@Lexin: No, Blizzard has made it clear what the criteria for being considered a subscriber is and trial accounts do not count towards that total. Only paid subscribers count towards that total.
I agree with what one of the posters said. What reason does Blizzard have to lie? I have no doubt that they have 11 million subscribers which is certainly down by about a million subscribers from even less than a year ago. If Blizzard was to lie, why would they lie about a number that is significantly lower than what they announced a year ago? They don't.
I never understood all the trolls that attack World of Warcraft. The game isn't for you? That's fine. There are plenty of other good games but Blizzard's MMO certainly has changed the landscape of gaming. Many of the games that you now enjoy are only possible because of the popularity that is World of Warcraft. I don't mind people not liking World of Warcraft but to trash the game for the sake of trashing the game? That's just dumb, IMO.
We all read about the drop in subs numbers in wow during the last months. Many ppl got tired from same and same staff etc etc
I m sitting and thinking thoughall real life friends that i have which happened to play wow. From 4 close friends if mine all 4 have stopped wow during the last year.Another group of 6 guys we used to have a guild and playing in wow (not that close rl friends) all have stopped as well. 2 friens of their the one stopped permanently the other re-subs from time to time.
What is common in all these 10-12 guys i mention is the age. They are all 26-34 y old. 9 of them were playing from vanilla times, the rest 3 joined at bc.
The piece of pie as a number of 12 ppl yes its small. But its more than characteristic and its impossible to be a coincidence.
We are talking here 11 out of 12 quitted and 1 only is subbing from time to time. Its what? 92 % or something? And we talking here about ppl that were harcore raiders or arena junkies ,ppl that used to spend 6-10 hours per day for years.. it was a way of life to them not just a game..we r talking about addicted ppl i know very well here..Allthough they quitted.
Another thing. I spended 5 years in playing in defias brotherhood server. I joined from its launch day 1 and used to know very well almost all ppl inside. I had friends ( some very good friends ) inside 2-3 different guilds. I know for a fact if not all..most of them quitted..some of them in bc, many of them in Wotlk, and most of them in cataclysm. Here we are not talking about 10 or 12 ppl my friends.. im speaking a bout at least 200-250 from alliance side ppl that i know for a fact that they quitted wow.
Some will say ok some ppl quit wow some new players to mmorpg genre join (youngsters mostly) . Prob is , i dont think the join rate is that high as the quit rate in wow right now. And tbh from rl friends side i dont know anyone thathappened to joined wow last year or 2 .. but i do know 12 ppl that quitted.
Apart that i never trust numbers from statistics ,cause i believe like many other things in our life, things even way more important than a game like wow, are being manipulated and presented with lies..
So yes i dont think wow has 11 k milion active subs.
My belief is a number around 4-5 million subs right now.. and thats in best case ..
ahh hell..... looks like WoW killed someones family again....
I find it hilarious that the actual number of subs WoW has keeps so many people awake at night.
I find it more hilarious (read: sad) that people think a miniscule and heavily biased sample such as "all of my friends who played WoW" reflects the game's whole population.
The people defending "Blizzard's 11mio!!11" like it's their religion really need to do a reality check. We are being lied to about way bigger things every day. I guess you guys never had a look at your pay check, followed elections or a law suit against some industry top dog.
How can any adult with just a little experience in life think that Blizzard is an exception because they "have no need to lie to us", "are public held" or "it's against the law"?
oh i belive blizz has 11 million subs although in us its only abou 5 mil they do state half there subs come from asia mainly china so hwo they figure those not sure.
hey i can believe a buisness and the people ive seen in game o every server i play or i can belive a forum troll who hates wow i choose blizzard just like i choose to belive tor devs over some gw 2 fanboi putting tor down.
A million people could of died. Blizzard would see the 1 million subscription loss and go 'Huh. I guess they didn't like our game any more. We need to think of a way to get them paying again.'
All we are is a number to them. The quality of the game has gone down after the first run. They're starting to lose touch with their player base.
Also keep in mind. One subscription is not equal to one person. There are also people who have 2 accounts to 25 accounts (yes, some one attempted to raid with themselves).
I'm sure there numbers are probably around 9 to 10 million right now and still declining. WOW was once a great MMO to me and for half a decade it was like my second home..., now it's just a game I use to enjoy and I really don't feel like I'll ever return back to it.
With all the great MMO's coming out and a few that are out now, there numbers will still decrease, but they will still have large numbers. When Blizzard releases 4.3 patch and for the people that want to take down Deathwing, they will get a lot of people returning, for new dugeons experiences and it will bring back some numbers. If Blizzard decides to release there next expansion next year, it could bring back a lot of people and keep a lot of people still attached to WOW. If there next expansion is on the level of what Wrath was when it launched, even I will come back.
I've pretty much moved on all things WOW at this current time, I'm excited for Star Craft 2 " Heart of the Swarm" and Diablo 3 from Blizzard, but to be honest, my care for WOW is pretty much faiding away.
Wildstar (2013) & Elder Scroll Online (2013)
Playing: Diablo 3, WOW, Far Cry 3 & X-Com.
Enjoyed: WOW 5 1/2 yrs, LOTRO 3yrs, GW 1/2yr, DFO 1yr, EVE Online 3yrs, and Huxley (Beta).
Failed to impress: GW2 3months, Tera Online 6 months (best combat system in any MMO I've played) STO 1/4yr, Aion 1/2yr, AoC 1yr, CO, Fallen Earth, DDO, EQ2 1/2yr, WAR 1/2yr, Lineage 2 and FF XI 1/2yr, FF XIV.
I doubt the decline is that much at this point. It was 600k in q1, 300k in q2, and shortly after q2 ended was the firelands patch that certainly brought a lot of people back. Obviously not all stayed back, but iId be shocked if there was another drop as big as 300k in q3.
As far as the OPs personal experience, keep in mind that a *very* large portion of the players in WoW never played in its first year or two. So if you were a launch day player a great deal fo your friends dont play anymore. But they have been replaced by people that joined, say, midway through BC. WoW recently has stated that there are more people that played WoW and dont anymore as opposed to current people. This of course is nothing remotely alarming for a 7 year old game. Im sure Trion would KILL to have half the people that ever played their game to still be playing it.
I don't see why WoW wouldn't have 10-11 million subs worldwide.
Using this site as a means to estimate WoW subs is a big mistake, after all people have been clamoring that WoW was dying for years here.
I think that the figures that Blizzard is providing themselves at their corporate conference meetings is the most reliable info so far, if you pay close attention.
With paying close attention I mean that they report worldwide figures, since 2008-2009 they haven't reported figures per region anymore. My guess is that this was because there was growth in Asia and stagnation or even a slight decline in western regions.
However, it should not be forgotten that they still made over 350 million dollar at the last quarters, where as a year before that was 300 million dollars. If population was decreasing majorly at least in the west and far more than the 11 million subs that Blizzard reported themselves, then their sales figures wouldn't be like that. Not really logical, to have 50 million quarterly dollar increase in revenues compared to last year, when there'd be a major decrease in subs at the same time.
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums: Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
*puts up his firewall and engages the flame retardent mods*
Blizzard has always lied about its stats, there is two situations going on with blizzard that most people choose not to believe.
1)Every new quest and feature in wow goes through a panel of noted psychologists whose job is to advise and help tweak that new idea to be as addictive as possible, those are who you thank for the daily stuff etc.
2)Within there first year of business a certain marketing executive came up with the idea of doubling the subscription figures after all they are not legally bound to these figures, the idea was simple if they started a campaign of making people believe that twice the amount we believe play actually play then like sheep buying the most popular brand of soda subscriptions increase.
It became a self sustaining we say 2m and another million join because "hey its so good 2m play" we say 4m and 2m more will join.
And you never lower that marketing number.
Anyone who actually logs on and plays wow will see there numbers are down to about 3-4m max and that includes afk subscriptees.
Brilliant ideas from a marketing and business standpoint abit like the way pepsi and cola make you even more thirsty it may not be right or fair but what is in business.
The majority of players from a single nation are probably in China and they don't pay subscriptions or pay for the box, they're on a different payment plan so you could in theory have 20 million Chinamen playing and it might look like only 3 million subs. If Blizzard state they have X amount of accounts I'll take their word for it, I don't know exactly how they count players in China but I assume they don't count an account that hasn't logged on in say 1-3 months. I just find the numbers get a bit shaky once you start counting accounts in China since the client is free and it costs $4 to play for 66 hours so one person could be easily runnig many accounts for next to nothing. However it's all money in thier pocket so I guess it doesn't really matter, I'd be interested to know exactly how Chinese WoW accounts are counted and what the criteria is for an active account in China.
"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience"
A public company can't afford to lie about numbers. With that being said, all subscribers are not equal. How many are outside of North America and Europe. How many pay monthly rates and how many pay by the hour? I'd love to see the subscription numbers for the USA and gross income for the game over the years.
Regarding all of your friends leaving, that doesn't really mean much. There's clearly a lot of turnover in the game as there are a lot more raiders than when I started on release.
Just curious OP as to why you care so much about WoW's sub numbers, it's not like anyone is able to play with lets say 11 mil. people, it's not even possible to play with 1 mil people at the same time and knowing them. So why are some so intrested in sub numbers, obviously they want a game to play that has people in it, but seriously making a topic to debunk WoW sub numbers as if.....
No particular reason. Forums exist so ppl can communicate each other express opinions and ideas right?
As to what motivated me to start this topic?
I simply read an article the other day reffering to some completely inaccurate things concerning situations and activity concerning a server i happen to know very well ,well enough to know the ppl that made that article lied, and so i felt like writing some truths i felt to report.
In general i d describe myself as a person that when he sees something wrong being advertised as right and tries to fool ppl that perhaps cant judge from personal expirience specific things ,well yes i have to write down my opinion.
For the love of Bob will you people please learn to read? WoW has Never had 11 million subs. NEVER. They have had as many as 12.5 million active paying accounts worldwide. A Corporation CANNOT lie about things like that in public statements. The CEO would go to jail. You have no idea how many active accounts they have beyond what they tell you.
I just had to high light this. It is one of the most ingnorant things I've ever seen in a forum. Incredible that Corportions can't fluff their numbers when the majority of them do it ever year.
How many bankers went to prison over this recent recession? One maybe? There was that one guy who was low in Goldmansachs, but that was just a token for the public.
A public company can't afford to lie about numbers.
Did you know that all 18 US navy seals that were present in Bin Ladden assasination were accidently killed in a helicopter crash recently? All 18 of them..?
Dude we r talking about blillions of cash here..billions. When money comes to those numbers ..well lets say its very easy to do certain things to protect your work and staff.
I just dont believe anymore the world around us is as innocent or working based on rules everyone follows.
For certain ppl or companies rules may be bent if they have the means and motives.
*puts up his firewall and engages the flame retardent mods*
Blizzard has always lied about its stats, there is two situations going on with blizzard that most people choose not to believe.
1)Every new quest and feature in wow goes through a panel of noted psychologists whose job is to advise and help tweak that new idea to be as addictive as possible, those are who you thank for the daily stuff etc.
2)Within there first year of business a certain marketing executive came up with the idea of doubling the subscription figures after all they are not legally bound to these figures, the idea was simple if they started a campaign of making people believe that twice the amount we believe play actually play then like sheep buying the most popular brand of soda subscriptions increase.
It became a self sustaining we say 2m and another million join because "hey its so good 2m play" we say 4m and 2m more will join.
And you never lower that marketing number.
Anyone who actually logs on and plays wow will see there numbers are down to about 3-4m max and that includes afk subscriptees.
Brilliant ideas from a marketing and business standpoint abit like the way pepsi and cola make you even more thirsty it may not be right or fair but what is in business.
^^ this
Anyone who disagrees is naive to how modern Corps work. If you say they are beholden to laws let me just remind you that CEO's this year had a 27% pay increase while the average worker had 1.5% increase................the cost of living went up 2.5%.
If you think these CEO's can't manipulate numbers or that someone is ACTUALLy watching them you're crazy.
You seem to forget the 300-400 million dollar revenues they seem to be making each quarter, even in quarters where there's no SC2 or expansion being launched. Put that next to the revenues of other MMO companies and I doubt their sub numbers are that low as some want/hope to believe.
The fact that some companies have behaved like Enron, doesn't mean that they all are committing fraud.
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums: Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
*puts up his firewall and engages the flame retardent mods*
Blizzard has always lied about its stats, there is two situations going on with blizzard that most people choose not to believe.
1)Every new quest and feature in wow goes through a panel of noted psychologists whose job is to advise and help tweak that new idea to be as addictive as possible, those are who you thank for the daily stuff etc.
2)Within there first year of business a certain marketing executive came up with the idea of doubling the subscription figures after all they are not legally bound to these figures, the idea was simple if they started a campaign of making people believe that twice the amount we believe play actually play then like sheep buying the most popular brand of soda subscriptions increase.
It became a self sustaining we say 2m and another million join because "hey its so good 2m play" we say 4m and 2m more will join.
And you never lower that marketing number.
Anyone who actually logs on and plays wow will see there numbers are down to about 3-4m max and that includes afk subscriptees.
Brilliant ideas from a marketing and business standpoint abit like the way pepsi and cola make you even more thirsty it may not be right or fair but what is in business.
^^ this
Anyone who disagrees is naive to how modern Corps work. If you say they are beholden to laws let me just remind you that CEO's this year had a 27% pay increase while the average worker had 1.5% increase................the cost of living went up 2.5%.
If you think these CEO's can't manipulate numbers or that someone is ACTUALLy watching them you're crazy.
You make it sound as if it is walk in the park. Considering country like America where people just wait for a reason to sue a company you are telling me it is just that easy haan? for a company like Blizzard it is not worth a risk to lie to investors and share holders. All for what? so that they can save face from internet Blizzard trolls? don't think so.
Just curious OP as to why you care so much about WoW's sub numbers, it's not like anyone is able to play with lets say 11 mil. people, it's not even possible to play with 1 mil people at the same time and knowing them. So why are some so intrested in sub numbers, obviously they want a game to play that has people in it, but seriously making a topic to debunk WoW sub numbers as if.....
No particular reason. Forums exist so ppl can communicate each other express opinions and ideas right?
As to what motivated me to start this topic?
I simply read an article the other day reffering to some completely inaccurate things concerning situations and activity concerning a server i happen to know very well ,well enough to know the ppl that made that article lied, and so i felt like writing some truths i felt to report.
In general i d describe myself as a person that when he sees something wrong being advertised as right and tries to fool ppl that perhaps cant judge from personal expirience specific things ,well yes i have to write down my opinion.
After all we have democracy right?
hmm or not..?
Thanks for taking care of my innocence, I am too innocent to believe in the bullcrap Blizzard audited figures, that I need your out of the blue baseless speculations to right my wrong ideas.
What else do you know about your server, one server in hundreds. Can you tell me how many unique human beings are there behind the various accounts? Name and sex pls, oh add in age pls. Can you also tell us how many subs were active but it happens you never got to see the characters online? Can you also tell us how many have moved off to other servers, how many come?
What really do you really know? Start with a basic list, a control experiment design, a hypothesis and way to test against it, a way to extract the required observations, a design of desired observations, a sample, a distribution theory. Can you present your statistics, model, precision of estimates. Can you present a way to empirically verify your claims.
Yes you know, and you also know we do not know, and we need your you know to rectify our we do not know. What don we know? Who are we?
So much you really know.
On the topic, no one knows for sure, not for a fact, unless you are inside the corporate and at a high enough level of responsibility to know. Blizzard does not need to tell us more than it needs by law and it wants for its business purpose. I as a gamer in those days hardly care how many subs Blizzard has. I only know it was a decent game for those days.
I tend to trust published reports more than baseless speculation from a nobody, someone whose identity I cannot verify, and whose intention and vested interest I would never know, nor care to.
1. They are total worldwide subs, this means that almost 2/3 or these subs are from asia build servers so you dont see the population in the rest of the world as such.
2. They class any paying sub as active from what i remember, this also means dormant accounts. Where people have stopped playing but are still paying [either through forgetfulness or to much money to remember to cancel it]. With wow this must be something like 5-10% atleast the low end of that estimate as i know alot of people that fit in this section.
3. Multiple account users, enough said.
So 11M isnt totally unreasonable, its just that it is probably ALOT less people then that are actually playing.
FYI - I dont play wow. Just know alot of pople that do, its never really grabbed my attention
*puts up his firewall and engages the flame retardent mods*
Blizzard has always lied about its stats, there is two situations going on with blizzard that most people choose not to believe.
1)Every new quest and feature in wow goes through a panel of noted psychologists whose job is to advise and help tweak that new idea to be as addictive as possible, those are who you thank for the daily stuff etc.
2)Within there first year of business a certain marketing executive came up with the idea of doubling the subscription figures after all they are not legally bound to these figures, the idea was simple if they started a campaign of making people believe that twice the amount we believe play actually play then like sheep buying the most popular brand of soda subscriptions increase.
It became a self sustaining we say 2m and another million join because "hey its so good 2m play" we say 4m and 2m more will join.
And you never lower that marketing number.
Anyone who actually logs on and plays wow will see there numbers are down to about 3-4m max and that includes afk subscriptees.
Brilliant ideas from a marketing and business standpoint abit like the way pepsi and cola make you even more thirsty it may not be right or fair but what is in business.
^^ this
Anyone who disagrees is naive to how modern Corps work. If you say they are beholden to laws let me just remind you that CEO's this year had a 27% pay increase while the average worker had 1.5% increase................the cost of living went up 2.5%.
If you think these CEO's can't manipulate numbers or that someone is ACTUALLy watching them you're crazy.
Righto, you do not trust CEOs, everyone of them, without any idea who each of them is, you dismiss all of them based on a general title. Haven't we all learn that from the past mistakes, not all Jews deserve to die, not all blacks are inferior, the whites are not bigger humans. Females can be as effective in many aspects of work, and superior in some.
Righto, you do not trust CEOs, so you automatically take for granted any anti-CEO conclusions randomly spout by a random person. You do not need to know what base this random person has for his speech. Since the conclusion fits your pre-conceived hatred, he automatically is god.
Righto, you do not trust CEOs, but have you ever consider this: the OP could be a CEO of a rival company, in disguise. Ah never mind, the findings fits, so this could be CEO is friendly.
1. They are total worldwide subs, this means that almost 2/3 or these subs are from asia build servers so you dont see the population in the rest of the world as such.
2. They class any paying sub as active from what i remember, this also means dormant accounts. Where people have stopped playing but are still paying [either through forgetfulness or to much money to remember to cancel it]. With wow this must be something like 5-10% atleast the low end of that estimate as i know alot of people that fit in this section.
3. Multiple account users, enough said.
So 11M isnt totally unreasonable, its just that it is probably ALOT less people then that are actually playing.
FYI - I dont play wow. Just know alot of pople that do, its never really grabbed my attention
Finally, the voice of reason cares to post.
Yes I am a worldwide traveller, I move daily, I changed base country every few years. I have WoW accounts once, and multiple zones, so when I visit Asia, I can choose to play on US servers ("Australian" time zone) or Taiwan servers.
Yes I pay even when I seldom got time to play, for months, cos it is dirt cheap and once in a while provide entertainment for me when I am grounded and unable to go out. I have a key, so I am not worried about hacking.
Yes I have multiple accounts, in both US servers and Taiwan servers.
And yes I left WoW already, no regrets, no love, just gone.
Give me 5 man, your descriptions are really accurate, for me.
Just curious OP as to why you care so much about WoW's sub numbers, it's not like anyone is able to play with lets say 11 mil. people, it's not even possible to play with 1 mil people at the same time and knowing them. So why are some so intrested in sub numbers, obviously they want a game to play that has people in it, but seriously making a topic to debunk WoW sub numbers as if.....
I have some friends that were burnt by MMOs before.
One played Earth and Beyond. Another played Matrix online etc.
Guess what they play now and will never leave? Yep, WoW.
While I am 100% sure OP just wants to troll and this is not the reason why the OP 'cares', there are some reasoning why some players do care about the numbers.
Would like to know the reasoning of caring about subnumber apart from the obvious that people want populated games.
Comments
@Lexin: No, Blizzard has made it clear what the criteria for being considered a subscriber is and trial accounts do not count towards that total. Only paid subscribers count towards that total.
I agree with what one of the posters said. What reason does Blizzard have to lie? I have no doubt that they have 11 million subscribers which is certainly down by about a million subscribers from even less than a year ago. If Blizzard was to lie, why would they lie about a number that is significantly lower than what they announced a year ago? They don't.
I never understood all the trolls that attack World of Warcraft. The game isn't for you? That's fine. There are plenty of other good games but Blizzard's MMO certainly has changed the landscape of gaming. Many of the games that you now enjoy are only possible because of the popularity that is World of Warcraft. I don't mind people not liking World of Warcraft but to trash the game for the sake of trashing the game? That's just dumb, IMO.
ahh hell..... looks like WoW killed someones family again....
I find it more hilarious (read: sad) that people think a miniscule and heavily biased sample such as "all of my friends who played WoW" reflects the game's whole population.
Here is a up to date rough estimate of both EU and NA users. Its about 4 million for both NA/EU. So that leaves roughly 7 million in Asia ?
Source: http://www.warcraftrealms.com/realmstats.php
The people defending "Blizzard's 11mio!!11" like it's their religion really need to do a reality check. We are being lied to about way bigger things every day. I guess you guys never had a look at your pay check, followed elections or a law suit against some industry top dog.
How can any adult with just a little experience in life think that Blizzard is an exception because they "have no need to lie to us", "are public held" or "it's against the law"?
oh i belive blizz has 11 million subs although in us its only abou 5 mil they do state half there subs come from asia mainly china so hwo they figure those not sure.
hey i can believe a buisness and the people ive seen in game o every server i play or i can belive a forum troll who hates wow i choose blizzard just like i choose to belive tor devs over some gw 2 fanboi putting tor down.
You know what's funny?
A million people could of died. Blizzard would see the 1 million subscription loss and go 'Huh. I guess they didn't like our game any more. We need to think of a way to get them paying again.'
All we are is a number to them. The quality of the game has gone down after the first run. They're starting to lose touch with their player base.
Also keep in mind. One subscription is not equal to one person. There are also people who have 2 accounts to 25 accounts (yes, some one attempted to raid with themselves).
-Azure Prower
http://www.youtube.com/AzurePrower
I'm sure there numbers are probably around 9 to 10 million right now and still declining. WOW was once a great MMO to me and for half a decade it was like my second home..., now it's just a game I use to enjoy and I really don't feel like I'll ever return back to it.
With all the great MMO's coming out and a few that are out now, there numbers will still decrease, but they will still have large numbers. When Blizzard releases 4.3 patch and for the people that want to take down Deathwing, they will get a lot of people returning, for new dugeons experiences and it will bring back some numbers. If Blizzard decides to release there next expansion next year, it could bring back a lot of people and keep a lot of people still attached to WOW. If there next expansion is on the level of what Wrath was when it launched, even I will come back.
I've pretty much moved on all things WOW at this current time, I'm excited for Star Craft 2 " Heart of the Swarm" and Diablo 3 from Blizzard, but to be honest, my care for WOW is pretty much faiding away.
Wildstar (2013) & Elder Scroll Online (2013)
Playing: Diablo 3, WOW, Far Cry 3 & X-Com.
Enjoyed: WOW 5 1/2 yrs, LOTRO 3yrs, GW 1/2yr, DFO 1yr, EVE Online 3yrs, and Huxley (Beta).
Failed to impress: GW2 3months, Tera Online 6 months (best combat system in any MMO I've played) STO 1/4yr, Aion 1/2yr, AoC 1yr, CO, Fallen Earth, DDO, EQ2 1/2yr, WAR 1/2yr, Lineage 2 and FF XI 1/2yr, FF XIV.
I doubt the decline is that much at this point. It was 600k in q1, 300k in q2, and shortly after q2 ended was the firelands patch that certainly brought a lot of people back. Obviously not all stayed back, but iId be shocked if there was another drop as big as 300k in q3.
As far as the OPs personal experience, keep in mind that a *very* large portion of the players in WoW never played in its first year or two. So if you were a launch day player a great deal fo your friends dont play anymore. But they have been replaced by people that joined, say, midway through BC. WoW recently has stated that there are more people that played WoW and dont anymore as opposed to current people. This of course is nothing remotely alarming for a 7 year old game. Im sure Trion would KILL to have half the people that ever played their game to still be playing it.
My brother and I don't play WOW anymore. I don't think they have 11 milion subs.
An honest review of SW:TOR 6/10 (Danny Wojcicki)
I don't see why WoW wouldn't have 10-11 million subs worldwide.
Using this site as a means to estimate WoW subs is a big mistake, after all people have been clamoring that WoW was dying for years here.
I think that the figures that Blizzard is providing themselves at their corporate conference meetings is the most reliable info so far, if you pay close attention.
With paying close attention I mean that they report worldwide figures, since 2008-2009 they haven't reported figures per region anymore. My guess is that this was because there was growth in Asia and stagnation or even a slight decline in western regions.
However, it should not be forgotten that they still made over 350 million dollar at the last quarters, where as a year before that was 300 million dollars. If population was decreasing majorly at least in the west and far more than the 11 million subs that Blizzard reported themselves, then their sales figures wouldn't be like that. Not really logical, to have 50 million quarterly dollar increase in revenues compared to last year, when there'd be a major decrease in subs at the same time.
The ACTUAL size of MMORPG worlds: a comparison list between MMO's
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums:
Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
*puts up his firewall and engages the flame retardent mods*
Blizzard has always lied about its stats, there is two situations going on with blizzard that most people choose not to believe.
1)Every new quest and feature in wow goes through a panel of noted psychologists whose job is to advise and help tweak that new idea to be as addictive as possible, those are who you thank for the daily stuff etc.
2)Within there first year of business a certain marketing executive came up with the idea of doubling the subscription figures after all they are not legally bound to these figures, the idea was simple if they started a campaign of making people believe that twice the amount we believe play actually play then like sheep buying the most popular brand of soda subscriptions increase.
It became a self sustaining we say 2m and another million join because "hey its so good 2m play" we say 4m and 2m more will join.
And you never lower that marketing number.
Anyone who actually logs on and plays wow will see there numbers are down to about 3-4m max and that includes afk subscriptees.
Brilliant ideas from a marketing and business standpoint abit like the way pepsi and cola make you even more thirsty it may not be right or fair but what is in business.
The majority of players from a single nation are probably in China and they don't pay subscriptions or pay for the box, they're on a different payment plan so you could in theory have 20 million Chinamen playing and it might look like only 3 million subs. If Blizzard state they have X amount of accounts I'll take their word for it, I don't know exactly how they count players in China but I assume they don't count an account that hasn't logged on in say 1-3 months. I just find the numbers get a bit shaky once you start counting accounts in China since the client is free and it costs $4 to play for 66 hours so one person could be easily runnig many accounts for next to nothing. However it's all money in thier pocket so I guess it doesn't really matter, I'd be interested to know exactly how Chinese WoW accounts are counted and what the criteria is for an active account in China.
"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience"
CS Lewis
A public company can't afford to lie about numbers. With that being said, all subscribers are not equal. How many are outside of North America and Europe. How many pay monthly rates and how many pay by the hour? I'd love to see the subscription numbers for the USA and gross income for the game over the years.
Regarding all of your friends leaving, that doesn't really mean much. There's clearly a lot of turnover in the game as there are a lot more raiders than when I started on release.
No particular reason. Forums exist so ppl can communicate each other express opinions and ideas right?
As to what motivated me to start this topic?
I simply read an article the other day reffering to some completely inaccurate things concerning situations and activity concerning a server i happen to know very well ,well enough to know the ppl that made that article lied, and so i felt like writing some truths i felt to report.
In general i d describe myself as a person that when he sees something wrong being advertised as right and tries to fool ppl that perhaps cant judge from personal expirience specific things ,well yes i have to write down my opinion.
After all we have democracy right?
hmm or not..?
I just had to high light this. It is one of the most ingnorant things I've ever seen in a forum. Incredible that Corportions can't fluff their numbers when the majority of them do it ever year.
How many bankers went to prison over this recent recession? One maybe? There was that one guy who was low in Goldmansachs, but that was just a token for the public.
LOL, That red font really does wonders.
Did you know that all 18 US navy seals that were present in Bin Ladden assasination were accidently killed in a helicopter crash recently? All 18 of them..?
Dude we r talking about blillions of cash here..billions. When money comes to those numbers ..well lets say its very easy to do certain things to protect your work and staff.
I just dont believe anymore the world around us is as innocent or working based on rules everyone follows.
For certain ppl or companies rules may be bent if they have the means and motives.
^^ this
Anyone who disagrees is naive to how modern Corps work. If you say they are beholden to laws let me just remind you that CEO's this year had a 27% pay increase while the average worker had 1.5% increase................the cost of living went up 2.5%.
If you think these CEO's can't manipulate numbers or that someone is ACTUALLy watching them you're crazy.
You seem to forget the 300-400 million dollar revenues they seem to be making each quarter, even in quarters where there's no SC2 or expansion being launched. Put that next to the revenues of other MMO companies and I doubt their sub numbers are that low as some want/hope to believe.
The fact that some companies have behaved like Enron, doesn't mean that they all are committing fraud.
The ACTUAL size of MMORPG worlds: a comparison list between MMO's
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums:
Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
You make it sound as if it is walk in the park. Considering country like America where people just wait for a reason to sue a company you are telling me it is just that easy haan? for a company like Blizzard it is not worth a risk to lie to investors and share holders. All for what? so that they can save face from internet Blizzard trolls? don't think so.
Thanks for taking care of my innocence, I am too innocent to believe in the bullcrap Blizzard audited figures, that I need your out of the blue baseless speculations to right my wrong ideas.
What else do you know about your server, one server in hundreds. Can you tell me how many unique human beings are there behind the various accounts? Name and sex pls, oh add in age pls. Can you also tell us how many subs were active but it happens you never got to see the characters online? Can you also tell us how many have moved off to other servers, how many come?
What really do you really know? Start with a basic list, a control experiment design, a hypothesis and way to test against it, a way to extract the required observations, a design of desired observations, a sample, a distribution theory. Can you present your statistics, model, precision of estimates. Can you present a way to empirically verify your claims.
Yes you know, and you also know we do not know, and we need your you know to rectify our we do not know. What don we know? Who are we?
So much you really know.
On the topic, no one knows for sure, not for a fact, unless you are inside the corporate and at a high enough level of responsibility to know. Blizzard does not need to tell us more than it needs by law and it wants for its business purpose. I as a gamer in those days hardly care how many subs Blizzard has. I only know it was a decent game for those days.
I tend to trust published reports more than baseless speculation from a nobody, someone whose identity I cannot verify, and whose intention and vested interest I would never know, nor care to.
Things to remember when wow posts sub numbers
1. They are total worldwide subs, this means that almost 2/3 or these subs are from asia build servers so you dont see the population in the rest of the world as such.
2. They class any paying sub as active from what i remember, this also means dormant accounts. Where people have stopped playing but are still paying [either through forgetfulness or to much money to remember to cancel it]. With wow this must be something like 5-10% atleast the low end of that estimate as i know alot of people that fit in this section.
3. Multiple account users, enough said.
So 11M isnt totally unreasonable, its just that it is probably ALOT less people then that are actually playing.
FYI - I dont play wow. Just know alot of pople that do, its never really grabbed my attention
Righto, you do not trust CEOs, everyone of them, without any idea who each of them is, you dismiss all of them based on a general title. Haven't we all learn that from the past mistakes, not all Jews deserve to die, not all blacks are inferior, the whites are not bigger humans. Females can be as effective in many aspects of work, and superior in some.
Righto, you do not trust CEOs, so you automatically take for granted any anti-CEO conclusions randomly spout by a random person. You do not need to know what base this random person has for his speech. Since the conclusion fits your pre-conceived hatred, he automatically is god.
Righto, you do not trust CEOs, but have you ever consider this: the OP could be a CEO of a rival company, in disguise. Ah never mind, the findings fits, so this could be CEO is friendly.
Finally, the voice of reason cares to post.
Yes I am a worldwide traveller, I move daily, I changed base country every few years. I have WoW accounts once, and multiple zones, so when I visit Asia, I can choose to play on US servers ("Australian" time zone) or Taiwan servers.
Yes I pay even when I seldom got time to play, for months, cos it is dirt cheap and once in a while provide entertainment for me when I am grounded and unable to go out. I have a key, so I am not worried about hacking.
Yes I have multiple accounts, in both US servers and Taiwan servers.
And yes I left WoW already, no regrets, no love, just gone.
Give me 5 man, your descriptions are really accurate, for me.
Would like to know the reasoning of caring about subnumber apart from the obvious that people want populated games.