http://investor.activision.com/index.cfm It's all yours for the grabs. Investe a little bit: But here I'll quote CEO of Blizzard Mark Morhaime: "For the fourth quarter of 2009, our non-GAAP net revenue was $329 million, with an operating margin of more than 49%. The fact that we've been able to maintain revenue and operating margin at these levels is remarkable, given the current state of the economy and how it has affected the industry" As a side not the gaming industry in the US went down with 11.6 % in 2009. The 11.5 million active subscribers were confirmed by a stock rated company, which simply means: rock solid proof - dollar wise.
First off that's the NET revenue for Activision-Blizzard not WoW, secondly that's for one Quarter which happens to be the best quarter of the year for any retail company in sales, thirdly the Blizzard counts inactive accounts that are up to 6 months old in china (costs 25cents to play once and can set up account for free) and free trials as subscribers.
"Activision Blizzard's portfolio includes best-selling video games such as Guitar Hero®, Call of Duty®, and Tony Hawk, as well as Spider-Man™, X-Men™, Shrek®, James Bond™ and TRANSFORMERS™, leading franchises such as Crash Bandicoot™ and Spyro™ and Blizzard Entertainment's® StarCraft®, Diablo®, and Warcraft® franchises including the global #1 subscription-based massively multi-player online role-playing game, World of Warcraft®."
Your answer fails.
The complete turnover for the ACTIVISION BLIZZARD group was: and I quote:
"On a non-GAAP basis, December quarter net revenues were approximately $2.5 billion, 277 million higher than the outlook we gave in November. Non-GAAP EPS was $0.49, $0.06 ahead of our outlook. December quarter was driven by the groundbreaking performance of Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 in addition to World of Warcraft,
Mostly WOW is about 35% income for the complete group of all games, but this quarter the group had luck with the COD MW2 hit (1 billion dollars) and unlucky with the guitar hero franchise.
The previous MMO quarters in 2009 can also be found on the financial reports. They were about the same order of 300 million dollars on a quartley basis for WOW.
But I am tired of looking it up for someone who simply negates these reports.
Not negating anything, just asking for a link to the information you're using that's all.
I read the report you pulled that little quote from and he's talking there to stockholders about shares and the profits and revenues they make from them. GAAP EPS = income divided by the number of shares, he's not giving any figures as to how much money the games bring in from sales but talking about Activision-Blizzard share revenues.
" We generated approximately $1.2 billion in operating cash flow and ended the year with approximately $3.3 billion in cash and investments. For the calendar year, in the U.S. and Europe"
and
" Call of Duty®: Modern Warfare™ 2 was the #1 best-selling title overall and DJ Hero™ was the highest grossing new IP launched in 2009. Additionally, through Blizzard Entertainment's World of Warcraft® we remain #1 in the subscription-based massively multiplayer online role-playing game category worldwide, according to The NPD Group and internal Activision Blizzard estimates."
I did Business and Finance at College so maybe that makes it a little easier for me to understand what's being said in these reports. I'm not being nasty or hating on WoW/Blizzard or you just I like to see the facts. Alot of people post stuff that is plain wrong or just don't understand and it does annoy me. WoW doesn't pull in $1.4 billion dollars and isn't even their top title, as for how Blizzard counts subscribers well that's their business however they are the biggest game subscriber wise,
Agricola
"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience"
actually if you bothered to read the report, which i just did, it lists the amount for the last quarter of 2009, under the heading of mmorpg (or WoW ) as $325m and is nothing to do with any other game product or service... the total for activision/blizzard for that period was 1.6 billion dollars.. and that does in fact include COD etc, it even lists the different platforms (ps3 ps2 etc) that the sales covered. - over the year, apparently WoW made a profit of 1.233 billion dollars, (activision/blizzards total was 3.855 billion!) console games which undoubtedly includes COD had sales of almost 2.2 billion dollars over the year, over 800m dollars of which appears to have been on the Xbox.. (wii and ps3 sales appear to be roughly the same at just over 500m dollars apiece) ... well, hope that explains it a bit....
Tx, so that means there is a difference of 4 million dollars in this quarter (329 - 325), that comes from Blizzard Non WOW games.
So D2 and SC and WC3 still contibute for some 4 million dollars on a quarterly basis for Blizzard.
Excellent news for 10 - 12 year old games . Actually they make more money than a lot of 2009 released PC games.
Giving support to the statement the OP made (although redundant).
Want a real mmorpg? Play WOW with experience turned off mode and be Pve_Pvp King at any level without a rat race.
Matrix online is a spinoff of a movie hence its fail. Lord of the Rings online. .Spin off of a movie once again. Star Trek? Television spin off! Star wars galaxies. .and we go on. They all have one thing in common, they were spin offs of movies and television series meaning only a percentage would even consider playing games. World of warcraft is a spinoff of a GAME series. My argument is still valid, not to mention that was only half my argument. Though I'm sure you didn't get that far because you were too eager to throw out your hollywood film based games.
Mass advertising is not the sole reason why WOW was a success, and all other games fail. If it was WAR or AOC would also have 1 mil+ populations, since they were mass marketed before their release.
WOW is simply the best, since it is one of the few MMO products that actually work work like it should.
LOTRO is not a failure as it is also one of the few games that continues to increase it's subscription numbers.
Star Wars was destroyed with the release of NGE. SOE is also a company that has a tainted reputation with the MMO community.
STO is simply not an MMO. It is a multiplayer online game and lacks a common area to give that MMO vibe.
95% of MMOs fail due to not being quality products.
No mmo will ever kill WoW, i even dare to say that no mmo will ever have half the subcribers WoW has (or its supposed to have, remember that if it says NET revenue that includes guitar hero songs over PSN and Live and all the DLC for their games). WoW was a succes because it worked pretty decent (it had bugs but was playable and worked on almost every pc) when it was released and had a huge community to back up it (SC+W3+D2 fans almost everyone of them tasted wow). Not even blizzard new mmo will kill it, it wont be the success wow has been because most wow players will never move from it, if wow ever ceases to hold servers they will just leave the mmo gaming.
All the deep philosophical discussions about how WoW destroyed the pristine MMO legacy are irrelevant. I, too, remember Ultima Online in the most nostalgic terms, but objectively if I look at hours played, WoW is first - by far.
I think this MMO nostalgia is a kind of mental sickness. You were probably younger when you played UO or EQ. Your life was more beautiful then, more magical. You have UO still going now, or Shards that have old UO rules. With population. Why isn't that fun then? Explain.
We'll all complain and fantasize and be all nostalgic until the Moment comes, perhaps in december 2012 - Blizzard releases/announces new MMO. Then you will all stand in awe and forget about your essay papers on MMO legacy and you will say:
"Blizzard, I am not worthy that thou shouldst come under my roof:
But speak the word only and my soul shall be healed"
Okay, but I know I won't be playing their SciFi Fantasy MMOFPS for one. Especially since it isn't even based off an existing IP of theirs, which seems to be a huge risk on their part.
Blizzard taking a risk by making a new IP? Muwhahahaha! are you kidding me, they have created about 3 of the most famous IP's ever, Starcraft Warcraft and Diablo, nearly anyone on this planet with a PC has heard about at least 1 of them.
Blizzard rocks at creating IP's, and if you already say you won't play a scifi fantasy MMOFPS by blizzard, you are just, in one word.
Matrix online is a spinoff of a movie hence its fail. Lord of the Rings online. .Spin off of a movie once again. Star Trek? Television spin off! Star wars galaxies. .and we go on. They all have one thing in common, they were spin offs of movies and television series meaning only a percentage would even consider playing games. World of warcraft is a spinoff of a GAME series. My argument is still valid, not to mention that was only half my argument. Though I'm sure you didn't get that far because you were too eager to throw out your hollywood film based games.
Mass advertising is not the sole reason why WOW was a success, and all other games fail. If it was WAR or AOC would also have 1 mil+ populations, since they were mass marketed before their release.
WOW is simply the best, since it is one of the few MMO products that actually work work like it should.
LOTRO is not a failure as it is also one of the few games that continues to increase it's subscription numbers.
Star Wars was destroyed with the release of NGE. SOE is also a company that has a tainted reputation with the MMO community.
STO is simply not an MMO. It is a multiplayer online game and lacks a common area to give that MMO vibe.
95% of MMOs fail due to not being quality products.
totally agree, mass advertising a good product does work, but if you do the same to a bad one, it will have a very detrimental effect in the long term, as the company involveds reputation would be most likely irreparably damaged. while Mass advertising will help with initial sales, it is definitely the quality of the product that will sustain that growth, or not, as the case may be.
Matrix online is a spinoff of a movie hence its fail. Lord of the Rings online. .Spin off of a movie once again. Star Trek? Television spin off! Star wars galaxies. .and we go on. They all have one thing in common, they were spin offs of movies and television series meaning only a percentage would even consider playing games. World of warcraft is a spinoff of a GAME series. My argument is still valid, not to mention that was only half my argument. Though I'm sure you didn't get that far because you were too eager to throw out your hollywood film based games.
Mass advertising is not the sole reason why WOW was a success, and all other games fail. If it was WAR or AOC would also have 1 mil+ populations, since they were mass marketed before their release.
WOW is simply the best, since it is one of the few MMO products that actually work work like it should.
LOTRO is not a failure as it is also one of the few games that continues to increase it's subscription numbers.
Star Wars was destroyed with the release of NGE. SOE is also a company that has a tainted reputation with the MMO community.
STO is simply not an MMO. It is a multiplayer online game and lacks a common area to give that MMO vibe.
95% of MMOs fail due to not being quality products.
Well being there wasn't many mainstream MMO's back when WoW came out, yes advertising did account for ALOT. You don't understand. By the time WAR and AOC many MMO's had already been released not to mention 100's of free to play models, thus diluting the overall effectiveness of advertising and player stability in MMORPG's. Most had already gotten into their niches and just simply went back into their previous games being that's where they had all their time invested. Feel free to re-read my first reply on this topic. Timing is everything and WoW capitalized on it, to say its simply the best is naive.
Why would you want WOW killed off ? You should want to keep WOW around. If someone by accident happens to put out a good game ( my personal choice) along the lines of AC, then it will not be flooded by players that happen to like the style of game that WOW offers.
To beat WOW on it's home turf is an uphill battle, not only is it a good game, but Blizz has had time to mold it around it's fans. No, WOW is not going anywhere. The only hope is someone will make a playable game that stands on it's on merits that appeals to a different set of gamers.
Well being there wasn't many mainstream MMO's back when WoW came out, yes advertising did account for ALOT. You don't understand. By the time WAR and AOC many MMO's had already been released not to mention 100's of free to play models, thus diluting the overall effectiveness of advertising and player stability in MMORPG's. I simply disagree with your statements. AOC and WAR stated they each had ~750k subscribers after the first month. That would throw them into the top 5 for subscription numbers and shows that advertising is still very effective. Most had already gotten into their niches and just simply went back into their previous games being that's where they had all their time invested. Feel free to re-read my first reply on this topic. Commitment in WOW?!?! If I am not mistaken WOW makes everyone start from level 1 every 6 months - 1 year when a new expansion is released. There is absolute minimal commitment to the game, and starting from scratch is trivial ( this is probably one of WOW's strengths ). People play WOW because it is simply one of the most complete games on the market from its design to customer service, and is an exceptional value compared to most other games. Timing is everything and WoW capitalized on it, to say its simply the best is naive. Timing is only helpful in a saturated market or to reinvigorate a product. The MMO genre is seriously lacking in quality products, and WOW subscription numbers state that there is little need to worry about it. Although MMOs by nature tend to " reinvent " themselves over the course of their life span.
Okay, but I know I won't be playing their SciFi Fantasy MMOFPS for one. Especially since it isn't even based off an existing IP of theirs, which seems to be a huge risk on their part.
When you're a company with a retardedly good reputation, with skilled game development teams, new IPs are hardly "risky".
Honestly I think Mass Effect is the best thing to happen to Bioware, and that is a relatively new IP. If they'd kept making crappy AD&D-based games I'd probably have about given up on them by now -- instead, they've simultaneously evolved their storytelling methods, character design, and combat design, and become a company whose games I eagerly await (even if Dragon Age carries along some of the early BG/NWN blandness with it.)
New IP developed by veteran teams is the holy grail of gamers, tbh.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Blizzard taking a risk by making a new IP? Muwhahahaha! are you kidding me, they have created about 3 of the most famous IP's ever, Starcraft Warcraft and Diablo, nearly anyone on this planet with a PC has heard about at least 1 of them. Blizzard rocks at creating IP's, and if you already say you won't play a scifi fantasy MMOFPS by blizzard, you are just, in one word. IGNORRANT
they only created Diablo, which tbh started being the most generic, soul less and no-story hack and slash ever made. Even golden axe utterly destroyed it in terms of story told....
Both Warcraft and Starcraft are blatant examples of plagiarism to the nth potence of GW warhammer fantasy and war40k
Blizzard rocks at creating polished games based on existing IPs from which they change the essential minimum to not be sued till they're blue in the face.
anyone with 1 working braincell would see that warcraft and war fantasy share way more common traits than differences in a 100 to 1 proportion, while starcraft and war40k are almost twin brothers.
that is, anyone that is actually aware of war and war40k's existance ...if you are a WoW fanboi, chances are you know absolutly NOTHING about games other than WoW....
I eagerly await your nerdrage rebuttal post about how Blizzard arent the gods of corporate plaguiarism, for laughs and giggles...
Blizzard taking a risk by making a new IP? Muwhahahaha! are you kidding me, they have created about 3 of the most famous IP's ever, Starcraft Warcraft and Diablo, nearly anyone on this planet with a PC has heard about at least 1 of them. Blizzard rocks at creating IP's, and if you already say you won't play a scifi fantasy MMOFPS by blizzard, you are just, in one word. IGNORRANT
they only created Diablo, which tbh started being the most generic, soul less and no-story hack and slash ever made. Even golden axe utterly destroyed it in terms of story told....
Both Warcraft and Starcraft are blatant examples of plagiarism to the nth potence of GW warhammer fantasy and war40k
Blizzard rocks at creating polished games based on existing IPs from which they change the essential minimum to not be sued till they're blue in the face.
anyone with 1 working braincell would see that warcraft and war fantasy share way more common traits than differences in a 100 to 1 proportion, while starcraft and war40k are almost twin brothers.
that is, anyone that is actually aware of war and war40k's existance ...if you are a WoW fanboi, chances are you know absolutly NOTHING about games other than WoW....
I eagerly await your nerdrage rebuttal post about how Blizzard arent the gods of corporate plaguiarism, for laughs and giggles...
Blizzard doesn't rock at creating IPs. Blizzard rocks at taking someone elses idea, reskins it, improves it and sells it.
I wouldn't call people ignorant if they wont play Blizzard's Sci-Fi MMOFPS. Some people hear Sci-Fi and are turned off. Others hear FPS and don't look back when they walk away.
And why does McDonalds aways get brought into conversations about WoW? Really, if anyone knows anything about McDonalds, they would know that Ray Kroc didn't care about hamburgers, he cared about real estate. He placed his stores in key locations and thats why the company is successful. It has no comparable value to Blizzard or World of Warcraft.
Also, Blizzard has about 4-6 million NA & EU players meaning the aforementioned 9 million Chinese is inaccurate.
Admittedly I don't know much of anything about WAR or WAR40k other than the video game interpretations and briefly seeing some game boards in someones basement. But I am familiar with tabletop and pencil & paper games before MMOs, as well as MUDs. So I didn't see StarCraft's relation to another IP. I always thought they took the Alien and Predator franchises and melded them. Especially since the Terran Dropship has a visual likeness to the dropship used in Aliens as well as every quote comes directly from the movie.
...And again I say to those of little scholarly interest in the matter... That it is not so.
Both StarCraft AND Warhammer 40k were blantant rippoffs of Robert A. Heinlein's 1959 title which was first published in the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction and entitled "StarShip Soldier". This was later published once again in a hard book copy of the same year under the name of "StarShip Troopers", if I recall correctly.
I'm don't recall GW admitting that they stole ideas from StarShip Soldier/Trooper in the past (though it's blatantly obvious where they got their ideas from), but I do recall reading an old article where blizzard said that they got inspiration in creating StarCraft from Robert A. Heinlein and his "<epic StarShip Soldier saga>." If one were to read the book, they would quite easily come to terms with this, as the StarShip Marines enter an interstellar war with an insect/bug like alien race that threatens to dominate life. Additionally, these creatures are described very much like most Zerg units, and possess similar abilities.
Even in the movie, if people have seen it (though most probably don't even know it was a 1959 book), the bugs even have an "Overmind" which they protect and controls the horde.
When it comes to Warcraft... Didn't you know? Anything that has knights and elves is a blatant copy of Lord of the Rings. Medieval times itself copied Lord of the Rings. History is just a prime example of a culture adapting to the Lord of the Rings series.
Seriously. Swords and magic do not a copyright material make; Warcraft's lore and story is vastly abundant and large, spanning across PC games, Board games, card games, Time lines, an MMO, Mugs, etc. etc. It's lore in the current form surpasses Warhammer by leaps and bounds (albeit 40k has much, much more depth than Starcraft; I'm a lore buff for both franchises).
More importantly -- Blizzard is a better developer than GW even if (and the actual evidence says it's not, despite what the drones say) it is a copy; I'd much rather leave it into their hands.
Oh no... Warcraft has a Gyrocopter and so did Warhammer. Yup. There is no dictionary definition of "Gyrocopter" (or autogyro, which it is typically called; Helicopter in modern terms), and there is no modern craft for which it could be inspired from. Gnomes and dwarfs -- age old fantasy races -- aren't known for being crafty or have ingenuity... It's just blatant copyright . Uh-huh.
Point is -- They did get inspiration from other sources, but it wasn't from GW. Mayhaps a few things may have been from a company such as GW, but let's just take a look at the Graphics of Warhammer Online for a moment. Wait, no... That info will do by itself: Games look for working precedence in the past and expand upon it. GW is no exception, and by your logic they have no franchise.
Warcraft and StarCraft are Blizzard own Franchies as it is rightfully defined by law -- They own those IPs.
Your illogical logic and claiming others don't have any brain cells does not magically make it so blizzard doesn't have intellectual rights to their own games.
But you are good at making people laugh with how easily you believe things... I'll give you that.
Zomg there are facts and actualities other than wut pplz tell me? Inorite?!
Ahh, I knew StarCraft had to have inspiration from Starship Troopers. I just didn't know it was a book.
Thanks!
Personally I don't care how ripped off an IP is off another, I just care about the quality of the product.
If Blizzard can take an IP, make thier own from it and polish it to a pristine shine, then I want them to do that and will give them my money rather than giving it to the original creators of the idea for a lesser product.
Hmm, as much as I hate to say it I think probably OP is correct.
But just because McDonalds sells more hamburgers than my mum, doesnt mean that McDonalds burgers are the best.
Invalid argument. McDonalds is a for profit organization that charge cheaply for its burger while your mum's running her operation as a lost by not charging you anything for it.
Won't WoWs graphics soon become a problem? It's pretty dated as it stands now? any chance of an upgrade?
With every paid expansion of the game, blizzard slightly increased graphic of the game. However, a major overhaul of the graphic engine is very unlikely. Graphic is indeed a major problem for WoW, but not in a way that you it is. Blizzard problem with graphic is how to upgrade its graphic without making the majority of it current user unplayable.
Yawn, another WoW killer thread. I'm starting to see a pattern arise. More and more negative "OMG MMOS ARE DYING COS OF <mmo title>!!" and "Why bother searching anymore ;_; cut cut" emo threads are popping up. MMORPG needs some better moderators to clean this mess up.
All the deep philosophical discussions about how WoW destroyed the pristine MMO legacy are irrelevant. I, too, remember Ultima Online in the most nostalgic terms, but objectively if I look at hours played, WoW is first - by far.
I think this MMO nostalgia is a kind of mental sickness. You were probably younger when you played UO or EQ. Your life was more beautiful then, more magical. You have UO still going now, or Shards that have old UO rules. With population. Why isn't that fun then? Explain.
We'll all complain and fantasize and be all nostalgic until the Moment comes, perhaps in december 2012 - Blizzard releases/announces new MMO. Then you will all stand in awe and forget about your essay papers on MMO legacy and you will say:
"Blizzard, I am not worthy that thou shouldst come under my roof:
But speak the word only and my soul shall be healed"
Okay, but I know I won't be playing their SciFi Fantasy MMOFPS for one. Especially since it isn't even based off an existing IP of theirs, which seems to be a huge risk on their part.
Blizzard taking a risk by making a new IP? Muwhahahaha! are you kidding me, they have created about 3 of the most famous IP's ever, Starcraft Warcraft and Diablo, nearly anyone on this planet with a PC has heard about at least 1 of them.
Blizzard rocks at creating IP's, and if you already say you won't play a scifi fantasy MMOFPS by blizzard, you are just, in one word.
IGNORRANT
Those were IP's that had already established a fanbase. And as a few have mentioned in this thread, there are players that play WoW because they like the 'fantasy' type of MMORPG.
I think it's safe to say that ANY company which creates a brand new unestablished IP for a game is taking a risk, especially if that game is an MMORPG. Though Blizzard is considered the MMO king, it does not change my views one bit.
Do not try to be a great gamer, just be a gamer. Cause, I don't care how good you are anyway.
Matrix online is a spinoff of a movie hence its fail. Lord of the Rings online. .Spin off of a movie once again. Star Trek? Television spin off! Star wars galaxies. .and we go on. They all have one thing in common, they were spin offs of movies and television series meaning only a percentage would even consider playing games. World of warcraft is a spinoff of a GAME series. My argument is still valid, not to mention that was only half my argument. Though I'm sure you didn't get that far because you were too eager to throw out your hollywood film based games.
Comments
First off that's the NET revenue for Activision-Blizzard not WoW, secondly that's for one Quarter which happens to be the best quarter of the year for any retail company in sales, thirdly the Blizzard counts inactive accounts that are up to 6 months old in china (costs 25cents to play once and can set up account for free) and free trials as subscribers.
"Activision Blizzard's portfolio includes best-selling video games such as Guitar Hero®, Call of Duty®, and Tony Hawk, as well as Spider-Man™, X-Men™, Shrek®, James Bond™ and TRANSFORMERS™, leading franchises such as Crash Bandicoot™ and Spyro™ and Blizzard Entertainment's® StarCraft®, Diablo®, and Warcraft® franchises including the global #1 subscription-based massively multi-player online role-playing game, World of Warcraft®."
Your answer fails.
The complete turnover for the ACTIVISION BLIZZARD group was: and I quote:
"On a non-GAAP basis, December quarter net revenues were approximately $2.5 billion, 277 million higher than the outlook we gave in November. Non-GAAP EPS was $0.49, $0.06 ahead of our outlook. December quarter was driven by the groundbreaking performance of Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 in addition to World of Warcraft,
Mostly WOW is about 35% income for the complete group of all games, but this quarter the group had luck with the COD MW2 hit (1 billion dollars) and unlucky with the guitar hero franchise.
The previous MMO quarters in 2009 can also be found on the financial reports. They were about the same order of 300 million dollars on a quartley basis for WOW.
But I am tired of looking it up for someone who simply negates these reports.
Not negating anything, just asking for a link to the information you're using that's all.
I read the report you pulled that little quote from and he's talking there to stockholders about shares and the profits and revenues they make from them. GAAP EPS = income divided by the number of shares, he's not giving any figures as to how much money the games bring in from sales but talking about Activision-Blizzard share revenues.
The full report is here click
here's a quote
" We generated approximately $1.2 billion in operating cash flow and ended the year with approximately $3.3 billion in cash and investments. For the calendar year, in the U.S. and Europe"
and
" Call of Duty®: Modern Warfare™ 2 was the #1 best-selling title overall and DJ Hero™ was the highest grossing new IP launched in 2009. Additionally, through Blizzard Entertainment's World of Warcraft® we remain #1 in the subscription-based massively multiplayer online role-playing game category worldwide, according to The NPD Group and internal Activision Blizzard estimates."
I did Business and Finance at College so maybe that makes it a little easier for me to understand what's being said in these reports. I'm not being nasty or hating on WoW/Blizzard or you just I like to see the facts. Alot of people post stuff that is plain wrong or just don't understand and it does annoy me. WoW doesn't pull in $1.4 billion dollars and isn't even their top title, as for how Blizzard counts subscribers well that's their business however they are the biggest game subscriber wise,
Agricola
"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience"
CS Lewis
camp1111111 = zorndorf?
Tx, so that means there is a difference of 4 million dollars in this quarter (329 - 325), that comes from Blizzard Non WOW games.
So D2 and SC and WC3 still contibute for some 4 million dollars on a quarterly basis for Blizzard.
Excellent news for 10 - 12 year old games
. Actually they make more money than a lot of 2009 released PC games.
Giving support to the statement the OP made (although redundant).
Want a real mmorpg? Play WOW with experience turned off mode and be Pve_Pvp King at any level without a rat race.
Mass advertising is not the sole reason why WOW was a success, and all other games fail. If it was WAR or AOC would also have 1 mil+ populations, since they were mass marketed before their release.
WOW is simply the best, since it is one of the few MMO products that actually work work like it should.
LOTRO is not a failure as it is also one of the few games that continues to increase it's subscription numbers.
Star Wars was destroyed with the release of NGE. SOE is also a company that has a tainted reputation with the MMO community.
STO is simply not an MMO. It is a multiplayer online game and lacks a common area to give that MMO vibe.
95% of MMOs fail due to not being quality products.
No mmo will ever kill WoW, i even dare to say that no mmo will ever have half the subcribers WoW has (or its supposed to have, remember that if it says NET revenue that includes guitar hero songs over PSN and Live and all the DLC for their games). WoW was a succes because it worked pretty decent (it had bugs but was playable and worked on almost every pc) when it was released and had a huge community to back up it (SC+W3+D2 fans almost everyone of them tasted wow). Not even blizzard new mmo will kill it, it wont be the success wow has been because most wow players will never move from it, if wow ever ceases to hold servers they will just leave the mmo gaming.
Sorry for my crappy english (not native)
Okay, but I know I won't be playing their SciFi Fantasy MMOFPS for one. Especially since it isn't even based off an existing IP of theirs, which seems to be a huge risk on their part.
Blizzard taking a risk by making a new IP? Muwhahahaha! are you kidding me, they have created about 3 of the most famous IP's ever, Starcraft Warcraft and Diablo, nearly anyone on this planet with a PC has heard about at least 1 of them.
Blizzard rocks at creating IP's, and if you already say you won't play a scifi fantasy MMOFPS by blizzard, you are just, in one word.
IGNORRANT
Mass advertising is not the sole reason why WOW was a success, and all other games fail. If it was WAR or AOC would also have 1 mil+ populations, since they were mass marketed before their release.
WOW is simply the best, since it is one of the few MMO products that actually work work like it should.
LOTRO is not a failure as it is also one of the few games that continues to increase it's subscription numbers.
Star Wars was destroyed with the release of NGE. SOE is also a company that has a tainted reputation with the MMO community.
STO is simply not an MMO. It is a multiplayer online game and lacks a common area to give that MMO vibe.
95% of MMOs fail due to not being quality products.
totally agree, mass advertising a good product does work, but if you do the same to a bad one, it will have a very detrimental effect in the long term, as the company involveds reputation would be most likely irreparably damaged. while Mass advertising will help with initial sales, it is definitely the quality of the product that will sustain that growth, or not, as the case may be.
Tell that to myspace
Tell that to myspace
twitter going the same way apparently, the problem is with these is that their often fads or gadget related, so often have a limited interest span.
Mass advertising is not the sole reason why WOW was a success, and all other games fail. If it was WAR or AOC would also have 1 mil+ populations, since they were mass marketed before their release.
WOW is simply the best, since it is one of the few MMO products that actually work work like it should.
LOTRO is not a failure as it is also one of the few games that continues to increase it's subscription numbers.
Star Wars was destroyed with the release of NGE. SOE is also a company that has a tainted reputation with the MMO community.
STO is simply not an MMO. It is a multiplayer online game and lacks a common area to give that MMO vibe.
95% of MMOs fail due to not being quality products.
Well being there wasn't many mainstream MMO's back when WoW came out, yes advertising did account for ALOT. You don't understand. By the time WAR and AOC many MMO's had already been released not to mention 100's of free to play models, thus diluting the overall effectiveness of advertising and player stability in MMORPG's. Most had already gotten into their niches and just simply went back into their previous games being that's where they had all their time invested. Feel free to re-read my first reply on this topic. Timing is everything and WoW capitalized on it, to say its simply the best is naive.
Why would you want WOW killed off ? You should want to keep WOW around. If someone by accident happens to put out a good game ( my personal choice) along the lines of AC, then it will not be flooded by players that happen to like the style of game that WOW offers.
To beat WOW on it's home turf is an uphill battle, not only is it a good game, but Blizz has had time to mold it around it's fans. No, WOW is not going anywhere. The only hope is someone will make a playable game that stands on it's on merits that appeals to a different set of gamers.
Won't WoWs graphics soon become a problem? It's pretty dated as it stands now?
any chance of an upgrade?
When you're a company with a retardedly good reputation, with skilled game development teams, new IPs are hardly "risky".
Honestly I think Mass Effect is the best thing to happen to Bioware, and that is a relatively new IP. If they'd kept making crappy AD&D-based games I'd probably have about given up on them by now -- instead, they've simultaneously evolved their storytelling methods, character design, and combat design, and become a company whose games I eagerly await (even if Dragon Age carries along some of the early BG/NWN blandness with it.)
New IP developed by veteran teams is the holy grail of gamers, tbh.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
mm asian game has killed wow a long time ago!why you think wow work so hard to get asian
it will only get worst!for now asian play what they can get but once perfect world release PEM dont search for player they ll be in PEM
and if perfect world release world wide at the same time men wow will never reach the number of player that will play PEM
only one part they of the world they ll get the bigger piece of the pie in america for the rest of the world ?an insane amount will be in PEM
they only created Diablo, which tbh started being the most generic, soul less and no-story hack and slash ever made. Even golden axe utterly destroyed it in terms of story told....
Both Warcraft and Starcraft are blatant examples of plagiarism to the nth potence of GW warhammer fantasy and war40k
Blizzard rocks at creating polished games based on existing IPs from which they change the essential minimum to not be sued till they're blue in the face.
anyone with 1 working braincell would see that warcraft and war fantasy share way more common traits than differences in a 100 to 1 proportion, while starcraft and war40k are almost twin brothers.
that is, anyone that is actually aware of war and war40k's existance ...if you are a WoW fanboi, chances are you know absolutly NOTHING about games other than WoW....
I eagerly await your nerdrage rebuttal post about how Blizzard arent the gods of corporate plaguiarism, for laughs and giggles...
Just like Legos are,billions are playing with those but still Lego Group is not calling their product "xxxRPG" , like blizzard does.
legos = toys
wow = MMOtoy
pretty far from RPG´s
Generation P
they only created Diablo, which tbh started being the most generic, soul less and no-story hack and slash ever made. Even golden axe utterly destroyed it in terms of story told....
Both Warcraft and Starcraft are blatant examples of plagiarism to the nth potence of GW warhammer fantasy and war40k
Blizzard rocks at creating polished games based on existing IPs from which they change the essential minimum to not be sued till they're blue in the face.
anyone with 1 working braincell would see that warcraft and war fantasy share way more common traits than differences in a 100 to 1 proportion, while starcraft and war40k are almost twin brothers.
that is, anyone that is actually aware of war and war40k's existance ...if you are a WoW fanboi, chances are you know absolutly NOTHING about games other than WoW....
I eagerly await your nerdrage rebuttal post about how Blizzard arent the gods of corporate plaguiarism, for laughs and giggles...
Blizzard doesn't rock at creating IPs. Blizzard rocks at taking someone elses idea, reskins it, improves it and sells it.
I wouldn't call people ignorant if they wont play Blizzard's Sci-Fi MMOFPS. Some people hear Sci-Fi and are turned off. Others hear FPS and don't look back when they walk away.
And why does McDonalds aways get brought into conversations about WoW? Really, if anyone knows anything about McDonalds, they would know that Ray Kroc didn't care about hamburgers, he cared about real estate. He placed his stores in key locations and thats why the company is successful. It has no comparable value to Blizzard or World of Warcraft.
Also, Blizzard has about 4-6 million NA & EU players meaning the aforementioned 9 million Chinese is inaccurate.
Admittedly I don't know much of anything about WAR or WAR40k other than the video game interpretations and briefly seeing some game boards in someones basement. But I am familiar with tabletop and pencil & paper games before MMOs, as well as MUDs. So I didn't see StarCraft's relation to another IP. I always thought they took the Alien and Predator franchises and melded them. Especially since the Terran Dropship has a visual likeness to the dropship used in Aliens as well as every quote comes directly from the movie.
*Edited out*
...And again I say to those of little scholarly interest in the matter... That it is not so.
Both StarCraft AND Warhammer 40k were blantant rippoffs of Robert A. Heinlein's 1959 title which was first published in the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction and entitled "StarShip Soldier". This was later published once again in a hard book copy of the same year under the name of "StarShip Troopers", if I recall correctly.
I'm don't recall GW admitting that they stole ideas from StarShip Soldier/Trooper in the past (though it's blatantly obvious where they got their ideas from), but I do recall reading an old article where blizzard said that they got inspiration in creating StarCraft from Robert A. Heinlein and his "<epic StarShip Soldier saga>." If one were to read the book, they would quite easily come to terms with this, as the StarShip Marines enter an interstellar war with an insect/bug like alien race that threatens to dominate life. Additionally, these creatures are described very much like most Zerg units, and possess similar abilities.
Even in the movie, if people have seen it (though most probably don't even know it was a 1959 book), the bugs even have an "Overmind" which they protect and controls the horde.
When it comes to Warcraft... Didn't you know? Anything that has knights and elves is a blatant copy of Lord of the Rings. Medieval times itself copied Lord of the Rings. History is just a prime example of a culture adapting to the Lord of the Rings series.
Seriously. Swords and magic do not a copyright material make; Warcraft's lore and story is vastly abundant and large, spanning across PC games, Board games, card games, Time lines, an MMO, Mugs, etc. etc. It's lore in the current form surpasses Warhammer by leaps and bounds (albeit 40k has much, much more depth than Starcraft; I'm a lore buff for both franchises).
More importantly -- Blizzard is a better developer than GW even if (and the actual evidence says it's not, despite what the drones say) it is a copy; I'd much rather leave it into their hands.
Oh no... Warcraft has a Gyrocopter and so did Warhammer. Yup. There is no dictionary definition of "Gyrocopter" (or autogyro, which it is typically called; Helicopter in modern terms), and there is no modern craft for which it could be inspired from. Gnomes and dwarfs -- age old fantasy races -- aren't known for being crafty or have ingenuity... It's just blatant copyright . Uh-huh.
Point is -- They did get inspiration from other sources, but it wasn't from GW. Mayhaps a few things may have been from a company such as GW, but let's just take a look at the Graphics of Warhammer Online for a moment. Wait, no... That info will do by itself: Games look for working precedence in the past and expand upon it. GW is no exception, and by your logic they have no franchise.
Warcraft and StarCraft are Blizzard own Franchies as it is rightfully defined by law -- They own those IPs.
Your illogical logic and claiming others don't have any brain cells does not magically make it so blizzard doesn't have intellectual rights to their own games.
But you are good at making people laugh with how easily you believe things... I'll give you that.
Zomg there are facts and actualities other than wut pplz tell me? Inorite?!
Ahh, I knew StarCraft had to have inspiration from Starship Troopers. I just didn't know it was a book.
Thanks!
Personally I don't care how ripped off an IP is off another, I just care about the quality of the product.
If Blizzard can take an IP, make thier own from it and polish it to a pristine shine, then I want them to do that and will give them my money rather than giving it to the original creators of the idea for a lesser product.
Invalid argument. McDonalds is a for profit organization that charge cheaply for its burger while your mum's running her operation as a lost by not charging you anything for it.
MySpace seems to be killed by Facebook at the moment...
With every paid expansion of the game, blizzard slightly increased graphic of the game. However, a major overhaul of the graphic engine is very unlikely. Graphic is indeed a major problem for WoW, but not in a way that you it is. Blizzard problem with graphic is how to upgrade its graphic without making the majority of it current user unplayable.
Yawn, another WoW killer thread. I'm starting to see a pattern arise. More and more negative "OMG MMOS ARE DYING COS OF <mmo title>!!" and "Why bother searching anymore ;_; cut cut" emo threads are popping up. MMORPG needs some better moderators to clean this mess up.
Unique upcoming indie space-based mining and combat game - Miner Wars.
http://www.minerwars.com/?aid=191
Okay, but I know I won't be playing their SciFi Fantasy MMOFPS for one. Especially since it isn't even based off an existing IP of theirs, which seems to be a huge risk on their part.
Blizzard taking a risk by making a new IP? Muwhahahaha! are you kidding me, they have created about 3 of the most famous IP's ever, Starcraft Warcraft and Diablo, nearly anyone on this planet with a PC has heard about at least 1 of them.
Blizzard rocks at creating IP's, and if you already say you won't play a scifi fantasy MMOFPS by blizzard, you are just, in one word.
IGNORRANT
Those were IP's that had already established a fanbase. And as a few have mentioned in this thread, there are players that play WoW because they like the 'fantasy' type of MMORPG.
I think it's safe to say that ANY company which creates a brand new unestablished IP for a game is taking a risk, especially if that game is an MMORPG. Though Blizzard is considered the MMO king, it does not change my views one bit.
Do not try to be a great gamer, just be a gamer. Cause, I don't care how good you are anyway.
Matrix online is a spinoff of a movie hence its fail. Lord of the Rings online. .Spin off of a movie once again. Star Trek? Television spin off! Star wars galaxies. .and we go on. They all have one thing in common, they were spin offs of movies and television series meaning only a percentage would even consider playing games. World of warcraft is a spinoff of a GAME series. My argument is still valid, not to mention that was only half my argument. Though I'm sure you didn't get that far because you were too eager to throw out your hollywood film based games.
Off topic, but.....no.
President of The Marvelously Meowhead Fan Club