A couple days ago I talked about retention rate being more important than simply the number of people who preorder an MMO. The fact that Aion has brought over three hundred thousand preorders means nothing if you can’t keep those people playing after their initial month of free game time is up. Aion’s success will not be decided by the number of people who buy the boxed copies, but in the long run, where subscriber numbers mean everything.
I will admit I’ve taken a look at Aion with a little more skepticism than the title deserves, even though everything I have said is true. Success in the Eastern market means nothing when referring to how the West will respond to the game, and attempting to gauge the success of the game based off of forum hype will produce equally inaccurate results.
So here I notice that, in the past few days since Aion announced that three hundred thousand copies were preordered, today comes another announcement: The number has hit four hundred thousand, bringing the title to be the most preordered MMO of 2009. This news comes in conjunction with news that will directly please the company: Aion will not ship with Game Guard, the controversial anti-cheat software. While Game Guard may be used in the future, NCsoft has promised that should the software return, it will be tweaked in response to criticism.
In finding discussion-worthy topics for MMO Fallout, I do a lot of traversing over various forums, and I can say without a doubt that the lack of Game Guard will be well received within the community. If NCSoft can prove, using methods such as this, that they are indeed listening to the community, they will have a major edge over critics in the long run. For those who are unfamiliar, Game Guard is widely panned for inefficiency, and false positives.
Nothing but good news for Aion this week. Aion goes live on September 22nd, with preorders gaining early access.
MMO Fallout 