SE cares not for people in school or working.

[Astarica]

Are the people defending this practice as clueless as SE themselves? You need proof NA is the biggest MMORPG market? Just go to any MMORPG and start counting the number of NA servers versus EU servers. It won't take very long for you to realize there's always more NA servers than EU servers. Korea and China are potentially the wild cards but I'm pretty sure FF14 is not trying to cater to either. The reason why EU tends to be neglected at the expense of NA is not because everyone hates Euros. The reason why almost every other MMORPG has a NA-friendly schedule over EU-friendly schedule is not because they're all based in NA. It's because NA is a bigger market than EU. If anythign, NA-based companies have a harder time doing a NA-friendly schedule than EU-friendly schedule, and yet that's never stopped them from putting patch at 1am PST or so.

[Allyra]

You need proof NA is the biggest MMORPG market?

Yes, because this report says otherwise:

http://2p.com/831716_1/Global-MMO-Ma...3---Report.htm

GlobalCollect, the global payment service provider, just teamed up with video game market research company Newzoo to release the 2013 global gaming report. A big portion of the report focuses on MMO market, which, according to GlobalCollect, will account for $14.9 billion this year and get a 14% growth. Notably in the report, the Asia Pacific region is the largest and fastest growing MMO market that is supposed to generate an unprecedented 64% of MMO revenues.

Besides, the top 10 countries by average transaction value in video gaming transactions all come from Europe and the Middle East. You can reach the PDF file for free here.

Feel free to post an actual report to refute it though.

[whilke]

Yes, because this report says otherwise:

http://2p.com/831716_1/Global-MMO-Ma...3---Report.htm



Feel free to post an actual report to refute it though.

Yes, marketing reports are gospel. Oh, here is one that shows you different results: http://www.newzoo.com/infographics/t...opportunities/

[Astarica]

I'm sure all these MMORPG are purposely putting extra NA servers just to make it look like there's more of those types than EU/Austarlia servers? If EU is a bigger market than NA, it'd actually be easier for NA-based company have a EU-friendly schedule than NA-friendly schedule, yet this is never the case. Asia Pacific mostly refers to China and Korea (Japan is a nonfactor in the MMORPG world). China seems to be dominated by F2P, and Korea has its own unique quirks. Neither are relevent to this discussion since FF14 does not have a presence in either country. I'd have no problem if SE put a Korea/China-friendly schedule at the expense of NA, because that'd make sense as those two regions can definitely compete with NA.

[Allyra]

Yes, marketing reports are gospel. Oh, here is one that shows you different results: http://www.newzoo.com/infographics/t...opportunities/

Uhhh those two links are from the same study.

GlobalCollect [my link], the global payment service provider, just teamed up with video game market research company Newzoo[your link]

Read my article carefully, and yours carefully, and tell me where the difference is. (hint: charts are not listing the same parts to the study)

I'm sure all these MMORPG are purposely putting extra NA servers just to make it look like there's more of those types than EU/Austarlia servers? If EU is a bigger market than NA, it'd actually be easier for NA-based company have a EU-friendly schedule than NA-friendly schedule, yet this is never the case. Asia Pacific mostly refers to China and Korea (Japan is a nonfactor in the MMORPG world). China seems to be dominated by F2P, and Korea has its own unique quirks. Neither are relevent to this discussion since FF14 does not have a presence in either country. I'd have no problem if SE put a Korea/China-friendly schedule at the expense of NA, because that'd make sense as those two regions can definitely compete with NA.

First, this is largely irrelevant. You stated that NA was the largest MMO market, not "the largest MMO market in games that don't apply to Asia."

Second, according to the study, Asia is the largest market, and EU pay the most money. This is for two reasons: more playing p2p than f2p in Euro, and more money spent on micro transactions for f2p for those Euro.

Third: FFXI doesn't even have JP/NA/EU separated servers, AND FFXI doesn't have NA/EU separated servers. While FFXIV doesn't solely consist of FFXI players, I would say that gave them a huge boost.

Whilke's part to the study actually shows NA and EU being pretty dead even in the amount of players (with EU being very slightly ahead for payers).

[whilke]

Uhhh those two links are from the same study.



Read my article carefully, and yours carefully, and tell me where the difference is. (hint: charts are not listing the same parts to the study)



First, this is largely irrelevant. You stated that NA was the largest MMO market, not "the largest MMO market in games that don't apply to Asia."

Second, according to the study, Asia is the largest market, and EU pay the most money. This is for two reasons: more playing p2p than f2p in Euro, and more money spent on micro transactions for f2p for those Euro.

Third: FFXI doesn't even have JP/NA/EU separated servers, AND FFXI doesn't have NA/EU separated servers. While FFXIV doesn't solely consist of FFXI players, I would say that gave them a huge boost.

Whilke's part to the study actually shows NA and EU being pretty dead even in the amount of players (with EU being very slightly ahead for payers).

You should probably actually read the report that you keep going on about showing EU has a bigger MMO player base. By the way, here is the full link: http://info.globalcollect.com/Portal..._report_03.pdf

If you read page four you'll see that the North America market accounts for 17% of MMO revenue, while Europe plus the Middle East plus Africa account for 16%. We are talking about revenue here, which is what we care about, not number of players.

This other statement of yours "Besides, the top 10 countries by average transaction value in video gaming transactions all come from Europe and the Middle East. You can reach the PDF file for free here." is just flat out wrong.

There is no one EU or Middle East country that has higher MMO revenues over the US. It's only when you combine all of those countries do they come just under the US.

[Allyra]

There is no one EU or Middle East country that has higher MMO revenues over the US. It's only when you combine the EU, Middle East, and Russia do they come out just under the US.

Uhh quote where I said one. You are trying to argue against things I didn't argue about. also:

This other statement of yours "Besides, the top 10 countries by average transaction value in video gaming transactions all come from Europe and the Middle East. You can reach the PDF file for free here." is just flat out wrong.

Was from my article and the pdf link is in there, which links to a page in the study you also linked.

I'm sure all these MMORPG are purposely putting extra NA servers just to make it look like there's more of those types than EU/Austarlia servers?

To drive my point home. Let's take a look at WoW's servers:

http://www.wowwiki.com/Realms_list

I will break down the NA and EU for you:

(listed numbers are pve, pvp, and rp server amounts)

US

Pacific:
33
31
8
Mountain:
12
Central:
36
29
10

eastern:
32
32
4

US total: 227 Servers

Europe

English:
40
62
11
French:
13
17
7
German:
31
38
15
Spanish:
4
5
2
Russia:
7
14
0

Europe Total: 266 Servers

Feel free to double check as I went through the list fast, but if my calculations are correct that's an extra 39 servers for Europe. (Not even including Australia.)

I am sure there are some games where there are more NA servers, but at 8 mil~ subscribers I'd say WoW is a good indicator of MMO popularity server-wise.

[edit] I forgot to mention since I am not sure how much you know about WoW, but when looking through the list you will see some European servers share the same names as the NA ones, but they are still actually separate servers. Guess Blizz didn't want to deal with the stress of coming up with 400+ names for them lol.