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I read what you wrote before the edit but you failed to convince me :)

The edit was more explanatory. But, excuse me, what is the "conversion rate"? I know the churn rate and the fact that a part of the boxes doesn't even get used, but you don't explain what that third "loss" is.

At any rate I went near with my prevision ;)

I'll also take the occasion to save a message Walt posted long ago:

And, with that said - most of the information listed below is again - only my understanding, and should be taken with a grain of salt. Or a pinch. Or a larger quantity, if you so desire.

Types of MMO users that could be counted - Highest to lowest:

# of Box Sales (+downloads) - This is the highest number for a press release. Fairly easy to verify box sales numbers through the established retail chain.

# of Registered users - This is the 2nd highest number. This is everyone who has ever created an account - through any means. For some reason, a small percentage of users who buy a box never actually install the game and create an account - be it technical reasons, unopened gifts, etc. It is my understanding that the SWG numbers on Bruce's chart use this number.

# of Active accounts - This is the 3rd highest number. Everyone who can currently log into the game and play. Note that this includes players who are still on their free month. This includes players on free trials. This includes players who have pre-paid for time and subsequently cancelled. Adding all of these numbers up and adding in attrition from launch date means that active accounts can be anywhere from 90% of registered users down to 20% (for much older games or games with poor retention). It is my understanding that most of the Everquest numbers on Bruce's chart use this number.

# of Active, paid accounts - This is the 4th highest number. Everyone who is a recurring subscriber and not on a free trial period. This number is roughly 10-15% less than the total active accounts - depending upon box sales and free trials. This is the number that the accountants are most interested in, because this number dictates cash flow, short term and long term. It is my understanding that the WW2OL, DAoC, FFXI, and UO (and maybe some of the EQ) numbers on Bruce's chart use this figure.

# of Active, paid, uncancelled accounts - This is the 5th highest number. For some reason, a healthy (5-10%) percentage of MMO subscribers cancel every month, probably to guarantee that they don't rack up credit card bills for an unplayed game. While no one reports this number, it is worth knowing about.

# of Unique users per day - This is the 6th highest number and a good comparison to the # of active accounts. Roughly 40-50% of the active users will log in in a 24 hour period - so, if you have unique users, you can multiply it by 2 to 2.5 to estimate accounts.

# of Peak users per day - This is the 7th highest number and a good comparison to the # of active accounts. Roughly 20-25% of the active users will be logged in at once, barring some in-game mechanism that encourages you to remain logged in. So, active accounts can be extracted by multiplying peak users by 4 or 5. Currently, only DAoC displays this number publically, to my knowledge, but other games such as EQ (and legend of Mir II, apparently) release this number regularly.

It would help a lot to know the average peak users per day right now...