Sqrl said:
The thing is WoW numbers, like all MMOs, are horribly inflated. They love to count canceled accounts, banned accounts, inactive accounts, mule accounts, etc... Its technically true that they've had that many subscriptions but its not true that that many people actively play the game which is the number that produces revenue for them, not their LTD accounts. This used to piss me off as an EQ player too, UO, EQ, EQ2, WoW, etc.. they all do it. You won't see numbers go down until its obvious that they can't be going up because they pad it the best they can. And just to state this, I'm not trying to take anything from WoW, it is tremendously successful and probably will be for quite some time. |
You may have a point, but the WoW structure is quite unique. People don't have multiple characters or mules. Well, they do, but its all grouped as 1 account. Unlike games like Runescape where each account is one character, in WoW each paying account simply enters you into a personal lobby consisting of as many as a hundred of your characters. It's not uncommon for a single player to have a main, mule, and a half dozen lower level characters.
What I'm getting at is the fact that WoW has 10 million subscibers is even more amazing when you realize their competitors fight to have 10% of that and they are all including mules/alternates in their counts when WoW is not.
