Comments on: Warhammer Online subs drop to 300,000

By: El_MUERkO

El_MUERkO — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 13:22:20 +0000

Warhammer just needed some polish, the update and extra classes will go a long way toward giving people more of what they want from the game. I intend to cancel my WoW account once I hit 80 and go back to WAR to play with the Slayer class.

By: Whizzo

Whizzo — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 13:19:11 +0000

Low population numbers will end up killing WAR, my server was very sparsely populated the last time I tried to do some ORvR stuff making it pointless. My sub wasn’t renewed because of it.

By: Captain Fruitloop

Captain Fruitloop — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 13:12:57 +0000

EA will have much larger overheads than CCP, especially if you hear the stories (and the loss figures released yesterday kinde bear this out) of the corporate-reckless way EA throw money about.

And – unlike Eve or WoW – Warhammer is a licenced property belonging to someone else, which further cuts into any money EA are seeing off it.

By: jnms

jnms — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 12:34:39 +0000

Totally. I remember when Eve had just 100k subscribers and CCP seemed very happy with just that number. When you figure it 100k x £10 is a lot of revenue each month. But yes, it shouldn’t be about money.

When games are worked on with passion at every level, then each component gels well and you end up with a game that is more than the sum of its parts.

Seems to me, that when ‘profit’ is thrown into that equation it puts everything off-balance.

That said, I wonder if EA will consider 300k a large enough base it keep the game open.

By: endgame

endgame — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 12:25:56 +0000

and when will developers realise that 300k is not a bad number? i mean, look at eve! they’ve got like, 400k subs, right? and they’re moving forward, releasing FREE expansions, updating graphics, gameplay, introducing tons of new usefull features.. and why should anyone want to compete with wow anyway? who cares about wow? when did this became a competition? making games should not be a competition! making games should be something fun, not something u do for money. it’s all about money today. so sad, so sad..

By: jnms

jnms — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 12:09:09 +0000

When will developers realise that you can’t complete with World of Warcraft by making a Warcraft clone (yes I know Warhammer is much older, but the Warhammer Online and World of Warcraft gameplay elements are much the same. Heck just compare the interfaces of the two games).

The next big MMO will be have to be something different. Let’s hope Bethesda or Bioware can live up to their previous games as opposed to retro-fitting their IPs with Warcraft style gameplay…