And Elite Dangerous has what 6k active players tops. Right now 2,662 are In-Game via steam ( if you add console players and non-steam maybe optimistically 6,000). You call that a success?
CCP doesn't shy away from disclosing how many players are logged into Eve Online:
Tranquility; ok (18,777 players)
Status Serenity; ok (5,947 players)
Status Singularity; ok (50 players)
http://eve-offline.net/
Eve Online has more than 25,000 people playing right now. Frontier is too ashamed to reveal the exact number of people who are playing ED, because it's considerably less.
Current record: 41,736 (2007-11-06 07:28:14)
http://eve-offline.net/?server=multiplicity
ED will not last another 5 years if they don't add a lot more sand to the sandbox.
Sorry but it's the truth.