Can the Ticker Break 1M?

August 11, 2008 – 11:28 am

As of this afternoon, the WAR beta ticker is sitting at just over 800,000 beta applicants so far. Do you think they will break ONE MILLION before launch?

Personally… and regrettably, I don’t think so. Hey, I’d love for this prediction to be proven wrong, but given the state of things, I just can’t see it happening.

Why?

Well, mainly because Open Beta is probably launching some time within the next two weeks and if it has taken them over 12 months to hit 800,000, I can’t see them attracting another 200,000, 1/4 of that total, within 7-14 days. At this point, I think people can wait a few more weeks without going crazy (the game is slated for a September 18 release).

Also, their pre-order promotion kind of works against this ticker. One would assume the majority of pre-order buyers had already signed up for the beta, however, even if they hadn’t, they weren’t required to. Anyone who bought a pre-order was guaranteed access to open beta, regardless if they signed up for a beta account or not, so there wasn’t really any incentive to do so. And that leads to…

The final thing working against the ticker is Mythic’s plan that their open beta will be limited access. Mark Jacobs came out ages ago, professing that even though you’re applying, it doesn’t mean you’ll be guaranteed to get in. I think that definitely turned some people off. Not that it takes more than a few minutes to apply for beta, but why bother if you have to sign up to get only a chance at playing?

Here’s what Mark said back in April 2008:

“I’d be surprised if we didn’t hit 1M once we start taking beta apps for our Asian partners,” he said. “Even without Asia, based on our current sign-up rate, we should blow through 750K and we have a decent shot at 1M.” He also noted that his original goalpost was 500,000 in North America and Europe, a goal which EA Mythic has “far surpassed.”

I guess there’s still a chance for them to do it, but I haven’t heard anything about the Asian beta in, like, forever. My understanding is that the ticker on http://warhammeronline.com counts only NA and EU beta applicants and that it does not count Asia. Any idea where we can find an Asian ticker? Heck, is there even an Asian beta yet?

Funcom announced that over 1,000,000 people had signed up for the Age of Conan beta by the time of their release, and while their testers were apparently useless in preventing the state of AoC at release (*ba dum dum* *ching*), the game still sold over 700,000 copies.

Do you think there is any relationship between beta sign-ups and eventual sales? If so, do you think Warhammer Online will sell less copies than Age of Conan if they can’t break the one million mark of beta applicants?

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Post tags: Age of Conan, beta, opinions, Warhammer Online

13 Responses to “Can the Ticker Break 1M?”
Funcom has ZERO credibility with those published numbers. Their track record through beta and into launch has shown inflated statistics and flat out lies about many things related to the game, its launch, its features and its subscribers. I personally don’t measure WAR against any reported number from Funcom about AoC.

I haven’t seen any nice press releases from them recently about their subscription numbers, wonder why? Perhaps its cause their game is a craptastic bugfest, they lied to their customers, and pushed out a horribly unfinished product. Doesn’t matter, I wouldn’t believe crap they say anyway.

By br3ntbr0 on Aug 11, 2008
The ticker, like many other things that happen with MMO marketing, is basically a “quick-win” sell for the game. It takes a while to explain why the game is good, why specifically that it is appealin to play. But there needs to be a hook first, and that’s what all the visuals, the beta ticker number, and Paul Barnett are for.

In terms of non-marketing benefit, it’s a fair to good estimate of how much interest is in the game, but by no means is it a correlation with what it could sell.

By BC on Aug 11, 2008
I think that it is a lot more important that preorders of the game sold so well when it was several months away from release.

By Railith on Aug 11, 2008
I agree with you; don’t think the beta ticker will reach 1M. I think the more important number - which we will probably never see - is how many beta testers got a chance to actually get into the beta phases. Furthermore, how many of those said testers give their friends the ‘go / no go’ on their experience.

That said, it’s totally possible for the ticker to break 1M if the NDA drop turns into a torrent of praise for the WAR. If there is a window of time between this feasible event and Mythic sending out Open Beta invites we just might see that 1M.

By Davadoff on Aug 11, 2008
That’s possible, but I don’t know if 1-2 weeks is enough. According to the preorder page, they are planning on letting people download the Open Beta client this Friday…

By Snafzg on Aug 11, 2008
“Do you think there is any relationship between beta sign-ups and eventual sales?”

It did with me and AoC, but not in a positive way. After playing the beta for a couple of hours I quietly canceled my preorder.

By Snark on Aug 11, 2008
I like cheese too!

By Keen on Aug 11, 2008
I would be rather surprised if WAR gets over the 1M sign up for beta and I would be even more surprised if they get over the 700,000 initial sales figure.

When AoC came out there were a whole bunch of people who were just itching to replace their current game with something else and so a lot jumped onto the AoC bandwagon. Having been burnt by that experience, they are much more reluctant to try WAR until they know it has what they are looking for. AoC was the first MMO launch for a lot of players and most are now more cynical because of it.

By xibalba on Aug 11, 2008
couldnt agree with xibalba more. alot of pple are once bitten twice shy cuz of AoC. they now wan to be very sure WAR isnt another AoC messed up game before going into it

By pk on Aug 12, 2008
There is no way they’ll reach 1m beta center accounts before Sept. 18th, at least without adding an asian beta sign up as well.

I just got my close beta invite a couple of days ago, and i’m finally done downloading and installing as we speak.

Soon i’ll be able to figure out what’s got Snafzg all torn up, all of a week or less before the NDA drops i’m sure

By Knash on Aug 12, 2008
Congratz to those who got in beta! I doubt you’ll be able to figure out what got me mad about cities and classes if you just got into beta because you won’t have an older point of reference for comparison.

As for the once bitten twice shy between AoC and WAR… I think I mentioned this way back when (http://thegreenskin.com/2008/07/09/could-aocs-failure-hurt-warhammer-online/).

By Snafzg on Aug 12, 2008
dont think war will make the 1m but my freinds are waiting for feed back off me open beta my other freind are allso posting on the guild forums (wow poeple are mostly brain washed n cant cope with change) most my wow mates will try after lauch scared of a bugged game AOC kinda put poeple off paying money i personaly will recruite from wow for first few months and so will my mates so by 2009 the numbers proberly will have topped the 1m mark

By wraith knight on Aug 12, 2008