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Most New Players Don't Go Past Level 10
Briansho
Member UncommonPosts: 3,586
Not the best of days for World of Warcraft news, this, with the announcement of the game's stagnant userbase followed by a revelation most new WoW players barely scratch at Azeroth's surface.
Blizzard CEO Mike Morhaime said earlier today that 70% of people playing on a WoW trial account (which I'd imagine would be most new players) fail to progress past level 10 in the game. Considering you can advance your character all the way up to level 80, that's not very far, indicating that most WoW players either hang around doing nothing or, as seems more likely, don't stick around too long.
And that suggests the game has a fairly high turnover rate at the moment, perhaps explaining why WoW's subscriber base hasn't moved past 11.5 million in over a year.
kotaku.com/5469238/most-new-world-of-warcraft-players-dont-go-past-level-10
Don't be terrorized! You're more likely to die of a car accident, drowning, fire, or murder! More people die every year from prescription drugs than terrorism LOL!
Comments
not sure how that equates to most players not going past level 10, in fact, the whole thing is so 'odd' that i wonder at its credibility, then again, i dont suppose there are any other MMO's out there who wouldnt love to have a day as good as Blizzards worst... i don't think Blizzard are going to be losing any sleep any time soon somehow... but i have a thought, if Blizzard has such a high turnover, where are all these players going ? as they clearly arent joining other games - we are talking millions after all, and, im sure other MMO's subs would have increased massively if in fact they had moved on..
its called, Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics ..
given time and a certain degree of 'statistical' interpretation, you could probably prove that at least 10 percent of Zebra's are in fact purple dotted elephants.
Maybe what it is is that non-mmo players are trying the game and realize how insane the whole thing is.
When I tell my friends about how mmo's work they tend to think me nuts. "Wandering around killing x of y mobs?" "Grinding"?
My sense is that people who come from outside mmo's might try it and say "ok... this is boring". And not everyone likes combat. I have a friend who probably would play an mmo if it was mostly exploring and puzzles and story. But she doesn't like the idea of combat. Probably why she was excited at the reemergence of URU-Myst.
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 actually believe this statistic because WoW has such a high exposure to people that have no interest in these games, with television commercials and a huge referral base of subscribers. Does it mean anything? No, not really, because as much as I hate WoW, it is the best gateway drug to other MMOs..if WOW can't convince them, then those individuals will never be interested.
Ok let me get this straight....now people are concerned about how many trial players (free players) are not making it past level 10? Is that suppose to be a serious issue? And what if just as many sub players that quit are being replaced by those trial players that now have full blown subs now? Obviously those free trials aren't counted anymore now that they are in the paid pool of players.....
Come on think of something worthy of a real discussion. Seems to me that people are trying to pick apart needless stats for Blizzard when other MMOs don't even get a second glance in these areas. Most companies would love to have overseas issues for their MMO or to have nothing better to do then to count free trial leveling data.....
"Small minds talk about people, average minds talk about events, great minds talk about ideas."
Maybe what it is is that non-mmo players are trying the game and realize how insane the whole thing is.
When I tell my friends about how mmo's work they tend to think me nuts. "Wandering around killing x of y mobs?" "Grinding"?
My sense is that people who come from outside mmo's might try it and say "ok... this is boring". And not everyone likes combat. I have a friend who probably would play an mmo if it was mostly exploring and puzzles and story. But she doesn't like the idea of combat. Probably why she was excited at the reemergence of URU-Myst.
Actually that did remind me of the recent article that MMORPG recently did using a non mmo player to test out wow, i can believe that a certain amount of 'turnover' would be people trying the game for the first time, and it is quite possible that it may be their first and only foray into MMO's - with the amount of publicity put into WoW anything is possible, though i think a certain amount of the churn is really just lapsed members resubbing etc.
New people probably try out the trial. Get to level 10 then realize what's in store for them for the next 70 levels and move on to another MMO.
Or they are gold sellers.
Don't be terrorized! You're more likely to die of a car accident, drowning, fire, or murder! More people die every year from prescription drugs than terrorism LOL!
they must be gold sellers then, as they clearly arent moving on to other games.
To the OP: Having 11.5 million active subscribers in a world where 200K is "huge" means the game doesn't stagnate, it hits a ceiling. As I said in another thread: in view of the fact US video game market shrank economically with 11% (economic crisis), it is odd that an almost 6 year old game hangs on to this succces ... 14 months after a last expansion.
On Topic:
Mark Morhaime explained in his magazine that the ceiling is not reached in MMORPG play. He said : " Nearly 12 million doesn't sound like a big number to me...".
"Think about the number of people around the world who are just getting into the internet for the first time ..." "That's a lot of people who are not playing World of Warcraft".
So it is clear the learning curve for first time intenet gaming is too steep. That's why he mentioned the X% of new trial accounts who can't follow.
My mother in law started WOW just one week ago./
You can't imagine the kind of questions I get from her. "I lost my bow", I can' shoot anymore !. While she just didn't fix her action bars and "threw" the bow out of the acition bar.
She doesn't know anything, but she's learning. ... fast.
I guess that's what Morhaime was telling about at the press conference two days ago , when he mentioned the 30%, and that's why they include more tools in the beginning zones since the latest patches.
Perhaps it is a good time to remember your first steps in playing MMO's back then ... ages ago.
Be honest, you weren't the champ either back then.
Want a real mmorpg? Play WOW with experience turned off mode and be Pve_Pvp King at any level without a rat race.
I'm not sure how this is construed as bad news unless you're a mindless hater trying to come up with another reason to hate on WoW. If you hate a game, why bother donating so much time and energy to it? I tend to avoid things I don't care for, but I don't belong on anti-psychotics so maybe I just don't understand the mentality behind the obsessive attention. Bottom line is 11.5 million subscribers. Say what you want, come up with whatever insanse "WoW is failing because of X" theories you want, that's not going to change that 11.5 million subscribers that demonstrates how terribly out of touch with reality the whole "fail" theories are.
Old zones, graphics that need a revamp, limited aesthetic options to create your character (compared to newer games like Aion), and you also need to weed out advertisers (whisper spammers and corpse spammers)
OK, this whole thread is completely bogus. First off you cannot go beyond lvl 20 during the 10 day trial. It won't let you. When you hit 20 you can keep doing whatever you want, but you will get ZERO experience for anything. You can turn in quests, you can kill mobs you can do everything but you will get ZERO experience for any of it, so level 10 is approximately half way thru the trial. Second of all this has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with people who purchase the full game. It's called a trial account for a reason. It allows you to try the game BEFORE you purchase the full game. It doesn't matter what people do in the trial, the only thing of importance is how many end up purchasing the full game.
Not sure how much this matters. WoW loses and gains people all the time. Wife and I quit a couple months ago and I think this time we are actually done for a while if not forever. Got to the point where raiding was only way to advance any of my 80s and I truly loathe raiding.
70% of trial accounts doesnt mean 70% of the player base.. also, even before I subscribed , i had 3-4 trial accounts so that i could get a real grasp of the game before moving in.
It aint that bad with the much players they already have....
how many trial accounts have we all created just to test a game? or even created and just never logged in the game..
there's just too many ifs in this statement.
What a stupid article. Not that I am disagreeing that wow may have already peaked and be declining, but the author of this article ignores the obvious.
Like you cannot level to 80 on a trial account and that the situation in china is responsible for blizzard not being able to post any new milestones if they did increase subscribers in the western market. How could wow grow overall when China shut down the servers to millions of players? It is just as likely that wow is still growing in every other region of the market, except china and that prevents breaking 12 million total subs. We don't really know yet.
Because the servers are emptying. So, Mr. Business Man, if you merged a few servers, To-Do-merging with Ta-Da, you just might find players have others to interact with and they just might get past that level 10. To level 11, even.
Oh, no one listens to me.
How could it be bogus when the CEO Mike Morhaime said this himself? It's straight from the horses mouth.
Don't be terrorized! You're more likely to die of a car accident, drowning, fire, or murder! More people die every year from prescription drugs than terrorism LOL!
30% up take of a trial or demo of a 5 year old game sounds pretty good to me. I bet there's loads of studios would love a conversion like that.
_________________________________________
You can walk the walk but can you talk the talk?
How could it be bogus when the CEO Mike Morhaime said this himself? It's straight from the horses mouth.
First, I didn't see a link in that article to a source of the CEO saying anything. Not that it wasn't said, but a source would have been nice.
Otherwise it jumps to several conclusions while ignoring major aspects, like wow being banned in china for a good portion of the last year or so? Like China forbidding Blizzard to sell their expansion so the game itself has not grown as most would expect an mmo to grow? It is pretty hard to break peak subscriber levels when a government forbids your subscribers to pay your money.
Perhaps the self admitting bias of the author of the article might have lead him to represent certain things in a manner suited to his desires?
I am not saying that wow may not have peaked and seen a large decline. It wouldn't even surprise me to be honest, but at the same time it is equally possible that wow has continued to grow in every single market other than china (due to obvious reasons), but total subscribers remain the same.
First, I didn't see a link in that article to a source of the CEO saying anything. Not that it wasn't said, but a source would have been nice.
Otherwise it jumps to several conclusions while ignoring major aspects, like wow being banned in china for a good portion of the last year or so? Like China forbidding Blizzard to sell their expansion so the game itself has not grown as most would expect an mmo to grow? It is pretty hard to break peak subscriber levels when a government forbids your subscribers to pay your money.
Perhaps the self admitting bias of the author of the article might have lead him to represent certain things in a manner suited to his desires?
I am not saying that wow may not have peaked and seen a large decline. It wouldn't even surprise me to be honest, but at the same time it is equally possible that wow has continued to grow in every single market other than china (due to obvious reasons), but total subscribers remain the same.
Yes indeed Daff, as always the "quote" from Morhaime was taken out from its context/
Here is the real passage: http://seekingalpha.com/article/187939-activision-blizzard-inc-q4-2009-earnings-call-transcript?source=feed&page=7
"Our research shows that trial players who play World of Warcraft pass level 10 are much more likely to stick with the game for a long time. Currently, only about 30% of our trial players make it past this threshold. So anything we can do to improve the new player experience is a huge opportunity for us.
With Cataclysm we will be overhauling the early gaming experience for players, bringing all of the content in World of Warcraft up to our current design standards and ensuring that even new players to the game will experience the best work of our development team."
The goal is clear: Blizzard will up the experience of the basic game (with CATA) up to the standards of world design seen in Northrend.
Nothing more, nothing less.
Want a real mmorpg? Play WOW with experience turned off mode and be Pve_Pvp King at any level without a rat race.
After reading this the title is misleading. What the real question is "How many people make it past level 1?" because in reality most of these gold sellers log in create new char spam then delete char on a trial account. This makes that comment not reliable in terms of real players.