The thing is, i have never actually heard any reliable source claim WoW having 9 million ''active" subscribers, just 9 million subscribers. That makes me think they mean that they have had 9 million accounts to be paid for at one time or another throughout the 3 years. Considering they have a US and EU server set, and The 9 has the Chinese server set ( with that 2 cent per hour subscription setup ) which i have seen claims of anywhere from 4-7million of those 9 mil, It's no shock to me that the number would be so high. I mean how many MMO gamers are there worldwide, and how many of them have not at least tried WoW for a short period of time.
However, if they do actually claim all 9 million are active subscriptions, that would be insane. Especially given the fact each server caps at around 1000 players if i'm not mistaken, meaning there would have to be .......hmm 9000 active servers running and full to reach 9 million players, even if only 10% of active subscribers played at any given time, that's what, 900 servers running at maximum capacity. Up the cap to 2000 players and you still need 450 servers. WoW is a production powerhouse, and has brought in more new mmo gamers than most games have even had, but it would be nice to see true numbers of how many players actually play the game. Regardless, at $50 a pop, selling 9 million copies of the game, giving the company damn near half a billion dollars before subsrciption fees, those numbers still say alot.
The thing is, i have never actually heard any reliable source claim WoW having 9 million ''active" subscribers, just 9 million subscribers. That makes me think they mean that they have had 9 million accounts to be paid for at one time or another throughout the 3 years. Considering they have a US and EU server set, and The 9 has the Chinese server set ( with that 2 cent per hour subscription setup ) which i have seen claims of anywhere from 4-7million of those 9 mil, It's no shock to me that the number would be so high. I mean how many MMO gamers are there worldwide, and how many of them have not at least tried WoW for a short period of time. However, if they do actually claim all 9 million are active subscriptions, that would be insane. Especially given the fact each server caps at around 1000 players if i'm not mistaken, meaning there would have to be .......hmm 9000 active servers running and full to reach 9 million players, even if only 10% of active subscribers played at any given time, that's what, 900 servers running at maximum capacity. Up the cap to 2000 players and you still need 450 servers. WoW is a production powerhouse, and has brought in more new mmo gamers than most games have even had, but it would be nice to see true numbers of how many players actually play the game.
I know this has been said so many times and god forsake of stupid people being here but....
Blizzard has a shown list of marks how they "count" a subsriber and yes it is ACTIVE paying customers, i'm sure if you searched a little on this forum, you could find a nice quote/link from blizzards nice markers how they define a subscriber.... it is not all put together over 3 past years, may they be there yet or not, it is down right active players (paying aka. not frozen, not expired, not cancelled but Active accounts).
Face it, blizzard have their hands down in your pockets and millions of others, thier games weren't called golden eggs for nothing.
live in denial till whenever you feel like believing the earth is round and not the center of the universe.... but but but untilll then have fun in the "the earth is flat like sliced white bread!" clubs and yell "burn the witch!!" every sunday
sifudoja - really poor attempt at theory-crafting on the servers there.
WoWs servers can hold up to around 5,000 people, when that is reached you get a queue line to log in. Some servers have around 20,000 people on them which is fine because the servers are no longer region located. My guild is mostly Aussies and one of the top guilds on the server is French.
Blizzard details subscribers whereas other companies detail accounts. NCSoft has made PR claims of 14 million accounts for Lineage 2 but financial reports by NCSoft actually state that Lineage 2s active subscribers are just over 1 million.
The thing is, i have never actually heard any reliable source claim WoW having 9 million ''active" subscribers, just 9 million subscribers. That makes me think they mean that they have had 9 million accounts to be paid for at one time or another throughout the 3 years
the 9 million is very believable
WoW is over three years old
BC expansion sold 3.5 million copies its first month
Well you can criticize my logic, call me stupid and think what you want, and it hasn't changed my belief of a thing i have said. I tried to search for this info like you said, and didn't come with a thing that proves me wrong. Perhaps you can find something and link where a reliable source or Blizzard claims the numbers are in fact 9 million active at any given time. As for the claims of there being 5-20 thousand players per server, I just have to laugh. I'm not making up the 1 - 2 thousand player cap, i didn't pull those numbers out of my ass, these are the numbers i have read myself and tend to take those statements as much more reliable than yours. Besides anyone who has played on questionable servers can probably tell you that having a few hundred people online in the server seems pretty crowded compaired to what you come across on a daily basis on Blizzes US servers. I have owned the game since 12 midnight on launch day and think i can form pretty decent opinions myself also.
If you weren't overly critical of me, over-protective of the game, so angry and just plain disrespectful, i might be a little more likely to take your word for it. The way you come at me makes me feel that you are either a Blizz employee, one of the original devs that made the game, or you have somehting personal against me, or a just plain arguementative child who gets angry when people don't think the same thing you do, and so i don't take your word for a grain of salt unless you can show me where you got the info, I did try searching myself but could't find any. So i'm just going with what i have already.
Sorry if i hurt any of your feelings, i never meant it that way and perhaps you are just too soft. If it's not me then whoever / whatever has scrarred you has left you in need of 1) professional therapy 2) lessons in normal human social behavior 3) a nice left hook to the grill. All the anger and hatered shown by the constant remarks of , stupid people in the forums, and overly critcal judgements of what people say with personal attacks on the people who said them instead of the statement itself, doesn't lead people to think you are intelligent or well informed, but just that you have poor social skills and were probably looking for something to talk shit about to begin with.
I don't claim that my thoughts are gold, and it doesn't bother me if people disagree or even prove me wrong, as long as it's proven i will know the truth and be happy. I'm just telling it like it is ( actually just the way i see it, but whatever ). I'm not trying to piss anyone off or start arguements, and it seems you can't say anything in these forums anymore without people getting angry or being disrespectful in some way. So maybe i'm just wasting my time won't bother to say what i think anymore around here since it seems to do no good and only cause negative 9 times out of 10. So forgive me and I'll just keep quiet from now on.
I have posted this before, i will post this again.
9 Million active accounts doesn't give you any kind of idea of how many players there actually are. I know of many people who held two accounts at the same time, some even three. Not to mention all the gold-farmers who of course, also have a full account (until they are banned...or not).
9 Million active accounts could mean as little as 2 Million active players.
I'm not going to refute that WoW currently has the largest playerbase, but tossing around numbers that don't prove anything really is just a weak attempt at showing off.
Well you can criticize my logic, call me stupid and think what you want, and it hasn't changed my belief of a thing i have said. I tried to search for this info like you said, and didn't come with a thing that proves me wrong. Perhaps you can find something and link where a reliable source or Blizzard claims the numbers are in fact 9 million active at any given time. As for the claims of there being 5-20 thousand players per server, I just have to laugh. I'm not making up the 1 - 2 thousand player cap, i didn't pull those numbers out of my ass, these are the numbers i have read myself and tend to take those statements as much more reliable than yours. Besides anyone who has played on questionable servers can probably tell you that having a few hundred people online in the server seems pretty crowded compaired to what you come across on a daily basis on Blizzes US servers. I have owned the game since 12 midnight on launch day and think i can form pretty decent opinions myself also. If you weren't overly critical of me, over-protective of the game, so angry and just plain disrespectful, i might be a little more likely to take your word for it. The way you come at me makes me feel that you are either a Blizz employee, one of the original devs that made the game, or you have somehting personal against me, or a just plain arguementative child who gets angry when people don't think the same thing you do, and so i don't take your word for a grain of salt unless you can show me where you got the info, I did try searching myself but could't find any. So i'm just going with what i have already. Sorry if i hurt any of your feelings, i never meant it that way and perhaps you are just too soft. If it's not me then whoever / whatever has scrarred you has left you in need of 1) professional therapy 2) lessons in normal human social behavior 3) a nice left hook to the grill. All the anger and hatered shown by the constant remarks of , stupid people in the forums, and overly critcal judgements of what people say with personal attacks on the people who said them instead of the statement itself, doesn't lead people to think you are intelligent or well informed, but just that you have poor social skills and were probably looking for something to talk shit about to begin with. I don't claim that my thoughts are gold, and it doesn't bother me if people disagree or even prove me wrong, as long as it's proven i will know the truth and be happy. I'm just telling it like it is ( actually just the way i see it, but whatever ). I'm not trying to piss anyone off or start arguements, and it seems you can't say anything in these forums anymore without people getting angry or being disrespectful in some way. So maybe i'm just wasting my time won't bother to say what i think anymore around here since it seems to do no good and only cause negative 9 times out of 10. So forgive me and I'll just keep quiet from now on.
I think there is a slight misunderstanding here.
When Blizzard talks about "active" subscribers they are concerned with the number of people with active accounts. Most of the people I know who played WoW have quit, but most of them keep their accounts active "just in case" or through sheer laziness (they haven't bothered to unsubscribe)
9 Million active accounts? No reason why this shouldn't be true
Number of active players, much lower, but I've never played WoW so I have no way of telling how much lower
I dont see why some of you people think Blizzard is lying about its subscriptions. They do have 9 million ACTIVE subscribers. Its a worldwide figure which they have stated on several occasions in the forums. This includes, China, Europe and North America. China retains the highest player base for them with something like 5 million active subscribers. But at the rates they charge, even I would invest my time in WoW. China has the largest population of any country in the world, reaching almost 2 billion. They have more people in one city then we have in our whole country. So to be honest, they should have more subs. But China has games that are more popular than WoW with a higher player base. It's called Perfect World and Perfect World 2. The amount of people playing those games is ridiculous. They also stated quite sometime ago that WoW was falling in subscribers in the US. Mostly because of the way Americans rush through games and get bored easily. EIther way their subs are true, but that doesn't mean WoW is getting bigger in the US. Its getting smaller by numbers, and with AoC and WAR on the horizon, will only get smaller. Hence blizzards, new secret project. Also to note, blizzard had one of the biggest communitys before WoW launched, the chances of them all flipping to a new game that isn't made by blizzard is quite small. So if anything is going to take down Blizzard and its reign on mmo's, it will be themselves.
Well you can criticize my logic, call me stupid and think what you want, and it hasn't changed my belief of a thing i have said. I tried to search for this info like you said, and didn't come with a thing that proves me wrong.
Where did you look?
World of Warcraft's Subscriber Definition
World of Warcraft subscribers include individuals who have paid a subscription fee or have an active prepaid card to play World of Warcraft, as well as those who have purchased the game and are within their free month of access. Internet Game Room players who have accessed the game over the last thirty days are also counted as subscribers. The above definition excludes all players under free promotional subscriptions, expired or cancelled subscriptions, and expired prepaid cards. Subscribers in licensees’ territories are defined along the same rules.
That's from the following press release on Blizzard's own website.
Most of the people I know who played WoW have quit, but most of them keep their accounts active "just in case" or through sheer laziness (they haven't bothered to unsubscribe)
Hehe, i have done the same myself quite a few times. Half sheer laziness and half being that WoW in my opinion is the best MMO there is and most my friends continue to play it. Maybe 1/3rd laziness, 1/3rd having friends there in my #1 favorite mmo and 1/3rd plain addiction not letting me ''cut myself off '', lol.
World of Warcraft's Subscriber Definition World of Warcraft subscribers include individuals who have paid a subscription fee or have an active prepaid card to play World of Warcraft, as well as those who have purchased the game and are within their free month of access. Internet Game Room players who have accessed the game over the last thirty days are also counted as subscribers. The above definition excludes all players under free promotional subscriptions, expired or cancelled subscriptions, and expired prepaid cards. Subscribers in licensees’ territories are defined along the same rules. That's from the following press release on Blizzard's own website. http://www.blizzard.com/press/070724.shtml Now what do you have to say?
That that still includes everyone who has 2 or more accounts and it also still includes all Gold-Farmers etc.
9Million subscriptions, certainly. 9 Million players? Not likely.
You are forgetting one HUGE thing. Blizzard has a LEGAL obligation to report this information truthfully; if they lied or stretched the truth they would be subject to very large fines and possible legal action from shareholders.
When they say...
""World of Warcraft subscribers include individuals who have paid a subscription fee or have an active prepaid card to play World of Warcraft, as well as those who have purchased the game and are within their free month of access. Internet Game Room players who have accessed the game over the last thirty days are also counted as subscribers. The above definition excludes all players under free promotional subscriptions, expired or cancelled subscriptions, and expired prepaid cards. Subscribers in licensees’ territories are defined along the same rules.""
They have to stand by that 100% truthfully; Blizzard may be a multi-billion dollar company, but even they can not afford to lie about information like this. It just isn't worth it; even if you think they are stretching it how large do you think it could be? 7 million? 6 million? Either of those numbers are still staggering compared to the rest of the 15-a-month MMORPG's out there. No matter how you cut the pie, World of Warcraft is without a doubt the largest, and by quite a margin - there is no reason for them to risk lieing about this sort of thing, when the benefits between saying "7 million!!!!" and "9 million!!!" are few and far between...
Where did you look? World of Warcraft's Subscriber Definition World of Warcraft subscribers include individuals who have paid a subscription fee or have an active prepaid card to play World of Warcraft, as well as those who have purchased the game and are within their free month of access. Internet Game Room players who have accessed the game over the last thirty days are also counted as subscribers. The above definition excludes all players under free promotional subscriptions, expired or cancelled subscriptions, and expired prepaid cards. Subscribers in licensees’ territories are defined along the same rules. That's from the following press release on Blizzard's own website. http://www.blizzard.com/press/070724.shtml Now what do you have to say?
What do i have to say? lol
Good job, nice find. That is exactly what i wanted to see, and thanks for linking it. Besides the ''Now what do you have to say " part, which sounds to me like, IN YO FACE!, it's good to hear facts and glad to know the truth. To me 9 million active subscribers is amazing and gives them all the bragging rights they need.
It's crazy to me that there are that many people, regardless of the fact tons of people have multiple accounts etc, and all 9 million probably don't play at the exact same time, those numbers a still humongous and wonder where all those people are. With instanced everything, it makes sense that you don't see but a small fraction of those players, but with so many people i would think BGs queues and the amount of BGs open would be much higher, as well as all the outside world being very crowded.
I actually searched here at mmorpg.com to find the info, and duh, i should have checked thier own website, lol.
World of Warcraft's Subscriber Definition World of Warcraft subscribers include individuals who have paid a subscription fee or have an active prepaid card to play World of Warcraft, as well as those who have purchased the game and are within their free month of access. Internet Game Room players who have accessed the game over the last thirty days are also counted as subscribers. The above definition excludes all players under free promotional subscriptions, expired or cancelled subscriptions, and expired prepaid cards. Subscribers in licensees’ territories are defined along the same rules. That's from the following press release on Blizzard's own website. http://www.blizzard.com/press/070724.shtml Now what do you have to say?
That that still includes everyone who has 2 or more accounts and it also still includes all Gold-Farmers etc.
9Million subscriptions, certainly. 9 Million players? Not likely.
Because Gold-farmers are not players? What are they?
I get what you are saying, but what percentage of players do you really think have more than 1 account? Most people that own more than 1 account it's because they have more than 1 person playing, for instance I had 2 accounts at one time, because both my son and I played. And actually if you want to get right down to it, we cancelled one account and now both him and I both play using 1 account and we just take turns as to when we play so in our case 1 subscriber, 2 players. So it works both ways. No one is claiming 9 million concurrent players, just 9 million people playing. When the average peak concurrent users is somewhere close to 3 quarter of a million in EU and US alone, I don't think it's that unreasonable to assume 3-4 million total players.
Because Gold-farmers are not players? What are they?
I get what you are saying, but what percentage of players do you really think have more than 1 account? Most people that own more than 1 account it's because they have more than 1 person playing, for instance I had 2 accounts at one time, because both my son and I played. And actually if you want to get right down to it, we cancelled one account and now both him and I both play using 1 account and we just take turns as to when we play so in our case 1 subscriber, 2 players. So it works both ways. No one is claiming 9 million concurrent players, just 9 million people playing. When the average peak concurrent users is somewhere close to 3 quarter of a million in EU and US alone, I don't think it's that unreasonable to assume 2 million total players.
Well, I for one would not consider Gold-Farmers "players" After all, they don't play the game for amusement and fun, do they?
Also, I know of many people who had more than one account. Including those of us, who wanted to play the game in America as well as in Europe because they just so happened to have friends on both continents. And there's more than enough people who had more than one account from what I know of people with whom I played.
Anyway, the point is, 9 Million is a number that is staggering because it keeps growing and growing and that is, quite simply put, a PR Trick. It is Blizzard showing off, telling everyone how superb their game is, while the numbers of actual "Players" would be smaller and the growth maybe not as staggering.
Again, I don't say WoW isn't the biggest player out there, I just say that Blizzard is using number-tricks to make it sound larger and more growing than I personally think it is.
Which is why the graphics are abysmal... Let me add that I've been playing WoW since launch and only decided to take a break about a month ago. I just wish that Blizzard would add better looking shadows and lighting for users who have a machine that can handle it. Maybe WotLK will? I'm counting on it. Because, as of right now, WoW looks no better than a Dreamcast game... I wish there was more competition for WoW; I'm hoping that WAR will be a point of contention for Blizzard.
I agree about the graphics.
Give us a high-res client like LOTRO does, or a DX10 only client or something.
Though I too hope that WAR will be excellent enough to where I'm no longer worried about WoW
I won't the numbers or call Blizzard liars, but to be honost, i wouldn't be surprised if 5 million of the accounts are owned by blizz employees who don't have to pay, and 10 million forum accounts belong to those same people, LOL. Don't get me wrong, i'm no WoW or Blizzard hater, anything that i do say negative about the game is usually constructive criticism, but i have never had the impression they were the most honest people in the world, just very smart and successful at making money. Blizzard has ties to some very questionable yet successful groups, even strong ties to a game called MuOnline which sometimes makes me question their practices. And like i said, having played the game in the US servers for over 3 years, those numbers are outright shocking to me.
But still, grats to Blizz for making the most successful MMO ( or game period for that matter i believe ) in the world and in my opinion the best overall mmo ever made.
I dont see how its shocking to you. Your on a US server. US population has been on the decline. Now go and jump on a chinese server and see how many people you see. Think thats all that needs to be said. There subscriber base they mention for the last time, is a worldwide number. Not US only players.
Blizzard Entertainment, Inc. announced today that World of Warcraft®, its award-winning massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG), has reached a new milestone, with a player base now totaling more than 9 million subscribers worldwide.
World of Warcraft's Subscriber Definition
World of Warcraft subscribers include individuals who have paid a subscription fee or have an active prepaid card to play World of Warcraft, as well as those who have purchased the game and are within their free month of access. Internet Game Room players who have accessed the game over the last thirty days are also counted as subscribers. The above definition excludes all players under free promotional subscriptions, expired or cancelled subscriptions, and expired prepaid cards. Subscribers in licensees’ territories are defined along the same rules.
"
I don't know how ANYONE can read this and think anything other then "WoW has over 9 million subscribers." It has nothing to do with the number of people who play on a single account, or the fact that a single person may own more then one subscription.
Even if one out of every eight people owned more then one account, which is HIGHLY unlikely, there would STILL be over 8 million unique subscribers.
They are not saying that any subscriber is better/worse then any other. Gold farmers can farm all day long, it's not against their terms of service. They are still subscribers. It IS illegal to the sell that in-game-gold for real world money. I could sit and grind and farm gold all day long and wouldn't be breaking any rules. I'd still count as a subscriber.
Point is?
WoW is the biggest MMO in the world. Why debate it?
True Mack, but even 2-4 million subscribers in the US seems like it would show more than it does. I guess thats how it goes when you spend most of your time in an instance and only come out to repair or check the auction house from time to time. If the numbers weren't so shocking it would be as much to brag about would it, i bet even Blizz itself sometimes checks the numbers and says, WOW! lol
Vivendi Games, which has an implied value of $8.1 billion, is home to Blizzard Entertainment's "World of Warcraft," a popular multiplayer online role-playing game franchise with 9.3 million subscribers worldwide.
Blizzard have 9+ million subscribers not they have 9+ million active players no one know how many active players they have playing WOW. Blizzard don't show there population.
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Emilia_Emi Lvl 56 Witch Now Playing : Black Desert Online "America is not at war, the US Military is at war, America is at the mall."
It would be cool if WoW did have active player listings like some other games have, just to know, but with that amount of players i guess it would be near impossible and if not just not worth the resources it would require.
Well, I for one would not consider Gold-Farmers "players" After all, they don't play the game for amusement and fun, do they?
The problem with that logic is that you then have to adjust every game's numbers by the number of gold-farmers in the game and there's absolutely no way of doing that. And actually, if the reports that you see on Gold Farmers are true, many of them have become gold farmers because they get to play a game rather than work in some factory or something, so technically you can't say no they are not playing for fun. The fact they are getting paid to do it is a bonus. Even grinding mobs is better than working on an assembly line....maybe
9 million subscribers......WOW!! Yeah. Doesn't really matter which way you slice the pie. Whether Blizzard considers 9 million at one point or 9 million "Active" that still impressive and the best any mmo has done. I logged in last night and created another toon on a different server....needless to say ALL but two servers had "High" population.....One was low and one was medium. Thats a lot of servers with high population folks.
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The thing is, i have never actually heard any reliable source claim WoW having 9 million ''active" subscribers, just 9 million subscribers. That makes me think they mean that they have had 9 million accounts to be paid for at one time or another throughout the 3 years. Considering they have a US and EU server set, and The 9 has the Chinese server set ( with that 2 cent per hour subscription setup ) which i have seen claims of anywhere from 4-7million of those 9 mil, It's no shock to me that the number would be so high. I mean how many MMO gamers are there worldwide, and how many of them have not at least tried WoW for a short period of time.
However, if they do actually claim all 9 million are active subscriptions, that would be insane. Especially given the fact each server caps at around 1000 players if i'm not mistaken, meaning there would have to be .......hmm 9000 active servers running and full to reach 9 million players, even if only 10% of active subscribers played at any given time, that's what, 900 servers running at maximum capacity. Up the cap to 2000 players and you still need 450 servers. WoW is a production powerhouse, and has brought in more new mmo gamers than most games have even had, but it would be nice to see true numbers of how many players actually play the game. Regardless, at $50 a pop, selling 9 million copies of the game, giving the company damn near half a billion dollars before subsrciption fees, those numbers still say alot.
Vivendi as a company gets 80% of profits from Wow. This is true.
I know this has been said so many times and god forsake of stupid people being here but....
Blizzard has a shown list of marks how they "count" a subsriber and yes it is ACTIVE paying customers, i'm sure if you searched a little on this forum, you could find a nice quote/link from blizzards nice markers how they define a subscriber.... it is not all put together over 3 past years, may they be there yet or not, it is down right active players (paying aka. not frozen, not expired, not cancelled but Active accounts).
Face it, blizzard have their hands down in your pockets and millions of others, thier games weren't called golden eggs for nothing.
live in denial till whenever you feel like believing the earth is round and not the center of the universe.... but but but untilll then have fun in the "the earth is flat like sliced white bread!" clubs and yell "burn the witch!!" every sunday
Take the Magic: The Gathering 'What Color Are You?' Quiz.
sifudoja - really poor attempt at theory-crafting on the servers there.
WoWs servers can hold up to around 5,000 people, when that is reached you get a queue line to log in. Some servers have around 20,000 people on them which is fine because the servers are no longer region located. My guild is mostly Aussies and one of the top guilds on the server is French.
Blizzard details subscribers whereas other companies detail accounts. NCSoft has made PR claims of 14 million accounts for Lineage 2 but financial reports by NCSoft actually state that Lineage 2s active subscribers are just over 1 million.
WoW is over three years old
BC expansion sold 3.5 million copies its first month
www.blizzard.com/press/070724.shtml
and WoW has practically been a best selling PC game for the last 3 years
thats 36+ months of being a top10 best seller and is *alot * more than 9 million sold
EQ2 fan sites
Well you can criticize my logic, call me stupid and think what you want, and it hasn't changed my belief of a thing i have said. I tried to search for this info like you said, and didn't come with a thing that proves me wrong. Perhaps you can find something and link where a reliable source or Blizzard claims the numbers are in fact 9 million active at any given time. As for the claims of there being 5-20 thousand players per server, I just have to laugh. I'm not making up the 1 - 2 thousand player cap, i didn't pull those numbers out of my ass, these are the numbers i have read myself and tend to take those statements as much more reliable than yours. Besides anyone who has played on questionable servers can probably tell you that having a few hundred people online in the server seems pretty crowded compaired to what you come across on a daily basis on Blizzes US servers. I have owned the game since 12 midnight on launch day and think i can form pretty decent opinions myself also.
If you weren't overly critical of me, over-protective of the game, so angry and just plain disrespectful, i might be a little more likely to take your word for it. The way you come at me makes me feel that you are either a Blizz employee, one of the original devs that made the game, or you have somehting personal against me, or a just plain arguementative child who gets angry when people don't think the same thing you do, and so i don't take your word for a grain of salt unless you can show me where you got the info, I did try searching myself but could't find any. So i'm just going with what i have already.
Sorry if i hurt any of your feelings, i never meant it that way and perhaps you are just too soft. If it's not me then whoever / whatever has scrarred you has left you in need of 1) professional therapy 2) lessons in normal human social behavior 3) a nice left hook to the grill. All the anger and hatered shown by the constant remarks of , stupid people in the forums, and overly critcal judgements of what people say with personal attacks on the people who said them instead of the statement itself, doesn't lead people to think you are intelligent or well informed, but just that you have poor social skills and were probably looking for something to talk shit about to begin with.
I don't claim that my thoughts are gold, and it doesn't bother me if people disagree or even prove me wrong, as long as it's proven i will know the truth and be happy. I'm just telling it like it is ( actually just the way i see it, but whatever ). I'm not trying to piss anyone off or start arguements, and it seems you can't say anything in these forums anymore without people getting angry or being disrespectful in some way. So maybe i'm just wasting my time won't bother to say what i think anymore around here since it seems to do no good and only cause negative 9 times out of 10. So forgive me and I'll just keep quiet from now on.
I have posted this before, i will post this again.
9 Million active accounts doesn't give you any kind of idea of how many players there actually are. I know of many people who held two accounts at the same time, some even three. Not to mention all the gold-farmers who of course, also have a full account (until they are banned...or not).
9 Million active accounts could mean as little as 2 Million active players.
I'm not going to refute that WoW currently has the largest playerbase, but tossing around numbers that don't prove anything really is just a weak attempt at showing off.
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I think there is a slight misunderstanding here.
When Blizzard talks about "active" subscribers they are concerned with the number of people with active accounts. Most of the people I know who played WoW have quit, but most of them keep their accounts active "just in case" or through sheer laziness (they haven't bothered to unsubscribe)
9 Million active accounts? No reason why this shouldn't be true
Number of active players, much lower, but I've never played WoW so I have no way of telling how much lower
Have a nice day
I dont see why some of you people think Blizzard is lying about its subscriptions. They do have 9 million ACTIVE subscribers. Its a worldwide figure which they have stated on several occasions in the forums. This includes, China, Europe and North America. China retains the highest player base for them with something like 5 million active subscribers. But at the rates they charge, even I would invest my time in WoW. China has the largest population of any country in the world, reaching almost 2 billion. They have more people in one city then we have in our whole country. So to be honest, they should have more subs. But China has games that are more popular than WoW with a higher player base. It's called Perfect World and Perfect World 2. The amount of people playing those games is ridiculous. They also stated quite sometime ago that WoW was falling in subscribers in the US. Mostly because of the way Americans rush through games and get bored easily. EIther way their subs are true, but that doesn't mean WoW is getting bigger in the US. Its getting smaller by numbers, and with AoC and WAR on the horizon, will only get smaller. Hence blizzards, new secret project. Also to note, blizzard had one of the biggest communitys before WoW launched, the chances of them all flipping to a new game that isn't made by blizzard is quite small. So if anything is going to take down Blizzard and its reign on mmo's, it will be themselves.
Where did you look?
World of Warcraft's Subscriber Definition
World of Warcraft subscribers include individuals who have paid a subscription fee or have an active prepaid card to play World of Warcraft, as well as those who have purchased the game and are within their free month of access. Internet Game Room players who have accessed the game over the last thirty days are also counted as subscribers. The above definition excludes all players under free promotional subscriptions, expired or cancelled subscriptions, and expired prepaid cards. Subscribers in licensees’ territories are defined along the same rules.
That's from the following press release on Blizzard's own website.
http://www.blizzard.com/press/070724.shtml
Now what do you have to say?
Hehe, i have done the same myself quite a few times. Half sheer laziness and half being that WoW in my opinion is the best MMO there is and most my friends continue to play it. Maybe 1/3rd laziness, 1/3rd having friends there in my #1 favorite mmo and 1/3rd plain addiction not letting me ''cut myself off '', lol.
That that still includes everyone who has 2 or more accounts and it also still includes all Gold-Farmers etc.
9Million subscriptions, certainly. 9 Million players? Not likely.
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You are forgetting one HUGE thing. Blizzard has a LEGAL obligation to report this information truthfully; if they lied or stretched the truth they would be subject to very large fines and possible legal action from shareholders.
When they say...
""World of Warcraft subscribers include individuals who have paid a subscription fee or have an active prepaid card to play World of Warcraft, as well as those who have purchased the game and are within their free month of access. Internet Game Room players who have accessed the game over the last thirty days are also counted as subscribers. The above definition excludes all players under free promotional subscriptions, expired or cancelled subscriptions, and expired prepaid cards. Subscribers in licensees’ territories are defined along the same rules.""
They have to stand by that 100% truthfully; Blizzard may be a multi-billion dollar company, but even they can not afford to lie about information like this. It just isn't worth it; even if you think they are stretching it how large do you think it could be? 7 million? 6 million? Either of those numbers are still staggering compared to the rest of the 15-a-month MMORPG's out there. No matter how you cut the pie, World of Warcraft is without a doubt the largest, and by quite a margin - there is no reason for them to risk lieing about this sort of thing, when the benefits between saying "7 million!!!!" and "9 million!!!" are few and far between...
Good job, nice find. That is exactly what i wanted to see, and thanks for linking it. Besides the ''Now what do you have to say " part, which sounds to me like, IN YO FACE!, it's good to hear facts and glad to know the truth. To me 9 million active subscribers is amazing and gives them all the bragging rights they need.
It's crazy to me that there are that many people, regardless of the fact tons of people have multiple accounts etc, and all 9 million probably don't play at the exact same time, those numbers a still humongous and wonder where all those people are. With instanced everything, it makes sense that you don't see but a small fraction of those players, but with so many people i would think BGs queues and the amount of BGs open would be much higher, as well as all the outside world being very crowded.
I actually searched here at mmorpg.com to find the info, and duh, i should have checked thier own website, lol.
That that still includes everyone who has 2 or more accounts and it also still includes all Gold-Farmers etc.
9Million subscriptions, certainly. 9 Million players? Not likely.
Because Gold-farmers are not players? What are they?
I get what you are saying, but what percentage of players do you really think have more than 1 account? Most people that own more than 1 account it's because they have more than 1 person playing, for instance I had 2 accounts at one time, because both my son and I played. And actually if you want to get right down to it, we cancelled one account and now both him and I both play using 1 account and we just take turns as to when we play so in our case 1 subscriber, 2 players. So it works both ways. No one is claiming 9 million concurrent players, just 9 million people playing. When the average peak concurrent users is somewhere close to 3 quarter of a million in EU and US alone, I don't think it's that unreasonable to assume 3-4 million total players.
Well, I for one would not consider Gold-Farmers "players" After all, they don't play the game for amusement and fun, do they?
Also, I know of many people who had more than one account. Including those of us, who wanted to play the game in America as well as in Europe because they just so happened to have friends on both continents. And there's more than enough people who had more than one account from what I know of people with whom I played.
Anyway, the point is, 9 Million is a number that is staggering because it keeps growing and growing and that is, quite simply put, a PR Trick. It is Blizzard showing off, telling everyone how superb their game is, while the numbers of actual "Players" would be smaller and the growth maybe not as staggering.
Again, I don't say WoW isn't the biggest player out there, I just say that Blizzard is using number-tricks to make it sound larger and more growing than I personally think it is.
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I agree about the graphics.
Give us a high-res client like LOTRO does, or a DX10 only client or something.
Though I too hope that WAR will be excellent enough to where I'm no longer worried about WoW
I won't the numbers or call Blizzard liars, but to be honost, i wouldn't be surprised if 5 million of the accounts are owned by blizz employees who don't have to pay, and 10 million forum accounts belong to those same people, LOL. Don't get me wrong, i'm no WoW or Blizzard hater, anything that i do say negative about the game is usually constructive criticism, but i have never had the impression they were the most honest people in the world, just very smart and successful at making money. Blizzard has ties to some very questionable yet successful groups, even strong ties to a game called MuOnline which sometimes makes me question their practices. And like i said, having played the game in the US servers for over 3 years, those numbers are outright shocking to me.
But still, grats to Blizz for making the most successful MMO ( or game period for that matter i believe ) in the world and in my opinion the best overall mmo ever made.
I dont see how its shocking to you. Your on a US server. US population has been on the decline. Now go and jump on a chinese server and see how many people you see. Think thats all that needs to be said. There subscriber base they mention for the last time, is a worldwide number. Not US only players.
http://www.blizzard.com/press/070724.shtml
"
Blizzard Entertainment, Inc. announced today that World of Warcraft®, its award-winning massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG), has reached a new milestone, with a player base now totaling more than 9 million subscribers worldwide.
World of Warcraft's Subscriber Definition
World of Warcraft subscribers include individuals who have paid a subscription fee or have an active prepaid card to play World of Warcraft, as well as those who have purchased the game and are within their free month of access. Internet Game Room players who have accessed the game over the last thirty days are also counted as subscribers. The above definition excludes all players under free promotional subscriptions, expired or cancelled subscriptions, and expired prepaid cards. Subscribers in licensees’ territories are defined along the same rules.
"
I don't know how ANYONE can read this and think anything other then "WoW has over 9 million subscribers." It has nothing to do with the number of people who play on a single account, or the fact that a single person may own more then one subscription.
Even if one out of every eight people owned more then one account, which is HIGHLY unlikely, there would STILL be over 8 million unique subscribers.
They are not saying that any subscriber is better/worse then any other. Gold farmers can farm all day long, it's not against their terms of service. They are still subscribers. It IS illegal to the sell that in-game-gold for real world money. I could sit and grind and farm gold all day long and wouldn't be breaking any rules. I'd still count as a subscriber.
Point is?
WoW is the biggest MMO in the world. Why debate it?
True Mack, but even 2-4 million subscribers in the US seems like it would show more than it does. I guess thats how it goes when you spend most of your time in an instance and only come out to repair or check the auction house from time to time. If the numbers weren't so shocking it would be as much to brag about would it, i bet even Blizz itself sometimes checks the numbers and says, WOW! lol
Vivendi Games, which has an implied value of $8.1 billion, is home to Blizzard Entertainment's "World of Warcraft," a popular multiplayer online role-playing game franchise with 9.3 million subscribers worldwide.
Blizzard have 9+ million subscribers not they have 9+ million active players no one know how many active players they have playing WOW. Blizzard don't show there population.
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It would be cool if WoW did have active player listings like some other games have, just to know, but with that amount of players i guess it would be near impossible and if not just not worth the resources it would require.
The problem with that logic is that you then have to adjust every game's numbers by the number of gold-farmers in the game and there's absolutely no way of doing that. And actually, if the reports that you see on Gold Farmers are true, many of them have become gold farmers because they get to play a game rather than work in some factory or something, so technically you can't say no they are not playing for fun. The fact they are getting paid to do it is a bonus. Even grinding mobs is better than working on an assembly line....maybe
9 million subscribers......WOW!! Yeah. Doesn't really matter which way you slice the pie. Whether Blizzard considers 9 million at one point or 9 million "Active" that still impressive and the best any mmo has done. I logged in last night and created another toon on a different server....needless to say ALL but two servers had "High" population.....One was low and one was medium. Thats a lot of servers with high population folks.