Originally posted by Dominata


I'm sure that the price would have stayed the same even if they did not include the client, so that is not an issue. It is true, however, that I imply that FC is lying to the market, exactly like many other companies to all over the world.

An example...
A daily newspaper here recently had a campaign where they wanted to thank their 1.5 million readers for choosing their paper. They totally neglected the simple fact that they sell less than 500k, but through various polls and research tools available they arrived at the conclusion that they had 1.5 million readers, which sounds much more impressive.

The exact thing can be applied in reverse to AO, they can present an actual figure of clients sold and thus give the impression that a lot more are playing AO than is actually the case, since they refuse to tell us how many subscribers they have. If they had sold NW separately they wouldn't be able to show any boosts in sales at all.

I'm sorry if I gave the impression that I was bitter, because I'm not. It was merely a reason I saw beyond market visibility, the truth probably lies somewhere in between. If not outright lying, at least deceiving is one of the foundations of marketing and advertising, I work in this business myself and I see no reason for being hypocritical about it.
Problem is they've already screwed themselves out of being able to say "Over xxx copies sold". The 7 day trial with D/L client can't be counted since that client was never "Sold". And they actually did screw themselves, because any number they give would be more impressive if those were counted as well

I know the tricks of the trade as well. Best Funcom can do is count the number of CD-Keys sold. Otherwise, I'm certain people will line up to call them to the carpet on the number