How many people are playing UO?

[Zosimus]

I start out with at least 3 play UO.

Somebody you know, their friend, and count yourself.

The multiply the above by how many people you know.

That is all you need to play UO with.

So if you play solo, 3 people, 10 people, 15 people, or 1000, you still are playing UO with people who matters to you.

Wondering about the whole population that plays is an endless quest for knowledge. It's the one that you do play UO with is the key to enjoyment and fun.

 

[Petra Fyde]

And no, I wasn't paid to post that.

You can have half my annual fee

 

[Lady Storm]

A while back a disgruntled employee of EA made a statement of concern of UO....
While I always look at this as a anger induced tiraide and mostly set to hurt others ... there is sometimes kernals of truth inbedded in the mix.
One of these is the statement that at one time UO population was close to 1 million accounts.
This I do beleave was truth.
We all remember when you needed a shoe horn to walk at Brit bank on any shard...
The clammor of room for houses rang throughout UO to bug the Dev so much it was the root of the 1 house/1 account that some clever accountant made for EA to rip us off for more $$$.....
While I do beleave we got close to the magic million mark... Our population at present is low.
Not enough to worry Broadsword to our fate, as I can atest DAoC's population is far less then ours.
If Bonnie and the Team can get a working Billing program up and running that makes more logic then what we have now and more user freindly...... I have no doubt more will return and new come into the UO fold.
(I wrote a Pool company billing program long ago and its not a fun job to do...so I wish them luck and hope its way better then what we got now!)

 

[Zosimus]

A while back a disgruntled employee of EA made a statement of concern of UO....
While I always look at this as a anger induced tiraide and mostly set to hurt others ... there is sometimes kernals of truth inbedded in the mix.
One of these is the statement that at one time UO population was close to 1 million accounts.
This I do beleave was truth.
We all remember when you needed a shoe horn to walk at Brit bank on any shard...
The clammor of room for houses rang throughout UO to bug the Dev so much it was the root of the 1 house/1 account that some clever accountant made for EA to rip us off for more $$$.....
While I do beleave we got close to the magic million mark... Our population at present is low.
Not enough to worry Broadsword to our fate, as I can atest DAoC's population is far less then ours.
If Bonnie and the Team can get a working Billing program up and running that makes more logic then what we have now and more user freindly...... I have no doubt more will return and new come into the UO fold.
(I wrote a Pool company billing program long ago and its not a fun job to do...so I wish them luck and hope its way better then what we got now!)

You are talking about the EA employee that was under the name EA Louse and posted back in October of 2011. You have the wrong numbers. He never mentioned that UO had 1 million accounts. Warhammer was bleeding itself to death to very low numbers way before the licensing agreement expired.

He said.....


Anyway, back to Warhammer. We shouldn’t have released when we did, everyone knows it. The game wasn’t done, but EA gave us a deadline and threatened the leaders of Mythic with pink slips. We slipped so many times, it had to go out.

We sold mor ethan a million boxes, and only had 300k subs a month later. Going down every since. It’s “stable” now, but guess what? Even Dark Age and Ultima have more subs than we have. How great is that? Games almost a decade make more money than our biggest project.

 

[The Zog historian]

A while back a disgruntled employee of EA made a statement of concern of UO....
While I always look at this as a anger induced tiraide and mostly set to hurt others ... there is sometimes kernals of truth inbedded in the mix.
One of these is the statement that at one time UO population was close to 1 million accounts.
This I do beleave was truth.
We all remember when you needed a shoe horn to walk at Brit bank on any shard...
The clammor of room for houses rang throughout UO to bug the Dev so much it was the root of the 1 house/1 account that some clever accountant made for EA to rip us off for more $$$.....
While I do beleave we got close to the magic million mark... Our population at present is low.
Not enough to worry Broadsword to our fate, as I can atest DAoC's population is far less then ours.
If Bonnie and the Team can get a working Billing program up and running that makes more logic then what we have now and more user freindly...... I have no doubt more will return and new come into the UO fold.
(I wrote a Pool company billing program long ago and its not a fun job to do...so I wish them luck and hope its way better then what we got now!)

OK, I see Zosimus' correction. I didn't believe the million number for a second, anyway. It's as believable as the guy who supposedly claimed to have spent $2000 on transfer shields last year. I would have to see some verifiable numbers, not something someone pulled out of thin air.

The biggest problem with scarce housing space through early 1999 was that so many had been "stolen" and not allowed to decay. Many of us had placed several houses only to lose them all. Once we had the big publish with changing locks and a limit of one house per character, no problem: spots for a 7x7 could be found on even the busiest shards. Now by early 2000, the population had increased so much to where we needed a mirror-image land mass. Yet it still wasn't to give anyone a chance for any house of any size, rather, it was to give anyone a chance at a big house that most players were now able to afford. Space for large housing wasn't as big a concern in 1997/1998, when 150K for a large brick was quite a bit to save up.

Of course EA knew that one-account-one-house would bring in more money, but I don't call it a "rip off," especially since a player has the choice to pay or not pay. It was a necessary change to give everyone a chance at bigger houses. Which would have been worse, paying another $10 a month for a second house, or that proposed "upkeep" that would have required several hours a month per big house? I don't know about you, but a ten-spot is cheaper for me in terms of time.

A certain UHaller recently all but lamented the plight of newbies who supposedly quit once they realize long-time vets get "free" shard transfers. What actually would have made newbies quit is seeing a lot of towers, keeps and castles, knowing someone owned several on just one account, and that newcomers had no chance at getting more than a 7x7 or log cabin.

 

[Lady Storm]

Nope wrong employee...
This one was quickly squelched but not fast enough that a few of the stockmarket people looking at gaming stocks had time to open and read the post. His post was quite factual based in the respect of timeline and didnt mention but a short tag of Warhammer along with other games listed under EA's widespred mismanagement of resources. I never claimed he was correct but the truth in the player base might have a kernal of truth in numbers of players at one time in the game.
Let's think this through... Asian shards were stuffed... not just full... Korean shards rivaled the japaneese shards it population.
Europa and Drac held nearly all of europe's players and north american too.
To the point:
Add up the numbers, if you at the height of UO, it is quite easy to beleave that over 750k of players were active.
Over half the shards I played what I call full time were so stuffed with players you did need a shoe horn to get in to Brit Bank.
I dropped on Chessy alone 2 big bricks, tower, and 3 small 7 x 7's as an effort to crutail my houses for refresh.
I even dropped a castle on Siege so others could have house room..
Catskills, Napa, hell all the shards were house poor......... Players were clammoring for more houseing the second time as we had trippled the population.
It makes sense now... yes it is quite possible that on 27 shards we had 750k of players active accounts.
Go do the math...
27 into 750,000= just under 28k of people each... so yes its quite possible at our hight of play we had close to a million players.
Oh and RtB houses didnt play into the fact we had players in game not owning houses but workign out of guild house's and bank boxes...
I wish we did have an accurate time line for each change to the game where speculation of when things fell into place was available, then you would see some things you point out might be off a few ... I placed homes for hundreds of players in my years in game... as did my son and our guilds. Housing has always been the kicker in that without a house to play out of many find the game gets to a tipping point when a bank box is too tiny and you ether find a way toget a place to have some storage or you quit in fustration.
The one thing I'd love to instill in the Dev is that fact...
If storage is an issue many will try for a short time to work around it or get a bigger capasity house... or throw up their hands an walk away in utter fustration. The limiting factor of 1 house per kicked alot of players in the tail and they rather then conform they walked away.. Oh I know it was supported by many players hoping it would make the granfathered account holders drop houses to conform to the rule.
I was one of them who was told point blank pick 1 house and drop the rest or the GM's will do it for me. This came from my son who read it in a post about how the new rule would be put through.
I had dropped nearly 5 accounts of grandfathered houses before the Dev of that day clairified how it was to work...unfortunatly there was no way to get back the house's I had already dropped. Valuable space I needed. No castles but smalls that were as old as the hills and not worth a plug nickle.

Today a newbie can infact go on most shards and drop in a 18x18 or even a keep... providing the gold is in hand and the will to look for the spot.

 

[The Zog historian]

I still can't believe a full million. Do you have a link to this person's claim, and what is the basis? Sonoma had a lot of players, but not shy of 30K, and that was before the Asian shards drew away Far East or Australian/NZ players.

I already laid out my explanation for the necessity of limiting the number of houses per account. Otherwise, it would have been a guarantee that newer players would quit, frustrated they couldn't place their own big houses. Also, I forgot to mention: house storage was necessary to keep down item count, and the next step was to limit the number of houses per account as players acquired more and more "stuff." Remember in mid-1999 when Sonoma's daily maintenance exceeded 90 minutes, and for busy shards reached two hours? (Unlike what someone has claimed, item count was item count, regardless of how many players were actively logged on.)

 

[Lady Storm]

Zog sugar the division of 28 k was a figure if you divided the 750k by shard numbers...... not an actual shard by shard number to go by..
Some shards had more players then others... and you haveto take in the amount of players who had more than one account paid for too.
If 1 out of every 10 players had 2 or more accounts.... the actual number of seen players would drop...
Look at the big picture. Not just the local news.... so to speak.
This is why many businesses state your actual use may vary when you buy or rent a car on the gas milage... its a round number for all not the one.
I can easly see 30k on napa in the first few years... not to mention catskills or even Atl before the drive to pull all players was made.
Pac had a hell of alot more then Atl and GL ...well again shoe horn to get in.... shards were full...
Sugar I dont want to quibble numbers ...its a hell of a thing to think about though.....

 

[The Zog historian]

I know you're talking 28K as an average, but I still don't believe it. Sonoma in its heyday was as busy as any other West Coast shard, yet there weren't thousands upon thousands logged on at a peak hour. Even figuring an average of two accounts per player, which was getting more common in 1999-2000, it doesn't support that very big number. A more reasonable one is the 250K-300K range that we've heard.

 

[Zosimus]

I can see one million accounts created over the time of the game but not one million accounts at this time. UO has never had 1 million players at once even in its prime. The claim back then was around 250k max. I could even see they would claim all their MMO's active subscribers together at 1 million with War, UO, SWTOR and DaoC

Sorry I call BS on this one million myth. EA has never released the numbers.

WoW at one time stated they had over 100 million accounts created but only had 6-10 million active subscribers. They counted their free trial accounts to make it look bigger than it was.

This supposedly kernel of truth was even true UO would of had a much larger team working on the game. The shards would be so full and a ton more active. Not just one which is Atlantic. I have played the Asian shards. Most are pretty dead compared to activity. More English speaking players than Korean and Japanese speaking players. Why is it like that? Because they are being farmed and the goods xffered off to the other shards.

EA Louse was never squelched and that information still stands on the internet today and even if this claim was posted by another employee the information would of been caught and re-posted somewhere by any major news site which there is no record. EA keeps the numbers tight to themselves and always will.

 

[Theron]

I can see one million accounts created over the time of the game but not one million accounts at this time. UO has never had 1 million players at once even in its prime. The claim back then was around 250k max. I could even see they would claim all their MMO's active subscribers together at 1 million with War, UO, SWTOR and DaoC

Sorry I call BS on this one million myth. EA has never released the numbers.

WoW at one time stated they had over 100 million accounts created but only had 6-10 million active subscribers. They counted their free trial accounts to make it look bigger than it was.

This supposedly kernel of truth was even true UO would of had a much larger team working on the game. The shards would be so full and a ton more active. Not just one which is Atlantic. I have played the Asian shards. Most are pretty dead compared to activity. More English speaking players than Korean and Japanese speaking players. Why is it like that? Because they are being farmed and the goods xffered off to the other shards.

EA Louse was never squelched and that information still stands on the internet today and even if this claim was posted by another employee the information would of been caught and re-posted somewhere by any major news site which there is no record. EA keeps the numbers tight to themselves and always will.

Do they keep the numbers to themselves because they are so low that public knowledge could make most/everyone drop the game?

And to think there are 200+ free servers out there...I was looking at Twitch.tv some days ago and someone was streaming UO from what seemed like one of these free servers and it looked packed!!! there are actually lots of people playing UO, just not on legal servers. They seemed to have flocked massively to the free ones...because they are free? Because they offer Pre Trammel rules? Who knows...

All I know is that there are lots of people playing UO nowadays...just not with the legal subscription.

 

[Zosimus]

Do they keep the numbers to themselves because they are so low that public knowledge could make most/everyone drop the game?

And to think there are 200+ free servers out there...I was looking at Twitch.tv some days ago and someone was streaming UO from what seemed like one of these free servers and it looked packed!!! there are actually lots of people playing UO, just not on legal servers. They seemed to have flocked massively to the free ones...because they are free? Because they offer Pre Trammel rules? Who knows...

All I know is that there are lots of people playing UO nowadays...just not with the legal subscription.

The free servers, most of them, are pre-aos era and fel set rules. So players who enjoy that set of rules with no Trammel will flock to those. Are they all busy? No but some are. Two that I know are the busiest out of those 200. RG actually went to a free shard( one of the busy and popular ones) not to long ago and it's posted on youtube. I caught it on his twitter. FS has no bearing on EA run shards and numbers.


To answer the first question, and this is just a guess and my opinion, I think when EA makes announcements concerning their MMO division they just add up the numbers from there games all together and how much it made from that division. SWTOR is there largest MMO population but the game is also F2P.

 

[Lady Storm]

Zog
750k of players is not a milion players so please refrain from adding 250k more then reported..
I can see at one point in UO History we just might have had that many accounts paid for....
I know I personally had 13 by the end of the 2nd year.. I and my son were house placers and holders for the guild and many of us had said accounts going for our "newbie houseing project" . No the guild was not tiny ether and we were not the only guild doing it.
By the time all shards were going full blast I have little doubt we could have had near that 750k going.
Ask any here how many accounts they own (counting all the closed ones with the running numbers) i bet you will find many have alot more in hand then you think.
One lady nearly fell out of her chair when she heard i had 47 on all at once... and she said 2 was a limit she would never cross as it was too daunting to comprehend how (Practice!)
Now about the Free ones:
The biggest draw is not the fact they are free..which has its points for them too but dont get it wrong money is a factor too.
Those I have known to use them... tell me its the freedom the dev of these shards have to kep the players happy.
Old guildmates who left UO for the one of these places have told me that things our Devs have refused are not the case there.

I am not condoning it as it is in my books stealing copywrited material of the game... But I do see the draw these have on many.
I have seen the Dev have visited them and even "borrowed" ideas and such from.

 

[azmodanb]

The answer to the question is similar to "how many licks does it take to get to the center of a tootse roll pop" the world may never know.

 

[The Zog historian]

Zog
750k of players is not a milion players so please refrain from adding 250k more then reported..
I can see at one point in UO History we just might have had that many accounts paid for....
I know I personally had 13 by the end of the 2nd year.. I and my son were house placers and holders for the guild and many of us had said accounts going for our "newbie houseing project" . No the guild was not tiny ether and we were not the only guild doing it.
By the time all shards were going full blast I have little doubt we could have had near that 750k going.
Ask any here how many accounts they own (counting all the closed ones with the running numbers) i bet you will find many have alot more in hand then you think.
One lady nearly fell out of her chair when she heard i had 47 on all at once... and she said 2 was a limit she would never cross as it was too daunting to comprehend how (Practice!)
Now about the Free ones:
The biggest draw is not the fact they are free..which has its points for them too but dont get it wrong money is a factor too.
Those I have known to use them... tell me its the freedom the dev of these shards have to kep the players happy.
Old guildmates who left UO for the one of these places have told me that things our Devs have refused are not the case there.

I am not condoning it as it is in my books stealing copywrited material of the game... But I do see the draw these have on many.
I have seen the Dev have visited them and even "borrowed" ideas and such from.

You were the one who said "close to 1 million accounts." I don't consider 750K to be "close," but either number is not believable to me. All accounts ever created, active and inactive, especially those that got hijacked or whose login information was lost, possible. But currently active, paid accounts? No, I can't believe it. That's an awful lot of people.

You've always been a rarity, you know. By the end of 1999, a lot of players had a couple of accounts, but three was rare, and four or more were unheard of. When most people were still noobs in figuring out what we could do with the game, the first PvP thief I knew fooled me with his two accounts. He robbed me blind at WBB, then reappeared as a "nice" character from his other account.

 

[Theron]

Just out of curiosity, does the game have any expression on the stock market? Are their annual profits public?

I don't understand anything about these matters, just asking. Might be a way to find out a bit more about account numbers at least...

 

[GalenKnighthawke]

Just out of curiosity, does the game have any expression on the stock market? Are their annual profits public?

The fact that the parent company has not shut us down is a powerful indicator that we have enough to be profitable. The fact that the parent company allowed another entity to take over managing us is a powerful indicator that it is just smart enough to realize that we can do better than we are, if someone other than them runs it.

-Galen's player

 

[GalenKnighthawke]

I have noticed over the years that the subscription threads that don't devolve fast are rare indeed.

The answer now, short:
We do not know.

The answer now, long:
We do not know.

At best we have the occasional leak or statement made in an interview, seemingly spontaneously. When that number fails to conform to the doom and gloom that predominates on these boards, the person who uses that number gets insulted. No I do not have links. I used to keep them, then I realized that no one cared, preferring their own speculations to numbers that had actual sources.

At worst, we have a combination of rumor, speculation, and just plain idiocy that is just tossed around and accepted as truth because it conforms to people's negative expectations. No, I don't have links. I don't save links to idiocy unless I really need to for one reason or another.

The answer historically (long only):
They used to put subscription numbers in press releases. The highest I ever remember seeing that was put forth was in the 350k to 400k range. They no longer report subscription numbers. No I do not have links to those Press Releases. Firstly I don't know if they're still posted at all. Secondly I'm reluctant to save links to EA press releases, ever. Thirdly, people didn't believe these press releases because they did not conform to the negative expectations that UO players are often wont to have. Save for World of Warcraft, which releases the number of subscriptions started (not current ones but ones started), not releasing numbers seems pretty standard these days.

There were also two Internet sites that claimed to have numbers. For a number of years these numbers followed the ones in the official press releases. After the numbers no longer were released it was no longer clear to me where the sites got their numbers. These numbers, even when they actually were based on something, often were wildly misinterpreted and mis-described by people attempting to conform reality to their own negative expectations anyway. (I can't tell you how many times I've read posts linking to these numbers to show that subscriptions plummeted immediately following Trammel's introduction when in reality the numbers showed quite the opposite.)

Conclusions:

One: We don't know.

Two: We will never know for sure and all we can say is that we're still making money or we'd be gone already.

Three: "Galen your posts are too long." Go **** yourself, I guess? Some posts are long because the poster is cutting himself on Occam's Razor and some, like this one, are long because the topic is complex.

Four: Discussions like these usually are at best troll breeding grounds and at worst are troll semen.

-Galen's player

 

[Flagg]

If we want to consider now,today,and tomorrow it means absolutely nothing how many players UO had in early 00's. I'm guessing every guess done about the matter is closer to the current truth than latest numbers EA made official.

I'm * guessing* we have bit under 10k active players and bit under 30k active accounts.

 

[Theron]

I have noticed over the years that the subscription threads that don't devolve fast are rare indeed.

The answer now, short:
We do not know.

The answer now, long:
We do not know.

At best we have the occasional leak or statement made in an interview, seemingly spontaneously. When that number fails to conform to the doom and gloom that predominates on these boards, the person who uses that number gets insulted. No I do not have links. I used to keep them, then I realized that no one cared, preferring their own speculations to numbers that had actual sources.

At worst, we have a combination of rumor, speculation, and just plain idiocy that is just tossed around and accepted as truth because it conforms to people's negative expectations. No, I don't have links. I don't save links to idiocy unless I really need to for one reason or another.

The answer historically (long only):
They used to put subscription numbers in press releases. The highest I ever remember seeing that was put forth was in the 350k to 400k range. They no longer report subscription numbers. No I do not have links to those Press Releases. Firstly I don't know if they're still posted at all. Secondly I'm reluctant to save links to EA press releases, ever. Thirdly, people didn't believe these press releases because they did not conform to the negative expectations that UO players are often wont to have. Save for World of Warcraft, which releases the number of subscriptions started (not current ones but ones started), not releasing numbers seems pretty standard these days.

There were also two Internet sites that claimed to have numbers. For a number of years these numbers followed the ones in the official press releases. After the numbers no longer were released it was no longer clear to me where the sites got their numbers. These numbers, even when they actually were based on something, often were wildly misinterpreted and mis-described by people attempting to conform reality to their own negative expectations anyway. (I can't tell you how many times I've read posts linking to these numbers to show that subscriptions plummeted immediately following Trammel's introduction when in reality the numbers showed quite the opposite.)

Conclusions:

One: We don't know.

Two: We will never know for sure and all we can say is that we're still making money or we'd be gone already.

Three: "Galen your posts are too long." Go **** yourself, I guess? Some posts are long because the poster is cutting himself on Occam's Razor and some, like this one, are long because the topic is complex.

Four: Discussions like these usually are at best troll breeding grounds and at worst are troll semen.

-Galen's player

That's a big analysis you have there and a good one too.

As you say we will never really know. Everything else is just speculation.

This all started with some curiosity on the subject. I don't think the game is going to be closed down or anything anytime soon, as it's clearly profitable to keep it going. Broadsword wouldn't have gone through all the work and neither would the UO team if it was just to close it all down. No Gloom & Doom theories from this side.

 

[Zosimus]

I think it was Mark Jacobs that stated it takes 50k subs for an MMO to be profitable. Now I assume that depends on the sub rate for a particular game and the costs running it. He made this statement for Camelot Unchained.

UO is already developed up and running and is profitable. It's made it's money at least 1 million times what it cost to make the game. So even at 50k subs per say the game is still making good money. Now that 50k number I used was just an example. I don't have any hidden facts, people on the know, deleted press releases, leaks or anything. just an example.

Here is a few of links below on comments from Mark Jacobs.

http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/...ed-Mark-Jacobs-On-Subs-RVR-and-Sandboxes.html

Mark Jacobs: I believe, as always, that there is room for different monetization models in our industry. I’ve been a long-standing member of the “I love subscription-based games” model and since I’m going for a niche audience, I think it makes sense to use that model again. I really don’t want to create a game that has to figure out how to get a small percentage of people to pay for a game while the largest percentage of them will not pay for the game even if it’s great. In addition, since this game is geared to RvR, I believe we would end up with having to support a lot of people who are just “kicking the tires” and have no intention of being long-time player. Now, if the game is PvE –based, that’s not so bad. However, if you are trying to build a Community, that influx of players could hurt it.

It really boils down to the fact that I’d rather have 30-50K people playing and paying each month than having to support 1M players hoping to get 5% of them to pay. Now, I also think we can and should revisit the whole “All MMORPG subscriptions should cost $14.95 for one month” thing and be more aggressive in our pricing including lowering the price for certain subs but I’ll talk more about that down the road. What I will say though is I’m not interested in making this game one that needs “whales” to be profitable, nor of making the game $20 per month.


http://massively.joystiq.com/2013/0...lot-unchained-can-succeed-with-just-50k-subs/

In a recent interview, Mark Jacobs stated that unlike some other big titles, Camelot Unchained will be financially successful with fewer paid subscribers. "We don't need one million subs to make money," he said. "If we get 50K paying subscribers a month it will justify the $5 million development budget." Of course, he admitted that they'd certainly be happy with more.

 

[Lorax_Pacific]

They list only revenue under the pogo brand, which includes lots of other online games. Threads like this take the fun out of playing ultima.

FORM 10-K(Annual Report)Filed 05/22/13 for the Period Ending 03/31/13

Through our Pogo online service, we offer casual games such as card, puzzle and word games on www.pogo.com, as well as on other platforms. Pogo generates revenue through paid subscriptions, Internet-based advertising and sales of digital content.

Comparison 2013 to 2012

Service and Other RevenueFor fiscal year 2013 , service and other revenue was $1,059 million , primarily driven by Star Wars: The Old Republic and FIFA 13 Ultimate Team, as well as Battlefield 3 Premium subscriptions. Service and other revenue for fiscal year 2013 increased $331 million , or 45 percent , as compared to fiscal year 2012 . This increase was driven by a $396 million increase primarily from services associated with the FIFA and Battlefield franchises, along with Star Wars: The Old Republic (which launched in December 2011). This increase was partially offset by a $65 million decrease from Pogo-branded online game services and certain franchises including Warhammer and Ultima Online.

FORM 10-Q(Quarterly Report)Filed 02/04/14 for the Period Ending 12/31/13

Service and Other RevenueFor the three months ended December 31, 2013 , service and other revenue was $323 million , primarily driven by FIFA Ultimate Team and Star Wars: The Old Republic. Service and other revenue for the three months ended December 31, 2013 increased $104 million , or 47 percent , as compared to the three months ended December 31, 2012 . This increase was driven by a $120 million increase primarily from the FIFA, Madden and Real Racing franchises, as well as Star Wars: The Old Republic . This increase was partially offset by a $16 million decrease primarily from lower revenue from Sims Social, which shut down in June 2013 , the Mass Effect franchise, and Pogo-branded online game services.


The one thing I will say about playing Battlefield or Bad Co. is you are able to jump into a match of teams and players and start playing immediately. It takes me months to just update my suit and weapons to pvp in Ultima. If I have 30 minutes to an hour to play its much easier to jump into battlefield, but UO would be just as fun with lots of people.

-Lorax

 

[Picus at the office]

In a recent interview, Mark Jacobs stated that unlike some other big titles, Camelot Unchained will be financially successful with fewer paid subscribers. "We don't need one million subs to make money," he said. "If we get 50K paying subscribers a month it will justify the $5 million development budget." Of course, he admitted that they'd certainly be happy with more.

$14.95 @ 50K players a month is $747,500 or $8,970,000 a year. Break even in 7 months for dev and a month or two after to cover the cost of servers and stuff...who wouldn't want that type of buisness model?

 

[Zosimus]

5 million for the development of the game

The 2 million funding goal on Kickstarter was already reached. Atm their total is almost 2.6 million

Mark Jacobs is contributing 2 million from his own assets.

Have no idea what the Digital download price will be of the game I'll guess what most charge on average 60 bucks.

Plus the subs and he is talking about maybe lowering it than at $14.95.

He will make some $$$$$$$


So UO is making money on it's subs even at 50k+ easy. I could say 30k because UO is already on the market.

Besides side tracking off topic a bit my original post stands. It's not how many are playing UO is important. Its how many you play with and enjoy playing with

 

[THP]

we dont know
we will prob never know
but we sure can have a educated guess by what we see each time we log in...

i will leave it at that.............enjoy UO

 

[Theron]

Well I'm happy with the amount of votes...never thought it would climb that high.

 

[Flagg]

Yeah if like 20 more people vote, we have enough active players to fill a large buss! That's pretty good right? A Bussload!

 

[Theron]

Yeah if like 20 more people vote, we have enough active players to fill a large buss! That's pretty good right? A Bussload!

Lol

 

[azmodanb]

i play and so does wife +2

 

[SoulWeaver]

Half the people I know don't use stratic's they wonder where I buy some of my stuff and I tell them the trade forums and they're clueless... the other half hate stratic's because of the drama and none sense.

 

[Uriah Heep]

Right now there are 7 people playing on Legends :/

 

[BeaIank]

Right now there are 7 people playing on Legends :/

Make that 8 then because I am about to log in at Legends.

 

[Prime.]

My account's have been inactive for awhile, waiting for a reason to open them again, but still visit the forums 3-4 times a week. xD

 

[Troop]

There are exactly 317 people playing UO.

 

[MalagAste]

There are exactly 317 people playing UO.

Considering 80 voted that's probably 50% of those who read stratics forums.... Maybe less lets say 120 could have voted yes.... and that's about 20% of the UO population by my reconning since I know a LOT of players and a majority of them don't even LOOK at stratics let alone post here..... so by my figures there might be close to 600 players. And if you figure of those 600 about 10% only have 1 account.... probably another 40% have 2 .... And then there are nut jobs like myself with close to 10.... and then there are the "extreme" cases who hold 10+ to 52 was it last count???? You can roughly estimate the number of paid accounts don't figure in the people that pay once every 3 months as there are probably a few more but you get the idea. It's what roughly 2k accounts? But that's mostly domestic.... I mean English speaking.

We aren't talking about the probably another 2k or so on the Asian Shards. So I don't know maybe top would be 5k accounts?

 

[Taylor]

Stratics forum statistics let us see how many users are consider "active."

Accumulated Daily Total Users Logged In Each Month
January 2014: 13,022
February 2014: 12,485
March 2014: 14,463

It's about 500 unique registered users logging in per day (it was 497 yesterday, April 24th). Those are people who logged into Stratics Forums, but obviously that's not necessarily representative of UO, because some portion of our users are on illegal shards.

 

[petemage]

So in short only the most anal... folk with serious OCD and some bits on insanity and such actually read and post on stratics. Those who are extremely addicted to UO and have OCD.... and a need to know. Those of us who are the most passionate about our game play be it PvP, PvM, RP or whatever.

I looked that OCD thing up and .. omg .. my life in three letters No seriously, very insightful to look this up. Not sure what it might be called in my language I blame the internet for making me so.

 

[MedeaDF]

When I saw the list of the newly published "Developer Meet & Greet" Shard list, I wondered if this could be the actual list, how many people (or logins) are active on those shards... from top to bottom of course. Now we only need to figure out the numbers

 

[a slave girl]

It was mentioned in the state of UO video that 200 people (UO players?) applied for the volunteer positions, so there's a starting point. I did NOT apply, so there's 201 at least.

 

[Taylor]

It's in the tens of thousands right now. I think Steam and the right marketing could push it into hundreds of thousands.

 

[Lady Storm]

Tailor has a good point..
Marketing our game is in the top 5 thing needed to improve the numbers.
Many of you see little of the other shards then a occasional EM event from what I have read and seen. Few stick around to get a feel for the shards other then their own. Being a home owner and player on many shards I have some idea of the players we have. Asian shards are vastly underrated in our numbers.. though they are dropping but it is hoped now that the Dev has a rep who can comunicate and help stem that loss. There is a easy way to help add more players...
I have heard many on some near vacant shards no one ot play with... or they log in just to chat..... chat is fine but no one wants to hang in a game just to talk... Get your friends back in the game. Tell them we are changing it is in the works we all know this...
Some here who read this reopen your accounts, at least one...
Get a feel for what your home shard needs.
You know I went around a few shards and found a few new players and asked what is the hardest part of the game for them right now..
It was not graphics, or pvp or lack of it , but finding parts or tools, simple shovals from bods... at reasonable price's. Now come on...
You cant tell me you couldnt fill a vendor with cheap shovals and hammers, tool kits, cloth, even rune books for citys and hunting for resources... that dont take a week at haven to get the gold for. Hey we all have a few house tools extra..toss them up on a vendor for a few gold
think of all you needed when you started. They dont want a free ride but just a idea of what to do next...
I took 3 on 3 seprate shards to my house's and helped get them going and gave them info to get further along.
It took a few minutes for each... a hand full of shovals , a bag of kits for tailoring and smithing.. a rune book and a few scrolls for getting around and how to get a full book on their own... Something I was taught my first days... How to do it my self.

 

[Ludes]

I can honestly say that I watched my 16 year old play for 6 hours straight PvP'ing .. the game isn't dead to younger players.
The trick is getting them past all the hurdles in the beginning...
My son has seen all the newer games.. he's played all the F2P games... He loves SkyRim.. he love the new game on his PS3 "Ghosts" I think they call it.
We did Elder Scrolls in beta..
But when I stick my head in the door and see what they are doing cause it's a little too quiet I always catch him running around in UO PvP'ing.
So it's not "client" or "GUI".. it's coolness.

 

[azmodanb]

my four year old better have a future god damnit lol

 

[cazador]

UO today doesn't have anymore than 5-7thousand seperate users..I can easily see 15-20k subs...but they current population is nowhere near 10,000 separate users

The busiest shards like ATL at peak have 200-500 separate users on at once..some of the smaller shards at peak Chesapeake for instance have no more than 75-100 and that is a stretch..imagine super dead shards like siege. That maybe have 20-30 seperate users at any point during the day..maybe they hit close to 100 at a super high population time


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Theron]

Almost 100 votes....wooot

 

[kelmo]

..imagine super dead shards like siege. That maybe have 20-30 seperate users at any point during the day..maybe they hit close to 100 at a super high population time


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

aww! Where did ya get those numbers?

 

[cazador]

aww! Where did ya get those numbers?

I kno I kno..just because we can't see you doesn't mean your not there..but I played for about 3-4 months pretty consistent scanned dungeons,asked for pvp in gen chat. There just was no one ever around...


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[SlobberKnocker]

aww! Where did ya get those numbers?

cant speak it here but beavis was always pretty fascinated with it.

anyone watch the gold price? it got down to .20 per million but my understanding is that it has rebounded. I'd say that's a pretty good indication on the rise and fall of the player base.

 

[Ender]

It's in the tens of thousands right now. I think Steam and the right marketing could push it into hundreds of thousands.

That'd take a LOT of marketing because Steam isn't gonna affect it much.

 

[Taylor]

That'd take a LOT of marketing because Steam isn't gonna affect it much.

It really depends on how they do it. Steam isn't progress, it's only an opportunity.

If the games just appear there, there'll be no change at all. If they run lots of marketing (Black Friday, weekend deals) that offer legitimately good deals (not just in game stuff, stuff that draws users), if the UI they're making with Pinco is light and intuitive, if the account issues for returning users are fixed (I cancelled my accounts because I still can't update my credit card), if they hire a dedicated community person, I think that Steam will be a platform for huge growth.

If they don't, well, a few former players may return, and that's about it.

The opportunity is dealt. It's how they play the cards at this point.