Update: Carbine staff member CRB_Gaffer has posted a comment on Reddit, stating:
A note: we’ve seen 4-5 times the open beta concurrency (we don’t have any subscribers yet, as we only launched 14 days ago and everyone’s in the first month that comes with the box)
Always odd when more people pay to play than play for free, but we’ll take it. As mentioned below, some of that is that your character persists, which makes it feel more real (a lot of devs have become hooked now more than they were during beta too)
Just to be clear, by subscribers we mean units sold since WildStar hasn’t exited its first month on the market.
Original Story: While at E3 2014 I had an appointment with Carbine Studios, the makers of WildStar. During a presentation by Executive Producer Jeremy Gaffney regarding the game’s first major update, some information was shared about the launch of the game; a launch that apparently went beyond expectations.
After introducing myself and two others to WildStar‘s Strain update, Gaffney shared that the game’s launch “took us by surprise”. He noted that although Open Beta was incredibly popular, there were four times as many players who purchased the game at launch.
Related: 15 Tips for WildStar Players
I’ve been waiting to hear the official numbers on how well WildStar has sold, but this “four times” estimate gives us a solid indication that it surpassed one million quite quickly. Given that so many guest passes have been passed around, and new servers have been added, sales and subscription numbers should be surging beyond the seven digit milestone by now.
WildStar battled with some lengthy server queues during its first week as a result of the game’s explosion in popularity. Server transfers were quickly made available to combat queues that in some cases exceeded two hours during prime time. Although there have been a few headaches at launch, I can safely say WildStar had a better release than most of the MMOs I’ve played at launch—it sure beats Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn’s nightmarish release.
WildStar will receive its first major update during the week of June 30th. It’s called Strain, and it looks mightly delicious. WildStar appears to be in good health, so if you’re looking for a solid MMO to play this year it’d be a safe bet.
