RIFT Sells Nearly 1 Million

[Jun 08, 2011, 11:20 am ET] - Share - Viewing Comments

Gamasutra speaks with Trion Worlds' SVP of publishing David Reid about the launch of RIFT, their fantasy-themed MMORPG. He tells them that the game has sold nearly a million copies in three months of availability, stressing that this figure represents sales, rather than units shipped to retailers, and that they have something "special" planned for their one-millionth customer. He also implies that they have taken a bite out of Blizzard's mammoth World of Warcraft business:

"We're really pleased with what we're seeing. And beyond that, it was a pleasure to see that in the latest Activision Blizzard earnings call, they inquired about Rift when Blizzard announced that their subscriber numbers went from 12 million to 11.4 million," he said.

"You can do some math... we know very well where those 600,000 people are," he said coyly.

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32 Replies. 2 pages. Viewing page 1.
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32.

Re: RIFT Sells Nearly 1 Million

Jun 8, 2011, 21:20

Endo

Only one million in 3 months? Guess it's doing even worse than I thought.

31.

Re: RIFT Sells Nearly 1 Million

Jun 8, 2011, 18:51

Sepharo

The long time WoW players at my work who left for Rift have now stopped playing Rift as well, but they haven't gone back to WoW either.

It's MMO burnout as opposed to Rift burnout.

They're still playing a ton of Minecraft on our server but that's starting to wear out as well. Now they're asking me for new games but everything I suggest is too hardcore apparently.




[I'm not trolling I'm just] tossing stuff like that in there only to get your panties all bunched up. -TrollinThundr

30.

Re: RIFT Sells Nearly 1 Million

Jun 8, 2011, 18:43

Doombringer

Let him gloat. I'm a little tired of Blizzard, and more specifically their fanboys, lording their 'top spot' over the entire goddamn MMO industry. It's about time someone took a potshot at them.

29.

Re: RIFT Sells Nearly 1 Million

Jun 8, 2011, 18:38

Fibrocyte

spindoctor wrote on Jun 8, 2011, 12:14: Gloat now good sir. Your game will be forgotten in 3 months and free to play by this time next year. Which makes it quite more successful that just about every other MMO other than WoW. Rift is actually a very good alternative to WoW and I will likely play it for a few months or until a really good new MMO is released.

28.

Re: RIFT Sells Nearly 1 Million

Jun 8, 2011, 18:02

Teddy

kanniballl wrote on Jun 8, 2011, 17:00: How exactly does a hostile guild takeover happen? Generally speaking it begins as one guild (generally larger and with further progression) helping another smaller guild that's struggling to field enough members for their own full raids, while the larger guild is perhaps missing a spot or two in a second (or third) raid team. Then, the better players of the smaller guild are enticed with offers of permanent raid spots, further progression and more consistent raids and raid teams. If enough bite, and sometimes it only takes one or two, then whatever holes were in the larger guild's teams (assuming they're running more than one) are filled and they no longer need the smaller guild. The smaller guild is left completely unable to field raid teams with the loss of those who jumped guilds and from there it's inexorable. You will lose more members because they aren't getting the opportunity to raid consistently or successfully, then you either join the larger guild, disband, or wait to be wittled away into nothingness. Most generally choose to merge with the larger guild if only to continue playing with friends they've had for some time. Seen it happen plenty of times. I've also seen other situations where two guilds merge, the new guild run by officers of both, but those of one of the guilds aggressively set up guild activities and give preference to including their old teammates first and only allowing a few of the new members to join in. Those that are frequently left out end up disenfranchised and eventually either leave the guild, or log in less and less often. Politics happens everywhere, even in imaginary worlds.

27.

Re: RIFT Sells Nearly 1 Million

Jun 8, 2011, 17:06

nin

Did they sneak some people into your rosters, wipe out your shared bank, and say "join us if you ever want to see that gold again?" Did they surround you with superior numbers and threaten to loot your corpses? Did they bribe so many of your members to switch to their's that your guild shrank too much?

I'm half-serious, though my suggestions are in jest

I can't speak for Rift, but I could easily see all of those happening in WOW.




RollinThundr Apr 17, 2013, 12:25: Eh really tossing stuff like that in there only to get your panties all bunched up. If you really want to call that trolling sure. Mr. Tact Apr 17, 2013, 12:33: Pretty sure that's the definition of trolling...

26.

Re: RIFT Sells Nearly 1 Million

Jun 8, 2011, 17:00

kanniballl

ColoradoHoudini wrote on Jun 8, 2011, 16:15:
I'd still be playing a ton of Rift had it not been for our guild merging with another guild, in what was a hostile takeover really.
...

Sorry, I haven't played rift and my MMO experience is limited to CoH, CO, and DCUO...

How exactly is there a hostile take-over of a guild?

Did they sneak some people into your rosters, wipe out your shared bank, and say "join us if you ever want to see that gold again?" Did they surround you with superior numbers and threaten to loot your corpses? Did they bribe so many of your members to switch to their's that your guild shrank too much?

I'm half-serious, though my suggestions are in jest. How exactly does a hostile guild takeover happen?




"Space. It seems to go on and on forever. But then you get to the end and a gorilla starts throwing barrels at you." -Fry, Futurama

25.

Re: RIFT Sells Nearly 1 Million

Jun 8, 2011, 16:15

ColoradoHoudini

I'd still be playing a ton of Rift had it not been for our guild merging with another guild, in what was a hostile takeover really. Then the ensuing issues that followed afterward. It's really a well-done game across the board.. good amount of content.. fun boss fights and events..i like it.

24.

Re: RIFT Sells Nearly 1 Million

Jun 8, 2011, 16:12

Fion

Guild Wars 2 is gonna own all this shit hehe. And on Rift, I'm still playing myself and having a lot of fun. Yes the game is a WoW clone (or.. an EQ clone is more proper) that copies WoW in many ways they really didn't need to, but the dynamic content is enough to give the game it's own feel. But yes, GW2 is gonna wreck this game, and SWToR.

23.

Re: RIFT Sells Nearly 1 Million

Jun 8, 2011, 15:19

Trevellian

D_K_night wrote on Jun 8, 2011, 15:10:
Staying as close to the NDA as possible(don't want anyone to get in trouble here) -

Is SWTOR pretty much a hot-key MMO just like WoW, Rift and so on, mechanic-wise? For those of you who don't know what "hotkey-MMO" means, it's a term I believe coined by TotalBiscuit where the core of the gameplay centers around clicking a target with the mouse, then executing your actions through player-preset keybinds. Your attacks/heals don't miss, unless you're out of range, or are under the statistical hit-cap, expertise-cap, , bad RNG, etc.

Darkfall may have already done this, but I think it's time for the next evolution of MMO - the logical next step is MMOFPS, where the player is required to accurately target their attacks(and heals)...or it misses.

Supposedly thats how Tera is supposed to work. Aim your spells and heals while you run around. But it looks way too eastern for even my tastes and I generally like that sort of thing.




For the Republic -TrevellianC22 Planetside 2

22.

Re: RIFT Sells Nearly 1 Million

Jun 8, 2011, 15:10

D_K_night

Staying as close to the NDA as possible(don't want anyone to get in trouble here) - Is SWTOR pretty much a hot-key MMO just like WoW, Rift and so on, mechanic-wise? For those of you who don't know what "hotkey-MMO" means, it's a term I believe coined by TotalBiscuit where the core of the gameplay centers around clicking a target with the mouse, then executing your actions through player-preset keybinds. Your attacks/heals don't miss, unless you're out of range, or are under the statistical hit-cap, expertise-cap, , bad RNG, etc. Darkfall may have already done this, but I think it's time for the next evolution of MMO - the logical next step is MMOFPS, where the player is required to accurately target their attacks(and heals)...or it misses.

21.

Re: RIFT Sells Nearly 1 Million

Jun 8, 2011, 14:31

Shagwood

Tumbler wrote on Jun 8, 2011, 12:50: After being in a wave of the beta...don't set your expectations too high. Did you play any pvp? Where there any open battle areas that could capture the scale of combat shown in the video clips? The latest one is a bit more accurate to the gameplay, only a handful of players around. But those first 2 video clips showed dozens of players on each side fighting. Jedi vs Sith brawl and the republic troopers attacking the sith on Alderaan, anything that comes close to that type of experience? All the clips I've seen show this game as a little group of 3-4 running around battling a handful of enemies then moving to the next handful of enemies. Does it ever break out into a battlefront style massive free for all where people can just do whatever they want and have fun? The raid gameplay clip they showed had a dozen (?) or so players heading into battle but it seemed they were just all running at AI's? I did not try out the PvP part of SWTOR. I lasted about 2 weeks out of over a month of available time in beta. And I don't know where the NDA stands as of now...so I will say ...the combat system in PVE is extremely repetitive and boring. it's WoW with lightsabers IMO. Now I played WoW from release until about 6months ago....so I'm not bashing WoW..but it's time for something new and fresh don't ya think? Like I wanna feel like I felt the first time I played EQ. I know that's not going to happen most likely...(older, more jaded etc etc) but come on...it is still a bunch of "Hello random NPC, Hello Player, Go collect me 25 thingies, OK NPC brb. rinse repeat. That's another thing....being a Star Wars fan... it doesn't feel very Star Warsy imo....I mean I dunno what they could do diff in an MMO setting and make something feel Star Warsy ... But they might as well just made it a generic Space MMO and it would have helped it in my eyes.... Anyways... mine is just one opinion ...take it as you will....

20.

Re: RIFT Sells Nearly 1 Million

Jun 8, 2011, 14:12

Verno

MMOs have changed a lot too over the years. For better or worse we're long past the days of dying and losing everything on your corpse in a dungeon.




Playing: Faster Than Light, Tales of Graces F, Fire Emblem 3DS Watching: Ghost in the Shell, Hannibal, Oblivion

19.

Re: RIFT Sells Nearly 1 Million

Jun 8, 2011, 14:01

Ruffiana

JohnBirshire wrote on Jun 8, 2011, 11:47: I've played Ultima Online off and on since 1997. I've played World of Warcraft off and on since 2004. I played Age of Conan for 2 months. I played Warhammer Online for 2 months. I played DCUO for 2 months. I played Rift for the free month. I hope to be playing SWToR for a long time, because nothing else released in the last 7 years has even come close to expectations. Maybe the fault isn't with the games themselves. Maybe your tastes have changed over the past decade and a half? Maybe the reason you stick with UO and WoW now is because of the nostalgie and friendships you made in those games?

18.

Re: RIFT Sells Nearly 1 Million

Jun 8, 2011, 13:54

Kobalt

Double post(and can't delete for some reason)

17.

Re: RIFT Sells Nearly 1 Million

Jun 8, 2011, 13:52

Kobalt

With the game only doing ok after being probably the most polished mmo ever released(comparing quite well to mmos out for years), I question how companies will be able to justify investing in mmos anymore. Swtor will probably have less then million subs after a few months. I can just see some suits looking at rift doing ok at best when people always complain mmos fail because they are buggy. If swtor isn't huge I see nothing good for mmos development. I don't think mmos will be dead, just everyone cede the genre to blizzard and ncsoft, with maybe the odd American release every 4 years or so. Now that polished = subs has shown to be a lie, I question wow like = fail as the justification people are giving lately. After all, there are modern warfare clones that do well, why can't there be the same with wow clones? If it takes a completely new experience for every mmo to do well, it just means mmos will just go by the wayside. Pretty sad, saw so much potential in the genre playing everquest years ago.

16.

Re: RIFT Sells Nearly 1 Million

Jun 8, 2011, 13:21

Ruffiana

spindoctor wrote on Jun 8, 2011, 12:14: Gloat now good sir. Your game will be forgotten in 3 months and free to play by this time next year. Let it, they'll be making more profit than they would with the stodgy subscription based model.

15.

Re: RIFT Sells Nearly 1 Million

Jun 8, 2011, 13:19

Tumbler

The zonewide events are huge and still amass a large chunk of players, but if they devolve into large scale pvp fights it's usually at the expense of victory in the zone event so they stay pretty neutral.

Does the combat take place all "on foot"? Is anyone able to use vehicles? On hoth can some players control At-At's while others fly snow speeders? Then the foot soldiers on both sides fight it out on the ground? (I'm almost afraid to ask)




VGfive.com - Game Trading site (Steam codes too!) Kickstarter "Game Developer"!

14.

Re: RIFT Sells Nearly 1 Million

Jun 8, 2011, 13:19

Agent.X7

spindoctor wrote on Jun 8, 2011, 12:14:
Gloat now good sir. Your game will be forgotten in 3 months and free to play by this time next year.

Haha, yup, this exactly.




Seven Star Gaming - Sayre, PA

13.

Re: RIFT Sells Nearly 1 Million

Jun 8, 2011, 13:10

PropheT

Tumbler wrote on Jun 8, 2011, 12:50: Does it ever break out into a battlefront style massive free for all where people can just do whatever they want and have fun? It can, and there are plenty of open world areas to do it and objectives to be taken and controlled if the players are willing to go out and do it. They generally aren't, though, and I haven't seen players go after these things since the first or second month of the game's release. I wouldn't be terribly surprised if they had Warhammer/DaoC-style RvR combat in the pipe for the future though. The zonewide events are huge and still amass a large chunk of players, but if they devolve into large scale pvp fights it's usually at the expense of victory in the zone event so they stay pretty neutral.

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