Rough estimate of 1,440,000,000(total for year, month is only 120,000,000)... Not including all the costs for maintenance, company billings, and other stuff like down payments on a fleet of yachts.
"The knowledge of the theory of logic has no tendency whatever to make men good reasoners." - Thomas B. Macaulay
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel J. Boorstin
Rough estimate of 1,440,000,000(total for year, month is only 120,000,000)... Not including all the costs for maintenance, company billings, and other stuff like down payments on a fleet of yachts.
Why bother with "rough estimates" when I already posted that the real number given in Vivendie financial reports is ~500 million per year.
... Thart criteria was included as part of their investor related press releases, so it does carry alot of weight. The safe and correct assumption is that that is in fact the formula they are using. Otherwise they would be deliberately lying to their investors, which is generally viewed as a very bad thing.
Actually, i think that falsifying information to your investors pretty much = class action suit
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ The pen is mightier than the sword, and authority is mightier than the pen, but the sword is mightier than authority.
If you can't beat 'em, hold 'em off 'till you come up with a better plan.
It's going to depend on how many people are in China playing. One third of active WoW accts are there. I am not going to mention the source because it's been said before in a thread here. My brother in law plays in China and has I think 3 accts and pays considerably less per month. I think what he told me comes to about $5 USD per month each. If it wasn't cheaper there no one would play. Multiple accounts in China are used by plat farmers and those that want to get around the law that states that each acct can only be logged in 2 hours per day. It's possible that everyone has more than one account; farmers and regular players.
8 million accounts does not mean 8 million actual players.
I agree about the accounts don't equal actual players, but it is still 8 million active accounts no matter how you look at it, and Blizzard is ranking some PHAT LEWT!
Just wondering if someone has done the math on what 8 million active accounts comes to in dollar$? How much money does it cost to develope a MMORPG? How much money went into development on WoW?
Keep in mind that WoW is not a privately held company and does not have control of the profits they are making. They are owned (pwnd) by Vivendi, a publicly traded French corporation.
Read this article from GameSpot:
Vivendi rolling in World of Warcraft gold
MMORPG big factor in multimedia multinational's 4.8 percent quarterly revenue increase; 50 Cent, Ice Age 2 help raise game division's income 29.6 percent.
By now, the fact that World of Warcraft is fantastically profitable isn't really news anymore. Since its release more than a year and a half ago, GameSpot's 2004 Game of the Year has been a permanent fixture on the best-seller charts. During the week of July 9-15, 2006, the game was once again the top PC game in the US, according to unit-volume sales rankings from industry-research group NPD Funworld. It is also nearing 7 million subscribers worldwide, each of whom pays its developer-publisher, Blizzard Entertainment, a monthly fee.
But while news of WOW's success has become routine, it is news when Vivendi Games credits the massively multiplayer online role-playing game for increasing its bottom line. Today, the France-based multimedia multinational gave its game division credit for helping boost its revenues 4.8 percent during the quarter that ended on June 30, 2006. The three-month period saw Vivendi rake in 4.84 billion euros ($6.16 billion), up from 4.62 billion euros ($5.87 billion) the year before. For the first half of the year, Vivendi's revenue stood at 9.61 billion euros ($12.2 billion), up from 9.13 billion ($11.61 billion) during Q2 2005.
Virtually every sector of Vivendi's extensive television and telecommunications holdings saw increased profit. However, no sector saw bigger growth than Vivendi Games, which is the owner of Blizzard and the recipient of the buckets of ducats that WOW generates. The division took in 162 million euros ($206 million) for the April-June quarter, an increase of 29.6 percent over its Q2 2005 income. The first half of 2006 saw Vivendi Games' gross haul add up to 296 million euros ($376.4 million), an increase of 24.4 percent over the previous year.
"This increase was primarily driven by the continued worldwide success of Blizzard's World of Warcraft," said Vivendi in its earnings report. "Other solid performers in the first half of 2006 included the release of Ice Age 2, the game based on [the] Fox movie, and continuing strong sales from backlist products including 50 Cent: Bulletproof and Crash Tag Team Racing."
With WOW sales showing no sign of slowing down, Vivendi is poised for an even more profitable second half of 2006. In the fall, Blizzard is set to release the first expansion pack for the game, World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade.
"Don't corpse-camp that idea. Its never gonna rez" Bladezz (The Guild)
Rough estimate of 1,440,000,000(total for year, month is only 120,000,000)... Not including all the costs for maintenance, company billings, and other stuff like down payments on a fleet of yachts.
Why bother with "rough estimates" when I already posted that the real number given in Vivendie financial reports is ~500 million per year.
Because it should be obvious that, like almost everyone else, I didn't bother picking through all the repetitive posts for the little gems of information and rather skimmed through for the gist of it all.
"The knowledge of the theory of logic has no tendency whatever to make men good reasoners." - Thomas B. Macaulay
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel J. Boorstin
Well, WOW may have cost somewhere around 50 million to develop initially, however Vivendi's games division (which includes Sierra Online and a few other smaller shops spent 255 million Euro's on development in 2006. We could assume that Blizzard represents a lion's share of that total, which means someone is spending a lot of cash developing something over there.... be it on TBC or some upcoming game.
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
I know nothing of business but I thought companies have to publish earnings to stock holders and others. Am I wrong?
You are correct if they are a publicly traded company but if blizzard is a private company then no.
Blizzard is not a private company; they are a studio within Vivendi Universal’s games division. You can find information on them by checking Vivendi’s financials.
"Blizzard is the only one who is up front about their accounts". This was said by someone here.
That's the one thing you can count on and that's Blizzard constantly regurgitating their often cited number of 8 million. Blizzard's every other sentence is mentioning they have 8 million accounts. They begin a statement with 8 million and before they're done they've mentioned it several more times. Then at the end they'll again say, " Did we mentioned we have over 8 million in population?"
"third part confirmers of Blizzards population" Says who? What third parties? Some of you guys here who swear by what Blizzard spews out? This don't count!
WoW has gotten like the NGE SWG where you constanly see ex-players blasting it for being gar-bage. Or are you going to deny many, many threads here are from ex-players who say they dislike WoW and their crappy game play? That they no longer like it being it's an uneven grindfest just like their recent expansion which got terrible reviews from it's own player base.
Only ones you see constantly mentionig this figure is Blizzard and it's fanbase which seem mesmerized with whatever Blizzard says.
Just like someone else mentioned, you can't trust what the devs say. if you're a real gamer you should know this by now. Especially one who loves to constantly brag about some number that sounds more farfetched every time they mention it which is everyday.
Besides, what would anyone care what Blizzard makes or doesn't make? You're not getting any.
Know what you are talking about before you post. So many wrong answers on this forum.
1. the majority of accounts are in China. China does not have monthly fees, you pay when you play. If you did any research the average chinese account pays about $3 a month and then Blizzard gets a cut of that.
Hence all of your numbers are far too high. Far less than half what some of you are projecting.
#1. dont trust numbers provided by a company, or even its "third party" family. Don't you remember enron and how it was to the energy industry how wow is to the gaming industry. Why did enron turn out so bad?..enron was the brightest investment a person could make during th 90's, it was growing and had bling bling dripping from every financial statement. They even paid thrid party consultants and financial investment banks to hype them up. What happened to enron?.. the lie they were living caught up to them and they ran out of money, even though they were producing a false profit and everyone beleived them.
When someone's ultimate goal is to get your money- investor, gamer, or otherwise- you do not beleive what they tell you.
#2 toyota camerys outsell lamborgheni's like mad, but you wouldn't want to race one would you?
Just because product A outsells product b doesn't mean anything if they are not identitcal products. If tomarow consumer taste change, wow would be out of bussiness faster than you can say "quest more newb!"
You keep playing your apple juice wow while I play my pina collata pvpmmos.
#3 related to #2, just because its popular doen't mean its good, just look at the backstreet boys for example.
#4 since when would someone make their decision to play a game because it has excelled at extracting cash from the wallets of its players? True money can buy talent, but the greed for money can lead to design decisions to maximise profit even at the expense of game play.
about that guy wanting to work for blizzard, mcdonalds makes way more money, you want to flip burgers?
No matter what company you work for your pay is determined by experience and the market rate for your peers in the same positions.
In business, paying your employees more than necessary is suicide.
Know what you are talking about before you post. So many wrong answers on this forum. 1. the majority of accounts are in China. China does not have monthly fees, you pay when you play. If you did any research the average chinese account pays about $3 a month and then Blizzard gets a cut of that. Hence all of your numbers are far too high. Far less than half what some of you are projecting.
the costs to support the game in China arent the same either.
Comments
"The knowledge of the theory of logic has no tendency whatever to make men good reasoners." - Thomas B. Macaulay
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel J. Boorstin
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The pen is mightier than the sword, and authority is mightier than the pen, but the sword is mightier than authority.
If you can't beat 'em, hold 'em off 'till you come up with a better plan.
It equals FILTHY RICH gamecompany as opposed to previously moderately rich. As some you might say..uber leete bling bling!!!!
All I want is the truth
Just gimme some truth
John Lennon
Keep in mind that WoW is not a privately held company and does not have control of the profits they are making. They are owned (pwnd) by Vivendi, a publicly traded French corporation.
Read this article from GameSpot:
Vivendi rolling in World of Warcraft gold
MMORPG big factor in multimedia multinational's 4.8 percent quarterly revenue increase; 50 Cent, Ice Age 2 help raise game division's income 29.6 percent.
By now, the fact that World of Warcraft is fantastically profitable isn't really news anymore. Since its release more than a year and a half ago, GameSpot's 2004 Game of the Year has been a permanent fixture on the best-seller charts. During the week of July 9-15, 2006, the game was once again the top PC game in the US, according to unit-volume sales rankings from industry-research group NPD Funworld. It is also nearing 7 million subscribers worldwide, each of whom pays its developer-publisher, Blizzard Entertainment, a monthly fee.
But while news of WOW's success has become routine, it is news when Vivendi Games credits the massively multiplayer online role-playing game for increasing its bottom line. Today, the France-based multimedia multinational gave its game division credit for helping boost its revenues 4.8 percent during the quarter that ended on June 30, 2006. The three-month period saw Vivendi rake in 4.84 billion euros ($6.16 billion), up from 4.62 billion euros ($5.87 billion) the year before. For the first half of the year, Vivendi's revenue stood at 9.61 billion euros ($12.2 billion), up from 9.13 billion ($11.61 billion) during Q2 2005.
Virtually every sector of Vivendi's extensive television and telecommunications holdings saw increased profit. However, no sector saw bigger growth than Vivendi Games, which is the owner of Blizzard and the recipient of the buckets of ducats that WOW generates. The division took in 162 million euros ($206 million) for the April-June quarter, an increase of 29.6 percent over its Q2 2005 income. The first half of 2006 saw Vivendi Games' gross haul add up to 296 million euros ($376.4 million), an increase of 24.4 percent over the previous year.
"This increase was primarily driven by the continued worldwide success of Blizzard's World of Warcraft," said Vivendi in its earnings report. "Other solid performers in the first half of 2006 included the release of Ice Age 2, the game based on [the] Fox movie, and continuing strong sales from backlist products including 50 Cent: Bulletproof and Crash Tag Team Racing."
With WOW sales showing no sign of slowing down, Vivendi is poised for an even more profitable second half of 2006. In the fall, Blizzard is set to release the first expansion pack for the game, World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade.
"Don't corpse-camp that idea. Its never gonna rez"
Bladezz (The Guild)
Because it should be obvious that, like almost everyone else, I didn't bother picking through all the repetitive posts for the little gems of information and rather skimmed through for the gist of it all.
"The knowledge of the theory of logic has no tendency whatever to make men good reasoners." - Thomas B. Macaulay
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel J. Boorstin
From the annual report:
http://www.vivendi.com/corp/en/regulated_information/documents/20070412_annual_report_2006.pdf
Research and development costs include internal development
expenses as well as capitalized advances to external developers and
license owners. Research and development costs were €255 million
in 2006 (excluding the impact of write-downs and reserves on cancelled
titles and excluding the effect of net amortization of capitalized software
development costs), compared with €186 million in 2005 and €158 million
in 2004.
Lots of good stuff in the report... can't say I'm enough of a financial wizard to figure it all out...
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
in US its about 100 million a month
"Blizzard is the only one who is up front about their accounts". This was said by someone here.
That's the one thing you can count on and that's Blizzard constantly regurgitating their often cited number of 8 million. Blizzard's every other sentence is mentioning they have 8 million accounts. They begin a statement with 8 million and before they're done they've mentioned it several more times. Then at the end they'll again say, " Did we mentioned we have over 8 million in population?"
"third part confirmers of Blizzards population" Says who? What third parties? Some of you guys here who swear by what Blizzard spews out? This don't count!
WoW has gotten like the NGE SWG where you constanly see ex-players blasting it for being gar-bage. Or are you going to deny many, many threads here are from ex-players who say they dislike WoW and their crappy game play? That they no longer like it being it's an uneven grindfest just like their recent expansion which got terrible reviews from it's own player base.
Only ones you see constantly mentionig this figure is Blizzard and it's fanbase which seem mesmerized with whatever Blizzard says.
Just like someone else mentioned, you can't trust what the devs say. if you're a real gamer you should know this by now. Especially one who loves to constantly brag about some number that sounds more farfetched every time they mention it which is everyday.
Besides, what would anyone care what Blizzard makes or doesn't make? You're not getting any.
Know what you are talking about before you post. So many wrong answers on this forum.
1. the majority of accounts are in China. China does not have monthly fees, you pay when you play. If you did any research the average chinese account pays about $3 a month and then Blizzard gets a cut of that.
Hence all of your numbers are far too high. Far less than half what some of you are projecting.
#1. dont trust numbers provided by a company, or even its "third party" family. Don't you remember enron and how it was to the energy industry how wow is to the gaming industry. Why did enron turn out so bad?..enron was the brightest investment a person could make during th 90's, it was growing and had bling bling dripping from every financial statement. They even paid thrid party consultants and financial investment banks to hype them up. What happened to enron?.. the lie they were living caught up to them and they ran out of money, even though they were producing a false profit and everyone beleived them.
When someone's ultimate goal is to get your money- investor, gamer, or otherwise- you do not beleive what they tell you.
#2 toyota camerys outsell lamborgheni's like mad, but you wouldn't want to race one would you?
Just because product A outsells product b doesn't mean anything if they are not identitcal products. If tomarow consumer taste change, wow would be out of bussiness faster than you can say "quest more newb!"
You keep playing your apple juice wow while I play my pina collata pvpmmos.
#3 related to #2, just because its popular doen't mean its good, just look at the backstreet boys for example.
#4 since when would someone make their decision to play a game because it has excelled at extracting cash from the wallets of its players? True money can buy talent, but the greed for money can lead to design decisions to maximise profit even at the expense of game play.
about that guy wanting to work for blizzard, mcdonalds makes way more money, you want to flip burgers?
No matter what company you work for your pay is determined by experience and the market rate for your peers in the same positions.
In business, paying your employees more than necessary is suicide.