WoW has been growing since the release to around 2010/2011 if I am correct which then had 12 mil subs! Let's just say that 20 mil has tried WoW since 2004 till today, it's a bit much , but just let's assume! From the total of 20 mil, 10 mil are the ones who bought boxes, since the rest are from Asia and most of them play from internet caffe's where they don't need to buy a boxe in order to play, they just need to pay by hour.
From the total of 10 mils of box buyers, in no way, they could ALL buy all 4 expansion.
Cataclysm = 3.3 mil in the first 24 hours ( see above link for the source )
That makes 9.6 mils of box sales. No, it does not mean that if they sold 2.8 mil in the first 24 hours, it doubled in the first month ( see Burning Crusade )
Ok, let's say they sold 4 mil copies on each expansion, since WoW sold after the first month too! Fuck, let's put 5 mils each expansion. That means we have 15 mil boxes sold. Let's do a simple math now! 15 mil : 3 expansion, that's 5 mil players ( which is normal and kinda true from the blizzard reports ) and then let's add the 5 mil to the 15 mil , since peoples owned and payed for the box since the release of it! That would be 20 mils of boxes sold in EU/NA!
Heck, let's put 25 mils boxes, but that's it! No 40-60 or 80 mils boxes sold!
You really love making up random numbers, don't you?
WoW has 9 million people WILLING to pay the monthly fee..
Question is for how long ? Guild Wars 2 will have an effect on that number and it was already in decline before GW2 arrived . Imagine the numbers GW2 will get when its released in China (if it proves popular) .Thats going to cut into that 9 million like freddie does into dreaming teens .
This is with just one Buy to Play game . Theres inevitably going to be a long more in future now .
WoW will never hold onto 9 million players now . I know as a WoW fan this must be worrying for you .
MoP has had a mixed reaction due to its content to say the least so you cant rely on the that to boost its flagging subs by much and certainly not for a sustained period .
WoW has had to compete with many other games in china, gw2 is just another medium sized fish in the pond. China has so many people, and so many different games that never make it to the west... Blizzard is used to the competition there, and anet would probably be more worried about how it will fare vs the other games over there, instead of trying to take a chunk out of wow.
I personally believe that gw2 in its current state will not do well in china... it may sell a lot of boxes due to hype and curiosity, but the game is way too easy with a severe lack of content, that chinese gamers will consume within days.
Just to point out that much of GW2 content is far harder than WoWs so if GW2 is too easy why does that explains WoW does well in China .
WoW has the easiest pve content in any mmo I've ever played and I've played most .
I have to ask have you actually played much of Guild Wars 2 content ? because I have my doubts from that statement .
I highly doubt you were a top progression wow-raider if you believe this to be the case... I was one of the first 80s on my server (crystal desert, a very high pop server) I went through the dungeons on explorable mode... if you think that type of content is hard... i dunno what to tell you, because it can be done in your sleep if you were a hardcore progression wow raider circa vanilla-tbc. Let alone eq raider.
While wow has gotten easier with each expansion... top progression content is still challenging... the second all the way to last tier guilds plow through it quickly because they already have the strats of the top tier guilds, and also because stuff is significantly nerfed after the initial progression race... this is one of the ways blizzard allows more casual players to enjoy the content as well.
Just to point out that much of GW2 content is far harder than WoWs so if GW2 is too easy why does that explains WoW does well in China .
WoW has the easiest pve content in any mmo I've ever played and I've played most .
I have to ask have you actually played much of Guild Wars 2 content ? because I have my doubts from that statement .
Harder, how? everything is marked on the map, everything is explained to you and you are guided through the game. What is so hard? even games like TSW and GW1 give more skill variety in builds. So you can not even claim that skill system is too complex in GW2.
Look man i love GW2 but you gotto stop making comments like these. Anet plans to release GW2 in China soon so whatever you are saying makes zero sense.
WoW has been growing since the release to around 2010/2011 if I am correct which then had 12 mil subs! Let's just say that 20 mil has tried WoW since 2004 till today, it's a bit much , but just let's assume! From the total of 20 mil, 10 mil are the ones who bought boxes, since the rest are from Asia and most of them play from internet caffe's where they don't need to buy a boxe in order to play, they just need to pay by hour.
From the total of 10 mils of box buyers, in no way, they could ALL buy all 4 expansion.
Cataclysm = 3.3 mil in the first 24 hours ( see above link for the source )
That makes 9.6 mils of box sales. No, it does not mean that if they sold 2.8 mil in the first 24 hours, it doubled in the first month ( see Burning Crusade )
Ok, let's say they sold 4 mil copies on each expansion, since WoW sold after the first month too! Fuck, let's put 5 mils each expansion. That means we have 15 mil boxes sold. Let's do a simple math now! 15 mil : 3 expansion, that's 5 mil players ( which is normal and kinda true from the blizzard reports ) and then let's add the 5 mil to the 15 mil , since peoples owned and payed for the box since the release of it! That would be 20 mils of boxes sold in EU/NA!
Heck, let's put 25 mils boxes, but that's it! No 40-60 or 80 mils boxes sold!
You really love making up random numbers, don't you?
If you are going to quote me, please do so and state what did you found .. "wrong" , "random numbers", in my post! If I would have to go with close numbers , I would have been lowered the total amount of boxes sold! So please, let's .. talk a bit about what could I have been saying , wrong!
Reporter: What's behind Blizzard success, and how do you make your gamers happy? Blizzard Boss: Making gamers happy is not my concern, making money.. yes!
Originally posted by Bladestrom How do we know the population in gw2 is dropping? I don't think that is the case is it?
A lot of people are blasting the game... to the same degree that games like swtor or d3 were blasted... that is never a good sign for retention.
None of the thousands on my sever seem effected by the "blasting". Everything is fun as h-e-double-toothpicks If I remember correctly, which I do, a small game called WoW had a few problems on launch for several weeks.
Anyway, good job ArenaNet! You may be pulling NCSoft about an inch out of the outhouse.
Death is nothing to us, since when we are, Death has not come, and when death has come, we are not.
Originally posted by Bladestrom How do we know the population in gw2 is dropping? I don't think that is the case is it?
From overall population from servers maybe ? it is too soon to tell.
I have noticed the servers seem to be transitioning from Full, to High to Medium, but, we don't know how ANet's Tweaking of servers and adding in servers to the clusters for increased load balancing is affecting those. But I will say, I'm seeing fewer people online concurrently in the populated areas than I saw in previous weeks. Which can also be explained by populations spreading out now. It's also normal. Every MMO since WoW experienced a downward turn in populations in the early weeks/months.
Originally posted by Omnifish Originally posted by NitthThe problem here is they have orchestrated it in such a way that this number will ever decline. "2million units sold" 90% of the population could leave and it still would be "2 million units sold"I personally think there is a hard ceiling to this game, Where everyone who wanted to play it, did.
That's the beauty of the system, it always looks good.
Really longterm it's down to the CS and how rapidly they can bring out Expansions and charge for them.
2million though is far below what the diehards claimed it would sell, that's the only thing really confirmed.
The die hards haven't had time to be wrong yet. We're only two weeks into the life of the game. Though, they have sold 2 million copies.
As far as projections, it was projected to sell 3 million* by the end of 2012. We still have the rest of September and the months of October, November and December to get through.
The projections are from securities firms and the Guild Wars 2 Forums...I would assume the people on the forums are rabid fan boys. Looks like they might have actually under predicted the game's sales. :-)
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
Originally posted by Bladestrom How do we know the population in gw2 is dropping? I don't think that is the case is it?
From overall population from servers maybe ? it is too soon to tell.
I have noticed the servers seem to be transitioning from Full, to High to Medium, but, we don't know how ANet's Tweaking of servers and adding in servers to the clusters for increased load balancing is affecting those. But I will say, I'm seeing fewer people online concurrently in the populated areas than I saw in previous weeks. Which can also be explained by populations spreading out now. It's also normal. Every MMO since WoW experienced a downward turn in populations in the early weeks/months.
Also a lot of the people were playing 10+ hours a day in the first week. Which is crazy from a casuals perspective.
Originally posted by Bladestrom How do we know the population in gw2 is dropping? I don't think that is the case is it?
From overall population from servers maybe ? it is too soon to tell.
I have noticed the servers seem to be transitioning from Full, to High to Medium, but, we don't know how ANet's Tweaking of servers and adding in servers to the clusters for increased load balancing is affecting those. But I will say, I'm seeing fewer people online concurrently in the populated areas than I saw in previous weeks. Which can also be explained by populations spreading out now. It's also normal. Every MMO since WoW experienced a downward turn in populations in the early weeks/months.
All you can do is establish the primetime for your region and look at where server populations fall at during that time... to get an idea of how things are going, obviously that isn't concrete because we don't know what high or full or medium entail in exact numbers.
WoW has been growing since the release to around 2010/2011 if I am correct which then had 12 mil subs! Let's just say that 20 mil has tried WoW since 2004 till today, it's a bit much , but just let's assume! From the total of 20 mil, 10 mil are the ones who bought boxes, since the rest are from Asia and most of them play from internet caffe's where they don't need to buy a boxe in order to play, they just need to pay by hour.
From the total of 10 mils of box buyers, in no way, they could ALL buy all 4 expansion.
Cataclysm = 3.3 mil in the first 24 hours ( see above link for the source )
That makes 9.6 mils of box sales. No, it does not mean that if they sold 2.8 mil in the first 24 hours, it doubled in the first month ( see Burning Crusade )
Ok, let's say they sold 4 mil copies on each expansion, since WoW sold after the first month too! Fuck, let's put 5 mils each expansion. That means we have 15 mil boxes sold. Let's do a simple math now! 15 mil : 3 expansion, that's 5 mil players ( which is normal and kinda true from the blizzard reports ) and then let's add the 5 mil to the 15 mil , since peoples owned and payed for the box since the release of it! That would be 20 mils of boxes sold in EU/NA!
Heck, let's put 25 mils boxes, but that's it! No 40-60 or 80 mils boxes sold!
You really love making up random numbers, don't you?
If you are going to quote me, please do so and state what did you found .. "wrong" , "random numbers", in my post! If I would have to go with close numbers , I would have been lowered the total amount of boxes sold! So please, let's .. talk a bit about what could I have been saying , wrong!
Just saying your base number of 20 million does not account for retention of WOW subs, becuase we have no stats to show what WOW's rentention rate is. Also using figures from the first 24 expansion sales does not count any expansion sales since those first 24 hours. So your numbers are quite random, weither they are close or not is something only blizzard marketing and CEOs know. All I stated is that your numbers are random as they are not weither they are close to solid or not.
WoW has 9 million people WILLING to pay the monthly fee..
Question is for how long ? Guild Wars 2 will have an effect on that number and it was already in decline before GW2 arrived . Imagine the numbers GW2 will get when its released in China (if it proves popular) .Thats going to cut into that 9 million like freddie does into dreaming teens .
This is with just one Buy to Play game . Theres inevitably going to be a long more in future now .
WoW will never hold onto 9 million players now . I know as a WoW fan this must be worrying for you .
MoP has had a mixed reaction due to its content to say the least so you cant rely on the that to boost its flagging subs by much and certainly not for a sustained period .
WoW has had to compete with many other games in china, gw2 is just another medium sized fish in the pond. China has so many people, and so many different games that never make it to the west... Blizzard is used to the competition there, and anet would probably be more worried about how it will fare vs the other games over there, instead of trying to take a chunk out of wow.
I personally believe that gw2 in its current state will not do well in china... it may sell a lot of boxes due to hype and curiosity, but the game is way too easy with a severe lack of content, that chinese gamers will consume within days.
Just to point out that much of GW2 content is far harder than WoWs so if GW2 is too easy why does that explains WoW does well in China .
WoW has the easiest pve content in any mmo I've ever played and I've played most .
I have to ask have you actually played much of Guild Wars 2 content ? because I have my doubts from that statement .
I highly doubt you were a top progression wow-raider if you believe this to be the case... I was one of the first 80s on my server (crystal desert, a very high pop server) I went through the dungeons on explorable mode... if you think that type of content is hard... i dunno what to tell you, because it can be done in your sleep if you were a hardcore progression wow raider circa vanilla-tbc. Let alone eq raider.
While wow has gotten easier with each expansion... top progression content is still challenging... the second all the way to last tier guilds plow through it quickly because they already have the strats of the top tier guilds, and also because stuff is significantly nerfed after the initial progression race... this is one of the ways blizzard allows more casual players to enjoy the content as well.
This makes me laugh because your talking about a tiny part of the game . You still have to wade through 85 levels of pve content you cant possibly fail at . Then and only then do you have a handfull of raids and dungeons to give you any kind of challenge .
OK maybe I should say Wow is 98 percent easy and 2 percent challenging . Over all Guld Wars 2 is far more difficult .
Makes me laugh when WoW PVE players make this arguement as it holds less water than a bucket with a whole in it .
since the game isnt sub based, the box sales vs actual people playing are deceiving. i bought the game but i am not playing anymore. yet my box sale is being considered as a playing member. 2 million box sales doesnt exactly mean 2 million people playing
Well 9.1 million subscriptions doesn't mean 9.1 million players either. Not even close.
Originally posted by Bladestrom How do we know the population in gw2 is dropping? I don't think that is the case is it?
A lot of people are blasting the game... to the same degree that games like swtor or d3 were blasted... that is never a good sign for retention.
It's always cute when you try to play off like you actually know what you are talking about.
World of Warcraft gets blasted all the time by lots of people too! Can't be a good sign for retention, huh?
Also, me thinks you might be looking for "bashing", not blasting. Blast can be used as a positive description, so "blasting" a game could mean lots of people are saying it's a blast! Bash, not so much. You get a D for effort with your trolling though, sad to see such bad trolls around, I miss the good ones.
Well you may think i am looking for bashing, but I said what I meant, and I meant blasting. When you blast something it has a negative connotation, unless you are referring to sound in which case it usually depends on context.
Also the rest of your post is incorrect... there is a difference in the way WoW gets blasted, and the way new games get blasted when they are hemmorhaging players. Some people notice these differences, I guess you aren't one of them.
But calling someone a troll just because they understand things in a way you don't seem to, makes you a certain type of person yourself. And trying to correct my word usage, when it didn't need to be corrected, makes you look sorta silly.
Actually you are wrong. Blast can be used for, and hold onto your seat bucko, both negative AND positive connotation.
And really now? Do tell please. Last I checked hating on a game is hating on a game plain and simple, but obviously someone of a muuuuch higher intelligence should be able to explain the differences. I mean you were the one who posted about this first, so it falls on you to explain it!
And hey, I call them as I see them. My 100% legitimate insider in the game industry told me so! I'm sure you know about those, seeing as you've claimed before you knew a few.
It is estimated WoW sold between 60-80 million boxes.
WoW is estimated at around half of that. To achieve those numbers they would have had to sell 15-20million boxes of the original, and then every expansion after that would have had to sell the exact same amount.
If the game, in its 8 or so years of existence, had perfect retention and absolutely no acquisition after the first year then you'd be right. It would also be the most extreme anomaly ever to happen in the sale of any service ever offered in the entire history of mankind... and, yes, that includes prostitution.
WoW has been growing since the release to around 2010/2011 if I am correct which then had 12 mil subs! Let's just say that 20 mil has tried WoW since 2004 till today, it's a bit much , but just let's assume! From the total of 20 mil, 10 mil are the ones who bought boxes, since the rest are from Asia and most of them play from internet caffe's where they don't need to buy a boxe in order to play, they just need to pay by hour.
From the total of 10 mils of box buyers, in no way, they could ALL buy all 4 expansion.
Cataclysm = 3.3 mil in the first 24 hours ( see above link for the source )
That makes 9.6 mils of box sales. No, it does not mean that if they sold 2.8 mil in the first 24 hours, it doubled in the first month ( see Burning Crusade )
Ok, let's say they sold 4 mil copies on each expansion, since WoW sold after the first month too! Fuck, let's put 5 mils each expansion. That means we have 15 mil boxes sold. Let's do a simple math now! 15 mil : 3 expansion, that's 5 mil players ( which is normal and kinda true from the blizzard reports ) and then let's add the 5 mil to the 15 mil , since peoples owned and payed for the box since the release of it! That would be 20 mils of boxes sold in EU/NA!
Heck, let's put 25 mils boxes, but that's it! No 40-60 or 80 mils boxes sold!
That was a rather unintelligible ramble of made up numbers and arbitrary calculation to prove your point. The fact that you were snarky about it made it quite amusing.
Can you share the formula you used for churn to get that 20 million? You did figure in churn, right?
I ask because i don't see it anywhere in your numbers - numbers you so smugly present to support your position.
See, my post to him was solely about the missing part of his math. If you took a moment from jumping on people to try to prove them wrong, you'd see that.
EDIT: Reading the past two pages and seeing that you're arguing with other people on point they never contested was amusing, too. Thanks for the entertianment!
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein "Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
WoW has been growing since the release to around 2010/2011 if I am correct which then had 12 mil subs! Let's just say that 20 mil has tried WoW since 2004 till today, it's a bit much , but just let's assume! From the total of 20 mil, 10 mil are the ones who bought boxes, since the rest are from Asia and most of them play from internet caffe's where they don't need to buy a boxe in order to play, they just need to pay by hour.
From the total of 10 mils of box buyers, in no way, they could ALL buy all 4 expansion.
Cataclysm = 3.3 mil in the first 24 hours ( see above link for the source )
That makes 9.6 mils of box sales. No, it does not mean that if they sold 2.8 mil in the first 24 hours, it doubled in the first month ( see Burning Crusade )
Ok, let's say they sold 4 mil copies on each expansion, since WoW sold after the first month too! Fuck, let's put 5 mils each expansion. That means we have 15 mil boxes sold. Let's do a simple math now! 15 mil : 3 expansion, that's 5 mil players ( which is normal and kinda true from the blizzard reports ) and then let's add the 5 mil to the 15 mil , since peoples owned and payed for the box since the release of it! That would be 20 mils of boxes sold in EU/NA!
Heck, let's put 25 mils boxes, but that's it! No 40-60 or 80 mils boxes sold!
You really love making up random numbers, don't you?
If you are going to quote me, please do so and state what did you found .. "wrong" , "random numbers", in my post! If I would have to go with close numbers , I would have been lowered the total amount of boxes sold! So please, let's .. talk a bit about what could I have been saying , wrong!
Just saying your base number of 20 million does not account for retention of WOW subs, becuase we have no stats to show what WOW's rentention rate is. Also using figures from the first 24 expansion sales does not count any expansion sales since those first 24 hours. So your numbers are quite random, weither they are close or not is something only blizzard marketing and CEOs know. All I stated is that your numbers are random as they are not weither they are close to solid or not.
True! 20 millions it's random! Could be more, could be less! Fine! I give you credit for that! But I did not used figures from the first 24h only , if you readed my post entirly! I used the 1 month of BC, 24h for WOLK and Cata , which resulted in 9.6 mils, but if you would read more, you would see that I puted 4 mil each expansion at first , then I even add 5 mils for each expansion. Which "normally" would have been a *FAIR* amount of box sold, but as you said , we will never find the true if Blizzard does not release such results!
What I found funny about your first comment, it's that you found my numbers to be random, but the 40-60-80 mils boxes numbers, which have been stated by the 2-3 guys, were *OK*.
Hence, my numbers are random too , but I somehow , gave some sources from where i've build does numbers, bisde .. others!
Reporter: What's behind Blizzard success, and how do you make your gamers happy? Blizzard Boss: Making gamers happy is not my concern, making money.. yes!
Actually that IS what it means, If you CONTINUE paying monthly for something usually means your using the service. 9.1mil is a current number so 9.1 paid $15 this month... they're probablyplaying...
since the game isnt sub based, the box sales vs actual people playing are deceiving. i bought the game but i am not playing anymore. yet my box sale is being considered as a playing member. 2 million box sales doesnt exactly mean 2 million people playing
Well 9.1 million subscriptions doesn't mean 9.1 million players either. Not even close.
Originally posted by IceAge Originally posted by rlhegiraOriginally posted by IceAgeOriginally posted by rlhegiraOriginally posted by IceAgeOriginally posted by LoktofeitOriginally posted by caetftlOriginally posted by QuicklyScott
WoW has been growing since the release to around 2010/2011 if I am correct which then had 12 mil subs! Let's just say that 20 mil has tried WoW since 2004 till today, it's a bit much , but just let's assume! From the total of 20 mil, 10 mil are the ones who bought boxes, since the rest are from Asia and most of them play from internet caffe's where they don't need to buy a boxe in order to play, they just need to pay by hour.From the total of 10 mils of box buyers, in no way, they could ALL buy all 4 expansion.Let's see :Burning Crusade = 2.4 in the first 24h. 1st month 3.5 mils copies ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_of_Warcraft:_The_Burning_Crusade )Wrath of the Lich King = 2.8 mil in the first 24h ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_of_Warcraft:_Wrath_of_the_Lich_KingCataclysm = 3.3 mil in the first 24 hours ( see above link for the source )That makes 9.6 mils of box sales. No, it does not mean that if they sold 2.8 mil in the first 24 hours, it doubled in the first month ( see Burning Crusade )Ok, let's say they sold 4 mil copies on each expansion, since WoW sold after the first month too! Fuck, let's put 5 mils each expansion. That means we have 15 mil boxes sold. Let's do a simple math now! 15 mil : 3 expansion, that's 5 mil players ( which is normal and kinda true from the blizzard reports ) and then let's add the 5 mil to the 15 mil , since peoples owned and payed for the box since the release of it! That would be 20 mils of boxes sold in EU/NA!Heck, let's put 25 mils boxes, but that's it! No 40-60 or 80 mils boxes sold!You really love making up random numbers, don't you?If you are going to quote me, please do so and state what did you found .. "wrong" , "random numbers", in my post! If I would have to go with close numbers , I would have been lowered the total amount of boxes sold! So please, let's .. talk a bit about what could I have been saying , wrong!Just saying your base number of 20 million does not account for retention of WOW subs, becuase we have no stats to show what WOW's rentention rate is. Also using figures from the first 24 expansion sales does not count any expansion sales since those first 24 hours. So your numbers are quite random, weither they are close or not is something only blizzard marketing and CEOs know. All I stated is that your numbers are random as they are not weither they are close to solid or not.True! 20 millions it's random! Could be more, could be less! Fine! I give you credit for that! But I did not used figures from the first 24h only , if you readed my post entirly! I used the 1 month of BC, 24h for WOLK and Cata , which resulted in 9.6 mils, but if you would read more, you would see that I puted 4 mil each expansion at first , then I even add 5 mils for each expansion. Which "normally" would have been a *FAIR* amount of box sold, but as you said , we will never find the true if Blizzard does not release such results!
What I found funny about your first comment, it's that you found my numbers to be random, but the 40-60-80 mils boxes numbers, which have been stated by the 2-3 guys, were *OK*.
Hence, my numbers are random too , but I somehow , gave some sources from where i've build does numbers, bisde .. others!
You didn't use maths, blasting or even Honey Badgers in your numbers. You could have at least thrown in some XFire.
Like this: 8 years at 9 million players at a 50% retention rate gives you 9 million + (4.5 million times 7), which is HONEY BADGER!!!!1! No, it's 40.5 million boxes sold.
See? That's how we roll around here.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
Originally posted by Lethality Hehe, no. This game isn't mainstream enough... it has a limited appeal, and there are signs that the foundation has cracks in it (endgame, broken designs, balance.)
According to Anet they want to beat WOW in sales and be number one. I think they know for that they have to go for mass appeal hence mainstream.
But the design *isn't* mainstream. It tries to be, but falls short in the general appeal.
According to who?
Most friends and guild members.
Then we strike off even cause mine feel the opposite. In fact, I have 3 friends who have never got into MMOs that bought it and love it.
It's because it doesn't work like an MMO... no mechanics at all for grouping vs not grouping, dimished importance of character progression, etc. It's closer to a "social" game with the "Do XX/XX Vistas" than an MMO. And the depth is about on par with Diablo III.
You mean it doesnt work like obsolete MMO desgin a'la wow and clones. Thanks god becouse it was the wrost thing that happened to mmorpgs.
How does MMO design become obsolete in your opinion? Because you're tired of it? Or should it be based on continuing success? WoW is still the big fish in the MMO market for the time being.
Why was WoW the worst thing to happen to MMOs? It drew a lot of attention to the genre and blew up the market for online social gaming. Now we have tons of great games, like GW2, that likely wouldn't have been green lit had there been no market for them.
You need to thank WoW for showing the world that MMOs can do well in the mass market.
It is estimated WoW sold between 60-80 million boxes.
WoW is estimated at around half of that. To achieve those numbers they would have had to sell 15-20million boxes of the original, and then every expansion after that would have had to sell the exact same amount.
If the game, in its 8 or so years of existence, had perfect retention and absolutely no acquisition after the first year then you'd be right. It would also be the most extreme anomaly ever to happen in the sale of any service ever offered in the entire history of mankind... and, yes, that includes prostitution.
WoW has been growing since the release to around 2010/2011 if I am correct which then had 12 mil subs! Let's just say that 20 mil has tried WoW since 2004 till today, it's a bit much , but just let's assume! From the total of 20 mil, 10 mil are the ones who bought boxes, since the rest are from Asia and most of them play from internet caffe's where they don't need to buy a boxe in order to play, they just need to pay by hour.
From the total of 10 mils of box buyers, in no way, they could ALL buy all 4 expansion.
Cataclysm = 3.3 mil in the first 24 hours ( see above link for the source )
That makes 9.6 mils of box sales. No, it does not mean that if they sold 2.8 mil in the first 24 hours, it doubled in the first month ( see Burning Crusade )
Ok, let's say they sold 4 mil copies on each expansion, since WoW sold after the first month too! Fuck, let's put 5 mils each expansion. That means we have 15 mil boxes sold. Let's do a simple math now! 15 mil : 3 expansion, that's 5 mil players ( which is normal and kinda true from the blizzard reports ) and then let's add the 5 mil to the 15 mil , since peoples owned and payed for the box since the release of it! That would be 20 mils of boxes sold in EU/NA!
Heck, let's put 25 mils boxes, but that's it! No 40-60 or 80 mils boxes sold!
That was a rather unintelligible ramble of made up numbers and arbitrary calculation to prove your point. The fact that you were snarky about it made it quite amusing.
Can you share the formula you used for churn to get that 20 million? You did figure in churn, right?
I ask because i don't see it anywhere in your numbers - numbers you so smugly present to support your position.
See, my post to him was solely about the missing part of his math, a piece you seem to have overlooked, as well. If you took a moment from jumping on people to try to prove them wrong, you'd see that.
Ok, fine! I will explain how I ended up at those numbers :
I toke the offical announcements for box sales for each expansion WoW had untill now! The vast result was that :
1) BC sold 3.5 mil copies in the first month! Can you safely say that it sold more then 5 mil copies untill now? With a subscription base of 12 mil at is *finest* and 9 mil which they have now? With 50% from the total subs in EU/NA where boxes counts? If yes, please tell me your facts! I will not be offended, trust me!
2) WOLK sold 2.8 mil 1st 24 hours while Cata sold 3.3 mil. Then Blizzard stoped releasing numbers after the first month ( unless you find a source ) . Now, how many boxes do you think they sold untill now? Where the base subs have been around 4-6 mils ? I add 5 mils copies each expansion, because the medium subscriptions were at 5 mil.
That's why I ended up with 15 mils boxes sold ONLY for expansions! I then add another 5 mil boxes of the original WoW + another 5 mil just for the sake of being .. wrong! Heck, you can also add 5 mil in plus if you want! That would be 30 mil boxes sold!
I did not put Asia here, since Blizzard never released Asia box sales, because they don't sell boxes over there as you may know!
Don't get me wrong, I like when someone comes and .. tell me some good arguments about how I am wrong, so if you do have some good arguments, please share them with me! Again, I will not be offended and I will peaceful communicate with you!
Reporter: What's behind Blizzard success, and how do you make your gamers happy? Blizzard Boss: Making gamers happy is not my concern, making money.. yes!
Originally posted by IceAge Ok, fine! I will explain how I ended up at those numbers :I toke the offical announcements for box sales for each expansion WoW had untill now! The vast result was that :1) BC sold 3.5 mil copies in the first month! Can you safely say that it sold more then 5 mil copies untill now? With a subscription base of 12 mil at is *finest* and 9 mil which they have now? With 50% from the total subs in EU/NA where boxes counts? If yes, please tell me your facts! I will not be offended, trust me!2) WOLK sold 2.8 mil 1st 24 hours while Cata sold 3.3 mil. Then Blizzard stoped releasing numbers after the first month ( unless you find a source ) . Now, how many boxes do you think they sold untill now? Where the base subs have been around 4-6 mils ? I add 5 mils copies each expansion, because the medium subscriptions were at 5 mil.That's why I ended up with 15 mils boxes sold ONLY for expansions! I then add another 5 mil boxes of the original WoW + another 5 mil just for the sake of being .. wrong! Heck, you can also add 5 mil in plus if you want! That would be 30 mil boxes sold!I did not put Asia here, since Blizzard never released Asia box sales, because they don't sell boxes over there as you may know!Don't get me wrong, I like when someone comes and .. tell me some good arguments about how I am wrong, so if you do have some good arguments, please share them with me! Again, I will not be offended and I will peaceful communicate with you!
I do see that you have used some rudimentary maths, but you have still left out honey badgers. Also, you skipped to guessing the final number directly, instead of guessing an intermediate number. You're supposed to guess an intermediate number like the retention rate and then do calculations using the guessed at intermediate numbers. I don't know why, but for some reason guessing the intermediate numbers, and then calculating is preferable to guessing the final result.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
That's why I ended up with 15 mils boxes sold ONLY for expansions! I then add another 5 mil boxes of the original WoW + another 5 mil just for the sake of being .. wrong! Heck, you can also add 5 mil in plus if you want! That would be 30 mil boxes sold!
Out of interest how many copys did WoW Vanilla sell in its first month ?
Expansions to a popular established game such as well are bound to sell well . So really you need to compare the initial months sales of GW2 and WoW in such an arguement .
You didn't use maths, blasting or even Honey Badgers in your numbers. You could have at least thrown in some XFire.
Like this: 8 years at 9 million players at a 50% retention rate gives you 9 million + (4.5 million times 7), which is HONEY BADGER!!!!1! No, it's 40.5 million boxes sold.
See? That's how we roll around here.
Word.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein "Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
Comments
You really love making up random numbers, don't you?
I highly doubt you were a top progression wow-raider if you believe this to be the case... I was one of the first 80s on my server (crystal desert, a very high pop server) I went through the dungeons on explorable mode... if you think that type of content is hard... i dunno what to tell you, because it can be done in your sleep if you were a hardcore progression wow raider circa vanilla-tbc. Let alone eq raider.
Harder, how? everything is marked on the map, everything is explained to you and you are guided through the game. What is so hard? even games like TSW and GW1 give more skill variety in builds. So you can not even claim that skill system is too complex in GW2.
Look man i love GW2 but you gotto stop making comments like these. Anet plans to release GW2 in China soon so whatever you are saying makes zero sense.
Bite Me
If you are going to quote me, please do so and state what did you found .. "wrong" , "random numbers", in my post! If I would have to go with close numbers , I would have been lowered the total amount of boxes sold! So please, let's .. talk a bit about what could I have been saying , wrong!
Reporter: What's behind Blizzard success, and how do you make your gamers happy?
Blizzard Boss: Making gamers happy is not my concern, making money.. yes!
None of the thousands on my sever seem effected by the "blasting". Everything is fun as h-e-double-toothpicks If I remember correctly, which I do, a small game called WoW had a few problems on launch for several weeks.
Anyway, good job ArenaNet! You may be pulling NCSoft about an inch out of the outhouse.
Death is nothing to us, since when we are, Death has not come, and when death has come, we are not.
I have noticed the servers seem to be transitioning from Full, to High to Medium, but, we don't know how ANet's Tweaking of servers and adding in servers to the clusters for increased load balancing is affecting those. But I will say, I'm seeing fewer people online concurrently in the populated areas than I saw in previous weeks. Which can also be explained by populations spreading out now. It's also normal. Every MMO since WoW experienced a downward turn in populations in the early weeks/months.
Really longterm it's down to the CS and how rapidly they can bring out Expansions and charge for them.
2million though is far below what the diehards claimed it would sell, that's the only thing really confirmed.
The die hards haven't had time to be wrong yet. We're only two weeks into the life of the game. Though, they have sold 2 million copies.
As far as projections, it was projected to sell 3 million* by the end of 2012. We still have the rest of September and the months of October, November and December to get through.
The projections are from securities firms and the Guild Wars 2 Forums...I would assume the people on the forums are rabid fan boys. Looks like they might have actually under predicted the game's sales. :-)
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
Also a lot of the people were playing 10+ hours a day in the first week. Which is crazy from a casuals perspective.
All you can do is establish the primetime for your region and look at where server populations fall at during that time... to get an idea of how things are going, obviously that isn't concrete because we don't know what high or full or medium entail in exact numbers.
Just saying your base number of 20 million does not account for retention of WOW subs, becuase we have no stats to show what WOW's rentention rate is. Also using figures from the first 24 expansion sales does not count any expansion sales since those first 24 hours. So your numbers are quite random, weither they are close or not is something only blizzard marketing and CEOs know. All I stated is that your numbers are random as they are not weither they are close to solid or not.
This makes me laugh because your talking about a tiny part of the game . You still have to wade through 85 levels of pve content you cant possibly fail at . Then and only then do you have a handfull of raids and dungeons to give you any kind of challenge .
OK maybe I should say Wow is 98 percent easy and 2 percent challenging . Over all Guld Wars 2 is far more difficult .
Makes me laugh when WoW PVE players make this arguement as it holds less water than a bucket with a whole in it .
Well 9.1 million subscriptions doesn't mean 9.1 million players either. Not even close.
Actually you are wrong. Blast can be used for, and hold onto your seat bucko, both negative AND positive connotation.
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/blast
And really now? Do tell please. Last I checked hating on a game is hating on a game plain and simple, but obviously someone of a muuuuch higher intelligence should be able to explain the differences. I mean you were the one who posted about this first, so it falls on you to explain it!
And hey, I call them as I see them. My 100% legitimate insider in the game industry told me so! I'm sure you know about those, seeing as you've claimed before you knew a few.
That was a rather unintelligible ramble of made up numbers and arbitrary calculation to prove your point. The fact that you were snarky about it made it quite amusing.
Can you share the formula you used for churn to get that 20 million? You did figure in churn, right?
I ask because i don't see it anywhere in your numbers - numbers you so smugly present to support your position.
See, my post to him was solely about the missing part of his math. If you took a moment from jumping on people to try to prove them wrong, you'd see that.
EDIT: Reading the past two pages and seeing that you're arguing with other people on point they never contested was amusing, too. Thanks for the entertianment!
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
True! 20 millions it's random! Could be more, could be less! Fine! I give you credit for that! But I did not used figures from the first 24h only , if you readed my post entirly! I used the 1 month of BC, 24h for WOLK and Cata , which resulted in 9.6 mils, but if you would read more, you would see that I puted 4 mil each expansion at first , then I even add 5 mils for each expansion. Which "normally" would have been a *FAIR* amount of box sold, but as you said , we will never find the true if Blizzard does not release such results!
What I found funny about your first comment, it's that you found my numbers to be random, but the 40-60-80 mils boxes numbers, which have been stated by the 2-3 guys, were *OK*.
Hence, my numbers are random too , but I somehow , gave some sources from where i've build does numbers, bisde .. others!
Reporter: What's behind Blizzard success, and how do you make your gamers happy?
Blizzard Boss: Making gamers happy is not my concern, making money.. yes!
meant to quote this
WoW has been growing since the release to around 2010/2011 if I am correct which then had 12 mil subs! Let's just say that 20 mil has tried WoW since 2004 till today, it's a bit much , but just let's assume! From the total of 20 mil, 10 mil are the ones who bought boxes, since the rest are from Asia and most of them play from internet caffe's where they don't need to buy a boxe in order to play, they just need to pay by hour. From the total of 10 mils of box buyers, in no way, they could ALL buy all 4 expansion. Let's see : Burning Crusade = 2.4 in the first 24h. 1st month 3.5 mils copies ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_of_Warcraft:_The_Burning_Crusade ) Wrath of the Lich King = 2.8 mil in the first 24h ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_of_Warcraft:_Wrath_of_the_Lich_King Cataclysm = 3.3 mil in the first 24 hours ( see above link for the source ) That makes 9.6 mils of box sales. No, it does not mean that if they sold 2.8 mil in the first 24 hours, it doubled in the first month ( see Burning Crusade ) Ok, let's say they sold 4 mil copies on each expansion, since WoW sold after the first month too! Fuck, let's put 5 mils each expansion. That means we have 15 mil boxes sold. Let's do a simple math now! 15 mil : 3 expansion, that's 5 mil players ( which is normal and kinda true from the blizzard reports ) and then let's add the 5 mil to the 15 mil , since peoples owned and payed for the box since the release of it! That would be 20 mils of boxes sold in EU/NA! Heck, let's put 25 mils boxes, but that's it! No 40-60 or 80 mils boxes sold!
You really love making up random numbers, don't you?
If you are going to quote me, please do so and state what did you found .. "wrong" , "random numbers", in my post! If I would have to go with close numbers , I would have been lowered the total amount of boxes sold! So please, let's .. talk a bit about what could I have been saying , wrong!
Just saying your base number of 20 million does not account for retention of WOW subs, becuase we have no stats to show what WOW's rentention rate is. Also using figures from the first 24 expansion sales does not count any expansion sales since those first 24 hours. So your numbers are quite random, weither they are close or not is something only blizzard marketing and CEOs know. All I stated is that your numbers are random as they are not weither they are close to solid or not.
True! 20 millions it's random! Could be more, could be less! Fine! I give you credit for that! But I did not used figures from the first 24h only , if you readed my post entirly! I used the 1 month of BC, 24h for WOLK and Cata , which resulted in 9.6 mils, but if you would read more, you would see that I puted 4 mil each expansion at first , then I even add 5 mils for each expansion. Which "normally" would have been a *FAIR* amount of box sold, but as you said , we will never find the true if Blizzard does not release such results!
What I found funny about your first comment, it's that you found my numbers to be random, but the 40-60-80 mils boxes numbers, which have been stated by the 2-3 guys, were *OK*.
Hence, my numbers are random too , but I somehow , gave some sources from where i've build does numbers, bisde .. others!
You didn't use maths, blasting or even Honey Badgers in your numbers. You could have at least thrown in some XFire.
Like this: 8 years at 9 million players at a 50% retention rate gives you 9 million + (4.5 million times 7), which is HONEY BADGER!!!!1! No, it's 40.5 million boxes sold.
See? That's how we roll around here.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
How does MMO design become obsolete in your opinion? Because you're tired of it? Or should it be based on continuing success? WoW is still the big fish in the MMO market for the time being.
Why was WoW the worst thing to happen to MMOs? It drew a lot of attention to the genre and blew up the market for online social gaming. Now we have tons of great games, like GW2, that likely wouldn't have been green lit had there been no market for them.
You need to thank WoW for showing the world that MMOs can do well in the mass market.
Ok, fine! I will explain how I ended up at those numbers :
I toke the offical announcements for box sales for each expansion WoW had untill now! The vast result was that :
1) BC sold 3.5 mil copies in the first month! Can you safely say that it sold more then 5 mil copies untill now? With a subscription base of 12 mil at is *finest* and 9 mil which they have now? With 50% from the total subs in EU/NA where boxes counts? If yes, please tell me your facts! I will not be offended, trust me!
2) WOLK sold 2.8 mil 1st 24 hours while Cata sold 3.3 mil. Then Blizzard stoped releasing numbers after the first month ( unless you find a source ) . Now, how many boxes do you think they sold untill now? Where the base subs have been around 4-6 mils ? I add 5 mils copies each expansion, because the medium subscriptions were at 5 mil.
That's why I ended up with 15 mils boxes sold ONLY for expansions! I then add another 5 mil boxes of the original WoW + another 5 mil just for the sake of being .. wrong! Heck, you can also add 5 mil in plus if you want! That would be 30 mil boxes sold!
I did not put Asia here, since Blizzard never released Asia box sales, because they don't sell boxes over there as you may know!
Don't get me wrong, I like when someone comes and .. tell me some good arguments about how I am wrong, so if you do have some good arguments, please share them with me! Again, I will not be offended and I will peaceful communicate with you!
Reporter: What's behind Blizzard success, and how do you make your gamers happy?
Blizzard Boss: Making gamers happy is not my concern, making money.. yes!
I do see that you have used some rudimentary maths, but you have still left out honey badgers. Also, you skipped to guessing the final number directly, instead of guessing an intermediate number. You're supposed to guess an intermediate number like the retention rate and then do calculations using the guessed at intermediate numbers. I don't know why, but for some reason guessing the intermediate numbers, and then calculating is preferable to guessing the final result.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
Out of interest how many copys did WoW Vanilla sell in its first month ?
Expansions to a popular established game such as well are bound to sell well . So really you need to compare the initial months sales of GW2 and WoW in such an arguement .
Word.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre