Jerky wrote on Jun 27
th, 2021 at 10:35pm:
Agreed. They're both different metrics. There's no reason to suspect that they can't both be correct.
Both numbers are almost certainly accurate as they are (as pointed out) covering totally different things that are not in conflict.
In a game that spawns mules like tribbles, and required dice rolling for daily/weekly freebie, logins will vastly outstrip concurrent players.
As a MMO player, concurrency matters the most. No one gives a fuck if someone logs to 35 mules looking for their shard of something or other. They do care if there is no one to play with and they aren't a bridge troll of a human being.
The biggest insight is not that DDO is healthier than LOTRO, because it's not. It's more monetized on a per player basis, but that's actually a problem because one can't monetize players infinitely. There's a cap on that. LOTRO has more upside than DDO, and in business, ability to grow matters. When growth stops, and from DDO's point of view growth stopped years ago, the only play is to better fuck over your customers if you can't restart it (pro tip: they haven't been able to).
If DDOs number continue to slide and they puke up all the transitory gains from the pandemic (looking 100 that they will) and the slide doesn't arrest, they are going to have to dive further into their customer wallets.
Thus you get points sales and no summer sails event, lol.