Operation Sports Forums - View Single Post - Am I the only one that doesn't care about online franchise?

TheWatcher · 04-03-2009, 02:22 PM

The thing with the XBL numbers though, is that they fluctuate. You'd probably see the number increase a lot whenever a new system model drops, like I bet it went up a lot when the Arcade dropped since you get 30 days free of Gold or something to that effect and they appeared to have sold pretty well.

That article from Kokatu was posted in January (EDIT: January *2008*), so you have to factor in the holiday spike.

Another question is, how many of those 10 million were or are still active now?

Microsoft is known for fudging numbers, and I honestly find the figure they post of "paying subscribers" to be suspicious at best. But the point is that as you start to chop away at the possibilities and then ask yourself just how many of those people own Madden and are playing Madden online with Gold, the number shrinks a lot.

Let's do a rough estimate using the 1% rule (if you're in marketing/promotion then you'll know this pretty well).

*10 Million Gold subscribers ----> Let's say 1% of that base plays Madden online

*That's 100,000 people who play Madden online, which is not a bad number at all.

Whenever I've gone into the Madden online service, I see a few hundred here, a few hundred there, sometimes less, and that's about it. I'm guessing you get a lot of people popping in and out 24 hrs a day so that increases the user numbers, but it's not like an explosion of traffic all at once 24 hours a day, and if it were the servers would likely jam.

*Now, of that 100,000 that potentially play Madden online, how many of them would use online franchise? I don't know, that's the unknown. But I do know this... Madden sold around 3.8 Million copies with 09 between 360/PS3 combined. If for the sake of the argument 100,000 were the number of Madden online players, that would mean that only 2.6% of people who bought Madden on 360/PS3 combined, play online. That's a high enough number to ensure that you always run into enough people to play, but the question is this:

Would 2.6% be enough to warrant devoting serious development resources and time to the mode?

04-03-2009, 02:22 PM	#146
TheWatcher MVP OVR: 27 Join Date: Oct 2008	Re: Am I the only one that doesn't care about online franchise? The thing with the XBL numbers though, is that they fluctuate. You'd probably see the number increase a lot whenever a new system model drops, like I bet it went up a lot when the Arcade dropped since you get 30 days free of Gold or something to that effect and they appeared to have sold pretty well. That article from Kokatu was posted in January *(EDIT: January 2008),* so you have to factor in the holiday spike. Another question is, how many of those 10 million were or are still active now? Microsoft is known for fudging numbers, and I honestly find the figure they post of "paying subscribers" to be suspicious at best. But the point is that as you start to chop away at the possibilities and then ask yourself just how many of those people own Madden and are playing Madden online with Gold, the number shrinks a lot. Let's do a rough estimate using the 1% rule (if you're in marketing/promotion then you'll know this pretty well). 10 Million Gold subscribers ----> Let's say 1% of that base plays Madden online That's 100,000 people who play Madden online, which is not a bad number at all. Whenever I've gone into the Madden online service, I see a few hundred here, a few hundred there, sometimes less, and that's about it. I'm guessing you get a lot of people popping in and out 24 hrs a day so that increases the user numbers, but it's not like an explosion of traffic all at once 24 hours a day, and if it were the servers would likely jam. Now, of that 100,000 that potentially play Madden online, how many of them would use online franchise? I don't know, that's the unknown. But I do know this... Madden sold around 3.8 Million copies with 09 between 360/PS3 combined. If for the sake of the argument 100,000 were the number of Madden online players, that would mean that only 2.6% of people who bought Madden on 360/PS3 combined, play online. That's a high enough number to ensure that you always run into enough people to play, but the question is this: Would 2.6% be enough to warrant devoting serious development resources and time to the mode?* Last edited by TheWatcher; 04-03-2009 at 02:39 PM.