ARR has 600k subscribers

[Reslin]

That's awesome news. The dedication SE has shown to this game deserves to be rewarded IMO. I'm curious how they sold 1.5 million copies, and only have 600k subscribers though.

Easy. Many people get an mmo with no attention to pay a monthly fee. Some find the initial price a drop in a bucket, a friend or family member buys it for them, and etc. People try mmo's to see if it's for them. Many felt it wasn't. Then there's the RMT who are constantly banned, buy a new account, get banned, buy a new account, and etc. You'll never have close to as much as how many people actually buy the game.

[Blarp]

Easy. Many people get an mmo with no attention to pay a monthly fee. Some find the initial price a drop in a bucket, a friend or family member buys it for them, and etc. People try mmo's to see if it's for them. Many felt it wasn't. Then there's the RMT who are constantly banned, buy a new account, get banned, buy a new account, and etc.

So 900 thousand people just stopped playing in three months time? It seems like a weird discrepancy to me. In any case, no need to dwell on it as 600k subscribers is excellent.

[Reslin]

So 900 thousand people just stopped playing in three months time? It seems like a weird discrepancy to me. In any case, no need to dwell on it as 600k subscribers is excellent.

Look at WoW. 12,000,000 people bought it. 21,000,000 bought the expansions by 2012. WoW has 10,000,000 subscribers. That would mean over 20,000,000 has "stopped playing." This is normal. Most people that buy something simply don't stick with it.

P.S. This is unit's sold usually Blizzard doesn't include Digital download under their "Units sold." so the number is likely much higher than this.

[Blarp]

Yeah, over it's 10 year lifespan.

[Reslin]

Yeah, over it's 10 year lifespan.

It also really depends. Remember, last month they sold 500,000 more copies. 1.5m registered users. 600,000 PAYING subscribers. This is based on those who have paid. What about people who still have their first month? We don't know how many of those there are. We also don't know how many of them will sub so that's also irrelevant but trust me when I say this is normal. Typically only a fraction of the people who buy an mmo even subscribe.

[Argent_Wings]

How many of those accounts are actual players and not ill-gotten goods used by gilsellers?

It's comforting to know the game is growing, but I've always taken issue with the numbers game because details like whether such things are being used by customers or are merely sitting there collecting a monthly subscription are disregarded. From a profit standpoint, I'm sure SE doesn't care either way, but I do.