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Is Blizzard lying about WoW Sub #s ?
Divion
Member UncommonPosts: 411
Is this crazy, or what ? : http://www.examiner.com/article/world-of-bullcrap-uncovering-the-bad-math
Does kinda make you wonder why MoP sales # are so far behind the alleged active sub numbers
This discussion has been closed.
Comments
I like it,those people who buys products because someone says that its succesfull ,its business and should be used on those customers,its like service.
Let's internet
I don't play WoW, but I wonder if it has something to do with the asian market? Is the expansion released there? Also it is somewhat inflated by asian 'subs', because of the way their subs do not pay monthly, but time pay. So a person pay $1 or less could be considered a full time sub in the numbers.
So I don't see anything that sticks out above the normal numbers.
Only thing i found on the asian market is about 1 million subs concurrent from the chinese markets according to Blizzard, still not enough to maket up for the claims by a long shot, and again it's Blizzard making the claims, and i coulda sworn China had allot of censorship involving the internet, why would they allow a game that make a bit of a mockery of their culture? Hmm.
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/world-warcraft-r-mists-pandaria-010000417.html
it definately released in China. can't find anything about the playerbase there though.
the sales they posted didn't include China.
"We announced today that within the first week of release, prior to the launch in China this past Tuesday, Mists of Pandaria had already sold approximately 2.7 million copies, with over 10 million players subscribed around the world. We’re extremely thankful to everyone for the overwhelming amount of positive feedback we’ve received on the new expansion and its content, and look forward to continuing to reveal and explore the secrets of Pandaria with you -- starting with a preview of the first major content update coming soon."
http://venturebeat.com/2012/11/07/wow-pandaria-1-million-concurrent-players-in-china/
Claims the market had 1 million peak at one point.
Heres the issue, that article claims subs above 10 mill, but only 2.7 million copies of POM sold.. (Outside of chinese markets)
How does 2.7 out of 10 buy an expansion.
Whats more likely, that 7.3 million people like the old content, and don't want the expansion, atleast not yet
or the 10 million subs are a flat out lie.
I'm thinking the latter over the former.
China is not Asia. It is not asia alone. And they have another system. They play in internet cafes, and they play and pay only for hours, and dont have a copy of the game, but count as subscribers.
The regular subs for WoW, with player actually owning the game and paying 15 bugs a month are far less and somewhere around 4-5 millions and almost all from them are from NA/EU.
The red can not agree with the green, this is how the math would break out.
Before POM Launch : 9.1 million subs
Week After POM launch : 10 million Subs -- An increase of 900,000 subs
POM Sales first : 2.7, of which 900,000 are accounted for in the new subs
So that means of the 9.1 million subs WoW had prior to POM launch, only 1.8 million people purchased the expansion in the first week.
That screams bullsh!t.
How does only 18% of the current playerbase purchase the new expansion? Simple, the current playerbase is false, and super-inflated.
no concurrent means on line at the same time. 1 million people logged in. if you read the article swtor's higest was 350k. i think i remember gw2's was 400k. 1 million players online at the same time is an ass-load of people.
no it doesnt. im not trying to argue with you because idc. those sales are before the chinese sales. so 7.3 million people in china still subbed to catacyslm + 2.7 million in the rest of the world subbed to mop = 10 million.
Couple issues
1. The 10 million claim was made prior to POM/WoW launch in Chinese Markets, so they are not factored into the claim
2. Guniess Book of World Record in 2010 accounted the subs as concurrent paying customers who paid for the sub in that month, regardless if they logged into play or not.
3. Using the same rule as #2, Blizzard makes the claim of 10 million subscriptions processed in the first week up from 9.1 million, there is no way, no-no-no way.
Either way, it's murkey, and lies.
If that's true, then Blizzard is still lying about their subscription base, simple.
you don;t think it's possible that 900k unsubbed from cata to wait for mop to come out?
The 9 mill subs is what Vivendi has been spouting all 2011-2012 on their press reports for Activision Blizzard consumer health, i remember reading it back when they announced their money problems, At Cata launch they broke the record had 12 million subs (Or so they claim) before WoW existed in China, and was still tryin to get the modified WOTLK injected into their markets, they lost 3 million over the 2 years following, atleast thats how i read it about 6 months ago.
What is so hard to understand?
WoW total (with Asia) = 9.1M. They never released exact EU/NA numbers (i think), but general consensus is, it was somewhere between 3 / 4.5 (Probably closer to 3 before MoP)
With this info 2.7M MoP sales, including 900k returning players seems realistic.
Whats so hard to understand
Blizzard : " We have 10 million subscribers"
Lol no you don't.
You have 2-3 million subscribers, and allot [mod edit] who paid for an hour of play time.
If i subscribe to a year of a magazine, and pay 15 dollars a month for a subscription, and get a magazine everything month, that is a subscription.
If i go to the magazine store, and buy 1 copy of the same magazine for 20 bucks, and never buy another magazine, that is NOT a subscription.
Saying you habe 10 million subs when you don't is lying.
How is this rocket science? Detials don't matter, fact is, they lie.
** Also, i just looked South Korea uses a similar time model ~
It's deceptive watch :
Play a game that has over 10 million subscribers!
Play a game that has 3 million subscribers, and some penny men!
They use the subs as an advertising pillar, and a quip for broadcasting false consumer health.
I don't understand how nuclear physics works, so it must be a lie.
I don't understand how biology works, so it must be a lie.
I don't understand how women work, so they must be a lie, too.
Fuzzy math is done all the time in the corporate world. You don't have to understand it for there to be some truth to it. Obviously, something is going on with the way they count the subscriptions, but that doesn't mean the numbers aren't at least half-true.
Calling Science that you don't understand magic doesn't make it so.
That is the point i'm making, i understand exactly what is going on, and thats the point i'm pointing out, obvious lies to make a game look healthier then it is, if you can't understand that, then i'm sorry public schooling failed you.
If Playboy has 3 million people with active subscriptions, but sold magazines to 200 million people, that does not give them rights to disclose on press reports that they have 200 million subscribers that month to mislead those who do not know better.
That was the point, i made it case closed, i'm done have fun
Doesn't make it right, nor should it mean you can bark at me for pointing it out.
people in china are also spending $77 dollars for MoP. how does that make you feel?
"Netease has the license to operate the game in China, and the expansion pack will be available at the official Netease-Blizzard online store at bmall.163.com. As seen in the image above, it’s priced at 486 RMB (US$77). It’s already hitting some other e-commerce sites in the country, such as Amazon China and 360Buy, though shipping won’t really begin until September 28 in China, allowing Blizzard to first deal with the likely huge demand from the Korea and Taiwan launches on September 27th at midnight local time."
If we take the 2.7M MoP sales at face value, that means that 2.7M subscribers purchased the expansion (as that is the sales number released before MoP released in markets that pay by the hour, not a monthly subscription).
If only 2.7M subscribers purchased MoP, what did the other 300K / 1.8M do, according to general consensus?
If you apply Occam's Razor to the subscriber / MoP sales numbers, you would reach a very simple conclusion, and that is that 2.7M is the total number of traditional subscribers (as in, players that actually pay a monthly subscription, as opposed to those that pay by the hour and are counted as a subscriber) which make up the NA/EU player base.
However you look at it, WoW still has a huge subscriber base, and Blizzard (and WoW fans) still appear to be padding the numbers.
A creative person is motivated by the desire to achieve, not the desire to beat others.
And where is the problem? They include "subscriber" definition in every official sub numbers release. It's not like they are hiding it.
There have been plenty of claims that Blizzard are using fuzzy math for sub numbers and it might be true but nothing have been proven one way or another.
With no proof Blizzards word is however good until someone actually can prove otherwise so unless anyone have actual and good proof this discussion is kinda pointless.
I doubt Blizzard would outright lie about numbers, but noone is actually forcing them to count players the same as Guiness books of records did 2010.
Personally I dont see how it matters if Blizzard have 6 or 10 million subscribers, it is still a load of players and far more than any other P2P game.