In just over 48 hrs, ArenaNet received 1 million beta signup to its closed beta testing phase. It is quite the milestone, but does that really mean anything anymore?
Over the last few years, just about every triple A title has hit the million beta signup mark including: Age of Conan, SWTOR, Warhammer Online, Aion, RIFT, and others, I’m sure. So does the fact that GW2 hit 1 million really mean anything?
I’d like to think that it still does; that players are excited for what GW2 is bringing to the genre, and that the era of theme-park MMO’s is fading away; but then again, SWTOR easily had a million beta signups as well. While there’s no doubt players are excited for Guild Wars 2, this whole beta signup bragging thing is a bit meaningless these days.
While hitting 1 millions signups might no longer be as big of a deal as it was years ago, not hitting it would have been. Then again, it’s GW2, of course they were going to hit the million mark.
MMORPG.com posted some ridiculously impressive numbers about Lineage 2 since NCSoft made the switch to free-to-play back in November of last year.
250,000+ new players for a game that’s almost 8 years old is not too shabby. There’s no doubt making the switch to F2P is rejuvenating many older MMORPGs and even some newer ones that stumbled out of the gate. There’s really too many to name at this point, but the last one’s were DC Universe Online and Age of Conan who were flaunting their skyrocketing numbers back in November, when they too made the switch to free-to-play.
Check out the stats below.
NCSoft has almost quadrupled its revenue in two months
The concurrent player base has increased more than 800%
The number of servers more than doubled to accommodate the influx of new players.
More than a quarter of a million players have enjoyed the “Path to Awakening” service, which provides helpful buffs, items and advice to accelerate new characters towards the level cap.
A surge of activity in forums, as well as Facebook, where “Like”s soared to more than 280,000 thanks to an active and still growing community
I’m sure next month I’ll be reporting on how Everquest II has increased their player-base by 10 fold since switching a few days ago.
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Join Amatera, Juggynaut, and newcomer Ronix for this MMOcast. This week’s topics are:
TERA interview at TERA Hispano: Lag won’t be an issue, reaffirmation of “Westernizing” the game, partnership with Frogster in Europe (no region locks), TERA is NOT a microtransaction game, launch issues addressed
Discussion: FFXIV and what a travesty it seems to be: i.e. not learning lessons from the first game, iffy on mouse support, weird gameplay conceits, “Fatigue” system, Japanese developer, botched open beta launch, releasing too soon? You get the idea.
In just over 48 hrs, ArenaNet received 1 million beta signup to its closed beta testing phase. It is quite the milestone, but does that really mean anything anymore?
