Population of IL2 4.08m

[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.

[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.

[JG27CaptStubing]

Originally Posted by Bobb4

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..

Hmmm I'm not suggesting you're attacking WOW and I need to defend it... I'm merely pointing out your downplay of 9 million users and the insane financial success of the game.

Originally Posted by Bobb4

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.

I think your figures are a bit optimistic given WOW is the most successful game off all time and it comes nowhere near 40 million.

Take a look at the demographics for IL2 I bet most of the American Players are above the age of 30 with I'm sure a few exceptions here and there. EU players there are a lot more but not enough to get 40 million people playing.

The more popular games are MORPGS and RTSs for that matter. Even shooters don't have the volume of the later.

My point is even if you could be such a game I doubt they would come. WWII only interest a few out of the thousands of gamers.

Originally Posted by Bobb4

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.

Publishers and Developers aren't ignoring the numbers. What may surprise you is there is a very large untapped segment out there that is just now coming into the sights of these companies. Want to know who that is?

Women.... Game developers and Publishers are all to aware of the guys and what they like. What they got a glimps (SIMS) of was women play too. I can assure you women aren't interested in a 1.93 Ata 109k4 vs a +25 Spit MK IX matchup.

So that's whats missing from your equation.

[robtek]

whats missing is the sense of this thread.
it reminds me of a pissing-contest
who really cares in this forum what other games people are playing???
and it is that to reach more people you have to be less sophisticated, isn´t it?

[Bobb4]

Originally Posted by robtek

whats missing is the sense of this thread.
it reminds me of a pissing-contest
who really cares in this forum what other games people are playing???
and it is that to reach more people you have to be less sophisticated, isn´t it?

Point taken lol

[JG27CaptStubing]

Originally Posted by robtek

whats missing is the sense of this thread.
it reminds me of a pissing-contest
who really cares in this forum what other games people are playing???
and it is that to reach more people you have to be less sophisticated, isn´t it?

It's not a pissing contests and some of the comments made in this thread are quite relevant. I'm not sure what the point of your comment is other than to flame people...

The point of the thread was to discuss just how popular IL2 is... I just gave a comparison of how it's not.

What I find odd about it is the fact most people don't understand how games are funded and what companies like UBI and 1C are willing to do. Yet people comment frequently about getting BOB to market.

[robtek]

Originally Posted by JG27CaptStubing

......The point of the thread was to discuss just how popular IL2 is... I just gave a comparison of how it's not. ......

I do not know how you read the title of this thread, i read population and not popular.

And yes, as more demanding a game gets as less popular it will be.
The average iq is reciprocal proportional to the number of people who get together.
Face it, we are the elite because we are so few!

No offense intended!!!

[HFC_Dolphin]

I guess some of you know nothing about economy. If it was like you're saying there would not be Lexus, but only Toyota in this world.
IL-2 and flight sims in general, may not be the most popular games in the world, but no one asked for this. I'm pretty sure that Oleg and his small team are more than happy with the money they've earned from this industry so far. They're not doing this for nothing. They do business in a niche market, that won't make them Bill Gates (but who else can be anyway?), but for sure they make a better living than most of the people here.

And you think that Ubi and other big corporations don't care about their product that much? Not in a million years. They made an excellent profit out of this product and they would be silly to not want to repeat this. And they're not silly, otherwise they would not be that high.

All in all, we all can understand that between starving and being Bill Gates there are lots of levels, and no one would demand being on the top otherwise to starve.