Everyone who can read can see Blizzard gained 325 million dollars in its last quarter. So the stats are against you.
You forgot to mention though that Blizzard added tons of services in that time.
pve to pvp transfers, vanity pets, faction transfer, race change, gender change, pay to enter Arena tournament etc etc more money dusnt always mean more subs Zorndorf
[1] WoW's subscription rate is FALLING in EU/NA - the two most important and profitable markets. It requires you to read between the lines and use your brain (something not required in Wrath of the Lame King).
Blizzard said that subs, despite massive advertisting campaigns, remains steady at 11.5 million. Blizzard also said that China continues to grow. Now, if one market, ie China is growing, but the overall number is not that means that the has to be a DECLINE in other markets to OFFSET the growth in China.
And dont forget that Blizzard has to share the money from China with the local operator, that the Chinese currency is lowly valued and that China pays per hour and not a flat rate. So all the casuals in China who log on for a couple of hours a month are not going to contribute anywhere near the amount of money than people from NA paying $15 US a month.
[2] And if Blizzard haven't woken up to the fact that long time players are quitting WoW en masse then they're going to lose a lot of money.
[1]
I just wanted to point out that if what you said is true (Asian populations are growing, western populations are declining) then WoW would see a downturn in revenue, which has not happened. If I recall right, revenue was actually up in each quarter compared to the previous year.
(A)Revenue is rerived from more than just subs. Activision-Blizzard lost $300,000,000 recently. So much for increased revenue.
The only thing I think anyone knows for certain is that wow remains at around the same subscription level since lich king released. There is more to that, but the available information makes it hard to see what exactly that is.
(B) Go back and look at Blizzard's press releases for sub numbers. Blizzard ALWAYS broke the regions down. Now they dont. I wonder why? Why is Blizzard being a lot more secretive with their numbers?
[2]
I think blizzard is well aware of their retention rates. I recall where blizzard was talking about their strategy and they are not fighting tooth and nail to become the only mmo that people play for years on end. They are aiming at giving a game that people will play for a while or at the same time as another game. They plan for people to leave and come back when new content comes out.
(C) Well, Blizzard are dumber than I thought. An inactive account generates no income. Blizzard generates no more money from someone inactive who is planning to come back than someone who will never play the game again. $0 is equal to $0.
Just like with Arena Blizzard will realise they are wrong.
That isn't saying they are giving up on players, but realistically no game is going to retains players for years and years and continue to grow. Still wow has done a fabulous job of doing just that to various degrees. Furthermore I bet you anything well over half of the people here who "quit wow for the last time" will go back again for cataclysm. Just like we all say we will not get sucked into the hype of the next big release and then rush out to buy collectors versions and lifetime subscriptions.
(D) I played Quakeworld (Quake 1) for 6 years. People have played Everquest for 10 years. To make sweeping generalisethat on how long people play a game is typical of the arrogant blizzard fanbois that believe whatever idiotcrawler and his team of goons tell them.
And if Blizzard's current strategy is to aim at casuals only where the hell are they? The game isnt growing and theres plenty more brain dead chimps out there that havent subscribed to WoW.
(A)
WOW gained revenue from the same quarter last year. It doesn't matter what the rest of activision blizzard did in comparison. The revenue generated from WOW increased, which would be very difficult to do if western subs were decreasing. While not proof of anything, we are still just playing guessing games.
(B)
I did go back and check some press releases and you are incorrect. Blizzard did not ALWAYS break down subscriber numbers by region. Occassionally they did, but it wasn't something done with every release. LINK
Why didn't the break down the last one? Probably for the same reasons they didn't break down many of the other ones I suppose. Nothing new here.
(C)
So far blizzard has the best retention rate of any mmo in the history of mmos, so I doubt you have solid ground to call them stupid. Their strategy is to make the game as inviting as possible for players to return after they leave and it is in the nature of mmos players to leave mmos. Honestly blizzard does a better job at attracting burned out wow players to play wow than other games do. That really says something.
(D)
You are not the typical mmo player. Some of us might play games for years on end, but most don't. I think the typical mmo player averages 18 months before moving on. Blizzards strategy isn't to try to squeeze some extra months out of those players, but instead to lure them back when they eventually do leave and that is what most mmo players do.
Lmao some of you kill me lol, wow has made more profit over the last few years than a small country , those of you who saying its on its death bed or will be soon or just slightly thick in a nut shell, you act like the people controling WoW have the same intelligence and business experience as yourself LMFAO...you all kill me.
If they did lose that 80% client base that some of you are throwing around which wouldnt happen for years they would proberly still have more income than every other MMO out there combined.... not based on facts yes i know but you get the idea and proberly not that far offtbh.
Dont forget they been working on a new MMO for the last 3-4 yrs they ahead of the game and the only people that gona maker the WoW killer as you nubs say are the same Developers.
Just incase you think im a fanboy i actually hate WoW but you know the most ironic thing??...its proberly the best and most rounded MMO out there..
I ve played a lot of MMOs , from Wow to Aion, Linage II and many more. What i have seen in Blizzard is that they have made wow a huge farm game. You must farm for honor,gold,reputation,items and nearly everything.
They have not made any realy change to the game since TBC came out to improve the game.
I am sure wow has stopped growing the last years but i believe that Blizzard will react when they see that their subs numbers are dropping. Since they havent changed anything in real in the game for so many years there are tons of new things they can apply to the game to improve it a lot. And they wont apply them till they will have a real problem with their subscriber.
I ve played a lot of MMOs , from Wow to Aion, Linage II and many more. What i have seen in Blizzard is that they have made wow a huge farm game. You must farm for honor,gold,reputation,items and nearly everything.
They have not made any realy change to the game since TBC came out to improve the game.
Let's see: what they changed since TBC:
- dual specs (fantastic for dual roles like healer/tank or tank/dps etc. OR pve/pvp sec).
- leveling by doing PvP !
- option of putting off and on experience at your own free will
- large open world PvP battles with a mxd out 240 people every night on each server.
- mounted combat
- mobile siege combat for attackers and defenders
- cross server looking for group tools (making all dungeons playable - from lvl 15 to lvl 80).
- adding new Bg's, adding new arena's.
- adding scaled Raid content of which the latest 25 men Heroic is extremely hard worldwide.
- Achievements system in any part for the game with titles and mounts awards.
- Extreme balancing of classes. Currently classes are extemely balanced around both Pve and PvP (best ever since start).
- Guild banks
- Phasing : the world changes around you by completing adventures - for good !
While it is a bit off topic: it shows that some of these changes influenced the core mechanics and aims of WOW.
Like the achievement system, the cross server dungeons, dual specs, phasing and leveling through PvP.
... it shows people publish whatever without much thinking.
Want a real mmorpg? Play WOW with experience turned off mode and be Pve_Pvp King at any level without a rat race.
I ve played a lot of MMOs , from Wow to Aion, Linage II and many more. What i have seen in Blizzard is that they have made wow a huge farm game. You must farm for honor,gold,reputation,items and nearly everything.
They have not made any realy change to the game since TBC came out to improve the game.
Let's see: what they changed since TBC:
- dual specs (fantastic for dual roles like healer/tank or tank/dps etc. OR pve/pvp sec).
- leveling by doing PvP !
- option of putting off and on experience at your own free will
- large open world PvP battles with a mxd out 240 people every night on each server.
- mounted combat
- mobile siege combat for attackers and defenders
- cross server looking for group tools (making all dungeons playable - from lvl 15 to lvl 80).
- adding new Bg's, adding new arena's.
- adding scaled Raid content of which the latest 25 men Heroic is extremely hard worldwide.
- Achievements system in any part for the game with titles and mounts awards.
- Extreme balancing of classes. Currently classes are extemely balanced around both Pve and PvP (best ever since start).
- Guild banks
- Phasing : the world changes around you by completing adventures - for good !
While it is a bit off topic: it shows that some of these changes influenced the core mechanics and aims of WOW.
Like the achievement system, the cross server dungeons, dual specs, phasing and leveling through PvP.
... it shows people publish whatever without much thinking.
Almost everything u wrote was based on mechanics that already existed.
Except the achievement system which isnt a big deal anyway since u only can get a few titles or companions or mounts. Nothing that matters a lot in game.
Or the vehicle bgs which most of the people like even less than the old bgs.
The only good thing they added since TBC was Wintergrasp.
If u take a look at the rest MMOs u will see that there are tons of changed which Blizzard could make to upgrade or change even some core mechanics of the game to something better which would attract a lot more people and people would enjoy the game even more.
I ve played a lot of MMOs , from Wow to Aion, Linage II and many more. What i have seen in Blizzard is that they have made wow a huge farm game. You must farm for honor,gold,reputation,items and nearly everything.
They have not made any realy change to the game since TBC came out to improve the game.
Let's see: what they changed since TBC:
- dual specs (fantastic for dual roles like healer/tank or tank/dps etc. OR pve/pvp sec).
- leveling by doing PvP !
- option of putting off and on experience at your own free will
- large open world PvP battles with a mxd out 240 people every night on each server.
- mounted combat
- mobile siege combat for attackers and defenders
- cross server looking for group tools (making all dungeons playable - from lvl 15 to lvl 80).
- adding new Bg's, adding new arena's.
- adding scaled Raid content of which the latest 25 men Heroic is extremely hard worldwide.
- Achievements system in any part for the game with titles and mounts awards.
- Extreme balancing of classes. Currently classes are extemely balanced around both Pve and PvP (best ever since start).
- Guild banks
- Phasing : the world changes around you by completing adventures - for good !
While it is a bit off topic: it shows that some of these changes influenced the core mechanics and aims of WOW.
Like the achievement system, the cross server dungeons, dual specs, phasing and leveling through PvP.
... it shows people publish whatever without much thinking.
Almost everything u wrote was based on mechanics that already existed.
Except the achievement system which isnt a big deal anyway since u only can get a few titles or companions or mounts. Nothing that matters a lot in game.
Or the vehicle bgs which most of the people like even less than the old bgs.
The only good thing they added since TBC was Wintergrasp.
If u take a look at the rest MMOs u will see that there are tons of changed which Blizzard could make to upgrade or change even some core mechanics of the game to something better which would attract a lot more people and people would enjoy the game even more.
Are you serious? Those are very big changes and many of them you will see become staples of mmos in the future. Original to blizzard or not, they have dramatic affects on gameplay.
Sure there are plenty of things blizzard could do, but that wasn't what you said. Blizzard has upgraded their game by a very sizable amount though new mechanics and systems.
Just out of curiosity, can you name another game that has added as much in the same time frame?
WoW is far too easy. Gear is too easy. There's no sense of respect or shame in that game, because you can easily pug practically any "endgame" raid, ninja loot everything to you and your friends, then find a whole group of 20 people to come with you the following week.
It's no wonder subscriptions are falling. People are looking for something new, possibly Blizzard's "next gen MMO," or Star Wars TOR..
It's obvious you have absolutely no clue what you're talking about. If you think you can simply pug ICC heroic then you don't know what your talking about. As for your comment about subscriptions falling, last I checked the latest figure still stood at 11.5 million so I'm not sure what you mean by 'subscriptions falling'. Blizzard is obviously regaining as many subs as they are losing to maintain that number.
I agree with you, WoW is easy, but that is the point. The MMO market doesn't cater to you (the hardcore player). It stopped catering to you the minute WoW surpassed 1 million subs. You just choose not to accept it.
Well, I never said you can simply pug ICC heroic. I also mentioned I haven't played the game since late November/early December, when the latest/toughest raid was ToGC. And as far as I had experienced before I finally quit raiding altogether, I was able to pug TOGC10 and some of TOGC25 on my main as well as 2 different alts. (At the time, TOGC being the highest tier of raiding).
I don't see why you'd say I have absolutely no idea what I'm talking about.... you can check my armory > achievements to verify the claims I made, instead of just blurting out random attacks on me... I even provided you a link. But I suppose that is the way of the internet forum.
Lastly, I meant to say that "it's no wonder subscription [growth] is falling," and I believe my points are still valid. People are looking for something new. Even as the non-hardcore player, you can only run the same dungeon so many times and with so many alts before you realize.... hey I have better things I can do with my time.
TOC is very different from ICC. TOC has only 5 encounters (counting Northern Beast as one encounter) while ICC has 4 wings and 12 boss encounters.
Because ICC is the big finish to the WOTLK storyline, more care have been taken to design the encounters, and they are more difficult than TOC. Your experience with Tier 9 content can not be extrapolate 100% to the tier-10 ICC content. For example, most PUGs on my server right now cannot even get pass the first 4 bosses (first wing).
In the whole world, the first hard mode Lich King kill happened like last week, 4 months after the release (u can check mmo-champion for the news). Almost all guilds (just check my server caelestrasz on wow-heroes, NONE of the guilds have done H 25 man ICC yet) haven't done H mode 25 man ICC yet. Many guilds haven't even kill the lich king on normal mode.
You can check all the stats on wow-heroes. At this point, no one is pugging ICC hard mode. No one can even pug to finish ICC. I have done the Lich King fight once on 25 normal and it is not easy. You need a lot of coordination and fast reaction (for example, prevent valkyries from taking ur raid members & drop them death).
WoW is far too easy. Gear is too easy. There's no sense of respect or shame in that game, because you can easily pug practically any "endgame" raid, ninja loot everything to you and your friends, then find a whole group of 20 people to come with you the following week.
It's no wonder subscriptions are falling. People are looking for something new, possibly Blizzard's "next gen MMO," or Star Wars TOR..
It's obvious you have absolutely no clue what you're talking about. If you think you can simply pug ICC heroic then you don't know what your talking about. As for your comment about subscriptions falling, last I checked the latest figure still stood at 11.5 million so I'm not sure what you mean by 'subscriptions falling'. Blizzard is obviously regaining as many subs as they are losing to maintain that number.
I agree with you, WoW is easy, but that is the point. The MMO market doesn't cater to you (the hardcore player). It stopped catering to you the minute WoW surpassed 1 million subs. You just choose not to accept it.
Well, I never said you can simply pug ICC heroic. I also mentioned I haven't played the game since late November/early December, when the latest/toughest raid was ToGC. And as far as I had experienced before I finally quit raiding altogether, I was able to pug TOGC10 and some of TOGC25 on my main as well as 2 different alts. (At the time, TOGC being the highest tier of raiding).
I don't see why you'd say I have absolutely no idea what I'm talking about.... you can check my armory > achievements to verify the claims I made, instead of just blurting out random attacks on me... I even provided you a link. But I suppose that is the way of the internet forum.
Lastly, I meant to say that "it's no wonder subscription [growth] is falling," and I believe my points are still valid. People are looking for something new. Even as the non-hardcore player, you can only run the same dungeon so many times and with so many alts before you realize.... hey I have better things I can do with my time.
TOC is very different from ICC. TOC has only 5 encounters (counting Northern Beast as one encounter) while ICC has 4 wings and 12 boss encounters.
Because ICC is the big finish to the WOTLK storyline, more care have been taken to design the encounters, and they are more difficult than TOC. Your experience with Tier 9 content can not be extrapolate 100% to the tier-10 ICC content. For example, most PUGs on my server right now cannot even get pass the first 4 bosses (first wing).
In the whole world, the first hard mode Lich King kill happened like last week, 4 months after the release (u can check mmo-champion for the news). Almost all guilds (just check my server caelestrasz on wow-heroes, NONE of the guilds have done H 25 man ICC yet) haven't done H mode 25 man ICC yet. Many guilds haven't even kill the lich king on normal mode.
You can check all the stats on wow-heroes. At this point, no one is pugging ICC hard mode. No one can even pug to finish ICC. I have done the Lich King fight once on 25 normal and it is not easy. You need a lot of coordination and fast reaction (for example, prevent valkyries from taking ur raid members & drop them death).
This was why I said you didn't know what you were talking about. You made the statement ' you can pug practically any endgame raid' then at the same time say you havent experienced the current endgame, which is now ICC. Also, when ToC first came out were people pugging that instance as well?
Comments
You forgot to mention though that Blizzard added tons of services in that time.
pve to pvp transfers, vanity pets, faction transfer, race change, gender change, pay to enter Arena tournament etc etc more money dusnt always mean more subs Zorndorf
(A)
WOW gained revenue from the same quarter last year. It doesn't matter what the rest of activision blizzard did in comparison. The revenue generated from WOW increased, which would be very difficult to do if western subs were decreasing. While not proof of anything, we are still just playing guessing games.
(B)
I did go back and check some press releases and you are incorrect. Blizzard did not ALWAYS break down subscriber numbers by region. Occassionally they did, but it wasn't something done with every release. LINK
Why didn't the break down the last one? Probably for the same reasons they didn't break down many of the other ones I suppose. Nothing new here.
(C)
So far blizzard has the best retention rate of any mmo in the history of mmos, so I doubt you have solid ground to call them stupid. Their strategy is to make the game as inviting as possible for players to return after they leave and it is in the nature of mmos players to leave mmos. Honestly blizzard does a better job at attracting burned out wow players to play wow than other games do. That really says something.
(D)
You are not the typical mmo player. Some of us might play games for years on end, but most don't. I think the typical mmo player averages 18 months before moving on. Blizzards strategy isn't to try to squeeze some extra months out of those players, but instead to lure them back when they eventually do leave and that is what most mmo players do.
Lmao some of you kill me lol, wow has made more profit over the last few years than a small country , those of you who saying its on its death bed or will be soon or just slightly thick in a nut shell, you act like the people controling WoW have the same intelligence and business experience as yourself LMFAO...you all kill me.
If they did lose that 80% client base that some of you are throwing around which wouldnt happen for years they would proberly still have more income than every other MMO out there combined.... not based on facts yes i know but you get the idea and proberly not that far offtbh.
Dont forget they been working on a new MMO for the last 3-4 yrs they ahead of the game and the only people that gona maker the WoW killer as you nubs say are the same Developers.
Just incase you think im a fanboy i actually hate WoW but you know the most ironic thing??...its proberly the best and most rounded MMO out there..
I ve played a lot of MMOs , from Wow to Aion, Linage II and many more. What i have seen in Blizzard is that they have made wow a huge farm game. You must farm for honor,gold,reputation,items and nearly everything.
They have not made any realy change to the game since TBC came out to improve the game.
I am sure wow has stopped growing the last years but i believe that Blizzard will react when they see that their subs numbers are dropping. Since they havent changed anything in real in the game for so many years there are tons of new things they can apply to the game to improve it a lot. And they wont apply them till they will have a real problem with their subscriber.
Let's see: what they changed since TBC:
- dual specs (fantastic for dual roles like healer/tank or tank/dps etc. OR pve/pvp sec).
- leveling by doing PvP !
- option of putting off and on experience at your own free will
- large open world PvP battles with a mxd out 240 people every night on each server.
- mounted combat
- mobile siege combat for attackers and defenders
- cross server looking for group tools (making all dungeons playable - from lvl 15 to lvl 80).
- adding new Bg's, adding new arena's.
- adding scaled Raid content of which the latest 25 men Heroic is extremely hard worldwide.
- Achievements system in any part for the game with titles and mounts awards.
- Extreme balancing of classes. Currently classes are extemely balanced around both Pve and PvP (best ever since start).
- Guild banks
- Phasing : the world changes around you by completing adventures - for good !
While it is a bit off topic: it shows that some of these changes influenced the core mechanics and aims of WOW.
Like the achievement system, the cross server dungeons, dual specs, phasing and leveling through PvP.
... it shows people publish whatever without much thinking.
Want a real mmorpg? Play WOW with experience turned off mode and be Pve_Pvp King at any level without a rat race.
Almost everything u wrote was based on mechanics that already existed.
Except the achievement system which isnt a big deal anyway since u only can get a few titles or companions or mounts. Nothing that matters a lot in game.
Or the vehicle bgs which most of the people like even less than the old bgs.
The only good thing they added since TBC was Wintergrasp.
If u take a look at the rest MMOs u will see that there are tons of changed which Blizzard could make to upgrade or change even some core mechanics of the game to something better which would attract a lot more people and people would enjoy the game even more.
Are you serious? Those are very big changes and many of them you will see become staples of mmos in the future. Original to blizzard or not, they have dramatic affects on gameplay.
Sure there are plenty of things blizzard could do, but that wasn't what you said. Blizzard has upgraded their game by a very sizable amount though new mechanics and systems.
Just out of curiosity, can you name another game that has added as much in the same time frame?
TOC is very different from ICC. TOC has only 5 encounters (counting Northern Beast as one encounter) while ICC has 4 wings and 12 boss encounters.
Because ICC is the big finish to the WOTLK storyline, more care have been taken to design the encounters, and they are more difficult than TOC. Your experience with Tier 9 content can not be extrapolate 100% to the tier-10 ICC content. For example, most PUGs on my server right now cannot even get pass the first 4 bosses (first wing).
In the whole world, the first hard mode Lich King kill happened like last week, 4 months after the release (u can check mmo-champion for the news). Almost all guilds (just check my server caelestrasz on wow-heroes, NONE of the guilds have done H 25 man ICC yet) haven't done H mode 25 man ICC yet. Many guilds haven't even kill the lich king on normal mode.
You can check all the stats on wow-heroes. At this point, no one is pugging ICC hard mode. No one can even pug to finish ICC. I have done the Lich King fight once on 25 normal and it is not easy. You need a lot of coordination and fast reaction (for example, prevent valkyries from taking ur raid members & drop them death).
This was why I said you didn't know what you were talking about. You made the statement ' you can pug practically any endgame raid' then at the same time say you havent experienced the current endgame, which is now ICC. Also, when ToC first came out were people pugging that instance as well?