I'm sure it's been mentioned but I'll mention it again. It's just accounts created. These aren't active accounts.
Not only that, but it also includes the ENORMOUS quantity of gold sellers, bots, spammers, multi-boxers etc. Tons of these mickey mouse "companies" will make a new account to spam, get banned, and then create another one.
I'm sure it's been mentioned but I'll mention it again. It's just accounts created. These aren't active accounts.
Not only that, but it also includes the ENORMOUS quantity of gold sellers, bots, spammers, multi-boxers etc. Tons of these mickey mouse "companies" will make a new account to spam, get banned, and then create another one.
No, it's active accounts. 3.3m people got themselves a copy of Cata within 24 hours of release. It's absolutely normal to have 12m subs worldwide.
i think it doesnt matter. I could stand it back in the days, even after trying so many private servers.
The game isnt suited for me at all. It consumes important time, wich we cant get back, ever. That time is far more usefull when going out, get a job, do sports or just reading a book or something ells that progress your personality. I think games decrease your mental power and affect your personality in a very bad way. That was wow does. I never seen a guy, while he was playing wow, acting normal and had the ability to start conversations out of nowhere.
Wow made so many ppl dumb. I say wow, bcz many asian nerds tried to copy after the very idea and realsing one garbage mmorpg after another.
If i knew where those damn servers were, i swear i would bomb them.
So does it matter if blizz lies or not? 6 or 12 mil, its still a number, that should decrease dramatically. If anyone would start to play online games (beside facebook is like a addicting mmorpg and should vanish too), we would have a youth, thats going to answer to simple and important questions like:
"Wich event 2010 will you always remeber?"
Answer: i made a staff to +12 without failing once.
THat shit shocks me, and is a clear answer why mmorpg should AT LEAST raise the Brain level. i mean i cant be, after 12 months, the best event was doing something in a game !
Back to the question:
Blizz is a well know company world wide, at least under nerds and casual gamers. I bet my chef never ever heard of it for once. A company tries to statify the customer right? But does it mean, that company tells always the truth?
3.3 mil copies sounds alot, to good to be true.
What would happen, if they sould just 1mil copies, to a 12mil subscriber base? to you think ppl would be hyped even then?
The numbers say clear, that they just put up that to hype it even more, to get more sellings. The nerds amoung you, felt for it. In the end your going to say: it wasnt so good that i thought it would be.
And actually, PPL are really THAT DUMB to believe that shit. Its just part of the promotion! Blizz has so much money, that even the biggest shit in the universe could find 12 mil payers. 3.3 Mil is NOWHERE true! but u dont need to "proove" that, just use your fakin brain-think about it!
3.3 Mil is a nice number, not to high not to low. The next expansion will sell 4 Mil. And still the dumbs under you will eat that, like some shit fell from the sky and your will try to catch it with your tongue, bcz u think its going to be the best thing you tasted ever.
Its like back in the days , when "kant" tried to get ppl to use theyr brain and it worked, a revolutionary Epoche came out of it.
Now, Ppl seem to forgot about , what your brain is really capable off. They got lazy, dumb and incapaple knowing the very truth in front of theyr eyes.
Blizz takes you that will, and force it to pay money for them. If you really had a bran guys, then you would know, that mmorpgs are generally unhealthy.
so my message is: bomb theyr damn servers (ofc dont hurt ppl ). and maybe then you will see some kids and matures on the street, like back in the days when i grew up.
ruining 2000jobs is better than ruining 12mil ppl live.
ps. dont take bombing seriously it was just a metapher.
I believe that these numbers are just the total sales over time. I'm pretty sure 2/5 of the people who purchased the game have stopped playing completely.
I understand that's how things work in some parts of the world. However, counting someone who basically puts a quarter into the game everytime it says "insert coin" as an equal to someone who is willing to agree to a certain level of commitment to that game is just sketchy behaviour. It's irrelevant how much money on average the former makes.
As has been said, break the number up so we can see how many people are actually paying a monthly subscription, and how many pay by the hour. But, why in the world would Blizzard want to do that, eh?
The only people who are saying they are equal are people around here. Blizzard is only saying that 12 million people have active paid account during a 30 day period.
I really do not understand why this is a matter of fairness. Why stop at hourly fees for this measure of fairness? Why not get into exchange rates and the massive disparity there. How about making footnotes about people who buy timecards, because blizzard loses a portion of that fee to the retailer.
I just do not understand the point of squabbling over this. I'm positive if other companies could manage to operate in the asian market like this they would be adding it to their success markers in the same manner.
However, Blizzard has sort of seperated by subscription vs hourly in the past when they detailed east/west sub numbers. When wow hit the 10 million mark they stated 4.5 million in North America/Europe and 5.5 million in the Asian Market. Take from that what you will.
It only really matters how many are in the united states, when comparing numbers between mmos. There's a history and distribution centricity to the US mmo market that makes proliferation of an mmo in other areas less relevant, at least to me.
One mmo might only be distributed in the US and have 300k, then WoW might have 1.5 mil in the US (we don't know), and that's a good comparison. What is NOT a good comparison is comparing that 300k number to wow's 13 mil or whatever it is globally.
I'm sure it's been mentioned but I'll mention it again. It's just accounts created. These aren't active accounts.
Not only that, but it also includes the ENORMOUS quantity of gold sellers, bots, spammers, multi-boxers etc. Tons of these mickey mouse "companies" will make a new account to spam, get banned, and then create another one.
And also, please go read their website it clearly states that they are accounts that have been payed for over the last 30 days, ie active subs.
It only really matters how many are in the united states, when comparing numbers between mmos. There's a history and distribution centricity to the US mmo market that makes proliferation of an mmo in other areas less relevant, at least to me.
One mmo might only be distributed in the US and have 300k, then WoW might have 1.5 mil in the US (we don't know), and that's a good comparison. What is NOT a good comparison is comparing that 300k number to wow's 13 mil or whatever it is globally.
It only really matters how many are in the united states, when comparing numbers between mmos. There's a history and distribution centricity to the US mmo market that makes proliferation of an mmo in other areas less relevant, at least to me.
One mmo might only be distributed in the US and have 300k, then WoW might have 1.5 mil in the US (we don't know), and that's a good comparison. What is NOT a good comparison is comparing that 300k number to wow's 13 mil or whatever it is globally.
It only really matters how many are in the united states, when comparing numbers between mmos. There's a history and distribution centricity to the US mmo market that makes proliferation of an mmo in other areas less relevant, at least to me.
One mmo might only be distributed in the US and have 300k, then WoW might have 1.5 mil in the US (we don't know), and that's a good comparison. What is NOT a good comparison is comparing that 300k number to wow's 13 mil or whatever it is globally.
It only really matters how many are in the united states, when comparing numbers between mmos. There's a history and distribution centricity to the US mmo market that makes proliferation of an mmo in other areas less relevant, at least to me.
One mmo might only be distributed in the US and have 300k, then WoW might have 1.5 mil in the US (we don't know), and that's a good comparison. What is NOT a good comparison is comparing that 300k number to wow's 13 mil or whatever it is globally.
It only really matters how many are in the united states, when comparing numbers between mmos. There's a history and distribution centricity to the US mmo market that makes proliferation of an mmo in other areas less relevant, at least to me.
One mmo might only be distributed in the US and have 300k, then WoW might have 1.5 mil in the US (we don't know), and that's a good comparison. What is NOT a good comparison is comparing that 300k number to wow's 13 mil or whatever it is globally.
WoW has 2.5 million US, 2 million Europe.
Got to love posters like these. Pull random numbers out of air, post it on forums and when someone asks for a proof... *poof* disappear.
Then you wonder why no one takes you seriously around here.
Who could have thought that WOW could bring super power like USA to its knees?
Originally posted by Arcken
To put it in a nutshell, our society is about to hit the fan, grades are dropping, obesity is going up,childhood the USA is going to lose its super power status before too long, but hey, as long as we have a cheap method to babysit our kids, all will be well no? Im picking on WoW btw because its the beast that made all of this possible
It only really matters how many are in the united states, when comparing numbers between mmos. There's a history and distribution centricity to the US mmo market that makes proliferation of an mmo in other areas less relevant, at least to me.
One mmo might only be distributed in the US and have 300k, then WoW might have 1.5 mil in the US (we don't know), and that's a good comparison. What is NOT a good comparison is comparing that 300k number to wow's 13 mil or whatever it is globally.
WoW has 2.5 million US, 2 million Europe.
Got to love posters like these. Pull random numbers out of air, post it on forums and when someone asks for a proof... *poof* disappear.
Then you wonder why no one takes you seriously around here.
Anyhow, what he says is right, it's not random numbers out of air read my post above for reference.
I'm just glad Blizzard is crushing the face of every other fail MMORPG company out there right now. I'm playing LotRO right now, but without WoW I wouldn't get to see these pitiful people act jealous and try and discredit WoW's ridiculous, quite real, sub numbers.
Although, sometimes seeing the extreme depth of insecurity from some people makes me a little bit uncomfortable.
It only really matters how many are in the united states, when comparing numbers between mmos. There's a history and distribution centricity to the US mmo market that makes proliferation of an mmo in other areas less relevant, at least to me.
One mmo might only be distributed in the US and have 300k, then WoW might have 1.5 mil in the US (we don't know), and that's a good comparison. What is NOT a good comparison is comparing that 300k number to wow's 13 mil or whatever it is globally.
WoW has 2.5 million US, 2 million Europe.
Got to love posters like these. Pull random numbers out of air, post it on forums and when someone asks for a proof... *poof* disappear.
Then you wonder why no one takes you seriously around here.
Anyhow, what he says is right, it's not random numbers out of air read my post above for reference.
I know but with all due respect those are numbers from 2008. If that guy is going to quote numbers he should atleast have decency to post links and not let others do his work for him.
Who could have thought that WOW could bring super power like USA to its knees?
Originally posted by Arcken
To put it in a nutshell, our society is about to hit the fan, grades are dropping, obesity is going up,childhood the USA is going to lose its super power status before too long, but hey, as long as we have a cheap method to babysit our kids, all will be well no? Im picking on WoW btw because its the beast that made all of this possible
It only really matters how many are in the united states, when comparing numbers between mmos. There's a history and distribution centricity to the US mmo market that makes proliferation of an mmo in other areas less relevant, at least to me.
One mmo might only be distributed in the US and have 300k, then WoW might have 1.5 mil in the US (we don't know), and that's a good comparison. What is NOT a good comparison is comparing that 300k number to wow's 13 mil or whatever it is globally.
WoW has 2.5 million US, 2 million Europe.
Got to love posters like these. Pull random numbers out of air, post it on forums and when someone asks for a proof... *poof* disappear.
Then you wonder why no one takes you seriously around here.
Anyhow, what he says is right, it's not random numbers out of air read my post above for reference.
I know but with all due respect those are numbers from 2008. If that guy is going to quote numbers he should atleast have decency to post links and not let others do his work for him.
Getting ready to hit the sack for the night. I would like to thank everyone for the amusing reads. The rationalizations going on have been top-notch.
Why do only US subscriptions matter? Seriously. Do you think the universe begins and ends only in your backyard?
Random numbers out of the air? There is plenty of documentation that talks about the subscription numbers, and the numbers reported are in the right order of magnitude for what is known. No gaming company is particularly forward about giving exact numbers which is why places like mmodata.net has such spotty information...the companies report their numbers only sparingly in various reports (usually annual reports) like any other corporation keeping their client list close at hand. You don't like that you don't have all the information available instantly at your fingertips? Welcome to the real world.
2008 numbers are the last time Blizzard broke down the numbers publicly. Sorry it doesn't meet your requirements, but that is all there is. The only other breakdown known was from mid 2009 when approximately 5 million subscriptions dropped due to the switch of providers in China (so primarily Chinese players) and government red-tape. Here is a link since you are probably too lazy to use google - http://gamersrightslawyer.com/2009/10/02/wow-china-server-suspended-now-reinstated/ . Although I'm sure there will still be complaints since there are more links in that article...and clicking hyperlinks and reading is entirely too hard for some it seems...
Still have doubts about the number of subscriptions. Try doing some actual research and increase your knowledge. Here is the current quarterly statement for Activision-Blizzard - http://investor.activision.com/secfiling.cfm?filingID=1104659-10-56564. This is an actual SEC filing...so it was audited by an accounting firm before submitted. Could there be some deception? Sure. Is it off by orders of magnitude? If you believe that, you probably believe we didn't get to the moon either.
On page 5 is the consolidated statement of operations. Note that they have broken down revenue into two primary streams...product sales (boxes, accessories, mugs, etc), and subscriptions (including licensing). For the reported quarter (July - Sept 2010), $348 million is being reported. That would be the roughly 5 to 6 million US / European WoW subscriptions plus the 6 million or so hourly subscriptions in Asia, plus other licensing income (probably pretty small overall). Interestingly, the numbers seem to actually add up even assuming the average Asian player is paying about $5 / month (don't they pay something like $0.12 / hr...so that's about 40 hours / month average).
So, we have financials that are audited that seem to add up to be consistent with numbers that are reported in various magazines and independent web sites. Hmm...must be a conspiracy to deceive people into thinking...er...thinking...ummm...I give up. Why exactly do you think these numbers are so massively inflated? What is the end goal in this massive conspiracy?
60+% of Blizzard's "subscriptions" are not subscriptions, they are pay by the hour accounts from WoW China. These accounts are counted toward the 12 million or whatever players they claim to have if said account has been accessed in the past 30 days. Even if a player pays for one hour -- which apparently costs the equivilent of 10-15 cents or so -- and only logs in to check their mail and AH for 5 minutes in a month, they're counted as a "player". Even if said person has multiple such accounts and does so, each account is considered as a "player".
Yes, Blizzard does note this in their disclaimer when they release their financial reports and they report their subscriber numbers, but they're extremely deceptive about it when they use their "over 12 million players" marketing BS.
You got every piece of information wrong
60% of the sub base is outside USA+Europe. That does not equate China. The world is bigger than that. There is a healthy sub base in Taiwan, there are servers in S America...
Players playing in the Chinese servers (some of them are not Chinese people) go by the method of pay as you consume. Hourly rates are cheap by the local standard. Many Chinese are richer than most of the poor Americans when it comes to consumption, they can afford mercedes and the most expensive luxury on earth. If they want to play they can spend a lot more per month than the bean counting Americans. Drop the myth that the Chinese are poor and can only play for an hour a month. The poorest in China is poorer than you, the richest can rival Bill Gates.
Blizzard never define a player. It is not meaningful to define a player, given that authentication of personal identity is not viable over the internet. They only define paying accounts. That is an operationally viable definition that they have been using over the years. For statistical consistency and comparability of statistics, they maintain publication of account statistics by that definition, which is a good practice. After all, we know what they are talking about and we can compare the year-on-year growth rates.
As for "marketing BS", everyone and his dog does that, your boss does that, your Obama does that. What makes blizzard lesser? Which commercial ad is 100% true to everything? Read the ads with your eyes open.
Why does it matter if Blizzard has 100 subsribers or 10 trillion subscribers? The only people I ever see going around attempting to call out Blizzard for lying and cheating are those that are either completely jealous over what Blizzard has accomplished over the past few years, or are jealous over the fact that the game they are die hard fans of will never come close to the subscription numbers that WoW has. To everyone else it really should not matter.
If you like WoW then be happy it has a large player base, if you dont like it, then be happy whatever game you are playing has enough subscription numbers to keep it active. Games out there do not need millions of subscribers to be a successful game.
So criticism means jelousy?
That's a rather skewed perception.
I play wow, shocking, I know. I don't hate it, but I don't think it's as amazing as some people try to spin it either. It's a decent game for what it is, but it could still be a heck of a lot better too.
I argue against the subscribers that Blizzard keeps trying to claim, because they are distorting the truth by omission of facts. Intentional misdirection, omission of facts, and plain old dishonesty is something that just generally bothers me out of principle, whether it's a person, governing body, or corporate entity.
Enough players are willing to pay in the past month to maintain 12 million accounts active. Meaning, 12 million accounts are being paid for, by whatever sub/hourly plan. The rest of the world does not care for WoW, or not able to play it. That is the fact. How does that equates automatically to being amazing?
Blizzard clearly stated what they mean by the account statistics, no more, no less. If you call that distortion of truth, omission of faction, intentional misdirection (you repeated omission of facts), plain old dishonesty, then you have reading comprehension issues. It is not an issue of principle for you, it is a reading ability issue.
Why does it matter if Blizzard has 100 subsribers or 10 trillion subscribers? The only people I ever see going around attempting to call out Blizzard for lying and cheating are those that are either completely jealous over what Blizzard has accomplished over the past few years, or are jealous over the fact that the game they are die hard fans of will never come close to the subscription numbers that WoW has. To everyone else it really should not matter.
If you like WoW then be happy it has a large player base, if you dont like it, then be happy whatever game you are playing has enough subscription numbers to keep it active. Games out there do not need millions of subscribers to be a successful game.
Amen! I am not a fan of WoW. Played it for a very short time and it just wasn't for me. I understand it is successful and that is great for Blizzard but I could really care less. The only people Blizzard are responsible to for reporting accurate numbers are shareholders everyone else should just let it go already.
So... They're only responsible to report accurate numbers to shareholders and everyone else should just take their word for it when Blizzard tries to flaunt their "OMG OVER 12 MILLION PLAYERS!" in pretty much every piece of marketing Blizzard churns out?
I don't know about you, but I prefer that companies at least be somewhat honest if they're trying to get my business.
Or do you believe that BP really cares and feels sorry for ruining the Gulph of Mexico and they're actually doing everything they can to make things better and prevent it from happening again?
What does BP has to do with Blizz and WoW? Do you mean to say they are both private companies, much like most of the business units operating in USA? In that case you are condemning the entire capitalist form of economic activities, which, I believe, is way out of line for this forum.
WoW i see already , so basically people dont want to debate .
Cause in there mind everything is already made up , oh man its laughable really laughable .
This wow is even beter then i tought , heck i think i will buy stocks in that , cause best thing ever since crack
Makes dumb people seeking no selfimprovement play it .
And keep them playing it till there are useless , while society continues .
Will put on CV questions like do you play WoW .
And if people do you dont even need a interview anymore .
Dont worry people everything is fine , there is nothing wrong here .
Just a wow hater , the lovers IQ are super , and there debating skills are terrific .
I really am enjoying this , thank you WoW may you live forever .
Please keep those fans , who dont want to work in real life in do selfimprovement .
Dont worry 2 more expansions coming up , but I would suggest 10 more at this rate .
What do you want us to debate on?
We debate on whether Blizz is faking information in annual accounts? You serious? Report them, not here though
We debate on whether games are unproductive? By definition, games are for winding down, productivity is not measured in entertainment, that belongs to work.
We debate whether games should promote self improvement? Is there a universally accepted uni-dimensional index for self improvement? How do you measure that thing?
We debate about your IQ vs the "wow lovers"? Does IQ comes into play here?
What exactly are you talking about, do you have a coherent story? How can you ask for debates when you are hardly making sense, you are just venting your tears and shifting blames.
Figuring out a game's sub numbers isn't exactly rocket science. If you know what the game's server population cap is, then multiply that by the number of servers and there you have it, max sub numbers possible. From here of course is variable guess work so it won't be exact.
For instance, lets say a WoW server can handle 5-10,000 accounts. We'll say 10,000 just to be generous. Now, I don't know offhand but we'll say WoW has 75 servers worldwide. So, what is 10,000 x 75? Looks like 7.5 million to me. However, we all know that maybe 1/2 or less of the servers even carry a max server population.
Anyhow, I suggest you use them math skills to figure it out, cause I for one don't trust any gaming company to tell the truth. Guess too many bad apples off the same tree makes the whole tree rotten.
Look at the company reports. They published their income, by source. That is a good ballmark measurement of the kind of sub base they have. They cannot make billions with only a few thousand paying sub.
When it comes to income, they cannot lie, they have to pay tax base on that, and given the size of the tax income, you bet the best auditors from the inland revenue are assigned to cover that tax return.
Why does it matter if Blizzard has 100 subsribers or 10 trillion subscribers? The only people I ever see going around attempting to call out Blizzard for lying and cheating are those that are either completely jealous over what Blizzard has accomplished over the past few years, or are jealous over the fact that the game they are die hard fans of will never come close to the subscription numbers that WoW has. To everyone else it really should not matter.
If you like WoW then be happy it has a large player base, if you dont like it, then be happy whatever game you are playing has enough subscription numbers to keep it active. Games out there do not need millions of subscribers to be a successful game.
So criticism means jelousy?
That's a rather skewed perception.
I play wow, shocking, I know. I don't hate it, but I don't think it's as amazing as some people try to spin it either. It's a decent game for what it is, but it could still be a heck of a lot better too.
I argue against the subscribers that Blizzard keeps trying to claim, because they are distorting the truth by omission of facts. Intentional misdirection, omission of facts, and plain old dishonesty is something that just generally bothers me out of principle, whether it's a person, governing body, or corporate entity.
Enough players are willing to pay in the past month to maintain 12 million accounts active. Meaning, 12 million accounts are being paid for, by whatever sub/hourly plan. The rest of the world does not care for WoW, or not able to play it. That is the fact. How does that equates automatically to being amazing?
Blizzard clearly stated what they mean by the account statistics, no more, no less. If you call that distortion of truth, omission of faction, intentional misdirection (you repeated omission of facts), plain old dishonesty, then you have reading comprehension issues. It is not an issue of principle for you, it is a reading ability issue.
Jumping into the conversation late, and not sure if they do this now, but historically Blizzard has published how many subs it has worldwide, but never really broken it down to how many play monthly subs in the west vs play hourly in the east.
They always lump the numbers together as I recall and this is a form of "omission of facts" or distortion in the presentation of the figures, which is a bit dishonest in some folks eyes.
Also, they tend to publish the numbers after an uptick, like right before an expansion launches, but give it 9 months past launch (when presumably subs are tailing off) and they stop releasing sub numbers.
Not saying this isn't a good business practice, but honest it isn't in my eyes.
Oh yes, and I am currently playing WOW for the record.
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
Comments
I'm sure it's been mentioned but I'll mention it again. It's just accounts created. These aren't active accounts.
Not only that, but it also includes the ENORMOUS quantity of gold sellers, bots, spammers, multi-boxers etc. Tons of these mickey mouse "companies" will make a new account to spam, get banned, and then create another one.
No, it's active accounts. 3.3m people got themselves a copy of Cata within 24 hours of release. It's absolutely normal to have 12m subs worldwide.
i think it doesnt matter. I could stand it back in the days, even after trying so many private servers.
The game isnt suited for me at all. It consumes important time, wich we cant get back, ever. That time is far more usefull when going out, get a job, do sports or just reading a book or something ells that progress your personality. I think games decrease your mental power and affect your personality in a very bad way. That was wow does. I never seen a guy, while he was playing wow, acting normal and had the ability to start conversations out of nowhere.
Wow made so many ppl dumb. I say wow, bcz many asian nerds tried to copy after the very idea and realsing one garbage mmorpg after another.
If i knew where those damn servers were, i swear i would bomb them.
So does it matter if blizz lies or not? 6 or 12 mil, its still a number, that should decrease dramatically. If anyone would start to play online games (beside facebook is like a addicting mmorpg and should vanish too), we would have a youth, thats going to answer to simple and important questions like:
"Wich event 2010 will you always remeber?"
Answer: i made a staff to +12 without failing once.
THat shit shocks me, and is a clear answer why mmorpg should AT LEAST raise the Brain level. i mean i cant be, after 12 months, the best event was doing something in a game !
Back to the question:
Blizz is a well know company world wide, at least under nerds and casual gamers. I bet my chef never ever heard of it for once. A company tries to statify the customer right? But does it mean, that company tells always the truth?
3.3 mil copies sounds alot, to good to be true.
What would happen, if they sould just 1mil copies, to a 12mil subscriber base? to you think ppl would be hyped even then?
The numbers say clear, that they just put up that to hype it even more, to get more sellings. The nerds amoung you, felt for it. In the end your going to say: it wasnt so good that i thought it would be.
And actually, PPL are really THAT DUMB to believe that shit. Its just part of the promotion! Blizz has so much money, that even the biggest shit in the universe could find 12 mil payers. 3.3 Mil is NOWHERE true! but u dont need to "proove" that, just use your fakin brain-think about it!
3.3 Mil is a nice number, not to high not to low. The next expansion will sell 4 Mil. And still the dumbs under you will eat that, like some shit fell from the sky and your will try to catch it with your tongue, bcz u think its going to be the best thing you tasted ever.
Its like back in the days , when "kant" tried to get ppl to use theyr brain and it worked, a revolutionary Epoche came out of it.
Now, Ppl seem to forgot about , what your brain is really capable off. They got lazy, dumb and incapaple knowing the very truth in front of theyr eyes.
Blizz takes you that will, and force it to pay money for them. If you really had a bran guys, then you would know, that mmorpgs are generally unhealthy.
so my message is: bomb theyr damn servers (ofc dont hurt ppl ). and maybe then you will see some kids and matures on the street, like back in the days when i grew up.
ruining 2000jobs is better than ruining 12mil ppl live.
ps. dont take bombing seriously it was just a metapher.
I believe that these numbers are just the total sales over time. I'm pretty sure 2/5 of the people who purchased the game have stopped playing completely.
-I am here to perform logic
Who cares if they fudge sub numbers? World of Warcraft still has enough of a population to fill any other game ten times over.
The only people who are saying they are equal are people around here. Blizzard is only saying that 12 million people have active paid account during a 30 day period.
I really do not understand why this is a matter of fairness. Why stop at hourly fees for this measure of fairness? Why not get into exchange rates and the massive disparity there. How about making footnotes about people who buy timecards, because blizzard loses a portion of that fee to the retailer.
I just do not understand the point of squabbling over this. I'm positive if other companies could manage to operate in the asian market like this they would be adding it to their success markers in the same manner.
However, Blizzard has sort of seperated by subscription vs hourly in the past when they detailed east/west sub numbers. When wow hit the 10 million mark they stated 4.5 million in North America/Europe and 5.5 million in the Asian Market. Take from that what you will.
It only really matters how many are in the united states, when comparing numbers between mmos. There's a history and distribution centricity to the US mmo market that makes proliferation of an mmo in other areas less relevant, at least to me.
One mmo might only be distributed in the US and have 300k, then WoW might have 1.5 mil in the US (we don't know), and that's a good comparison. What is NOT a good comparison is comparing that 300k number to wow's 13 mil or whatever it is globally.
And also, please go read their website it clearly states that they are accounts that have been payed for over the last 30 days, ie active subs.
As has been said numerous times... who cares. If wow has had 200,000 active subs in the past 6 months, it still destroys every other game out there.
WoW has 2.5 million US, 2 million Europe.
Id like to see some proof of this?.
Show us how you know exact numbers.
Bite Me
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_of_Warcraft#Reception
http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=17062
http://www.videogamer.com/news/world_of_warcraft_passes_10_million_subscriptions.html
To back him up, this was back when WoW hit 10m subscriptions.
Got to love posters like these. Pull random numbers out of air, post it on forums and when someone asks for a proof... *poof* disappear.
Then you wonder why no one takes you seriously around here.
Who could have thought that WOW could bring super power like USA to its knees?
Originally posted by Arcken
To put it in a nutshell, our society is about to hit the fan, grades are dropping, obesity is going up,childhood the USA is going to lose its super power status before too long, but hey, as long as we have a cheap method to babysit our kids, all will be well no?
Im picking on WoW btw because its the beast that made all of this possible
Anyhow, what he says is right, it's not random numbers out of air read my post above for reference.
I'm just glad Blizzard is crushing the face of every other fail MMORPG company out there right now. I'm playing LotRO right now, but without WoW I wouldn't get to see these pitiful people act jealous and try and discredit WoW's ridiculous, quite real, sub numbers.
Although, sometimes seeing the extreme depth of insecurity from some people makes me a little bit uncomfortable.
I know but with all due respect those are numbers from 2008. If that guy is going to quote numbers he should atleast have decency to post links and not let others do his work for him.
Who could have thought that WOW could bring super power like USA to its knees?
Originally posted by Arcken
To put it in a nutshell, our society is about to hit the fan, grades are dropping, obesity is going up,childhood the USA is going to lose its super power status before too long, but hey, as long as we have a cheap method to babysit our kids, all will be well no?
Im picking on WoW btw because its the beast that made all of this possible
Getting ready to hit the sack for the night. I would like to thank everyone for the amusing reads. The rationalizations going on have been top-notch.
Why do only US subscriptions matter? Seriously. Do you think the universe begins and ends only in your backyard?
Random numbers out of the air? There is plenty of documentation that talks about the subscription numbers, and the numbers reported are in the right order of magnitude for what is known. No gaming company is particularly forward about giving exact numbers which is why places like mmodata.net has such spotty information...the companies report their numbers only sparingly in various reports (usually annual reports) like any other corporation keeping their client list close at hand. You don't like that you don't have all the information available instantly at your fingertips? Welcome to the real world.
2008 numbers are the last time Blizzard broke down the numbers publicly. Sorry it doesn't meet your requirements, but that is all there is. The only other breakdown known was from mid 2009 when approximately 5 million subscriptions dropped due to the switch of providers in China (so primarily Chinese players) and government red-tape. Here is a link since you are probably too lazy to use google - http://gamersrightslawyer.com/2009/10/02/wow-china-server-suspended-now-reinstated/ . Although I'm sure there will still be complaints since there are more links in that article...and clicking hyperlinks and reading is entirely too hard for some it seems...
Still have doubts about the number of subscriptions. Try doing some actual research and increase your knowledge. Here is the current quarterly statement for Activision-Blizzard - http://investor.activision.com/secfiling.cfm?filingID=1104659-10-56564. This is an actual SEC filing...so it was audited by an accounting firm before submitted. Could there be some deception? Sure. Is it off by orders of magnitude? If you believe that, you probably believe we didn't get to the moon either.
On page 5 is the consolidated statement of operations. Note that they have broken down revenue into two primary streams...product sales (boxes, accessories, mugs, etc), and subscriptions (including licensing). For the reported quarter (July - Sept 2010), $348 million is being reported. That would be the roughly 5 to 6 million US / European WoW subscriptions plus the 6 million or so hourly subscriptions in Asia, plus other licensing income (probably pretty small overall). Interestingly, the numbers seem to actually add up even assuming the average Asian player is paying about $5 / month (don't they pay something like $0.12 / hr...so that's about 40 hours / month average).
So, we have financials that are audited that seem to add up to be consistent with numbers that are reported in various magazines and independent web sites. Hmm...must be a conspiracy to deceive people into thinking...er...thinking...ummm...I give up. Why exactly do you think these numbers are so massively inflated? What is the end goal in this massive conspiracy?
You got every piece of information wrong
60% of the sub base is outside USA+Europe. That does not equate China. The world is bigger than that. There is a healthy sub base in Taiwan, there are servers in S America...
Players playing in the Chinese servers (some of them are not Chinese people) go by the method of pay as you consume. Hourly rates are cheap by the local standard. Many Chinese are richer than most of the poor Americans when it comes to consumption, they can afford mercedes and the most expensive luxury on earth. If they want to play they can spend a lot more per month than the bean counting Americans. Drop the myth that the Chinese are poor and can only play for an hour a month. The poorest in China is poorer than you, the richest can rival Bill Gates.
Blizzard never define a player. It is not meaningful to define a player, given that authentication of personal identity is not viable over the internet. They only define paying accounts. That is an operationally viable definition that they have been using over the years. For statistical consistency and comparability of statistics, they maintain publication of account statistics by that definition, which is a good practice. After all, we know what they are talking about and we can compare the year-on-year growth rates.
As for "marketing BS", everyone and his dog does that, your boss does that, your Obama does that. What makes blizzard lesser? Which commercial ad is 100% true to everything? Read the ads with your eyes open.
Because it seems almost all companies lie about their product in some way to gain more consumers.
Here is my example..
WoW is rated the number one mmo in the world!
(What it really is...)
WoW is rated the number one mmo in the world by midgets living in Uganda!
It is rated number 1 by someone, but they don't have to tell you who rated it number 1.
I am entitled to my opinions, misspellings, and grammatical errors.
Enough players are willing to pay in the past month to maintain 12 million accounts active. Meaning, 12 million accounts are being paid for, by whatever sub/hourly plan. The rest of the world does not care for WoW, or not able to play it. That is the fact. How does that equates automatically to being amazing?
Blizzard clearly stated what they mean by the account statistics, no more, no less. If you call that distortion of truth, omission of faction, intentional misdirection (you repeated omission of facts), plain old dishonesty, then you have reading comprehension issues. It is not an issue of principle for you, it is a reading ability issue.
What does BP has to do with Blizz and WoW? Do you mean to say they are both private companies, much like most of the business units operating in USA? In that case you are condemning the entire capitalist form of economic activities, which, I believe, is way out of line for this forum.
What do you want us to debate on?
We debate on whether Blizz is faking information in annual accounts? You serious? Report them, not here though
We debate on whether games are unproductive? By definition, games are for winding down, productivity is not measured in entertainment, that belongs to work.
We debate whether games should promote self improvement? Is there a universally accepted uni-dimensional index for self improvement? How do you measure that thing?
We debate about your IQ vs the "wow lovers"? Does IQ comes into play here?
What exactly are you talking about, do you have a coherent story? How can you ask for debates when you are hardly making sense, you are just venting your tears and shifting blames.
Look at the company reports. They published their income, by source. That is a good ballmark measurement of the kind of sub base they have. They cannot make billions with only a few thousand paying sub.
When it comes to income, they cannot lie, they have to pay tax base on that, and given the size of the tax income, you bet the best auditors from the inland revenue are assigned to cover that tax return.
Jumping into the conversation late, and not sure if they do this now, but historically Blizzard has published how many subs it has worldwide, but never really broken it down to how many play monthly subs in the west vs play hourly in the east.
They always lump the numbers together as I recall and this is a form of "omission of facts" or distortion in the presentation of the figures, which is a bit dishonest in some folks eyes.
Also, they tend to publish the numbers after an uptick, like right before an expansion launches, but give it 9 months past launch (when presumably subs are tailing off) and they stop releasing sub numbers.
Not saying this isn't a good business practice, but honest it isn't in my eyes.
Oh yes, and I am currently playing WOW for the record.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
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