If subs drop they might lay off staff/dev, but we dont know how low subs need to drop before this happen. If they still make a profit at 9 mill or 5 mill subs they will merges servers and stuff. The remaining 9 or 5 mills needs updates and expantions too.
They lost 800k subs, now down to 10.something million (yawn)
Their stock dropped almost 5% (yawn).
They have a new expansion coming out, with updates coming. (Pandas!)
They made triple their money in sales. (surprise!)
/end thread.
I don't think the thread will end because of your arrogance . What you forget this is the second drop of around 800k subs in the last six months and there is no reason to believe they will hold this slide in loses in the coming quarter .
They have to contend with StarWars the Old Republic which as much as you might like to right off as just another Age of Conan or Warhammer has already outsold any other mmo in pre-orders ( including the record set by Warcraft 7 years ago ) and everything at present point to it being the best mmo since the release of Warcraft .
Many current and ex warcraft players really are shocked by Mists of Pandoria and think its an unbelievably bad idea and its also probably anything 8-14 months away before its released . WoWs on the slide and while it can sustain loses on this scale for several years if they remain on this scale , in all probability they will get worse .
The loses in the next six months due to TOR will be anything from 2-5 million and by this time next year Blizzard may be lucky to hang on to half thier cuttent player base in the face of yet more decent mmos being released in 2012 .
Yeah, talk about arrogance and yet you know the future of WoW ("The loses in the next six months due to TOR will be anything from 2-5 million") Seriously. I heard this same argument in 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010 and now in 2011. Perhaps WoW's numbers will grow again with MoP, who knows... but previous expansions show that it will most likely swell again once released, just as it did with Cata and WoTLK.
I know it's the cool thing to do for all the hipsters to hate on WoW now, but people should really give it a break. And regarding TOR, I hope it does well. It will force a better product from Blizzard, and as I'm already happy with their product, it will be super happy fun time. I really hope TOR is all you folks think it will be... I really can't wait for the post after it's release slamming it just like WoW...lol
I find it amusing that after 7 VERY succseful games (warcraft 1,2,3, starcraft 1 & 2, Diablo 1 & 2) and then the biggest MMO known to man, pulling in..
15.99 x 11 million
uhh carrie the one.... 2.1 BILLION dollers per year + box sales and whatever else they might have (plush toys, account transfer etc...)
2.1 BILLION dollers.
"Not the golden game developers"? HA you wish.
listen I don't like wow, I don't play it....but honestly I am getting tired of all of these threads that say "blizzard sucks" or "not a good game company"
Blizzard is the king of gaming companies that other companies bow to.
2.1 BILLION per year...
What I'm getting tired of is people thinking that "Good game company" and "Good business." Blizzard is not a good game company. They no longer make good games. They are a good business and possibly a good investment (Though there are much better investments if you know what your looking for). Also, ActiBlizz has financial statements, dont just use baseless numbers, go look at their financial statements and get their revenue and profit from there.
well first off, you must be mistaking me for someone who has no life, sure i'm on these forums...but go look at there financial statement? lolwtf?!
"Go make a spread sheet, talk to there accounting department, don't come in here with baseless numbers blah blah"
And where did this "Blizzard doesn't make good games anymore" come from?, for one, you are forgetting there past...which is a big deal, and when I say past its not exaclty like it was 50 years ago, it was like....5-10 years ago,
Second, they must be doing something right, they kept 11million people entertained for 7+ years.
So you want to talk about "Baseless facts" you should probably take a look at your argument.
No life? Anyone with a basic understanding can easily find the numbers you were talking about in around 5 minutes tops. All you have to do is go to their website and open the statements, and its usually one of the first pages.
And yes, they may have made games IN THEIR PAST, but not anymore. And did you think that many of those were entertained because all their friends play or because thats the only MMO they know and they cant bring themselves to quit, or any other reason? The pokemon games have a ton of players too, but they aren't getting any better.
How can you try to argue with me when I say "anymore" then say I'm forgetting their past. I'm directly refering to the past as when they made better games. Also, have you not seen all the information that points to subscriber loss? They must be donig something wrong to be losing subscribers. I dont care what they did when the game was released, most of that team is long gone onto other projects or other companies.
What I'm getting tired of is people thinking that "Good game company" and "Good business." Blizzard is not a good game company. They no longer make good games. They are a good business and possibly a good investment (Though there are much better investments if you know what your looking for). Also, ActiBlizz has financial statements, dont just use baseless numbers, go look at their financial statements and get their revenue and profit from there.
Uhh, his numbers are not baseless. Those are the actual yearly revenues of Blizzard (not Activision Blizzard).
But they arent as "untouchable" and "out of the hemisphere" as some WoW fans want to make them out to be.
Even the (here atleast) often so much shunned NCSoft makes more than 0.5 BILLION US$ per year too. From mainly just 3 games. Quite a lot for a primary Eastern game company where revenues in Dollars are always much lower due to currency exchange rates into Dollars, even at equal or higher popularity.
Actually they are. He took an estimated GLOBAL account number and multiplied it by what the west pays. All he has to do is go into the financial statements that they just posted today instead of guessing numbers. I'll agree that they arent insane like some people might want them to be, but when the information is as readily available from an easy to find source its almost expected that you use those numbers instead of your own.
What I'm getting tired of is people thinking that "Good game company" and "Good business." Blizzard is not a good game company. They no longer make good games. They are a good business and possibly a good investment (Though there are much better investments if you know what your looking for). Also, ActiBlizz has financial statements, dont just use baseless numbers, go look at their financial statements and get their revenue and profit from there.
Uhh, his numbers are not baseless. Those are the actual yearly revenues of Blizzard (not Activision Blizzard).
But they arent as "untouchable" and "out of the hemisphere" as some WoW fans want to make them out to be.
Even the (here atleast) often so much shunned NCSoft makes more than 0.5 BILLION US$ per year too. From mainly just 3 games. Quite a lot for a primary Eastern game company where revenues in Dollars are always much lower due to currency exchange rates into Dollars, even at equal or higher popularity.
Actually they are. He took an estimated GLOBAL account number and multiplied it by what the west pays. All he has to do is go into the financial statements that they just posted today instead of guessing numbers. I'll agree that they arent insane like some people might want them to be, but when the information is as readily available from an easy to find source its almost expected that you use those numbers instead of your own.
Okay if thats the way he made them up they are obviously....made up.
However Blizzards revenues where at atleast at 1,8 Billion. They made 1,65 M in 2010 and deferred (atleast) 204 M (from WoW Cata sales) into 2011 (they added them to the recent three quarters) I mistakenly added all of Activions Blizzards deferred revenues (365 M) to Blizzards and came up with the +2,0 B thus thought he was talking about those.
However though by no means wanting to defend his claim but 1.8 billion in 2010 is hardly less significant than his acclaimed 2.1 billion. Still doesnt mean the games must be exceptionally good...
I'm glad someone here has their head on straight when it comes to quality of a product and sales.
According to the financial statements by Actiblizz posted today, Blizzard, in the 9 months ending with Sept 30, made 968 million in revenue. While that is a lot, its no where near the 1.8 billion you say. (I know that my number and your number are for different time frames, but the numbers are so far apart that it would be hard to make 1 billion in 3 months). And that number is 100 million less than the reveune for the same time peroid last year.
OMG I had a huge reply and I used backspace to delete a letter and it went back and my whole post got lost. I am going to go sit somewhere and cry.
"undo" is your friend :P.
You have no idea how many posts I've lost from stupid chrome hotkeys that I accidently press when typing on these forums. And NOW you tell me there is an undo button... I wish I would have known about that months ago.
OMG I had a huge reply and I used backspace to delete a letter and it went back and my whole post got lost. I am going to go sit somewhere and cry.
"undo" is your friend :P.
You have no idea how many posts I've lost from stupid chrome hotkeys that I accidently press when typing on these forums. And NOW you tell me there is an undo button... I wish I would have known about that months ago.
Ctrl+Z I think.
Just because you don't like it doesn't mean it is bad.
Okay I get what you are talking about now. Heres some funny part. You can actually substract atleast 168 Million US$ from those 968 Million Blizzard made. Thats money from 2010 cata boxsales deferred for taxreason. Part of the 204 Million i mentioned one post before. That leaves exactly 800 million made in 9 months.
WoW makes quite a lot of money from hyping up expansions and selling boxes. Thats why 2011 revenues (unless including Brazilian WoW launchsales) will barely just make more than half of 2010 revenues. I estimate about 1,15 Billion over 2011.
I would say that your estimate sounds about right. Its an obvious down trend though.
It´s funny how most people don´t realize that even in their worst declining years, when all will be said and done, WoW will probably still have more users than their own mmo had in release week.
Even if they lost 9.5 out of those 10 milion subscribers in the following 5 years, those 500.000 players left would still be a decent amount of players given the standard xD
So yeah, feel free to open your champagne bottles and celebrate at Blizzard´s "downfall" xD
It´s funny how most people don´t realize that even in their worst declining years, when all will be said and done, WoW will probably still have more users than their own mmo had in release week.
Even if they lost 9.5 out of those 10 milion subscribers in the following 5 years, those 500.000 players left would still be a decent amount of players given the standard xD
So yeah, feel free to open your champagne bottles and celebrate at Blizzard´s "downfall" xD
If WoW is declining, it could still have 5 million subs, but I'm sure the other studios will start to notice that what Blizz is doing isnt working and we will start to get innovation again. Also, MMO's in Asia have well over 500,000 subs.
If you think of it in normal business terms it comes out like this:
Say Toyota is selling more cars than anyone else. They sold 100,000,000 cars 2 years ago, last year they sold 85,000,000, and this year they sold 70,000,000. Its a obvious decling trend, so would it considered to still be a good investment? The answer is no. If they are decling at that rate then obviously they are doing something wrong. Eve online didnt have many subscribers when it started but it constantly grew, so it would have been a good investment even if it only has 300,000 subscribers instead of 300,000,000.
Originally posted by Zookz1 They still have about 10 million subscribers... they're coming up on eight years since launch. I think the game is doing fine.
Sure they do, pace of subscribers leaving is very fast through. They lost 2 millions in less than year.
It could slow, or it could speed up after MoP hits. No one knows so that's not really important. Maybe half of the two million are the "Asian" customers detractors like to claim WoW isn't making any money off of, so if they leave.. no big deal right?
What is important as he said, is they still have 10 million customers. Even if a detractor wants to say most of those are Asian, okay.. that leaves them with 2-3 million "real" customers since people seem to think more of Westerners than Asians.
Name another MMO with 2-3 million subs. We'll wait.
Apparently the bulk of subscriptions is people playing for x1 months then quitting for y1 months then resubbing again for x2 months then quitting again for y2 months etc. So the critical thing then for an mmo is making the x part as long as possible and reducing the y part as small as possible. On top of that as those values will have a tendency to decay over time to slow that decay down as much as possible.
I think in WoW's case they had such a strong newbie hose it would largely mask x and y problems if they had them until the newbie hose peaked at which point if x and y problems had built up under the surface the drop in subs could be quite dramatic.
I think that's probably what's happened. Their newbie hose started to dry and up and Cata was an attempt to reboot but (imo) it went the wrong way because they weren't thinking about the x and the y. In particular a lot of the y is players getting an emotional attachment to the world and missing it when they're gone. If you change the world you kill that attachment. On the other hand if you don't change anything a returning player ends up repeating the same content for the 6th time so they get bored faster and boredom reduces the x value of the game. However speeding up the levelling reduces the x value of the game as well.
If that's true then i think a game like WoW shouldn't have changed their world or speeded up the levelling they should have changed the quests, or replaced sections of the original quest-chain with alternate paths. That way you get novelty without killing the familiarity.
Originally posted by popinjay Originally posted by fenistil
Originally posted by Zookz1 They still have about 10 million subscribers... they're coming up on eight years since launch. I think the game is doing fine.
Sure they do, pace of subscribers leaving is very fast through. They lost 2 millions in less than year. It could slow, or it could speed up after MoP hits. No one knows so that's not really important. Maybe half of the two million are the "Asian" customers detractors like to claim WoW isn't making any money off of, so if they leave.. no big deal right?
What is important as he said, is they still have 10 million customers. Even if a detractor wants to say most of those are Asian, okay.. that leaves them with 2-3 million "real" customers since people seem to think more of Westerners than Asians.
Name another MMO with 2-3 million subs. We'll wait.
The reason the Asian numbers don't count as much as Westerners is they don't pay the same. At least in China they pay x rmb for y amount of time. Their numbers are harder to gauge.
Sent me an email if you want me to mail you some pizza rolls.
Ok, I'm done replying... Instead, I'm gonna play WoW.
WoW haters win... TOR will be out soon and I'm sure that it will answer all your prayers,hopes and dreams. It will prolly cure cancer and maybe even balance the US bugget. Hey, if you have time, ask TOR if it will do something about that god damn dog two houses down from me that won't quit barking....
I really can't wait until TOR is out for a few years and peoople start turning on Bioware....
They still have about 10 million subscribers... they're coming up on eight years since launch. I think the game is doing fine.
Sure they do, pace of subscribers leaving is very fast through. They lost 2 millions in less than year.
It could slow, or it could speed up after MoP hits. No one knows so that's not really important. Maybe half of the two million are the "Asian" customers detractors like to claim WoW isn't making any money off of, so if they leave.. no big deal right?
What is important as he said, is they still have 10 million customers. Even if a detractor wants to say most of those are Asian, okay.. that leaves them with 2-3 million "real" customers since people seem to think more of Westerners than Asians.
Name another MMO with 2-3 million subs. We'll wait.
The reason the Asian numbers don't count as much as Westerners is they don't pay the same. At least in China they pay x rmb for y amount of time. Their numbers are harder to gauge.
Yet Blizzard still considers every single one of those people, even if they only play for 5 minutes, to count as an "Active Subscription".
Remember, the stock rose to the levels it did a few months agp based on estimates that were now disproven and lower than expect. WoW still made a huge amount of money. the stock's value lowered because it was higher based on a prediction before, and it fell in line with the current correct numbers. Simple as that. In fact, this is the ast amount of traditional fluctiation you'd expect based on estimates versus actual earnings. nothing worrying or surprising really.
Contrary to what the OP is trying to imply, investor likes it when the stock goes down...not the other way around.
Given that we're talking about Blizzard here, and their history in making money, stock holders will want to to purchase more stock.
The only negative factor IMHO is not the decline of subscribers, but the management of Activision and their croonies.
I still don't like the result of this merge, so even how hard I try to give the respect and credit to Blizzard...Activision will receive it instead...and that's just messed up.
Originally posted by Joliust Originally posted by popinjay Originally posted by fenistil
Originally posted by Zookz1 They still have about 10 million subscribers... they're coming up on eight years since launch. I think the game is doing fine.
Sure they do, pace of subscribers leaving is very fast through. They lost 2 millions in less than year. It could slow, or it could speed up after MoP hits. No one knows so that's not really important. Maybe half of the two million are the "Asian" customers detractors like to claim WoW isn't making any money off of, so if they leave.. no big deal right?
What is important as he said, is they still have 10 million customers. Even if a detractor wants to say most of those are Asian, okay.. that leaves them with 2-3 million "real" customers since people seem to think more of Westerners than Asians.
Name another MMO with 2-3 million subs. We'll wait.
The reason the Asian numbers don't count as much as Westerners is they don't pay the same. At least in China they pay x rmb for y amount of time. Their numbers are harder to gauge.
Agreed on both counts.
So since Blizzard doesn't say which subs left, who knows what subs those are? I know games like Aion are huge over there in Asia, so it could very well be those "$1 subs" stopped playing WoW to play more Asian themed newer games.
Since we don't know which subs left, this is all pretty relative since most of the detractors say Asian subs make up the most of the base anyways. So if most of the Asian subs leave... /yawn, since it's only $1.
It's good to know 1 million players won't take anything thrown at them.
Wow is a shadow of what it was. I don't understand why developers do that to their own games. Same happened with EQ and SWG. At some point they start making the game easy and absurd and that's the end of it.
Did you actually just compare WoW to SWG?...
Yes, totally.
Nah man.. that's not SWG. I'll tell you what SWG is..
SWG was like going to a badass party. All of your friends are there, plenty of chics, DJ spinning your favorite tracks. After you've had a couple of beers, you realize you need to go take a piss. As you wash your hands to go back to the party you realize the bathroom door wont open and you're stuck. No matter how hard your friends try to fix this fkn door, it wont open. You're stuck. For life.
Soon you begin to realize that this bathroom is now your home. It smells like crap, you have no friends around you, and you're tired as hell of these fkn bologna sandwiches that your friends keep sliding you under the door so you can stay alive. Your only options now are to either try and live this life of $hit or find the quickest way to end it. You've pondered the thoughts of downing a bottle of hairspray, gouging your eyes out with a toothbrush, and pounding your head as hard as you can against the porcelain god in hopes you fall unconscious and dont wake up.
Then you decide you're tired of eating these crap sandwiches, and you've finally found a way to end your life. Congrats - gg - you're dead. As soon as your lights go out, your friends find a way to open that door. In comes your new best friend SWTOR (aka WoW Clone #3226). He takes your wallet with your credit cards and cash and walks away.
Welcome to the game son!
Lol truely epic yet so so true, you described my life since SWG died in 2005
The Deathstar destroyed planets...Lucas Arts destroyed Galaxies
¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯ Played: SWG | EVE | WOW | VG | LOTRO | WAR | FML | STO | APB | AOC | MORTAL | WOT | BP | SW:TOR
I find it amusing that after 7 VERY succseful games (warcraft 1,2,3, starcraft 1 & 2, Diablo 1 & 2) and then the biggest MMO known to man, pulling in..
15.99 x 11 million
uhh carrie the one.... 2.1 BILLION dollers per year + box sales and whatever else they might have (plush toys, account transfer etc...)
2.1 BILLION dollers.
"Not the golden game developers"? HA you wish.
listen I don't like wow, I don't play it....but honestly I am getting tired of all of these threads that say "blizzard sucks" or "not a good game company"
Blizzard is the king of gaming companies that other companies bow to.
2.1 BILLION per year...
What I'm getting tired of is people thinking that "Good game company" and "Good business." Blizzard is not a good game company. They no longer make good games. They are a good business and possibly a good investment (Though there are much better investments if you know what your looking for). Also, ActiBlizz has financial statements, dont just use baseless numbers, go look at their financial statements and get their revenue and profit from there.
well first off, you must be mistaking me for someone who has no life, sure i'm on these forums...but go look at there financial statement? lolwtf?!
"Go make a spread sheet, talk to there accounting department, don't come in here with baseless numbers blah blah"
And where did this "Blizzard doesn't make good games anymore" come from?, for one, you are forgetting there past...which is a big deal, and when I say past its not exaclty like it was 50 years ago, it was like....5-10 years ago,
Second, they must be doing something right, they kept 11million people entertained for 7+ years.
So you want to talk about "Baseless facts" you should probably take a look at your argument.
No life? Anyone with a basic understanding can easily find the numbers you were talking about in around 5 minutes tops. All you have to do is go to their website and open the statements, and its usually one of the first pages.
And yes, they may have made games IN THEIR PAST, but not anymore. And did you think that many of those were entertained because all their friends play or because thats the only MMO they know and they cant bring themselves to quit, or any other reason? The pokemon games have a ton of players too, but they aren't getting any better.
How can you try to argue with me when I say "anymore" then say I'm forgetting their past. I'm directly refering to the past as when they made better games. Also, have you not seen all the information that points to subscriber loss? They must be donig something wrong to be losing subscribers. I dont care what they did when the game was released, most of that team is long gone onto other projects or other companies.
Haha, yes I would say that if you spend 5 minutes researching information so you have some point of a little forum thread then you have no life.
And I hate pokemon games, but millions of kids think they are great, so you are telling me because you don't think WOW is fun, or Pokemon is fun that close to 30million people are wrong? (adding the two suscriber bases togeather)
And as far as bleeding subs, why do they have to be doing something wrong? show me ONE MMO that after 7 years wasn't losing subs. the point is WoW has been king for years...people think there games are fun.
so you are saying 11MILLION people play this game because 1. They dont' know of any other MMO's 2. there friends play this game??? you are retarded.
like this is almost funny.
The most of the subscribers for WOW are in asia... The most of the people who played wow from Vanilla stopped with TBC or somewhere before cataclysm because the game offers nothing new but the same shit over and over again (yes, a fact, try finding something new in dungeons - nothing, the same shit over and over again, always repetitive - go there, kill bunch of mobs, kill the boss with few tactics for idiots and loot the bastard)... The most ppl play this game because there's nothing better on the market at the moment (or wasn't) so they're playing the game till something better gets released. Wow really had nothing but luck and a great timing for it's player base. Just study a bit of history of mmo gaming and you'll see it for yourself... Pokemons - doesn't even fall in the same bracket with mmorpgs.
Blizzard has no more ideas of what to do with wow since NO ONE from the original crew is actually involved with WOW - they aren't even in the company anymore because they've seen where this game is heading towards. So they are just waiting with their game code named "Titan" to jump in when everything fails in wow because better games appeared on the market.
I've played for a long time, but it's boring and it's not worth the money anymore xD.
"Happiness is not a destination. It is a method of life." -------------------------------
Some of you people are seriously disturbed. I have never understood this whole, "my game needs to be number 1" attitude and a complete hatred for a video game. Why would anyone benefit from WoWs numbers dropping? It makes me so sick that people are quick to throw Blizzard down a flight of stairs given what they have done for the mmo industry. Yeah, it existed before them, but they took it to the next level bringing players AND INVESTORS to the mmo market who couldn't have given a shit about it prior. If you don't like it or play it fine, but at the minimum, give Blizzard the god damn respect they have earned.
There must be alot of bitter devs that post here or something LOL. Its the only explanation I can think of for it.
The MMO genre has always been hamstrung by poor efforts from developers--Blizzard was the first to put a quality game into the market. Everquest launched at what should have been 75% complete. The UI was atrocious and needed serious gameplay tweaks and balancing. Unfortunately the devs thought it was 100% complete and left the door wide open for a company like Blizzard. Their mistake, not Blizzard's.
Comments
Yeah, talk about arrogance and yet you know the future of WoW ("The loses in the next six months due to TOR will be anything from 2-5 million") Seriously. I heard this same argument in 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010 and now in 2011. Perhaps WoW's numbers will grow again with MoP, who knows... but previous expansions show that it will most likely swell again once released, just as it did with Cata and WoTLK.
I know it's the cool thing to do for all the hipsters to hate on WoW now, but people should really give it a break. And regarding TOR, I hope it does well. It will force a better product from Blizzard, and as I'm already happy with their product, it will be super happy fun time. I really hope TOR is all you folks think it will be... I really can't wait for the post after it's release slamming it just like WoW...lol
No life? Anyone with a basic understanding can easily find the numbers you were talking about in around 5 minutes tops. All you have to do is go to their website and open the statements, and its usually one of the first pages.
And yes, they may have made games IN THEIR PAST, but not anymore. And did you think that many of those were entertained because all their friends play or because thats the only MMO they know and they cant bring themselves to quit, or any other reason? The pokemon games have a ton of players too, but they aren't getting any better.
How can you try to argue with me when I say "anymore" then say I'm forgetting their past. I'm directly refering to the past as when they made better games. Also, have you not seen all the information that points to subscriber loss? They must be donig something wrong to be losing subscribers. I dont care what they did when the game was released, most of that team is long gone onto other projects or other companies.
Actually they are. He took an estimated GLOBAL account number and multiplied it by what the west pays. All he has to do is go into the financial statements that they just posted today instead of guessing numbers. I'll agree that they arent insane like some people might want them to be, but when the information is as readily available from an easy to find source its almost expected that you use those numbers instead of your own.
They still have about 10 million subscribers... they're coming up on eight years since launch. I think the game is doing fine.
Sure they do, pace of subscribers leaving is very fast through. They lost 2 millions in less than year.
I'm glad someone here has their head on straight when it comes to quality of a product and sales.
According to the financial statements by Actiblizz posted today, Blizzard, in the 9 months ending with Sept 30, made 968 million in revenue. While that is a lot, its no where near the 1.8 billion you say. (I know that my number and your number are for different time frames, but the numbers are so far apart that it would be hard to make 1 billion in 3 months). And that number is 100 million less than the reveune for the same time peroid last year.
So by 2017 they'll be all out of subs.
"undo" is your friend :P.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
You have no idea how many posts I've lost from stupid chrome hotkeys that I accidently press when typing on these forums. And NOW you tell me there is an undo button... I wish I would have known about that months ago.
Ctrl+Z I think.
I would say that your estimate sounds about right. Its an obvious down trend though.
It´s funny how most people don´t realize that even in their worst declining years, when all will be said and done, WoW will probably still have more users than their own mmo had in release week.
Even if they lost 9.5 out of those 10 milion subscribers in the following 5 years, those 500.000 players left would still be a decent amount of players given the standard xD
So yeah, feel free to open your champagne bottles and celebrate at Blizzard´s "downfall" xD
Rawr.
If WoW is declining, it could still have 5 million subs, but I'm sure the other studios will start to notice that what Blizz is doing isnt working and we will start to get innovation again. Also, MMO's in Asia have well over 500,000 subs.
If you think of it in normal business terms it comes out like this:
Say Toyota is selling more cars than anyone else. They sold 100,000,000 cars 2 years ago, last year they sold 85,000,000, and this year they sold 70,000,000. Its a obvious decling trend, so would it considered to still be a good investment? The answer is no. If they are decling at that rate then obviously they are doing something wrong. Eve online didnt have many subscribers when it started but it constantly grew, so it would have been a good investment even if it only has 300,000 subscribers instead of 300,000,000.
That would make sense, if the other car manufacturers didint sell 1.000.000 cars at max.
Even if it´s in decline, it´s still the major seller and it will be for a long time.
And even when the decline reaches it´s peak, it will probably still have as many sales as the other companies have now.
Rawr.
What is important as he said, is they still have 10 million customers. Even if a detractor wants to say most of those are Asian, okay.. that leaves them with 2-3 million "real" customers since people seem to think more of Westerners than Asians.
Name another MMO with 2-3 million subs. We'll wait.
"TO MICHAEL!"
I think this is a pretty big deal.
Apparently the bulk of subscriptions is people playing for x1 months then quitting for y1 months then resubbing again for x2 months then quitting again for y2 months etc. So the critical thing then for an mmo is making the x part as long as possible and reducing the y part as small as possible. On top of that as those values will have a tendency to decay over time to slow that decay down as much as possible.
I think in WoW's case they had such a strong newbie hose it would largely mask x and y problems if they had them until the newbie hose peaked at which point if x and y problems had built up under the surface the drop in subs could be quite dramatic.
I think that's probably what's happened. Their newbie hose started to dry and up and Cata was an attempt to reboot but (imo) it went the wrong way because they weren't thinking about the x and the y. In particular a lot of the y is players getting an emotional attachment to the world and missing it when they're gone. If you change the world you kill that attachment. On the other hand if you don't change anything a returning player ends up repeating the same content for the 6th time so they get bored faster and boredom reduces the x value of the game. However speeding up the levelling reduces the x value of the game as well.
If that's true then i think a game like WoW shouldn't have changed their world or speeded up the levelling they should have changed the quests, or replaced sections of the original quest-chain with alternate paths. That way you get novelty without killing the familiarity.
It could slow, or it could speed up after MoP hits. No one knows so that's not really important. Maybe half of the two million are the "Asian" customers detractors like to claim WoW isn't making any money off of, so if they leave.. no big deal right?
What is important as he said, is they still have 10 million customers. Even if a detractor wants to say most of those are Asian, okay.. that leaves them with 2-3 million "real" customers since people seem to think more of Westerners than Asians.
Name another MMO with 2-3 million subs. We'll wait.
The reason the Asian numbers don't count as much as Westerners is they don't pay the same. At least in China they pay x rmb for y amount of time. Their numbers are harder to gauge.
Sent me an email if you want me to mail you some pizza rolls.
Ok, I'm done replying... Instead, I'm gonna play WoW.
WoW haters win... TOR will be out soon and I'm sure that it will answer all your prayers,hopes and dreams. It will prolly cure cancer and maybe even balance the US bugget. Hey, if you have time, ask TOR if it will do something about that god damn dog two houses down from me that won't quit barking....
I really can't wait until TOR is out for a few years and peoople start turning on Bioware....
Yet Blizzard still considers every single one of those people, even if they only play for 5 minutes, to count as an "Active Subscription".
Remember, the stock rose to the levels it did a few months agp based on estimates that were now disproven and lower than expect. WoW still made a huge amount of money. the stock's value lowered because it was higher based on a prediction before, and it fell in line with the current correct numbers. Simple as that. In fact, this is the ast amount of traditional fluctiation you'd expect based on estimates versus actual earnings. nothing worrying or surprising really.
Contrary to what the OP is trying to imply, investor likes it when the stock goes down...not the other way around.
Given that we're talking about Blizzard here, and their history in making money, stock holders will want to to purchase more stock.
The only negative factor IMHO is not the decline of subscribers, but the management of Activision and their croonies.
I still don't like the result of this merge, so even how hard I try to give the respect and credit to Blizzard...Activision will receive it instead...and that's just messed up.
Ready for GW2!!!
It could slow, or it could speed up after MoP hits. No one knows so that's not really important. Maybe half of the two million are the "Asian" customers detractors like to claim WoW isn't making any money off of, so if they leave.. no big deal right?
What is important as he said, is they still have 10 million customers. Even if a detractor wants to say most of those are Asian, okay.. that leaves them with 2-3 million "real" customers since people seem to think more of Westerners than Asians.
Name another MMO with 2-3 million subs. We'll wait.
The reason the Asian numbers don't count as much as Westerners is they don't pay the same. At least in China they pay x rmb for y amount of time. Their numbers are harder to gauge.
Agreed on both counts.
So since Blizzard doesn't say which subs left, who knows what subs those are? I know games like Aion are huge over there in Asia, so it could very well be those "$1 subs" stopped playing WoW to play more Asian themed newer games.
Since we don't know which subs left, this is all pretty relative since most of the detractors say Asian subs make up the most of the base anyways. So if most of the Asian subs leave... /yawn, since it's only $1.
"TO MICHAEL!"
Lol truely epic yet so so true, you described my life since SWG died in 2005
The Deathstar destroyed planets...Lucas Arts destroyed Galaxies
¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯
Played:
SWG | EVE | WOW | VG | LOTRO | WAR | FML | STO | APB | AOC | MORTAL | WOT | BP | SW:TOR
The most of the subscribers for WOW are in asia... The most of the people who played wow from Vanilla stopped with TBC or somewhere before cataclysm because the game offers nothing new but the same shit over and over again (yes, a fact, try finding something new in dungeons - nothing, the same shit over and over again, always repetitive - go there, kill bunch of mobs, kill the boss with few tactics for idiots and loot the bastard)... The most ppl play this game because there's nothing better on the market at the moment (or wasn't) so they're playing the game till something better gets released. Wow really had nothing but luck and a great timing for it's player base. Just study a bit of history of mmo gaming and you'll see it for yourself... Pokemons - doesn't even fall in the same bracket with mmorpgs.
Blizzard has no more ideas of what to do with wow since NO ONE from the original crew is actually involved with WOW - they aren't even in the company anymore because they've seen where this game is heading towards. So they are just waiting with their game code named "Titan" to jump in when everything fails in wow because better games appeared on the market.
I've played for a long time, but it's boring and it's not worth the money anymore xD.
"Happiness is not a destination. It is a method of life."
-------------------------------
There must be alot of bitter devs that post here or something LOL. Its the only explanation I can think of for it.
The MMO genre has always been hamstrung by poor efforts from developers--Blizzard was the first to put a quality game into the market. Everquest launched at what should have been 75% complete. The UI was atrocious and needed serious gameplay tweaks and balancing. Unfortunately the devs thought it was 100% complete and left the door wide open for a company like Blizzard. Their mistake, not Blizzard's.
My youtube MMO gaming channel