It stopped growing when they instanced off PvP and the endgame wouldn't you say? I mean taking players out of this large world and shuffling them into little instances is shrinking isn't it?
Actually the game had quit growing prior to that even happening. It's just the natural rise and fall of a games popularity. No game will continue to grow forever, at some point the growth is gonna stop. If anything the recent changes are a response to the stoppage of growth and trying to maintain the subscription base.
I think there will be a mass jump in Sub's when Cat comes, If they stay more then a month is another story.
But will just have to wait and see.
I don't see how that is possible when most of the people who will be buying Cataclysm are already active subscribers anyway. There is no way possible that a few million who never played WOW before will buy the original WoW and also buy Cataclysm.
You don't think that any of the folks that have quit could purchase it and start playing again? I find that highly unlikely. Now, will that number exceed the number they are losing per month I don't know, but you can't say that nobody who's not playing today is gonna purchase Cat. That's just not how it works.
When will people realize that WoW is actually *good* for the MMORPG Genre? WoW is a quality MMORPG that every other MMORPG out there should strive to be like.
What that DOESN'T Mean is that every MMORPG should copy WoW, but it DOES mean t hey should strive to maintain the quality WoW offers.
WoW is a reminder that every creator of an MMORPG should stop with this shoddy junk they are making and start working on their quality! I'm so sick of seeing failed launches and people blaming WoW. The person you should blame is the company making these games, not WoW. In this year alone we'll see more MMORPGs from companies we haven't even heard of than we have all year in 2009.
People see the MMORPG market as a quick and potential way to make stupid high amounts of money and they do this by offering silly incentives to get you to buy their products. Over-hyping, Pre-order "Headstarts" which are nothing more than paid open betas, Micro-transactions which bolster an already steady income..
It's these things that's killing MMORPGs.
People keep blaming WoW because they somehow think it's death will solve everything, but it won't. It'll just mean more people will come in and try to take WoW's place as "top dog" and they'll do it by offering crappy service and a crappy game because there won't be anything better to play.
Does it matter? if they lost 80% of there current subs they still have more subs then any other game out. Unless somthing better comes along which so far hasent they will only lose minimal people anyway. WoW isnt going anywhere for a long time hate it or not.
if WOW lost 80 % of it's paying players the game would be over because they would never see those kind of player numbers again blizzard only cares about money so with no new people wanting to play WOW any more they would have to do what ever it takes to keep the players they still have... and if WOW couldn't be their cash cow anymore they would have to find a new one very fast..WOW is on it's death bed and i'll be happy to see that joke of an MMO fall apart in the coming months...
If WoW lost 80% of it's player base, it would still have roughly 1-2 million players depending on which estimate of subs you pick.
Hardly on it's death bed IMO as it's still, at a minimum, twice the amount of subs of any other P2P MMO currently.
It's not surprising though. The game has been out 6 years and has begun to show it's age, not to mention nearly everyone that wanted to try it probably has at this point. It is inevitable, even for the behemoth that is WoW that population would eventually decrease, but I honestly cannot see WoW going anywhere for another 5-10 years. If UO, AC1 and EQ1 are still running after 13, and 11 years respectively, WoW will easily see it's 10 year and 15 year anniversaries, and maybe even a 20th.
I think the naysayers are missing a important point here and are beginning to sound a bit loony. So let me get this straight:
When WoW dies, other developers will magically(or suddenly) get fantastic ideas of how to make MMOs to retain the 2 to 3 million US players that are too pampered and dumb to know a quality MMO even if it hits them over the head?
What's stopping them from doing it now? Or kept them from doing in within the last 5 years?
While continuing to spew nonsense worthy of ace reporter Evan Baxter, you brainiacs go on to contradict yourselves by saying you do not wish to have any of those players gravitate to your current MMO or even wish to play any new games with them?
Ok so that's like saying you want to close Gitmo but refusing to bear any of the responsibility that comes with housing the undesirables until justice is served or even have a plan to begin with. Great point...
And then their are the very special few that want WoW and their entire player base to die out for the good of the industry.
You know the same thing happened to video games with Atari leading the charge. And after that debacle, Japan dominated the gaming industry for years to come. How would some of you feel if Korea did the same for the MMO genre.....
What I'm trying to get at here is while WoW is leading the market, it shows the industry that a single source generator (monthly subs with min FMTs) is still a viable option for MMOs.Koreans on the other hand just made it legal to sell gold in games.
Every developer, company and investor strives to be (or be part of) the next big thing. And sometimes they take unhealthy approaches like copying the wrong features and sometimes they get things right. But when you see something that you are striving to surpass suddenly crash and burn, it doesn't give you a boost of confidence that a lot of you THINK would happen to these developers. No it sends an opposite message that maybe they should take a step back and rethink their strategies or even halt them all together.
Look I expect other companies to come and go, restructure and merge, but never do I wish for one to die out completely. That would only lead to folly. I just know that the small minority of players here will NEVER be enough to sustain an entire industry as development cost rise with each MMO being released.
Better to have that carrot out there for them to chase than to have them give up the chase completely.....
"Small minds talk about people, average minds talk about events, great minds talk about ideas."
1 US games market ... shrank by 11% in 2009. Holding on to 11.5 million subscriptions 14 months after the last expansion is remarkable. WOW managed to grab 60% market share, how was the competition doing ?
Secondly:
The OP was again jumping over nothing, because:
NetEase.com Announces Receipt of Approval from the General Administration of Press and Publication for Blizzard Entertainment's World of Warcraft(R): The Burning Crusade(R) as Online Game Published Goods
In view of the above, we now may conclude why the CEO of Blizzard was so positively in his press conference two days ago. Apparently he knew already of the deal, but let the Chinese partner announce the news ... two days later.
That's called "sound business and proper diplomatic behaviour".
So any bets NOW it will grow again ?
I take them on 1 to 10 now . No problem.
Want a real mmorpg? Play WOW with experience turned off mode and be Pve_Pvp King at any level without a rat race.
Originally posted by nyxium Quitting WoW felt good. I've quit LOTR a few times and found that easier. But finishing off my Wow time was more difficult.
Yeah, I've quit WoW many times and it always feels good at the time. heh
When will people realize that WoW is actually *good* for the MMORPG Genre? WoW is a quality MMORPG that every other MMORPG out there should strive to be like.
thats your opinion.... but i've played WOW and i didn't like it so why would i want every MMO in the world to be more like it..in my opinion i want MMO's to be nothing WOW that game ruined all other fantasy MMO's for me i could never play another one ever again thats how bad i thought WOW was...
Does it matter? if they lost 80% of there current subs they still have more subs then any other game out. Unless somthing better comes along which so far hasent they will only lose minimal people anyway. WoW isnt going anywhere for a long time hate it or not.
Oh yes it matters to many of us.
Sure it will be around for a long time, but now we actually know that WOW hasn't grown since 2008. One could wager that WOW will finally begin it's inevitable decline in the next couple of years. As WOW loses it monstrous grip on the industry, we will then have a much healthier environment for new MMOs. WOW has certainly had it's time. This is fantastic news.
Quoted for truth. It's time to get a new perspective on MMO's, down with the king.
There are two kinds of people in this world. People who pick their nose.. and liars.
Saying wow is easy but wait ...what are your credentials..What have you raided? armory profile maybe?
Your saying you like a lot of thinking ,games wich take skill....so that's why you've played a lot of Lineage2.Sorry to burst your bubble but a hard/intellectual challenging game isn't one where you have to mindlessly grind for hours . Oh ...did I mention there was a lot of RMT going on in the games you deem so superior?.
Does it matter? if they lost 80% of there current subs they still have more subs then any other game out. Unless somthing better comes along which so far hasent they will only lose minimal people anyway. WoW isnt going anywhere for a long time hate it or not.
Oh yes it matters to many of us.
Sure it will be around for a long time, but now we actually know that WOW hasn't grown since 2008. One could wager that WOW will finally begin it's inevitable decline in the next couple of years. As WOW loses it monstrous grip on the industry, we will then have a much healthier environment for new MMOs. WOW has certainly had it's time. This is fantastic news.
Quoted for truth. It's time to get a new perspective on MMO's, down with the king.
It was said by blizzard. "No King rules forever, my son"!
But don't worry, they will rule for many years to come, especially since they have another MMO in the works....
Human nature is amazing. The amount of people who just seething hate Blizzard and WoW and wish them to fail. And for what? Making one of the most successful games in history? It's like rooting on the executioner about to pull the lever for the electric chair to fry an innocent man. Just because they personally do not like the game? Then they go on infantile rants screaming about how it's a terrible game or just the half-witted one liners of "Worst game ever." etc bullshit. Note I didn't say it's one of the best games. It call comes down to personal opinion. I wish people would be more honest about that fact. These people claim all Blizzard wants is money. Really? Please say it isn't so! Show me a company who's sole purpose is the happiness and support of its customers without monetary return.
Though honestly if all they wanted was money, WoW wouldn't be as big as it is today. It takes a lot of love for a product to do everything they've done for the entire franchise. Conventions, always working on trying to improve the game(Although not very successfully), decent customer support if you can actually pull your head out of your ass and realize that these guys are probably dealing with hundreds of thousands of players a day and that the line ends at the back.
Welcome to the world of business, not entitlement.
What about all these WoW-junkies' kids that are going to be hitting 4 and 5 years old and able to play very soon? I don't see anything coming down the pipe that will be able to do any serious damage to WoW's numbers, therefore, sure there might be a stagnation, or even a dip in sub base, but whose to say it won't rise again? Maybe even bigger than before.
Vault-Tec analysts have concluded that the odds of worldwide nuclear armaggeddon this decade are 17,143,762... to 1.
I run into new players each time I log in to WoW. I just had a conversation today with a trial member switching over from EQ2. WoW doesn't need to grow anymore anyway it is HUGE. WoW is the best.
You guys act as if this means the end of WoW? lol and yes cataylsm will burst the population... it changes everything this will attract people who stoped playing prebc/BC.... Yes the game has peaked but it took everquest 1 (which still is not tech dead) years ... about 3 years when the population started to decline... and it only had around 400subs we our talking Millions of acting subs to WoW it will be the top for atleast the next 5-6 years... and thats if blizzard doesent realse the next big thing in MMO... WoW is number 1 plain and simple... and isent this the same shit we heard right before the Wotk came out?
You guys act as if this means the end of WoW? lol and yes cataylsm will burst the population... it changes everything this will attract people who stoped playing prebc/BC.... Yes the game has peaked but it took everquest 1 (which still is not tech dead) years ... about 3 years when the population started to decline... and it only had around 400subs we our talking Millions of acting subs to WoW it will be the top for atleast the next 5-6 years... and thats if blizzard doesent realse the next big thing in MMO... WoW is number 1 plain and simple... and isent this the same shit we heard right before the Wotk came out?
I think people stop joining is because of the 3 boxes they need to buy. Does the expansion if bought counts as everthing? If not this wont solve the issue of it stop growing.
-- "Any free people have the right to choose how it wants to be govern thats the essence of democracy. It's sad when America has chosen for the stability and consistency of a dictatorship and doing it democratically" -utnow
Do you realise how naieve that stament is? As many have said other successful and GROWING MMO devs have worked on thier games with a lot less, lets put it into words, WoW has 11.5mill, 'successful mmos' have 500k - thats 1/20, yup ONE TWENTYETH of WoW's subcription base, Blizzard earn twenty times more then any other MMO a month.
Big whoop you say? Hell yea it is a big whoop, 103,500,000 a month is, and before you say it, yes after Activision take their cut and Blizzard throw half of that at other projects and server/staff costs lets guess theres a quarter of that left for WoW thats still 25,875,000 a month left to 'play with' like I said thats still 20 times more then any other MMO's buget for the month and they've ran for years, even the bad ones, and Blizzard wont be spending all of that money in the whole month.
Lets throw an expantion is there Cata for example 20 for the box right? Thats 230,000,000 just from the box sales plus the subs for that month 333,500,000 that month YUP JUST THAT MONTH, thats just under 2 YEARS profit for a 'normal' MMO in one month..
Let me bottom line it for you, Blizzard HAVE the money to run the game even if it drops to the 'norm' of subcription levels, a HELLOFALOT longer then the naysayers think, WoW will only die if it's got no funds behind it, if the 'bad' MMOs are still going what 2/3 years and the oldies have been going 8-10 with their 'profits' ? Blizzard could practally stop charging for the game now and still probly run it for another 5 years just with what they have in 'leftovers'.
WoW wont 'die' just because it's 'peaked', it'll just have a smaller playerbase
WoW lost a handful more subs this month.. Our lil guild went back to playing EQ after a 5 year vacation.. WoW became all about the raid, and nothing else mattered, and because of that design and thinking, we closed up shop and moved.. Sorry, Bliz as I doubt we'll be back even with Cat expansion coming out this year.. Our lil huddle of friends and family are about anything "other" then raiding.. IMO, it's only a matter of time before the 11.5 sub number start dropping.. probably after Cat when people realize there is nothing new or more for them.. Good Luck
Whatever is the situation, I think Blizzard is really at the right point to announce their new MMO which will get another couple of million people playing MMOs, anyone thinking otherwise is just fooling themselves, Cataclysm is bringing some more people back and should give them enough leverage until they announce whatever is next, which then this cycle will start again, whatever happened in 2004 will happen again for their new MMO and possibly on a much larger scale.
Until we get a company with the same standards as blizzard when it comes to product polish, with some serious amount of cash, 100-150mil sort of figures it just wont happen. (HINT: Zenimax investing 300mil on Zenimax Online Games hopefully they will know what to do with it, but its a long way still)
As it is its just the perfect scenario, everyone is a bit too getting bored of WoW atm, there is only so much they can do to make it feel new, which they will with cataclysm and string along a few more people until it goes back to the same it has been for every expansion ( not saying its a bad thing), then it comes blizz with their glorious new MMO and everyone flocks back.
Originally posted by SlyLoK There will probably be another surge after Cataclysm releases... I think Blizzard hopes WoW will decline at some point so it wont be in the way of their next game even if its a different genre.
Excellent point. Consider, Blizzard will be releasing Star Craft 2, Diablo 3 and their next MMO in the next few years, I really don't think they are very worried.
Comments
Actually the game had quit growing prior to that even happening. It's just the natural rise and fall of a games popularity. No game will continue to grow forever, at some point the growth is gonna stop. If anything the recent changes are a response to the stoppage of growth and trying to maintain the subscription base.
I think there will be a mass jump in Sub's when Cat comes, If they stay more then a month is another story.
But will just have to wait and see.
I don't see how that is possible when most of the people who will be buying Cataclysm are already active subscribers anyway. There is no way possible that a few million who never played WOW before will buy the original WoW and also buy Cataclysm.
You don't think that any of the folks that have quit could purchase it and start playing again? I find that highly unlikely. Now, will that number exceed the number they are losing per month I don't know, but you can't say that nobody who's not playing today is gonna purchase Cat. That's just not how it works.
When will people realize that WoW is actually *good* for the MMORPG Genre? WoW is a quality MMORPG that every other MMORPG out there should strive to be like.
What that DOESN'T Mean is that every MMORPG should copy WoW, but it DOES mean t hey should strive to maintain the quality WoW offers.
WoW is a reminder that every creator of an MMORPG should stop with this shoddy junk they are making and start working on their quality! I'm so sick of seeing failed launches and people blaming WoW. The person you should blame is the company making these games, not WoW. In this year alone we'll see more MMORPGs from companies we haven't even heard of than we have all year in 2009.
People see the MMORPG market as a quick and potential way to make stupid high amounts of money and they do this by offering silly incentives to get you to buy their products. Over-hyping, Pre-order "Headstarts" which are nothing more than paid open betas, Micro-transactions which bolster an already steady income..
It's these things that's killing MMORPGs.
People keep blaming WoW because they somehow think it's death will solve everything, but it won't. It'll just mean more people will come in and try to take WoW's place as "top dog" and they'll do it by offering crappy service and a crappy game because there won't be anything better to play.
if WOW lost 80 % of it's paying players the game would be over because they would never see those kind of player numbers again blizzard only cares about money so with no new people wanting to play WOW any more they would have to do what ever it takes to keep the players they still have... and if WOW couldn't be their cash cow anymore they would have to find a new one very fast..WOW is on it's death bed and i'll be happy to see that joke of an MMO fall apart in the coming months...
If WoW lost 80% of it's player base, it would still have roughly 1-2 million players depending on which estimate of subs you pick.
Hardly on it's death bed IMO as it's still, at a minimum, twice the amount of subs of any other P2P MMO currently.
It's not surprising though. The game has been out 6 years and has begun to show it's age, not to mention nearly everyone that wanted to try it probably has at this point. It is inevitable, even for the behemoth that is WoW that population would eventually decrease, but I honestly cannot see WoW going anywhere for another 5-10 years. If UO, AC1 and EQ1 are still running after 13, and 11 years respectively, WoW will easily see it's 10 year and 15 year anniversaries, and maybe even a 20th.
This
I think the naysayers are missing a important point here and are beginning to sound a bit loony. So let me get this straight:
When WoW dies, other developers will magically(or suddenly) get fantastic ideas of how to make MMOs to retain the 2 to 3 million US players that are too pampered and dumb to know a quality MMO even if it hits them over the head?
What's stopping them from doing it now? Or kept them from doing in within the last 5 years?
While continuing to spew nonsense worthy of ace reporter Evan Baxter, you brainiacs go on to contradict yourselves by saying you do not wish to have any of those players gravitate to your current MMO or even wish to play any new games with them?
Ok so that's like saying you want to close Gitmo but refusing to bear any of the responsibility that comes with housing the undesirables until justice is served or even have a plan to begin with. Great point...
And then their are the very special few that want WoW and their entire player base to die out for the good of the industry.
You know the same thing happened to video games with Atari leading the charge. And after that debacle, Japan dominated the gaming industry for years to come. How would some of you feel if Korea did the same for the MMO genre.....
What I'm trying to get at here is while WoW is leading the market, it shows the industry that a single source generator (monthly subs with min FMTs) is still a viable option for MMOs. Koreans on the other hand just made it legal to sell gold in games.
Every developer, company and investor strives to be (or be part of) the next big thing. And sometimes they take unhealthy approaches like copying the wrong features and sometimes they get things right. But when you see something that you are striving to surpass suddenly crash and burn, it doesn't give you a boost of confidence that a lot of you THINK would happen to these developers. No it sends an opposite message that maybe they should take a step back and rethink their strategies or even halt them all together.
Look I expect other companies to come and go, restructure and merge, but never do I wish for one to die out completely. That would only lead to folly. I just know that the small minority of players here will NEVER be enough to sustain an entire industry as development cost rise with each MMO being released.
Better to have that carrot out there for them to chase than to have them give up the chase completely.....
"Small minds talk about people, average minds talk about events, great minds talk about ideas."
Again, the WOW crowd was taken by surprise...
First:
1 US games market ... shrank by 11% in 2009. Holding on to 11.5 million subscriptions 14 months after the last expansion is remarkable. WOW managed to grab 60% market share, how was the competition doing ?
Secondly:
The OP was again jumping over nothing, because:
NetEase.com Announces Receipt of Approval from the General Administration of Press and Publication for Blizzard Entertainment's World of Warcraft(R): The Burning Crusade(R) as Online Game Published Goods
http://money.aol.com/rtn/pr/netease-com-announces-receipt-of-approval-from-the-general-administration-of-press-and-publication-for-blizzard-entertainment-s-world-of-warcraft-r-the-burning-crusade-r-as-online-game-published-goods/rfid298995586?channel=pf
Third:
In view of the above, we now may conclude why the CEO of Blizzard was so positively in his press conference two days ago. Apparently he knew already of the deal, but let the Chinese partner announce the news ... two days later.
That's called "sound business and proper diplomatic behaviour".
So any bets NOW it will grow again ?
I take them on 1 to 10 now . No problem.
Want a real mmorpg? Play WOW with experience turned off mode and be Pve_Pvp King at any level without a rat race.
Yeah, I've quit WoW many times and it always feels good at the time. heh
so...
thats your opinion.... but i've played WOW and i didn't like it so why would i want every MMO in the world to be more like it..in my opinion i want MMO's to be nothing WOW that game ruined all other fantasy MMO's for me i could never play another one ever again thats how bad i thought WOW was...
Oh yes it matters to many of us.
Sure it will be around for a long time, but now we actually know that WOW hasn't grown since 2008. One could wager that WOW will finally begin it's inevitable decline in the next couple of years. As WOW loses it monstrous grip on the industry, we will then have a much healthier environment for new MMOs. WOW has certainly had it's time. This is fantastic news.
Quoted for truth. It's time to get a new perspective on MMO's, down with the king.
There are two kinds of people in this world. People who pick their nose.. and liars.
Saying wow is easy but wait ...what are your credentials..What have you raided? armory profile maybe?
Your saying you like a lot of thinking ,games wich take skill....so that's why you've played a lot of Lineage2.Sorry to burst your bubble but a hard/intellectual challenging game isn't one where you have to mindlessly grind for hours . Oh ...did I mention there was a lot of RMT going on in the games you deem so superior?.
Oh yes it matters to many of us.
Sure it will be around for a long time, but now we actually know that WOW hasn't grown since 2008. One could wager that WOW will finally begin it's inevitable decline in the next couple of years. As WOW loses it monstrous grip on the industry, we will then have a much healthier environment for new MMOs. WOW has certainly had it's time. This is fantastic news.
Quoted for truth. It's time to get a new perspective on MMO's, down with the king.
It was said by blizzard. "No King rules forever, my son"!
But don't worry, they will rule for many years to come, especially since they have another MMO in the works....
Human nature is amazing. The amount of people who just seething hate Blizzard and WoW and wish them to fail. And for what? Making one of the most successful games in history? It's like rooting on the executioner about to pull the lever for the electric chair to fry an innocent man. Just because they personally do not like the game? Then they go on infantile rants screaming about how it's a terrible game or just the half-witted one liners of "Worst game ever." etc bullshit. Note I didn't say it's one of the best games. It call comes down to personal opinion. I wish people would be more honest about that fact. These people claim all Blizzard wants is money. Really? Please say it isn't so! Show me a company who's sole purpose is the happiness and support of its customers without monetary return.
Though honestly if all they wanted was money, WoW wouldn't be as big as it is today. It takes a lot of love for a product to do everything they've done for the entire franchise. Conventions, always working on trying to improve the game(Although not very successfully), decent customer support if you can actually pull your head out of your ass and realize that these guys are probably dealing with hundreds of thousands of players a day and that the line ends at the back.
Welcome to the world of business, not entitlement.
What about all these WoW-junkies' kids that are going to be hitting 4 and 5 years old and able to play very soon? I don't see anything coming down the pipe that will be able to do any serious damage to WoW's numbers, therefore, sure there might be a stagnation, or even a dip in sub base, but whose to say it won't rise again? Maybe even bigger than before.
Vault-Tec analysts have concluded that the odds of worldwide nuclear armaggeddon this decade are 17,143,762... to 1.
Silly thread. Talking about a game with a confirmed active 11.5 millionsubs in an industry where 200K is considered a smashing hit.
The only reason why it temporarely stopped at 11.5 M was because of the problems in China.
A pity for the China guys: WOW was approved again in China on Feb 12 th.
What a terrible day this must have been for some people.
Let the WOW killer stand up please: but it won't be in 2010.
Want a real mmorpg? Play WOW with experience turned off mode and be Pve_Pvp King at any level without a rat race.
I run into new players each time I log in to WoW. I just had a conversation today with a trial member switching over from EQ2. WoW doesn't need to grow anymore anyway it is HUGE. WoW is the best.
No Game Rules 4ever.... =D
It can't grow becasue it has nothing left to feed on...
You guys act as if this means the end of WoW? lol and yes cataylsm will burst the population... it changes everything this will attract people who stoped playing prebc/BC.... Yes the game has peaked but it took everquest 1 (which still is not tech dead) years ... about 3 years when the population started to decline... and it only had around 400subs we our talking Millions of acting subs to WoW it will be the top for atleast the next 5-6 years... and thats if blizzard doesent realse the next big thing in MMO... WoW is number 1 plain and simple... and isent this the same shit we heard right before the Wotk came out?
Lvl 75 Black Mage/White Mage ffxi
Lvl 80 Druid WoW
Lvl 34 Ranger Aion
I think people stop joining is because of the 3 boxes they need to buy. Does the expansion if bought counts as everthing? If not this wont solve the issue of it stop growing.
--
"Any free people have the right to choose how it wants to be govern thats the essence of democracy. It's sad when America has chosen for the stability and consistency of a dictatorship and doing it democratically" -utnow
'WoW has peaked therfore it'll die'
Do you realise how naieve that stament is? As many have said other successful and GROWING MMO devs have worked on thier games with a lot less, lets put it into words, WoW has 11.5mill, 'successful mmos' have 500k - thats 1/20, yup ONE TWENTYETH of WoW's subcription base, Blizzard earn twenty times more then any other MMO a month.
Big whoop you say? Hell yea it is a big whoop, 103,500,000 a month is, and before you say it, yes after Activision take their cut and Blizzard throw half of that at other projects and server/staff costs lets guess theres a quarter of that left for WoW thats still 25,875,000 a month left to 'play with' like I said thats still 20 times more then any other MMO's buget for the month and they've ran for years, even the bad ones, and Blizzard wont be spending all of that money in the whole month.
Lets throw an expantion is there Cata for example 20 for the box right? Thats 230,000,000 just from the box sales plus the subs for that month 333,500,000 that month YUP JUST THAT MONTH, thats just under 2 YEARS profit for a 'normal' MMO in one month..
Let me bottom line it for you, Blizzard HAVE the money to run the game even if it drops to the 'norm' of subcription levels, a HELLOFALOT longer then the naysayers think, WoW will only die if it's got no funds behind it, if the 'bad' MMOs are still going what 2/3 years and the oldies have been going 8-10 with their 'profits' ? Blizzard could practally stop charging for the game now and still probly run it for another 5 years just with what they have in 'leftovers'.
WoW wont 'die' just because it's 'peaked', it'll just have a smaller playerbase
Bring on the WARRRRGGHH!
WoW lost a handful more subs this month.. Our lil guild went back to playing EQ after a 5 year vacation.. WoW became all about the raid, and nothing else mattered, and because of that design and thinking, we closed up shop and moved.. Sorry, Bliz as I doubt we'll be back even with Cat expansion coming out this year.. Our lil huddle of friends and family are about anything "other" then raiding.. IMO, it's only a matter of time before the 11.5 sub number start dropping.. probably after Cat when people realize there is nothing new or more for them.. Good Luck
Whatever is the situation, I think Blizzard is really at the right point to announce their new MMO which will get another couple of million people playing MMOs, anyone thinking otherwise is just fooling themselves, Cataclysm is bringing some more people back and should give them enough leverage until they announce whatever is next, which then this cycle will start again, whatever happened in 2004 will happen again for their new MMO and possibly on a much larger scale.
Until we get a company with the same standards as blizzard when it comes to product polish, with some serious amount of cash, 100-150mil sort of figures it just wont happen. (HINT: Zenimax investing 300mil on Zenimax Online Games hopefully they will know what to do with it, but its a long way still)
As it is its just the perfect scenario, everyone is a bit too getting bored of WoW atm, there is only so much they can do to make it feel new, which they will with cataclysm and string along a few more people until it goes back to the same it has been for every expansion ( not saying its a bad thing), then it comes blizz with their glorious new MMO and everyone flocks back.
Excellent point. Consider, Blizzard will be releasing Star Craft 2, Diablo 3 and their next MMO in the next few years, I really don't think they are very worried.
it has stopped growing for now.. let's wait and see what happens when cataclysm comes out
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waiting for ... nothing..
Wow subscription number will most definitely drop in the months to come for one and one reason only. Starcraft 2.