Best marketing step ANet could do right now - RELEASE PLAYER NUMBERS

[jokke.6239]

15 hours ago, Farohna.6247 said:

I quit playing WoW 10 years ago.  Two years before that people were whining that it's a dead game.  And they would release the numbers since it was bigger than some nations.  So yehhhh, that's not really a good measure.  

Unless you're investing in stock, who cares?  That is not something I looked at when I started playing.  I was interested in the gameplay and friendliness of the community.  

 

Yeah it's silly

But tbf ... Wow went from being the biggest game in the world with like 12-14 million subscribers to a fraction of that

Besides the natural drop in player base for Guild Wars 2 after the launch period, I think the player numbers has been pretty consistent, if not grown

[Krzysztof.5973]

All you will end up doing is creating an expectation to not only release numbers from older expansions, but also all the future ones. We wouldn't want to brag about numbers when the future patch will possibly end up horrible, now would we? 

[wolfof.1842]

7 minutes ago, Triptaminas.4789 said:

U also think consoles still relevant, which is on its own kinda hilarious considering Microsoft binning the consoles and whole industry in panic there.

Consoles are more than fine, only changing. People like handheld consoles now.

Nintendo switch is #3 top sold console ever. 143 million units sold or more now.

Microsoft only struggle because: why buy Xbox when Playstation can do same and more, exclusive games...? 

This thread is about player count and MMOs don't care if you play on PC, Playstation, mobile.
Game is a game, numbers are numbers, more players = more players.

[Farohna.6247]

28 minutes ago, jokke.6239 said:

Yeah it's silly

But tbf ... Wow went from being the biggest game in the world with like 12-14 million subscribers to a fraction of that

Besides the natural drop in player base for Guild Wars 2 after the launch period, I think the player numbers has been pretty consistent, if not grown

Yeh I played at its peak, and they were very proud to advertise the number of players.  And absolutely it has decreased.  

GW2 feels much more consistent and agree possibly has grown.  It would be interesting to see the numbers but I don't think it would suddenly bring in more people.   With the lack of advertising budget (other than PoF which is the only time I recall seeing it anywhere and it made me stop and ask what game is this), it's a word of mouth campaign.  

Also the number of players vs active accounts.....we all know some people have many accounts.  So I'm not sure exactly how accurate it would be to release numbers. 

[mungozen.2379]

2 hours ago, SpaceMarine.1836 said:

Not only that but he's also not what this thread is about. It's not about people whom already play GW2, it's about ANets inability to properly attract new people to play the game.

What does that have to do with the publicly releasing the population of a game?

Do you think people care about how many other players are in the game when there are enough players to enjoy most of the content most of the time?

I am sure that Anet does invest adequately into marketing the game. That the advertising doesn't resonate with you is of no matter, you are already playing the game.  Who it should resonate with is people who have never seen the game. 

Consider that most people will only ever see GW2 once or twice in advertising before deciding if they want to look at it further.  Those one or two moments need to resonate.  They need to hook within a couple of seconds.  They need to connect in as few words as possible.

If Anet has one chance to advertise GW2, what statement do you think has more weight to a prospective new player?

• GW2 is FTP no PTW
• GW2 has a lot of Expansion content
• GW2 has X player base size

None of those actually advertise the game itself.  I would suggest they enhance the sales pitch, but don't sell the game. 

• GW2 is a Fantasy MMO with Single Player and Cooperative Story, Open World, Instanced and PvP content.

The above sentence would at least give a prospective new player enough information to decide if this is a game they want to try.

[wolfof.1842]

35 minutes ago, jokke.6239 said:

But tbf ... Wow went from being the biggest game in the world with like 12-14 million subscribers to a fraction of that

Besides the natural drop in player base for Guild Wars 2 after the launch period, I think the player numbers has been pretty consistent, if not grown

3 minutes ago, Farohna.6247 said:

Yeh I played at its peak, and they were very proud to advertise the number of players.  And absolutely it has decreased.  

GW2 feels much more consistent and agree possibly has grown.  It would be interesting to see the numbers but I don't think it would suddenly bring in more people.   

You both say WoW decline but GW2 probably grow, why?

https://gw2efficiency.com/account/player-statistics 

• 443,466 Core account
• 418,240 HoT account
• 399,816 PoF account
• 270,251 EoD account
• 174,249 SotO account
• 92,718 Janthir account (so far, still new)

it's old accounts too, but numbers drop far most since EoD, SotO
Game get older, old players leave and less new players buy game of 2012 today.

[Farohna.6247]

1 minute ago, wolfof.1842 said:

You both say WoW decline but GW2 probably grow, why?

https://gw2efficiency.com/account/player-statistics 

• 443,466 Core account
• 418,240 HoT account
• 399,816 PoF account
• 270,251 EoD account
• 174,249 SotO account
• 92,718 Janthir account (so far, still new)

it's old accounts too, but numbers drop far most since EoD, SotO
Game get older, old players leave and less new players buy game of 2012 today.

That's why I said possibly.

Haven't looked at the numbers.  It's a 12 year old game, I don't expect it to be growing.  Consistent is good.  I'm not really familiar with GW2 Efficiency, does it include the entire player base info or just those who make an account on the site?

[QueenKeriti.5176]

8 minutes ago, Farohna.6247 said:

That's why I said possibly.

Haven't looked at the numbers.  It's a 12 year old game, I don't expect it to be growing.  Consistent is good.  I'm not really familiar with GW2 Efficiency, does it include the entire player base info or just those who make an account on the site?

Only those with an account there

[Farohna.6247]

2 minutes ago, QueenKeriti.5176 said:

Only those with an account there

Thank you. 

32 minutes ago, mungozen.2379 said:

What does that have to do with the publicly releasing the population of a game?

Do you think people care about how many other players are in the game when there are enough players to enjoy most of the content most of the time?

I am sure that Anet does invest adequately into marketing the game. That the advertising doesn't resonate with you is of no matter, you are already playing the game.  Who it should resonate with is people who have never seen the game. 

Consider that most people will only ever see GW2 once or twice in advertising before deciding if they want to look at it further.  Those one or two moments need to resonate.  They need to hook within a couple of seconds.  They need to connect in as few words as possible.

If Anet has one chance to advertise GW2, what statement do you think has more weight to a prospective new player?

• GW2 is FTP no PTW
• GW2 has a lot of Expansion content
• GW2 has X player base size

None of those actually advertise the game itself.  I would suggest they enhance the sales pitch, but don't sell the game. 

• GW2 is a Fantasy MMO with Single Player and Cooperative Story, Open World, Instanced and PvP content.

The above sentence would at least give a prospective new player enough information to decide if this is a game they want to try.

These are definitely better points for a sales pitch.  

[mungozen.2379]

15 minutes ago, wolfof.1842 said:

You both say WoW decline but GW2 probably grow, why?

https://gw2efficiency.com/account/player-statistics 

• 443,466 Core account
• 418,240 HoT account
• 399,816 PoF account
• 270,251 EoD account
• 174,249 SotO account
• 92,718 Janthir account (so far, still new)

it's old accounts too, but numbers drop far most since EoD, SotO
Game get older, old players leave and less new players buy game of 2012 today.

You are also missing that new players are buying the older expansions and playing through that content as well.  Looking at Unlock Statistics you can see how many registered accounts have completed different content.  Looking at how many people complete the first story achievements in an Expansion shows a similar spread to your info above.  

8 minutes ago, Farohna.6247 said:

That's why I said possibly.

Haven't looked at the numbers.  It's a 12 year old game, I don't expect it to be growing.  Consistent is good.  I'm not really familiar with GW2 Efficiency, does it include the entire player base info or just those who make an account on the site?

It only applies to people who have registered.  It also doesn't avoid the multiple accts per user.

It is an interesting example of what a cross section of the playerbase may be doing, but anecdotal at best.

 

[SpaceMarine.1836]

1 hour ago, mungozen.2379 said:

What does that have to do with the publicly releasing the population of a game?

Do you think people care about how many other players are in the game when there are enough players to enjoy most of the content most of the time?

Yes. And not's just that I think it, it's that it is easily observable. When it comes to MMO games specifically, the health of the playerbase is in fact one of the top 3 factors players use to decide whether they give it a try.

I mean why would you even ask this when the answer is so obvious?

You keep forgetting that we are not talking about GW2 players, but the potential new players the ANet's advertising is targeted at. They know nothing about how GW2 works, and how alive the maps/instanced content groups are. They just go to steam charts, look at the numbers and say "meh".

Edited August 29 by SpaceMarine.1836

[wolfof.1842]

28 minutes ago, mungozen.2379 said:

You are also missing that new players are buying the older expansions and playing through that content as well.  Looking at Unlock Statistics you can see how many registered accounts have completed different content.  Looking at how many people complete the first story achievements in an Expansion shows a similar spread to your info above.  

It only applies to people who have registered.  It also doesn't avoid the multiple accts per user.

It is an interesting example of what a cross section of the playerbase may be doing, but anecdotal at best.

 

What numbers could ever avoid "muliple accounts per user"? It's same for all other numbers and has no relevance here.

Is there any evidence for the opposite then, game growing after decade and longer?

And what do you believe, is GW2 growing, decline or constant then?

[mungozen.2379]

59 minutes ago, SpaceMarine.1836 said:

Yes. And not's just that I think it, it's that it is easily observable. When it comes to MMO games specifically, the health of the playerbase is in fact one of the top 3 factors players use to decide whether they give it a try.

I mean why would you even ask this when the answer is so obvious?

You keep forgetting that we are not talking about GW2 players, but the potential new players the ANet's advertising is targeted at. They know nothing about how GW2 works, and how alive the maps/instanced content groups are. They just go to steam charts, look at the numbers and say "meh".

Yet you started playing this game without any player statistics?  Can you back up this claim that player activity is a 'top 3' factor in choosing a game?  What you believe is obvious isn't obvious to me.  Educate me on why player numbers factually matter to a new player.  As long as there are enough players then what else matters?  How does that contextualize to GW2?

42 minutes ago, wolfof.1842 said:

What numbers could ever avoid "muliple accounts per user"? It's same for all other numbers and has no relevance here.

Is there any evidence for the opposite then, game growing after decade and longer?

And what do you believe, is GW2 growing, decline or constant then?

Anet/NCSoft posts quarterly reports that highlight the strength of GW2 year over year.  The game is earning money consistently and with some growth.  That tells me that enough players are playing the game to support it.

Edited August 29 by mungozen.2379

[TheGrimm.5624]

23 hours ago, SpaceMarine.1836 said:

I assume that the Steam players are about 1/10th of the playerbase.

I think your estimate is way off, Steam might be more like 1/1000. But in either case, remember each dollar spend in advertising is that much less spent on actual development so there is a fine line there. GW2's biggest advertising comes from word of mouth from players and to get players to do so they need development that players see as a value add. Be that in content, features, fixes, fun, replayability and all the things that different players will see as of value. 

Not sure what the underlying intent of the request is though. If you want to help market it, talk to the gamers in your groups. I admit I would never use the point of well there is 'x' number other people doing it as a talking point. I would point out what I like about the game and its features and why my friends might also like it for various reasons. 

[wolfof.1842]

1 hour ago, TheGrimm.5624 said:

I think your estimate is way off, Steam might be more like 1/1000.

That would mean 5 million concurrent players logged in the same time.
Please tell us when you find a MMO with this many players 😃 

E: found all-time peak concurrent players on Steam:

• PUBG:  3,25 million 
• Black Myth:  2,4 million 
• Palworld:  2,1 million 
• Counter-Strike2:  1,8 million 
• Lost Ark:  1,3 million 

So let's just say GW2 has not double player numbers of most popular games in the world...

Edited August 29 by wolfof.1842

[Cyninja.2954]

7 hours ago, wolfof.1842 said:

That would mean 5 million concurrent players logged in the same time.
Please tell us when you find a MMO with this many players 😃 

E: found all-time peak concurrent players on Steam:

• PUBG:  3,25 million 
• Black Myth:  2,4 million 
• Palworld:  2,1 million 
• Counter-Strike2:  1,8 million 
• Lost Ark:  1,3 million 

So let's just say GW2 has not double player numbers of most popular games in the world...

The Steam numbers are only useful to judge 1 thing: how stable the player numbers are. Then extrapolate that as an assumption about the entire player base (which still has issues given the seniority of non steam accounts, but it's the best we have).

In this case: very stable and recently growing thanks to the JW launch.

How stable this will remain, time will tell, but as far as concurrent players, the game seems to be doing fine.

All time peak, while nice to oogle over, is a completely useless metric for a live service game. It's far more interesting to judge trends in single players games.

[Eloc Freidon.5692]

Any game that doesn't show active player numbers is embarrassed or afraid of how the game looks with a low enough count. It is why WoW stopped showing theirs.

However, GW2 is already perceived to be a dead game so they should just show active player numbers.

[SpaceMarine.1836]

13 hours ago, wolfof.1842 said:

That would mean 5 million concurrent players logged in the same time.
Please tell us when you find a MMO with this many players 😃 

Yeah, I came here to tell him how delusional he is but thanks for doing it for me 🙂

[SpaceMarine.1836]

6 hours ago, Cyninja.2954 said:

In this case: very stable and recently growing thanks to the JW launch.

How do you know it's growing? We could tell that, if we got the hard numbers, but we don't. So what data do you base this on?

[SpaceMarine.1836]

17 hours ago, mungozen.2379 said:

Yet you started playing this game without any player statistics?  Can you back up this claim that player activity is a 'top 3' factor in choosing a game?  What you believe is obvious isn't obvious to me.  Educate me on why player numbers factually matter to a new player.  As long as there are enough players then what else matters?  How does that contextualize to GW2?

I started to play the game at launch in 2012 - 12 years ago. It's very different trying to get players to try a game at launch VS trying to get players to try out 12 years old game for the first time.

Player numbers matter in MMO games specifically because in MMO games, other players and interaction with them is the core of the game experience to such a degree that if there's not enough of them, certain content and game modes can end up being straight up unplayable (inability to find enough people for dungeon, raid, events or pvp matches).

I am starting to suspect you are trolling at this point by intentionally pretending that you can't understand the concept of separating existing players of GW2, who are aware of the state of the game and health of the playerbase, from the potential new players, whom have never played the game, and whom will be doing just a rough estimates and assumptions about these factors based on external statistics, such as concurrent player numbers.

I am still going to try it one last time to explain that perspective. Imagine you'd get tired of GW2, and decided to try another MMO, let's say New World. You'd assume that the scale of the world is roughly (I swear to god is someone comes around and says "but actually GW2 is bigger in scale" I am gonna lose my kitten. Read the "roughly" word.) comparable to GW2, in terms of world scale, and you would therefore assume the reasonable amount of players for the game to not feel like a complete wasteland. You then come across only public statistic about the game's playerbase: https://steamcharts.com/app/1063730 - 4k players daily peak. Based on that, most reasonable people will simply assume the game is dying, and give up on even giving it a try. 4k is just not enough players to fill a world of that scale with sufficient density of player to player interactions, especially if you split that number up between regional servers.

Edited August 30 by SpaceMarine.1836

[Cyninja.2954]

1 hour ago, SpaceMarine.1836 said:

How do you know it's growing? We could tell that, if we got the hard numbers, but we don't. So what data do you base this on?

If you had bothered to read:

Quote

 

The Steam numbers are only useful to judge 1 thing: how stable the player numbers are. Then extrapolate that as an assumption about the entire player base (which still has issues given the seniority of non steam accounts, but it's the best we have).

In this case: very stable and recently growing thanks to the JW launch.

 

so I was obviously referring to the Steam Player Chart (and I gave a short mention of what shortcomings these numbers have). There has also been developer communication on this issue in regards to new players starting with EoD (don't recall if SotO had some, to lazy to go back and check). We also have the NCSoft revenue reports, which show GW2 revenue growing amidst difficult conditions.

The issue with releasing player numbers is and always has been: they show a point in time situation, which then gets vastly over analyzed by players. Worse yet, the moment player numbers are NOT shared any longer, this immediately leads to assumptions of doom.

Look at WoW, they've stopped releasing player numbers years ago and ever since then the entire discussion has been about "how much has WoW shrunk since its peak*. There is a reason why even behemoths in the MMO space like FF14 and WoW do not release current numbers and that reason is: it will always come back to bite one.

Edited August 30 by Cyninja.2954

[quake.9023]

more like 3/100 is stream players. 

[wolfof.1842]

20 minutes ago, Cyninja.2954 said:

We also have the NCSoft revenue reports, which show GW2 revenue growing amidst difficult conditions.

There is a reason why even behemoths in the MMO space like FF14 and WoW do not release current numbers and that reason is: it will always come back to bite one.

GW2 also increase monetization with yearly mini expansion for $25, no more free to unlock $0 Living World...

When you sell more products more often to same number of players, earnings can grow.
When you sell more products more often to smaller number of players, earnings can be stable/same

So population is probably stable but not certain growing or not:

Janthir expansion trailers have 70,000 - 200,000 views.
GW2 Youtube channel has 183,000 subscribers

Not really sign for huge new popularity outside GW2 player base.
who talk about GW2 Janthir expansion online? Have not seen any hype, interest anywhere

[mungozen.2379]

2 hours ago, SpaceMarine.1836 said:

I started to play the game at launch in 2012 - 12 years ago. It's very different trying to get players to try a game at launch VS trying to get players to try out 12 years old game for the first time.

Player numbers matter in MMO games specifically because in MMO games, other players and interaction with them is the core of the game experience to such a degree that if there's not enough of them, certain content and game modes can end up being straight up unplayable (inability to find enough people for dungeon, raid, events or pvp matches).

I am starting to suspect you are trolling at this point by intentionally pretending that you can't understand the concept of separating existing players of GW2, who are aware of the state of the game and health of the playerbase, from the potential new players, whom have never played the game, and whom will be doing just a rough estimates and assumptions about these factors based on external statistics, such as concurrent player numbers.

I am still going to try it one last time to explain that perspective. Imagine you'd get tired of GW2, and decided to try another MMO, let's say New World. You'd assume that the scale of the world is roughly (I swear to god is someone comes around and says "but actually GW2 is bigger in scale" I am gonna lose my kitten. Read the "roughly" word.) comparable to GW2, in terms of world scale, and you would therefore assume the reasonable amount of players for the game to not feel like a complete wasteland. You then come across only public statistic about the game's playerbase: https://steamcharts.com/app/1063730 - 4k players daily peak. Based on that, most reasonable people will simply assume the game is dying, and give up on even giving it a try. 4k is just not enough players to fill a world of that scale with sufficient density of player to player interactions, especially if you split that number up between regional servers.

As I have stated a few times "there are enough players" but how do I know?  You can log in and play most game modes most times of day and find people there to play.  You can join guilds with dozens to hundreds of active players at a given time.  You can call out in map chat or post in LFG and people will help you.

What do you think matters more, a report stating how many players are playing a game, or logging in and seeing enough players in game?

Your assertion that 'most reasonable people' will not try a game based upon the player numbers is exactly why you don't show those numbers.  It creates a false narrative about the quality of the game.  Logging in and experiencing the game will tell you if enough people are playing it for what you want to do.

Which leads to the question 'how many is enough?'  We could say 'enough to do the largest events' which would be 50ish.  Yet for all the metas full of players, sometimes multiple maps worth, we still have DRM which see minimal activity.  Is GW2 under-populated because most of the player base will never go to a DRM?

And yet, with minimal effort, you can use LFG/Guild and find enough players to form a DRM group.

I think I am a reasonable person and I do not judge a book by it's cover.  Player activity statistics mean very little in terms of my enjoyment in a game, and don't sway my decision making process at all.  Yes, I agree, you do need enough people to enjoy a game, but that is after deciding if the story, the themes, the art, the game mechanics etc are worth playing.  If the game isn't worth playing, then who cares how many people are playing it?

So how would Anet best sell their game?  By having people log in and get hooked on what the game is about, not how many people are playing it.

 

Also, as an alternative to player base information, the following thread has quarterly sales info for GW2:

If you want to talk about business metrics, sales data > player base.  This shows that players are engaged in the game, and that the company is making enough money to continue developing it.  Paired with Anet/NCSoft refining their development cycles to promote annual releases with quarterly content updates and we can see they are invested in extending the life of this game.

[Cyninja.2954]

1 hour ago, wolfof.1842 said:

GW2 also increase monetization with yearly mini expansion for $25, no more free to unlock $0 Living World...

When you sell more products more often to same number of players, earnings can grow.
When you sell more products more often to smaller number of players, earnings can be stable/same

So population is probably stable but not certain growing or not:

Janthir expansion trailers have 70,000 - 200,000 views.
GW2 Youtube channel has 183,000 subscribers

True, but in the end you also need to have players spend that money in the first place. You are pretending as though the player base of this game is not very price sensitive, which it is.

Janthir Wilds released 10 days ago to a niche audience in a niche market.

Quote

Not really sign for huge new popularity outside GW2 player base.
who talk about GW2 Janthir expansion online? Have not seen any hype, interest anywhere

MMORPGs especially established ones do not see the same hype cycles as other games in the industry, like say Black Myth Wukong. The barrier of entry for MMOs remains high which is why continuous and stable growth is more important.

What you see or do not see is in this case highly subjective on how you want to look at it.

Again all official communication we have had is upbeat and that the game is doing well, far better than during its low points. This is mirrored by revenue reports and the limited player numbers we have. If that is not enough for you, then you are free to doom as much as you want about this game not exploding with millions of new players at once.