No way. If they even lose another million heads are going to roll. This isn't about relative profitability and are they maintaining enough to make some money and keep development going. This is about investor returns. Investors are going to be pissed because even a 10% drop in projected revenue is enough to send stock on a decline.
Corporations are expected to improve revenue. If Acti/Blizz can't poo out something to increase their revenue forecasts then they're in trouble as in executives will be replaced. On the bright side this might light a fire under them to get Titan out.
It's hard to say if they would shift their business model though. In a recent interview they said they're always open, but given the present revenue generation they have no plans to change that in the near future.
Wow, dude. They're clearly, publicly at work on several other projects at the moment.
Heads aren't going to roll. Nobody executes a CEO head just because a typical, predictable, expected market force finaaaallly catches up with Blizzard.
Only a severe mistake would cause a substantial shake-up. Now maybe it's possible the mistake was already made (like assuming WOW would grow unstoppably forever, in spite of that never really happening in content-driven MMORPGs) and they over-hired, and they'll have to let some people go as a result. But it won't necessarily be the top people who are let go.
As I mentioned before, this is all a predictable cycle of content-based MMORPGs and the surprise isn't that it's happening but actually that it took this long to happen.
Similarly predictable is the fact that Blizzard's overall profitability will be down for the next few years until Titan and their other releases.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
The surprise isn't that the population has dropped. It's quite old.
The surprise is that it's taken this long and dropped by this little. Tons of MMORPGs out there dream of only losing 14% of their userbase a year after launch, let alone nearly a decade post-launch.
That is in just 3 months though. The peak was 12 millions subs so its closer to 33 percent.
The 12m was a long time ago. So it took quite a while to drop 33%.
Anyways if Blizzard convert to f2p/b2p then I can safely say that P2P is dead. If WoW can't sustain a P2P model no other game can. I mean look at the market at the moment. How many P2P games are there? 3? 5? Probably no more than that.
I guess people just want to play F2P. It will take probably at least another 2-3 years for Blizzard to drop the sub unless something really dramatic happens. I mean even if WoW dropped to 500k subs it would still be worthwhile to keep the sub. So WoW needs to lose A LOT of subs for them to convert to b2p/f2p.
No way. If they even lose another million heads are going to roll. This isn't about relative profitability and are they maintaining enough to make some money and keep development going. This is about investor returns. Investors are going to be pissed because even a 10% drop in projected revenue is enough to send stock on a decline.
Corporations are expected to improve revenue. If Acti/Blizz can't poo out something to increase their revenue forecasts then they're in trouble as in executives will be replaced. On the bright side this might light a fire under them to get Titan out.
It's hard to say if they would shift their business model though. In a recent interview they said they're always open, but given the present revenue generation they have no plans to change that in the near future.
Exactly Blizz/Act have lost 3.7 million WoW subs since 2010, that equates to a lot of lost revenue and what are they replacing it with? couple that with the demise of Guitar Hero and the further decline of WoW the company isn't really giving investors optimism for the future.
What does their financial statement look like? I haven't looked at their balance sheet or income statement because frankly I don't care but there are a lot of things to consider when evaluating how a firm is doing as a whole. Also need to do some benchmarking and industry analysis to compare. When did they make their announcement? Their share price dropped by roughly 3% in a day though.
Mission in life: Vanquish all MMORPG.com trolls - especially TESO, WOW and GW2 trolls.
The share price movement is within normal trading, 3%. Their financials are fine. Despite the 'they only have cod and wow' statement by the uninformed, Skylanders are still selling well (lol talk about an understatement).
Gdemami - Informing people about your thoughts and impressions is not a review, it's a blog.
The surprise isn't that the population has dropped. It's quite old.
The surprise is that it's taken this long and dropped by this little.
There's enormous inertia in a player pool that large. Sunk costs...
"The Truth: Your decisions are tainted by the emotional investments you accumulate, and the more you invest in something the harder it becomes to abandon it."
As usual, the glee we see (from one side) of "The King is Dead" crowd is premature, and the defensiveness we see (from the other side) "Still the Greatest Evar" are both simple reflex.
As previous titles have shown us, even If the King is on life support, he can and will cling to life well into the next decade, or the one after that...we just don't know how long that life-support can last, yet.
Great fun furiously rubbing the crystal balls and prognosticating though, isn't it? Doom.
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.
Lets face facts. Games like TERA, SW:TOR, Aion, and LOTRO were only kinda popular when they were s2p games, but once they converted to f2p, they experienced HUGE population booms. The same will happen if/when WoW converts to f2p, and right now, I think it's less of a matter of "if" than it is of "when". In fact, even if they made it b2p where players had to buy the expansion packs but not need to pay a subscription, that would create a similarly huge population boom (and might be enough to bring me back).
I believe there was already a confirmation by Morhaime that it will go F2P eventually. Though that was followed with the condition that if they were no longer making a profit from P2P they wouldn't abandon it and instead just make it Free to Play with a cash shop.
Though this was years and years ago, probably before even Wrath of the Lich King when he said that.
Due to frequent travel in my youth, English isn't something I consider my primary language (and thus I obtained quirky ways of writing). German and French were always easier for me despite my family being U.S. citizens for over a century. Spanish I learned as a requirement in school, Japanese and Korean I acquired for my youthful desire of anime and gaming (and also work now). I only debate in English to help me work with it (and limit things). In addition, I'm not smart enough to remain fluent in everything and typically need exposure to get in the groove of things again if I haven't heard it in a while. If you understand Mandarin, I know a little, but it has actually been a challenge and could use some help.
Also, I thoroughly enjoy debates and have accounts on over a dozen sites for this. If you wish to engage in such, please put effort in a post and provide sources -- I will then do the same with what I already wrote (if I didn't) as well as with my responses to your own. Expanding my information on a subject makes my stance either change or strengthen the next time I speak of it or write a thesis. Allow me to thank you sincerely for your time.
Finally you guys are seeing what I'm seeing about WoW, it's just same old same old. There's no new feature, it's all just about new dungeon & raids, new area and race, then that's that.
WoW players are getting older. It's like a toddler growing up and upgrading from Fisher Price to GI Joes. Players get older and yearn for more depth and complexity.
WoW was most the first MMO for most people. New players aren't as common anymore.
WoW was most the first MMO for most people. New players aren't as common anymore.
Of course, EQ players were positing that same logic in 2002, before the addition of 12-18 million more players to the total 'mmo gamer' pool. "Market saturation"...totally right.
And backstage in the dev circles, they were positing that the fantasy genre was 'played out'.
But no power in the universe can stop amateur market analysts from making their predictions (with about the same accuracy rate as gypsy fortunetellers).
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.
WoW players are getting older. It's like a toddler growing up and upgrading from Fisher Price to GI Joes. Players get older and yearn for more depth and complexity.
WoW was most the first MMO for most people. New players aren't as common anymore.
WOW players have always been "older". Since launch. Old enough to know WOW didn't waste their time when other games involved excessive timesinks. Old enough to have played enough games to recognize that WOW's moment-to-moment gameplay (including game depth) surpassed most other MMORPGs.
I didn't stuck with WOW because it was my first MMORPG. I played ~10 or so earlier MMORPGs. I stuck with WOW because it was the first MMORPG that didn't suck (for the reasons in the first paragraph.)
So it's not about growing up, it's about a lack of superior MMORPGs being released, and players feeling stuck with WOW for an extremely long time, and only gradually (due to the extreme length of time spent in WOW) have they wandered off to other games (oftentimes returning.)
Sorta like the 10 year old whose GI Joes are now worn and the only toys his parents have inexplicably been purchasing are Fisher Price; the good thing was better, but now it's so old that even weaker forms of entertainment are looking attractive. When what we need are some good MMORPG releases (some metal Transformers,) where moment-to-moment gameplay is a blast.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Originally posted by fivoroth What does their financial statement look like? I haven't looked at their balance sheet or income statement because frankly I don't care but there are a lot of things to consider when evaluating how a firm is doing as a whole. Also need to do some benchmarking and industry analysis to compare. When did they make their announcement? Their share price dropped by roughly 3% in a day though.
Financials are not bad.
In their financial reports all revenue from WoW is grouped with CoD Elite memberships(but BLOPS2 is free, so pretty much a non factor).
Last quarter Online Subscriptions made $285 million.
This quarter they made $275 million.
So, losing 1.3 million subscribers(mostly from China) is a loss of around $10 million in revenue.
Clearly they peaked. Their relentless marketing campaign earned them every potential customer. Don't think there is a person on earth that hasn't had WoW dangled in front of them hundreds of times in the last ten years. Everyone took the bait but now you are out of fish.
It was/is a *very* good run. Well done, Blizzard. Too bad for SOE that their head-scratchers couldn't think their way out of a paper bag, let alone reverse-engineer Blizzard's marketing brilliance.
Luckily, i don't need you to like me to enjoy video games. -nariusseldon. In F2P I think it's more a case of the game's trying to play the player's. -laserit
Not sure what is not clear to who? Why wondering subs are down when we know today we have zillion of mmo's out there, free or not free. Once they were only few. 8 milions for me only mean how strong is still wow going. And I hope wow stay there. I'm currently not playing exactly for reason I have also other great games I love to test and play ... but for sure I will be back some day. But truth is they have destroyed casul 5man runs starting with cata. In Wotlk I have been staying for months (after leveling to max all my 10 alts) and playing end game content. But completely lost all my interest after wotlk. Enjoying however a lot swtor as for leveling as for end game. Hope they also do not ruin there something.
Is there a reason to play this game for more than 2 months? In two months or less you reach level cap from lvl 1(1 week or less) and do some raids and BGs and leave. Maybe come back two years later due to a new expansion to play for another 1 month or so.
Originally posted by Datastar I feel thier problem isnt the f2p/b2p games out there, its the dumbing down/lack of innovation across the board on all of blizzards games over the past few years. Thats just my personal opinion.
^
That. Blizzard's focus on convenience and instant gratification have ruined WoW for me. After Vanilla and BC, WoW started going downhill. Now it's to the point where they'd have to do something monumental for me to wanna play it again.
Kyleran: "Now there's the real trick, learning to accept and enjoy a game for what
it offers rather than pass on what might be a great playing experience
because it lacks a few features you prefer."
John Henry Newman: "A man would do nothing if he waited until he could do it so well that no one could find fault."
FreddyNoNose: "A good game needs no defense; a bad game has no defense." "Easily digested content is just as easily forgotten."
LacedOpium: "So the question that begs to be asked is, if you are not interested in
the game mechanics that define the MMORPG genre, then why are you
playing an MMORPG?"
Comments
small fish? Easily within the top 5 most popular mmorpg
All of my posts are either intelligent, thought provoking, funny, satirical, sarcastic or intentionally disrespectful. Take your pick.
I get banned in the forums for games I love, so lets see if I do better in the forums for games I hate.
I enjoy the serenity of not caring what your opinion is.
I don't hate much, but I hate Apple© with a passion. If Steve Jobs was alive, I would punch him in the face.
All the ones that left are from China, and they don't count unless we need to shore up our numbers!
Wow, dude. They're clearly, publicly at work on several other projects at the moment.
Heads aren't going to roll. Nobody executes a CEO head just because a typical, predictable, expected market force finaaaallly catches up with Blizzard.
Only a severe mistake would cause a substantial shake-up. Now maybe it's possible the mistake was already made (like assuming WOW would grow unstoppably forever, in spite of that never really happening in content-driven MMORPGs) and they over-hired, and they'll have to let some people go as a result. But it won't necessarily be the top people who are let go.
As I mentioned before, this is all a predictable cycle of content-based MMORPGs and the surprise isn't that it's happening but actually that it took this long to happen.
Similarly predictable is the fact that Blizzard's overall profitability will be down for the next few years until Titan and their other releases.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
yeah right...
you need to get real
I left because of:
Crz, fixed mana and the "talent" trees. wow is a joke now.
What does their financial statement look like? I haven't looked at their balance sheet or income statement because frankly I don't care but there are a lot of things to consider when evaluating how a firm is doing as a whole. Also need to do some benchmarking and industry analysis to compare. When did they make their announcement? Their share price dropped by roughly 3% in a day though.
Mission in life: Vanquish all MMORPG.com trolls - especially TESO, WOW and GW2 trolls.
Gdemami -
Informing people about your thoughts and impressions is not a review, it's a blog.
There's enormous inertia in a player pool that large. Sunk costs...
"The Truth: Your decisions are tainted by the emotional investments you accumulate, and the more you invest in something the harder it becomes to abandon it."
As usual, the glee we see (from one side) of "The King is Dead" crowd is premature, and the defensiveness we see (from the other side) "Still the Greatest Evar" are both simple reflex.
As previous titles have shown us, even If the King is on life support, he can and will cling to life well into the next decade, or the one after that...we just don't know how long that life-support can last, yet.
Great fun furiously rubbing the crystal balls and prognosticating though, isn't it? Doom.
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.
Well it'[s an old game already, and there are WOW killer games now
what can you expect? it's been running for years.... and i think players realized that it's time for them to try something new
I believe there was already a confirmation by Morhaime that it will go F2P eventually. Though that was followed with the condition that if they were no longer making a profit from P2P they wouldn't abandon it and instead just make it Free to Play with a cash shop.
Though this was years and years ago, probably before even Wrath of the Lich King when he said that.
WoW players are getting older. It's like a toddler growing up and upgrading from Fisher Price to GI Joes. Players get older and yearn for more depth and complexity.
WoW was most the first MMO for most people. New players aren't as common anymore.
Of course, EQ players were positing that same logic in 2002, before the addition of 12-18 million more players to the total 'mmo gamer' pool. "Market saturation"...totally right.
And backstage in the dev circles, they were positing that the fantasy genre was 'played out'.
But no power in the universe can stop amateur market analysts from making their predictions (with about the same accuracy rate as gypsy fortunetellers).
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.
In the same way my Reverse-O-Tron appears broken, your Sarcasm Detector seems fixed! Carry on, no misunderstandings have been made.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
WOW players have always been "older". Since launch. Old enough to know WOW didn't waste their time when other games involved excessive timesinks. Old enough to have played enough games to recognize that WOW's moment-to-moment gameplay (including game depth) surpassed most other MMORPGs.
I didn't stuck with WOW because it was my first MMORPG. I played ~10 or so earlier MMORPGs. I stuck with WOW because it was the first MMORPG that didn't suck (for the reasons in the first paragraph.)
So it's not about growing up, it's about a lack of superior MMORPGs being released, and players feeling stuck with WOW for an extremely long time, and only gradually (due to the extreme length of time spent in WOW) have they wandered off to other games (oftentimes returning.)
Sorta like the 10 year old whose GI Joes are now worn and the only toys his parents have inexplicably been purchasing are Fisher Price; the good thing was better, but now it's so old that even weaker forms of entertainment are looking attractive. When what we need are some good MMORPG releases (some metal Transformers,) where moment-to-moment gameplay is a blast.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
In their financial reports all revenue from WoW is grouped with CoD Elite memberships(but BLOPS2 is free, so pretty much a non factor).
Last quarter Online Subscriptions made $285 million.
This quarter they made $275 million.
So, losing 1.3 million subscribers(mostly from China) is a loss of around $10 million in revenue.
until Blizzard quantifies what the current China vs non China split is (WOW was last stated to be 55% Asian)
the "mostly from China"statement is meaningless
could have 5.5 million Asian and 4.5 million nonAsian totaling the old 10 million
all regions lose 10%
and China would still have the most losses because they have most subs
if China makes a difference for distinction of sub loss,
then Blizzard has been withholding sub information
-- because Blizzard has not published NonAsian sub breakdowns for over 5 years
EQ2 fan sites
Clearly they peaked. Their relentless marketing campaign earned them every potential customer. Don't think there is a person on earth that hasn't had WoW dangled in front of them hundreds of times in the last ten years. Everyone took the bait but now you are out of fish.
It was/is a *very* good run. Well done, Blizzard. Too bad for SOE that their head-scratchers couldn't think their way out of a paper bag, let alone reverse-engineer Blizzard's marketing brilliance.
Luckily, i don't need you to like me to enjoy video games. -nariusseldon.
In F2P I think it's more a case of the game's trying to play the player's. -laserit
^
That. Blizzard's focus on convenience and instant gratification have ruined WoW for me. After Vanilla and BC, WoW started going downhill. Now it's to the point where they'd have to do something monumental for me to wanna play it again.
No no. When wow claims higher numbers, it's non-sub trial accounts and chinese players. When numbers go down, it's only subs quiting.
Epic Music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAigCvelkhQ&list=PLo9FRw1AkDuQLEz7Gvvaz3ideB2NpFtT1
https://archive.org/details/softwarelibrary_msdos?&sort=-downloads&page=1
Kyleran: "Now there's the real trick, learning to accept and enjoy a game for what it offers rather than pass on what might be a great playing experience because it lacks a few features you prefer."
John Henry Newman: "A man would do nothing if he waited until he could do it so well that no one could find fault."
FreddyNoNose: "A good game needs no defense; a bad game has no defense." "Easily digested content is just as easily forgotten."
LacedOpium: "So the question that begs to be asked is, if you are not interested in the game mechanics that define the MMORPG genre, then why are you playing an MMORPG?"