would be nice to see where that 30 million (rounded up) per month from just the Americas goes. probably part of my issue with Blizzard. with the profits they make, i expect this game to have groundbreaking features added constantly. instead i see token additions and an expansion that has taken long enough for them to develop an entirely new game. i guess congratulations are still in order. they've mastered the ultimate form of capitalism: maximum continual profit with minimum maintenance expenditure.
WoW's appeal is based on its bland perfection, not lots of features. Lots of features make the game hard to balance and polish, technically more demanding, both server side and importantly client side, and more difficult to learn. They decided to try to keep the game simple and its worked.
For example, the game doesn't have player housing, not even instanced housing. Personally, I consider that feature essential to being a complete or full MMORPG. But it has drawback, the client has to load those features everytime it passes by or all of your items furniture when you walk in. This is difficult for older / slower systems to do. Just ask anyone that tried to play SWG back in the day with less than a gig of ram. (when a gig was quite a bit).
Another feature I consider necessary to be a true MMORPG is extensive customization. Customization is another area WoW gets an F on. But its intentional. If each human could be a different size shape etc. that's more database information to store and hard for each client to each time you pass a character. If you have a slow as dirt computer your glad old Sticky the Orc is the exact same proportions that every other one them.
WoW doesn't have many features, but what little it does, it does very well.
To give a food analogy, WoW is like the perfect soda cracker. Full featured MMORPGs are like any delicousm, persishable, and exocitc food.
On the housing issue, blizz said they aint not goona put it in, i believe it was in their inital plan for WoW but took it out before Beta/Retail, the giant portal in Stormwind is said to be where player housing will be put and it seems like a logical place. so I think WoW'ers have that to look forward too soon.
As to customisation I think guildwarz style dyes would be great, so atleast 1 hunter in T2 set wont look the same as another, seems like a small addiiton as your only generating new textures and not new models.
[quote]World of Warcraft is available in seven different languages and is played in North America, Europe, mainland China, Korea, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, and the regions of Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau.[/quote]
Yeah right, so WoW is only played in 10 places ?Rofl. You might want to omit that from the article altogether, it just sounds silly since you are talking about a worldwide game (and I know people that play from Israel and other "exotic" places).
And about the subscribers...remember that NA/EU/China is not the whole world. Sure its the big figures. but theres a considerable amount of people playing from the other areas, so..
On a side note, why not use all that gazillion extra money to improve WoW, to add more stuff, to hire more programmers and do some other crazy stuff? If WoW would double its landsize, id probly return to start a new (14th or so) character, but im just too bored doing westfall for the N-th time *sigh* good old times
On a side note, why not use all that gazillion extra money to improve WoW, to add more stuff, to hire more programmers and do some other crazy stuff? If WoW would double its landsize, id probly return to start a new (14th or so) character, but im just too bored doing westfall for the N-th time *sigh* good old times
Why would they? that would only be costing them more money. As long as people aren't paying more, they won't have to deliver more content.
WoW says they have 8 million. Scions of Fate boasts 70 million. I say prove it.
You can't compare those two statements. Blizzard claims they have 8 million subscribers, which roughly means current players. Scions of fata, however, counts 70 million accounts created.
I would love to play WoW but, i suck at communication.
Originally posted by GFulls World of Warcraft passes 8 million player mark worldwide. Read the official press release here. Player population in North America now exceeds 2 million, while Europe and China pass the 1.5 million player and 3.5 million player marks, respectively.
World of Warcraft passes 8 million player mark worldwide. Read the official press release here.
Player population in North America now exceeds 2 million, while Europe and China pass the 1.5 million player and 3.5 million player marks, respectively.
would be nice to see where that 30 million (rounded up) per month from just the Americas goes. probably part of my issue with Blizzard. with the profits they make, i expect this game to have groundbreaking features added constantly. instead i see token additions and an expansion that has taken long enough for them to develop an entirely new game. i guess congratulations are still in order. they've mastered the ultimate form of capitalism: maximum continual profit with minimum maintenance expenditure.
WoW's appeal is based on its bland perfection, not lots of features. Lots of features make the game hard to balance and polish, technically more demanding, both server side and importantly client side, and more difficult to learn. They decided to try to keep the game simple and its worked.
For example, the game doesn't have player housing, not even instanced housing. Personally, I consider that feature essential to being a complete or full MMORPG. But it has drawback, the client has to load those features everytime it passes by or all of your items furniture when you walk in. This is difficult for older / slower systems to do. Just ask anyone that tried to play SWG back in the day with less than a gig of ram. (when a gig was quite a bit).
Another feature I consider necessary to be a true MMORPG is extensive customization. Customization is another area WoW gets an F on. But its intentional. If each human could be a different size shape etc. that's more database information to store and hard for each client to each time you pass a character. If you have a slow as dirt computer your glad old Sticky the Orc is the exact same proportions that every other one them.
WoW doesn't have many features, but what little it does, it does very well.
To give a food analogy, WoW is like the perfect soda cracker. Full featured MMORPGs are like any delicousm, persishable, and exocitc food.
I can't help but agree with your assessment (coffee you had a valid point as well). as i said, it's an issue that I myself have with them. I just feel that what they provide in diverse content isn't directly proportional to community support (read "revenue").
On a side note, why not use all that gazillion extra money to improve WoW, to add more stuff, to hire more programmers and do some other crazy stuff? If WoW would double its landsize, id probly return to start a new (14th or so) character, but im just too bored doing westfall for the N-th time *sigh* good old times
Why would they? that would only be costing them more money. As long as people aren't paying more, they won't have to deliver more content.
You ask why should blizzard use their current success to improve things and develop innovations for the future? I'll tell you why, because despite current success, the game will eventually stagnate and the genre is becoming saturated with clones which are often less expensive, and sometimes better in certain aspects (in order to draw subscriptions away from WoW). In fact eventually there will be so many similar options that ALL games may find it hard to draw subscriptions. THAT is why they should use a little of their WILD success to really develop something innovative. They could CLEARLY run a few servers on the side and experiment with some very interesting concepts (of which there is no short supply in the Dev's Corner threads) and they would have TONS of fans willing to help test these things. The design model seems old to me where a game determines what is successful at the moment, copies it, adds a few new feature, then goes to make it, runs a beta, and then launches. Why not start with some good solid experimentation for minimal cost in light of such success to ensure their continued success in the future. They might hit on something that will REALLY take off.
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.
Lets look at the logic that is inherent behind this statement by wow. "World of Warcraft subscribers include individuals who have paid a subscription fee is an active player". I have never played an mmorpg without having at least 2 accounts and I know players that have 4 and 5 accounts. Not to mention all the chinese farming guilds.
So by their logic when I played wow with 2 accounts, at that time, I defied the laws of logic and became 2 players.
The comparison is that wow and others use false logic to inflate their numbers to make people believe that, "our game is a great becouse all these people are playing it". That was the purpose of the announcement wasn't it? To say look at us, we are great, becouse we have 8 million. But in reality what makes a game great depends on the individual players personal taste's.
Wake up brother stop letting these people tell you how to think.
*sigh* that counts for every mmorpg. fact remains that WOW has more subscribers then other MMORPG's by a longshot. I also seriously doubt a lot of people have 2 accounts in WoW, considering that its not even required, and often doesn't even benefit all that much, if any.
On a side note, why not use all that gazillion extra money to improve WoW, to add more stuff, to hire more programmers and do some other crazy stuff? If WoW would double its landsize, id probly return to start a new (14th or so) character, but im just too bored doing westfall for the N-th time *sigh* good old times
Why would they? that would only be costing them more money. As long as people aren't paying more, they won't have to deliver more content.
You ask why should blizzard use their current success to improve things and develop innovations for the future? I'll tell you why, because despite current success, the game will eventually stagnate and the genre is becoming saturated with clones which are often less expensive, and sometimes better in certain aspects (in order to draw subscriptions away from WoW). In fact eventually there will be so many similar options that ALL games may find it hard to draw subscriptions. THAT is why they should use a little of their WILD success to really develop something innovative. They could CLEARLY run a few servers on the side and experiment with some very interesting concepts (of which there is no short supply in the Dev's Corner threads) and they would have TONS of fans willing to help test these things. The design model seems old to me where a game determines what is successful at the moment, copies it, adds a few new feature, then goes to make it, runs a beta, and then launches. Why not start with some good solid experimentation for minimal cost in light of such success to ensure their continued success in the future. They might hit on something that will REALLY take off. Thats not a good reason at all. Why would Blizzard care if they push the mmorpg genre forward or not? Blizzard is not here to make us happy, Blizzard is here to make MONEY. this is Bussiness, not charity. Why would they even bother spen recourses to improve it? they already got their playerbase and money.
In the end, support/acceptance by the masses does not necessarily make something a good thing. I'm sure Cocaine can boast more users than WoW, still doesn't make it a good thing. In that case, it's actually bad for the user, but they do it anyhow....such is my opinion of WoW. I guess the analogy could continue, it's cool because everyone is doing it, etc etc. I'll leave it to your imagination.
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. Lets look at the logic that is inherent behind this statement by wow. "World of Warcraft subscribers include individuals who have paid a subscription fee is an active player". I have never played an mmorpg without having at least 2 accounts and I know players that have 4 and 5 accounts. Not to mention all the chinese farming guilds. So by their logic when I played wow with 2 accounts, at that time, I defied the laws of logic and became 2 players. The comparison is that wow and others use false logic to inflate their numbers to make people believe that, "our game is a great becouse all these people are playing it". That was the purpose of the announcement wasn't it? To say look at us, we are great, becouse we have 8 million. But in reality what makes a game great depends on the individual players personal taste's. Wake up brother stop letting these people tell you how to think.
So you buy 2 accounts and pay 2 subs each month, how does blizz know your the same person? they could see your using the same CC details but again it could be 2 people in the same house using the same billing info, such as 2 brothers who want to play together at the same time, therefore 2 paying accounts and 2 different individuals.
They do not count the amount of character per account, for example I have a hunter, mage and a druid on my single account, they wont count me 3 times becuase they count ACCOUNTs not characters.
Nice cross referencing Faefrost, and thanks, I hadn't seen the "official" count from Blizzard.
It's VERY cool to see game studios release active subsriber numbers. Not many do it and more are overly secretive about the numbers out of fear that someone might want to abstain from playing a game that appears to be low in subscribers.
Other then Blizzard's reporting for WoW, CCP also releases detailed info on subscribers for EVE Online; 160k-ish is a drop in the bucket compared to WoW!
Originally posted by faefrost
Originally posted by mindspat
But who's kidding, good job Blizzard!
Blizzard is the only MMORPG company that actually the gives the formula of how they count. Here it is, it was buried deep in todays release article;
World of Warcraft's Subscriber Definition
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.
That seems to be pretty clear what they count. Active accounts paid for within 30 days, new retail accounts still within their first thirty days, and pay as you go internet cafe accounts that have been logged in/used within the past thirty days. They do not count expired cancelled or banned accounts. They do not count inactive internet cafe accounts, they do not count free trial accounts. Overall it looks like a pretty good formula to get a reflection of the active playerbase.
Sadly although Mike is heading up a genre-leading MMO development organisation, the economics of the game aren't reaping in $1.2bn of revenue because first and foremost Blizzard are a gaming organisation and have made some weak but understandable business decisions in rolling out Warcraft across the planet.
Firstly Gratz on the subscriber/player base, as soon as MMO's actually get some agreement on how to measure this stat the more comparable the games will be, but I doubt anyone would disagree that the game is massive, any other MMO's got a Southpark seies or Mentions in 'Stargate' (makes you wonder if the MMO for stargate will let ou play WoW on a terminal in game ;-P)
Now the Economics. Sadly for Blizzard and ultimately Vivendi the game is not sold/managed direct in either Taiwan or China and both those regions are losing a vast amout of money. Now the interesting part of that is any other business model and you would shut down the operation if no remedy is optionable... in this case that would mean kulling half of the WoW account base, ethically Mike can't do this .. its his family.
So that leaves USA and Europe with the income stream... so 3m -ish... so still $600m income. Now from that they have to fund the losses in Taiwan and China so lose $100m giving you an income of $500m to play with. Now BLizzard is part of Vivendi and the Games Division that Blizzard is in only made $53m earnings last year. So unless the rest of Vivendi Games is losing VAST amounts of money (doubtful following recent restructures) Blizzard are spending most of their income already...now that is worrying...
So where are they spending it? Well despite the subscriber/player frustration the "glacial-speed" development team does exist and regularly kicks out patches although anyone playing the game last week with UI issues will have been delighted to see that to rectify the latest issue you have to edit the WTF file yourself (now that really is pushing it a bit far - Blizzard?). Plus there is management, well since they have been attempting to recruit a European Managing Director for 12 months now, we can assume that Managent is lean. So that leaves Technical and Support. This is where Blizzard is weakest. The sheer scale of the problem they face means they are very poorly equipped to handle the issues they are facing, technically the infrastructure is struggling and the support organisation simply can't cope with the incoming attention from the player/subscribers. This means money being wasted on fire-fighting and tactical problems...
Where does that leave the game? Well still close to no1 but precariously placed as the management looks to new markets to bring in stable and profitable business while migrating the current infrastructure and support model to one better suited to a World Class business rather than garage/basement games shop. Plus Blizzard know that being a 1game model will not work, expect new releases this year of some familiar names...(ah so that's what the development team are doing)
Good Luck with that.
The lesson here for aspiring games is success comes at a price, without strong business leadership (Paul Sams does a great job for Blizzard but he is the lone business voice there), and a SCALABLE platform the business model will fail in time.
Blizzard Entertainment, Inc is a privately owned subsidiary of Vivendi Games. Now, while that means that Blizzard does not have stock for sale, and doesn't have to report the same financial data as publically traded companies, Vivendi (their parent company) DOES make SEC filings every quarter. SEC filings are a matter of public record.
According to the EX-99.1 filing made by Vivendi on 09/12/06 (unfortunately, this is the most recent that's published), during the first half of 2006 Vivendi Games had a TOTAL revenue of 296 Euros. (http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1127055/000095012306011468/y24905bexv99w1.htm). Remember, this is revenue, not profit. This is how much total money they took in. And not just for World of Warcraft, not just from Blizzard, but from every IP they have out there on the market. This includes box sales, subscriptions, etc. In July 2006, the exchange rate was roughly $US 1.28 per 1 Euro (http://finance.yahoo.com/currency/convert?amt=1&from=EUR&to=USD&submit=Convert). That means a total revenue of $US 378.9 million. That's a lot of money.
What would revenue from 5.5 million WoW subscribers be? Well, at an average of $15 per account (China pays on an hourly scale, but when calculated per month, they would actually pay less, while europe pays a bit more), that would be $US 82.5 million monthly, for 5.5 million players.
Considering the growth of WoW's "player base", an additional 210,000 units were sold each month, at an average retail price of $US20. That's a total of $US 4.2 million monthly in revenue just from sales. Then, factoring in the subscriptions for those units, that would be an additional $US 3.15 million, however, this amount would be delayed by one month, due the free month of play given with each retail box. So, every month (excluding January), the revenue totals from World of Warcraft would increase by $US 7.35 million.
Jan - $US 82.5 million
Feb - $US 89.85 million
Mar - $US 97.2 million
Apr - $US 104.55 million
May - $US 111.9 million
Jun - $US 119.25 million
That's the monthly revenue, per month, that World of Warcraft would have generated. For the six months ending June 30, 2006 that's a grand total of $US 605.25 million.
Let's refer back to Vivendi's SEC filing for the six month period ending June 30, 2006. (http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1127055/000095012306011468/0000950123-06-011468-index.htm). According to Vivendi, the total revenue for Vivendi Games during that period was only $US 378.9 million. Far short of the $US 605.25 that WoW alone should have generated, if Blizzard's numbers were true.
Refering back to Blizzard's definition of "players": The above definition excludes all players under free promotional subscriptions, expired or cancelled subscriptions, and expired prepaid cards. Blizzard claims that the "over 8 million players" are active accounts.
Let's also not forget that World of Warcraft is not the only game that would be included in Vivendi's revenue. Clearly, only one of two possible explanations can be true. Either Vivendi files false financial statements with the SEC (which is highly unlikely due to the possible repercussions) or Blizzard's definition of "player" clearly does not reflect ACTIVE ACCOUNTS.
The conclusion is easy. Blizzard lies in order to sell more product.
*disclaimer. I am not a supporter of any particular game, or any specific company. I merely support the truth and exposing those that lie and cheat their way to success.
Comments
WoW's appeal is based on its bland perfection, not lots of features. Lots of features make the game hard to balance and polish, technically more demanding, both server side and importantly client side, and more difficult to learn. They decided to try to keep the game simple and its worked.
For example, the game doesn't have player housing, not even instanced housing. Personally, I consider that feature essential to being a complete or full MMORPG. But it has drawback, the client has to load those features everytime it passes by or all of your items furniture when you walk in. This is difficult for older / slower systems to do. Just ask anyone that tried to play SWG back in the day with less than a gig of ram. (when a gig was quite a bit).
Another feature I consider necessary to be a true MMORPG is extensive customization. Customization is another area WoW gets an F on. But its intentional. If each human could be a different size shape etc. that's more database information to store and hard for each client to each time you pass a character. If you have a slow as dirt computer your glad old Sticky the Orc is the exact same proportions that every other one them.
WoW doesn't have many features, but what little it does, it does very well.
To give a food analogy, WoW is like the perfect soda cracker. Full featured MMORPGs are like any delicousm, persishable, and exocitc food.
On the housing issue, blizz said they aint not goona put it in, i believe it was in their inital plan for WoW but took it out before Beta/Retail, the giant portal in Stormwind is said to be where player housing will be put and it seems like a logical place. so I think WoW'ers have that to look forward too soon.
As to customisation I think guildwarz style dyes would be great, so atleast 1 hunter in T2 set wont look the same as another, seems like a small addiiton as your only generating new textures and not new models.
[quote]World of Warcraft is available in seven different languages and is played in North America, Europe, mainland China, Korea, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, and the regions of Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau.[/quote]
Yeah right, so WoW is only played in 10 places ?Rofl. You might want to omit that from the article altogether, it just sounds silly since you are talking about a worldwide game (and I know people that play from Israel and other "exotic" places).
And about the subscribers...remember that NA/EU/China is not the whole world. Sure its the big figures. but theres a considerable amount of people playing from the other areas, so..
When reached for comment, a Blizzard spokesperson was quoted as saying "orly???? I drivve a mercedes LAWLZ!!1"
[Here's a list of all the games I've played and/or my computer specs to show how much more seasoned or technologically advanced I am than you.]
On a side note, why not use all that gazillion extra money to improve WoW, to add more stuff, to hire more programmers and do some other crazy stuff? If WoW would double its landsize, id probly return to start a new (14th or so) character, but im just too bored doing westfall for the N-th time *sigh* good old times
I am the type of player where I like to do everything and anything from time to time.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holodomor - pre-WW2 genocide.
I would love to play WoW but, i suck at communication.
ok , i think there is something roung here , or is it just me ?
2 + 1.5 + 3.5 = 7
where is the other million ? i read the first post 2 times already , i cant find it
Guild - http://lightness.goodforum.net/
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Read more about World of Warcraft here.
ok , i think there is something roung here , or is it just me ?
2 + 1.5 + 3.5 = 7
where is the other million ? i read the first post 2 times already , i cant find it
hahahaha. I think the other million is in various other countries. Between aus and the other countrys combined = 1milWoW's appeal is based on its bland perfection, not lots of features. Lots of features make the game hard to balance and polish, technically more demanding, both server side and importantly client side, and more difficult to learn. They decided to try to keep the game simple and its worked.
For example, the game doesn't have player housing, not even instanced housing. Personally, I consider that feature essential to being a complete or full MMORPG. But it has drawback, the client has to load those features everytime it passes by or all of your items furniture when you walk in. This is difficult for older / slower systems to do. Just ask anyone that tried to play SWG back in the day with less than a gig of ram. (when a gig was quite a bit).
Another feature I consider necessary to be a true MMORPG is extensive customization. Customization is another area WoW gets an F on. But its intentional. If each human could be a different size shape etc. that's more database information to store and hard for each client to each time you pass a character. If you have a slow as dirt computer your glad old Sticky the Orc is the exact same proportions that every other one them.
WoW doesn't have many features, but what little it does, it does very well.
To give a food analogy, WoW is like the perfect soda cracker. Full featured MMORPGs are like any delicousm, persishable, and exocitc food.
I can't help but agree with your assessment (coffee you had a valid point as well). as i said, it's an issue that I myself have with them. I just feel that what they provide in diverse content isn't directly proportional to community support (read "revenue").
You ask why should blizzard use their current success to improve things and develop innovations for the future? I'll tell you why, because despite current success, the game will eventually stagnate and the genre is becoming saturated with clones which are often less expensive, and sometimes better in certain aspects (in order to draw subscriptions away from WoW). In fact eventually there will be so many similar options that ALL games may find it hard to draw subscriptions. THAT is why they should use a little of their WILD success to really develop something innovative. They could CLEARLY run a few servers on the side and experiment with some very interesting concepts (of which there is no short supply in the Dev's Corner threads) and they would have TONS of fans willing to help test these things. The design model seems old to me where a game determines what is successful at the moment, copies it, adds a few new feature, then goes to make it, runs a beta, and then launches. Why not start with some good solid experimentation for minimal cost in light of such success to ensure their continued success in the future. They might hit on something that will REALLY take off.
IronOre - Forging the Future
World of Warcraft's Subscriber Definition
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.
Lets look at the logic that is inherent behind this statement by wow. "World of Warcraft subscribers include individuals who have paid a subscription fee is an active player". I have never played an mmorpg without having at least 2 accounts and I know players that have 4 and 5 accounts. Not to mention all the chinese farming guilds.
So by their logic when I played wow with 2 accounts, at that time, I defied the laws of logic and became 2 players.
The comparison is that wow and others use false logic to inflate their numbers to make people believe that, "our game is a great becouse all these people are playing it". That was the purpose of the announcement wasn't it? To say look at us, we are great, becouse we have 8 million. But in reality what makes a game great depends on the individual players personal taste's.
Wake up brother stop letting these people tell you how to think.
You ask why should blizzard use their current success to improve things and develop innovations for the future? I'll tell you why, because despite current success, the game will eventually stagnate and the genre is becoming saturated with clones which are often less expensive, and sometimes better in certain aspects (in order to draw subscriptions away from WoW). In fact eventually there will be so many similar options that ALL games may find it hard to draw subscriptions. THAT is why they should use a little of their WILD success to really develop something innovative. They could CLEARLY run a few servers on the side and experiment with some very interesting concepts (of which there is no short supply in the Dev's Corner threads) and they would have TONS of fans willing to help test these things. The design model seems old to me where a game determines what is successful at the moment, copies it, adds a few new feature, then goes to make it, runs a beta, and then launches. Why not start with some good solid experimentation for minimal cost in light of such success to ensure their continued success in the future. They might hit on something that will REALLY take off. Thats not a good reason at all. Why would Blizzard care if they push the mmorpg genre forward or not? Blizzard is not here to make us happy, Blizzard is here to make MONEY. this is Bussiness, not charity. Why would they even bother spen recourses to improve it? they already got their playerbase and money.
IronOre - Forging the Future
They do not count the amount of character per account, for example I have a hunter, mage and a druid on my single account, they wont count me 3 times becuase they count ACCOUNTs not characters.
World of Warcraft's Subscriber Definition
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.
That seems to be pretty clear what they count. Active accounts paid for within 30 days, new retail accounts still within their first thirty days, and pay as you go internet cafe accounts that have been logged in/used within the past thirty days. They do not count expired cancelled or banned accounts. They do not count inactive internet cafe accounts, they do not count free trial accounts. Overall it looks like a pretty good formula to get a reflection of the active playerbase.
The Economics of World of Warcraft.
Sadly although Mike is heading up a genre-leading MMO development organisation, the economics of the game aren't reaping in $1.2bn of revenue because first and foremost Blizzard are a gaming organisation and have made some weak but understandable business decisions in rolling out Warcraft across the planet.
Firstly Gratz on the subscriber/player base, as soon as MMO's actually get some agreement on how to measure this stat the more comparable the games will be, but I doubt anyone would disagree that the game is massive, any other MMO's got a Southpark seies or Mentions in 'Stargate' (makes you wonder if the MMO for stargate will let ou play WoW on a terminal in game ;-P)
Now the Economics.
Sadly for Blizzard and ultimately Vivendi the game is not sold/managed direct in either Taiwan or China and both those regions are losing a vast amout of money. Now the interesting part of that is any other business model and you would shut down the operation if no remedy is optionable... in this case that would mean kulling half of the WoW account base, ethically Mike can't do this .. its his family.
So that leaves USA and Europe with the income stream... so 3m -ish... so still $600m income. Now from that they have to fund the losses in Taiwan and China so lose $100m giving you an income of $500m to play with. Now BLizzard is part of Vivendi and the Games Division that Blizzard is in only made $53m earnings last year. So unless the rest of Vivendi Games is losing VAST amounts of money (doubtful following recent restructures) Blizzard are spending most of their income already...now that is worrying...
So where are they spending it?
Well despite the subscriber/player frustration the "glacial-speed" development team does exist and regularly kicks out patches although anyone playing the game last week with UI issues will have been delighted to see that to rectify the latest issue you have to edit the WTF file yourself (now that really is pushing it a bit far - Blizzard?). Plus there is management, well since they have been attempting to recruit a European Managing Director for 12 months now, we can assume that Managent is lean. So that leaves Technical and Support. This is where Blizzard is weakest. The sheer scale of the problem they face means they are very poorly equipped to handle the issues they are facing, technically the infrastructure is struggling and the support organisation simply can't cope with the incoming attention from the player/subscribers. This means money being wasted on fire-fighting and tactical problems...
Where does that leave the game? Well still close to no1 but precariously placed as the management looks to new markets to bring in stable and profitable business while migrating the current infrastructure and support model to one better suited to a World Class business rather than garage/basement games shop. Plus Blizzard know that being a 1game model will not work, expect new releases this year of some familiar names...(ah so that's what the development team are doing)
Good Luck with that.
The lesson here for aspiring games is success comes at a price, without strong business leadership (Paul Sams does a great job for Blizzard but he is the lone business voice there), and a SCALABLE platform the business model will fail in time.
Blizzard claimed at the beginning of 2006 to have over 5.5 million "customers". (http://www.blizzard.com/press/060119.shtml). As of May 10, 2006, they claimed 6.5 million (http://www.blizzard.com/press/). On November 9, 2006 they were boasting over 7.5 million (http://www.blizzard.com/press/061109.shtml). Now, at the beginning of 2007, they claim over 8 million. That is a fairly constant gain of roughly 210,000 "players" per month.
Blizzard Entertainment, Inc is a privately owned subsidiary of Vivendi Games. Now, while that means that Blizzard does not have stock for sale, and doesn't have to report the same financial data as publically traded companies, Vivendi (their parent company) DOES make SEC filings every quarter. SEC filings are a matter of public record.
According to the EX-99.1 filing made by Vivendi on 09/12/06 (unfortunately, this is the most recent that's published), during the first half of 2006 Vivendi Games had a TOTAL revenue of 296 Euros. (http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1127055/000095012306011468/y24905bexv99w1.htm). Remember, this is revenue, not profit. This is how much total money they took in. And not just for World of Warcraft, not just from Blizzard, but from every IP they have out there on the market. This includes box sales, subscriptions, etc. In July 2006, the exchange rate was roughly $US 1.28 per 1 Euro (http://finance.yahoo.com/currency/convert?amt=1&from=EUR&to=USD&submit=Convert). That means a total revenue of $US 378.9 million. That's a lot of money.
What would revenue from 5.5 million WoW subscribers be? Well, at an average of $15 per account (China pays on an hourly scale, but when calculated per month, they would actually pay less, while europe pays a bit more), that would be $US 82.5 million monthly, for 5.5 million players.
Considering the growth of WoW's "player base", an additional 210,000 units were sold each month, at an average retail price of $US20. That's a total of $US 4.2 million monthly in revenue just from sales. Then, factoring in the subscriptions for those units, that would be an additional $US 3.15 million, however, this amount would be delayed by one month, due the free month of play given with each retail box. So, every month (excluding January), the revenue totals from World of Warcraft would increase by $US 7.35 million.
Jan - $US 82.5 million
Feb - $US 89.85 million
Mar - $US 97.2 million
Apr - $US 104.55 million
May - $US 111.9 million
Jun - $US 119.25 million
That's the monthly revenue, per month, that World of Warcraft would have generated. For the six months ending June 30, 2006 that's a grand total of $US 605.25 million.
Let's refer back to Vivendi's SEC filing for the six month period ending June 30, 2006. (http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1127055/000095012306011468/0000950123-06-011468-index.htm). According to Vivendi, the total revenue for Vivendi Games during that period was only $US 378.9 million. Far short of the $US 605.25 that WoW alone should have generated, if Blizzard's numbers were true.
Refering back to Blizzard's definition of "players": The above definition excludes all players under free promotional subscriptions, expired or cancelled subscriptions, and expired prepaid cards. Blizzard claims that the "over 8 million players" are active accounts.
Let's also not forget that World of Warcraft is not the only game that would be included in Vivendi's revenue. Clearly, only one of two possible explanations can be true. Either Vivendi files false financial statements with the SEC (which is highly unlikely due to the possible repercussions) or Blizzard's definition of "player" clearly does not reflect ACTIVE ACCOUNTS.
The conclusion is easy. Blizzard lies in order to sell more product.
*disclaimer. I am not a supporter of any particular game, or any specific company. I merely support the truth and exposing those that lie and cheat their way to success.