Population of IL2 4.08m

[HFC_Dolphin]

We still cannot discuss SoW, cause we have not seen it in public.

With regards to the IL-2, I totally agree that it's shrinking. Whatever is left is some DF servers, which is nothing if you consider that DF is just something arcade (no matter what the settings are) and IL-2 was not meant to be something arcade.

Online coops? Sadly only a few flown every day...

Online wars? Sadly no decent online war exists...

Players? We got to be honest and accept that every day we see the same 500-1000 names. And this list is getting shorter and shorter, not to mention those who just show up in HL and are not flying at all. They just come for some chit-chat and then they leave.

I won't be talking about offline players, cause we do not have any real proof of their numbers and the time they spend in this game.

Anyway, this game will keep some 50+ players for many years, even if no other sim appears.

I always liked "realistic" simulations (driving, ww2) more than any stupid shooter for kids...war of warcraft is another genre but still its full of kids and that fantasy shit isnt attractive to me....

[JG27CaptStubing]

Originally Posted by Bobb4

You cannot count online figures as simplistically as:

" 5000 users for IL2 vs 9 Million Players on World of Warcraft at 15 bucks a month and Call of Duty 4 having over 20000 servers out there.".

Actually you can... Take a look at the page rankings and the traffic for your favorite IL2 site. Even Ubi's forums are tiny tiny in comparison to the shear volume of WoW fans. We as in a community are in the thousands they are in the Millions period.

Originally Posted by Bobb4

Lets put it like this, Battlefield 2/2142 have on average double the number of players Call of Duty 4 has. Counter Strike Source had even more but a lot have jumped over to COD 4.

So what is your point? In terms of numbers playing this game online any any given time there are some 600 folks playing. That's Hyperlobby numbers.

Originally Posted by Bobb4

Now 9 million players at 15 bucks a month may sound a lot but it is a game that is constantly being developed, requires an extensive backbone serverside to run. Put that against over 1.4 billion internet users worldwide and you have a problem. Then 9 million users are a drop in the ocean.

Uhh sorry what are you talking about here? It's bar none the most successful PC game of all time period. Lets do a little math for a second.

9 million people purchased Wow = 9Mx$39.00 $351,000,000 just in the first iteration.

9 million people purchased Wow Burning Crusades at $29.00 = $342,000,000

That's $693,000,000 Just in revenue from purchases. Even if half were pirated copies that is more money than any other game or movie success right out of the gate.

Now lets add in the subscription fees per month. $135,000,000 now I know it didn't start out at 9 million users it started out with 4 million users and grew. I will play devils advocate for just a moment. Even at a modist 6 Million users a month that is $90,000,000 x 3 years = $3,240,000,000 just in Subscription fees.

Are you starting to get the picture? This title has blown away any Entertainment movie by leaps and bounds and it continues to do so. Yes there is overhead but when you've made about 5 Billion in revenue you can afford the servers and the development team that makes WOW work. Even if the overhead to run their servers at a 100 million a year (which is far from reality) They dwarf any WW2 Simulator and every other game by leaps and bounds.

Originally Posted by Bobb4

Mark my words, a realistic WW2 simulator covering, ground air and sea catering in the fps style (armed assault type) would have in excess of 30 to 40 million users easily.
That against a backdrop of 1.4 billion is still a drop in the ocean, just slightly bigger.
What flight sim companies should be doing is marketing their products together with after-market products such as trackir, joysticks etc.

30 to 40 million users? Uhh I don't think you understand the gaming industry and realistic numbers. IL2 and even all of it's iterations might have sold 500,000 copies at the most not 30 to 40 million.

Just start looking into Site traffic and it will show you very quicky just how tiny this genre is. Go to google and load up this site. It's tiny dude.

If you think having an integrated sim and ground war simulator is going to draw massive crowds take a look at WWII online as a good starting point.

Originally Posted by Bobb4

Lastly, Il2 is over 10 years old and the fact that it has the largest online flight community bar none is and indication of what could happen with the right product.
Remember when Il2 came out broadband was in it's infancy in most countries.
All the other products that have been quoted have come out since the big internet boom.
Imagine a product that records stats like BF2, is ultra realistic and is great to look at...
time will tell but I believe SOW will reinvent how online flight sims are seen.

The fact is there is a reason why 1c is releasing a Console and handheld version of IL2. Most gamers don't play PC games anymore. WOW and SIMs are the only ones making entertainment software company execs scratch their heads. Wow and SIMs are the most succesful PC games of all time. Even if you include Microsoft Flight Sim as being a competitor it dwarfs the IL2 community.

Do some research and you will see just how wrong you are.

[JG27CaptStubing]

Originally Posted by Tvrdi

I always liked "realistic" simulations (driving, ww2) more than any stupid shooter for kids...war of warcraft is another genre but still its full of kids and that fantasy shit isnt attractive to me....

That may be true but you are in the minority. 9.3 million active players right now and there is no end it sight. They will be releasing the Wrath of the Lich King in the Fall and it will continue the saga.

It doesn't matter if you don't like the game. The numbers speak for themselves.

[Thunderbolt56]

I've never purchased or played WoW nor any of its iterations. Also comparing this sim to THE MOST SUCCESSFUL online game ever is kinda like apples and oranges.

There's no denying this genre represents a very small fraction of the comparable game sales of more demographically diverse genres, but you can expect me to be more protective and argue with more fervor on behalf of my hobby than the vast majority of those WoW players ever would for theirs. I might have less chance of being heard than a Who in Whoville, but I still shout as there is always a chance there might be a figurative Horton somewhere out there.

[JG27CaptStubing]

Originally Posted by Thunderbolt56

I've never purchased or played WoW nor any of its iterations. Also comparing this sim to THE MOST SUCCESSFUL online game ever is kinda like apples and oranges.

There's no denying this genre represents a very small fraction of the comparable game sales of more demographically diverse genres, but you can expect me to be more protective and argue with more fervor on behalf of my hobby than the vast majority of those WoW players ever would for theirs. I might have less chance of being heard than a Who in Whoville, but I still shout as there is always a chance there might be a figurative Horton somewhere out there.

Not really. The point in bringing it up is to offer perspective. Publishers and Developers are in this to make money. This is their business. Just because our genre is near and dear doesn't always agree with where the money is and where it will be spent.

In terms of being protective and arguing with more ferver you couldn't be more incorrect. They are just as freakish as any of us. They have all their calculations for all the zillions of items and classes just as much if not more than us given all the different variables with the game. There are entire business surrounding the information about Wow. The UI is open to be modded and it's frequently modded I might ad. So much so you need a client on your machine just to manage the software.

There is far more depth and breath to their software than with ours. We have so many flyables and so many things that can be done within our software.

They have an entire economy setup with full blown auction houses resembling ebay in the real world with tons of tools to search and sell items. In the game you actually make a living either by finding and selling things or actually making things.

Its such a deep game I can't even begin to scratch the surface.

Just because you and I are into the WWII Flying stuff and it has incredible history and Breadth doesn't mean they don't. You have no idea.

We have virtual squads with say 20-30 guys in it. They have entire Guilds with 100s of people. Remember some of their content can only be played with 40 guys at the same time working together to bring down the big guys. These are called raid guilds and one instance can take a few days to complete. Those aren't 1 hour sessions either. They last 3-6 hours at a time.

I will stop talking about it because it will go on and on.

The thing to remember is even though this game is so different from ours the backing and the idea is to sell software in the end.

Thinking that we are anything but tiny is fantacy. The fact that someone is willing to take a risks and spend time and money to build my favorite type of game is pretty incredible. Notice how many US based companies are releasing flight sims. I can think of one.. Microsoft. The rest of the big boyz are building console games and attempting to sap WOW.

Recent release of Age of Conan is the first real attemp to give wow a run for its money. 3 weeks old and it's already sold 1M copies.

[Insuber]

I won't bet a cent on this info, but for sure a respected UBI forum's moderator wrote some time ago that the total sales of Il2 family games exceeded 5 million units.

Regards,
Insuber

[JG27CaptStubing]

Very possible but I doubt it.

[zapatista]

Originally Posted by Insuber

I won't bet a cent on this info, but for sure a respected UBI forum's moderator wrote some time ago that the total sales of Il2 family games exceeded 5 million units.

Regards,
Insuber

i think the official total sale figure quoted by 1C for the whole il2 series worldwide was just under 600.000

[Bobb4]

Just start looking into Site traffic and it will show you very quicky just how tiny this genre is. Go to google and load up this site. It's tiny dude.

If you think having an integrated sim and ground war simulator is going to draw massive crowds take a look at WWII online as a good starting point.




The fact is there is a reason why 1c is releasing a Console and handheld version of IL2. Most gamers don't play PC games anymore. WOW and SIMs are the only ones making entertainment software company execs scratch their heads. Wow and SIMs are the most succesful PC games of all time. Even if you include Microsoft Flight Sim as being a competitor it dwarfs the IL2 community.

Do some research and you will see just how wrong you are.

You somehow seem to think I was taking a dig at WOW and have jumped to it's defense. Sorry if I gave that impression.
I was merely pointing out that with the internet having 1.4 billion users, 9 million people play WOW is really not that big.

To put it another way, there is a massive untapped market waiting to be exploited. I was just pointing out that a combined WW2 sim having all the elements of COD2, IL2 and Silenthunter 4 (include surface ships) would easily attract 40 million plus players.
Again it would have to follow the same stats, ingame world of the landmark games like WOW, EVE etc. WW2 online failed mainly because of a lack of developer support, the game basically remained the same from initial release...
So in a nutshell I was saying an online game, with a persistant universe featuring, planes, tanks soldiers and naval assets in a large FPS type world with complete stats, rank and upgrades would be successful especially if it was regularly updated and maintained.
If WOW is the alpha and omega of online game in the future then that would be sad. I firmly believe a persistant online ww2 war on an epic scale would be very successful.

I have played guild wars, Navy fields, ADW, Il2, Armed Assault, BF2, BF2142, Falcon 4, Lomac, Prey, Crysis, COD4, DOD online. Offline, Warcraft in all it's incarnation, AGE of empires and the list goes on...
As for consoles replacing PC's I say 20 years ago who would have though mobile phones would be available to everyone... Wher technology is heading is anyones guess. But anyone ignorning 1.4 billion users is an idiot.
Five to six years from now WOW will be one of hundreds of titles competing for the biggest market in the world.