Very immature and funny claim from Blizzard CEO. When I played WoW, like when it was launched, I had a huge guild. Tons of friends. About 40-50 that I know. We all quit WoW 3 months after TBC because of grindfest , faction crap and pure boredom. The guild disbanded obviously. None, and I am pretty sure of this fact, none of us ever returned back to WoW or thought about returning back to WoW. I am sure that pretty much sums it. WoW has 2.5m NA and 2 million European subscribers, the rest is from Asia for a total of 11 million. I think that in the last 4 years after WoW's release, a minimum of 30-40 million has played WoW at least once. So 60-80% of the players who quit WoW NEVER return back to WoW. Sure there are like 400-500k people who loves to hop from MMO to MMO and eventually back to WoW. But the majority never returns back to WoW.
LOL! 40-50 quit at the same time... quite an imagination.. { Mod Edit }
As a counter argument, I should point out that most of WoW avid supporters do not talk about the quality of the game as it's primary strong point, but about the subscription numbers. I would be more cautions on calling people sheep.
I am sure that pretty much sums it. WoW has 2.5m NA and 2 million European subscribers, the rest is from Asia for a total of 11 million.
Why must people constantly quote the Asia number as if it's some kind of smear on WoW's name?
So what if they make up the majority of subscribers - the fact is that the 4.5 million combined (according to your estimates) of EU and US subs is more than any other out there on the market.
It's like saying 'Oh well 75% of people who play it are Asian' like they'll play any old crap or something. Not only is it racist but it's a very poor argument. Numbers are numbers which ever way you cut them.
I am sure that pretty much sums it. WoW has 2.5m NA and 2 million European subscribers, the rest is from Asia for a total of 11 million.
Why must people constantly quote the Asia number as if it's some kind of smear on WoW's name?
So what if they make up the majority of subscribers - the fact is that the 4.5 million combined (according to your estimates) of EU and US subs is more than any other out there on the market.
It's like saying 'Oh well 75% of people who play it are Asian' like they'll play any old crap or something. Not only is it racist but it's a very poor argument. Numbers are numbers which ever way you cut them.
Also there are far more people in Asia then in the US+EU combined, so a higher Asian number is expected.
China almost 20% of the world population where as the US is around 5%.
I'd just like to respond to the poster who said the Blizzard execs were being immature.
This was from the conference call. I listened and also read the transcript. The context of those quotes wasn't to brag, but to show investors that Blizzard had weathered the storm of AOC and Warhammer launches and had survived quite well. There was a lot of talk back in Jan-March timeframe from Blizzard execs that 2008 could be a rough year for WOW. Companies are required to 'warn' of upcoming trouble. Just like any time they release their upcoming games, they say that revenues could be hurt in the next quarter if a game doesn't launch on time. It's very common to warn about stuff like the launch of new competition.
I'd just like to respond to the poster who said the Blizzard execs were being immature. This was from the conference call. I listened and also read the transcript. The context of those quotes wasn't to brag, but to show investors that Blizzard had weathered the storm of AOC and Warhammer launches and had survived quite well. There was a lot of talk back in Jan-March timeframe from Blizzard execs that 2008 could be a rough year for WOW. Companies are required to 'warn' of upcoming trouble. Just like any time they release their upcoming games, they say that revenues could be hurt in the next quarter if a game doesn't launch on time. It's very common to warn about stuff like the launch of new competition.
blizzard staff is normally very cautious when dealing with wow competition. They rarelly start a word war (mostly because they don't need it), Azrile is right. that information come within a context and was not said with a bragging sense. that is often the problem of quoting a sentence.
As a counter argument, I should point out that most of WoW avid supporters do not talk about the quality of the game as it's primary strong point, but about the subscription numbers. I would be more cautions on calling people sheep.
I think you missed the entire point of this whole thread then. There is a forest somewhere behind all those trees if you keep looking.
And ultimately, they are too smart to brag anyway. It would be like kicking a man (men) while he is down. They are dominating. To think of the revenues they are still posting it is just amazing. I'm done playing, but I have a lot of respect for this dev team, they have made the most successful game of all time. And if you are a hater for that, that is your own problem.
When I played WoW, like when it was launched, I had a huge guild. Tons of friends. About 40-50 that I know. We all quit WoW 3 months after TBC because of grindfest , faction crap and pure boredom. The guild disbanded obviously. None, and I am pretty sure of this fact, none of us ever returned back to WoW or thought about returning back to WoW.
Um.....X? Sorry, man but I hate to have to tell you this....but, you see......we all came back but you. No offense man, but we tried playing all those other games you wanted us to play. Fury, then AoC, then War...but it just wasn't the same. We came back and we realized that we really liked WoW. So, sorry man, but we all came back and started a new guild called Blacksheep-Squadron, because, you know we are kinda the outcasts of WoW and all. So if you want there's still a place in our guild for you. No questions asked and no one will look down on you for liking those other games. Honest.
I've played and quit both AoC & Warhammer and I'm now playing WoW "seriously" for the first time. I played it back at launch but never made it past lvl 20 but I am finding the game extremely polished and fun now.
This is hilarious,there is another post about un professional CEO's and here we have the richest CEO/game going and there using lame tactics like this? Why would Blizzard announce this?Do they need money? NO. DO they need subscriptions?NO. Perhaps they are rubbing it in?telling us there game is the greatest and all other games are so bad players will return to wow?That is pretty lame when comes from a developer who is raping the public off of a COPIED game from EQ.If this guys wants to BRAG i would love a personal interview with him.I would LOVE to ask him why Vivendi wanted to sell his gaming division if it was predicted to be such a great success?oh maybe no one had any confidence in blizzard?I would love to ask him why there game looks so much like EVERQUEST,pretty much EXACTLY the same game?Why couldn't Blizzard with all there money/manpower create there OWN game? instead of copying EQ?I would love to ask there CEO why they embed everyone's game with an illegal program?And yes i consider it illegal if i do not approve of it on my machine,i would suspect others feel the same.Just because you agree to there TOS,does not mean you ACTUALLY do agree to it,people just click for the purpose of playing,the LAWS need changing there bigtime. Better yet i would just love to hear his response as to WHY he posted this?How often do we EVER hear WOW talk about how great there game is?never it is ALWAYS talk about SUBSCRIPTIONS.They want people to believe there game is the best because they have the subscriptions lol.Most developers try to explain there game or there content when encouraging people to play there product ,not BLizzard they stick to superficial B/s,a reason i can't stand Blizzard. "PLAY OUR GAME EVERYONE ELSE IS" how lame is that?
Um, I hate to break up a good rant and all, but this was said in the quarterly stockholder meeting. You know when you let the investors know how the company is doing? It's actually a kinda big thing that companies do. Oh and by the way, since Activision-Blizzard is a publicly traded company, it has be made public.
Oh, so you say Blizz is the only one mocking Mythic? Just read some of MJ's sayings and you'll be surprised how many times he tried to make WoW look bad.
I just find it funny that Blizzard needs to announce that people who tried other games are resubbing again. (so they say) A little paranoid are we ?
Again, since english may not be your first language. ALL public companies warn of 'potential' problems. Before AOC and Warhammer launched, the Blizzard execs warned investors that it was possible that WOW could have a rough year because two very well hyped and marketed games were being released. The quote you are seeing now is the followup to that warning in January and letting investors know that AOC/War didn't hurt WOW at all. Publicly traded companies usually try and disclose potential problems in advance, then followup and let investors know what happened.
As a counter argument, I should point out that most of WoW avid supporters do not talk about the quality of the game as it's primary strong point, but about the subscription numbers. I would be more cautions on calling people sheep.
The problem on www.mmorpg-wowhate.com is that ANY person who says something positive on Wow is haunted down by Wow haters.
Every other thread on the (WAR) forums had titles like "Why War is better, kiss goodbye to your 10 million subs Wow, why wow is XXXX".
And every time you would react with decent arguments, you were insulted and killed the moment you wanted to defend your gaming fun. Even when you tried and played War and found the dozens of obvious faults in it.
Even you - some of your posts are of very high quality - seems in a strange fashion coming back to these Wow forums - even as a non player. I never attacked a person, always tried to put up decent arguments why Wow is a far better game, but as nobody wants to listen on this site, who cares?
Read the guys who bash on Wow, mostly they are only using 4 letter words. We are not going to argue anymore against this kind of vomit.
My new statement is very clear: People vote with their wallets and in sub based MMO's that is indeed the number of western based subscriptions. Those sub - money - based votes are the only ones that count, because every kid can type and give a free zero on a free site.
It makes the whole of mmorpg.com review member list a disgrace for the industry. And you have the intelligence to know this. You are too good to troll these Wow forums.
I think it's pathetic that some of the people that quit WOW saying how shit it is and how AOC and WAR are gonna be so much better, end up coming back with their tail between their legs!!
People get a life!
If you hate a game so much as to leave it, then don't come back just cos there ain't any other game that you think is better. If you quit, then stay quit!
Every time i read a "Shall i come back to WOW even though i hate it" post, it makes me cry inside. It's like watching a heroine addict struggling to cope without their daily dose.
I wonder how many people quit WoW for AoC or War and sold their accounts. Those accounts would then be reactivated and make it seem people were returning, when in fact its really just newbies playing high level characters.
I wonder how many people quit WoW for AoC or War and sold their accounts. Those accounts would then be reactivated and make it seem people were returning, when in fact its really just newbies playing high level characters.
I really doubt it would be any number significant enough to artificially inflate those numbers. You can read enough stories here from people who say "I've already gone back to [insert game here]" to think most people have learned not to sell the farm after what happened with so many MMOs in the last few years.
I wonder how many people quit WoW for AoC or War and sold their accounts. Those accounts would then be reactivated and make it seem people were returning, when in fact its really just newbies playing high level characters.
I really doubt it would be any number significant enough to artificially inflate those numbers. You can read enough stories here from people who say "I've already gone back to [insert game here]" to think most people have learned not to sell the farm after what happened with so many MMOs in the last few years.
Still it happened in one of my own guilds !
Not going into details (for obvious reasons), but our "Empire" guild was lead by a perfect tank about a year ago, we were just beginning with Gruul after having had Karazahn on farm. (was the late summer of 07). Suddenly our tank Guild leader spoke to us: "Sorry guys this is NOT your usual guild leader this is X and I bought my character back..."
We thought of a joke, but it wasn't. The guy had sold his account and character to our known guild leader and now he was buying it back.
It went worse: the character was transferred to another server and now we had ... a lvl 60 priest as our guild leader (the alt from the old guild leader).
We had a pretty good relaxed goup and needless to say the Empire guild was gone. Website and all. Terrible thing to happen and I'll bet with the WOTLK a lot of those things will happen.
Whiners who left the game "for good" will want to come back and will ask their old characters back. Destroying new formed guilds etc...
If it happens again one more time I am certainly going to notify Blizz. Because those guys are the pain in the ass of all MMORPG' play and I'll bet they are even the worst ones crying for months "Wow sucks" on forums like these, but once WotLK will hit the street, they're all back and only looking for their own pleasure and profit.
Playing the first month of Warhammer made me appreciate the depth and the level of polish that is WoW. I hadn't played WoW for over a year, but after 2 weeks of trying nearly every class in WAR, I re-subbed to WoW. Thanks, Mythic!
One thing I notice about WoW are the "Quality of Life" details, those things that don't affect gameplay, but add to the immersion. All my pets have swimming animations now. Underwater encounters are a big plus in my book. Then, there's the soundtrack and weather. Azeroth feels like a wide-open world. Warhammer made me feel like I was in a livestock chute in a stockyard.
"Soloists and those who prefer small groups should never have to feel like they''re the ones getting the proverbial table scraps, as it were." - Scott Hartsman, Senior Producer, Everquest II "People love groups. Its a fallacy that people want to play solo all the time." - Scott Hartsman, Executive Producer, Rift
I wonder how many people quit WoW for AoC or War and sold their accounts. Those accounts would then be reactivated and make it seem people were returning, when in fact its really just newbies playing high level characters.
I really doubt it would be any number significant enough to artificially inflate those numbers. You can read enough stories here from people who say "I've already gone back to [insert game here]" to think most people have learned not to sell the farm after what happened with so many MMOs in the last few years.
Still it happened in one of my own guilds !
Not going into details (for obvious reasons), but our "Empire" guild was lead by a perfect tank about a year ago, we were just beginning with Gruul after having had Karazahn on farm. (was the late summer of 07). Suddenly our tank Guild leader spoke to us: "Sorry guys this is NOT your usual guild leader this is X and I bought my character back..."
We thought of a joke, but it wasn't. The guy had sold his account and character to our known guild leader and now he was buying it back.
It went worse: the character was transferred to another server and now we had ... a lvl 60 priest as our guild leader (the alt from the old guild leader).
We had a pretty good relaxed goup and needless to say the Empire guild was gone. Website and all. Terrible thing to happen and I'll bet with the WOTLK a lot of those things will happen.
Whiners who left the game "for good" will want to come back and will ask their old characters back. Destroying new formed guilds etc...
If it happens again one more time I am certainly going to notify Blizz. Because those guys are the pain in the ass of all MMORPG' play and I'll bet they are even the worst ones crying for months "Wow sucks" on forums like these, but once WotLK will hit the street, they're all back and only looking for their own pleasure and profit.
Banned for life I would say.
I would have reported him right away and let Blizzard look into it. I don't have much tolerance for account sellers and your story is a good example of why. Account and gold sellers are a blight to online games and while it's impossible to stop their behavior completely, it doesn't mean that we have to sit idly and let them get away with it.
"Soloists and those who prefer small groups should never have to feel like they''re the ones getting the proverbial table scraps, as it were." - Scott Hartsman, Senior Producer, Everquest II "People love groups. Its a fallacy that people want to play solo all the time." - Scott Hartsman, Executive Producer, Rift
Comments
LOL! 40-50 quit at the same time... quite an imagination.. { Mod Edit }
As a counter argument, I should point out that most of WoW avid supporters do not talk about the quality of the game as it's primary strong point, but about the subscription numbers. I would be more cautions on calling people sheep.
Why must people constantly quote the Asia number as if it's some kind of smear on WoW's name?
So what if they make up the majority of subscribers - the fact is that the 4.5 million combined (according to your estimates) of EU and US subs is more than any other out there on the market.
It's like saying 'Oh well 75% of people who play it are Asian' like they'll play any old crap or something. Not only is it racist but it's a very poor argument. Numbers are numbers which ever way you cut them.
Why must people constantly quote the Asia number as if it's some kind of smear on WoW's name?
So what if they make up the majority of subscribers - the fact is that the 4.5 million combined (according to your estimates) of EU and US subs is more than any other out there on the market.
It's like saying 'Oh well 75% of people who play it are Asian' like they'll play any old crap or something. Not only is it racist but it's a very poor argument. Numbers are numbers which ever way you cut them.
Also there are far more people in Asia then in the US+EU combined, so a higher Asian number is expected.
China almost 20% of the world population where as the US is around 5%.
I'd just like to respond to the poster who said the Blizzard execs were being immature.
This was from the conference call. I listened and also read the transcript. The context of those quotes wasn't to brag, but to show investors that Blizzard had weathered the storm of AOC and Warhammer launches and had survived quite well. There was a lot of talk back in Jan-March timeframe from Blizzard execs that 2008 could be a rough year for WOW. Companies are required to 'warn' of upcoming trouble. Just like any time they release their upcoming games, they say that revenues could be hurt in the next quarter if a game doesn't launch on time. It's very common to warn about stuff like the launch of new competition.
blizzard staff is normally very cautious when dealing with wow competition. They rarelly start a word war (mostly because they don't need it), Azrile is right. that information come within a context and was not said with a bragging sense. that is often the problem of quoting a sentence.
I think you missed the entire point of this whole thread then. There is a forest somewhere behind all those trees if you keep looking.
And ultimately, they are too smart to brag anyway. It would be like kicking a man (men) while he is down. They are dominating. To think of the revenues they are still posting it is just amazing. I'm done playing, but I have a lot of respect for this dev team, they have made the most successful game of all time. And if you are a hater for that, that is your own problem.
Um.....X? Sorry, man but I hate to have to tell you this....but, you see......we all came back but you. No offense man, but we tried playing all those other games you wanted us to play. Fury, then AoC, then War...but it just wasn't the same. We came back and we realized that we really liked WoW. So, sorry man, but we all came back and started a new guild called Blacksheep-Squadron, because, you know we are kinda the outcasts of WoW and all. So if you want there's still a place in our guild for you. No questions asked and no one will look down on you for liking those other games. Honest.
I've played and quit both AoC & Warhammer and I'm now playing WoW "seriously" for the first time. I played it back at launch but never made it past lvl 20 but I am finding the game extremely polished and fun now.
Um, I hate to break up a good rant and all, but this was said in the quarterly stockholder meeting. You know when you let the investors know how the company is doing? It's actually a kinda big thing that companies do. Oh and by the way, since Activision-Blizzard is a publicly traded company, it has be made public.
I just find it funny that Blizzard needs to announce that people who tried other games are resubbing again. (so they say) A little paranoid are we ?
Oh, so you say Blizz is the only one mocking Mythic? Just read some of MJ's sayings and you'll be surprised how many times he tried to make WoW look bad.
Again, since english may not be your first language. ALL public companies warn of 'potential' problems. Before AOC and Warhammer launched, the Blizzard execs warned investors that it was possible that WOW could have a rough year because two very well hyped and marketed games were being released. The quote you are seeing now is the followup to that warning in January and letting investors know that AOC/War didn't hurt WOW at all. Publicly traded companies usually try and disclose potential problems in advance, then followup and let investors know what happened.
The problem on www.mmorpg-wowhate.com is that ANY person who says something positive on Wow is haunted down by Wow haters.
Every other thread on the (WAR) forums had titles like "Why War is better, kiss goodbye to your 10 million subs Wow, why wow is XXXX".
And every time you would react with decent arguments, you were insulted and killed the moment you wanted to defend your gaming fun. Even when you tried and played War and found the dozens of obvious faults in it.
Even you - some of your posts are of very high quality - seems in a strange fashion coming back to these Wow forums - even as a non player. I never attacked a person, always tried to put up decent arguments why Wow is a far better game, but as nobody wants to listen on this site, who cares?
Read the guys who bash on Wow, mostly they are only using 4 letter words. We are not going to argue anymore against this kind of vomit.
My new statement is very clear: People vote with their wallets and in sub based MMO's that is indeed the number of western based subscriptions. Those sub - money - based votes are the only ones that count, because every kid can type and give a free zero on a free site.
It makes the whole of mmorpg.com review member list a disgrace for the industry. And you have the intelligence to know this. You are too good to troll these Wow forums.
83% of statistics are made up 42% of the time
I think it's pathetic that some of the people that quit WOW saying how shit it is and how AOC and WAR are gonna be so much better, end up coming back with their tail between their legs!!
People get a life!
If you hate a game so much as to leave it, then don't come back just cos there ain't any other game that you think is better. If you quit, then stay quit!
Every time i read a "Shall i come back to WOW even though i hate it" post, it makes me cry inside. It's like watching a heroine addict struggling to cope without their daily dose.
I wonder how many people quit WoW for AoC or War and sold their accounts. Those accounts would then be reactivated and make it seem people were returning, when in fact its really just newbies playing high level characters.
I really doubt it would be any number significant enough to artificially inflate those numbers. You can read enough stories here from people who say "I've already gone back to [insert game here]" to think most people have learned not to sell the farm after what happened with so many MMOs in the last few years.
I really doubt it would be any number significant enough to artificially inflate those numbers. You can read enough stories here from people who say "I've already gone back to [insert game here]" to think most people have learned not to sell the farm after what happened with so many MMOs in the last few years.
Still it happened in one of my own guilds !
Not going into details (for obvious reasons), but our "Empire" guild was lead by a perfect tank about a year ago, we were just beginning with Gruul after having had Karazahn on farm. (was the late summer of 07). Suddenly our tank Guild leader spoke to us: "Sorry guys this is NOT your usual guild leader this is X and I bought my character back..."
We thought of a joke, but it wasn't. The guy had sold his account and character to our known guild leader and now he was buying it back.
It went worse: the character was transferred to another server and now we had ... a lvl 60 priest as our guild leader (the alt from the old guild leader).
We had a pretty good relaxed goup and needless to say the Empire guild was gone. Website and all. Terrible thing to happen and I'll bet with the WOTLK a lot of those things will happen.
Whiners who left the game "for good" will want to come back and will ask their old characters back. Destroying new formed guilds etc...
If it happens again one more time I am certainly going to notify Blizz. Because those guys are the pain in the ass of all MMORPG' play and I'll bet they are even the worst ones crying for months "Wow sucks" on forums like these, but once WotLK will hit the street, they're all back and only looking for their own pleasure and profit.
Banned for life I would say.
Playing the first month of Warhammer made me appreciate the depth and the level of polish that is WoW. I hadn't played WoW for over a year, but after 2 weeks of trying nearly every class in WAR, I re-subbed to WoW. Thanks, Mythic!
One thing I notice about WoW are the "Quality of Life" details, those things that don't affect gameplay, but add to the immersion. All my pets have swimming animations now. Underwater encounters are a big plus in my book. Then, there's the soundtrack and weather. Azeroth feels like a wide-open world. Warhammer made me feel like I was in a livestock chute in a stockyard.
"Soloists and those who prefer small groups should never have to feel like they''re the ones getting the proverbial table scraps, as it were." - Scott Hartsman, Senior Producer, Everquest II
"People love groups. Its a fallacy that people want to play solo all the time." - Scott Hartsman, Executive Producer, Rift
I really doubt it would be any number significant enough to artificially inflate those numbers. You can read enough stories here from people who say "I've already gone back to [insert game here]" to think most people have learned not to sell the farm after what happened with so many MMOs in the last few years.
Still it happened in one of my own guilds !
Not going into details (for obvious reasons), but our "Empire" guild was lead by a perfect tank about a year ago, we were just beginning with Gruul after having had Karazahn on farm. (was the late summer of 07). Suddenly our tank Guild leader spoke to us: "Sorry guys this is NOT your usual guild leader this is X and I bought my character back..."
We thought of a joke, but it wasn't. The guy had sold his account and character to our known guild leader and now he was buying it back.
It went worse: the character was transferred to another server and now we had ... a lvl 60 priest as our guild leader (the alt from the old guild leader).
We had a pretty good relaxed goup and needless to say the Empire guild was gone. Website and all. Terrible thing to happen and I'll bet with the WOTLK a lot of those things will happen.
Whiners who left the game "for good" will want to come back and will ask their old characters back. Destroying new formed guilds etc...
If it happens again one more time I am certainly going to notify Blizz. Because those guys are the pain in the ass of all MMORPG' play and I'll bet they are even the worst ones crying for months "Wow sucks" on forums like these, but once WotLK will hit the street, they're all back and only looking for their own pleasure and profit.
Banned for life I would say.
I would have reported him right away and let Blizzard look into it. I don't have much tolerance for account sellers and your story is a good example of why. Account and gold sellers are a blight to online games and while it's impossible to stop their behavior completely, it doesn't mean that we have to sit idly and let them get away with it.
"Soloists and those who prefer small groups should never have to feel like they''re the ones getting the proverbial table scraps, as it were." - Scott Hartsman, Senior Producer, Everquest II
"People love groups. Its a fallacy that people want to play solo all the time." - Scott Hartsman, Executive Producer, Rift
This is exactly why my reason for cancellation of anything is always:
OTHER - "Shut up, that's why!"
I'm definitely a tool, just not a marketing tool!
boy its a good thing this was posted...i might have stopped caring.