If there’s one thing that gets talked about frequently as a measure of success in MMOs, it’s the Great Subscriber Number. The number of players that are interested in the persistent world of an MMO is, after all, more likely to feel “massive”, more interesting in social dynamics, and, for the money folks out there, more revenue. It’s no surprise that a standard of success is attached to subscribers as a result.
But after reading what Up Past Midnight’s Aiiane had to say the other day regarding living and dying by the subscriber number, I begun really thinking about how worthwhile a simple number is for an MMO to be considered a success. To a certain extent, the argument holds water, but I think it’s more from a practical standpoint. I say practical because it’s obvious that every MMO out there has to have subscribers to actually pull a profit and keep a game viable and relevant. I also mean practical in the definition of the idea that “Massively Multiplayer” needs the “Multiplayer”, too.
Within the communities I’ve shepharded, however, subscriber numbers are really only used as a secondary means of declaring a game a success. Even if you say “11 million players can’t be wrong”, ala World of Warcraft, there’s an easy counter-argument to be made in that millions of people go to McDonald’s, but yet would not consider that quality foodstuffs. No, the real reason WoW has garnered the success that it has is through gameplay elements, features, and a little dumb luck, not through some number crunched through active account subscriptions. Developers reserve subscriber numbers for press releases and general “state of the game” addresses. The real meat and potatoes comes from changes, patches, and gameplay.
I guess the message I’m trying to send is that both players and developers can stand to look at subscriber numbers for an MMO and say “that’s more of an effect, and not a cart-before-horse smoking gun”. Players should feel good about a game if they are having fun playing it, regardless of how many others share the same experience or impressions. Developers should stop worrying about how many subscriptions they are predicting or hoping to acquire and concentrate on creating fun gameplay experiences. Both should be extra cautious about using subscription numbers as the clarion call for success or failure, because looking at it from a deeper level, the reasons for both stretch far beyond monthly active playerbase. When more folks learn how to do that, I think they’ll stop fretting over game experiences and have a little bit more of a good time.
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I believe your comments are spot on, and that subscriber numbers are just epeen by the gaming companies on a large scale than forum trolls. And anyone who reads blogs (which, naturally, includes ALL of your readership) is likely discerning enough to realize that those numbers can easily be manupulated and should be taken with a grain of salt (Warcraft’s large percentage of that 11 million being extremely low revenue China subscribers, for one).
But as most people likely realize as well is that we are dealing with the same phenomenon that makes public companies slaves to the Quarterly Report: namely that in the end this is about money. They have to get money from somewhere (i.e. Wall Street, Venture Capitalists, etc), and whomever gives you money expects a return. So you have to keep them happy, usually with some kind of number indicating success. Investors don’t care if you have a quality product, but care that you have some kind of numerical indicator that means they should be getting their money back plus interest in a bit.
None of this says you are wrong: many companies would be much better off if they did not follow the money every three months, just like your suggestions would likely make for a better experience. But we have not been able to break the mold on Wall Street. I hope we have better success here!
Very true, and thanks for that link – interesting article!
With more and more games being F2P these days, or at least Free-ish to play, like Free Realms and many many others, saying you have eleventy-zillion “subscribers” doesn’t mean much.
It’s an interesting figure but not one that necessarily shows the whole picture.
I started to write a reply but I’m afraid it got rather long:
http://stabbedup.blogspot.com/2009/11/mmos-use-of-subscriber-numbers-as.html