here is what I think , so if the chinese ppl aren't added to the 11.5m that means that wow has had an increase in subscriptions right? but if they put the chinese players it means it's the same so it has reached it's peak. I still enjoy wow, and I think the thing that will make wow lose some subcribers is blizzard's next mmo :P.
most complaints about this game stem from people just getting tired of the game. You can only play it continuously for so long before everything, even new content, starts to feel old.
+1
I totally Agree with this +2!
Also i must say it is hard for alot of new MMO's to actually compete with wow for one simple reason, sure they are alot of times a cookie cutter of WoW but usually with 1 or so brand new ideas that have never been thought/implemented before and hope this will draw a type of gamer to theirs over wow. But what i noticed whenever a new mmo comes out, such as age of conan and the seige/destroyable type of combat that was announced, OMG wow suddenly has a post 1 month later saying they will now have implement it in the near future as well!
Basically WoW has a great foundation, some cool ideas but a great deal is just looted from newer games trying something new, but of course Blizzard won't allow any competition and will implement it as well so they don't lose their customers. So in reality yes WoW will be with us for a great deal of time, since whenever something new comes out that sounds awsome, wow will immediately copy and implement the idea. This way the "haters" will come over and say wow has already done it, etc etc, and the mmo will die before it even has a chance to spread its wings, which is ingenious really, and that's the reason why you should respect WoW.
With such a highly anticipated expansion coming soon I doubt that WoW has peaked. You also have to take in consideration that it has been the #1 selling MMO for 5 years straight. Look at it this way: I started playing WoW when I was 30 years old. I played for about 15 to 20 days before my wife took interest and asked to create a character on my account. When she started to get more into it we decided to get another account for her.
At the time our kids were 11 and 7. Because they saw mom and dad playing, they took an interest in watching us, then we let them created characters on each of our accounts and had them join our original guild filled with real life friends and family (Separate from our raiding guild at the time). Over the course of 5 years, they played very casually with peak characters at 61 for my oldest and 23 for my youngest. They'd come home and tell me about their school friends and their relatives that played WoW. And now at 16 and 12 they both have grown up doing everything you'd expect teenage girls to be doing but my oldest has already asked about getting her own account and transferring her main (Lvl66 Death Knight) over. I sure my 12 year old will eventually want her own account in 4 more years as well.
What I'm really getting at it that WoW is slowly becoming a household name for MMOs. Old players leave and new players are introduced to it without Blizzard even lifting a finger. It's that saturated within our generation. It's not so much the main event as it has been in the pass, but it will always be THE fallback MMO of all-time. Players started young, but those 13 and 14 year-olds are now 17 and 18. They may have moved on or they may have split up from primary accounts.
It all keeps the wheel churning at Blizzard. You say the services they offer like server transfers, name changes, faction changes, race changes and things like that show how greedy they are and you'd be half right. But like I pointed out above, Blizzard knows it's player base far better than us forum jocks and:
People discover friends that play and want that server transfer.
Kids that once were rebellious don't feel like being Noobkiller anymore and want a name change
Teens that played Alliance for years may feel the need to join a group of buddies that started a horde guild without wanting to throw years of history away.
Female gamers that thought gnomes were cute may not care so much about appearances now after 4 years.
The key to retention is staying in sync with your major player base and their desires and anticipate their situations that may flair up or react to them as quickly as possible. It's a lesson to be learned by all MMO developers. And why I feel that people here trying to call something like they see it from the outside is like trying to give commentary to a chess game between 11 million+ players at the same time and boasting that you know what 50% of those players are thinking and have a better chance at beating them than their actual opponents....
For me though Blizzard has been doing a heck of a job keeping up with the bulk of their players for this long and facing a majority of the challenges that past and present MMOs still cannot overcome (retention, new subs, content updates, community backlash). And I don't see them tapping out any time soon.
"Small minds talk about people, average minds talk about events, great minds talk about ideas."
WOW has lost more subscribers probably by a factor of 10 times more than most MMORPS ever gain. The fact that after all this time they are able to replace them at a steady rate over several years speaks volumes to the appeal of their advertising and the game it self, especially to those who've never played MMORPG's (who's numbers are legion compared to those of us who have) Let's see, at this rate of (not) decline, the game will probably end.... never. My grandchildren will be playing WOW one day and telling me about their level 142 Murloc Paladin.
Very true. I also think other MMOs help WoW's popularity....I've played a lot of MMOs, and in the end I find myself going back to WoW time and again simply because it is a smoother, more enjoyable play experience than the many other games out there, even ones I quite enjoyed (for a while). I've gone back to COX, AOC, WAR and many others and about the only ones outside of Wow that don't leave me perplexed at how --ragged or tiring-- they feel in terms of graphics, persistent bugs, slow gameplay or UI issues are Guild Wars and DDO.
WoW benefits from its own success. It makes enough money to keep the experienced polished and updated. Other MMOs unfortunately fail when they try to cater to that tiny 5% of the crowd that thinks they're the "real gamers" out there....sorry, sadomasochism does not make you a real gamer. Other MMOs fail when their parent company force the dev team to an early buggy release, or with a dearth of content later on. There will be at least one MMO that overcomes these limitations, though: Blizzard's next one.....
I did notice articles today that Activision Blizzard announced a 286 million dollar loss . I'm not sure how that fits into these figures . Maybe the losses come from other games ? In any case I'm supprised that mmorpg.com report on a small article in what is not a paticulary well know gaming website and ignore one thats just as important to the mmo genre in the Wall Street Journel . Maybe they'll get around to it later today .
I did notice articles today that Activision Blizzard announced a 286 million dollar loss . I'm not sure how that fits into these figures . Maybe the losses come from other games ? In any case I'm supprised that mmorpg.com report on a small article in what is not a paticulary well know gaming website and ignore one thats just as important to the mmo genre in the Wall Street Journel . Maybe they'll get around to it later today .
Bean counters and advertising dollars is what makes the world go 'round. Cooking the books is SOP for business. Does anyone really believe the sub numbers Blizz or any other company release? The accountants and spin doctors work hand in hand with advertisers to put the best face on whatever the current situation is. It has been stated here that it is illegal for stock held companies to report false numbers. Well, I guess that keeps the big money boys honest huh? Inflate the numbers and hide the losses is business as usual.
I did notice articles today that Activision Blizzard announced a 286 million dollar loss . I'm not sure how that fits into these figures . Maybe the losses come from other games ? In any case I'm supprised that mmorpg.com report on a small article in what is not a paticulary well know gaming website and ignore one thats just as important to the mmo genre in the Wall Street Journel . Maybe they'll get around to it later today .
Bean counters and advertising dollars is what makes the world go 'round. Cooking the books is SOP for business. Does anyone really believe the sub numbers Blizz or any other company release? The accountants and spin doctors work hand in hand with advertisers to put the best face on whatever the current situation is. It has been stated here that it is illegal for stock held companies to report false numbers. Well, I guess that keeps the big money boys honest huh? Inflate the numbers and hide the losses is business as usual.
The problem with the old "cooking the books" is that all the available evidence supports blizzards claims.
This isn't a case of a company claiming 8 million players, but only having 10 servers that are mostly ghost towns.
When a company makes very specific claims of what a subscriber is and how many there are it can be measured several ways. For example there are over 500 game servers supporting the area where blizzard was claiming nearly 5 million players. At 10k accounts be server, that matches up to the claims very nicely. 10k has been a number that developers have stated is a typical number of accounts 1 server can support.
I did notice articles today that Activision Blizzard announced a 286 million dollar loss . I'm not sure how that fits into these figures . Maybe the losses come from other games ? In any case I'm supprised that mmorpg.com report on a small article in what is not a paticulary well know gaming website and ignore one thats just as important to the mmo genre in the Wall Street Journel . Maybe they'll get around to it later today .
Bean counters and advertising dollars is what makes the world go 'round. Cooking the books is SOP for business. Does anyone really believe the sub numbers Blizz or any other company release? The accountants and spin doctors work hand in hand with advertisers to put the best face on whatever the current situation is. It has been stated here that it is illegal for stock held companies to report false numbers. Well, I guess that keeps the big money boys honest huh? Inflate the numbers and hide the losses is business as usual.
As long as one keeps the right political palms greased, who is there to do anything? Corruption is the same, no matter the country, or corporation. Blizzard is now part of a larger corporation(Activision/Blizzard). Given how these things work, I'm betting that it was the Activision side that resulted in the losses. I SERIOUSLY doubt that Blizzard has lost money on WoW at this point.
I did notice articles today that Activision Blizzard announced a 286 million dollar loss . I'm not sure how that fits into these figures . Maybe the losses come from other games ? In any case I'm supprised that mmorpg.com report on a small article in what is not a paticulary well know gaming website and ignore one thats just as important to the mmo genre in the Wall Street Journel . Maybe they'll get around to it later today .
Bean counters and advertising dollars is what makes the world go 'round. Cooking the books is SOP for business. Does anyone really believe the sub numbers Blizz or any other company release? The accountants and spin doctors work hand in hand with advertisers to put the best face on whatever the current situation is. It has been stated here that it is illegal for stock held companies to report false numbers. Well, I guess that keeps the big money boys honest huh? Inflate the numbers and hide the losses is business as usual.
As long as one keeps the right political palms greased, who is there to do anything? Corruption is the same, no matter the country, or corporation. Blizzard is now part of a larger corporation(Activision/Blizzard). Given how these things work, I'm betting that it was the Activision side that resulted in the losses. I SERIOUSLY doubt that Blizzard has lost money on WoW at this point.
The company will show the loss in a light that is most beneficial for them. Could be used as a tax write off if the situation is right or can be made to look right.
I totally agree I doubt Blizzard has lost money on Warcraft . Unfortunatly its now Activision Blizzard now . Its funny how people always blame Blizzard for the way things have gone but forget many of the changes they don't like only happened after Activision got involved . I still have great doubts that WoW still has 11.5 million subscribers and the wall street journal report only serves to poor oil on that flame . I'm also still wondering why mmorpg.com has as yet to report on this and chose to report on an unsubstantuated statement . Facts please guys over rumour otherwise its bad journelism .
All depends on the next expansion, if its somehow fresh and a good improvement then many players might return and the number raises again. If its just the same old stuff... WoW may have peaked.
I would have to agree. The next expansion will tell a lot, but even so unless they totally bomb out I don't see WoW going anywhere for years to come. Lets face it those of us that are devoted to the game put up with horrible lag and sometimes unplayable moments but we continue to play because the game is fun. Even though it has become much easier than in the beginning.
The next expansion promises a big change in the world in many ways so we wait to see. Peaked ? Not yet . Possibly after the expansion? Time and the expansion will tell.
Comments
here is what I think , so if the chinese ppl aren't added to the 11.5m that means that wow has had an increase in subscriptions right? but if they put the chinese players it means it's the same so it has reached it's peak. I still enjoy wow, and I think the thing that will make wow lose some subcribers is blizzard's next mmo :P.
+1
I totally Agree with this +2!
Also i must say it is hard for alot of new MMO's to actually compete with wow for one simple reason, sure they are alot of times a cookie cutter of WoW but usually with 1 or so brand new ideas that have never been thought/implemented before and hope this will draw a type of gamer to theirs over wow. But what i noticed whenever a new mmo comes out, such as age of conan and the seige/destroyable type of combat that was announced, OMG wow suddenly has a post 1 month later saying they will now have implement it in the near future as well!
Basically WoW has a great foundation, some cool ideas but a great deal is just looted from newer games trying something new, but of course Blizzard won't allow any competition and will implement it as well so they don't lose their customers. So in reality yes WoW will be with us for a great deal of time, since whenever something new comes out that sounds awsome, wow will immediately copy and implement the idea. This way the "haters" will come over and say wow has already done it, etc etc, and the mmo will die before it even has a chance to spread its wings, which is ingenious really, and that's the reason why you should respect WoW.
With such a highly anticipated expansion coming soon I doubt that WoW has peaked. You also have to take in consideration that it has been the #1 selling MMO for 5 years straight. Look at it this way: I started playing WoW when I was 30 years old. I played for about 15 to 20 days before my wife took interest and asked to create a character on my account. When she started to get more into it we decided to get another account for her.
At the time our kids were 11 and 7. Because they saw mom and dad playing, they took an interest in watching us, then we let them created characters on each of our accounts and had them join our original guild filled with real life friends and family (Separate from our raiding guild at the time). Over the course of 5 years, they played very casually with peak characters at 61 for my oldest and 23 for my youngest. They'd come home and tell me about their school friends and their relatives that played WoW. And now at 16 and 12 they both have grown up doing everything you'd expect teenage girls to be doing but my oldest has already asked about getting her own account and transferring her main (Lvl66 Death Knight) over. I sure my 12 year old will eventually want her own account in 4 more years as well.
What I'm really getting at it that WoW is slowly becoming a household name for MMOs. Old players leave and new players are introduced to it without Blizzard even lifting a finger. It's that saturated within our generation. It's not so much the main event as it has been in the pass, but it will always be THE fallback MMO of all-time. Players started young, but those 13 and 14 year-olds are now 17 and 18. They may have moved on or they may have split up from primary accounts.
It all keeps the wheel churning at Blizzard. You say the services they offer like server transfers, name changes, faction changes, race changes and things like that show how greedy they are and you'd be half right. But like I pointed out above, Blizzard knows it's player base far better than us forum jocks and:
The key to retention is staying in sync with your major player base and their desires and anticipate their situations that may flair up or react to them as quickly as possible. It's a lesson to be learned by all MMO developers. And why I feel that people here trying to call something like they see it from the outside is like trying to give commentary to a chess game between 11 million+ players at the same time and boasting that you know what 50% of those players are thinking and have a better chance at beating them than their actual opponents....
For me though Blizzard has been doing a heck of a job keeping up with the bulk of their players for this long and facing a majority of the challenges that past and present MMOs still cannot overcome (retention, new subs, content updates, community backlash). And I don't see them tapping out any time soon.
"Small minds talk about people, average minds talk about events, great minds talk about ideas."
Very true. I also think other MMOs help WoW's popularity....I've played a lot of MMOs, and in the end I find myself going back to WoW time and again simply because it is a smoother, more enjoyable play experience than the many other games out there, even ones I quite enjoyed (for a while). I've gone back to COX, AOC, WAR and many others and about the only ones outside of Wow that don't leave me perplexed at how --ragged or tiring-- they feel in terms of graphics, persistent bugs, slow gameplay or UI issues are Guild Wars and DDO.
WoW benefits from its own success. It makes enough money to keep the experienced polished and updated. Other MMOs unfortunately fail when they try to cater to that tiny 5% of the crowd that thinks they're the "real gamers" out there....sorry, sadomasochism does not make you a real gamer. Other MMOs fail when their parent company force the dev team to an early buggy release, or with a dearth of content later on. There will be at least one MMO that overcomes these limitations, though: Blizzard's next one.....
Current MMOs: Rift, GW2, Defiance
Blog: http://realmsofchirak.blogspot.com (old school tabletop gaming and more)
I did notice articles today that Activision Blizzard announced a 286 million dollar loss . I'm not sure how that fits into these figures . Maybe the losses come from other games ? In any case I'm supprised that mmorpg.com report on a small article in what is not a paticulary well know gaming website and ignore one thats just as important to the mmo genre in the Wall Street Journel . Maybe they'll get around to it later today .
Bean counters and advertising dollars is what makes the world go 'round. Cooking the books is SOP for business. Does anyone really believe the sub numbers Blizz or any other company release? The accountants and spin doctors work hand in hand with advertisers to put the best face on whatever the current situation is. It has been stated here that it is illegal for stock held companies to report false numbers. Well, I guess that keeps the big money boys honest huh? Inflate the numbers and hide the losses is business as usual.
Bean counters and advertising dollars is what makes the world go 'round. Cooking the books is SOP for business. Does anyone really believe the sub numbers Blizz or any other company release? The accountants and spin doctors work hand in hand with advertisers to put the best face on whatever the current situation is. It has been stated here that it is illegal for stock held companies to report false numbers. Well, I guess that keeps the big money boys honest huh? Inflate the numbers and hide the losses is business as usual.
The problem with the old "cooking the books" is that all the available evidence supports blizzards claims.
This isn't a case of a company claiming 8 million players, but only having 10 servers that are mostly ghost towns.
When a company makes very specific claims of what a subscriber is and how many there are it can be measured several ways. For example there are over 500 game servers supporting the area where blizzard was claiming nearly 5 million players. At 10k accounts be server, that matches up to the claims very nicely. 10k has been a number that developers have stated is a typical number of accounts 1 server can support.
Believe what you will I guess.
Bean counters and advertising dollars is what makes the world go 'round. Cooking the books is SOP for business. Does anyone really believe the sub numbers Blizz or any other company release? The accountants and spin doctors work hand in hand with advertisers to put the best face on whatever the current situation is. It has been stated here that it is illegal for stock held companies to report false numbers. Well, I guess that keeps the big money boys honest huh? Inflate the numbers and hide the losses is business as usual.
As long as one keeps the right political palms greased, who is there to do anything? Corruption is the same, no matter the country, or corporation. Blizzard is now part of a larger corporation(Activision/Blizzard). Given how these things work, I'm betting that it was the Activision side that resulted in the losses. I SERIOUSLY doubt that Blizzard has lost money on WoW at this point.
Bean counters and advertising dollars is what makes the world go 'round. Cooking the books is SOP for business. Does anyone really believe the sub numbers Blizz or any other company release? The accountants and spin doctors work hand in hand with advertisers to put the best face on whatever the current situation is. It has been stated here that it is illegal for stock held companies to report false numbers. Well, I guess that keeps the big money boys honest huh? Inflate the numbers and hide the losses is business as usual.
As long as one keeps the right political palms greased, who is there to do anything? Corruption is the same, no matter the country, or corporation. Blizzard is now part of a larger corporation(Activision/Blizzard). Given how these things work, I'm betting that it was the Activision side that resulted in the losses. I SERIOUSLY doubt that Blizzard has lost money on WoW at this point.
The company will show the loss in a light that is most beneficial for them. Could be used as a tax write off if the situation is right or can be made to look right.
I totally agree I doubt Blizzard has lost money on Warcraft . Unfortunatly its now Activision Blizzard now . Its funny how people always blame Blizzard for the way things have gone but forget many of the changes they don't like only happened after Activision got involved . I still have great doubts that WoW still has 11.5 million subscribers and the wall street journal report only serves to poor oil on that flame . I'm also still wondering why mmorpg.com has as yet to report on this and chose to report on an unsubstantuated statement . Facts please guys over rumour otherwise its bad journelism .
I would have to agree. The next expansion will tell a lot, but even so unless they totally bomb out I don't see WoW going anywhere for years to come. Lets face it those of us that are devoted to the game put up with horrible lag and sometimes unplayable moments but we continue to play because the game is fun. Even though it has become much easier than in the beginning.
The next expansion promises a big change in the world in many ways so we wait to see. Peaked ? Not yet . Possibly after the expansion? Time and the expansion will tell.
Gikku