How many of us are there?

Anyone knows if there any official numbers about active players or aby estimates?(unofficial)

As far as I know the last official figure was around the time PoF was released when Anet said there were 11 million accounts.

But of course accounts isn't the same as number of players - unless I am actually two people and I just haven't noticed. Number of active players is even harder to know because how do you define 'active' in a game without subscriptions? If someone logs in once a week are they active? Once a month? Once per quarter? What if they log in for a few days to play the latest release then stop until the next one is out?

I'm sure Anet have various figures like average/highest number of accounts online at once, average daily unique logins, average time online etc. and all kinds of other aggregate data - for example I've heard them talk about 'heat maps' which show where players spend the most time in-game. But for whatever reason they don't tend to share that with us.

They have occasionally done charts with various kinds of data like most/least common race/profession/gender, but I don't think we've had one recently.

42. Plus or minus.

If you run lists of "Most Popular MMO" in Google.. you will get reports of GW2 having anywhere between 1.5 (one point five) to 3 (three) million active users.

What is defined by "Active users" I have no idea. Feel free to check the links and see what others have said. Some cite sources, some don't.

Added:

Here you go. Some source info.

Here is where the 3 Million came from.

This is where the 1.5 Million came from.

From this, it seems that 1.5 is closer to reality then the 3 million, but, again, we have not gotten any real numbers directly from Anet or NCSoft regarding this.

Guild Wars 2 is still considered one of the more popular western MMOs. It's probably in the top 5 in the west. Most MMOs don't publish number of active players with reason. Player numbers shift greatly over time. For example, after HoT there was a 9 month drought of content for casual players. All that was out was the PVP season and raids during that 9 month period, and from anecdotal evidence, population fell during that time. If numbers were published regularly it would look bad for the game. By the same token, when POF came out a lot of people came in to try mounts and a lot of people came back. Some stayed, some left. If you published the numbers back then it would seem artificially high. There's simply no way to know, but there are a lot of theories.

@Vayne.8563 said:Guild Wars 2 is still considered one of the more popular western MMOs. It's probably in the top 5 in the west. Most MMOs don't publish number of active players with reason. Player numbers shift greatly over time. For example, after HoT there was a 9 month drought of content for casual players. All that was out was the PVP season and raids during that 9 month period, and from anecdotal evidence, population fell during that time. If numbers were published regularly it would look bad for the game. By the same token, when POF came out a lot of people came in to try mounts and a lot of people came back. Some stayed, some left. If you published the numbers back then it would seem artificially high. There's simply no way to know, but there are a lot of theories.

I would agree that GW2 is one of the more populated MMOs in the west, but there are two caveats to that:

First of all, it's not saying much considering nobody outside WoW can claim a whole lot of players in the west. And the number of 11 million accounts is nice but SWTOR has accounts at least over 12 million last time I checked but that game is definitely less populated.

Secondly, population is a good thing, of course, but they also need to spend enough money to keep the game viable for ArenaNet. I'm not saying that's not the case or that the game is dying but, outside the spikes of the expansion releases the trend so far on quarterly revenue is downward and has been for years. There should be another financial report in a week or two and hopefully the revenue hasn't gone further down. In the end that's what happened after the HoT spike and it'd be a shame if it persists now the PoF spike is presumably over with.

Fingers crossed but time will tell. And even if the trend is still downward I don't know what the minimum is that ArenaNet needs to continue so again, this is not saying the game is dying. But I think you'll agree that if the revenue trend keeps going down, eventually that will be problematic.

Dunno, but every zone I play, at almost any time has plenty of players.And since WoW was mentioned, GW2 low-level zones are evidently and understandably far more populated than WoW's.So....there's plenty of players :-)

Game copies sold, and active accounts, are totally different aspects. All my friends left the game a few years ago because of the voting and promotion of solo-play only in PvP, back then. I remained alone as casual player, but I do not know if I can be considered active myself. I only enter for daily PvP in Unranked, still searching for a shadowy fun of old-fashioned teamwork with random members from guilds, while trying to do my daily a few minutes; and that's about it. I could be considered as active because I do dailies, but in my personal opinion I do not wish to be seen as active, because PvP is not as fun as it was in the days of premade-teamwork with voice-chat and PvP dedicated guilds.

From what I read in guild chats, the PvE is worth it, so the population must be really high in those areas. That 1.5 million active accounts may be a real number.

The last time I saw a number that was attributed to something other than player approximations was in the Fortune.com article on GW2 ESports (ik,r) from November, 2015. The relevant numbers and source cited were:

“Guild Wars 2 has proven pretty resilient historically, with about 1.5 million monthly actives,” SuperData Research CEO Joost van Dreunen says. “Since it switched to free-to-play in late August, Guild Wars 2’s monthly active user base has doubled to 3.1 million (October 2015). By entering the ESL Pro League, ArenaNet is leveraging its player-versus-player style game play, and is trying to offer a broader experience.”

http://fortune.com/2015/11/24/areanet-investing-in-esports/

Make of that what you will. Bear in mind that Play for Free was only a few months old, HoT was less than a month past its release and "monthly active" is hardly a metric for consistent play.

@Gehenna.3625 said:

@Vayne.8563 said:Guild Wars 2 is still considered one of the more popular western MMOs. It's probably in the top 5 in the west. Most MMOs don't publish number of active players with reason. Player numbers shift greatly over time. For example, after HoT there was a 9 month drought of content for casual players. All that was out was the PVP season and raids during that 9 month period, and from anecdotal evidence, population fell during that time. If numbers were published regularly it would look bad for the game. By the same token, when POF came out a lot of people came in to try mounts and a lot of people came back. Some stayed, some left. If you published the numbers back then it would seem artificially high. There's simply no way to know, but there are a lot of theories.

I didn't bring up the 11 million number, so I don't know why you are when replying to me.

As for only WoW has a substantive population, I am forced to disagree, as I am with your comments about what the game is making. The issue here is that you make the assumption that every game doesn't have a sliding income scale, but they pretty much all do. That's expected. Even WOW. It doesn't make as much now as it did five years ago.

This all has to do with the business model that none of us are privy too. The fact is, this game is probably exceeding expectations laid out in the business plan. There have been no major layoffs, there has been hiring, content is still coming out at the same rate. There's nothing to indicate this game is slowing down in profitability. It's making more than 4 million a month, every month since launch. that's a lot of dosh for a six year old game. An awful lot.

Saying only WoW is successful because they were around for such a long time and had the funds to advertise when they were pretty much the only game in town is like saying Pepsi isn't popular because Coke makes so much more money. It doesn't work that way. Sure WOW is the most successful MMO of all time and NO ONE has been able to match their profitability. But that doesn't mean other games aren't successful and don't continue to be successful. It means WOW got there first, at the right time.

I don't see other games with the funds to have commercials on TV with William Shatner, Chuck Norris and Mr T in them. WoW was able to do that, due to the success of other games before WoW launched. Right place and right time, at a time when they had very very little competition. Sure they cornered the market back then. Doesn't change the success of other games. Four million dollars a month or slow months makes this a successful product. We know that PoF sales exceeded expectations, for example because we were told so.

At stock calls, you know if a game is doing well or not. SWTOR and TSW both had to release a substantial portion of their development team after launch. Guild Wars 2 didn't and in fact, has more employees now than it did at launch, they went from about 300 to about 400. Not sure why you think that doesn't show success.

When GW rolls out a movie you'll know they have either hit rock bottom (and are reaching for new customers) or are reaching new heights (and it's time to celebrate).

You are alone we are just voices in your head.

@Vayne.8563 said:

@Gehenna.3625 said:

@Vayne.8563 said:Guild Wars 2 is still considered one of the more popular western MMOs. It's probably in the top 5 in the west. Most MMOs don't publish number of active players with reason. Player numbers shift greatly over time. For example, after HoT there was a 9 month drought of content for casual players. All that was out was the PVP season and raids during that 9 month period, and from anecdotal evidence, population fell during that time. If numbers were published regularly it would look bad for the game. By the same token, when POF came out a lot of people came in to try mounts and a lot of people came back. Some stayed, some left. If you published the numbers back then it would seem artificially high. There's simply no way to know, but there are a lot of theories.

I brought up the 11 million number to be complete, nothing more. It wasn't a retort or counter. I'm not arguing with you. I am just adding some ideas to the discussion and since most of it links to what you said I replied to you. However, do not see this as an attempt to debunk or counter anything you said. There is no need to be so combative.

For example, you say I make the assumption that every game doesn't have a sliding income scale. That is false. I do not make that assumption and it's you who is assuming that I am. This is how you make it a fight again instead of a discussion. I never said or implied that other games don't have a downward trend, in fact I recognize that fully. All MMOs do have this, but WoW has a lot bigger margin because of the huge amount of success they've had and their sales of expansions still outgun every other MMO in the west as far as I can tell. This is not a judgment but a simple observation and not a single game has been able to even come close. Surely SWTOR could've done a lot better but BioWare bungled that up good and it's not because of not having a big company to back them up financially (EA).

I think in that respect that GW2 is faring a lot better than other games, as I already said, but the truth is that for GW2 the quarterly income outside of the expansion spikes has gone down 50% over a period of 4 years. I specifically said that I am not saying that the game is dying because I do not believe it is but also I do not know where the threshold is for GW2. At the end of the day, the only thing that matters for GW2 is that it makes enough money to stay viable. And even though I do not know at which point that becomes problematic, if the downward trend persists, then it will become so eventually. And that's why I said that I hope the upcoming financial report is more positive because it some point you do want to stabilize the revenue at least or slow the downward trend.

And to say that there's nothing to indicate that this game is slowing down in profitability is a strange remark since the financial reports are a matter of public record. Again I'm not saying that the game is dying, but I do see the downward trend in revenue that is a matter of public record. I'm sure that you remember ArenaNet saying they were going to move up their expansion schedule because of revenue issues years ago. To act like there is no concern and all is well seems odd and quarterly revenue has been going down since then. So it was a good decision to speed up bringing out expansions.

Also I do not see the result of having 100 more staff in GW2 itself. Now that might be just me, but really I don't see more work put into it than HoT for example. I am enjoying PoF at least for the most part. I like the maps visually, the mastery system has improved a lot and well aside from the maps being so aggro heavy, the bosses having a gazillion HPs and being stuck on a story quest in LS4 because it's bugged currently, I'd say this is a great expansion. But I don't see this expansion requiring 100 more staff. So if revenue is down, which as you indicate is normal, then perhaps they are wisely starting on something new. That would more reasonably explain that much more staff.

So I'm not sure what you're being argumentative about, but there you are. Perhaps you see now that I'm not slagging GW2 or ArenaNet here. I have some criticism as you see as far as gameplay is concerned, but that's another point. But I think that when revenue is a matter of public record, there is nothing strange in noticing that 50% drop in quarterly revenue and to act like that doesn't exist cause they're hiring more people seems very odd indeed. Surely, when a game is of a certain age, it doesn't require more people to work on it, especially when your revenue trend is down. And even though I cannot know the truth, it seems much more reasonable to assume that they have started working on something new. Maybe GW3, maybe something else. In fact, I'd say that is the smart thing to do since revenues do go down over time no matter which game it is. And ArenaNet only have GW2 to make money off, so it makes sense to me that they would work on a new game regardless of what it is, rather than just seeing how far they can stretch it out with GW2 before it's too late. You know that it takes years to make a new game so better to have already started on it, because I think they didn't want to repeat what happened after GW1 where they had to leave the game in maintenance mode for years before GW2 came out cause they couldn't work on both at the same time.

So if anything, I'm accusing ArenaNet of being smart.

You know, this steak forum doesn't exist. When you put it in your mouth type or read something, the Matrix is telling your brain that it is juicy and delicious kitten.

Population will always oscillate. Players come, players go. Some players want more PvP/WvW with teamwork, others want more PvE to explore alone. Some like it casual, some like it 24/7. Whatever happens we know one thing from the past: Anet likes to listen to new players, because they always have new real money to spend for gems (then converted to gold).

It does not matter how high or low the population is right now. In one month, the game will have an anniversary of 6 years, which will most likely translate into -50% offers for expansions and more players with new money coming into the game.

Active population will always oscillate. If active population drops much, we will get special offers or another expansion. If active population drops way too much, we will get a GW3 release.

Hello fellow human. I can guarantee that I am one of you humans too playing this game of guildwars2. I enjoy very much the company of my fellow human friends in this game of guildwars2.

@Gehenna.3625 said:

@Vayne.8563 said:

@Gehenna.3625 said:

@Vayne.8563 said:Guild Wars 2 is still considered one of the more popular western MMOs. It's probably in the top 5 in the west. Most MMOs don't publish number of active players with reason. Player numbers shift greatly over time. For example, after HoT there was a 9 month drought of content for casual players. All that was out was the PVP season and raids during that 9 month period, and from anecdotal evidence, population fell during that time. If numbers were published regularly it would look bad for the game. By the same token, when POF came out a lot of people came in to try mounts and a lot of people came back. Some stayed, some left. If you published the numbers back then it would seem artificially high. There's simply no way to know, but there are a lot of theories.

You're reading a whole lot more into what I wrote emotion-wise than I put into it. That's on you. You can read that same language in a different tone of voice, because I'm not defensive or mildly annoyed. I simply disagree with you. One can disagree with you without being combative. You did however reply to me and quote 11 million which never made a difference to me, so I assumed that comment was directed at me.

None of this answers the OP's question, but WoW is an outlier for a whole lot of reasons and all the MMOs that come after it aren't able to repeat it's level of success because WoW started in a nearly empty field, with no competition. Games that came later simply have too much working against them.

Of the games that came later, Guild Wars 2 is among the most successful. But none of that answers the OP's questions. If you didn't intend to say what I thought you said, that's on me. But your language certainly makes it at least ambiguous.

@Vayne.8563 said:

@Gehenna.3625 said:

@Vayne.8563 said:

@Gehenna.3625 said:

@Vayne.8563 said:Guild Wars 2 is still considered one of the more popular western MMOs. It's probably in the top 5 in the west. Most MMOs don't publish number of active players with reason. Player numbers shift greatly over time. For example, after HoT there was a 9 month drought of content for casual players. All that was out was the PVP season and raids during that 9 month period, and from anecdotal evidence, population fell during that time. If numbers were published regularly it would look bad for the game. By the same token, when POF came out a lot of people came in to try mounts and a lot of people came back. Some stayed, some left. If you published the numbers back then it would seem artificially high. There's simply no way to know, but there are a lot of theories.

Not the emotions I read into it are not entirely up to me. Partially perhaps, but certain words are used with certain emotions and it's impossible to see from written text if you did or did not mean it. In any case, let's move on from that as it won't further any discussion. And my language might've been ambiguous. In written it often happens on both sides of a discussion because it really is impossible to write exactly what you mean, so I can definitely accept that I was not clear, particularly in the case of the 11 million accounts.

As far as how many players there are, nobody here knows and never did. That's the only real answer. Probably less than before but that's all you can really say. Only ArenaNet does know and that's always been the case. There may have been some mentions like how many accounts or games sold but that doesn't tell us anything about the population today. All I can say is that in comparison to for example SWTOR, GW2 is definitely doing better. At least with regards to population. EA doesn't specify revenue per game so I have no data there.

But as it stands, a game's health is not just dependent on population but very much also about how much people spend on the game. I hope that shows improvement, because no matter how populated the game is, if they can't make money out of it, they'll have to close it down. As I said I have no idea if it's anywhere near that point but since they were concerned about revenue going down and them upping the release schedule of expansions when the quarterly sales were double of what they were between HoT and PoF, it's not strange to think that the revenue between expansions still going down may be a concern that is not taken lightly by ArenaNet.

A few million per month, I think we were talking 4 million USD a month in the last quarter before PoF came out, sounds like a lot but when you have 400 staff then your month salary costs will likely run at 2 million USD at least. Then you have all the other operating costs that go on top of that. A margin will go to NcSoft for publishing and well profit probably etc. and then suddenly 4 million a month isn't perhaps so much anymore, especially if the downward trend continues. So then it becomes clear why the expansions were so important for them to release more quickly. Again, I'm not saying the game is dying but I think we might be getting at least closer to a point where turning a profit may become increasingly difficult for them. As for the OP, well I do wonder why the OP asks the question about population. If he wants to know how healthy the game is, then my answer is that you also need to take the financial side into consideration and I hope it's at least reasonably clear why I say that.

Besides, I really don't want to pick a fight with you. We've done enough of that in the past and I do apologize for any unclarities or strong reactions on my side.

@Gehenna.3625 said:

@Vayne.8563 said:

@Gehenna.3625 said:

@Vayne.8563 said:

@Gehenna.3625 said:

@Vayne.8563 said:Guild Wars 2 is still considered one of the more popular western MMOs. It's probably in the top 5 in the west. Most MMOs don't publish number of active players with reason. Player numbers shift greatly over time. For example, after HoT there was a 9 month drought of content for casual players. All that was out was the PVP season and raids during that 9 month period, and from anecdotal evidence, population fell during that time. If numbers were published regularly it would look bad for the game. By the same token, when POF came out a lot of people came in to try mounts and a lot of people came back. Some stayed, some left. If you published the numbers back then it would seem artificially high. There's simply no way to know, but there are a lot of theories.

Nothing to fight about. At stock calls, Guild Wars 2 has been said to be exceeding expectations on more than one occasion. It's all we can really go on. I tend to believe that, because it's the only information I have, backed up by the fact that a six year old game hasn't had any layoffs and keeps coming out with content.

@Gehenna.3625 said:

@Vayne.8563 said:

@Gehenna.3625 said:

@Vayne.8563 said:

@Gehenna.3625 said:

@Vayne.8563 said:Guild Wars 2 is still considered one of the more popular western MMOs. It's probably in the top 5 in the west. Most MMOs don't publish number of active players with reason. Player numbers shift greatly over time. For example, after HoT there was a 9 month drought of content for casual players. All that was out was the PVP season and raids during that 9 month period, and from anecdotal evidence, population fell during that time. If numbers were published regularly it would look bad for the game. By the same token, when POF came out a lot of people came in to try mounts and a lot of people came back. Some stayed, some left. If you published the numbers back then it would seem artificially high. There's simply no way to know, but there are a lot of theories.

I'm pretty sure that it wasn't ArenaNet that stated they must release expansions more quickly, but some comment at the NCSoft board meeting. ArenaNet has said that they are pretty much left alone on decisions about how to run the studio.Also, NCSoft does not publish Guild Wars 2. ArenaNet took over that responsibility some time ago.

@Inculpatus cedo.9234 said:I'm pretty sure that it wasn't ArenaNet that stated they must release expansions more quickly, but some comment at the NCSoft board meeting. ArenaNet has said that they are pretty much left alone on decisions about how to run the studio.Also, NCSoft does not publish Guild Wars 2. ArenaNet took over that responsibility some time ago.

I'm pretty sure it was ArenaNet themselves and this was before HoT was released. But it's really a moot point since ArenaNet is 100% a subsidiary of NcSoft.

And yes NcSoft does publish Guild Wars 2. Just google it and you will find that NcSoft is still the official publisher, which makes sense because it's better to do all publishing via the same logistics that are already in place. It would be a poor idea to make a separate publishing chain for ArenaNet themselves.

But in the end you're focusing on the wrong items. The truth is that quarterly revenue has been going down and they need to release expansions regularly enough to counter that. ArenaNet is 100% owned by NcSoft and as much as they might have creative freedom, I'm sure NcSoft will want them to hit certain targets to please the investors. That is just a simple business reality.

Of course NcSoft and ArenaNet aren't going to focus on the downward trend but what they're going to do about it in their communication. The expansions do make up for some revenue loss of course but it's all a downward trend, which is also normal. But in the topic of how many people play this game and how successful GW2 is, you need to consider finances as well.

As someone mentioned the studio has increased in size even though the revenue has gone down. That means they must be doing something. There have been suggestions of a mobile version of GW2 but that's all rumor. Perhaps they are working on something new, but something must've triggered them to want to hire more people and increase their cost. And since revenue is in a downward trend, it's not logical to think that GW2 is doing so well they are hiring more people to support it. That would only make sense if the revenue was not going down.

However, some people will feel that talking about numbers and downward trends means that I am saying the game is dying or something like that. And I want to make sure people understand that that's not what I'm saying because I simply cannot know where the minimum is that ArenaNet and NcSoft in a larger sense can accept to keep running the game. And if they are working on something else, even if it's something new, it would make sense to make at least one more expansion for GW2 in my view.

Looking at how the game deals with expansions and LS it seems to me that people are being separated by content more and more because not all areas are open to you unless you buy all the expansions and LS content. I find myself in the position of having the spend a couple of thousand Gems to unlock LS2 and 3 to get the mastery points I need for certain things. That doesn't really sit well with me out of principle. It's not a ton of money but when you've bought the game and both expansions that still doesn't mean you have access to the entire world apparently unless you play around the release of the LS chapters. I do find that very peculiar. But I digress... It would be nice if the next financial report in August has a better result for revenue since the PoF spike that we had. The HoT spike was a bit bigger but revenue dropped after that spike and lower than it was before. It'd be nice if that didn't happen this time around or at least that the trend stabilizes a bit.

At least two. My wife and I both play. likely more, you cant all be figments of my imagination.

@Gehenna.3625 said:

@"Inculpatus cedo.9234" said:I'm pretty sure that it wasn't ArenaNet that stated they must release expansions more quickly, but some comment at the NCSoft board meeting. ArenaNet has said that they are pretty much left alone on decisions about how to run the studio.Also, NCSoft does not publish Guild Wars 2. ArenaNet took over that responsibility some time ago.

Inculpatus Cedo is correct.

When I google, "Who publishes Guild Wars 2." the first thing that comes up is a Wikipedia article, which says NCSoft publishes the game. When I google "Does Arenanet publish Guild Wars 2?" the same Wiki article comes up first (big shock) but below is a reddit thread with a link to this article from 2015.

https://massivelyop.com/2015/09/01/pax-prime-2015-president-mike-obrien-addresses-rumors-about-business-model-and-the-arenanet-base-on-the-moon/?utm_content=bufferaa249&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer

So, NCSoft still wholly owns ANet, but ANet has assumed the role of publisher.

@IndigoSundown.5419 said:

@Gehenna.3625 said:

@"Inculpatus cedo.9234" said:I'm pretty sure that it wasn't ArenaNet that stated they must release expansions more quickly, but some comment at the NCSoft board meeting. ArenaNet has said that they are pretty much left alone on decisions about how to run the studio.Also, NCSoft does not publish Guild Wars 2. ArenaNet took over that responsibility some time ago.

Hah, well I stand corrected. Evidence is evidence so I won't fight it. A strange move from a general point of view, but it must've made sense for them somewhere. Perhaps because of the game being published in the west (let's not get into China here hehe). Still it's only a side note because in the end the costs still have to paid regardless of who does the actual job.

But thanks, I really appreciate you correcting me on this.

It's best to keep up with the information from articles, press releases, minutes, etc.