SWTOR has 350,000 peak concurrent users - report

By Robert Purchese Published 3 January, 2012

Proves there can be multiple MMO champions.

Huge BioWare MMO Star Wars: The Old Republic is estimated to have as many as 350,000 gamers playing together at once.

That peak concurrent number comes from Baird Equity Research. Colin Sebastian, an analyst there, believes the "early success" of SWTOR proves that "multiple million-user MMOs" can co-exist within the genre.

"We view the early success of Star Wars as an indication of a healthy MMO market," Sebastian told GamesIndustry.biz.

"While there is likely some shifting of usage from Activision's World of Warcraft, we see a viable market for multiple million-user MMOs in the US and Europe."

EA, publisher of Star Wars: The Old Republic, said that more than one million people had registered to play during the Christmas period.

Ageing MMO champion World of Warcraft has shed subscribers since autumn 2010 - around 1.7 million have left.

Analysts at Cowen and Company expect the arrival of SWTOR to have "minimal apparent impact" on Blizzard's MMO, but accept that subscriber drop-off over Christmas may be higher than in recent months.

Star Wars: The Old Republic launched on 20th December, following two weeks of staggered early access invitations.

The 30-day subscription-free period granted to SWTOR game buyers expires for early adopters later this month. Whether they'll pay to stick around remains to be seen.

Eurogamer's Star Wars: The Old Republic review was published this morning. The score: 8/10.

"BioWare has done what many thought might be impossible," wrote reviewer Oli Welsh, "and delivered the world's second ever triple-A MMO. That is a mighty achievement and a huge relief.

"But it may yet turn out to be too little - or rather, too much - too late."

Eurogamer's escapades through the SWTOR beta.

Picture of Robert.

About Robert Purchese

Bertie is Eurogamer's Senior Staff Writer. When he's not hunting down news stories he's often found playing with his kids or gabbling about fantasy games and strange online worlds. @Clert on Twitter.

Read more articles from Robert by visiting the Robert Purchese archive page.

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Comments (26) Latest comment 5 months ago

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  • arcam #1 5 months ago

    It's still far too early to say this 'proves' anything IMO.

  • paulf #2 5 months ago

    come back after the free 30 days is over. It is a solid game, not sure it's worth the subs yet though

  • bobfish09 #3 5 months ago

    Its an estimate from a third party... what a load of rubbish.

    Tell me how many subscribers they have after the first subscription period, then we'll see how well it is doing. And only EA/BioWare figures please.

  • abigsmurf #4 5 months ago

    Warhammer: Age of Reckoning had similar impressive stats. Then people realised there was little to the game outside of battlefield grinding (even the capital cities were barren) and the server figures plummeted.

    It's all about how the user figures decline one the free months start expiring.

  • Beano #5 5 months ago

    It's still far too early to say this 'proves' anything IMO.
    My first thought exactly. Let's see how many subscribers and active users in 3-4 months.

  • [maven] #6 5 months ago

    My server (which has regular queues and is denoted full) feels empty everywhere except for the Fleet...

  • bobfish09 #7 5 months ago

    @[maven] Something I've noticed, even though my server gets queues at most there are like 300 republic players on it. But, looking on the imperial side there are easily four times as many players. :(

  • OverWind #8 5 months ago

    I regularily (at least once every 10 minutes, most times a lot more often) meet people on my server.
    But I think the "feels empty" feeling is there in all MMORPGs, most of my time in WoW (except the starting areas) I seem to remember questing to level 80 (pre-cataclysm), and only seldom meeting any people, except in the great cities. - I don't think this proves anything other than the games are really huge with lots of possible paths through the games.

  • The-Jack-Burton #9 5 months ago

    Call me in 6 months, these numbers are meaningless.

  • Subdominator #10 5 months ago

    You're all right.

  • HistoryTeller #11 5 months ago

    "But it may yet turn out to be too little - or rather, too much - too late."

    That sentence does not make any sense at all.

  • myk #12 5 months ago

    I'm happy with the number of people I see about in TOR - any more and the kill x enemies quests would take two or three times as long, even now I tend to try and group up if someone else is on the same quest and so far almost every time other players have been happy to do so.

  • AHiFi #13 5 months ago

    It makes perfect sense to me, the author is using antithesis.

  • HL706 #14 5 months ago

    Hmm, I've been playing TOR since launch and I'm on the fence. I get the feeling that once I've completed the class story there's going to be very little to tempt me back in - I can't imagine tackling the other stories as the side quests will largely be the same - which is about 60-70% of the game!

  • Eisenstein #15 5 months ago

    The question is how many it can keep. While I play the game a lot (really a lot - twice as much as Skyrim in half the time) currently I can't see continuing after having two characters (one Empire, one Republic) at 50.
    There is nothing at 50 to do (which I expected), the stories are 90 % the same if you level again (you can't go to a different area like in WoW to level - your path is pretty much fixed), with your character even giving the exact same responses with a different voice actor as your previous character, making you use the spacebar very, very often. The class quests, which are the one thing I looked forward too most make up maybe 10 % of your quests over all, which is far too thin on the ground to justify slogging through tons of same-looking mobs and clumsily designed quest areas again.

    The MMO-mechanics (UI, dungeons, talents, skills, mobs, quests) are very outdated, rivaling games released in 2007, not 2011, which makes it frustrating in many parts, too much to pay money for it. It works great as KOTOR 3, but not as MMORPG in my opinion.

    Also, thanks to the heavy instancing (necessary because of the poor performance of the game) combined with huge, huge areas (Hoth is the size of WoW Northrend) the whole thing feels very, very empty even with 300 people waiting in queues. Like putting 60 people on Northrend empty. You meet more people doing Outland on a Monday morning in WoW than on Hoth or Tatooine during prime time.
    Edited by Eisenstein at 03/01/12 @ 11:04

  • Inmediasress #16 5 months ago

    @Eisenstein
    This is the kind of "I told you so" moment.
    I knew this was going to happen when already the investors and EAs top dogs stated that they have no faith in the product.(of course highly cryptic and full of marketing hype but it was there)

    This is neither an SP game nor an MMO something between it but that's the problem it doesn't deserve a full time sub.

  • Eisenstein #17 5 months ago

    Not saying I'm not entertained by the game - with 100 hours or so invested in three weeks I'd better be, and I'm sure many others are too, but like you said, I can't really see any longevity for it if not many, many things get improved/added rather quickly. Which is difficult as a lot of things are done wrong in a very basic and deeply ingrained fashion in the game. Which is a shame, because I'm an absolute sucker for Bioware stories (regardless how cheesy and pulpy they are) and Star Wars (regardless how cheesy and pulpy and full of CGI and wooden actors it is).

    It's rather funny how well the EA Louse hit the target (although it will go down as a success in the end I think, or at least not "crash and burn";) and how accurate some reports from the Beta regarding people rather killing themselves than slogging back through tons of respawns and making long, long speeder rides (because Bioware forgot to include a backexit at the end of quest areas) back to the quest hub. Because when my quicktravel is on CD I too rather take the hit for a few credits than re-killing the stuff I killed already for another 30 minutes + 10 minutes avoiding mobs to close put to the roads (or right on them).

    Penny Arcade made the joke "Well made. F2P in two weeks". I would say, six months at the current state. Hope they make at least the 200 or 300 millions they invested back this way, because I can't imagine they manage it with box sales and subscriptions (they reported 1 million of those yet).
    Edited by Eisenstein at 03/01/12 @ 11:43

  • ecureuil #18 5 months ago

    It's a load of shit and I hope it dies a quick death so this decrepit dinosaur of a genre can finally move on. Though I doubt they will, since mmo's exist primarily to get the user addicted and fleece them of their money wherever possible. They are the videogame version of a casino, where the end user sees it as an opportunity to win a bit of cash, but the owner knows that 99% of the people are walking through the doors, emptying out their wallet, then leaving. Doesn't matter if it's a subscription or F2P, they need a ROI. They are simply designed to get the player addicted so they'll keep playing and paying. They are games second and it's so cynical.
    Edited by ecureuil at 03/01/12 @ 12:44

  • scoop #19 5 months ago

    @arcam It may prove that people get bored of the storylines after ~Lvl34, as zone populations quickly dwindle to 4-5 ppl on an entire planet, whereas Coruscant is constantly chock full of people (and multiple instances).

  • Stratix #20 5 months ago

    This isn't meant to be a proof of long term success, it is just an early indication of how well it is doing.

    Whether it will go the way of Wow or Conan we have to wait and see.

  • Totza #21 5 months ago

    350k max users at once is not very good..

  • damoxuk #22 5 months ago

    I'm playing it but it's all a bit to similar to Wow - the game I bored of.

    I'll give it some more time until I get my own ship and advanced more before totally righting it off.

  • anomagnus #23 5 months ago

    @Inmediasress

    Its not really an 'i told you so moment' immediasress

    Firstly, Eisenstein states there's nothing to do at 50, except for raids, pvp, and dailies, the same as all mmos.

    Secondly, with the exception of the UI, which has been said will get updates, all the mechanics are the same as other MMOs.

    Is your 'i told you so' moment basically 'well, while the mechanics work for Rift, Lineage 2, WoW, EVE etc, they wont work for SW:TOR, therefore i'm right?'

    Finally, i've yet to play an MMO that had these fantasy levels of players, where every zone was full all the time, and didnt have queues. It doesn't happen. Ever.

    Lets call a spade a spade here, you just want this game to fail, because you hate bioware. Its little to do with the content or the game itself. To me, it seems you'll take any negative comment you see and take that as proof positive that the game is doomed.

    Honestly, you should get a hobby or something. Your obsession with hating bioware is bordering on psychopathic at this stage.

  • anomagnus #24 5 months ago

    @Eisenstein

    Was that the exact same comic strip where they talked about how excellent the game was? I think it was.

  • bobfish09 #25 5 months ago

    @Totza Compared to what?

    For an MMO only available in EU & NA, it is only beaten by WoW, no other AAA MMO has done that.

    Now worldwide, sure it isn't anything special, but then neither is WoW compared to the likes of D&F which gets 2 million concurrent users.

  • DirectAim #26 5 months ago

    Its funny how it is compared to WoW which has been around for like 10 years and has had loads of content patches and expansions.

    For a new MMO I think its better than WoW, its has loads of cool features and they have said that new content will be made available soon!

    I am sure that when WoW was released most people didn't think it would be as big as it is, the same can easily be said about SW:TOR, personally I prefer it to WoW.