Trion Claims Rift Stole WoW Subscribers

[vansau]

Trion Claims Rift Stole WoW Subscribers

Just how good is Rift? Its creators claim it's so good that it snagged 600,000 subscribers away from World of Warcraft.

<a href=http://www.amazon.com/Rift-Pc/dp/B002I0HIC8/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1307558836&sr=8-1>Trion Worlds' MMO Rift has <a href=http://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/rift>been pretty popular with critics and is doing pretty well with consumers, too. It's been announced that the game has almost sold a million copies, but the developer is now hinting that it stole over a half-million subscribers from World of Warcraft.

The hint was actually a tongue-in-cheek comment by Trion's senior VP , David Reid during an interview with Gamasutra. "We're really pleased with what we're seeing," he said. "And beyond that, it was a pleasure to see that in the latest Activision Blizzard earnings call, they inquired about Rift when Blizzard announced that their subscriber numbers went from 12 million to 11.4 million.

"You can do some math... We know very well where those 600,000 people are."

Of course, the million-copy milestone means that that many copies of the game have been sold, not how many people are subscribing to it. Rift is about to receive a new patch, called Waves of Madness on June 22nd, which is set to include some new features that will probably make the game even more appealing for new players and might tempt a few more folks away from the world of Azeroth.

if you're curious about Rift, check out our very own<a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/editorials/reviews/8795-Rift-Review> John Funk's review.

Source: <a href=http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/35044/Interview_trions_debut_rift_closes_in_on_1M_sellthrough.php>Gamasutra

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[icyneesan]

Thats pretty good for a game that kinda just copies what WoW did/is doing

Offtopic: Can we get a captcha system that gives me words written in the modern latin alphabet?

 

[mattaui]

While it's true that a large chunk of people I used to raid with on WoW are now subscribers to Rift, they didn't quit WoW because of Rift. They quit WoW because of WoW, and were hoping that Rift might offer them something. Like several of those same people, I've just decided I'm burned out on MMOs for awhile, and there wasn't anything special about Rift that changed that feeling.

 

[SoopaSte123]

Rift never intrigued me. The character models look like bland, typical D&D archetypes, and their ads always seemed a little TOO desperate to steal people from WoW (Join OUR Horde!). It's nice to see that something is surviving other than WoW, but if I really wanted more mmo-ing I'd stick to WoW.

 

[Grunt_Man11]

Considering the number of "FU"s Blizzard keeps giving to their veteran players I would go as far as saying Rift stole those 600,000 WoW subscribers without even trying.

 

[cryogeist]

well i don't have either games but that just seems like a pretty impressive thing

 

[Kroxile]

At the risk of being ripped apart by some angry wow fanboys I'm gonna go ahead and say WoW has lost a LOT more than 600k subs... thats just what Blizzard is tellin you.

I believe this because 1. I play WoW and have seen just how many previously full and heavy pop servers are now low, medium pop servers. and 2. I highly doubt that magic 12 million subs number was ever truly factual. Maybe 12 million accounts created but 12 mil active subs? Please.

Flame away, ye fanboys.

 

[adrian_exec]

Rift always seemed interesting and I've set a goal for myself to try those 7 free days at some points, but I doubt that Rift "stole" all of those subscriptions.

Sure they might have "stolen" some of them but most likely people like myself are simply bored of MMORPG's and quited WoW for more greener pastures.

This man said it better then I can

While it's true that a large chunk of people I used to raid with on WoW are now subscribers to Rift, they didn't quit WoW because of Rift. They quit WoW because of WoW, and were hoping that Rift might offer them something. Like several of those same people, I've just decided I'm burned out on MMOs for awhile, and there wasn't anything special about Rift that changed that feeling.

edited later: quoted the wrong person

 

[KeyMaster45]

I've tried to take a look at Rift but the cocky attitude of devs is really off putting. It's a bit petty I know but I find it hard to even consider a game when it's entire advertising basis is that it wants to give blizzard the middle finger.

If it's a WoW clone like it touts itself to be them I'm sure its a good game, but I have no desire to play under the rules of devs who come off as smug douche bags.

 

[Marudas]

Eh....

Alright, I'll try to be objective. I'm getting really tired of seeing this come up though. I know when MMO's come up, everyone's eager to see how it competes with the current giant rather than talk about its own merits.

Recently, I stopped playing WoW, after being a 6 year subscriber. I simply grew tired of the game. I don't think its bad, but you cant do something for that long and still enjoy it. So in my quest to find something to fill the timeslot, I tried Rift. I played it for a couple of weeks, whereupon I also stopped playing that game.

Here's the thing. Rift isn't BAD. But as much as people seem to want to get into the debate, its not, from a theoretical standpoint, better than WoW. It has less content, less people to play with, the Questing is redundant and boring and lacks the fun that Cataclysm infused into the questing system over in WoW's ballpark. Crafting is about the same amount of tedious as WoW (Except after you craft things, you can turn around and salvage them, then craft more things, which sorta makes the process really asinine).

Okay, so lets talk GOOD. Rift's class system is probably the part it does best. It creates lots of combinations, and there are quite a few that are serviceable. I was playing as a Warrior and doing my best job to be a tank, selecting different souls and talents to try to get the best results. Here's the thing though. I went online and found the resident theory expert, and discovered that endgame, you can really boil the 4 tanking souls down into 3-4 specs, and those are the best. People say WoW lacks choices, but what actually happens is that the overwhelming amount of community discovers the best choices, and people rarely deviate from them. Still, the amount of choice in Rift does deliver fairly nicely.

The next thing people always talk about is the Rifts and Invasions. Now, I'll talk about my experience with them. After the starting area, you get plunked around level 5-8 in the first zone. This zone is level 8-20ish. The rifts vary in level through the zone, to try to make it so you can do them. The public group system helps you try to jump in a group with other people near the rift. At these points, its basically group quests where you kill some guys, and everyone gets some loot. Its fun, for a while. The nagging parts of it start in later. Aside from some of the more powerful classes, you rarely can solo a rift of your same level (This is made worse by the fact that some rifts vary DRAMATICALLY in difficulty). Still, its pretty fun to find one and team up with some folks to take it down. Then the Invasion happened, which made me aware of a slight problem. Though the entire zone gets in on the action, I felt utterly ineffective. Its a level 8-20 zone, so the monsters ranged from those levels, but on the Iconic "Aelfwar" invasion in the first zone, to defeat it, you're expected to kill huge level 20 boss monsters. Given the way the game treats level differences, You dont stand a chance of dealing any damage, or being able to tank at all when these guys run around. Further, you can't go back to questing, because while the invasion is happening, lots of groups of elite mobs run around and gank your quest givers, or you, if you happen to be in their way. By the time I was level 20 and in some pretty decent gear, I still couldn't tank the big ones. It struck me as utterly confusing that, in a level 8-20 zone, only the people who are done with the zone can truly thwart the invasion.

There are lots of other things I could say about it, but I've already TL;DR'd anyway. I want to say one thing though. Just play the game you want. Stop feeling the need to compare them. If i were to offer a personal opinion, I don't think I'd want to be compared to WoW if i was Rift. The best thing Rift has going for it is being just different enough to offer gamers a break from WoW. WoW has monumentally more content in it, and tons more people to play with.

 

[Senaro]

So Rift is bragging that it's playerbase is roughly 5% the size of WoW's? That hardly seems noteworthy.

 

[AugustFall]

It looks interesting but honestly it's preying on people who want to go back to when WoW was new and exciting. Which is fine. And I think they learned a lot from WoW's mistakes. However I can see a lot of those 600k going back to WoW when the next expansion comes out or simply leaving.

I like WoW and if it wasn't subscription I would be playing it. Until Guild Wars 2 comes out anyway.

 

[the27thvoice]

Half my WoW guild left WoW to play Guild Wars, half left for Lord of the Rings Online, half left for Age of Conan, a whole bunch of people went for Warhammer...all but a few of these came back to WoW within two months.
WoW players are always looking for the next big thing, the better game. The common theme seems to be that the better game just isn't out there. I'll be very interested to see how Rift is doing in half a year.

 

[Spencer Petersen]

Rift, proud to exist solely as a leech on the WoW subscriber market. Congratulations on your success by scavenging the scraps of a much better game.

 

[Feralcentaur]

I wouldn't doubt it, when ever I play Rift it seems 65% of the General chat is just people talking about WoW and whether or not Rift is better than it.

 

[Feralcentaur]

Rift never intrigued me. The character models look like bland, typical D&D archetypes, and their ads always seemed a little TOO desperate to steal people from WoW (Join OUR Horde!). It's nice to see that something is surviving other than WoW, but if I really wanted more mmo-ing I'd stick to WoW.

Actually, the cloesest thing Rift has to the Horde is the Defiants.
And they're basically mad scientists/magicians.
The three races of the faction being a kind of Human that mostly lives in the Dessert and is known for making innovative machinery.
A group of elves who's island home was destroyed and they very much believe in "The end justifies the means".
And a muscular race of people who are the descendants of Humans and Air Elementals.
They only have one Capital city, and it's settled near a area of that used to be in the Gaurdians side but after their main town/city was attacked and taken over by the Undead from the nearby Iron Fortress which are now under command of a dead tyrant who used to rule over the town/city and nearby villages but was killed they only help they received was from the Defiants while the Gaurdians ignored their cries.

Not very much like Orcs...

 

[Jumwa]

While it's true that a large chunk of people I used to raid with on WoW are now subscribers to Rift, they didn't quit WoW because of Rift. They quit WoW because of WoW, and were hoping that Rift might offer them something. Like several of those same people, I've just decided I'm burned out on MMOs for awhile, and there wasn't anything special about Rift that changed that feeling.

Quite true.

I think the biggest issue is just that the changes made with Cataclysm didn't satisfy hardcore gamers any more than they already had and alienated more middle-ground players entirely.

But everyone, Blizzard especially, is eager to place the blame on other things.

 

[Craorach]

I was really excited for Rift, and it certianly has some good things... however, I think its going to have to work extremely hard if it wants to make a siginificant dent in WoW.

WoW has made its name on being an MMO you can pickup and play for an hour and make some progress, be it questing, PvP or PvE. Yes, the raiding takes more time, but if you're willing to restrict yourself to non raid content you can bash out any dungeon or BG within that hour.

Rift, you can sit down and play to find your ability to quest completely prevented by their central Rift mechanic. This is why I didn't stay in the game.