MMO(M)GChart Updated
Welcome back to the interwebz, SirBruce. A lot has changed since you last contributed a fancy chart to the world. Games have come and gone, WoW has crested above the 10 million mark, and 38 Studios has come to life. While he still can’t spell my name (there’s no “C” in it!), he has returned. Visit MMOGChart.com for his latest comparison of MMO subscriptions. P.S. I still think the “MMOG” acronym is more correct than “MMO,” but even I have given it up–keep up the good fight, SirBruce.
Thanks for the welcome back.
When I started I registered mmogchart, mmorpgchart, and mogchart (for a short time there was an attempt by some to shorten the acroynm from MMOG to just MOG, but that never went anywhere). But I didn’t think to register mmochart, and some other domain squatter grabbed it, and they never respond to my requests to buy it from them, so…
I’m certainly keeping the G even if I get the domain.
Of course, the site has gotten a makeover too, and I’m looking at transferring the charts to a nice interactive flash solution, but one thing at a time…
Bruce
PS - I fixed your name in the Blogroll.
I skimmed those charts, and I noticed a curious trend: Smaller indie games tend to start with fairly flat numbers which slowly but steadily rise continuously, whilst all the major ones shoot up like a rocket on release, hover for a bit, and then slowly descend.
It’s a function of their distribution model. AAA titles get released at retail with lots of advertising; as a consequence they get lots of press attention and lots of consumer attention and grow quite rapidly after launch. You get what’s something like a log-normal distribution. A good game can keep growing for 3-4 years whereas a bad game may reach its peak in the first few months, but then it levels off and then begins a slow decline over the remainder of its lifetime that is almost irreversible.
A game like EVE Online, Second Life, RuneScape, Tibia, Dofus, etc. rely on digital distribution and world of mouth. Thus, they subscriber base grows organically over time, starting quite slow but eventually accelerating. These games, too, should eventually reach a peak and then got into decline like other MMOGs. It’s just that they aren’t reaching that peak subscription base quickly because they don’t have a big retail presence.
I wonder if it also has something to do with the foundational strength of a community. The big-splash games have far more people trying to form the foundations of a community, and therefore it may be less firm. The smaller games have a very dedicated group of people to create a small but strong foundation to build from.
The big difference between the big-splash vs. the niche games is that the marketing blitz does get a lot of people to try a game. If they don’t deliver, they purge really really quickly. And, that marketing blitz can make delivering more difficult, because expectations are also increased.
We’ve all seen what a big-splash marketing blitz can do when the game actually delivers in the form of World of Warcraft. The polar opposite of that would probably be Vanguard, which had a pretty big splash, but did not deliver and purged very quickly.
Indeed, welcome back. Another suggestion from me! May I recommend the Google Charts API?
Actually I’m looking at amcharts.
The solution has to be able to read the data directly from the Excel or CSV file and provide interactive charts that are linkable. And be free.
Bruce
That would be awesome, Bruce. I love reading the data but the current charts can be pretty hard to read. You’re posting data about quite a few games that are still current, and that leads to a lot of data points in a small area.
Best of luck, I hope you find an easy and free solution.
You’re always free to download the Excel file from the Downloads section and make your own easier-to-read charts.
Bruce
LOL that response belongs back on that Community Manager thread. I think I’ll add it.