The actual number of subscribers is also extremely difficult to ascertain, for the reasons of China (as Matt mentioned above) and the equally fuzzy system of accounts in Korea (one of their biggest Asian communities), where individual WoW accounts aren’t the norm… instead game salons have thousands of accounts to accommodate players who pay hourly fees to play.

Puzzle Pirates, according to Daniel James (who has been extremely open with the numbers and seems like an honest person), had a modest budget and fairly solid returns based on initial subscribers, which became an outstanding profit margin when they switched entirely to the “pay for in-game currency” model.

The “pay for tokens” (which become in-game assets or access to content) model is the default Asian model, and is something almost every North American publisher is looking into as the inevitable future.

Shanda (the largest Chinese publisher of online content) was the last to experiment with a monthly subscription model in Asia, and found it to be a complete disaster. At the most recent Online Game Development Conference in Seattle, a rep from Shanda said that they would never publish another game that wasn’t free to play, pay for extra content, and seemed certain that every other Asian publisher would follow suit.

As for Zack’s assertion that a 200,000-player MMO can be profitable, the best I can say under my NDA is that EVE Online was profitable well before its membership was anything remarkable, and that Zack knows what he’s talking about.

The difference, of course, is that EVE was created without the same level of expectations, without licensing fees, and without the bulk of a company already maintaining an Asheron’s Call and a DDO. It was a lean company. So I don’t know if LOTRO can be sufficiently profitable with 200,000 subscribers at $15/month, but an MMO can be.

It’s no coincidence that the bestselling game in the genre…in many ways, the proof of concept for the genre, was produced by a company with so much money already, it didn’t need to keep track of where it went.

You’d have to prove this to me with a spreadsheet that accurately reflects licensing fees, technology overhead, and advertising. And probably some pretty significant service on the debt the company racked up while they were building and testing the game, pre-launch.

I don’t know how Puzzle Pirates did/does and I don’t remember their economic model, but that was an MMO that looked modest in scope, but which it seemed like a lot of people were playing.

And there are online versions of CCGS. Things like PoxNora which look pretty good.

From the massive success of one or two, for example, we see many, many get-rich-quick band-wagon jumpers.

From what I know of how often second- and third-tier CCGs are barely break-even propositions on an ongoing basis, I wouldn’t be surprised if LOTRO and similarly tiered MMOs are just barely making it financially, if at all.

Jason, I must selfishly point out that those are my three reasons, not Jeff’s. But you’re quite right about how universal those three reasons are.

Replace “MMORPG” with “TCG” and you’ve pretty much got the same factual accuracy. I’ve noticed startling similarities between the two genres for quite a while. In fact, Jeff’s 3 reasons could apply to why many people get into TCGs, as well.

1. I liked the devs. “Hey, I really like AEG (or WizKids or WotC or Decipher), so I’ll try their new game.

2. New games mean friendlier players. Before we get into regionals, state championships, worlds, etc., and the cutthroatedness that go with them. Or, maybe you’re just sick of ultra-competitive players of your current game (equating WoW to Magic or Vs. here seems appropriate), and want to get into something new and, for the moment, more casual.

3. I’m a “fill-in-the-license” junkie. Pretty straightforward. Nobody makes unlicensed TCGs anymore. (Nobody with any even faint illusions of turning a profit, at least.)

Add in the grind of staying competitive, the need (and often difficulty) in finding a regular play group), and the similarities are even more jarring. MMOs are the TCGs of the 21st century.