Originally posted by parrotpholk Look to put it bluntly wow can lose players and remain stable. If they dropped 6 million of those customers tomorrow it would still be the most profit friendly game on the market and it has been out 2 yrs so yeah players are gonna leave.
Jesus, do you ever shut up, parrot? As I said, the only reason WoW would start loosing players if they imbalanced the gameplay and stop updating. However, the number of players joining has dropped since it took several months to reach 7 million players. I say by fall of next years, it'll come to a complete halt unless the Burning Crusade expansion revitalizes the game.
I mean get a life kid and take actual business class. People don't just up and leave something whether it's a game or another product. This isn't make-believe, people won't stop doing something simply because of wishful thinking on your part. You guys are exactly the Christian churches out there, constantly reminding us we are bad people who gonna die go to hell unless we join your church and repent in the future. You guys constantly reminds us that WoW is going close and that we should be looking a new MMORPG. We know it's going to close ONE DAY, but right now we are having fun. You know that thing you guys use to have when you were little toddlers.
Before this game end, we are going to try and get as much out of it as we can. So Booyah!
Originally posted by gestalt11 They won't be "losing" people because of the asian markets. Contrary to popular opinion WoW is not the MMO with the largest sub base. There are many crappy chinese ones with larger sub bases.
So the real question is: "Is WoW losing North American and European subs?".
Considering that one of those subs is about 10 chinese subs that is an important question.
The growth you have seen announced since after last christmas is 80% from china. In fact there was quite a dip in march in western markets.
no, thats incorrect.
Sure, many FREE chinese mmorpg's that count accounts created.
but in terms of subscribers, then World of Warcraft is still the mmorpg with the biggest subscriber base. its an old rumor that there are suppose to be a lot of chinese mmorpg's with a bigger subscriber base then WoW, but its all bull. World of Warcraft is still the mmorpg with the most Subscribers.
good try. A shame that WoW has been on the Top 10 most sold PC games for US and EU since its release almost 2 years ago.
So, there are surely lots of asian players, but also the EU/NA population is a lot bigger than ever it was before (about 3 of those 7 mils are from EU/NA).
I mean.. on the top 10 for 24 months? woah! only other game that can pull it off is the Sims 2.
check gamespot charts if you do not believe me.
Not sure what exactly your point is. Nobody is arguing that its a huge success, only that they do seem to pull out most of their statistics from their arses.
how exactly? If a game is in the top 10 it means it is selling tens of thousands of copies each month and this means new subscribers. this is for NA market. So, it means WoW is getting all this new people in the game every month.
This didn't happened in the past, it is happening RIGHT NOW. So speaking that there aren't many NA players when the game is in the top 10 for the NORTH AMERICAN market for 24 months in a row is denying truth.
Not to speak of the fact Blizzard opens up 1-4 new servers every now and then and i doubt the company would spend more money in maintenance if they didn't really need the servers
Now you got the definition of subscriber used by Blizzard and by basically every other Mmorpg company around.
So why people always thinks BLIZZARD datas is incorrect, but hey! SoE data must be holy. NCSoft always publish the right numbers and so forth? IF blizzard is lying, there is no reason to believe the others corps aren't so mantaining the status quo in numbers
"If you give a man a fish, you feed him for a day, if you teach him how to fish, you feed him for a lifetime"
Originally posted by Kenobee WoW is an addictive game. It is BUILT to be an addictive game. The content is addictive, it's all cleverly done psychology (Loot). Alot of thought went into the design of the game. So it is no wonder they have so many players. But my old server has died. The game does get boring after 2 years, and new players hear many bad things from addicted gamers trying to break free from WoW. So I find it hard to believe that "1 million new players" is true. More like botters/people buying 2nd account to play opposite faction on pvp servers and a short number of people trying out the game to see what all the fuss is about.
When a new game comes out with as much ridiculous hype that World of Warcraft got, this "increasing" player base will be a fading memory. I can only be patient and wait for such a gift to the mmorpg community; the downfall of WoW. It is a monstrocity.
ALL MMOs are BUILT to be addictive. WoW has just been the most successful at it for a long period of time.
Originally posted by treed0223 Originally posted by Kenobee WoW is an addictive game. It is BUILT to be an addictive game. The content is addictive, it's all cleverly done psychology (Loot). Alot of thought went into the design of the game. So it is no wonder they have so many players. But my old server has died. The game does get boring after 2 years, and new players hear many bad things from addicted gamers trying to break free from WoW. So I find it hard to believe that "1 million new players" is true. More like botters/people buying 2nd account to play opposite faction on pvp servers and a short number of people trying out the game to see what all the fuss is about.
When a new game comes out with as much ridiculous hype that World of Warcraft got, this "increasing" player base will be a fading memory. I can only be patient and wait for such a gift to the mmorpg community; the downfall of WoW. It is a monstrocity.
ALL MMOs are BUILT to be addictive. WoW has just been the most successful at it for a long period of time.
Treed: I agree
Kenobe: I hope WoW does not fail. When all those immature schoolkids break free from the clutches of Blizzard, they will seep into the MMORPGs that I enjoy. I do not want that to happen, as I enjoy the community in EVE and Ryzom as they are: without witless children and angsty teens.
good try. A shame that WoW has been on the Top 10 most sold PC games for US and EU since its release almost 2 years ago.
So, there are surely lots of asian players, but also the EU/NA population is a lot bigger than ever it was before (about 3 of those 7 mils are from EU/NA).
I mean.. on the top 10 for 24 months? woah! only other game that can pull it off is the Sims 2.
check gamespot charts if you do not believe me.
Not sure what exactly your point is. Nobody is arguing that its a huge success, only that they do seem to pull out most of their statistics from their arses. uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
Not sure what his point is? DID YOU READ THE TOPIC TITLE? He points out that WoW still sells bucket loads. Anyway who gives a hoot.
tbh with more then half its clients in china and they use a pay per hour system its hard to say how subs are counted.
Are they counting those that once upon a time kept in time in this game and have not played for months?After all under this sytem that player is still technically subbed to WoW.
Anyhow,my experience was i went back to WoW in end of may to see how it was and found my guild disbanded and majority of the players i was told quit the game.But on the other side i hardly recognized any of the players on and they were almost as many as when i left in january.
So maybe the game just has a high turnover of plaers with ppl leaving in drones but been replaced by new players in drones too.
That article is based on what from blizzard? Can someone please direct me to the quote from blizzard's official mouth that they have that many?
I know a paper quoted as saying "nearly" 7 million (it was 5) and they never quoted the source for the 7 million and I've to this day not seen blizzard say it offically. Even AGC quote was NOT from a Blizzard person.
Originally posted by Celestian That article is based on what from blizzard? Can someone please direct me to the quote from blizzard's official mouth that they have that many?
I know a paper quoted as saying "nearly" 7 million (it was 5) and they never quoted the source for the 7 million and I've to this day not seen blizzard say it offically. Even AGC quote was NOT from a Blizzard person.
A person who has no experience with stastitics, business or Blizzard co is going to sit here and tell whether or not what Blizzard is saying is legit. Oh the irony.
No-one outside blizzard can know what's going through the minds of the 7 million WoW subscribers and how they're dispersed around the globe. One thing I do know is that many of the 7 million accounts are sleeper accounts (i got one myself, a friend paid my subscription for my birthday present but i just don't play). I still look at my old guild's forums, and the amount of people going "sleeper" is around 20%. This is a hardcore guild so casual players might not be experiencing similar burnouts.
TBC is a defining factor in WoW history. To me it looks like they're just revamping the game to be more and more populistic and easy to access. Big guilds will have problems when the 25-man caps for the highest lvl dungeons come out. And people who have grinded pvp ranks will feel empty when ranks are removed and the reward system changed. However newer users will get a better package all in all. We might see an increase in blizzard sales but the same amount leaving the game (still profit for blizzard).
The AoC Mature mark won't be a speed-bump for sales IF the game achieves similar fun and easy-to-access gameplay and graphics as the GTA series(not likely).
Warhammer has a large fanbase from the tabletop game. Hell even I collected and customised miniatures as a young teen. If the atmosphere comes anywhere close to the tabletop game (atmosphere in this case meaning everything from gameplay to graphics and sound) it'll be a commercial success. WoW had a blizz fanboi fanbase as well far before the game was ever announced. I don't blame blizz fanbois at all for choosing WoW, since starcraft, the warcraft series and the diablo series were all quality games. Quality is lacking from WoW, though.
Originally posted by Babbuun No-one outside blizzard can know what's going through the minds of the 7 million WoW subscribers and how they're dispersed around the globe. One thing I do know is that many of the 7 million accounts are sleeper accounts (i got one myself, a friend paid my subscription for my birthday present but i just don't play). I still look at my old guild's forums, and the amount of people going "sleeper" is around 20%. This is a hardcore guild so casual players might not be experiencing similar burnouts.
TBC is a defining factor in WoW history. To me it looks like they're just revamping the game to be more and more populistic and easy to access. Big guilds will have problems when the 25-man caps for the highest lvl dungeons come out. And people who have grinded pvp ranks will feel empty when ranks are removed and the reward system changed. However newer users will get a better package all in all. We might see an increase in blizzard sales but the same amount leaving the game (still profit for blizzard).
The AoC Mature mark won't be a speed-bump for sales IF the game achieves similar fun and easy-to-access gameplay and graphics as the GTA series(not likely).
Warhammer has a large fanbase from the tabletop game. Hell even I collected and customised miniatures as a young teen. If the atmosphere comes anywhere close to the tabletop game (atmosphere in this case meaning everything from gameplay to graphics and sound) it'll be a commercial success. WoW had a blizz fanboi fanbase as well far before the game was ever announced. I don't blame blizz fanbois at all for choosing WoW, since starcraft, the warcraft series and the diablo series were all quality games. Quality is lacking from WoW, though.
TBC looks to be OK and is mitigating some things, but its nothing revolutionary or even that interesting. For anyone for whom the thrill is gone now TBC won't change anything. I dunno what sales will be though, I wouldn't surprised if an asston of people who aren't playing now bought it and stopped playnig a month later.
heh I say like some poster in the list: I hope for a population-crash disaster so that blizzards wakes up from their slum and realize they must get started on making StarCraft 2!
$OE lies list http://www.rlmmo.com/viewtopic.php?t=424&start=0 " And I don't want to hear anything about "I don't believe in vampires" because *I* don't believe in vampires, but I believe in my own two eyes, and what *I* saw is ******* vampires! "
Indicating their overall player base is not a good enough measure of their growth. According to other posters in this thread and sites around the 'net, 5 million subs are from China, 1 million are from Europe and the final 1 million from North America. Nifty. Getting a million subs from Europe for an MMO is a pretty amazing feat in itself.
What ultimately is the question is player retention. Sure, Blizz will increase subs in emerging markets such as the Asia-Pacific countries, but how will they do in existing markets - after players have experience all the content the game has to offer (also, for what it's worth, China's subscription model is on a per hour basis that works out to about $0.04 USD per hour). It is also known that Blizzard makes more money from their North American and Europe subscriptions than their Chinese subs (even though there are more than double the subs in China than anywhere else).
If Blizzard can continue to increase subscriptions in existing markets, that will be the better indicator of their growth. It will be a measure of the game's longevity, new content offerings, expansions, game improvements, and customer service.
Unfortunately, when Blizzard only provides overall subscription counts, we may never know. For all we know, the North American and European markets have dipped, and it is the Chinese market is what is making up for the increase in the total count.
Does anyone know? Wasn't there like 3 or 3.5 million subs before the Chinese market launch?
I might be wrong but the chinese use a system they pay a few cents per hour play or something like that.
So essentally every chinese player that ever bought the game is still considered currently subbed as they do not have a fixed payment and thus do not cancel their accounts.
So if this holds true would it not mean the market can only grow and never dip no matter what for china?
Originally posted by hercules (...) So essentally every chinese player that ever bought the game is still considered currently subbed as they do not have a fixed payment and thus do not cancel their accounts. (...)
They are only counted as active subscribers if they have played withing the last 7 days. If someone in China hasn't played for 7 days, he is considered as a inactive/canceled account.
Originally posted by hercules Are they counting those that once upon a time kept in time in this game and have not played for months?After all under this sytem that player is still technically subbed to WoW. The same could be said about other MMORPG out there. For example EQ2 has 300,000 players. Is it safe to say that 150,000 don't play? Same goes with Guild Wars with it's 2 million players. Since you can't close your account only, you'll still be counted even if you aren't playing so their may very well be only 1 million players who actually still play.
Originally posted by CaptainRPG Originally posted by hercules Are they counting those that once upon a time kept in time in this game and have not played for months?After all under this sytem that player is still technically subbed to WoW. The same could be said about other MMORPG out there. For example EQ2 has 300,000 players. Is it safe to say that 150,000 don't play? Same goes with Guild Wars with it's 2 million players. Since you can't close your account only, you'll still be counted even if you aren't playing so their may very well be only 1 million players who actually still play.
if your subscription is cancelled, you are not counted. Neither in WoW nor in EQ2.
If your subscription is active (ie you are paying each month 15 bucks), but you are not playing, something is wrong with you that waste money every month. (and you counted as playing).
GW is a special case I dunno how the heck they can count how many plays in that one
"If you give a man a fish, you feed him for a day, if you teach him how to fish, you feed him for a lifetime"
Originally posted by Volkmar Originally posted by CaptainRPG Originally posted by hercules Are they counting those that once upon a time kept in time in this game and have not played for months?After all under this sytem that player is still technically subbed to WoW. The same could be said about other MMORPG out there. For example EQ2 has 300,000 players. Is it safe to say that 150,000 don't play? Same goes with Guild Wars with it's 2 million players. Since you can't close your account only, you'll still be counted even if you aren't playing so their may very well be only 1 million players who actually still play.
if your subscription is cancelled, you are not counted. Neither in WoW nor in EQ2.
If your subscription is active (ie you are paying each month 15 bucks), but you are not playing, something is wrong with you that waste money every month. (and you counted as playing).
GW is a special case I dunno how the heck they can count how many plays in that one
GW can really only be measured by either conncurrent players or by logins, both of which have good points and bad points.
Originally posted by hercules I might be wrong but the chinese use a system they pay a few cents per hour play or something like that. So essentally every chinese player that ever bought the game is still considered currently subbed as they do not have a fixed payment and thus do not cancel their accounts. So if this holds true would it not mean the market can only grow and never dip no matter what for china?
I believe blizzard says somewhere they go month by month and only count whoever has paid within a month. But yeah there is a pay to play model in china. I think you can also just pay for a month or whatever, but they have to ffer the other model too as it is common with other chinese MMOs.
Originally posted by starman999 They will soon enough..... They have only enjoyed the level of success that they have due to lack of competition. I believe that when this new crop of games is released bored people will flock from WOW to newer games levig with with a much smaller player base than it currently boasts.
True True........Probably by then there will be a World of Warcraft 2
Originally posted by airhead But how do we define GOOD? Good is one that has a lot of non-farmer players on it (US and Europe). Will yet another MMO that does the same formula (level toon, kill 10 rats, gather copper to make a helmet) still work? or has that formula run it's course, and the US/European market is now jaded, needing more to inspire them to play? The upcoming MMOs look like more of the same...and I'm thinking they are going to flop because of it... time will tell.
Comments
I mean get a life kid and take actual business class. People don't just up and leave something whether it's a game or another product. This isn't make-believe, people won't stop doing something simply because of wishful thinking on your part. You guys are exactly the Christian churches out there, constantly reminding us we are bad people who gonna die go to hell unless we join your church and repent in the future. You guys constantly reminds us that WoW is going close and that we should be looking a new MMORPG. We know it's going to close ONE DAY, but right now we are having fun. You know that thing you guys use to have when you were little toddlers.
Before this game end, we are going to try and get as much out of it as we can. So Booyah!
Sure, many FREE chinese mmorpg's that count accounts created.
but in terms of subscribers, then World of Warcraft is still the mmorpg with the biggest subscriber base.
its an old rumor that there are suppose to be a lot of chinese mmorpg's with a bigger subscriber base then WoW, but its all bull. World of Warcraft is still the mmorpg with the most Subscribers.
good try. A shame that WoW has been on the Top 10 most sold PC games for US and EU since its release almost 2 years ago.
So, there are surely lots of asian players, but also the EU/NA population is a lot bigger than ever it was before (about 3 of those 7 mils are from EU/NA).
I mean.. on the top 10 for 24 months? woah! only other game that can pull it off is the Sims 2.
check gamespot charts if you do not believe me.
Not sure what exactly your point is. Nobody is arguing that its a huge success, only that they do seem to pull out most of their statistics from their arses.
how exactly? If a game is in the top 10 it means it is selling tens of thousands of copies each month and this means new subscribers. this is for NA market. So, it means WoW is getting all this new people in the game every month.
This didn't happened in the past, it is happening RIGHT NOW. So speaking that there aren't many NA players when the game is in the top 10 for the NORTH AMERICAN market for 24 months in a row is denying truth.
Not to speak of the fact Blizzard opens up 1-4 new servers every now and then and i doubt the company would spend more money in maintenance if they didn't really need the servers
Now you got the definition of subscriber used by Blizzard and by basically every other Mmorpg company around.
So why people always thinks BLIZZARD datas is incorrect, but hey! SoE data must be holy. NCSoft always publish the right numbers and so forth? IF blizzard is lying, there is no reason to believe the others corps aren't so mantaining the status quo in numbers
"If you give a man a fish, you feed him for a day, if you teach him how to fish, you feed him for a lifetime"
Treed: I agree
Kenobe: I hope WoW does not fail. When all those immature schoolkids break free from the clutches of Blizzard, they will seep into the MMORPGs that I enjoy. I do not want that to happen, as I enjoy the community in EVE and Ryzom as they are: without witless children and angsty teens.
good try. A shame that WoW has been on the Top 10 most sold PC games for US and EU since its release almost 2 years ago.
So, there are surely lots of asian players, but also the EU/NA population is a lot bigger than ever it was before (about 3 of those 7 mils are from EU/NA).
I mean.. on the top 10 for 24 months? woah! only other game that can pull it off is the Sims 2.
check gamespot charts if you do not believe me.
Not sure what exactly your point is. Nobody is arguing
that its a huge success, only that they do seem to pull out most of their
statistics from their arses.
uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
Not sure what his point is? DID YOU READ THE TOPIC TITLE? He points out that WoW still sells bucket loads. Anyway who gives a hoot.
tbh with more then half its clients in china and they use a pay per hour system its hard to say how subs are counted.
Are they counting those that once upon a time kept in time in this game and have not played for months?After all under this sytem that player is still technically subbed to WoW.
Anyhow,my experience was i went back to WoW in end of may to see how it was and found my guild disbanded and majority of the players i was told quit the game.But on the other side i hardly recognized any of the players on and they were almost as many as when i left in january.
So maybe the game just has a high turnover of plaers with ppl leaving in drones but been replaced by new players in drones too.
I know a paper quoted as saying "nearly" 7 million (it was 5) and they never quoted the source for the 7 million and I've to this day not seen blizzard say it offically. Even AGC quote was NOT from a Blizzard person.
http://www.greycouncil.org/
"Negaholics are people who become addicted to negativity and self-doubt, they find fault in most things and never seem to be satisfied."
^MMORPG.com
No-one outside blizzard can know what's going through the minds of the 7 million WoW subscribers and how they're dispersed around the globe. One thing I do know is that many of the 7 million accounts are sleeper accounts (i got one myself, a friend paid my subscription for my birthday present but i just don't play). I still look at my old guild's forums, and the amount of people going "sleeper" is around 20%. This is a hardcore guild so casual players might not be experiencing similar burnouts.
TBC is a defining factor in WoW history. To me it looks like they're just revamping the game to be more and more populistic and easy to access. Big guilds will have problems when the 25-man caps for the highest lvl dungeons come out. And people who have grinded pvp ranks will feel empty when ranks are removed and the reward system changed. However newer users will get a better package all in all. We might see an increase in blizzard sales but the same amount leaving the game (still profit for blizzard).
The AoC Mature mark won't be a speed-bump for sales IF the game achieves similar fun and easy-to-access gameplay and graphics as the GTA series(not likely).
Warhammer has a large fanbase from the tabletop game. Hell even I collected and customised miniatures as a young teen. If the atmosphere comes anywhere close to the tabletop game (atmosphere in this case meaning everything from gameplay to graphics and sound) it'll be a commercial success. WoW had a blizz fanboi fanbase as well far before the game was ever announced. I don't blame blizz fanbois at all for choosing WoW, since starcraft, the warcraft series and the diablo series were all quality games. Quality is lacking from WoW, though.
$OE lies list
http://www.rlmmo.com/viewtopic.php?t=424&start=0
"
And I don't want to hear anything about "I don't believe in vampires" because *I* don't believe in vampires, but I believe in my own two eyes, and what *I* saw is ******* vampires! "
Indicating their overall player base is not a good enough measure of their growth. According to other posters in this thread and sites around the 'net, 5 million subs are from China, 1 million are from Europe and the final 1 million from North America. Nifty. Getting a million subs from Europe for an MMO is a pretty amazing feat in itself.
What ultimately is the question is player retention. Sure, Blizz will increase subs in emerging markets such as the Asia-Pacific countries, but how will they do in existing markets - after players have experience all the content the game has to offer (also, for what it's worth, China's subscription model is on a per hour basis that works out to about $0.04 USD per hour). It is also known that Blizzard makes more money from their North American and Europe subscriptions than their Chinese subs (even though there are more than double the subs in China than anywhere else).
If Blizzard can continue to increase subscriptions in existing markets, that will be the better indicator of their growth. It will be a measure of the game's longevity, new content offerings, expansions, game improvements, and customer service.
Unfortunately, when Blizzard only provides overall subscription counts, we may never know. For all we know, the North American and European markets have dipped, and it is the Chinese market is what is making up for the increase in the total count.
Does anyone know? Wasn't there like 3 or 3.5 million subs before the Chinese market launch?
I might be wrong but the chinese use a system they pay a few cents per hour play or something like that.
So essentally every chinese player that ever bought the game is still considered currently subbed as they do not have a fixed payment and thus do not cancel their accounts.
So if this holds true would it not mean the market can only grow and never dip no matter what for china?
if your subscription is cancelled, you are not counted. Neither in WoW nor in EQ2.
If your subscription is active (ie you are paying each month 15 bucks), but you are not playing, something is wrong with you that waste money every month. (and you counted as playing).
GW is a special case I dunno how the heck they can count how many plays in that one
"If you give a man a fish, you feed him for a day, if you teach him how to fish, you feed him for a lifetime"
if your subscription is cancelled, you are not counted. Neither in WoW nor in EQ2.
If your subscription is active (ie you are paying each month 15 bucks), but you are not playing, something is wrong with you that waste money every month. (and you counted as playing).
GW is a special case I dunno how the heck they can count how many plays in that one
GW can really only be measured by either conncurrent players or by logins, both of which have good points and bad points.
Ya heard