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Is Blizzard lying about WoW Sub #s ?
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agree - thats everything in a nutshell
it would be helpful if Blizzard broke out what % of subs was game room expense but Blizzard at least states they count monthly gameroom time among their subs
http://eu.blizzard.com/en-gb/company/press/pressreleases.html?id=2443926
Internet Game Room players who have accessed the game over the last thirty days are also counted as subscribers
EQ2 fan sites
First,
This is a blog; not an article. Well, written; but things like spelling 'without' as 'with out' is a product of a spell checker, not an edited article from the Examiner.
Second,
Why would just under 1/3 buy the expansion?
A. Those numbers are old; you have not included the sales from the second week to this day. Cataclysm is still on the shelf in Target for god sakes and so is MOP. The number is surely higher for the expansion sales now.
B. As you can find on these forums everyday; WoW has lots of kids. Kids who's parents limit their playtime to the weekends or some similar parameter. Kids who therefore aren't the highest level. I.E., Kids who don't need the expansion because they are lvl 45. Kids who's parents are buying them MoP for Xmas and are tired of the constant nagging they've received from these kids saying, 'i don't know why your orc isn't good enough, why do you need a panda?' or 'you'll have to wait for xmas, and if I here anymore of this, you won't get it then.'
Finally,
Let's say this blog is right. Let's say that WoW has 3 to 4 million 'actual' players.
It is still the largest, most influential mmo ever made; and no one has come close to their subscription numbers.
It isn't like this is a scandal which brings WoW down to the level of EQ2 or Rift - it would bump it from its #1 spot. All the way down to the #1 slot - with millions more subscribers than the competition.
Proving WoW has less than 10 million subs does absolutely nothing to the face of gaming.
And this blog does not prove it.
concurrent means they were logged it at the same time. Generally (after a game has been released for a while) mmos don't have more than 20% of their population logged in concurrently. That would put their Asian numbers between 5 and 6 million(ish) which would mean that about 60 percent or so of their customer base is in the Eastern market that pays hourly instead of monthly which sounds about right.
Edit: Also many of the Asian countries (including china) get the expansions for free. So they wouldn't be included in the numbers sold anyway.
So ..............
This is your PR pitch from Blizzard:
You: WoW has 3 to 4 million subscribers.
Blizzard: But we have 6 to 7 million playing in game rooms.....
You: Those people don't count.
Blizzard: Why not?
You: They aren't real gamers, I believe it is smart to discount them and pretend they don't exist. I mean, they are playing the game, but in a game room for god's sake......we don't want to associate ourselves with that.
Blizzard: Uh........
You: It wouldn't be fair to all the other games that don't have millions and millions playing in game rooms. We want to provide a picture that we are on par with our competition, not beating it.
Blizzard: And you say you got a degree in PR right? I think we'll be mailing your severence check....pack your things.
____________________________________
This is the most shortsighted analysis of WoW I've seen.
Do you have any idea how many people access WoW through game rooms? No.
But you assume these are the phantom numbers bridging the 3 million to the 10 million.
If Blizzard actually has 7 million people accessing the game each month through game rooms each month..... would you really not talk about these people in a press release?
What is your implication? They aren't real players? They don't play much?
I'm telling you right here and now. If you had a game with 7 million accessing it a month through a game room, you would advertise it. You would be proud of the numbers. You would want the world to know that you have 7 million players each month accessing your game.
So why exactly would this be a deception on the part of Blizzard?
You really should make it clear that you wrote that article.
Wait a minute...oh my god, what if ALL wow subscribers don't even exist? omg!
Fixed.
Good joke man !!!
):))
World of Warcraft subscribers include individuals who have paid a subscription fee or have an active prepaid card to play World of Warcraft, as well as those who have purchased the game and are within their free month of access. Internet Game Room players who have accessed the game over the last thirty days are also counted as subscribers. The above definition excludes all players under free promotional subscriptions, expired or cancelled subscriptions, and expired prepaid cards. Subscribers in licensees’ territories are defined along the same rules.
Blizz is ofc lying, its good for the business, no reliable sorce outide blizz can show us numbers so either we believe blizz or we dont.
I dont.
OP will believe they are lieing no matter what anyone says.
The End.
Because nobody has bought the expansion since the first week....
Lying? No.
Spinning words? Maybe.
I haven't read every page and post in this thread, so this has probably (hopefully) already been said, but...
Blizzard is part of a publicly traded company. As such, they have to release (at the very least) quaterly reports giving said public a breakdown on their current finances. If it was discovered that they were lying, they would be CRIMINALLY charged w/ securities fraud, the results of which would be DISASTROUS. Not to mention the almost guarenteed monetary fines, and possible jail-time for any executives that had knowledge of the deception, which would almost certainly include the CFO and CEO, as well as a host of others down-the-line...it just really isn't worth it to lie. I mean, it's possible, and not unheard of, but it's highly unlikely.
So no, they are NOT lying about their sub-numbers....stretching the truth using funny math's? Yes, but outright lying? No.
All companies exaggerate like crazy, when it's about stuff others can't immediately disprove. For example, when they are in development of a game, and want to hype it up. That's why you don't preorder games: half of the stuff said will never show up, or only a year later in form of an expensive DLC.
But: who cares? What does it matter to me, how many people are playing WoW? If I am playing WoW, then the only thing that matters if I have fun.
Let's play Fallen Earth (blind, 300 episodes)
Let's play Guild Wars 2 (blind, 45 episodes)
That article was written by someone who has no business trying to analyze things. They are trying to use Warcraft Realms census to prove their point, however they fail to mention (or even realize, I don't think the person who wrote that is remotely intelligent) two key things about that census:
1. Almost every single server is listed as red, meaning not enough people have reported a census to get an accurate pictue. The actual numbers are *significantly* higher
2. Its only for NA/EU realms
This.
That article is Bullshit
WarcraftRealms only tracks EU/US subscribers and characters. There are only around 4 million EU/US active accounts for WoW.
It doesn't matter if you pay 15 bucks or 5 cents a month.
If you pay for WoW at all you are counted.
I'm not going to waste my time trying it discredit 10 million subs.
They have 10 million active paying accounts even if different countries have different payment methods.
Playing: Nothing
Looking forward to: Nothing
I've been playing EVE Online for 7 years off and on. I don't care what the numbers are on a game. Fudged or real, if I like the game I will play it. If I don't, I won't.
If WoW has 2 billion subs, Gratz to Blizzard. I still aint playing.
Doom prophet vs. fanboys; none with any ammunition but guesses.
Song as old as time.
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.