Don't worry, SWTOR is flying pretty high
MMORPG.com recently posted an article on sales of Star Wars: The Old Republic in the United Kingdom, noting that TOR “first hit the charts at #10 during the week of its release but has plummeted to #38 as of December 31st.” On the surface, this looks ominous. It looks like the popularity of TOR has already peaked and is dropping like a rock, and that sounds rather scary to people who, like me, have a strong interest in the longevity of this game. After all, if EA can’t sell the game, how are they going to keep the servers running? This caused a lot of concern in some parts of the community.
Let’s take a closer look at the actual data.
First, MMORPG.com notes that Chart-Track.co.uk, who published the sales statistics, bases those numbers on retail box copies only. Digital Origin sales don’t figure in to that total at all. As a result, TOR’s chart rank is artificially skewed lower, quite possibly by a substantial amount if Origin sales make up a significant portion of total sales.
Second, the chart cited in the original VentureBeat article tracks all platforms. When broken out for just PC games, TOR is number two in PC game sales.
Third, the charts do not list total sales numbers at all. Let’s say each ranking represents the same number of pounds or unit sales less than the rank right above it. It’s not, but for the sake of easy calculation, we’re going to say it is. What does each rank represent? One pound? 10,000, pounds? One million pounds? Chart-Track doesn’t tell us. We don’t know if being listed at position 38 (or as I write this, 39) on the chart means BioWare made 38 pounds less than the number 1 game, or 38 million pounds less. If BioWare’s sales dropped only 28 pounds going from rank 10 to rank 39, that is a lot less important than 28 million pounds. We also don’t know the number of units sold. Was it 28 units less? 28,000 less? 28 million less? The chart doesn’t specify. Since we have no clue how big the sales gap is between the top-selling game and TOR, the rank has less importance than it might otherwise.
Ask A Jedi contacted BioWare’s Leo Olebe about the 28 rank drop, who mentioned that BioWare has limited supply in the UK and is trying to get more games out there so that people can purchase them. If that’s the case, and the lack of retail copies drove people to Origin, which is not included in the chart, then that would certainly skew the rank statistic down.
VentureBeat updated their article, noting that they’d contacted Electronic Arts to find out about Origin sales to shed some light on this:
EA has stated that it can’t talk because of its earnings quiet period, but analysts have weighed in on the activity within the game. Merrill Lynch said EA and BioWare are reportedly limiting supply of the retail product so that they can steadily “pulse players into the game” over time in order to ensure good online performance for everyone. Analyst Colin Sebastian at Baird Equity Research said that peak player usage numbers for the game are at about 350,000.
On top of that, Gamasutra just posted an article today noting that the UK Retailer, GAME, which is a big seller of retail game products, saw a loss of number of stores this past year. GAME started with 650 shops in 2011, closed 40 of them, and expects to close 60 more this year. Losing about 15% of the retail locations of one of the biggest game retailers in the UK is bound to have an effect on retail box sales, driving more customers to Origin.
What does this mean to you and me? It means the Chart-Track rank is at best an incomplete measure of TOR sales in the UK, and at worst, useless. Origin sales do not weigh into the calculation at all, which incorrectly pushes TOR down in rank as a result. The number of retail shops in the UK is declining, and the supply of TOR retail copies is limited at this time. There is a lower supply of retail copies and fewer places to buy them. This is also driving TOR’s chart position down. Without the full information on sales, we can’t draw meaningful conclusions about TOR’s chart rank at all. It’s not the rank on a chart that’s important. It’s the number of games and subscriptions sold, along with players in game, that counts.
TOR sold one million units in the first few weeks and currently has 350,000 players online at peak times. Those are some good data points from which we can start to make informed predictions.
Hey! Let's break out this one statistic! (source: xkcd.com)
(Comic: XKCD.com)
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Very good sleuthing
I don’t like how so many articles jump to conclusions and are ready to doom-say so easily. I always appreciate reading TORWars.
According to vgchartz TOR has sold 2.04 million copies worldwide. For a new MMO I would say those are huge numbers. If true then I would say EA/BW would be very happy with 2+ million copies sold right now. Let’s face it, we’ll really know the success of TOR in a few months by the number of subscribers it has.
The game hasn’t been out a month and we’re already looking at a figure way over 1 million.
No matter what anyone says, this is an absolute success. 1 million for an MMO can take years – it took the you-know-which MMO a couple of months to get a few hundred thousand.
It still astounds me how people are going out of their way to try to paint a bleak picture – what’s the agenda here?
I have two theories:
1. Some MMO gamers believe that there are only so many people who can/will play MMOs. Thus, each new MMO threatens to draw some players away from their own preferred game. And we all know a dwindling subscriber base spells death for an MMO, so they try to convince people that the new game is not worth their money and/or time through excessive negativity and -yes- even trolling in an effort to reduce defection to it softening the impact on the subscriber numbers of the game they play and effectively reducing the chance that they will eventually lose their beloved toons. And the bigger the threat, the more effort they will have to put into it.
2. Shadenfreude.
(Or… Jae is probably right and it’s just people not interpreting information in the correct way, which is why this post is awesome.
)
I’m not sure I can call it an agenda in MMORPG’s case–they tend to tell it like it is. I think the author saw the Venture Beat article and went ‘wow, 28 rank drop, that’s not good’ without a complete understanding of how the numbers are actually generated by Chart-Track. If anything, I think Chart-Track needs to be far more transparent in their reporting of the statistics and how they generate them. Chart-Track should flag the TOR game with an asterisk and mention that no digital sales are included in determining the rank.
i do love a good bit of accurate reporting!
it’s also quite amazing how true the jellybean comic is <3
the general public (and media….but they go hand in hand) love a good bit of shallow-reporting to stir a story!
I think any stats out there at this time are pretty skewed and far from the truth whichever way that may be.
But when mentioning about EA’s digital sales of swtor please don’t forget that other MMO’s are also available for digital D/L also.
We should ensure thats not overlooked when comparing sales
Console sales can’t be d/l’d digitally for the most part, although console-makers are working on increasing that. DS games certainly are not downloadable. This means _all_ their sales are retail, rather than a certain percentage. 100% of their sales count towards the chart ranking, while TOR only has a portion counted. I agree that if all digital sales were included in these numbers, the charts would definitely look very different, particularly in regards to PC games.
Good job Jae!!
BTW, this all started becos of a guy named Sebastian Haley (a Venturebeats) who is known to bitch about EA. He hates EA so much that he cooked up following articles about EA.
“Battlefield 3 suffering prolonged server issues while ”
“Battlefield 3 is EA’s biggest fumble since ”
“Star Wars: The Old Republic drops 30 spots on the”
I honestly don’t know enough about it to make an informed comment, but that’s an interesting perspective.
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I had a pretty desparate email from Bio/EA this morning asking me why I quit the game ( stupidly I had the CE and paid for 3 extra months..DOH)
On investigation “Gametracker” shows that 12% of those who bought the game at launch did not extend beyond the 28 day included time, and that unsubscriptions in the third week of 2012 exceeded new sign ups.
IN other words, at one month old, more people are leaving than joining.
Box sales mean nothing if people quit after a month, and that seems to be what’s happening.
Sure, with the great start it had there will be hundreds of thousands of players, but I predict F2P model by the end of 2013, early 2014 at best, and the last AAA subscription MMO will be remembered as an “almost” game.
For me, the game lacks depth.
Not enough to do.
Professions are weak (you do nothing personally, press “N”, choose a number, and wait for your NPC to come back and do it again)
Trade network is underdeveloped, no scope to “play to market” which I normally love in theme park MMO’s.
Quest line for my class (JC) is terminal “Save Jedi Master on planet one… shield him – move to planet two and repeat ad nauseum”.
No matter what I make with my crafting profession, I don’t need it (i already have better) and no-one else whats it either.
Customization is virtually none existant. I buy a new cloak, and I’d have to get out a magnifying glass to see that I looked a tiny bit different. I feel less like a “uniqe hero” and more like “Generic Jedi 48988C”
GUI is way to big and yet still lacks information. Placement of “target” on the right hand side is entirely counter intuitive for me
Guilds are already “closed for new members” In game chat is dead. Everyone already has their clique and is speaking over teamspeak or similar.
No secondary professions – which when coupled with the lack of involvement in crafting and trading means that outside combat there is nothing what-so-ever to do.
I have had no technical issues with the game, and it’s not a bad game per se. It’s just…dull
did you really compare it to “theme park MMOs”? lol If you’re playing action games to play on the auction house…you’re doing it wrong.
not to mention everything else you mentioned is being changed…
good try though ;D