Don’t look now, but Eve has 300K subscribers. This number puts it above the peak of several luminaries, including UO, SWG, DAoC, and LOTRO (and closing in fast in EQ2). Not bad for a game where even it’s hardcore players admit its kind of like playing a spreadsheet.

One thing that’s always been striking about Eve’s success is how different it’s growth curve looks compared to the other games. UO, EQ2, etc all had big early peaks, followed by long, slow declines. By comparison, Eve started small, then grew very gradually, with that pace slowly accelerating.

Which trajectory would you rather have, if you were running an online game? Almost certainly Eve’s (and their basic curve shape is mirrored by Second Life and Dofus, two other successes). For all you guys making indy MMOs out there: model Eve. What’s the central tenets of their success?

  • Identify an unexploited market segment. I.e. don’t play in Blizzard’s playpen unless you have a strong, clear differentiating feature.
  • Start small and launch as fast as you can. Identify the smallest possible feature set you can ship with. Hint: you don’t have to add guilds just because everyone else has it.
  • Meet market expectations for that genre. I.e. don’t make Everquest in space, even if your producer says ‘it’s the only thing that’s ever been proven to work!
  • Embrace being the underdog. People will want to help you, and evangelize you. Figure out how to leverage that.

Original comments thread is here.