So with another dip in subs, what numbers are left in the NA/EU sub base? 2-3 million?
Doesn't really matter either way. I've seen the game go from several cities packed, to only 1 city packed (per faction), to not being able to fill one city with players.
Anyone keeping track of Morahime's excuses? I think Q1 was "normal variances of people who always return to WoW". Q2 was "seasonal fluctuations". Q3 is "people who went through the content too fast"
so even when wow is down to 1 million users it'll still have more then all the other mmo's? :P
oh wait i forgot SWTOR will have 1 billion players. :P
That's possibly not true.
Aion has quite likely a number of players that's more than 1 million and possibly even 2-3 million players worldwide, based on their revenues and the number of servers they have (75-100 now, when Aion was released in the west, about 30 servers catered to 900k+ players).
As for SWTOR, figures indicate it'll launch with about 2-3 million players, how it goes from there is anyone's guess.
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."
Well folks, it looks as if the days when we could say the WoW cash cow was dominant are almost over, and yes that means the stocks slip for the business suits who run Blizzard.
The Santa Monica company announced Tuesday that subscribers for its World of Warcraft online game had fallen to 10.3 million, down from 11.4 million at the end of March.
“The magnitude of the decline was surprising,” said Michael Pachter, an analyst with Wedbush Securities. “The vast majority of Activision’s revenue and profit comes from World of Warcraft and Call of Duty. And if one of those shows a decline, investor confidence is shaken.”
There you have it. We are looking at less than 10 million with the present trend by start of 2012. Factor into that the release of the Next Gen MMORPGs SW:TOR and GW2 we are likely looking at the Blizzard numbers starting to haemorrhage much further than the gradual decline we have seen this year. In addition, with Blizzard delaying Diablo 3 till sometime (we do not know when) in 2012 and the WoW Panda expansion fiasco of recent weeks it looks as if Blizzard are not quite the golden games developer we thought they were, 2011 has been a year of decline for them.
Feel free to discuss...
WOW is set to fall under 10 mill sub so the stocks slip in present because of something that may or may not happen? sorry but your post makes zero sense.
It´s funny how most people don´t realize that even in their worst declining years, when all will be said and done, WoW will probably still have more users than their own mmo had in release week.
Even if they lost 9.5 out of those 10 milion subscribers in the following 5 years, those 500.000 players left would still be a decent amount of players given the standard xD
So yeah, feel free to open your champagne bottles and celebrate at Blizzard´s "downfall" xD
By average market standards for mmorpgs perhaps, but not by Blizzard's standards. They are used to earn big, live big and think big.
And in that sense if they lose 2mio it hits them as hard as a small company with 350k gets hit losing 50k.
People constantly say"...and if only 3mio subs remain, Blizzard would still be the king" etc -which is not entirely true. With WoW down to say 3mio we would experience a very different Blizzard and WoW would not remain in it's current state --although still having ten times the subs other games have.
WoW is already run by a skeleton crew, down to 5mio Activi$$ion would get them to invent an item shop unseen before. Down to 3mio, Kotick would leave them 5 devs and the janitor in the house. Another addon would take 3 years, contain 2 recycled zones, 2 level and removal of the talent trees.
It's good to know 1 million players won't take anything thrown at them.
Wow is a shadow of what it was. I don't understand why developers do that to their own games. Same happened with EQ and SWG. At some point they start making the game easy and absurd and that's the end of it.
Only if they drop it below a certain treshhold...
But easy non challenging games tend to be quit easier then games that continously challenge their players.
On top of that, back to the OP, the current mentallity with investors and the stockexchange will be the downfall of our society. Not only for this game b ut for all other companies.... the current demand for more profit prevents solid buisnesses from making strategic plans that take companies forward to the next decade.. the only thing thats important to these investors is the current ammount of money they make.
Best MMO experiences : EQ(PvE), DAoC(PvP), WoW(total package) LOTRO (worldfeel) GW2 (Artstyle and animations and worlddesign) SWTOR (Story immersion) TSW (story) ESO (character advancement)
Well folks, it looks as if the days when we could say the WoW cash cow was dominant are almost over, and yes that means the stocks slip for the business suits who run Blizzard.
The Santa Monica company announced Tuesday that subscribers for its World of Warcraft online game had fallen to 10.3 million, down from 11.4 million at the end of March.
“The magnitude of the decline was surprising,” said Michael Pachter, an analyst with Wedbush Securities. “The vast majority of Activision’s revenue and profit comes from World of Warcraft and Call of Duty. And if one of those shows a decline, investor confidence is shaken.”
There you have it. We are looking at less than 10 million with the present trend by start of 2012. Factor into that the release of the Next Gen MMORPGs SW:TOR and GW2 we are likely looking at the Blizzard numbers starting to haemorrhage much further than the gradual decline we have seen this year. In addition, with Blizzard delaying Diablo 3 till sometime (we do not know when) in 2012 and the WoW Panda expansion fiasco of recent weeks it looks as if Blizzard are not quite the golden games developer we thought they were, 2011 has been a year of decline for them.
Feel free to discuss...
WOW is set to fall under 10 mill sub so the stocks slip in present because of something that may or may not happen? sorry but your post makes zero sense.
Welcome to the stockmarket.
Valuation of stocks is based almost entirely on perception. If people think the company is going to do well in the future, there's more demand for the stock and the stock price goes up. If people think the company isn't going to do as well or do poorly, some people try to get rid of their stock and the price goes down. A stock price can still slump on growth if the company failed to meet it's target, because the price was over-inflated based on the previously projected target.
In the end it boils down to this: If most people think the price will go up in the future, it goes up. If most people think the price might go down in the future, it goes down.
That's why when people hear that one of the two flagship products for Activision-Blizzard lost 10% of it's subscriberbase, they lose confidence that it will continue to do as well, and so some people ditch their stock and the price drops.
But easy non challenging games tend to be quit easier then games that continously challenge their players.
On top of that, back to the OP, the current mentallity with investors and the stockexchange will be the downfall of our society. Not only for this game b ut for all other companies.... the current demand for more profit prevents solid buisnesses from making strategic plans that take companies forward to the next decade.. the only thing thats important to these investors is the current ammount of money they make.
I just want to clarify the demand for profit isn't the problem, but the demand for short term profit is. There simply too many speculators and short term investors nowadays. (the one who's in it for the long term would prefer a company to reinvest profit to ensure higher future cash-flows)
And it seems exactly what WoW has been trying to do. Constantly jumping on the bandwagon of what people appeared to be demanding without thinking about the bigger picture and long term.
This than leads to nerfs in pve difficulty in Wotlk and than a rebuff of it in cata (and who knows what will be done in MoP) or the talent trees being revised all the time. They just lack one big long term plan which consists of making the perfect game.
Fere libenter homines id quod volunt credunt. Among those who dislike oppression are many who like to oppress.
Comments
So with another dip in subs, what numbers are left in the NA/EU sub base? 2-3 million?
Doesn't really matter either way. I've seen the game go from several cities packed, to only 1 city packed (per faction), to not being able to fill one city with players.
I'm in it for the long haul.
Yeah everything is great over at Blizzard.
so even when wow is down to 1 million users it'll still have more then all the other mmo's? :P
oh wait i forgot SWTOR will have 1 billion players. :P
"The great thing about human language is that it prevents us from sticking to the matter at hand."
- Lewis Thomas
That's possibly not true.
Aion has quite likely a number of players that's more than 1 million and possibly even 2-3 million players worldwide, based on their revenues and the number of servers they have (75-100 now, when Aion was released in the west, about 30 servers catered to 900k+ players).
As for SWTOR, figures indicate it'll launch with about 2-3 million players, how it goes from there is anyone's guess.
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."
WOW is set to fall under 10 mill sub so the stocks slip in present because of something that may or may not happen? sorry but your post makes zero sense.
By average market standards for mmorpgs perhaps, but not by Blizzard's standards. They are used to earn big, live big and think big.
And in that sense if they lose 2mio it hits them as hard as a small company with 350k gets hit losing 50k.
People constantly say"...and if only 3mio subs remain, Blizzard would still be the king" etc -which is not entirely true. With WoW down to say 3mio we would experience a very different Blizzard and WoW would not remain in it's current state --although still having ten times the subs other games have.
WoW is already run by a skeleton crew, down to 5mio Activi$$ion would get them to invent an item shop unseen before. Down to 3mio, Kotick would leave them 5 devs and the janitor in the house. Another addon would take 3 years, contain 2 recycled zones, 2 level and removal of the talent trees.
Only if they drop it below a certain treshhold...
But easy non challenging games tend to be quit easier then games that continously challenge their players.
On top of that, back to the OP, the current mentallity with investors and the stockexchange will be the downfall of our society. Not only for this game b ut for all other companies.... the current demand for more profit prevents solid buisnesses from making strategic plans that take companies forward to the next decade.. the only thing thats important to these investors is the current ammount of money they make.
Best MMO experiences : EQ(PvE), DAoC(PvP), WoW(total package) LOTRO (worldfeel) GW2 (Artstyle and animations and worlddesign) SWTOR (Story immersion) TSW (story) ESO (character advancement)
Welcome to the stockmarket.
Valuation of stocks is based almost entirely on perception. If people think the company is going to do well in the future, there's more demand for the stock and the stock price goes up. If people think the company isn't going to do as well or do poorly, some people try to get rid of their stock and the price goes down. A stock price can still slump on growth if the company failed to meet it's target, because the price was over-inflated based on the previously projected target.
In the end it boils down to this: If most people think the price will go up in the future, it goes up. If most people think the price might go down in the future, it goes down.
That's why when people hear that one of the two flagship products for Activision-Blizzard lost 10% of it's subscriberbase, they lose confidence that it will continue to do as well, and so some people ditch their stock and the price drops.
I just want to clarify the demand for profit isn't the problem, but the demand for short term profit is. There simply too many speculators and short term investors nowadays. (the one who's in it for the long term would prefer a company to reinvest profit to ensure higher future cash-flows)
And it seems exactly what WoW has been trying to do. Constantly jumping on the bandwagon of what people appeared to be demanding without thinking about the bigger picture and long term.
This than leads to nerfs in pve difficulty in Wotlk and than a rebuff of it in cata (and who knows what will be done in MoP) or the talent trees being revised all the time. They just lack one big long term plan which consists of making the perfect game.
Fere libenter homines id quod volunt credunt.
Among those who dislike oppression are many who like to oppress.