Anet should not full reflect opinions of vocal minority in their patchnotes.

[Vayne.8563]

3 hours ago, GODh.3892 said:

It's very easy to manipulate data to something you want it to be...

 Why would Anet want to do that though? They're not trying to win an election.  They're looking for info on what's going on, not trying to prove a point to anyone.

[Ultramex.1506]

17 minutes ago, Vayne.8563 said:

 Why would Anet want to do that though? They're not trying to win an election.  They're looking for info on what's going on, not trying to prove a point to anyone.

We can never be sure

but one thing i'm sure is that i will alway get that A-S-S worth of 8g everyday while people bicker to prove the validity of that 60%

[Vayne.8563]

53 minutes ago, Ultramex.1506 said:

We can never be sure

but one thing i'm sure is that i will alway get that A-S-S worth of 8g everyday while people bicker to prove the validity of that 60%

8 gold for an hour's work isn't that much in the scheme of things though.  Just saying.  I make 6 gold doing Teq, Dragonstorm and dailies.

[Ultramex.1506]

17 minutes ago, Vayne.8563 said:

8 gold for an hour's work isn't that much in the scheme of things though.  Just saying.  I make 6 gold doing Teq, Dragonstorm and dailies.

It just me but i can combine those activities

[Vayne.8563]

52 minutes ago, Ultramex.1506 said:

It just me but i can combine those activities

Sorry I don't understand what you mean?

[Ultramex.1506]

10 minutes ago, Vayne.8563 said:

Sorry I don't understand what you mean?

Well i could just do daily, dragonstorm and DE for 12g but to each their own

[Vayne.8563]

8 minutes ago, Ultramex.1506 said:

Well i could just do daily, dragonstorm and DE for 12g but to each their own

Oh I see. You could do that. But since I'm not going to spend 3 hours of time time doing metas on most days, I can't. Or rather, if I had to do that every day for 8 gold, I'd lose my mind.  Once in a while is okay but it's too long and too busy for me on most days. When I'm doing other stuff, I'm not doing it all in a row.

[Ultramex.1506]

30 minutes ago, Vayne.8563 said:

Oh I see. You could do that. But since I'm not going to spend 3 hours of time time doing metas on most days, I can't. Or rather, if I had to do that every day for 8 gold, I'd lose my mind.  Once in a while is okay but it's too long and too busy for me on most days. When I'm doing other stuff, I'm not doing it all in a row.

For me it was 1h for pre-pre and 1h to finish the meta but i understan why it drive people away

Frankly, i would prefer if they re-design the pre-pre events mechanic

[Shikigami.4013]

Those whose job it is to make content for a huge number of different people are well aware of the concept of  "vocal minority/silent majority". Actually anyone with decent common sense knows that it is a universal concept, creating sayings like "The creaking wheel gets the grease", "Ten people who speak make more noise than ten thousand who are silent" and many others long before video games.

There is a wikipedia entry for vocal minority redirecting to silent majority with info on its history.

Assuming that ArenaNet does not understand this and that changes are made because of this minority and NOT because those changes are deemed needed frankly seems kind of silly to me.

And yes, I loved HoT maps and I would have liked PoF maps to have more verticality. They do seem bland to me compared to HoT. But not everything in life develops in the direction you personally like, and this is not because of a few others voicing an opinion.

[Erise.5614]

15 hours ago, Mil.3562 said:

If by population growth ANet meant the total game population regardless of active or dead accounts then of course it is growing. That number has been accumulating for 10 years. The more important number is the active population. And, judging from my four max guilds online populations, my friend list online populations, in-game metas, home cities and festivals populations, all these have shrunk by  a lot, no by MANY LOTS. And they got worse every year. FACTS.

The number is from Grouch during the Future of Guild Wars 2 blog post. Explicitly talking about the number of active players having doubled within the past 3 years. Link

Quote

This long-term focus is paying off—we’re seeing incredible growth in the community. In fact, the number of active Guild Wars 2 players has more than doubled over the last three years.

Long term players taking breaks or drifting away is normal. Communities breaking apart or slowly shrinking because the core group of people play less and less is normal.

Whether a game is healthy or not depends primarily on its ability to attract and retain new audiences continuously. The health of the most dedicated community is important too. It signals how many players get retained for very long amounts of time. Growing that part of the community is useful. But ultimately that's always going to be a tiny subsection of the overall player base and less relevant to long term success of a game. Everyone stops playing eventually. Taking a pause is usually healthy and good for personal well being. The important part is, who is left after they stopped? And when is the right time to get people back? 

And in that regard the game does seem healthy. Both via the claim in the blog post and in terms of revenue. Which has been increasing year over year. Slowly. It's far below what it was back during HoT times. But it's stopped its downward decline and started going back up again ever since 2018. Revenue source

Which supports the statement in the blogpost. That the active playerbase has been growing.

Edited May 22, 2022 by Erise.5614

[Svarty.8019]

On 5/20/2022 at 7:03 PM, flyingplanet.6912 said:

 The vocal minority in this forum doesn’t want any changes[..] And for some reason, anet seems to be accepting their ideas

It's easier to do nothing than to do something. That's the reason.

[AgentMoore.9453]

40 minutes ago, Erise.5614 said:

Which supports the statement in the blogpost. That the active playerbase has been growing.

I've heard that an active player is described as 'an account that loads fully into a map after logging in'.

Given that that's all you need to do to collect a daily log-in reward coupled with the growing idlefarm and multibox issues, many free account promos, and prolific expansion discounts offered this year, I'd say it's not difficult to understand who most of those 'new active players' are. Consider also the other recent stat given to us by ArenaNet regarding Mystic Coin generation, wherein it was stated that CM fractals only provide a tiny fraction of a percent of the economy's coins and the largest source is, by a landslide, daily log-in rewards. A lot of accounts loading fully into a map to collect Mystic Coins? It's more likely than you think.

15 hours ago, Vayne.8563 said:

Why would Anet want to do that (manipulate data) though? They're not trying to win an election.

No, they're trying to win over shareholders, keep veterans and whales, and entice new players to play both their newest expansion and their game full-stop. This is why we're expecting a revised new player experience and Steam release this year. They are avidly looking for new blood, and given the resources being sunk into this effort, I'd hazard a guess that it's because they're seeing flagging population/playtime numbers despite an increase in overall 'active' accounts. Something in their data is telling them they need to expand their market and I doubt it's just because they think Steam is neat.

Telling us Dragon's End had a 60% success rate, for example, was a manipulation of data because we weren't told what portion of people with access to Dragon's End that 60% represented. Was it three guilds playing DE repeatedly while everyone else gave it a try or two and then quit? Was it 60% of all people with EoD? We may never know, and that was 100% intentional. It was a vague statistic that looked good if you didn't read too much into it. Seems like basic marketing to me.

And that's kind of the point. ArenaNet is a business that shares (or doesn't share) data in an effort to paint the picture it wants of the state of its product. It's not a good or bad thing to do, it's just a thing that companies do and have done since the first Spirit Halloween sprouted from the ground in the late Cambrian era (this is not scientifically accurate).

[Vayne.8563]

2 hours ago, AgentMoore.9453 said:

I've heard that an active player is described as 'an account that loads fully into a map after logging in'.

Given that that's all you need to do to collect a daily log-in reward coupled with the growing idlefarm and multibox issues, many free account promos, and prolific expansion discounts offered this year, I'd say it's not difficult to understand who most of those 'new active players' are. Consider also the other recent stat given to us by ArenaNet regarding Mystic Coin generation, wherein it was stated that CM fractals only provide a tiny fraction of a percent of the economy's coins and the largest source is, by a landslide, daily log-in rewards. A lot of accounts loading fully into a map to collect Mystic Coins? It's more likely than you think.

No, they're trying to win over shareholders, keep veterans and whales, and entice new players to play both their newest expansion and their game full-stop. This is why we're expecting a revised new player experience and Steam release this year. They are avidly looking for new blood, and given the resources being sunk into this effort, I'd hazard a guess that it's because they're seeing flagging population/playtime numbers despite an increase in overall 'active' accounts. Something in their data is telling them they need to expand their market and I doubt it's just because they think Steam is neat.

Telling us Dragon's End had a 60% success rate, for example, was a manipulation of data because we weren't told what portion of people with access to Dragon's End that 60% represented. Was it three guilds playing DE repeatedly while everyone else gave it a try or two and then quit? Was it 60% of all people with EoD? We may never know, and that was 100% intentional. It was a vague statistic that looked good if you didn't read too much into it. Seems like basic marketing to me.

And that's kind of the point. ArenaNet is a business that shares (or doesn't share) data in an effort to paint the picture it wants of the state of its product. It's not a good or bad thing to do, it's just a thing that companies do and have done since the first Spirit Halloween sprouted from the ground in the late Cambrian era (this is not scientifically accurate).

If 3 guilds play DS repeatedly (I know two of them) I'm often enough on one of those maps to get the meta done. It doesn't matter if 3 guilds are doing it continuously. You just have to get onto one of that maps and that's completely possible.

The most casual players may not use LFG all the time, or be aware of any of them, but a player like me can make use of those three guilds doing in continuously.

This isn't even that different from Triple Trouble which I never go to unless a bigger organized guild is doing it.

[Kozumi.5816]

21 hours ago, Ultramex.1506 said:

We can never be sure

but one thing i'm sure is that i will alway get that A-S-S worth of 8g everyday while people bicker to prove the validity of that 60%

So you find a 50/50 chance at 4g/hour worth your time?

Buy 4 accounts, join a pvp lobby and do the pvp / wvw dailes in 20m for 8g instead dude.

Edited May 23, 2022 by Kozumi.5816

[Ultramex.1506]

33 minutes ago, Kozumi.5816 said:

So you find a 50/50 chance at 4g/hour worth your time?

Buy 4 accounts, join a pvp lobby and do the pvp / wvw dailes in 20m for 8g instead dude.

Heh ok, i can't really prove that my run has been most of the time 100% win, so i'll be on my merry way.

2 worst groups i was in, managed to complete with 1:30 min left., and 1 of them decided to dps without going for tail.

I would appreciate if the meta start when all pre-pre events are done, shorten the wait time if group start early

Edited May 23, 2022 by Ultramex.1506

[Freya.9075]

Anet wants to make money like any other business. They look at opinions and their data to see what needs to be changed. I’m really curious as to why they would manipulate their own data to hurt their own game. It makes no sense to do so.
 

This feels like a conspiracy topic. It’s no way for us players to know their data and why they choose to do what they do. What we do know is that they want the game to be successful and it is. 

[Erise.5614]

7 hours ago, AgentMoore.9453 said:

I've heard that an active player is described as 'an account that loads fully into a map after logging in'.

Given that that's all you need to do to collect a daily log-in reward coupled with the growing idlefarm and multibox issues, many free account promos, and prolific expansion discounts offered this year, I'd say it's not difficult to understand who most of those 'new active players' are. Consider also the other recent stat given to us by ArenaNet regarding Mystic Coin generation, wherein it was stated that CM fractals only provide a tiny fraction of a percent of the economy's coins and the largest source is, by a landslide, daily log-in rewards. A lot of accounts loading fully into a map to collect Mystic Coins? It's more likely than you think.

No, they're trying to win over shareholders, keep veterans and whales, and entice new players to play both their newest expansion and their game full-stop. This is why we're expecting a revised new player experience and Steam release this year. They are avidly looking for new blood, and given the resources being sunk into this effort, I'd hazard a guess that it's because they're seeing flagging population/playtime numbers despite an increase in overall 'active' accounts. Something in their data is telling them they need to expand their market and I doubt it's just because they think Steam is neat.

Telling us Dragon's End had a 60% success rate, for example, was a manipulation of data because we weren't told what portion of people with access to Dragon's End that 60% represented. Was it three guilds playing DE repeatedly while everyone else gave it a try or two and then quit? Was it 60% of all people with EoD? We may never know, and that was 100% intentional. It was a vague statistic that looked good if you didn't read too much into it. Seems like basic marketing to me.

And that's kind of the point. ArenaNet is a business that shares (or doesn't share) data in an effort to paint the picture it wants of the state of its product. It's not a good or bad thing to do, it's just a thing that companies do and have done since the first Spirit Halloween sprouted from the ground in the late Cambrian era (this is not scientifically accurate).

This is a really curious comment. And I mean this in the honest sense of the word. I find it very interesting.

Apparently you did hear about the PC Gamer interview, but only second hand and only by people around you who also feel like everything is going downhill. As our friend in the previous comment portrayed so succinctly. 

Here is the source for who is considered an active account. You are correct. It only requires logging in. However, it is extremely easy to detect alt accounts. Only play from the same IP? Often sends valuable stuff to exactly 1 player? That's probably not a different player!

Which is why I would very much believe Grouch when he says

Quote

Our growth over the last three years is largely driven by new players coming to the game and the return of veteran players. A lot of live service games saw significant growth during the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. We've been able to sustain that growth well into 2022 and see no signs of slowing down

7 hours ago, AgentMoore.9453 said:

No, they're trying to win over shareholders, keep veterans and whales, and entice new players to play both their newest expansion and their game full-stop. This is why we're expecting a revised new player experience and Steam release this year. They are avidly looking for new blood, and given the resources being sunk into this effort, I'd hazard a guess that it's because they're seeing flagging population/playtime numbers despite an increase in overall 'active' accounts. Something in their data is telling them they need to expand their market and I doubt it's just because they think Steam is neat.

Another curious point. Because this is true but nothing special to GW2. As I mentioned in my previous comment. The bulk of the players is never experienced, highly skilled veterans. As example, because I know the data there quite well, in League of Legends ~65% of players are at silver rank or below. ~90% of players are Gold or below. And that's only counting players who do actively participate in ranked games. Which is already prone to selection bias. 

You can find literally thousands of articles for mobile games talking about the importance of user acquisition for games at any point in their life cycle and at any player base size. 

And that is simply because no game retains forever. You have a constant throughput. There are ways to implement breaks into the playing experience. You can watch the GDC talk by the path of exile people who originally built their content patch and update schedule deliberately with that in mind. But even then people drop off eventually.

As far as I can tell. ANet realized in 2020 that the game can retain new audiences better than expected. The release on Steam will bring in a huge influx of players who have never heard about the game. Because they already know they can retain a substantial amount of them by the fact that the game is pretty fun to play still to this day. Because of that they got to commit to a next expansion and a lot of long term investments. Have the confidence by NCSoft to plan years and years into the future. That's not a sign of a failing game. You only do that if you are very confident that there is a long term future. Otherwise that money is thrown away. 

Look at other games like currently operated by Gameforge or Perfect World. That's what maintenance mode looks like. And it's pretty much the complete opposite of what we see around GW2.  

7 hours ago, AgentMoore.9453 said:

Telling us Dragon's End had a 60% success rate, for example, was a manipulation of data because we weren't told what portion of people with access to Dragon's End that 60% represented. Was it three guilds playing DE repeatedly while everyone else gave it a try or two and then quit? Was it 60% of all people with EoD? We may never know, and that was 100% intentional. It was a vague statistic that looked good if you didn't read too much into it. Seems like basic marketing to me.

And that's kind of the point. ArenaNet is a business that shares (or doesn't share) data in an effort to paint the picture it wants of the state of its product. It's not a good or bad thing to do, it's just a thing that companies do and have done since the first Spirit Halloween sprouted from the ground in the late Cambrian era (this is not scientifically accurate).

There is no way to actually provide solid context without showing all data. Yes, of course it was meant as PR statement. It was meant to be read by the community. And according to that statement the success rate did increase by 400%. I'm very critical of DE for a lot of reasons but I also think people are too hung up with the 60% figure. Besides the fact that it's not up to date anymore. There's been another tweak to the encounter since and success rates have surely increased again. Usually, in this PR speak jungle, the important bits are what isn't said. What they do say is trying to paint a positive picture. So long as there isn't anything specific they dodge or that suggests very different trends, you can generally believe that the trend is going in the direction claimed. Maybe not quite as much as suggested. The specific numbers are not entirely useful without context. But the existence of a trend is usually correct. That's why they shared any information at all. There's no need to do that. So companies usually don't if there's nothing positive to report. Again, the important bits are usually what they don't talk about. And they did talk about these topics very clearly. 

And, importantly. We do see this trend directly reflected in revenue data. Not entirely by a factor of 2. Suggesting to me it's not an equal amount of whales. Or that they shared the numbers at the EoD peak and the average numbers are a bit lower or some such. But we see significant growth year over year. Without major differences in monetization where they try to squeeze more money from the existing player base with predatory tactics.

Heavily suggesting there is in fact an influx of player. Which also explains why some hardcore players experience their communities shrinking despite the overall population growing. New players ain't gonna be hardcore veterans within a month. And probably not within their first year either! And even once they are, they might not gravitate to the same guilds or communities.

Both of these statements can be true. People seeing their playing environment get less active and more players playing the game.

[AgentMoore.9453]

6 minutes ago, Erise.5614 said:

Apparently you did hear about the PC Gamer interview, but only second hand and only by people around you who also feel like everything is going downhill.

I'm not sure where you got that idea; I hear about ArenaNet's remarks by reading or viewing them in interviews, articles, and official streams, because I prefer to see a credible source before accepting something as fact. Seeing as I don't keep a library of links to these sources, I don't typically have them on hand to incorporate into my posts when it's usually sufficient to just remember what they said.

Further, getting an impression that flagging stats in their data might be driving them toward new markets and redesigns of their core game doesn't mean everything is going downhill, it's just an observation of how the situation looks to me and seems like a logical explanation for the steps they've been taking lately. Games always have ups and downs in popularity and population - this could well be one of those dips despite the cheerful PR, and I think it's fine to acknowledge that without asserting that the sky is falling.

I apologize if I confused you at any point, but the posts I responded to were essentially 'why would they (ArenaNet) manipulate data?' and 'they say the game has massive amounts of new players and I believe them' and my responses were 'because companies like their product to look good' and 'the game is doing okay, but I have doubts that the population shift is due to new players and not just the many free accounts given away lately'. Mine is a grain of salt view, you're free to draw your own conclusions.

[Erise.5614]

12 hours ago, AgentMoore.9453 said:

I'm not sure where you got that idea; I hear about ArenaNet's remarks by reading or viewing them in interviews, articles, and official streams, because I prefer to see a credible source before accepting something as fact. Seeing as I don't keep a library of links to these sources, I don't typically have them on hand to incorporate into my posts when it's usually sufficient to just remember what they said.

Further, getting an impression that flagging stats in their data might be driving them toward new markets and redesigns of their core game doesn't mean everything is going downhill, it's just an observation of how the situation looks to me and seems like a logical explanation for the steps they've been taking lately. Games always have ups and downs in popularity and population - this could well be one of those dips despite the cheerful PR, and I think it's fine to acknowledge that without asserting that the sky is falling.

I apologize if I confused you at any point, but the posts I responded to were essentially 'why would they (ArenaNet) manipulate data?' and 'they say the game has massive amounts of new players and I believe them' and my responses were 'because companies like their product to look good' and 'the game is doing okay, but I have doubts that the population shift is due to new players and not just the many free accounts given away lately'. Mine is a grain of salt view, you're free to draw your own conclusions.

Apologies for that assumption! I interpreted that into your comment without knowing. I fully agree that they will obviously spin everything to look as positive as possible.

Though I find this even more interesting! Because you did quite strongly suggest that MCs and active accounts are primarily driven through alt accounts, rather than different (possibly new) players. Using a statement to back up this point from an interview where they said very directly this is not the case.

The reason I used revenue data as validation is because lying on those is illegal. There's serious fines and even jail time on the table if you lie about those to your shareholders. No spin or withholding of information allowed. 

That data does suggest to me there's been an increase. I don't recall serious changes to the monetization models that might get existing players to spend significantly more. Leaving the only sensible reason for this increase to be an influx of players. Though the data also doesn't suggest an increase by x2. Meaning either it was low paying users (possibly due to gifting away copies) or the growth wasn't as significant as stated (possibly due to them comparing the lowest point 3 years ago with the week after the expansion launch. Picking a particularly unfavorable point in time and comparing it to a particularly favorable one). But the trend has been upwards continuously since 2020, despite a lot of games and services seeing a decline ever since the stay home orders relaxed. Attracting new players is always a good idea. Just focusing on old audiences will inevitably result in a decline. You can't hold everyone forever. ANet committed to steam. 

I just find it very interesting how the conclusion, given the information we have, is: Focusing on new players means the game is doing poorly, they must be lying in their statements and there's other unknown reasons for the increase of quarterly revenue. 

Which is how I interpreted your comment. Though that may be a misunderstanding on my side yet again! 

Edited May 23, 2022 by Erise.5614

[Westenev.5289]

Every opinion on these forums are held by some substrata of the unvocal playerbase. Yes, even the dumb ones you disagree with.

 

People also come to places like the forums or reddit to vent, so comments will often be jaded or a little salty.

[Ashen.2907]

On 5/22/2022 at 12:28 PM, Erise.5614 said:

The number is from Grouch during the Future of Guild Wars 2 blog post. Explicitly talking about the number of active players having doubled within the past 3 years. Link

Long term players taking breaks or drifting away is normal. Communities breaking apart or slowly shrinking because the core group of people play less and less is normal.

Whether a game is healthy or not depends primarily on its ability to attract and retain new audiences continuously. The health of the most dedicated community is important too. It signals how many players get retained for very long amounts of time. Growing that part of the community is useful. But ultimately that's always going to be a tiny subsection of the overall player base and less relevant to long term success of a game. Everyone stops playing eventually. Taking a pause is usually healthy and good for personal well being. The important part is, who is left after they stopped? And when is the right time to get people back? 

And in that regard the game does seem healthy. Both via the claim in the blog post and in terms of revenue. Which has been increasing year over year. Slowly. It's far below what it was back during HoT times. But it's stopped its downward decline and started going back up again ever since 2018. Revenue source

Which supports the statement in the blogpost. That the active playerbase has been growing.

Solid point, just remember that the company can define, "active players," however they like, so take such statements with a grain of salt.

[Erise.5614]

Just now, Ashen.2907 said:

Solid point, just remember that the company can define, "active players," however they like, so take such statements with a grain of salt.

They did define it!

Active players are players who logged in and fully loaded into a map. So basically, they got to the point where they can grab their daily login bonus.

However, they did explicitly say that most of the accounts are new players and returning veterans (which is very easy to detect) and the revenue reports do suggest there is a very real, continuous increase (though not quite by factor 2). 

(Sources for both in my previous comment ; ) 

[Ashen.2907]

10 minutes ago, Erise.5614 said:

They did define it!

Active players are players who logged in and fully loaded into a map. So basically, they got to the point where they can grab their daily login bonus.

However, they did explicitly say that most of the accounts are new players and returning veterans (which is very easy to detect) and the revenue reports do suggest there is a very real, continuous increase (though not quite by factor 2). 

(Sources for both in my previous comment ; ) 

And is that how they defined it before?

If I define active as logging in for at least one hour per week and a month later change the definition to loading into a map for at least one second I would probably have a significant growth in active player numbers over the course of that one month....despite no change on the part of the playerbase.

To be clear, I am not accusing ANet of using this sort of tactic, but it is a tactic that businesses have been known to use.

[Gehenna.3625]

Is this one of those "I don't get what I want, so Anet must be listening to the ever-elusive vocal minority" threads?

[Erise.5614]

1 hour ago, Ashen.2907 said:

And is that how they defined it before?

If I define active as logging in for at least one hour per week and a month later change the definition to loading into a map for at least one second I would probably have a significant growth in active player numbers over the course of that one month....despite no change on the part of the playerbase.

To be clear, I am not accusing ANet of using this sort of tactic, but it is a tactic that businesses have been known to use.

That's the fun bit! We can see an approximation of that!

I mean, obviously it is a selective stat. The number was shared after the release of EoD which is expected to be a high activity time. And compared to a low point of GW2.

But, the precise percentage isn't the important part about the statement. Because the trend is accurate. Revenue crashed in 2018 to a historic low at the end of 2019. Ever since it's been going upwards. And different to the metrics of a lot of other services or games it wasn't a 2020 burst that's already receding. But it's been going up with steady, continued growth. 

2019 Q1: 16.3, Q2: 15.8, Q3: 15.1, Q4: 11.3

2020 Q1: 12.5, Q2: 15.6, Q3: 18.8, Q4: 14.1 

2021 Q1: 16.3, Q2: 16.0, Q3: 19.1, Q4: 22.2

The last time GW2 was above 20 billion krw was at PoF release for 3 quarters. And before then during HoT release for two quarters. I'm not even making any jokes when I say that for the first time GW2 has displayed consistent growth. The history of GW2 is pretty much an expansion followed by a steady (or very sharp) decrease. With the 2020 pandemic they gained momentum upwards and kept it far longer than most other companies managed.

So, exaggerated? Yes.

Revenue growth is up by only about 30% compared to 2019. Q4 2018 vs Q4 2022 is up by a bit over 40%. Sounds like there's either a lot of new players who aren't buying much yet. Or a bunch of people who got a free copy and aren't sure about spending anything yet. Or selective reporting by ANet. But the growth is there. We can see it. In a context where they really can not lie or twist the truth.