50K

CCP announced today that Eve Online crossed the 50k subscriber mark, sustaining  45% growth this year so far.   Impressive for an MMOG space opera characterized by bewitching graphics, PvP and piracy, all the cut-throat corporate melee you can desire, a brutal newbie treadmill (new meaning to rock grinding), and for those who play traders, all the spreadsheeting you can imagine.   In other words, while Eve may not be everyone's cup of tea, if you are a player, you still can't help but be impressed that there are 50K other like-minded folk out there...

Yet, an asterisk is likely warranted for reasons described in this TN discussion:  the number of actual players may be significantly less than the number of accounts.    While we can speculate if the percentage of players with duplicate accounts in Eve Online is greater than the industry norm (my hunch), this misses a larger, more interesting question.

Are all 50K subscriptions created equally?   Lets push this idea with a hypothetical.  I and a friend each decide to build an MMO.  He builds one and it attracts 50K unique players.  I build one and it attracts 1K unique players but each player has 50 accounts.  Who is better off from a sustainable business perspective?

Consider operating risk.  On first blush, a game with 50K players seems a less risky proposition than a game with 1K players.  The thought is that a single player (with 50 accounts, remember) in a 1K game has disproportionate greater influence over the revenue base than does a single player in a 50K game.  But, perhaps this reasoning is somewhat mitigated by the social dynamics of MMOGs.  After all we know that not all players are created equally. Perhaps then, among 50K players there are really only 1k movers-and-shakers, say.  Furthermore, as we know that social networks are "sticky" - social tipping points being what they are, folks tend to do things in clumps.  So in a 50K game, your clumps are just bigger, perhaps.

Are there other considerations?  Marketing and customer support is easier in 1K game.  Lavish more attention per player:  better retention.    On the other hand the social "genetic pool" of a 1K player game is considerably diminished.  The number of original personalities and social opportunities are fewer...

So if you were developing an MMOG, which would you choose, if you had that luxury?   

Comments

[Raph]

1.

Without doubt, the 50k unique players. The fact is that from a strct business perspective, you have a segment of players who is willing to pay far more than the base price. Often, they do so by having extra accounts, but there are other means of monetization (cf Second Life, Simutronics, There, Achaea). Basically, I am betting that 50k unique people will quickly equal more than 1k unique people in revenue, and will liklely look like both a higher number of accounts and a higher net revenue.

[Edward Castronova]

2.

One thing I will say about EVE: I've gotten more fan mail about it than all other games combined. People in that world are really eager to have it become more noticed.

As for the numbers: I think 50K individual accounts is better in the long run, because the community atmosphere is likely to be better. Two-boxing tends to be anti-role-playing and individualistic.

[darin]

3.

I guess I don't understand the assumption that in the case of 1k players with 50 accounts that they would be clumped while the 50k players with 1 account wouldn't be clumped. So why would one case be clumped vs the other?

I would agree with the premise that not all accounts are equal in either case, exluding the obvious difference between main and mule chars. Players have different personalities and play styles, and play habits, play time (casual vs hardcore). But that is also reflected in the game, higher levels, leader or members of various clans/corps, and friend/buddy lists.

But how do compare the various styles: explorer vs builder, organizer vs risk-taker?

In the end I think the 50k player base would offer much richer style because there would be more fusion between the various players.

[Flatfingers]

4.

Seems like 50K unique players wins either way.

Consider the pure business standpoint. One player who leaves a 50K/1-account game takes only one paying account with him, while one player who leaves a 1K/50-account game drops your subscription base by 50 paying accounts. The effect of cancellation is much larger in a multiple-account game.

You're also better off with a larger number of actual players from a roleplaying/social dynamics standpoint. As Julian Simon pointed out, increasing population carries benefits as well as costs: humans are the ultimate resource. More people playing can mean certain kinds of headaches, but along with those problems you get more diversity in brainpower applied to solving problems and creating fun for themselves and everyone else.

[Nathan Combs]

5.

I guess I don't understand the assumption that in the case of 1k players with 50 accounts that they would be clumped while the 50k players with 1 account wouldn't be clumped. So why would one case be clumped vs the other?

Its a speculative point: perhaps they clump differently. E.g., more individualistic play (aka playing alt accounts) weakens the clumping.

[Brask Mumei]

6.

I think the important point is that even if the 1k & 50k clump equally, you can *avoid* having the clumps leave in the 1k case. Presumeably you have 50 times the resources per real player, so can better avoid having the clumps reach that dangerous tipping point.

It also means the sunk cost accumulates *much* faster on a per player basis. Rather than $10 a month being "lost" on quitting, it is $500 per month.

Despite my title in SWG, I'm not a businessman. But I'd think the 1k situation would be preferrable. You have a better chance of understanding your demographic. You have fewer deadly exploits discovered as fewer people are trying to stack 15,000 dresses. And you get the same amount of money.

Long term viability wouldn't really end up in my equations. A mass exodous that forces you to shut down can be viewed as a good thing. You now know you are done! You can get on to new and more profitable ventures.

Compare this to a slow hemmorage over many years, where you see your profit margins slowly collapse. Every year you have to strip back resources and wonder: "Is this the final year?" Business owners tend to have the same sunk-cost mindset as players. They'll keep pouring time into the game for increasinly little return. A quick, catastrophic, failure would seem more humane to the developer!

So, yeah, sign me up for 1k with 50 accounts. I'd like to know where you get the 1k people with $500 per month disposable income though :>

- Brask Mumei

[Bruce Boston]

7.

'''yay.

Fictitious calculations made with fictitious numbers, this is what economists do best!

So just to even out the arguments made here, I'm gonna go with Brask, and say that 1k members that spend $500/mo. would be pretty cool.

While I understand the downside of losing one customer, look at the upside. Find one new customer and they have a lifetime value of what? $3-4,000? That's pretty cool. I would think with numbers like that you could put together a pretty good marketing proposal to go after all the potential customers that would be willing to pay $499-$10 a month.

That said, I also have to agree with Raph, in that, if you have 50k customers all paying the same, you are missing a number of revenue opportunities.

At the end of the day though, I think there are a number of companies in the MMO industry that would be plenty happy with either case.

Congrats EVE!!

-bruce