It is not hard to understand, pay by the hour, if paid within the last 30 days, is extremely similar to a subscription. It is perfectly acceptable to use these people in their subscription numbers in many peoples opinions. Your opinion is different.
Add to that the fact that every other company uses the Asian subscription style to support their numbers and then the idea that they are pulling a fast one on people gets even more far fetched.
12 million subs (or something extremely similar). Get over it.
It is not hard to understand, pay by the hour is not a subscription. Tell me whoelse in the world considerds pay by the hour a subscription plan ? Nobody except Blizzards's spin on the word subscription . It fits more in the category of microtransaction than anything else the way Asia has to pay.
Well then it seems it's a definition issue and not a crazy unholy scheme to lie left and right about the 12 million subscriptions.
As for Wizardry's comment...
Originally posted by Wizardry
What is more important is that when i rejoined FFXI i actually found a LOT more noob players than in WOW,i saw only about 5-7 players in a whole week in WOW,that is not showing much growth for a game that claims such high numbers.So we have the exact same millions still playing? I no for a fact that is not true,so go figure how they maintain the exact same numbers lol,again VERY sketchy.Let's not forget that Blizzard has been caught in the past for manipulating books,nice that a couple employees took the fall for the mighty giant,otherwise we might not see Blizzard today,since they were trying to sell at the time,hence why the fake book work.
I don't think you can compare both games like that. I have not played Final Fantasy, but I've heard a lot about how 'it's about the journey' while World of Warcraft is mostly about End Game. So I assume it is normal to see more new players in a single server since there don't need to set up as many servers to accomodate or reduce lag in end game towns like I assessed in Dalagran. (or um at least from what I saw when I was playing WoW...)
There are 241 servers in NA and 263 servers in Europe, of course new players are going to spread out... I've seen a lot of new players in AoC last April, a lot more than what you find today in WoW's starting zones... But I know it doesn't mean jack ;-)
It is not hard to understand, pay by the hour, if paid within the last 30 days, is extremely similar to a subscription. It is perfectly acceptable to use these people in their subscription numbers in many peoples opinions. Your opinion is different.
Add to that the fact that every other company uses the Asian subscription style to support their numbers and then the idea that they are pulling a fast one on people gets even more far fetched.
12 million subs (or something extremely similar). Get over it.
Since pay per hour is the ONLY way in China to play a paid MMORPG, there is not even a discussion or interpretation problem.
Blizzard' sdefinition of subscriptions only counts active and paid session accounts of the last month and according to the region's different methods of payment.
It is not hard to understand, pay by the hour, if paid within the last 30 days, is extremely similar to a subscription. It is perfectly acceptable to use these people in their subscription numbers in many peoples opinions. Your opinion is different.
Add to that the fact that every other company uses the Asian subscription style to support their numbers and then the idea that they are pulling a fast one on people gets even more far fetched.
12 million subs (or something extremely similar). Get over it.
It isn't an Asian subscription style( nice spin on words there ), you either subscribe as in pay a monthly fee or even a one time fee like the rest of the world does or you pay by the hour which is more of a f2p microtansaction system. Get over it, use common sense for a change.
It is not hard to understand, pay by the hour is not a subscription. Tell me whoelse in the world considerds pay by the hour a subscription plan ? Nobody except Blizzards's spin on the word subscription . It fits more in the category of microtransaction than anything else the way Asia has to pay.
if they are paying to play then they are subscribing.. since last time i checked WOW was still a P2P game and not a F2P game.. i really don't know why this topic gets rehashed so often, when the answer is so glaringly obvious.. you have to pay to play.. and.. trying to suggest that WoW is a microtransaction game.. is.. well.. pardon me for laughing....
It is not hard to understand, pay by the hour, if paid within the last 30 days, is extremely similar to a subscription. It is perfectly acceptable to use these people in their subscription numbers in many peoples opinions. Your opinion is different.
Add to that the fact that every other company uses the Asian subscription style to support their numbers and then the idea that they are pulling a fast one on people gets even more far fetched.
12 million subs (or something extremely similar). Get over it.
It isn't an Asian subscription style( nice spin on words there ), you either subscribe as in pay a monthly fee or even a one time fee like the rest of the world does or you pay by the hour which is more of a f2p microtansaction system. Get over it, use common sense for a change.
If you pay by the hour within the last 30 days, you get counted. That means, like a western subscription, you have played and paid for the game within the last month. If they stop paying for thirty days, they are no longer counted. If someone in the west stops paying their subscription within the last 30 days, they are no longer counted.
It is not hard to understand, pay by the hour, if paid within the last 30 days, is extremely similar to a subscription. It is perfectly acceptable to use these people in their subscription numbers in many peoples opinions. Your opinion is different.
Add to that the fact that every other company uses the Asian subscription style to support their numbers and then the idea that they are pulling a fast one on people gets even more far fetched.
12 million subs (or something extremely similar). Get over it.
It isn't an Asian subscription style( nice spin on words there ), you either subscribe as in pay a monthly fee or even a one time fee like the rest of the world does or you pay by the hour which is more of a f2p microtansaction system. Get over it, use common sense for a change.
if they only played (and paid) 1 hr a month.. you might have something in terms of numbers.. but.. your argument kind of falls over on its face.. if like most players on this planet.. they tend to spend a few more minutes than that.. also paid for.. just like all the other paying players on this planet.. so stop giving common sense a bad rep....
It is not hard to understand, pay by the hour, if paid within the last 30 days, is extremely similar to a subscription. It is perfectly acceptable to use these people in their subscription numbers in many peoples opinions. Your opinion is different.
Add to that the fact that every other company uses the Asian subscription style to support their numbers and then the idea that they are pulling a fast one on people gets even more far fetched.
12 million subs (or something extremely similar). Get over it.
Since pay per hour is the ONLY way in China to play a paid MMORPG, there is not even a discussion or interpretation problem.
Blizzard' sdefinition of subscriptions only counts active and paid session accounts of the last month and according to the region's different methods of payment.
How can you use a paid session account in Asia when it is done by the hour ? You can't. You can use prepaid cards as a subscriber because pre-paid cards are done in 30 day intervals but Asia does not use pre-paid cards. They use a rmt business model which is 100% different froma subscription model.
How can you use a paid session account in Asia when it is done by the hour ? You can't. You can use prepaid cards as a subscriber because pre-paid cards are done in 30 day intervals but Asia does not use pre-paid cards. They use a rmt business model which is 100% different froma subscription model.
No, they don't use an RMT model. They use a pay by the hour model. Unless you also consider a monthly subscription fee an RMT model.
How can you use a paid session account in Asia when it is done by the hour ? You can't. You can use prepaid cards as a subscriber because pre-paid cards are done in 30 day intervals but Asia does not use pre-paid cards. They use a rmt business model which is 100% different froma subscription model.
No, they don't use an RMT model. They use a pay by the hour model. Unless you also consider a monthly subscription fee an RMT model.
last time i checked RMT was the dodgy activity of buying in game currency for real world cash.. sounds like someones quoting out of context to me.. .. this is getting so outlandish im half expecting it to end in 'WOW destroys peoples minds' .. well. might be true actually.. but who cares
How can you use a paid session account in Asia when it is done by the hour ? You can't. You can use prepaid cards as a subscriber because pre-paid cards are done in 30 day intervals but Asia does not use pre-paid cards. They use a rmt business model which is 100% different froma subscription model.
Uh. If pay-as-you-go is a RMT, then a monthly subscription is RMT as well.
last time i checked RMT was the dodgy activity of buying in game currency for real world cash.. sounds like someones quoting out of context to me.. .. this is getting so outlandish im half expecting it to end in 'WOW destroys peoples minds' .. well. might be true actually.. but who cares
I know right ;-)
Well, Saintviktor has been posting anti-Blizzard threads for a long time. I don't really mind and sometimes he brings good points. But this entire thread has posts ranging from 'Pay-as-you-go is not a real subscription so Blizzard cannot say 12 millions subscribers' to 'Blizzard is telling lies, no way WoW has 12 million players.'
Well, he is right, the word subscription isn't the right word to use when describing the asian payment model. Beyond that, I fail to see the point of this thread.
Well, he is right, the word subscription isn't the right word to use when describing the asian payment model. Beyond that, I fail to see the point of this thread.
The definition:
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.
So for those who can not read:
ONLY those who paid and had accessed the game in the last 30 days are counted towards the 12.000.000 subscribers base. Free trials and free promotions are not supported.
Since China only has this pay per hour system for all of its paid MMO's, it is clear the OP is just trolling and trash talking without substance.
You're being difficult now. The chinese use these:
to pay for their time. It's not like they sit there waiting for the 2 hour timer to run out. Sheesh. And last time I checked, using a prepaid card IS a subscription card. You can buy them from here. They also have credit cards they can use to pay for their time in advance. Also before you get on the whole gold farmer bandwagon. Chinese gold farmers play on EU and US servers so they pay traditional sub fees like the rest of us. Reason being is that they cannot transfer gold from CN servers to EU and US servers, so they have to play where their customer demand is.
What that means is only actual CN players that enjoy playing WoW use prepaid CN cards on CN servers. So yes they can and are being counted because they are actually playing for their own enjoyment.
"Small minds talk about people, average minds talk about events, great minds talk about ideas."
Asia has no subscription model. According to Blizzard anyone who purchases a game time card is considered an active subscriber. In Asia you pay buy the hour, not monthly. So there is no way you can count them as subscribers when the rest of the world pays monthly. Someone in Asia can purchase only 2 hours of gameplay and not play for the rest of the month but yet can still be considered a monthly subscriber according to Blizzard. By Blizzard's wording it fits correctly but lets not kid ourselves, there is a huge difference between paying monthly like NA/EU does and paying for game time. Anyone with the least but of common sense knows paying by the hour is not the same as paying a monthly bill.
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.
Asian players subscribe by the hour instead of the month. Why is that such a hard concept to grasp?
Just because they subscribe under a different model than you and I doesn't make them some sort of 3rd class citizens. I think you are looking at this situation with a very closed minded view.
You're being difficult now. The chinese use these:
to pay for their time. It's not like they sit there waiting for the 2 hour timer to run out. Sheesh. And last time I checked, using a prepaid card IS a subscription card. You can buy them from here. They also have credit cards they can use to pay for their time in advance. Also before you get on the whole gold farmer bandwagon. Chinese gold farmers play on EU and US servers so they pay traditional sub fees like the rest of us. Reason being is that they cannot transfer gold from CN servers to EU and US servers, so they have to play where their customer demand is.
What that means is only actual CN players that enjoy playing WoW use prepaid CN cards on CN servers. So yes they can and are being counted because they are actually playing for their own enjoyment.
Tx for the info. The card looks cool
And 66 hours of play for (around) 5 dollars is NOT cheap btw. An average 3 hour/day player lasts around 22 days with this sum.
The income of a Chinese worker is less than 10% of a US one, so actually their paying system is more expensive (at least 3 times as much).
Also: the Chinese providor gets most of the revenu. Anyone knows how big the % is for Blizzard?
You're being difficult now. The chinese use these:
to pay for their time. It's not like they sit there waiting for the 2 hour timer to run out. Sheesh. And last time I checked, using a prepaid card IS a subscription card. You can buy them from here. They also have credit cards they can use to pay for their time in advance. Also before you get on the whole gold farmer bandwagon. Chinese gold farmers play on EU and US servers so they pay traditional sub fees like the rest of us. Reason being is that they cannot transfer gold from CN servers to EU and US servers, so they have to play where their customer demand is.
What that means is only actual CN players that enjoy playing WoW use prepaid CN cards on CN servers. So yes they can and are being counted because they are actually playing for their own enjoyment.
Tx for the info. The card looks cool
And 66 hours of play for (around) 5 dollars is NOT cheap btw. An average 3 hour/day player lasts around 22 days with this sum.
The income of a Chinese worker is less than 10% of a US one, so actually their paying system is more expensive (at least 3 times as much).
Also: the Chinese providor gets most of the revenu. Anyone knows how big the % is for Blizzard?
Umm not cheap for who? I would love to pay that. Buy it twice and I would have over a months worth of playing as opposed to $15 for a month.
Asia has no subscription model. According to Blizzard anyone who purchases a game time card is considered an active subscriber. In Asia you pay buy the hour, not monthly. So there is no way you can count them as subscribers when the rest of the world pays monthly. Someone in Asia can purchase only 2 hours of gameplay and not play for the rest of the month but yet can still be considered a monthly subscriber according to Blizzard. By Blizzard's wording it fits correctly but lets not kid ourselves, there is a huge difference between paying monthly like NA/EU does and paying for game time. Anyone with the least but of common sense knows paying by the hour is not the same as paying a monthly bill.
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.
Asian players subscribe by the hour instead of the month. Why is that such a hard concept to grasp?
Just because they subscribe under a different model than you and I doesn't make them some sort of 3rd class citizens. I think you are looking at this situation with a very closed minded view.
Who said anything about making Asia out to be a 3rd class citizen ? Nobody except you mentioned it nor has anyone implied that. Subscribe by the hour ? Some kind of new concept or is it just a spin on definitons. As long as I have been alive and been doing business I never ever heard anyone using a "subscribe by the hour subscription plan". I'm not looking at it with a closed mind. I'm looking at it from what people have been doing for years until Blizzard decided to add to the definition of what a subscription plan consists of. Subscribing by the hour is one of the most dumbest misconceptions I have ever heard of. The next time you are out int he real world and want to subscribe to something ask companies like cablevision, pc gamer magazine, the phone bill company or your local car deal if they let you subscribe by the hour. Though if some choose to live in fantasy land and not use common sense then by all means.
You're being difficult now. The chinese use these:
to pay for their time. It's not like they sit there waiting for the 2 hour timer to run out. Sheesh. And last time I checked, using a prepaid card IS a subscription card. You can buy them from here. They also have credit cards they can use to pay for their time in advance. Also before you get on the whole gold farmer bandwagon. Chinese gold farmers play on EU and US servers so they pay traditional sub fees like the rest of us. Reason being is that they cannot transfer gold from CN servers to EU and US servers, so they have to play where their customer demand is.
What that means is only actual CN players that enjoy playing WoW use prepaid CN cards on CN servers. So yes they can and are being counted because they are actually playing for their own enjoyment.
Tx for the info. The card looks cool
And 66 hours of play for (around) 5 dollars is NOT cheap btw. An average 3 hour/day player lasts around 22 days with this sum.
The income of a Chinese worker is less than 10% of a US one, so actually their paying system is more expensive (at least 3 times as much).
Also: the Chinese providor gets most of the revenu. Anyone knows how big the % is for Blizzard?
Umm not cheap for who? I would love to pay that. Buy it twice and I would have over a months worth of playing as opposed to $15 for a month.
Not cheap for the Chinese. With Chinese workers having 10% of the average US salaries and still a 5 dollar value to play for 22 days...
It would mean that in the US you would pay around 50+ dollars to play for a month.
Asia has no subscription model. According to Blizzard anyone who purchases a game time card is considered an active subscriber. In Asia you pay buy the hour, not monthly. So there is no way you can count them as subscribers when the rest of the world pays monthly. Someone in Asia can purchase only 2 hours of gameplay and not play for the rest of the month but yet can still be considered a monthly subscriber according to Blizzard. By Blizzard's wording it fits correctly but lets not kid ourselves, there is a huge difference between paying monthly like NA/EU does and paying for game time. Anyone with the least but of common sense knows paying by the hour is not the same as paying a monthly bill.
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.
Asian players subscribe by the hour instead of the month. Why is that such a hard concept to grasp?
Just because they subscribe under a different model than you and I doesn't make them some sort of 3rd class citizens. I think you are looking at this situation with a very closed minded view.
Who said anything about making Asia out to be a 3rd class citizen ? Nobody except you mentioned it nor has anyone implied that. Subscribe by the hour ? Some kind of new concept or is it just a spin on definitons. As long as I have been alive and been doing business I never ever heard anyone using a "subscribe by the hour subscription plan". I'm not looking at it with a closed mind. I'm looking at it from what people have been doing for years until Blizzard decided to add to the definition of what a subscription plan consists of. Subscribing by the hour is one of the most dumbest misconceptions I have ever heard of. The next time you are out int he real world and want to subscribe to something ask companies like cablevision, pc gamer magazine, the phone bill company or your local car deal if they let you subscribe by the hour. Though if some choose to live in fantasy land and not use common sense then by all means.
I like how you skip right over the post that shows you proof that they pay for their time in advance like a subscription/prepaid card and jump right on Daff for insinuating that you view the chinese as 3rd class citizens. Nice deflect. Regardless of how you may view hourly subscriptions (which I showed you was NOT really the case as they buy cards with well more than an hour of gametime), the point is they are subscribers and they are actively playing, hence they count.
Now if you really want to get into a discussion about how silly a hourly subscription sounds then be prepared to understand that a subscription by definition is: a business model where a customer must pay a subscription price to have access to the product/service.
And since they are paying to have access, they in turn are subscribers. Doesn't matter if it's 1 hour , 1 month, 1 year or 1 lifetime (as in lifetime subs). Doesn't matter if it's subcribing is periodic or automatic. Stop trying to debunk the undebunkable. You pay, you use, you re-up and ultimately you are subscribing.
"Small minds talk about people, average minds talk about events, great minds talk about ideas."
Comments
It is not hard to understand, pay by the hour, if paid within the last 30 days, is extremely similar to a subscription. It is perfectly acceptable to use these people in their subscription numbers in many peoples opinions. Your opinion is different.
Add to that the fact that every other company uses the Asian subscription style to support their numbers and then the idea that they are pulling a fast one on people gets even more far fetched.
12 million subs (or something extremely similar). Get over it.
Well then it seems it's a definition issue and not a crazy unholy scheme to lie left and right about the 12 million subscriptions.
As for Wizardry's comment...
I don't think you can compare both games like that. I have not played Final Fantasy, but I've heard a lot about how 'it's about the journey' while World of Warcraft is mostly about End Game. So I assume it is normal to see more new players in a single server since there don't need to set up as many servers to accomodate or reduce lag in end game towns like I assessed in Dalagran. (or um at least from what I saw when I was playing WoW...)
There are 241 servers in NA and 263 servers in Europe, of course new players are going to spread out... I've seen a lot of new players in AoC last April, a lot more than what you find today in WoW's starting zones... But I know it doesn't mean jack ;-)
Since pay per hour is the ONLY way in China to play a paid MMORPG, there is not even a discussion or interpretation problem.
Blizzard' sdefinition of subscriptions only counts active and paid session accounts of the last month and according to the region's different methods of payment.
It isn't an Asian subscription style( nice spin on words there ), you either subscribe as in pay a monthly fee or even a one time fee like the rest of the world does or you pay by the hour which is more of a f2p microtansaction system. Get over it, use common sense for a change.
if they are paying to play then they are subscribing.. since last time i checked WOW was still a P2P game and not a F2P game.. i really don't know why this topic gets rehashed so often, when the answer is so glaringly obvious.. you have to pay to play.. and.. trying to suggest that WoW is a microtransaction game.. is.. well.. pardon me for laughing....
Hey diddle diddle
The mucus and the spittle
The corspe sank in the lagoon.
The murloc said muglglgle
to see such a sight
And the Dwarf spanked the baboon.
If you pay by the hour within the last 30 days, you get counted. That means, like a western subscription, you have played and paid for the game within the last month. If they stop paying for thirty days, they are no longer counted. If someone in the west stops paying their subscription within the last 30 days, they are no longer counted.
It's not that hard to understand.
12 million. Fact.
if they only played (and paid) 1 hr a month.. you might have something in terms of numbers.. but.. your argument kind of falls over on its face.. if like most players on this planet.. they tend to spend a few more minutes than that.. also paid for.. just like all the other paying players on this planet.. so stop giving common sense a bad rep....
How can you use a paid session account in Asia when it is done by the hour ? You can't. You can use prepaid cards as a subscriber because pre-paid cards are done in 30 day intervals but Asia does not use pre-paid cards. They use a rmt business model which is 100% different froma subscription model.
No, they don't use an RMT model. They use a pay by the hour model. Unless you also consider a monthly subscription fee an RMT model.
Would you feel then that it is more correct for them to boast 12 million players?
last time i checked RMT was the dodgy activity of buying in game currency for real world cash.. sounds like someones quoting out of context to me.. .. this is getting so outlandish im half expecting it to end in 'WOW destroys peoples minds' .. well. might be true actually.. but who cares
Uh. If pay-as-you-go is a RMT, then a monthly subscription is RMT as well.
I know right ;-)
Well, Saintviktor has been posting anti-Blizzard threads for a long time. I don't really mind and sometimes he brings good points. But this entire thread has posts ranging from 'Pay-as-you-go is not a real subscription so Blizzard cannot say 12 millions subscribers' to 'Blizzard is telling lies, no way WoW has 12 million players.'
Well, he is right, the word subscription isn't the right word to use when describing the asian payment model. Beyond that, I fail to see the point of this thread.
The definition:
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.
So for those who can not read:
ONLY those who paid and had accessed the game in the last 30 days are counted towards the 12.000.000 subscribers base. Free trials and free promotions are not supported.
Since China only has this pay per hour system for all of its paid MMO's, it is clear the OP is just trolling and trash talking without substance.
You're being difficult now. The chinese use these:
to pay for their time. It's not like they sit there waiting for the 2 hour timer to run out. Sheesh. And last time I checked, using a prepaid card IS a subscription card. You can buy them from here. They also have credit cards they can use to pay for their time in advance. Also before you get on the whole gold farmer bandwagon. Chinese gold farmers play on EU and US servers so they pay traditional sub fees like the rest of us. Reason being is that they cannot transfer gold from CN servers to EU and US servers, so they have to play where their customer demand is.
What that means is only actual CN players that enjoy playing WoW use prepaid CN cards on CN servers. So yes they can and are being counted because they are actually playing for their own enjoyment.
"Small minds talk about people, average minds talk about events, great minds talk about ideas."
Asian players subscribe by the hour instead of the month. Why is that such a hard concept to grasp?
Just because they subscribe under a different model than you and I doesn't make them some sort of 3rd class citizens. I think you are looking at this situation with a very closed minded view.
Tx for the info. The card looks cool
And 66 hours of play for (around) 5 dollars is NOT cheap btw. An average 3 hour/day player lasts around 22 days with this sum.
The income of a Chinese worker is less than 10% of a US one, so actually their paying system is more expensive (at least 3 times as much).
Also: the Chinese providor gets most of the revenu. Anyone knows how big the % is for Blizzard?
Umm not cheap for who? I would love to pay that. Buy it twice and I would have over a months worth of playing as opposed to $15 for a month.
Who said anything about making Asia out to be a 3rd class citizen ? Nobody except you mentioned it nor has anyone implied that. Subscribe by the hour ? Some kind of new concept or is it just a spin on definitons. As long as I have been alive and been doing business I never ever heard anyone using a "subscribe by the hour subscription plan". I'm not looking at it with a closed mind. I'm looking at it from what people have been doing for years until Blizzard decided to add to the definition of what a subscription plan consists of. Subscribing by the hour is one of the most dumbest misconceptions I have ever heard of. The next time you are out int he real world and want to subscribe to something ask companies like cablevision, pc gamer magazine, the phone bill company or your local car deal if they let you subscribe by the hour. Though if some choose to live in fantasy land and not use common sense then by all means.
Not cheap for the Chinese. With Chinese workers having 10% of the average US salaries and still a 5 dollar value to play for 22 days...
It would mean that in the US you would pay around 50+ dollars to play for a month.
it doesn't exactly convert like that.
---
To the OP...does it matter, we all know it's marketing...
Drop the next-gen marketing and people will argue if the game itself has merit.
WoW could have 40 million and I wouldnt give a shit.
I would still play what i play.
Playing: Rift, LotRO
Waiting on: GW2, BP
I like how you skip right over the post that shows you proof that they pay for their time in advance like a subscription/prepaid card and jump right on Daff for insinuating that you view the chinese as 3rd class citizens. Nice deflect. Regardless of how you may view hourly subscriptions (which I showed you was NOT really the case as they buy cards with well more than an hour of gametime), the point is they are subscribers and they are actively playing, hence they count.
Now if you really want to get into a discussion about how silly a hourly subscription sounds then be prepared to understand that a subscription by definition is: a business model where a customer must pay a subscription price to have access to the product/service.
And since they are paying to have access, they in turn are subscribers. Doesn't matter if it's 1 hour , 1 month, 1 year or 1 lifetime (as in lifetime subs). Doesn't matter if it's subcribing is periodic or automatic. Stop trying to debunk the undebunkable. You pay, you use, you re-up and ultimately you are subscribing.
"Small minds talk about people, average minds talk about events, great minds talk about ideas."