Can we stop claiming 12 million WoW subs can't be wrong?

VengeSunsoar

Err Pretty = per

Darknessguy64

This thread is as relevant as the "Do you play a female character" thread...

TheLizardbones

Originally posted by CazNeerg

Originally posted by Laughing-man

I think you are being a bit cynical.

12 Million in the entire MMO market?  MUCH MUCH More than that.

http://www.alistdaily.com/news/exclusive-newzoo-on-the-state-of-mmos  Hey look, information sourced.

Again, I didn't say players, I didn't say payers.  I said subscribers.  As in people paying (depending on the game) somewhere between 10-15 dollars a month to play for as many hours as they want.  The traditional, dare I say "real" subscription model.  It's not a huge market, which is why P2P as a category of games is on the decline, there just aren't a lot of customers there to compete for.

The point being that WoW's released numbers are both deceptive and useless for the purpose of comparing it to other games.  Is it still the most successful MMO ever released, by far?  Of course.  Which makes it all that much stranger that they feel the need to pretend they have more success than they do.  (Because anybody who is being honest will admit that someone paying a traditional western sub is *not* the same thing as someone paying cents by the hour, and counting them as equivalent is ridiculous.)

 

The average annual income in China is one eighth the income in the U.S. and the middle class is nearly nonexistent.  For most families, annual income is less than $3,000 a year.  Yes, they are paying cents on the dollar, but how much are they paying as a percentage of their income?  The average American pays less than 0.21% of their annual income, while the average Chinese player pays 0.36% of their annual income.  So yes, Chinese players pay a lot less to play WoW.  They also earn a lot less.

 

VengeSunsoar

Write is also not the only game in China making thecomparison even more valid. Eve is in China after all and many many many others.

VengeSunsoar

Bah write=wow

CazNeerg

Originally posted by lizardbones

The average annual income in China is one eighth the income in the U.S. and the middle class is nearly nonexistent.  For most families, annual income is less than $3,000 a year.  Yes, they are paying cents on the dollar, but how much are they paying as a percentage of their income?  The average American pays less than 0.21% of their annual income, while the average Chinese player pays 0.36% of their annual income.  So yes, Chinese players pay a lot less to play WoW.  They also earn a lot less. 

That's all true.  But I'm not talking about whether the level of financial commitment from the player is the same, I'm talking about whether the numbers actually received by the company are equivalent, which they clearly aren't.  Treating a pay-per-hour "subscriber" as equivalent to a pay-per-month subscriber for the purpose of reporting subscriber numbers renders those numbers useless.  By mashing the numbers from two fundamentally different revenue models together and reporting the total as if they were equivalent, you pollute the data set, and might as well not report the numbers at all.

alakram

Originally posted by ozmono

Can we please stop claiming their are 12 million WoW subs that cannot be wrong? We all know they haven't had 12 million subs for quite sometime. They've been on a downward trend for awhile with the occasional spike that doesn't seem to last long. In the last four years they've lost over four million subs. That's just concurrent sub numbers. That doesn't include all the people who have abandoned the game for greener pastures. That's just what their concurrent peak sub numbers have dropped by.

 

If 7.8 million people cannot be wrong just because of their sheer quantity than how can you explain the total numbers of players who have ever played WoW that have moved on being wrong? afterall there would be more of them than what is left of WoWs concurrent sub number and probably even a lot more than their peak.

 

I won't even go into how WoW triumphs up it's sub numbers in Asia as I don't think I need to. All that should need to be said, is it's not 12 million anymore and even if it was, even more people would have tried the game at some point and left. So please lets stop claiming this nonsense.

10 billion flies can't be wrong, eat crap.

Nadia

WOW as culture .. accept it

 

Lichking release

http://media.wow-europe.com/viewer/wow_video.htm?vid=wlk_eu_2008&dir=movies/wlk_eu_2008&img=wlk_openings

DamonVile

Originally posted by CazNeerg

Originally posted by Laughing-man

I think you are being a bit cynical.

12 Million in the entire MMO market?  MUCH MUCH More than that.

http://www.alistdaily.com/news/exclusive-newzoo-on-the-state-of-mmos  Hey look, information sourced.

Again, I didn't say players, I didn't say payers.  I said subscribers.  As in people paying (depending on the game) somewhere between 10-15 dollars a month to play for as many hours as they want.  The traditional, dare I say "real" subscription model.  It's not a huge market, which is why P2P as a category of games is on the decline, there just aren't a lot of customers there to compete for.

The point being that WoW's released numbers are both deceptive and useless for the purpose of comparing it to other games.  Is it still the most successful MMO ever released, by far?  Of course.  Which makes it all that much stranger that they feel the need to pretend they have more success than they do.  (Because anybody who is being honest will admit that someone paying a traditional western sub is *not* the same thing as someone paying cents by the hour, and counting them as equivalent is ridiculous.)

You're still discounting millions of players just because you don't like how they pay for the game. They're still real people, who play as often and as much as we do and they all pay.

You have a solid argument for wow doesn't make 12 million x $15. But remember this isn't a one month high number. The whole someone could play 5 minutes and count as a sub wouldn't explain why the multi million number of players is year after year.

DarLorkar

It is kind of sad really. How often people want to beat this dead horse.

It all comes down to the fact that WOW has, and can ,lose more subs than almost any other "Western" game will ever have , and still be king of the heap.

This should be celebrated, all those new people brought into the market makes it possible to have all the option people do today in games. Lot of bad.. but a few decent games as well came from the popularity  WOW created.

 

Arndush

Originally posted by Laughing-man

Originally posted by CazNeerg

Lol.  Dramatic much?  Didn't say they aren't players, or people, or customers.  Just that they aren't subscribers, a word with specific connotations which they don't meet.  Paying 13-15 dollars for unlimited access over the course of a month is a subscription.  Paying 4 cents per hour is not a subscription.  (And no, it's not the specific amounts that are relevant, it's the unlimited hours over a defined period vs. paying per hour.)

WoW has never had 12 million subscribers.  There has probably never been a point in time when the entire MMO market had 12 million simultaneous subscriptions.

I think you are being a bit cynical.

12 Million in the entire MMO market?  MUCH MUCH More than that.

http://www.alistdaily.com/news/exclusive-newzoo-on-the-state-of-mmos  Hey look, information sourced.

 

Guess what?

12 cents an hour IS by definition a 'subscription'. 

Subscription :  "the action of making or agreeing to make an advance payment in order to receive or participate in something."

You gotta pay those 12 cents before you play right? 

Yep.

12 Million in the entire market? No. Though, I think it's fair to say that there are roughly 12 million subscribers in the North American market. At least, there were a few years ago. When SWTOR came out there was talk about how even though WoW had close to 12 million, there were only 6 million NA subscribers, which represented only half of the NA market.

Originally posted by Holophonist

Originally posted by Arndush

Originally posted by ozmono

Can we please stop claiming their are 12 million WoW subs that cannot be wrong? We all know they haven't had 12 million subs for quite sometime. They've been on a downward trend for awhile with the occasional spike that doesn't seem to last long. In the last four years they've lost over four million subs. That's just concurrent sub numbers. That doesn't include all the people who have abandoned the game for greener pastures. That's just what their concurrent peak sub numbers have dropped by.

 

If 7.8 million people cannot be wrong just because of their sheer quantity than how can you explain the total numbers of players who have ever played WoW that have moved on being wrong? afterall there would be more of them than what is left of WoWs concurrent sub number and probably even a lot more than their peak.

 

I won't even go into how WoW triumphs up it's sub numbers in Asia as I don't think I need to. All that should need to be said, is it's not 12 million anymore and even if it was, even more people would have tried the game at some point and left. So please lets stop claiming this nonsense.

What's right and what's wrong in an MMO is a very personal thing. So, for those 7.8 million people still enjoying WoW, it can't be wrong. For the rest of us that gave up on WoW a long time ago, or never really cared for it in the first place, it's very wrong. But, in the end, does it really matter?

The point of the post was to discredit the idea that WoW must be a good game because so many people play it. So what those 12 million players would be "wrong" about is whether or not WoW is a good game, not whether or not they personally enjoy the game.

 

Not only that, those people can absolutely be wrong in the sense that they can be misinformed. There very well may be other games that they would enjoy more, they just don't know it.

Who's to say it's a good or bad game? You? Unless a game is so badly broken that it's completely unplayable aka FFXIV during their first launch, whether or not a game is good or bad is completely subjective. To those 7.8 million people, it's a good game. They wouldn't play it otherwise.

As for your premise that they are all just misinformed and don't realize they are playing a bad game and would have more fun if they switched to something else...I've got nothing for that. Speechless. 

Hell, I don't even like WoW and I don't think like this.

 

Zorgo

"Can we stop claiming 12 m WoW subs can't be wrong?"

I have never made that claim,  and it seems fairly obvious from your post that you haven't made that claim, so what's this 'we' business?

That aside,  I believe this thread will become a viral thread across the realm, and I believe 100% those making this claim will both see this thread, feel rightly shamed, and stop.

Is that the outcome you were hoping for? Because, bravo, I think you've solved the problem for good.

Either that or you won't sway one single person with this thread.

 

asmkm22

OK.

8 Million WoW subs can't be wrong.  

Holophonist

Originally posted by Arndush

Originally posted by Holophonist

Originally posted by Arndush

Originally posted by ozmono

Can we please stop claiming their are 12 million WoW subs that cannot be wrong? We all know they haven't had 12 million subs for quite sometime. They've been on a downward trend for awhile with the occasional spike that doesn't seem to last long. In the last four years they've lost over four million subs. That's just concurrent sub numbers. That doesn't include all the people who have abandoned the game for greener pastures. That's just what their concurrent peak sub numbers have dropped by.

 

If 7.8 million people cannot be wrong just because of their sheer quantity than how can you explain the total numbers of players who have ever played WoW that have moved on being wrong? afterall there would be more of them than what is left of WoWs concurrent sub number and probably even a lot more than their peak.

 

I won't even go into how WoW triumphs up it's sub numbers in Asia as I don't think I need to. All that should need to be said, is it's not 12 million anymore and even if it was, even more people would have tried the game at some point and left. So please lets stop claiming this nonsense.

What's right and what's wrong in an MMO is a very personal thing. So, for those 7.8 million people still enjoying WoW, it can't be wrong. For the rest of us that gave up on WoW a long time ago, or never really cared for it in the first place, it's very wrong. But, in the end, does it really matter?

The point of the post was to discredit the idea that WoW must be a good game because so many people play it. So what those 12 million players would be "wrong" about is whether or not WoW is a good game, not whether or not they personally enjoy the game.

 

Not only that, those people can absolutely be wrong in the sense that they can be misinformed. There very well may be other games that they would enjoy more, they just don't know it.

Who's to say it's a good or bad game? You? Unless a game is so badly broken that it's completely unplayable aka FFXIV during their first launch, whether or not a game is good or bad is completely subjective. To those 7.8 million people, it's a good game. They wouldn't play it otherwise.

As for your premise that they are all just misinformed and don't realize they are playing a bad game and would have more fun if they switched to something else...I've got nothing for that. Speechless. 

Hell, I don't even like WoW and I don't think like this.

The truth is it's neither 100% objective or 100% subjective. Like I said, some people are merely ignorant of better games; games that they themselves would enjoy more but don't know about them. Sometimes it may be an example of not wanting to try something new, but once you do, you end up enjoying it more.

 

And it's not *me* deciding anything. However, it is me, you, anybody else who wants to discuss it. There isn't any 1 person who can declare a game to be "good" or "bad", but that DOES NOT MEAN that you can't have objective discussions regarding different games.

 

How would you decide the quality of a game? By the number of subscribers? So LoL is the best game ever? Or are you saying quality simply doesn't exist when it comes to games?

VengeSunsoar

Quality of a game is arguably a different argument than whether a game is good or not. The latter is completely subjective. The former may or may not be.

JimmyYO

They aren't wrong in WoW's case though. Maybe if you were talking about Maple Story or Ragnarok online you'd have a point but there hasn't been an MMO in the last decade that even compares to the level of quality WoW brings.

Holophonist

Originally posted by VengeSunsoar
Quality of a game is arguably a different argument than whether a game is good or not. The latter is completely subjective. The former may or may not be.

Good/bad = high quality/low quality.

Beelzebobbie

Originally posted by Erinak1
Fine, 8 million wow subs can't be wrong. It's still many times more then any other western mmo. 

well they really don't have 8 million western players.

 

VengeSunsoar

Good or bad could be referring to the quality or your overall impression of the game or simple whether you like it out night.

Not just high or low quality. Definitely not.

Creslin321

Originally posted by free2play

Originally posted by ozmono

Originally posted by free2play

Games are media and media success is decided by viewers or in the case of games, the amount of people who play them.

 

So to answer your request?

no.

You could have atleast refused to stop claiming WoWs players "cannot be wrong" as a real number (7.8mil) rather than outright refusing my request of it's now defunct peak (12mil) but even than you would be ignoring the fact that more people have decided not to play WoW than are still playing WoW. Again they are down 4 million from their peak, that's far from all the people who have played it and decided there are better ways to spend their time.

 

That said anything on mass does not give a good insight into the complete story and I will concede that WoW still has a relatively large player base even if ignoring the triumphed up numbers. Again than though, if 7.8 million cannot be wrong than how do you explain the even larger number that have left being wrong? The easy way to explain it would be to admit that vague macro figures don't explain the entire situation but that would require redefining what you regard as successful media.

I don't care.

 

No.

LOL, just starting reading this thread...but this was so amazing I can't really pass it by...

 

OP:  WoW's subs have dropped substantially from 12 million to 7.8 million so people should stop using the old 12 million number as evidence of WoW's success.

FreetoPlay:  Numbers indicate the success of a product.

OP:  Okay, but can you at least use the correct numbers?

FreetoPlay:  No, I don't care about  accuracy.

 

Soooo basically, you want to use numbers in an argument...but could care less if they are actually correct???

LOL.

Bladestrom

I think the point is no-one beyond forums like this cares if it's x or y million - its still so far beyond anything in the market + expansion inc that it is an entirely pointless topic that has been covered..for the last 6 years.

Creslin321

Over 247 billion served can't be wrong!!!

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.

.

Oh shit.....

VengeSunsoar

He wasn't arguing about the numbers. He was arguing about whether they can be right or not

Bladestrom

Even the macdonaldcthing is so old it's cheesy and ancient

Holophonist

Originally posted by VengeSunsoar
Good or bad could be referring to the quality or your overall impression of the game or simple whether you like it out night.

Not just high or low quality. Definitely not.

I'm not sure what trivial waste of time you're pulling me into but a good game is the same as a high quality game. a bad game is the same as a low quality game.