Running The Subscription Numbers On RIFT and Eve Online

Elementalistly at Lowered Expectations has been trying to use X-Fire and Raptr to gauge exactly how many players are subscribed to RIFT and has been using Eve Online subscription numbers to gauge just how successful his calculations are.  Oh my!  Actually, using Eve Online is a pretty good gauge for testing out theories since CCP, unlike most MMO publishers, is pretty open with their subscription numbers.

The only problem with that is when you don't know what the subscription numbers for Eve Online are in order to check your work.  A lot of people are letting him know that Eve Online has more like 360,000 subscribers, not the 450,000 that his formula predicted.

Eve Online Subscriptions From the Q4 Quarterly Economic Newsletter (p.8)

Still, if we can assume his totals from his formula are 25% too high across the board, then the number of subscribers for RIFT after a month and a half after launch is in the neighborhood of 725,000 - 750,000.  But that is just if you use the formula.  Elemetalistly has been playing the X-Fire game for a long time and actually gives a much broader estimated range of subscribers to RIFT: 600,000 - 800,000.  Looks like my prediction that RIFT would have more subscribers than Eve at the end of the year still has a chance of coming true.

Looking at Elementalistly's work also gave me some insight into how Eve is doing as well.  According to both X-Fire and Raptr, Eve player activity is going up.  I don't really see it when I look at the concurrency numbers when I log in, but those numbers may be down because of the crackdown on bots and RMT activity CCP Sreegs announced at Fanfest.  But how many RMT sites register with X-Fire or Raptr anyway?

The current trend Elementalistly reports for Eve is consistent with the numbers CCP Dr.EyjoG reports in the QEN.  The number of accounts in Eve went down this summer over the "18 months" rage and started to inch their way back up starting in January.  The question now is whether the number of real players entering the game will exceed the number of accounts banned by CCP for botting/RMT.

Related post: So What Is Eve Online's Current Subscription Number?