Diablo 3 Player number Health

[flooble]

So what's new here ?

A massive statement from the President of the company trying to put fires out?

Not the dev team, not the lead dev, not a CM...no...the president of the entire company makes an announcement.

Don't you think that's a sign of BadThings™ being seen in their internal analysis?


Set aside the statistical debate for a moment and consider if you believe that someone who runs the company might have better things to do than that? Unless it's a MAJOR snafu, presidents/CEOs don't do this.

[Benbos]

To Benbos : OK XFIRE is not an "orthodox" random sample.

But, considering the number of people in the XFIRE sample, these figures are a good indication of the trend for all the players.
When I see 80% players loss in 10 weeks, I think that a "similar" loss is happening for all the players.
I say "similar" I don't say "the loss is 80% with a probability of 99%".

But in game "public games" (like calculated after the 1.03 patch) ...only shows a 25% decline...

So what's more accurate: In game figures of public games or a not so good sample somewhere on the internet ?

[Benbos]

A massive statement from the President of the company trying to put fires out?

Not the dev team, not the lead dev, not a CM...no...the president of the entire company makes an announcement.

Don't you think that's a sign of BadThings™ being seen in their internal analysis?


Set aside the statistical debate for a moment and consider if you believe that someone who runs the company might have better things to do than that? Unless it's a MAJOR snafu, presidents/CEOs don't do this.

Morhaime intervened 2 times in 2004 after the launch of WOW to put out fires. Actually he did it again in 2005 and he even intervened in 2006 in pre TBC.

So while I doubt Diablo 3 will take the same route as WOW has, I don't see a first ever here.

Logging problems and lack of features (mostly PvP) were missing in D2, WOW , SC2, you name it.

And yes the CEO adressed the nation, so I don't see anything special about it. Except for the fact Blizzard is the big boy now.

[Lorderan]

The reason is very simple: Xfire is a self proclaimed closed group of PC players that doesn't change as a sample and is not constructed randomly.

"That doesn't change as a sample." So everyone who uses Xfire (in this data set) had xfire and bought Diablo 3 on the 15th of May, there has been no change what so ever to this group, the Xfire company has frozen the number of Xfire users as per the 15th of May? That would be a totally closed group like your implying. However, people using Xfire will have installed and uninstalled xfire and some people within this group might have actually bought the game over this period.

It is not a black and white as your implying.

"The "closed box" limited number of Xfire doesn't count any new or returning Diablo 3 players that simply don't belong to the closed box of the specific Xfire player. Since the sampling itself is not even random and self proclaimed it has no meaning on the overall player stratification or their retention rates..

Why do you assume the Xfire player base wouldn't have new or returning Diablo 3 players over this period? Why is this group so closed and special? Why can't this group gain new Diablo 3 players like the greater population? Why would the Xfire user base all have bought Diablo 3 at the same time, played it at the same time and now is not playing as much? What is so magically different about the Xfire player base?

Your board game analogy is also flawed. You would be correct if Xfire was used by ARPG fans exclusively. However, if you look at the breath of games played by Xfire users you see a very good spread of player types. Yes, Xfire users are selective in what they play i.e. more Xfire users play LoL than WoW even though more people play WoW than LoL in the total population. As I said previously it would be wrong for me the use the Xfire data to say Diablo 3 is as popular as Minecraft for the total population, because of the aforementioned selection bias.

Further your example of public games played is also flawed, I've noticed games have dropped from 10,000+ to less than 1000 now. This follows the decline in my data.

Further, as per fooble said. If everything was going as per Blizzards plans where the hell has all this complaining and a Letter from the CEO come from.

As I have said previously, Xfire can be used IF and only IF you are careful in your interpretations of that data and the implications. Since this Xfire data strongly explain the HUGE drop of public groups, HUGE number of complaints on the forums. I feel this data set can be used to get a feel for whats going on. It is not scientifically accurate, I never actually said it was.

[Benbos]

"That doesn't change as a sample." So everyone who uses Xfire (in this data set) had xfire and bought Diablo 3 on the 15th of May, there has been no change what so ever to this group, the Xfire company has frozen the number of Xfire users as per the 15th of May? That would be a totally closed group like your implying. However, people using Xfire will have installed and uninstalled xfire and some people within this group might have actually bought the game over this period.

It is not a black and white as your implying.


Why do you assume the Xfire player base wouldn't have new or returning Diablo 3 players over this period? Why is this group so closed and special? Why can't this group gain new Diablo 3 players like the greater population?

Your board game analogy is also flawed. You would be correct if Xfire was used by ARPG fans exclusively. However, if you look at the breath of games played by Xfire users you see a very good spread of player types. Yes, Xfire users are selective in what they play i.e. more Xfire users play LoL than WoW even though more people play WoW than LoL in the total population. As I said previously it would be wrong for me the use the Xfire data to say Diablo 3 is as popular as Minecraft for the total population, because of the aforementioned selection bias.

Further your example of public games played is also flawed, I've noticed games have dropped from 10,000+ to less than 1000 now. This follows the decline in my data.

Further, as per fooble said. If everything was going as per Blizzards plans where the hell has all this complaining and a Letter from the CEO come from.

As I have said previously, Xfire can be used IF and only IF you are careful in your interpretations of that data and the implications. Since this Xfire data strongly explain the HUGE drop of public groups, HUGE number of complaints on the forums. I feel this data set can be used to get a feel for whats going on. It is not scientifically accurate, I never actually said it was.

1. The closed box of Xfire is simply that; People do NOT install and uninstall Xfire on a daily basis. They belong to that club or they don't . It is rather a simple observation, so the randomness is already out (as it is self proclaimed) and the non changing fact is already well explained in my previous posts.

By this EVERY NEW game will show the same TREND, as Xfire is a closed club. See you in TSW (mentioned already by me, see you in GW2 with the SAME drop in 3 months times...)

But point 2 is where I get ANGRY.


2. The open games were changed in patch 1.03. These public games showed 1.8K in EU on prime time. Blizzard had a BLUE explaining on this and HOW they calculated this. You should know that.

Here is the link and the info: http://diablo.incgamers.com/blog/com...ce-1-3-release

Last weekend the EU number reached even 1600 ---- 6 weeks after patch 1.03. This week it hovers around 1400 at prime time.

So OR you are lying, OR you didn't know about that changing number in public games after patch 1.03...

Either way it shows you desperatly want to show a decline.

I tell you what: I know and proved that XFire stats are what they showed in past games. I proved it to you WHY they always do.

Now you try to descredit me for using false in game figures while Blizzard explicitely explained these numbers post 1.03.

You have an agenda. Posting garbage about garbage data and lying about public games being 10.000 after patch 1.03 is simply that.

[flooble]

Morhaime intervened 2 times in 2004 after the launch of WOW to put out fires. Actually he did it again in 2005 and he even intervened in 2006 in pre TBC.

So while I doubt Diablo 3 will take the same route as WOW has, I don't see a first ever here.

Logging problems and lack of features (mostly PvP) were missing in D2, WOW , SC2, you name it.

And yes the CEO adressed the nation, so I don't see anything special about it. Except for the fact Blizzard is the big boy now.

I never suggested it was a first, I said it's always been the sign of a pretty major problem. I did say it'd be a first to put out fires if none existed

There is no 'hard' evidence of a player base shrinking any worse than typical. There is, however, quite a lot of circumstantial evidence to this fact and for me, a message to reassure players from the President suggests there's something to all this.

I may, of course, be wildly off and the announcement to reassure fans was just because he was bored with nothing else to do and the game is performing far about both fan and company expectations. The balance of probability, however, is against that.

[Lorderan]

But point 2 is where I get ANGRY.

Take a deep breath dude. I wasn't referring to public games at patch 1.03 I was referring to the first ~2 weeks after release compared to now as being last weekend, Na server. Yes I remember that post about changes to public groupings. It still doesnt change the fact we have seen a huge drop off of player numbers. We may disagree on the exact number, but all information I have Xfire, this forum, Diablo forum, other diablo forums, MVP youtube posts, force quiting, Azzure quiting, Athene quiting, Kripps quiting imply somethimg is not right. All the data I see has been a decline, NONE of the data shows a positive trend all negative.

BTW this isnt personel I am not trying to "discredit you" or "have an agenda" what ever that means.

[Benbos]

Take a deep breath dude. I wasn't referring to public games at patch 1.03 I was referring to the first ~2 weeks after release compared to now as being last weekend, Na server. Yes I remember that post about changes to public groupings. It still doesnt change the fact we have seen a huge drop off of player numbers. We may disagree on the exact number, but all information I have Xfire, this forum, Diablo forum, other diablo forums, MVP youtube posts, force quiting, Azzure quiting, Athene quiting, Kripps quiting imply somethimg is not right. All the data I see has been a decline, NONE of the data shows a positive trend all negative.

BTW this isnt personel I am not trying to "discredit you" or "have an agenda" what ever that means.

Ok then. But it is quite clear that the IN game public group forming after 1.03 did not sky dive with 80-90% like you said.

25% would be more accurate over the past 6 weeks and you could follow this trend as a more accurate tool as of today (at least I am on EU servers) in prime time.

Nevertheless games don't have 100% retention rates. Even WOW has a 30% retention rate after free trials.

So I don't think there is something we see here that we didn't see in all those other games already.

The MOST important thing is the retention of hardcore players who will keep returning to playing that "monopoly board game".

With 8 million or more copies sold, a hardcore regular returning player base of 10%-20 is quite good. Certainly for the AH as 90% of the casual players will not invest too much money in the RMAH either.

F2P MMO's also have the biggest turn over with 10% of its players.

So I don't think D3 will go anywhere or be "dead" soon.



As for the guys leaving: no problem as such

[DayDream]

This was expected since beta when they announced inferno as end game, which isn't much at all.

[Benbos]

This was expected since beta when they announced inferno as end game, which isn't much at all.

This can be true but PvP is not yet launched and Blizzard promised more end game options.


Long term play in an on line game is mostly played on progression of the avatars and PvP.


Other games like Skyrim end much sooner than on line progression and PvP based games.


I would like to return to the OP when he mentioned the word "healthy" though.

There are several significant facts that speak in favor of Diablo 3:

1. It is on BattleNet/ just like SC2, it will sit there a click away. Do you "quit" in SC2 ? And what does that even mean? Not clicking for 2 months, 6 months maybe a year even ?

2. D3 is not an mmorpg where you need to keep playing. Your avatar is there, no need to keep him updated to do the latest gearscore recquired end game... Hop in and play, no trouble.

3. D3 is a clustered server game. Every player sits on the same server. What's more important everyone per region sits on the same AH. By this mechanic, its AH is 10 times to 100 times bigger than any single server AH in an MMO.

You'll never run out of players because all players sit on one central point. A 10 % played D3 (which is not at all the case btw) will have hundreds of thousands of players and traders on ONE AH at any time.

Compare this with single server MMO's with a 2K player driven economy per faction ...