David Reid, the senior VP of publishing for Trion Worlds, announced in an interview with Gamasutra that RIFT is approaching the one million mark in sales. The number is not unit shipped, but units that have actually been sold. The SVP also stated that the 1 millionth account that is created and the referrer will received something “special” from Trion Worlds.
We all know that 1 millions units sold does not mean there are 1 million active players, so when asked about the current subscription numbers, David Reid hinted at the number by saying,
“We’re really pleased with what we’re seeing. And beyond that, it was a pleasure to see in the latest Activision Blizzard earnings call that Rift was inquired about when Blizzard announced their subscriber numbers went from 12 million to 11.4 million,“
Doing the math that puts the number at 600k subscribers, however that is not an official number. When asked about how RIFT has been doing with retaining players the SVP stated,
“If in fact the 600,000 players [Blizzard] lost came to Rift, I don’t think they’ll be getting those 600,000 people back as quick as they did from Aion, Conan, Warhammer and the like.“
RIFT has only been out for a little over 3 months and having sold 1 million copies in that time is quite an accomplishment. Whether or not RIFT can build on its momentum and put more pressure on the king of MMORPG World of Warcraft, only time will tell.