Numbers like this are difficult to make much of.

Actually this is somewhat reminiscent of when Hellgate: London was touted as the "most successful online video game launch in Korea of the past three years with over 1 million accounts registered within the first two weeks of its open beta test," and how "Hellgate: London quickly rose to the ninth most played online game, fifth most popular RPG and most popular online beta game in PC Cafes*, with over 1 million accounts."

Unfortunately, although Bill Roeper said that "by listening to players' feedback and through constant updates to the game, Hellgate: London will continue to be an incredible success throughout Asia" it didn't turn out to be the case. It is such a tough market out there for MMO's !

http://kotaku.com/378674/hellgate-london-koreas-most-successful-launch

This is SO typical of MMOs. No one wants to reveal actual numbers that mean anything (unless they're good of course) and no one looks at churn.

In this case, it's ridiculous. Characters created? In all the MMOs I've played I've always averaged at least 2 characters per account if not more.

And, with Champions character creation being what it is, I'll bet the average ratio for them is even worse than average. I wouldn't be surprised if the average player created at least 2 if not 3-4 characters. Even so, that puts them at (potentially) 250k-500k subscribers which is nothing to be ashamed of. That's a pretty solid outcome for a relatively niche genre.

Still, time will tell if they can maintain a high subscription rate or if they'll just taper off into the 100k or less range. While there were fun parts in the game, the new car smell wears off eventually and people move on unless they're die-hard loyalists.

As a current player of the game I really do wish that they would release the actual subscriber numbers. Current standard max per account is 8 with a recent ability to pay for new slots. So at the very least they have over 125K worth of subscribers. I'm assuming around 200K given that not everyone fills the 8 slots all too quickly.

While it is a niche genre, I have taken a liking to it. I am not much of a superhero junky, but more of an action paced game player. Champions combat system with it's complete customization has had me playing this game since launch and not looking back. Another thing that is keeping me from stopping is the constant patches and the work of the dev team. With the post launch work that they have put in I am very confident in their abilities to slowly grow into a more accepted game amongst the masses. I am shocked at it's prevalence even in the shadow of Aion. However I do feel that Aion was over-hyped and will result in more of the same for WoW players. Yes the game has a new touch to it, but its current mechanics set it apart and if Cryptic continues to emphasize the parts that set them apart I have faith that they will stand strong.

Champions has received a lot of criticism in the face of Aion/WoW players, but I have a feeling that Champions will continue to put up a long lasting and good fight against WoW. Aion had a burst for launch but will slowly die as it is just an improved WoW.

For those of us currently enjoying Champions, let us hope that Cryptic continues how they have been with their support and their fast response times for additions to the game. It is our opinions and suggestions that they are adding to the game and that is something I like to see from a company. Keep up the great work Cryptic.

Ken/Raymond, you're not factoring subscriber churn into your estimates - although there hasn't been a lot of time for that to happen, but it's possible that users have already subscribed, created X characters, and unsubscribed.