You're joking I hope? .... WoW could run the servers for free for years/decades on what they've made.
I remember a recent video posted on this site from the GDC? I think that's what it was called.
Two gentlemen came out to talk about the "nitty gritty" of running WoW. Affter they were finished it was very clear that more went into the game then just development teams and keeping servers.
The list of all that keeping wow alive entailed was not only staggering but also made one rethink where money actually goes.
Oh I'm sure they make quite a bit but it also seems that quite a bit of that money is also being used toward future develpoment, fringe for employees, back to investors, customer service, translating and a host of other things.
ah here it is... it's almost an hour and can be dry at times. But it's worth a look.
I can say this...It doesnt matter if WoW did or didn't drop in sub numbers...it's still has the most subs of any p2p...really...thats that...oh, dont worry...it wont be around forever (the sooner its gone the better)...but it has a few years left under it's belt...
I think it'll stay #1 for at least another three years...I dont see anything new coming out that will knock it out of the water...unless SWTOR miraculously does, but then it would just be one crap game replacing another...
*sigh*
PLAYING: NOTHING!!! PLAYED:FFXI, LotRO, AoC, WAR, DDO, Megaten, Wurm, Rohan, Mabinogi, RoM
Robert Kotick, CEO of Activision Blizzard, stated, "Our performance was driven by positive audience response to Activision Publishing's Guitar Hero 5, Marvel: Ultimate Alliance 2, and the Guitar Hero® and Call of Duty® franchises, as well as Blizzard Entertainment®'s World of Warcraft®
Robert Kotick, CEO of Activision Blizzard, stated, "Our performance was driven by positive audience response to Activision Publishing's Guitar Hero 5, Marvel: Ultimate Alliance 2, and the Guitar Hero® and Call of Duty® franchises, as well as Blizzard Entertainment®'s World of Warcraft®
You're joking I hope? .... WoW could run the servers for free for years/decades on what they've made.
The point was, are they making profit now?
For Blizzard? There's a couple of million people paying subs in the west... and Asia is not *just* china. Of course they are making profit, even with the china department shut down for a while. Servers that don't run don't cost nearly as much to maintain. Staff costs? pfff a pittance with what they are making on WoW.
They make over 120 (or so, don't remember) million revenue per month on WoW. WoW revenue over a whole year is over a billion. You really think they don't turn enough profit on half of that to keep a part of their game on ice? This game has been a cashcow since the second month after it got released.
All you guys have to do to answer this question is go to NASDAQ and look at the the stock and financial reports. I don't know why you want to wait on Blizzard to publish anything. Blizzard is ATVI, for those that don't know. Just type it into the search and you'll have pages of information to dissect, drool over, and argue about.
And...I might add...you'll find if you do that tiny bit of research, that Blizzard has pretty steadily increased in income over the years, as well as the amount of money they are investing back into the company and paying OUT to shareholders.
Right now, Blizzard stock is selling for $10.84 a share, and by the looks of even THIS quarter's report, I'd say it's probably a good time to buy in.
Now for the Blizzard haters....why don't you try a search on quotes for whatever your favorite gaming developer of choice is and then come back and argue some more?
All you guys have to do to answer this question is go to NASDAQ and look at the the stock and financial reports. I don't know why you want to wait on Blizzard to publish anything. Blizzard is ATVI, for those that don't know. Just type it into the search and you'll have pages of information to dissect, drool over, and argue about.
And...I might add...you'll find if you do that tiny bit of research, that Blizzard has pretty steadily increased in income over the years, as well as the amount of money they are investing back into the company and paying OUT to shareholders.
Right now, Blizzard stock is selling for $10.84 a share, and by the looks of even THIS quarter's report, I'd say it's probably a good time to buy in.
Now for the Blizzard haters....why don't you try a search on quotes for whatever your favorite gaming developer of choice is and then come back and argue some more?
/goes to get popcorn
And here we go again:
... the income of the Wow MMO was going UP from $ 828 million ( 2008) to $ 939 million (2009) on a 9 month basis.
Page 19. and filed Nov 6th 2009 Audited. for stock commission. I don't even believe Googa knows what an audited report means in the financial world.
Checkmate ..., so unless Blizzard is into illegal Columbian drug dealing they had a growth in its WOW department of more than 10% ---- WITHOUT China even on line between June and Sep 2009. The report even mentions this.
[Mod Edited]
WTF, man? Was that "checkmate" to me? Did you even bother to READ my post?
I think I made it pretty clear that people who don't think Blizzard is still making money....are clueless, and obviously too lazy to research the information themselves.
So the pet store actually worked out, I wonder when we will see the floodgates open for the pet and mount and whatever else store swarm :P Unless they play it smart without overwhelming the player base with real money sinks.
The info of the fiancial growth was from Jan 1st to Sep 30th 2009 (and published on Nov 2009). Like I said above
The pet store came to open in Oct 2009, so the growth has nothing to do with the 2 vanity pets sold (of which 50% went to charity).
Just as if you can grow with 110 million $ by selling a vanity pet. ))
The only reason why the subs were no longer mentioned is because of the off line (or free to play) status of WOW in China between June and Sep 2009.
But despite this fact (according to these reports the China accounts for 9% of the toal revenu), the income grew from 828 to 939 million, tx to "growth in other regions of the world outside China").
Thought it included the pet store, oh well, not able to see the financial results of their pet store yet.
Thought it included the pet store, oh well, not able to see the financial results of their pet store yet.
I doubt the pet store will be a big cash cow. However, I imagine all of the real money purchases make a lot of money for blizzard. server transfers, sex and race changes, faction changes, all of that seems to be low expense/high profit for Bliz.
And here we go again: ... the income of the Wow MMO was going UP from $ 828 million ( 2008) to $ 939 million (2009) on a 9 month basis.
OFFICIAL REFERENCE: http://investor.activision.com/secfiling.cfm?filingID=1104659-09-63352 Page 19. and filed Nov 6th 2009 Audited. for stock commission. I don't even believe Googa knows what an audited report means in the financial world. Checkmate ..., so unless Blizzard is into illegal Columbian drug dealing they had a growth in its WOW department of more than 10% ---- WITHOUT China even on line between June and Sep 2009. The report even mentions this.
[Mod Edit - and lets keep it this way]
Are those figures including actual game sales? If it does then it still does very little to prove subscription numbers because the 2008 figures wouldn't include much revenue from TBC sales which would of already been on sale for close to a year before that 9 month period, where as the 2009 figures will have a lot of WotLK sales included because that had only been on sale for for a little over a month before that 9 month period began.
I only read page 1 and page 8, so I apologize if this has already been said, but..
There's been no official release of sub numbers in a year (as was already said), and XFire and WoW Census both show a marked decline in US server player activity during that period (about 10%). From that I think think it's safe to say that this expansion has seen a net decline in subs.
I resubbed for a few months to check things out. This expansion is completely about the casual player - to the point where any serious player has to seriously consider if the elite toys and shinys he or she getting is worth the sub fee. To me, that seems at the core of the dissatisfaction with this expansion - there's really no strong draw for serious gamers and casual gamers, by their nature, are less likely to keep ponying up a subscription fee month after month. I will also point to the severe lack of tanks and (less so) healers as evidence that more serious gamers are leaving WoW in substantial numbers - groups have always been LFM tank / healer but it's much worse now (at least on my server) than it was in Classic and TBC.
It doesn't help that the lead designer (Tom Chilton) has a reputation for ruining every MMO he's ever come in contact with. The people who made WoW into the powerhouse it is today are working on Blizzard's new MMO, which I'm sure will be top-notch.
I still have high hopes for Cataclysm. Blizzard totally changes the mechanics of the end-game with every expansion - I'm sure this time will be no different.
I only read page 1 and page 8, so I apologize if this has already been said, but.. There's been no official release of sub numbers in a year (as was already said), and XFire and WoW Census both show a marked decline in US server player activity during that period (about 10%). From that I think think it's safe to say that this expansion has seen a net decline in subs. I resubbed for a few months to check things out. This expansion is completely about the casual player - to the point where any serious player has to seriously consider if the elite toys and shinys he or she getting is worth the sub fee. To me, that seems at the core of the dissatisfaction with this expansion - there's really no strong draw for serious gamers and casual gamers, by their nature, are less likely to keep ponying up a subscription fee month after month. I will also point to the severe lack of tanks and (less so) healers as evidence that more serious gamers are leaving WoW in substantial numbers - groups have always been LFM tank / healer but it's much worse now (at least on my server) than it was in Classic and TBC. It doesn't help that the lead designer (Tom Chilton) has a reputation for ruining every MMO he's ever come in contact with. The people who made WoW into the powerhouse it is today are working on Blizzard's new MMO, which I'm sure will be top-notch. I still have high hopes for Cataclysm. Blizzard totally changes the mechanics of the end-game with every expansion - I'm sure this time will be no different.
Complete and utter bullshit and CRAP. Proof to follow.
... the income of the Wow MMO was going UP from $ 828 million ( 2008) to $ 939 million (2009) on a 9 month basis.
OFFICIAL REFERENCE: Activision Blizzard financial report of Nov 2009.
Page 19. and filed Nov 6th 2009 Audited. for stock. This is as official as can be.
So with a growth of more than 10% in 2009 over 2008... WOW is stronger in financial income than ever before.
AND this with China having had NO revenus between June and Sep 2009.
the Activision Blizzard group even explained that growth was kept throughout the first 9 months of 2009 - DESPITE being China off line till Sep - by having more growth in other parts. (China accounts for around 9% of the total income due to the MUCH lower money involved.
So NICE try --- but as always HUGE fail when being confronted with financial FACTS.
OK, as you keep posting these financial figures, I'll ask again... Are those figures including actual game sales? If it does then it still does very little to prove subscription numbers (which is what this thread was originally about) because the 2008 figures wouldn't include much revenue from TBC sales which would of already been on sale for close to a year before that 9 month period, where as the 2009 figures will have a lot of WotLK sales included because that had only been on sale for for a little over a month before that 9 month period began.
I only read page 1 and page 8, so I apologize if this has already been said, but.. There's been no official release of sub numbers in a year (as was already said), and XFire and WoW Census both show a marked decline in US server player activity during that period (about 10%). From that I think think it's safe to say that this expansion has seen a net decline in subs. I resubbed for a few months to check things out. This expansion is completely about the casual player - to the point where any serious player has to seriously consider if the elite toys and shinys he or she getting is worth the sub fee. To me, that seems at the core of the dissatisfaction with this expansion - there's really no strong draw for serious gamers and casual gamers, by their nature, are less likely to keep ponying up a subscription fee month after month. I will also point to the severe lack of tanks and (less so) healers as evidence that more serious gamers are leaving WoW in substantial numbers - groups have always been LFM tank / healer but it's much worse now (at least on my server) than it was in Classic and TBC. It doesn't help that the lead designer (Tom Chilton) has a reputation for ruining every MMO he's ever come in contact with. The people who made WoW into the powerhouse it is today are working on Blizzard's new MMO, which I'm sure will be top-notch. I still have high hopes for Cataclysm. Blizzard totally changes the mechanics of the end-game with every expansion - I'm sure this time will be no different.
Complete and utter bullshit and CRAP. Proof to follow.
... the income of the Wow MMO was going UP from $ 828 million ( 2008) to $ 939 million (2009) on a 9 month basis.
OFFICIAL REFERENCE: Activision Blizzard financial report of Nov 2009.
Page 19. and filed Nov 6th 2009 Audited. for stock. This is as official as can be.
So with a growth of more than 10% in 2009 over 2008... WOW is stronger in financial income than ever before.
AND this with China having had NO revenus between June and Sep 2009.
the Activision Blizzard group even explained that growth was kept throughout the first 9 months of 2009 - DESPITE being China off line till Sep - by having more growth in other parts. (China accounts for around 9% of the total income due to the MUCH lower money involved.
So NICE try --- but as always HUGE fail when being confronted with financial FACTS.
OK, as you keep posting these financial figures, I'll ask again... Are those figures including actual game sales? If it does then it still does very little to prove subscription numbers (which is what this thread was originally about) because the 2008 figures wouldn't include much revenue from TBC sales which would of already been on sale for close to a year before that 9 month period, where as the 2009 figures will have a lot of WotLK sales included because that had only been on sale for for a little over a month before that 9 month period began.
What are you talking about? WoltK, TBC and the WoW battlechest continue to post top ten PC retail sales month over month. Look at the last NPD monthly PC sales figures and count how many WoW products are on that list. Lich King continues to be one of if not the best selling PC game one year after release.
Even if they are not at 11 million anymore, do you honestly believe that number won't rise again once Cataclysm launches?
None of SOE servers have a que and that is never mentioned by the suck SOE lovers on this website either.
So which SOE games do you log onto with no problems?
SOE couldn't pay me enough to log onto any of their sorry stuff. I played piss poor EQ1 for a long time due to lack of a viable alternative, WoW finally launched and I launched EQ1 into the waste basket. This site is over-represented by loud mouth SOE and Eve mouth breathers. World of Warcraft is light years ahead of those retard lifeless raider/excessive playtime filled products.
You guys are so freaking dump. Ghowstcrawler released numbers last month on bluetracker, idiots..srsly this piss me so damn off, haters trying to bash wow by giving false info. Wow got 11.6 mio players, and number is still increasing, stated by ghowscrawler last month.
JEEEEEEEEEEEEEZ
False info? I'd love to see a source of this 11.6 million players...
You guys are so freaking dump. Ghowstcrawler released numbers last month on bluetracker, idiots..srsly this piss me so damn off, haters trying to bash wow by giving false info. Wow got 11.6 mio players, and number is still increasing, stated by ghowscrawler last month.
JEEEEEEEEEEEEEZ
False info? I'd love to see a source of this 11.6 million players...
Do your own reseach clown. I ghowstcralwer said it on bluetracker, so you might wanna start there.
Comments
You're joking I hope? .... WoW could run the servers for free for years/decades on what they've made.
The point was, are they making profit now?
I remember a recent video posted on this site from the GDC? I think that's what it was called.
Two gentlemen came out to talk about the "nitty gritty" of running WoW. Affter they were finished it was very clear that more went into the game then just development teams and keeping servers.
The list of all that keeping wow alive entailed was not only staggering but also made one rethink where money actually goes.
Oh I'm sure they make quite a bit but it also seems that quite a bit of that money is also being used toward future develpoment, fringe for employees, back to investors, customer service, translating and a host of other things.
ah here it is... it's almost an hour and can be dry at times. But it's worth a look.
http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/game/15/view/videos/play/1543/AGDC-09-Frank-Pearce-J-Allen-Brack-Keynote-Video.html
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
I can say this...It doesnt matter if WoW did or didn't drop in sub numbers...it's still has the most subs of any p2p...really...thats that...oh, dont worry...it wont be around forever (the sooner its gone the better)...but it has a few years left under it's belt...
I think it'll stay #1 for at least another three years...I dont see anything new coming out that will knock it out of the water...unless SWTOR miraculously does, but then it would just be one crap game replacing another...
*sigh*
PLAYING: NOTHING!!!
PLAYED:FFXI, LotRO, AoC, WAR, DDO, Megaten, Wurm, Rohan, Mabinogi, RoM
WAITING FOR: Dust 514
The point was, are they making profit now?
According the activision blizzard they are:
http://investor.activision.com/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=422354
From the press release dated November 5th 2009
Robert Kotick, CEO of Activision Blizzard, stated, "Our performance was driven by positive audience response to Activision Publishing's Guitar Hero 5, Marvel: Ultimate Alliance 2, and the Guitar Hero® and Call of Duty® franchises, as well as Blizzard Entertainment®'s World of Warcraft®
The point was, are they making profit now?
According the activision blizzard they are:
http://investor.activision.com/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=422354
From the press release dated November 5th 2009
Robert Kotick, CEO of Activision Blizzard, stated, "Our performance was driven by positive audience response to Activision Publishing's Guitar Hero 5, Marvel: Ultimate Alliance 2, and the Guitar Hero® and Call of Duty® franchises, as well as Blizzard Entertainment®'s World of Warcraft®
The point was, are they making profit now?
For Blizzard? There's a couple of million people paying subs in the west... and Asia is not *just* china. Of course they are making profit, even with the china department shut down for a while. Servers that don't run don't cost nearly as much to maintain. Staff costs? pfff a pittance with what they are making on WoW.
They make over 120 (or so, don't remember) million revenue per month on WoW. WoW revenue over a whole year is over a billion. You really think they don't turn enough profit on half of that to keep a part of their game on ice? This game has been a cashcow since the second month after it got released.
I see other players all over the place on a low population server.
Vault-Tec analysts have concluded that the odds of worldwide nuclear armaggeddon this decade are 17,143,762... to 1.
All you guys have to do to answer this question is go to NASDAQ and look at the the stock and financial reports. I don't know why you want to wait on Blizzard to publish anything. Blizzard is ATVI, for those that don't know. Just type it into the search and you'll have pages of information to dissect, drool over, and argue about.
And...I might add...you'll find if you do that tiny bit of research, that Blizzard has pretty steadily increased in income over the years, as well as the amount of money they are investing back into the company and paying OUT to shareholders.
Right now, Blizzard stock is selling for $10.84 a share, and by the looks of even THIS quarter's report, I'd say it's probably a good time to buy in.
Now for the Blizzard haters....why don't you try a search on quotes for whatever your favorite gaming developer of choice is and then come back and argue some more?
/goes to get popcorn
President of The Marvelously Meowhead Fan Club
And here we go again:
... the income of the Wow MMO was going UP from $ 828 million ( 2008) to $ 939 million (2009) on a 9 month basis.
OFFICIAL REFERENCE:
http://investor.activision.com/secfiling.cfm?filingID=1104659-09-63352
Page 19. and filed Nov 6th 2009 Audited. for stock commission. I don't even believe Googa knows what an audited report means in the financial world.
Checkmate ..., so unless Blizzard is into illegal Columbian drug dealing they had a growth in its WOW department of more than 10% ---- WITHOUT China even on line between June and Sep 2009. The report even mentions this.
[Mod Edited]
WTF, man? Was that "checkmate" to me? Did you even bother to READ my post?
I think I made it pretty clear that people who don't think Blizzard is still making money....are clueless, and obviously too lazy to research the information themselves.
Geezus. Get a grip.
President of The Marvelously Meowhead Fan Club
While I sit in a queue to a 10k+ limit server everynight yeh I think blizzard are doing well.
although not all servers are like that are they ?
None of SOE servers have a que and that is never mentioned by the suck SOE lovers on this website either.
So the pet store actually worked out, I wonder when we will see the floodgates open for the pet and mount and whatever else store swarm :P
Unless they play it smart without overwhelming the player base with real money sinks.
It's not like the world is ending though.
The info of the fiancial growth was from Jan 1st to Sep 30th 2009 (and published on Nov 2009). Like I said above
The pet store came to open in Oct 2009, so the growth has nothing to do with the 2 vanity pets sold (of which 50% went to charity).
Just as if you can grow with 110 million $ by selling a vanity pet. ))
The only reason why the subs were no longer mentioned is because of the off line (or free to play) status of WOW in China between June and Sep 2009.
But despite this fact (according to these reports the China accounts for 9% of the toal revenu), the income grew from 828 to 939 million, tx to "growth in other regions of the world outside China").
Thought it included the pet store, oh well, not able to see the financial results of their pet store yet.
I doubt the pet store will be a big cash cow. However, I imagine all of the real money purchases make a lot of money for blizzard. server transfers, sex and race changes, faction changes, all of that seems to be low expense/high profit for Bliz.
So which SOE games do you log onto with no problems?
Are those figures including actual game sales? If it does then it still does very little to prove subscription numbers because the 2008 figures wouldn't include much revenue from TBC sales which would of already been on sale for close to a year before that 9 month period, where as the 2009 figures will have a lot of WotLK sales included because that had only been on sale for for a little over a month before that 9 month period began.
I only read page 1 and page 8, so I apologize if this has already been said, but..
There's been no official release of sub numbers in a year (as was already said), and XFire and WoW Census both show a marked decline in US server player activity during that period (about 10%). From that I think think it's safe to say that this expansion has seen a net decline in subs.
I resubbed for a few months to check things out. This expansion is completely about the casual player - to the point where any serious player has to seriously consider if the elite toys and shinys he or she getting is worth the sub fee. To me, that seems at the core of the dissatisfaction with this expansion - there's really no strong draw for serious gamers and casual gamers, by their nature, are less likely to keep ponying up a subscription fee month after month. I will also point to the severe lack of tanks and (less so) healers as evidence that more serious gamers are leaving WoW in substantial numbers - groups have always been LFM tank / healer but it's much worse now (at least on my server) than it was in Classic and TBC.
It doesn't help that the lead designer (Tom Chilton) has a reputation for ruining every MMO he's ever come in contact with. The people who made WoW into the powerhouse it is today are working on Blizzard's new MMO, which I'm sure will be top-notch.
I still have high hopes for Cataclysm. Blizzard totally changes the mechanics of the end-game with every expansion - I'm sure this time will be no different.
Complete and utter bullshit and CRAP. Proof to follow.
... the income of the Wow MMO was going UP from $ 828 million ( 2008) to $ 939 million (2009) on a 9 month basis.
OFFICIAL REFERENCE: Activision Blizzard financial report of Nov 2009.
http://investor.activision.com/secfiling.cfm?filingID=1104659-09-63352
Page 19. and filed Nov 6th 2009 Audited. for stock. This is as official as can be.
So with a growth of more than 10% in 2009 over 2008... WOW is stronger in financial income than ever before.
AND this with China having had NO revenus between June and Sep 2009.
the Activision Blizzard group even explained that growth was kept throughout the first 9 months of 2009 - DESPITE being China off line till Sep - by having more growth in other parts. (China accounts for around 9% of the total income due to the MUCH lower money involved.
So NICE try --- but as always HUGE fail when being confronted with financial FACTS.
OK, as you keep posting these financial figures, I'll ask again... Are those figures including actual game sales? If it does then it still does very little to prove subscription numbers (which is what this thread was originally about) because the 2008 figures wouldn't include much revenue from TBC sales which would of already been on sale for close to a year before that 9 month period, where as the 2009 figures will have a lot of WotLK sales included because that had only been on sale for for a little over a month before that 9 month period began.
Complete and utter bullshit and CRAP. Proof to follow.
... the income of the Wow MMO was going UP from $ 828 million ( 2008) to $ 939 million (2009) on a 9 month basis.
OFFICIAL REFERENCE: Activision Blizzard financial report of Nov 2009.
http://investor.activision.com/secfiling.cfm?filingID=1104659-09-63352
Page 19. and filed Nov 6th 2009 Audited. for stock. This is as official as can be.
So with a growth of more than 10% in 2009 over 2008... WOW is stronger in financial income than ever before.
AND this with China having had NO revenus between June and Sep 2009.
the Activision Blizzard group even explained that growth was kept throughout the first 9 months of 2009 - DESPITE being China off line till Sep - by having more growth in other parts. (China accounts for around 9% of the total income due to the MUCH lower money involved.
So NICE try --- but as always HUGE fail when being confronted with financial FACTS.
OK, as you keep posting these financial figures, I'll ask again... Are those figures including actual game sales? If it does then it still does very little to prove subscription numbers (which is what this thread was originally about) because the 2008 figures wouldn't include much revenue from TBC sales which would of already been on sale for close to a year before that 9 month period, where as the 2009 figures will have a lot of WotLK sales included because that had only been on sale for for a little over a month before that 9 month period began.
What are you talking about? WoltK, TBC and the WoW battlechest continue to post top ten PC retail sales month over month. Look at the last NPD monthly PC sales figures and count how many WoW products are on that list. Lich King continues to be one of if not the best selling PC game one year after release.
Even if they are not at 11 million anymore, do you honestly believe that number won't rise again once Cataclysm launches?
So which SOE games do you log onto with no problems?
SOE couldn't pay me enough to log onto any of their sorry stuff. I played piss poor EQ1 for a long time due to lack of a viable alternative, WoW finally launched and I launched EQ1 into the waste basket. This site is over-represented by loud mouth SOE and Eve mouth breathers. World of Warcraft is light years ahead of those retard lifeless raider/excessive playtime filled products.
You guys are so freaking dump.
Ghowstcrawler released numbers last month on bluetracker, idiots..srsly this piss me so damn off, haters trying to bash wow by giving false info.
Wow got 11.6 mio players, and number is still increasing, stated by ghowscrawler last month.
JEEEEEEEEEEEEEZ
False info? I'd love to see a source of this 11.6 million players...
False info? I'd love to see a source of this 11.6 million players...
Do your own reseach clown. I ghowstcralwer said it on bluetracker, so you might wanna start there.