million. FF14 A Realm Reborn was released in August 2013, and reached 20 million.

World of Warcraft released in November 2004, and in January of 2014 had reached 100 million.

It’s good for ESO to be favorably compared with FF14. But it’s not some amazing achievement.

[Quoted post was removed]

This thread may have gotten off on the wrong foot, but surely you see that 'not asking others to feel the same way' also entails accepting that others will have different responses to the topic, and them posting their different perspectives on the forum is part of what makes it a forum discussion?

Putting 'congratulations' in the title doesn't mean that only comments repeating congratulations are allowed; but at the same time other people's responses also don't mean that your reactions are any less valid of course - and vice versa. 👍

Kane_Hart · March 2021

who compares it to a one hit wonder WoW ever? So Sad.

Sju · March 2021

This can't be true, I barely see 16 million people playing when I sign in during prime time.

Mojmir · March 2021

"billions served" was a clever moniker for years too, highly subjective too what the truth is.

Blacknight841 · March 2021

Has this number been adjusted to account for the bots?

... 18 million is not a huge accomplishment if half the accounts are the same people.

amm7sb14_ESO · March 2021

Awwww, the Debbie Downers have arrived.

Can't say *anything* positive without having their negativity sweep through. Everything must be angsty and negative AT ALL TIMES

WiseSky · March 2021

Alurria · March 2021

Seriously, 18 million accounts I don't care if 1% play it's still a large number of people playing this game. But heck I'm old, in my day the first online mmorpg I played could only hold 250 people, and don't get me started on text based multiplayer games. People 18 million accounts is a lot. I am happy for them.

Mojmir · March 2021

all those poor souls on hold from customer service trying to get a refund

Toc de Malsvi · March 2021

Kane_Hart wrote: »

who compares it to a one hit wonder WoW ever? So Sad.

I thoroughly enjoyed ESO and quit WoW to play ESO for 5 years. ESO has been pretty successful and appears to be one of the top MMOs today. I only stopped playing ESO due to hand problems.

In relating WoW and ESO, calling WoW a “one hit wonder” is incredibly ignorant. Either you are ignoring expansions, in which case every MMO is a one hit wonder, or you are ignoring WoW’s unprecedented success over multiple expansions. Or perhaps you just don’t understand how to use the term “one hit wonder”.

When discussing achievements related to high numbers of unique accounts, to not include WoW is just ignorant. You might as well talk about top basketball scorers in the 2000’s and not include LeBron James.

SeaGtGruff · March 2021

stewhead2ub17_ESO wrote: »

Enemy-of-Coldharbour wrote: »

But just how many are inactive accounts? The world my never know...

@Enemy-of-Coldharbour it really doesn't matter. If you read the quote you will notice it said "18 million over the 7 year life of ESO". So regardless of how many "active" subs there may be IMO it's an achievement to have had 18 million pass through the doors.

Yep, statements such as "1 billion served" don't mean "1 billion being served right now." Congratulations, ZOS!

Elsonso · March 2021

bluebird wrote: »

How many people purchases the base game has very little effect on us, since ZOS's main income doesn't even come from base game sales. They also do regular 'free play' events so many of those 18 million accounts didn't even pay for the game, let alone played it. Last time I checked, only 15% of ESO owners had the 'reached level 50' achievement on consoles.

In the past, these totals have not included trial accounts from free play events.

Crazyprophet · March 2021

Good times! I hope ESO continues to grow!

Blacknight841 · March 2021

SeaGtGruff wrote: »

stewhead2ub17_ESO wrote: »

Enemy-of-Coldharbour wrote: »

But just how many are inactive accounts? The world my never know...

@Enemy-of-Coldharbour it really doesn't matter. If you read the quote you will notice it said "18 million over the 7 year life of ESO". So regardless of how many "active" subs there may be IMO it's an achievement to have had 18 million pass through the doors.

Yep, statements such as "1 billion served" don't mean "1 billion being served right now." Congratulations, ZOS!

Statements such as 1 billion served mean nothing when the return customer rate is minuscule. Same thing applies to eso. It is free with game pass, people download, try the game, and 40% of them don’t even get out of the starting tutorial and then they count that as one of the 18m accounts. That number is not representative of the actual “growth” of the game. For instance on Xbox, only 7% of the players ever invested a single champion point. If you assume that 1/3 play on Xbox, that’s 6m, 7% of that is 420k players that have reached camp rank... of which only 150k have ever killed a single dragon (2.49% of the players on xbox). Numbers are meaningless without context, and unless zenimax wants to detail the 18m players, it is nothing more than fluff to throw at shareholders as the starting pitch for the quarterly.

ccfeeling · March 2021

17M left already

NoSoup · March 2021

How many accounts vs players though, I suspect there is a large portion of the place base that has multiple accounts

SeaGtGruff · March 2021

Blacknight841 wrote: »

SeaGtGruff wrote: »

stewhead2ub17_ESO wrote: »

Enemy-of-Coldharbour wrote: »

But just how many are inactive accounts? The world my never know...

@Enemy-of-Coldharbour it really doesn't matter. If you read the quote you will notice it said "18 million over the 7 year life of ESO". So regardless of how many "active" subs there may be IMO it's an achievement to have had 18 million pass through the doors.

Yep, statements such as "1 billion served" don't mean "1 billion being served right now." Congratulations, ZOS!

Statements such as 1 billion served mean nothing when the return customer rate is minuscule. Same thing applies to eso.

Places and things where the return customer rate is "miniscule" would get terrible reviews and word of mouth, which I think would pretty much prevent them from ever achieving a "1 billion served" status.

Gilvoth · March 2021

WE DONT SEE 18 MILLION VOTE IN THE FORUM POLES
WE DONT SEE 18 MILLION PEOPLE RESPONDING TO THREADS

i do believe that there are that many accounts in eso, and that there is probably atleast 5 million players daily in eso
however,
here on the forums, there is a VERY small group of people that ask for thier own ideas to happen, like the proc sets issue and the sloads issue and the alliance LOCK issue.
they push these issues with claims that they are backed by all of eso population. they claim that the entire population wants or thinks thier way. this thread is proof that those people, claiming that the entire population of eso thinks like they do, is all a lie.

Elsonso · March 2021

Gilvoth wrote: »

WE DONT SEE 18 MILLION VOTE IN THE FORUM POLES
WE DONT SEE 18 MILLION PEOPLE RESPONDING TO THREADS

Thank Akatosh for that. You have just given the forum mods nightmares for a month.

I do wish we knew more about the number of active players on each platform and geo. I can say that PC NA seems very busy right now, but that is normal after a patch. This time it is probably even more busy because this Update requires that people log in and reassemble their characters.