A lot of laughable quotes from Trion here (the only MMO out five years ago was WoW? Really…), but can you really outright lie about how well you are doing these days? I know Xfire is not an exact science, but it’s not totally random either, and Rift is not just the 24th game on the list, it’s behind WoW, Aion, Vindictus, LotRO, and EVE for MMO titles.
If your idea of challenging WoW is having less than 5% of their US/EU* playerbase (based on hours played or total players reporting hours, take your pick) playing your game compared to WoW, um… way to challenge them champ!
*Xfire is clearly not picking up Asia, since Lineage 1 has 0 hours played, yet we know Lineage 1 is still MASSIVILY popular there.
Note: I have not looked at Xfire in a while, but man is LoL killing it.
Fun fact: The login queue last night for LoL had more players (20k+) than Darkfall most likely has in total. Not a bad “PvP hotspot” that queue…
Hardcore Casual 
Syncaine’s just trolling.
We all know Trion are really the Best Bunch of Guys Ever in the Dev World (TM) and their frank honesty, transparent communication with their fans and capability of implementing extremely original, soulful ideas on a whim is what will keep them above TOR, GW2 and indeed any MMO for years to come; truly, they are not only worthy of the 2nd (or 3rd, or 4th, or 5th, or 6th) position they have now but also the dominant spot in the market for at least a generation.
Research Fail!
You should have double checked on Raptr. That would have shown you that Rift has 842K hours played to WoW’s 16 million which works out to… um… about 5%.
Never mind.
Damn you meddling commentators, always foiling my rants!
BTW, do we have a count on how many of those “not really competitors” that people at Trion worked on before they joined the team?
Tabula Rasa and EverQuest II are certainly on the list.
I was thinking about that. Didn’t the above basically sound like the CEO saying “Hey Scott, remember all those games you worked on before? Haha neither does anyone else, they did not exist! Go make me a coffee toady”.
Eh, admittedly I am a bit of a Trion Worlds fangirl, but I it looks like what they said was that RIFT was the “most serious competitor [WoW] ever had”. Look at where large groups of players gather: the Something Awful MMO forums have only two subforums, for WoW and RIFT. MMO-Champion has subforums for only two released MMOs, WoW and RIFT.
The only MMO from the last five years that I can think might get even close to that level of community attention would be EvE Online, and I suppose if one is being pedantic it’s hard to describe EvE as a “competitor” to WoW (seeing as it’s a pretty different game).
I mean, it’s all speculation, but it’s just as good as Xfire numbers. ;)
Something Awful is the Goons home. They kinda play a little bit of EVE :)
WAR had 1m boxes sold, in its first 3 months it was “a serious competitor”. LotRO pre-release had ads of “joining the millions”, and did/is doing well. Aion seems to be holding a lot of people (who are they…?).
I mean look, if Rift was the second-largest MMO out, AND it was more than a blip compared to the number of people playing WoW, Trion could start talking about challenging a dying game for the top spot.
Right now Trion should be talking about how any day now they might pass EVE (unless EVE starts gaining subs again), and Aion better look out ‘soon’, and hey, if WoW keeps losing millions, at some point Rift might have 50% of their player activity as well. I didn’t quite get that from the above though. Maybe I read it wrong.
The thing is, “serious competitor” is being defined by Lars there in a very specific way, and he isn’t really sharing the full parameters.
How much bigger of a competitor is Rift relative to everything else that has been out there and vying with WoW for players?
Trion has said they have a million “customers,” but failed to define what that really means.
Bascially, Trion is claiming superiority, but not really explaining why.
Not that I think they are not doing well in their segment. But claiming to be a serious competitor to WoW is a big jump from the pack.
Another way of looking at the community attention, though: before Rift launched, virtually every blogger on my RSS feed was talking about it. When it launched, most of them were playing it. Now.. tumbleweeds. I would say 90% of the bloggers I read who were mad about Rift at launch time have either stopped playing and said as much, or just never talk about it any more.
Sure some people are still playing. But from my angle, the community buzz has gone from off the charts to flatline.
“WoW remains the king of MMOs if you ask most people, (most people?) but the game from the talented folks at Blizzard has also been around an awfully long time. (Why be specific when you can use more words to be vague?) Rift, meanwhile, from Trion Worlds has quickly amassed 1 million subscribers (here’s a source link which clearly says “units,” not “subscribers”) and appears to be growing still (based on…?). Trion Worlds boss Lars Buttler asserts that Rift is actually the most competition WoW has ever seen. (We did not attempt to reach Blizzard or any other MMO developer who might provide this claim with some context.)”
Is this supposed to be journalism? I feel dirty for giving them a pageview.
I do like the conclusion of the article:
“When we started five years ago, there was only WoW. Now there’s Rift as an absolute serious contender, with the most dynamic gameplay ever. Then there’s Star Wars, then there’s End of Nations coming.”
One of those games is not like the others.
Kudos to Trion for finding such a passive journalist. And kudos to the blogosphere for being better than the people who get paid to have opinions about MMOs.
When Rift released it was a brief stop over for some of the bored WoW crowd. League of Legends is pulling people from all types of games and keeping them. Unlike Rift, LoL could make a more credible claim at pulling people away from WoW, if they wanted to take that rather lame route of advertising.
If we’re talking about subscription games that have (or had) a recent presence in the west and that didn’t go ‘freemium/F2P’, the most reliable recent total worldwide player figures (based on financial statements, box sales, etc.) for current games would likely be:
1. WoW (11 million plus or minus several 100K)
2. Lineage II (3 to 4 million)
3. Aion (2 to 3 million)
4. Lineage I (1 to 2 million, perhaps closer to Aion’s number?)
5. EVE Online (300K to 400K?)
6. Rift (250K to 350K?, never broke 1 million subs, maybe 700K to 800K at peak?)
…with all of those except WoW (and maybe Rift) probably near the lower figure.
LotRO might be #5 in actual subs, but it and EVE probably have similar sub numbers. Rift might be a bit higher, but every indication (box price already slashed so soon after release, Steam sales under $9) is that the game is in steep decline, if not outright free-fall.
I’m one of those Aion players and have been since the first beta. While I usually play early in the day, when I do log on at night the servers are quite busy. Siel (Elyos side) is often very busy and was jam packed with wall to wall players during the recent reactivation free time. I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many players except maybe at launch. I can’t speak for others, but I play Aion because it is a solid game, has unsurpassed graphics (at least until GW2 comes out) and has slowly improved over time, in spite of NCWest’s best attempts to mismanage the game.
The only thing that matters is that Rift is financially successful. Unless your an investor, who cares?
The only thing I really haven’t liked about Trion since I first began to pay attention to Rift a couple of years back is the marketing hype they ladle on. I understand why they do it but I’d prefer they stood a little more on their dignity.
They made a very solid MMO, they outperformed their hopes let alone their expectations and they have a game that should make them money and keep hundreds of thousands of people entertained for many years to come. Really, that’s enough. They should settle into their niche and consolidate.
Syn, have you been playing Dominion any more lately? I must say, I sure find it more interesting to watch livestream than Summoner’s Rift, just for the massive amount of team-fighting that goes on. Lately I’ve mostly been watching it be played rather than playing, because I’m kind of in a lull with it.
I stopped using Xfire when it was purchased by the bad people.
That is the most delusional interview I have ever read. I think they think MMOs started with WoW seven years ago, and no other MMO has come close or seen any type of success.
WoW is an industry giant. But I don’t think they have ever touted on being a massive success, or claimed grandiose statements like: “”the most dynamic MMO ever”. Ever heard of Eve?
@Bronte – Yeah, I think the claim to being the only competitor for WoW must have blinded Syn to the whole “most dynamic MMO ever” aspect of the interview. I am sure there is a whole sandbox dynamism discussion to be had.
Sandbox?
Is Rift even the most dynamic themepark?
Isn’t it just natural to talk your own product up? We all know that WoW has the ‘history’ and the massive player base, but the new kids on the block have to find ways to promoting themselves.
Trion here reminds me a bit of Muhammad Ali, but without the track record to back up the ludicrous statements. Entertaining, but to be taken with a grain of salt.