TBC expansion was only released to US+EU players back in january.. it sold a total of 3.5 million copies in 1 month, that supports blizzard previous claim of 3.5million active EU+US subs.
TBC was not released to the 5million chinese players untill last week and at which point "THE9" the company licensed to run WOW in china decided after buying TBC licence from Blizzard to give it to players for free.. blizzard had no part it being free in china... and dont forget they had to wait 8 months for the expansion.
TBC expansion was only released to US+EU players back in january.. it sold a total of 3.5 million copies in 1 month, that supports blizzard previous claim of 3.5million active EU+US subs. Mension of EU+US subs http://www.blizzard.com/press/070111.shtml TBC sales figures http://www.blizzard.com/press/070307.shtml TBC was not released to the 5million chinese players untill last week and at which point "THE9" the company licensed to run WOW in china decided after buying TBC licence from Blizzard to give it to players for free.. blizzard had no part it being free in china... and dont forget they had to wait 8 months for the expansion.
yeah right!!!! that's why people on forums asking for server merges since they can't find people to group in that 9 millions
C'mon people, at least if you're gonna bash have some intelligence about it and learn to read.
WoW/Blizzard is not having any issues yet with population - except for some PvP servers.
Finances reported and subscribers are NOT inflated. They are reported as legally required for a publicly traded company (Vivendi as owner of Blizzard).
"Vivendi Games' revenues of EUR 500 million were 68.9% higher than the same period last year (up 80.4% on a constant currency basis).
This strong increase is driven by the continued momentum of World of Warcraft in all markets, following the very successful first quarter of 2007 release of World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade, Blizzard Entertainment's first expansion pack for its subscription-based, massively multiplayer online role-playing game World of Warcraft. As of June 30, 2007, World of Warcraft's user base reached 9 million worldwide. Within one month following its mid-January release, Blizzard Entertainment®'s Burning Crusade(TM) expansion sold approximately 3.5 million copies in regions connecting to North American and European realms - a new one-month PC-game sales record. The expansion launched in Korea and the regions of Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau in subsequent months, and preparations are now underway for release in China."
and more recently for whole of 2007:
"The games division is now expected to show 2007 EBITA growth of at least 50 percent.
The previous forecast was that EBITA growth for the games division would outpace that of sales in 2007, which Vivendi still expects to be of at least 20 percent."
Originally posted by rataria they never sold 9 millions, they sold that 2.4 millions, and for china they gave it for free.
Give the man a cookie!
TBC was also handed out for free to chinese subscribers while we had to pay for it. Why...Blizzard realise they don't have as big a slice of the chinese market as what is actually available.
Incorrect. The Burning Crusade was given to the chinese players for free because The9 delayed The Burning Crusade in favor of Webzen's Soul of the Ultimate Nation. This angered many WoW players.
The majority of WoW's subs come from China. And when you stop and think that one of China's internet services has over 19 million active subscribers WoW holding 6 odd million may be massive by western standards but within it's own borders it's not that big a deal.
Incorrect. 20 million active subscribers is rare and only if the MMO is seriously priced under the market standard, in fact, I don't recall any MMO having 20 million active subscribers at this moment. All those wild numbers about millions subscribers you hear often are actually accounts created, not active subscribers.
If you also take into account gold farming in wow China isn't policed anywhere near it is on western servers that again adds a huge number to the sub base. Then we also have the fact many chinese players run two accounts for more playtime the whole thing starts to come into focus.
WoW gold farming in China is a lot less than in the western MMORPG market. the reason those gold farmers farm over here is because US/EU WoW players have more money to spend, so they can charge more money.
And the final lol at WoW. One of Blizzards primary competitors recently acquired 20% share of the company responsible for WoW in China. EA is now taking a nifty 20% of WoW's profits back into competitive games in the western market.
If Blizzard was doing as well as they'd like to say they are why wouldn't they give us the real figures and break them down into US, Euro and Chinese. Bliz are simply trying to 'intimidate' their competitors who are yet to try chinese releases, give the fanbois a nice fat round number to toss out and make those who don't understand anything about mmo's a "oh golly gosh...Warcraft has 9 million players...it must be good..."
is now played by more than 8 million gamers around the world. World of Warcraft has also achieved new regional subscriber milestones, with more than 2 million players in North America, more than 1.5 million players in Europe, and more than 3.5 million players in China."
Personally I know more people who are leaving WoW then those buying a new copy or activating old accounts. Amongst my group of friends at least WoW is down and out. Currently betas and EVE are where people are headed with many waiting for Tabula Rasa or Warhammer Age of Reckoning.
Finances reported and subscribers are NOT inflated. They are reported as legally required for a publicly traded company (Vivendi as owner of Blizzard). Don't believe me, check their finances http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/070725/20070725005884.html?.v=1 "Vivendi Games' revenues of EUR 500 million were 68.9% higher than the same period last year (up 80.4% on a constant currency basis).
WoW makes up about half of VU games earnings probabaly less in the Q1 report because this includes the Xmas season which accounts for nearly half of all VU games revenue. Overall WoW only about 1% of Vivendi’s overall earnings. I.E. it doesn’t have much impact on overall performance.
TBC expansion was only released to US+EU players back in january.. it sold a total of 3.5 million copies in 1 month, that supports blizzard previous claim of 3.5million active EU+US subs. Mension of EU+US subs http://www.blizzard.com/press/070111.shtml TBC sales figures http://www.blizzard.com/press/070307.shtml TBC was not released to the 5million chinese players untill last week and at which point "THE9" the company licensed to run WOW in china decided after buying TBC licence from Blizzard to give it to players for free.. blizzard had no part it being free in china... and dont forget they had to wait 8 months for the expansion.
yeah right!!!! that's why people on forums asking for server merges since they can't find people to group in that 9 millions
I think the population is starting to slip on US servers, but still is growing on Euro servers and in China. Can't prove it of course, just my observation based on patterns taking shape in various forums.
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
I'm not exactly sure what or how it count's, but it counts ingame population reports sent by Census addon. And according to it, player activity in both US and EU is decreasing. However, the player activity is still higher than what it was before the release of BC, and as we don't know how much new player Wrath of the Lich King will bring next year, it's too early to say anything definitive about if WoW population is just decreasing for a short time between the expansion releases, or starting some longer decrease.
Still, I'd say that we can except some server merges as next expansion will increase playable area.
There's no doom coming... sure, with 430+ server some are bound to get a bit more populated than others. How to fix the low population ones remains a challenge for any game..... I thought it was interesting though.... they said that the PVP servers are the ones more likely suffereing population issues..... there's some meaning in that fact...but can't say if this means people are rejecting PVP or just rejecting PVP as implemented by Blizzard.
Id have to go with the later of the two reasons you gave and only because thats pretty much why I left. It wasn't the raiding or the content I didn't like and I have stated before that I don't think WoW is a bad game in general but that the pvp is in no way rewarding or risky. Reward vs risk is the only factor in my opinion that makes pvp worth playing. Yeh great all other pvp setups may be fun (for a while) but in the long run they will get boring. If I know I will respawn in 2 mins whats the point of caring about living or dieing. Though Blizzard was not the first to implement this system I have gotten extreemly bord of it and will not play any game that dosent requier the help of mates to get me back in the fight otherwise whats the point of the fight noone really wins.
A BATTLE IS WON BY THE OTHER SIDE NOT BEING ABLE TO FIGHT ANYMORE.
In medieval times do you think the castle defenders just got ressed up and ran back to the fight!! hell no!! they where freaking dead.
Now dont get me wrong im not saying that ressing should be eliminated but It ceertainly should only be done by friends guildmates alliance or yeh maybee a healer that I have to look for like in UO. But Insta spawn in 2 min WTF is that. anywho I got to get to the train station and ranted a bit more then was gonna originaly so gtg.
"The most important thing is to have the design support the players in setting their own goals in both cooperative and competitive interaction with one another." - Ironore -
TBC expansion was only released to US+EU players back in january.. it sold a total of 3.5 million copies in 1 month, that supports blizzard previous claim of 3.5million active EU+US subs. Mension of EU+US subs http://www.blizzard.com/press/070111.shtml TBC sales figures http://www.blizzard.com/press/070307.shtml TBC was not released to the 5million chinese players untill last week and at which point "THE9" the company licensed to run WOW in china decided after buying TBC licence from Blizzard to give it to players for free.. blizzard had no part it being free in china... and dont forget they had to wait 8 months for the expansion.
they claim doesn't mean its the truth, for me is just marketing. look at official forums, there is alot of people complaining at empty servers.
Number of subs is growing, not game population. Don't mix those 2. And if they have low population servers it just means the population is dropping. Blizzard is heavily manipulating numbers here... 9 million games sold... but how many don't play it any more?
lol don't say that to cupertino he is a big blizzard fanboi he gonna quote the blizzard disclaimer for ya
Its 9million active subs... 9million pay some kind of fee every month to play WoW.. its not 9 million units sold.
I am a fanboi, but I dont make up stuff, I always support my points with links and evidence, unlike your typical fanboi.
And I will quote the disclaimer which I think MMORPG should send to all registered memebers as there are still guys on here that think blizzard make up the numbers and/or its account ever made and/or units sold etc.
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.
ok this entire discussion thread is some rather funny ...crap.
WoW is an MMORPG which all move along the same track from Startup to the Grave. With that many more subscribers the loss of numbers as the WoW moves from Maturity to Decline stage will be that much more noticeable.
It is interesting. And not for the reasons most people think. First if you look at the wowcensus site, order the servers by age. The RP servers have more pop than the PVP servers. Demographics on the RP servers are typically older age, 40% female (yes, indeed), more "mature" gamers. What you're seeing is a migration AWAY from PvP servers (younger, more male) to more RP servers (older, more female). Want proof? Look at the facesofwow site, compare RP servers to PvP servers. Of the various IRL people I have gamed with for many years, all the couples and females play on RP servers (50% of my guild is couples) and the 2 single younger males both play on PvP servers. There have been numerous studies lately that have shown that many of the myths of the "typical" gamer are quite incorrect. Just one of many such study: Canadian numbers : http://www.theesa.ca/facts-essential.html
Just because ppl you know are couples and older ppl playing on RP servers... that doesnt mean there's a general shift from PvP servers to RP servers
I'm looking at the euro server list right now, and I count something like 130 PvP server, 2 of these are locked (due to extremely heavy pop), 14 are 'full' and another 14 are 'high' pop. The rest are medium pop servers except a handful of low pop servers.
So how many RP servers then? 10. lol that's right, 10. What a shift indeed. 1 of those is 'full'.
My own personal opinion for the decrease in population on the servers is not due to fewer subscribers, but rather less hours spent per day by those subscribers. I still have my account and I still pay Blizzard every month. However at one time I used to log in for maybe 4 to 6 hours a day on average. Now I usually log in maybe 4 to 6 hours a week and I expect there are a lot of others who do not play as much as they used to either. That would tend to make the server population look lower because fewer people are logged in at any one time.
But that does not necessarily mean that WoW is dieing. A lot of people may just be playing less and waiting for the next content patch or the next expansion or whatever. Personally I've just found other things to occupy my time. I've been playing for 2 and half years. I have 5 level 60 and above characters. I've reached a point where I no longer wish to put 4 to 6 hours a day into the game, I just log in every once in a while. But once the next expansion hits the shelves, I'll probably pick up a copy and be back to playing my usual hours...until that starts to get old too.
i actually dont see why this is such a bad idea. this could bring back dead servers. and of course with new expansion thats comin out a whole flood of people are going to come rushing back to try it.
My own personal opinion for the decrease in population on the servers is not due to fewer subscribers, but rather less hours spent per day by those subscribers. I still have my account and I still pay Blizzard every month. However at one time I used to log in for maybe 4 to 6 hours a day on average. Now I usually log in maybe 4 to 6 hours a week and I expect there are a lot of others who do not play as much as they used to either. That would tend to make the server population look lower because fewer people are logged in at any one time. But that does not necessarily mean that WoW is dieing. A lot of people may just be playing less and waiting for the next content patch or the next expansion or whatever. Personally I've just found other things to occupy my time. I've been playing for 2 and half years. I have 5 level 60 and above characters. I've reached a point where I no longer wish to put 4 to 6 hours a day into the game, I just log in every once in a while. But once the next expansion hits the shelves, I'll probably pick up a copy and be back to playing my usual hours...until that starts to get old too.
I agree with you. Most people I know are still playing, just a lot less. These people will play more when some new content is released.
"Those who dislike things based only on the fact that they are popular are just as shallow and superficial as those who only like them for the same reason."
Frankly some of these server were crying for server merges well before TBC was released, like 10 months before. It always puzzled me why Blizz did nothing for them and was still opening new servers.
There is some server hopping phenomenon I don't quite get that goes on in WoW.
it has nothing to do with population, it has to do with popularity, a perfect example is a server such as ursin, its been around for a very long time but people just dont roll there due to the low population and the people already on there xfer off causing the population to go even lower, therefore making all the low pop servers less populated and the high pop servers even more populated causing queue times
Comments
This things happen. I mean everything withers right? Good riddance to WoW, it's about time.
TBC expansion was only released to US+EU players back in january.. it sold a total of 3.5 million copies in 1 month, that supports blizzard previous claim of 3.5million active EU+US subs.
Mension of EU+US subs http://www.blizzard.com/press/070111.shtml
TBC sales figures http://www.blizzard.com/press/070307.shtml
TBC was not released to the 5million chinese players untill last week and at which point "THE9" the company licensed to run WOW in china decided after buying TBC licence from Blizzard to give it to players for free.. blizzard had no part it being free in china... and dont forget they had to wait 8 months for the expansion.
yeah right!!!! that's why people on forums asking for server merges since they can't find people to group in that 9 millions
C'mon people, at least if you're gonna bash have some intelligence about it and learn to read.
WoW/Blizzard is not having any issues yet with population - except for some PvP servers.
Finances reported and subscribers are NOT inflated. They are reported as legally required for a publicly traded company (Vivendi as owner of Blizzard).
Don't believe me, check their finances http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/070725/20070725005884.html?.v=1
"Vivendi Games' revenues of EUR 500 million were 68.9% higher than the same period last year (up 80.4% on a constant currency basis).
This strong increase is driven by the continued momentum of World of Warcraft in all markets, following the very successful first quarter of 2007 release of World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade, Blizzard Entertainment's first expansion pack for its subscription-based, massively multiplayer online role-playing game World of Warcraft. As of June 30, 2007, World of Warcraft's user base reached 9 million worldwide. Within one month following its mid-January release, Blizzard Entertainment®'s Burning Crusade(TM) expansion sold approximately 3.5 million copies in regions connecting to North American and European realms - a new one-month PC-game sales record. The expansion launched in Korea and the regions of Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau in subsequent months, and preparations are now underway for release in China."
and more recently for whole of 2007:
"The games division is now expected to show 2007 EBITA growth of at least 50 percent.
The previous forecast was that EBITA growth for the games division would outpace that of sales in 2007, which Vivendi still expects to be of at least 20 percent."
http://www.reuters.com/article/marketsNews/idUKPAC00858220070831?rpc=44
Give the man a cookie!
TBC was also handed out for free to chinese subscribers while we had to pay for it. Why...Blizzard realise they don't have as big a slice of the chinese market as what is actually available.
Incorrect. The Burning Crusade was given to the chinese players for free because The9 delayed The Burning Crusade in favor of Webzen's Soul of the Ultimate Nation. This angered many WoW players.
The majority of WoW's subs come from China. And when you stop and think that one of China's internet services has over 19 million active subscribers WoW holding 6 odd million may be massive by western standards but within it's own borders it's not that big a deal.
Incorrect. 20 million active subscribers is rare and only if the MMO is seriously priced under the market standard, in fact, I don't recall any MMO having 20 million active subscribers at this moment. All those wild numbers about millions subscribers you hear often are actually accounts created, not active subscribers.
If you also take into account gold farming in wow China isn't policed anywhere near it is on western servers that again adds a huge number to the sub base. Then we also have the fact many chinese players run two accounts for more playtime the whole thing starts to come into focus.
WoW gold farming in China is a lot less than in the western MMORPG market. the reason those gold farmers farm over here is because US/EU WoW players have more money to spend, so they can charge more money.
And the final lol at WoW. One of Blizzards primary competitors recently acquired 20% share of the company responsible for WoW in China. EA is now taking a nifty 20% of WoW's profits back into competitive games in the western market.
If Blizzard was doing as well as they'd like to say they are why wouldn't they give us the real figures and break them down into US, Euro and Chinese. Bliz are simply trying to 'intimidate' their competitors who are yet to try chinese releases, give the fanbois a nice fat round number to toss out and make those who don't understand anything about mmo's a "oh golly gosh...Warcraft has 9 million players...it must be good..."
You mean like this?
blizzard.com/press/070111.shtml
"
is now played by more than 8 million gamers around the world. World of Warcraft has also achieved new regional subscriber milestones, with more than 2 million players in North America, more than 1.5 million players in Europe, and more than 3.5 million players in China."
Personally I know more people who are leaving WoW then those buying a new copy or activating old accounts. Amongst my group of friends at least WoW is down and out. Currently betas and EVE are where people are headed with many waiting for Tabula Rasa or Warhammer Age of Reckoning.
yeah right!!!! that's why people on forums asking for server merges since they can't find people to group in that 9 millions
I think the population is starting to slip on US servers, but still is growing on Euro servers and in China. Can't prove it of course, just my observation based on patterns taking shape in various forums."True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
I'm not exactly sure what or how it count's, but it counts ingame population reports sent by Census addon. And according to it, player activity in both US and EU is decreasing. However, the player activity is still higher than what it was before the release of BC, and as we don't know how much new player Wrath of the Lich King will bring next year, it's too early to say anything definitive about if WoW population is just decreasing for a short time between the expansion releases, or starting some longer decrease.
Still, I'd say that we can except some server merges as next expansion will increase playable area.
A BATTLE IS WON BY THE OTHER SIDE NOT BEING ABLE TO FIGHT ANYMORE.
In medieval times do you think the castle defenders just got ressed up and ran back to the fight!! hell no!! they where freaking dead.
Now dont get me wrong im not saying that ressing should be eliminated but It ceertainly should only be done by friends guildmates alliance or yeh maybee a healer that I have to look for like in UO. But Insta spawn in 2 min WTF is that. anywho I got to get to the train station and ranted a bit more then was gonna originaly so gtg.
"The most important thing is to have the design support the players in setting their own goals in both cooperative and competitive interaction with one another." - Ironore -
forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html
lol don't say that to cupertino he is a big blizzard fanboi he gonna quote the blizzard disclaimer for ya
Its 9million active subs... 9million pay some kind of fee every month to play WoW.. its not 9 million units sold.
I am a fanboi, but I dont make up stuff, I always support my points with links and evidence, unlike your typical fanboi.
And I will quote the disclaimer
which I think MMORPG should send to all registered memebers as there are still guys on here that think blizzard make up the numbers and/or its account ever made and/or units sold etc.
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.
hahahah
everyone should have that in their sig
Nowhere in that first page does Drysc say they are merging! Stop jumping to conclusions!
They are looking into it, but it's not final or anything.
ok this entire discussion thread is some rather funny ...crap.
WoW is an MMORPG which all move along the same track from Startup to the Grave. With that many more subscribers the loss of numbers as the WoW moves from Maturity to Decline stage will be that much more noticeable.
FUNCOM - putting the FUN in disFUNctional !
I'm looking at the euro server list right now, and I count something like 130 PvP server, 2 of these are locked (due to extremely heavy pop), 14 are 'full' and another 14 are 'high' pop. The rest are medium pop servers except a handful of low pop servers.
So how many RP servers then? 10. lol that's right, 10. What a shift indeed. 1 of those is 'full'.
My own personal opinion for the decrease in population on the servers is not due to fewer subscribers, but rather less hours spent per day by those subscribers. I still have my account and I still pay Blizzard every month. However at one time I used to log in for maybe 4 to 6 hours a day on average. Now I usually log in maybe 4 to 6 hours a week and I expect there are a lot of others who do not play as much as they used to either. That would tend to make the server population look lower because fewer people are logged in at any one time.
But that does not necessarily mean that WoW is dieing. A lot of people may just be playing less and waiting for the next content patch or the next expansion or whatever. Personally I've just found other things to occupy my time. I've been playing for 2 and half years. I have 5 level 60 and above characters. I've reached a point where I no longer wish to put 4 to 6 hours a day into the game, I just log in every once in a while. But once the next expansion hits the shelves, I'll probably pick up a copy and be back to playing my usual hours...until that starts to get old too.
I hope they do it soon. My server has very low population.
i actually dont see why this is such a bad idea. this could bring back dead servers. and of course with new expansion thats comin out a whole flood of people are going to come rushing back to try it.
I agree with you. Most people I know are still playing, just a lot less. These people will play more when some new content is released.
"Those who dislike things based only on the fact that they are popular are just as shallow and superficial as those who only like them for the same reason."
Frankly some of these server were crying for server merges well before TBC was released, like 10 months before. It always puzzled me why Blizz did nothing for them and was still opening new servers.
There is some server hopping phenomenon I don't quite get that goes on in WoW.
it has nothing to do with population, it has to do with popularity, a perfect example is a server such as ursin, its been around for a very long time but people just dont roll there due to the low population and the people already on there xfer off causing the population to go even lower, therefore making all the low pop servers less populated and the high pop servers even more populated causing queue times