January 12, 2005

MMOG Growth

I've followed Bruce Sterling Woodcock's graphs on the subscriber bases of Massive Multiplayer Online Games (MMOGs) since he's been doing it (I think), and generally conceed that it's a useful bit of information regarding relatively popularity and possible longevity of individual games.

However, I have to take issue with this one graph that seems to show that MMOGs are increasing in popularity. His title accurately states what the graph is attempting to show, "Total MMOG Active Subscriptions," but an uninformed person would look at the graph and think, "Total MMOG Subscribers." What's the difference? Many MMOG afficionados have more than one active account. This causes something of a problem in the numbers for individual games (in some, because of character "space" limitations, people have additional accounts to hold game inventory for their main character), but is even more of a problem when you aggregate the numbers together as many people play more than one game (I'm in two, myself, but I know of people who have active accounts in three or more). You could take this graph, however, and see the market possibility--that is, the trend does not signify any loss of interest in these games.

(For what it's worth, I'm no Edward Tufte, although I have taken his course.)

Categories

1 Comments

Hey Glen, thanks for the mention and the comment. :)

You make a very good point, but it seems that if the factor of multiple subscriptions is to be considering significant for judging growth, then you would have to show reason to think multiple subscriptions are much more common today than they were, say, in 2002. Well, more precisely, that the average of subscriptions per gamer has increased, which could be accomplished more than one way.

While I wouldn't be surprised if it turns out that average is increasing, I doubt it has increased all that substantially. We do know that there are plenty of new players coming in who haven't played a MMOG before. However, there probably is a short-term effect with WoW and EQII, where a lot of people have subscribed to those games and have yet to unsubscribe to their previous one (or they have and the numbers simply have not been updated yet). So it will take a few months to shake out the details. WoW and EQII certainly has grown the market, but probably not by the 800K+ they appear to have at first blush.

Bruce

about this site

this page

This page contains a single entry from the blog posted on August 23, 2008 5:30 AM.

The previous post in this blog was Some Food Notes, with a raspberry towards TripAdvisor.

This post was categorized as expat life.

This post was tagged as Kuala Lumpur .

Many more can be found on the main index page or by looking through the archives.

This page contains a single entry from the blog posted on August 20, 2008 10:38 PM.

The previous post in this blog was Google Mapping Our Gustatory Exploits.

The next post in this blog is Social Weekend Activities.

This post was categorized as taste.

This post was tagged as restaurant, review .

Many more can be found on the main index page or by looking through the archives.

This page contains a single entry from the blog posted on August 14, 2008 5:13 AM.

The previous post in this blog was Welcome to Gita Bayu.

The next post in this blog is Some Food Notes, with a raspberry towards TripAdvisor.

This post was categorized as expat life.

This post was tagged as .

Many more can be found on the main index page or by looking through the archives.

This page contains a single entry from the blog posted on August 13, 2008 9:58 PM.

The previous post in this blog was The Answer to Life, etc..

The next post in this blog is Google Mapping Our Gustatory Exploits.

This post was categorized as expat life.

This post was tagged as .

Many more can be found on the main index page or by looking through the archives.

This page contains a single entry from the blog posted on August 10, 2008 9:26 PM.

The previous post in this blog was Heath Care Update.

The next post in this blog is Welcome to Gita Bayu.

This post was categorized as meta.

This post was tagged as .

Many more can be found on the main index page or by looking through the archives.

This page contains a single entry from the blog posted on August 10, 2008 5:40 AM.

The previous post in this blog was Won't You Sell Me a Car?.

The next post in this blog is The Answer to Life, etc..

This post was categorized as meta.

This post was tagged as .

Many more can be found on the main index page or by looking through the archives.

This page contains a single entry from the blog posted on August 6, 2008 10:25 PM.

The previous post in this blog was It Had to Happen.

The next post in this blog is Heath Care Update.

This post was categorized as expat life.

This post was tagged as .

Many more can be found on the main index page or by looking through the archives.

This page contains a single entry from the blog posted on August 5, 2008 6:05 AM.

The previous post in this blog was Miscellaneous Impressions of Malaysia.

The next post in this blog is Won't You Sell Me a Car?.

This post was categorized as meta.

This post was tagged as angina "heart disease" .

Many more can be found on the main index page or by looking through the archives.

This page contains a single entry from the blog posted on July 27, 2008 5:34 AM.

The previous post in this blog was Ozeki Toyko Cuisine.

The next post in this blog is It Had to Happen.

This post was categorized as expat life.

This post was tagged as .

Many more can be found on the main index page or by looking through the archives.

This page contains a single entry from the blog posted on July 25, 2008 6:18 AM.

The previous post in this blog was Viet Passion.

The next post in this blog is Miscellaneous Impressions of Malaysia.

This post was categorized as .

This post was tagged as .

Many more can be found on the main index page or by looking through the archives.

 
Creative Commons License
This weblog is licensed under a Creative Commons License.