The Walt Disney Co. is “very excited” about the number of players signing up for its online “Pirates of the Caribbean” game, spokeswoman Brandy Phillips said, denying an estimate that the game had attracted only 10,000 subscribers.
“MMOGChart.com is not even in the ball park when estimating our game subscriber numbers,” she said. “While we do not release subscriber numbers, we are thrilled with the response to the game so far, and are well ahead of all estimates.”
Analyst Bruce Woodcock, who tracks online games through the MMOGChart.com Web site, explained his estimate and challenged Disney to reveal the actual number of “Pirates” subscribers.
Woodcock said the figure came from a confidential source, so he gave it a “a confidence level of C to indicate that this is a questionable number.”
Disney launched the game last October and last week released new content to enhance its appeal.
In an e-mail response to questions from the Register, Phillips said “interest in ‘Pirates of the Caribbean Online’ is so great that it’s lifting traffic to Disney.com, which is a feat considering we’re already the number one Web site for kids and families with more than 27 million monthly unique subscribers.”
Last month, the company announced:
“Disney.com, the longstanding No. 1 destination on the Internet for families and kids, broke its all-time traffic and registration records in January 2008. According to recently released comScore Media Metrix data, the Disney Online network of sites last month received 27.5 million unique visitors beating all previous traffic records. The traffic high represents an increase of more than 10 percent compared to the same period last year, and led to a record number of registrations to the site.
Strong performance in virtual worlds, particularly the recently launched Pirates of the Caribbean Online (www.PiratesOnline.com), and other community-driven areas of Disney.com as well as Disney Parks were major contributors to the achievement. … Pirates of the Caribbean Online, which launched a full-scale marketing campaign in January, was a major factor.”
MMOGchart.com says it bases its estimates of game subscriber totals on a mixture of official and unofficial sources.
(This post was updated at mid-day March 4 and then again in early afternoon March 4 to eliminate a discussion of price changes. A copy of Disney’s game-launch press release cites the same prices that are currently on the “Pirates” Web site — $4.95 as a “Special Offer” for the first month and $9.95 a month thereafter.)
