I understand that the revenue isn't just from wow, but looking at the last year of revenue coming from a time where blizzard did not have a new game box for sale compared to the previous 12 months (which did have a new game box for sale) where do you think the increases come from? A sudden rush of 10 year old game sales? A few pets that sold maybe a few million in revenue seeing blizzard donated half of the revenue and I think it was 1 million bucks. (ponies are not even accounted for yet since they just happened the other week).
The last 4 reported quarters have seen steady increases over their previous year quarter and they had no new game box sales to rely upon for quick incection of revenue.
So again I pose the question, how can a decrease in more lucrative subscribers be represented by 1:1 replacement of subscribers that pay less and who did not even have full access to the product for long periods of time?
How can it be possible for the western market to have a noticable decline in the west while the other 50% of blizzards customers in the east are denied access to the product for a large portion of the entire year and come out on top of all that with steady increases in revenue?
@ Cypher
[1] Again, where is the validity of just picking $13/month? Like I alrdy said, it was the lowest amount of regular sub fee that was found. If you say that Americans pay less for their regular fee, show it. Europeans pay more btw (google it yourself)
[2] Or even assuming that his numbers for China are right? The article mentions it if you can do the math, and the Chinese provider mentions 5 mil, next to 1 mil concurrent subs. Pls explain how subs can be less than 5 mil, these ppl are playing 12h/day continuously?
Next to that, the statement that sub numbers in China were increasing while the total sub numbers were a constant 11.5 million from end of 2008 up to end of 2009 means that they are decreasing in other areas.
For all we know blizzard has the same exact payment modle for korea, taiwan, russia, etc. They only get 6 cents an hour there and have to split that with their partners in those respective countries.
That entire article is filled with baseless speculation and fabricating numbers just to make a conclusion that is completely dismissive of large portions of the world that blizzard operates in. The holes in his logic are so large you could drive all the servers from Korea through it. [3] While you show hardly any logic at all, no calculations and conveniently neglects the points that you have no answer for. There cant be any more than 5-5.5 mil subs in the regular fee-countries (US+EU+others) bc Blizzard didnt make more than 1.2 billion in total in 2009, and there can be no more than 11.5 million subs in 2008 as well as 2009 bc Blizzard stated that.
As for the9's claim of 5 million users. The only record I find about concurrent users is the 1 million mark being breached in 2008. Most developers claim roughly 20% of their user base is online during primetime, which casts doubts on their 5 million claims. [4] Well, we might as well dismiss Blizzard's claims of 11.5 mil subs while we're at it, eh? If 1 mil concurrent users and their own statement of 5 mil subs doesnt say anything that a couple of mils Chinese subs are around, we might as well cast everything in doubt, incl Blizzards statements (which isnt that strange a thought, they might have pimped their sub numbers) Beyond that, if I can find the link where blizzard talks about how difficult it was to count asian subscribers due to their payment methods (they buy time cards which are treated as seperate accounts, so each player can be counted muliple times) it would cast further doubt on the 5 million actually being 5 million unique accounts.
[5] This whole discussion is starting to bore me. I already mentioned that it is guesswork at best, but I provided several arguments for the numbers and the statements I made. If you cannot understand the calculations or do not want to believe the other articles or what other people are saying about it, then that is fine, that's your right.
Only don't bother me with vague and moronic arguments, just because you are not willing to believe that sub numbers in EU+US+other regular fee countries cannot amount to more than 5-6 mil, that China has 5-6 mil subs, or that the subs in places as EU and US and such are decreasing while they are growing in China. If you dont want to believe while a whole lot of other people (with better analysis and calculations) do, then that's your right. Only don't waste my time with such foolishness.
For the rest, like Fyerwall said.
[1]
Again, you don't know what the lowest amount paid for an account ON AVERAGE is. We don't know how many people are playing for free due to ressurection scrolls (I have over 2 years free time and counting). If someone pays for 1 month on june 15th and then cancels 2 days later, they are a subscriber for 2 months, but only paid for 1. The assumption is that 11.5 means non stop uninterupted payments for 12 straight months, which we don't know if that is true or what percentage of the AVERAGE comes out to once you factor in free time, internet cafes, partial month subscriptions, etc. You simply can't pick a base subscription number and multiply it and conclude you know how many people play in one region. It is complete guesswork that has no basis.
It isn't that I don't understand what you have presented, it just isn't credible.
[2]
The way accounts are tracking in China work differently which is why blizzard specifically mentions internet game room accounts accessing the game
Blizzard defines its subscriber count thusly:
World of Warcraft subscribers include individuals who have paid a subscription fee or have an active prepaid card to play World of Warcraft, as well as those who have purchased the game and are within their free month of access. Internet Game Room players who have accessed the game over the last thirty days are also counted as subscribers. The above definition excludes all players under free promotional subscriptions, expired or cancelled subscriptions, and expired prepaid cards. Subscribers in licensees' territories are defined along the same rules.
It works differently over there. They sell 'time access cards' that are not associated to accounts. If I understand it correctly, you can have 500 game accounts if you want, but your are counted by your access time cards. There isn't a direct 1 to 1 ratio of payment to accounts.
[3]
Just because I don't accept your math based on random numbers doesn't mean I ignore facts.
Here is a link to a chart showing when and what blizzard details in their press releases.
The press releases all suggest a 45% western market to 55% eastern market split. Saying China is 6 million means that almost every single player outside the western market is in China. How can you account for 40% of the total eastern game market servers being outside China then? It makes no sense at all.
Furthermore, your claims of 5-6 million NA/EU suggests the Western market growing by .5 to 1.5 million subs since the 10 million mark. If the other 6 million are in China, what is left for Korea, Taiwan, Russia, etc? That is why the core of that bloggers calculations are flawed. For his numbers to be true wow would have to be growing in NA, Europe and China, while everywhere else is getting hammered yet not closing servers.
There is a reason China only represents 60% of the non-western servers. If China is 55% of the entire wow subscriberbase why only 20% of the overall servers when Korea and Taiwan are half the size of the total servers in China?
[4]
1 million concurrent users would be a record, not a norm. I don't doubt that China has several million users, I just don't think they represent 90% of the asian market as you seem to. There is a reason there are so many servers outside China and a reason blizzard said Aisa and not China in their press release.
[5]
I never said NA/EU was more than 5-6 million and I don't even think it is that much. I think the games population is far more spread out amongst all the territories than most here conclude. Nor do I think you need to resort to namecalling when I point out the flaws in your argument. It doesn't make me wrong or you right.
Well see the Western market can be seeing a decrease in subscriptions but that as well can be off set by people who are buying the game for the first time. And then you have the people who buy multiple accounts. I mean it might not be a drastic amount of people bailing out, but I think its more along the lines of every 1.5 players who stops playing (1.5 meaning 1 person who quits and never comes back and the .5 is the player who takes 6+ months off), 1 player is just getting into the game.
Each player who quits the game in the west is only a loss of $45 a quarter (or $180 a year). Each new player who joins is an instant infusion of about $80 + $15 a month. If that new player only sticks around maybe 6 months, they have paid about the same amount as the player who left would have paid for a full year. So basically subscriptions can keep dropping while the end profits keep rising. I think its also a reason Blizzard doesn't offer an All-In-One expansion option (save for the very limited Battle Chest edition which isnt really an all in one...)
Blizzard doesn't get all $80 of game box sales from new players, which would be more like $70 if I recall. I've seen people who claim to be in the know state the split is anywhere from 20-40% of the retail price goes to the developer (I don't know). On top of that each new player gets a free month, so a new player is only a few dollars more than an existing player for the first quarter and then on equal footing after that. I don't think it would be anywhere near half of an entire year as your math suggests. On top of that we are not factoring any free months that are given to existing players for referal a friend and scroll of ressurections which would offset those figures even more. I have over 2 years free game time from refers and such.
What you say is possible, but it is extremely unlikely, because the turnover would have to be enormous. It at least makes plausable sense unlike some of the other sources of reference that have been posted.
It's blizzard's advertising and marketting that is to thank for its huge success then followed by the game.
World of Warcraft really is a second rate game. The game didn't start out polished as some people try to say it was, but it was constantly being patched and fixed. Alot of us veterans remember going 2-3 days without playing at a time due to maintenance in off hours.
Blizzard essentially said "lets get everybody involved. Screw gamers." They released commercials with iconic characters to bring in different groups of people and got Southpark involved. They threw in car and truck commercials as well. Before you knew it, it was mainstream and you weren't cool if you weren't playing. Even those who didn't find the game attractive ended up playing it because their friends told them to.
Then add 1000+ pets and Mounts, and collectable pixels, TCG loot cards etc... and you have it appealing to another crowd.
It's a good business move, and its not bad or selfish intentions to want to get people involved. But its gone far further than that.
And now that Bobby Kotick has everybody by the balls, here comes Micro/Macro/Blood-Transactions for those who have emotional attachments to their characters due to the time they devoted to the game and feel like it actually means something to have them.
As a fan of the warcraft series, I appreciate what Blizzard brought to the gaming community. But as a customer, I hope to see Bobby Kotick choke to death on a bratwurst. The man is evil and deliberately tries to take advantage of customers and employees.
It's a shame that Blizzard is the only company who can get away with making such rediculously priced pixels knowing theres some Warcraft addicted sap who wants to justify his time in the game willing to fork out as much as as needed to feel like he's going somewhere in the game.
Wow.Different topic. I like this particular article it gives me an additional input in the information and joyful mind. Thanks a lot and keep going with posting such information.
It's no different from any other entertainment industry, really.
Music and TV have their Elephants and their progressive minorities which only strike a chord with a small portion of the world. Will something else come about eventually to top todays elephant? Sure, especially given as time passes a greater portion of the population has access to the technology to play something like it.
But will it be the first progressive MMO's? Or something further down the line? Maybe we're already at that point down the line, though.
Anyway, I know I'm looking forward to SW:ToR, although I predict expectations may outweigh the game somewhat - people are getting too good at hype generation and viral marketing these days for the products to live up to.
Though hell, I'll still play it for the same relative reason I originally picked up WoW - I liked Blizzard games. I like Bioware games and SW. Done deal!
Blizzard essentially said "lets get everybody involved. Screw gamers." They released commercials with iconic characters to bring in different groups of people and got Southpark involved. They threw in car and truck commercials as well. Before you knew it, it was mainstream and you weren't cool if you weren't playing. Even those who didn't find the game attractive ended up playing it because their friends told them to.
Wow already had 6-7 million players by the time they did any of that, so it was already crazy popular before the media blitz you credit for its success.
If getting millions of subscribers was so simple as making a few commercials and marketing, then every other company would be doing it.
Again, you don't know what the lowest amount paid for an account ON AVERAGE is. We don't know how many people are playing for free due to ressurection scrolls (I have over 2 years free time and counting). If someone pays for 1 month on june 15th and then cancels 2 days later, they are a subscriber for 2 months, but only paid for 1. So, what you are saying is that Blizzard artificially inflating the sub numbers and that the actual subscriber numbers could be a few millions less than the mentioned 11.5 million? The assumption is that 11.5 means non stop uninterupted payments for 12 straight months, which we don't know if that is true or what percentage of the AVERAGE comes out to once you factor in free time, internet cafes, partial month subscriptions, etc. You simply can't pick a base subscription number and multiply it and conclude you know how many people play in one region. It is complete guesswork that has no basis.
It isn't that I don't understand what you have presented, it just isn't credible. And yet, those are the figures that's mentioned on every WoW blog and that best guess estimations in several articles manage to come up with.
[2]
The way accounts are tracking in China work differently which is why blizzard specifically mentions internet game room accounts accessing the game
Blizzard defines its subscriber count thusly:
World of Warcraft subscribers include individuals who have paid a subscription fee or have an active prepaid card to play World of Warcraft, as well as those who have purchased the game and are within their free month of access. Internet Game Room players who have accessed the game over the last thirty days are also counted as subscribers. The above definition excludes all players under free promotional subscriptions, expired or cancelled subscriptions, and expired prepaid cards. Subscribers in licensees' territories are defined along the same rules.
It works differently over there. They sell 'time access cards' that are not associated to accounts. If I understand it correctly, you can have 500 game accounts if you want, but your are counted by your access time cards. There isn't a direct 1 to 1 ratio of payment to accounts. Yet Blizzard comes up with 11.5 million subscriptions. The former Chinese ISP provider mentions 5 million. Reason stands that Blizzard uses data available from their affiliate in China to measure the subscriptions since Blizzard is dependent upon their Chinese provider for the figures. if you question the number of 5 million the Chinese license holder gave, then you have to start questioning as well the subscription numbers Blizzard gave. Which could be sensible, it'd be interesting to see if that 11.5 mil subs wasn't a peek moment and what the actual sub numbers in the US and EU really is nowadays.
Also, the number of 1 million concurrent Chinese subs was mentioned: industrial rule of thumb is to multiply that number with a factor 5-10 to get the total of active Chinese subs.
[3]
Just because I don't accept your math based on random numbers doesn't mean I ignore facts.
Here is a link to a chart showing when and what blizzard details in their press releases.
The press releases all suggest a 45% western market to 55% eastern market split. Saying China is 6 million means that almost every single player outside the western market is in China. How can you account for 40% of the total eastern game market servers being outside China then? Dont just mention 40%, link to the facts pls and preferrably recent, since China has grown fastest, anything before 2009 becomes dubious. It makes no sense at all.
Furthermore, your claims of 5-6 million NA/EU suggests the Western market growing by .5 to 1.5 million subs since the 10 million mark. If the other 6 million are in China, what is left for Korea, Taiwan, Russia, etc? That is why the core of that bloggers calculations are flawed. The number the Chinese provider themselves mention is 5 million, not 6 million. For his numbers to be true wow would have to be growing in NA, Europe and China, while everywhere else is getting hammered yet not closing servers.
There is a reason China only represents 60% of the non-western servers. If China is 55% of the entire wow subscriberbase why only 20% of the overall servers when Korea and Taiwan are half the size of the total servers in China? As you should be well aware, there was a downtime in China for several months when there was a switch between one Chinese provider to another. That meant millions of Chinese WoW players that couldnt play WoW on the Chinese servers. Large numbers of those Chinese players flocked in droves towards the Taiwanese servers, a lot of those didn't go back to the Chinese servers when those went online again but stayed on the taiwanese servers. So a large amount of those Taiwanese servers should count towards the Chinese population. Next to that, to further question your server reasoning, it can't be used for 1-1 relating since it was often stated that half of the subs was in Asia, yet only 37% of the servers make up Asia. Weren't you the one stating that fuzzy logic and flawed arguments shouldn't be used?
[4]
1 million concurrent users would be a record, not a norm. I don't doubt that China has several million users, I just don't think they represent 90% of the asian market as you seem to. There is a reason there are so many servers outside China and a reason blizzard said Aisa and not China in their press release. I never said 90%, don't put words into my mouth. I went by the figure of 5-5.5 mil as the Chinese provider and the calculations seem to suggest. That'd mean like 1-2 mil subs for the rest of Asia, very roughly measured. But that's your figures too, very rough measuring. Nice if 1 million concurrent users is a record, not a norm, following industrial rule of thumb multiplies concurrent users with a factor 5-10 to estimate active user numbers, not a factor 2-4.
[5]
I never said NA/EU was more than 5-6 million and I don't even think it is that much. I think the games population is far more spread out amongst all the territories than most here conclude. Nor do I think you need to resort to namecalling when I point out the flaws in your argument. It doesn't make me wrong or you right.
See comments in red above.
Right, to me it's pretty evident: the Chinese provider is talking about 5 mil players. The calculations based upon concurrent sub numbers and total revenue is pointing towards it. That's why all the WoW-specialised blogs and forums are using numbers of 5-6 millions of Chinese subs. Which considering the available sources and material seems a very general but fair estimation.
Now, if people try to show me differently, that the reality is somewhat different, I don't mind, I'll often be even looking forward to it. Heck, I have had several of my perceptions adjusted while reading up and following these forums, that's why I like this site.
But instead of hard data and calculations, all you're basically saying is that the reality is far complexer than we take into account. Well, boohoo, everybody knows that. I myself have mentioned several times that it can only be guesses. That's why we're talking about "best guesses" here, and not hard figures.
If you want to cling so hard to your own belief against the commonly held (and better funded) beliefs, well, that's your thing. If you want to question the Chinese license holder's claim of 5 mil Chinese subs, then you might as well question Blizzard's claim of 11.5 million subs, since they're dependent upon the figures of their Chinese affiliate; you can't have one without the other. But suit yourself.
I'm done with this discussion, it has wasted enough of my time already.
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums: Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
[1] No I am not saying blizzard is lieing. What I am saying is that we do not know that 11.5 million means 11.5 million uninterupted non-stop payments. According to blizzards own definition, if I pay on june 15th, I am a valid subscriber for june and july. That makes it impossible to pick any subscription fee to determine sub numbers. That is all I am saying, so please stop inferring claims I have not made.
[2] No where will you find blizzard claiming 5 million subscribers in china, that is the problem. It doesn't matter how many retarded bloggers repeat that same unsubstantiated claims, there is no link to a verified claim from blizzard stating those numbers. Nor is there any proof that blizzard used the number that the9 posted.
As for the claim by the license holder, remember they were not the license holder anymore when they made that claim. There were a pissed off former partner who managed to get blizzard shut down in China. I'm not sure how much stock I put in a company in the middle of a licensing war, but you may.
As for industry rule of thumb I think you are missing the entire picture. The rule of thumb is to multiply by 5, so that would make sense for to add up to 5 million. HOWEVER, it was the RECORD, not the normal everyday occurance. Concurrent records are broken when some big event happens like release burning crusade, because more people are playing at the same time. That is why they broke 1 million for a short period of time and have not since. If they have 5 million players they would easily break 1.5-2 million during a major event, but they haven't.
[3] I was linking trends in the wow subscription base over time. Ok, so China is growing fastest now, true or not it doesn't matter. Do I need to also link the part where China was shut down which would also have made China the fastest declining area for blizzard prior to that? Blizzard wasn't allowed to accept new customers by order of the government of China, so they could only decline last year. Every returning player is growth. Pretty easy concept to understand in my opinion.
So now the Taiwan servers should be counted as China servers, because you say it is a "large" amount of players? Lets not use any calculations to back that up. So how many servers were in Taiwan before the "surge" of Chinese players? How many servers in China were merged, because such a "large" amount of Chinese players never returned from Taiwan? How many additional servers were added to Taiwan to accomodate this massive influx of new players? Perhaps we should know a little more about the situation before we go annexing Taiwan to China again.
Here is the funny part, you are calling my server logic funny after making that claim? According to your theories of 10-12 million in both the West and China, the remaining population for the rest of the world is somewhere between negative 500k and positive 1.5 million. Yes in your theory, zero is a possibilty, just like the blogger you covet. There are over 100 servers to support those players, while there are 178 servers to support the assumed 6 million in china. So for those claims to be fruitful a server in china supports an average of 34k accounts which is 3.4 times higher that western server averages, while a server right next door in Korea supports somewhere between ZERO and 13k accounts. I don't think we can dismiss this by citing laws that have not even gone into effect yet, but the point is there is a huge discrepency in server distribution to support claims of 50% of the entire wow population being in one country. That is the point, nothing more. It is pretty clear something doesn't make sense here.
[4] Again, that bloggers math was beyond iditioc. I can't believe we are still referencing him as some credible source as if it somehow validates anything. Anyone could take those same rediculous formulas he uses, come up with a completely different set of numbers that are equally justifiable and show different conclusions. Why? Because there are no facts used. They are just wild guesses with massive assumptions and oversites. You keep pointing to "the calculations" as if they are meaningful in any way and they simply are not.
Lets look at what we have to accept for those calculations to make any sense at all:
50-55% of blizzards entire playerbase plays on 20% of their entire servers.
Somewhere between 10 and 12 million players reside in China, North America and Europe. [12 million, yeah I know.]
Anyone not paying an average of $13 a month must play in China. Why? Well because that is how the math was set up? Because the rest of the entire world outside of China uses a nearly identical payment model? Because that is the cheapest payment option in the US?
Blizzard gained revenue the last 4 quarters over the previous 4 quarters without a surge of revenue from a new expansion sale, replacing high paying subscribers with low paying subscribers in China 1:1 and then losing those 6 million subscribers for the better part of the year.
The decline in subscription revenue comes from things like tshirts, authenticators and 2 virtual pets.
That there are possibly ZERO players in Asia who are not playing on servers in China. Even though the rest of the Asian market has 65% of the number of servers that China does, the total population in comparison to China is somewhere between 25% and zero. [zero to 1.5 million]
Despite China forbidding blizzard from accepting new accounts or operating their game for most of last year, China somehow massively grew AND grew at an almost identical rate as the rest of the world declined! How convenient.
Square peg, round hole. You can hammer away at it all you like.
I was playing WoW the first day it came out and I was so hooked. I played that game like 8-12 hours a day for like 6 months straight (then again, it was my very first MMO expereince). Now when I play it I get this awful feeling inside of me and after about one instance I am burned out. To be honest, I am so sick and tired of WoW. I can't wait for the WoW killer to come along because this game is old news to me, even starting to look like it. I have purchased a couple of MMO's (like Warhammer), but they flopped. I had high hopes for Age of Conan. I wish you people would let WoW die so Blizzard will release information on it's new MMO. Blizzard is not going to release information on the new MMO as long as WoW is making them millions and millions of dollars every year. They will most likely release information on the new MMO under two circumstances. 1, if a WoW killer really does come out any time soon or 2, if WoW killes its self due to just how old it is, then I can see them releasing info on the new MMO. I take back what I said earlier, Blizzard is going to release info on the new MMO even if these two things dont happen, however, Blizzard would be more prone to releasing info on the new MMO if WoW started to die. It's been a year now since mention of the new MMO? I am sure they have something they could give us, at least more information as to what it will be like. I hate to say it but WoW just sucks, at least for me. The only reason I play it is because a lot of my friends do, it is the only thing that has kept me interested in the game. The game all on its own does not truly intrigue me anymore. I really hope these brain dead companies get it straight for the next MMORPG. I just want WoW to die, I can't even understand how you people after 6 years can still be really into this game. If for friends and family I can understand, but to play it because it is still fun? How the hell are you guys not burned out yet? If my room mate stopped playing I would cancle my account today.
What i never get is when people talk about the Elephant and the "old guard" no one ever Mentions The Realm, which is still kicking, and predates UO (or comes close, i know i played The Realm before UO) or City of Heroes, which is just as old as WoW, and the grand father of the superhero MMO genre.
Yes you could say that the WoW killer is a term that will never come true. But i think the wow killer wont be just a single competitor, but all those competitors you say are beasts lurking in the darkness, in other words the WoW killer[b]s[/b] will be the rest of the industry itself, morpgs where pretty much all the same before second life (i mean no extreme differences), with second life i believe something changed in the hearts and minds of both players and the industry I and I also think new windows opened, now there are entirely different games from the trend, such as global agenda, which by themselves could threaten WoW just because of their individuality.
Global Agenda already launched but its pretty much still a newborn, there are a couple of things already changing, some going another direction from what was originally intended. But I simply used it as an example of how different one game can be from most of its same genre. Morpgs were always changing little by little, like baby-steps, but nowadays those steps seem to become larger and larger in some instances.
I suspect in a few years WoW will just be left behind in terms of hype/popularity (being known and being popular are different things), still even if that happened they wont loose many customers since its so easy to play and grand-looking.
Ok just to put it simply, wow will never live forever. Just like donkey kong (old version) it will eventually get old and they have to make world of world of warcraft. Then that would get old and then they would have to make The new world of the world that is warcraft. Eventually they would run out of names and go back to calling it with numbers. At this point there is no more WoW then there would be only warcraft. btw just have to say it :P
Well the truth is, there exists a publisher that is currently developing one such MMO.
An MMO that like excalibur shall be drawn from the stone to vanquish the beast known as "WoW". This publisher has virtually unlimited resources, hordes of programmers, time - tested lore, and unparalled experience in MMO design.
This MMO is so top secret that it hath not a name, and shall be known hereto as...."The Destroyer".
At the hour of The Destroyer's coming, not only shall the towering WoW monster come crashing to the ground; the lands of Vana'diel and Eorzea will emplode, both Elyos and Asmodians shall fall from the sky, and during the second war of guilds there shall be a dynamic event in which The Destroyer comes to wtf pwn all in the face.
The coming of The Destroyer shall be depicted on cans of the sweet dew of the mountain. Thy glowing picture box of baseball games and reality TV shall be interrupted with images of The Destroyer in it's mighty glory. Stock markets shall bellow and cry under the crushing news of The Destroyer's coming.
The coming of The Destroyer shall be foretold by CNN, CNBC, and Fox News. They shall speak of it's creator...the source of The Destroyer...the publisher of The Destroyer known only as.........
Activision Blizzard.
Because if you think that when WoW peaks, which will take god-knows how long (New Hero class, anyone? That's what I tought); if you truly believe that they won't already have finished their next gen MMO that they have just been waiting to unleash, then you are dumber than a box of hair you stupid, stupid idiot.
As of being an Ex-guildmate of Jamie, I do see exactly where Jamie is coming from in this situation. The bore of all the game going on over and over again doing the same thing every week just gets boring and the only reason some people do stay around is because of the friends they have made or even to be able to level up and learn new things. World of warcraft may become surpassed by many other games and that blizzard is working on other games at the same time as Warcraft, it just creates too much clutter for them to be able to uphold everyones interest to continue to play World of Warcraft. Other companies may pass them in sales because of it and Blizzard games may fall a little bit. World of Warcraft will be one of those games played very much after they decide to slow down inbetween each patch and boredom will grow, but it will be a little bit of a downfall with all the new content that will be completed and make everyone able to finish the newer content more quickly. Previewing the newer content and having people show it off will make people less interested when it actually comes out to be able to keep up their excitment. It is understandable that they would want to lure people into it more by allowing them to play in the BETA, but its only going to make it where they play there, and go back to the original game, finish the content all with being bored of finishing it all up. Some of the things make it where there isnt much to do about it but just continue through with what happens, but either way it will be very much of a downfall for World of Warcraft.
Comments
[1]
Again, you don't know what the lowest amount paid for an account ON AVERAGE is. We don't know how many people are playing for free due to ressurection scrolls (I have over 2 years free time and counting). If someone pays for 1 month on june 15th and then cancels 2 days later, they are a subscriber for 2 months, but only paid for 1. The assumption is that 11.5 means non stop uninterupted payments for 12 straight months, which we don't know if that is true or what percentage of the AVERAGE comes out to once you factor in free time, internet cafes, partial month subscriptions, etc. You simply can't pick a base subscription number and multiply it and conclude you know how many people play in one region. It is complete guesswork that has no basis.
It isn't that I don't understand what you have presented, it just isn't credible.
[2]
The way accounts are tracking in China work differently which is why blizzard specifically mentions internet game room accounts accessing the game
Blizzard defines its subscriber count thusly:
It works differently over there. They sell 'time access cards' that are not associated to accounts. If I understand it correctly, you can have 500 game accounts if you want, but your are counted by your access time cards. There isn't a direct 1 to 1 ratio of payment to accounts.
[3]
Just because I don't accept your math based on random numbers doesn't mean I ignore facts.
Here is a link to a chart showing when and what blizzard details in their press releases.
The press releases all suggest a 45% western market to 55% eastern market split. Saying China is 6 million means that almost every single player outside the western market is in China. How can you account for 40% of the total eastern game market servers being outside China then? It makes no sense at all.
Furthermore, your claims of 5-6 million NA/EU suggests the Western market growing by .5 to 1.5 million subs since the 10 million mark. If the other 6 million are in China, what is left for Korea, Taiwan, Russia, etc? That is why the core of that bloggers calculations are flawed. For his numbers to be true wow would have to be growing in NA, Europe and China, while everywhere else is getting hammered yet not closing servers.
There is a reason China only represents 60% of the non-western servers. If China is 55% of the entire wow subscriberbase why only 20% of the overall servers when Korea and Taiwan are half the size of the total servers in China?
[4]
1 million concurrent users would be a record, not a norm. I don't doubt that China has several million users, I just don't think they represent 90% of the asian market as you seem to. There is a reason there are so many servers outside China and a reason blizzard said Aisa and not China in their press release.
[5]
I never said NA/EU was more than 5-6 million and I don't even think it is that much. I think the games population is far more spread out amongst all the territories than most here conclude. Nor do I think you need to resort to namecalling when I point out the flaws in your argument. It doesn't make me wrong or you right.
Blizzard doesn't get all $80 of game box sales from new players, which would be more like $70 if I recall. I've seen people who claim to be in the know state the split is anywhere from 20-40% of the retail price goes to the developer (I don't know). On top of that each new player gets a free month, so a new player is only a few dollars more than an existing player for the first quarter and then on equal footing after that. I don't think it would be anywhere near half of an entire year as your math suggests. On top of that we are not factoring any free months that are given to existing players for referal a friend and scroll of ressurections which would offset those figures even more. I have over 2 years free game time from refers and such.
What you say is possible, but it is extremely unlikely, because the turnover would have to be enormous. It at least makes plausable sense unlike some of the other sources of reference that have been posted.
It's blizzard's advertising and marketting that is to thank for its huge success then followed by the game.
World of Warcraft really is a second rate game. The game didn't start out polished as some people try to say it was, but it was constantly being patched and fixed. Alot of us veterans remember going 2-3 days without playing at a time due to maintenance in off hours.
Blizzard essentially said "lets get everybody involved. Screw gamers." They released commercials with iconic characters to bring in different groups of people and got Southpark involved. They threw in car and truck commercials as well. Before you knew it, it was mainstream and you weren't cool if you weren't playing. Even those who didn't find the game attractive ended up playing it because their friends told them to.
Then add 1000+ pets and Mounts, and collectable pixels, TCG loot cards etc... and you have it appealing to another crowd.
It's a good business move, and its not bad or selfish intentions to want to get people involved. But its gone far further than that.
And now that Bobby Kotick has everybody by the balls, here comes Micro/Macro/Blood-Transactions for those who have emotional attachments to their characters due to the time they devoted to the game and feel like it actually means something to have them.
As a fan of the warcraft series, I appreciate what Blizzard brought to the gaming community. But as a customer, I hope to see Bobby Kotick choke to death on a bratwurst. The man is evil and deliberately tries to take advantage of customers and employees.
It's a shame that Blizzard is the only company who can get away with making such rediculously priced pixels knowing theres some Warcraft addicted sap who wants to justify his time in the game willing to fork out as much as as needed to feel like he's going somewhere in the game.
Wow.Different topic. I like this particular article it gives me an additional input in the information and joyful mind. Thanks a lot and keep going with posting such information.
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It's no different from any other entertainment industry, really.
Music and TV have their Elephants and their progressive minorities which only strike a chord with a small portion of the world. Will something else come about eventually to top todays elephant? Sure, especially given as time passes a greater portion of the population has access to the technology to play something like it.
But will it be the first progressive MMO's? Or something further down the line? Maybe we're already at that point down the line, though.
Anyway, I know I'm looking forward to SW:ToR, although I predict expectations may outweigh the game somewhat - people are getting too good at hype generation and viral marketing these days for the products to live up to.
Though hell, I'll still play it for the same relative reason I originally picked up WoW - I liked Blizzard games. I like Bioware games and SW. Done deal!
Wow already had 6-7 million players by the time they did any of that, so it was already crazy popular before the media blitz you credit for its success.
If getting millions of subscribers was so simple as making a few commercials and marketing, then every other company would be doing it.
See comments in red above.
Right, to me it's pretty evident: the Chinese provider is talking about 5 mil players. The calculations based upon concurrent sub numbers and total revenue is pointing towards it. That's why all the WoW-specialised blogs and forums are using numbers of 5-6 millions of Chinese subs. Which considering the available sources and material seems a very general but fair estimation.
Now, if people try to show me differently, that the reality is somewhat different, I don't mind, I'll often be even looking forward to it. Heck, I have had several of my perceptions adjusted while reading up and following these forums, that's why I like this site.
But instead of hard data and calculations, all you're basically saying is that the reality is far complexer than we take into account. Well, boohoo, everybody knows that. I myself have mentioned several times that it can only be guesses. That's why we're talking about "best guesses" here, and not hard figures.
If you want to cling so hard to your own belief against the commonly held (and better funded) beliefs, well, that's your thing. If you want to question the Chinese license holder's claim of 5 mil Chinese subs, then you might as well question Blizzard's claim of 11.5 million subs, since they're dependent upon the figures of their Chinese affiliate; you can't have one without the other. But suit yourself.
I'm done with this discussion, it has wasted enough of my time already.
The ACTUAL size of MMORPG worlds: a comparison list between MMO's
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums:
Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
[1] No I am not saying blizzard is lieing. What I am saying is that we do not know that 11.5 million means 11.5 million uninterupted non-stop payments. According to blizzards own definition, if I pay on june 15th, I am a valid subscriber for june and july. That makes it impossible to pick any subscription fee to determine sub numbers. That is all I am saying, so please stop inferring claims I have not made.
[2] No where will you find blizzard claiming 5 million subscribers in china, that is the problem. It doesn't matter how many retarded bloggers repeat that same unsubstantiated claims, there is no link to a verified claim from blizzard stating those numbers. Nor is there any proof that blizzard used the number that the9 posted.
As for the claim by the license holder, remember they were not the license holder anymore when they made that claim. There were a pissed off former partner who managed to get blizzard shut down in China. I'm not sure how much stock I put in a company in the middle of a licensing war, but you may.
As for industry rule of thumb I think you are missing the entire picture. The rule of thumb is to multiply by 5, so that would make sense for to add up to 5 million. HOWEVER, it was the RECORD, not the normal everyday occurance. Concurrent records are broken when some big event happens like release burning crusade, because more people are playing at the same time. That is why they broke 1 million for a short period of time and have not since. If they have 5 million players they would easily break 1.5-2 million during a major event, but they haven't.
[3] I was linking trends in the wow subscription base over time. Ok, so China is growing fastest now, true or not it doesn't matter. Do I need to also link the part where China was shut down which would also have made China the fastest declining area for blizzard prior to that? Blizzard wasn't allowed to accept new customers by order of the government of China, so they could only decline last year. Every returning player is growth. Pretty easy concept to understand in my opinion.
So now the Taiwan servers should be counted as China servers, because you say it is a "large" amount of players? Lets not use any calculations to back that up. So how many servers were in Taiwan before the "surge" of Chinese players? How many servers in China were merged, because such a "large" amount of Chinese players never returned from Taiwan? How many additional servers were added to Taiwan to accomodate this massive influx of new players? Perhaps we should know a little more about the situation before we go annexing Taiwan to China again.
Here is the funny part, you are calling my server logic funny after making that claim? According to your theories of 10-12 million in both the West and China, the remaining population for the rest of the world is somewhere between negative 500k and positive 1.5 million. Yes in your theory, zero is a possibilty, just like the blogger you covet. There are over 100 servers to support those players, while there are 178 servers to support the assumed 6 million in china. So for those claims to be fruitful a server in china supports an average of 34k accounts which is 3.4 times higher that western server averages, while a server right next door in Korea supports somewhere between ZERO and 13k accounts. I don't think we can dismiss this by citing laws that have not even gone into effect yet, but the point is there is a huge discrepency in server distribution to support claims of 50% of the entire wow population being in one country. That is the point, nothing more. It is pretty clear something doesn't make sense here.
[4] Again, that bloggers math was beyond iditioc. I can't believe we are still referencing him as some credible source as if it somehow validates anything. Anyone could take those same rediculous formulas he uses, come up with a completely different set of numbers that are equally justifiable and show different conclusions. Why? Because there are no facts used. They are just wild guesses with massive assumptions and oversites. You keep pointing to "the calculations" as if they are meaningful in any way and they simply are not.
Lets look at what we have to accept for those calculations to make any sense at all:
50-55% of blizzards entire playerbase plays on 20% of their entire servers.
Somewhere between 10 and 12 million players reside in China, North America and Europe. [12 million, yeah I know.]
Anyone not paying an average of $13 a month must play in China. Why? Well because that is how the math was set up? Because the rest of the entire world outside of China uses a nearly identical payment model? Because that is the cheapest payment option in the US?
Blizzard gained revenue the last 4 quarters over the previous 4 quarters without a surge of revenue from a new expansion sale, replacing high paying subscribers with low paying subscribers in China 1:1 and then losing those 6 million subscribers for the better part of the year.
The decline in subscription revenue comes from things like tshirts, authenticators and 2 virtual pets.
That there are possibly ZERO players in Asia who are not playing on servers in China. Even though the rest of the Asian market has 65% of the number of servers that China does, the total population in comparison to China is somewhere between 25% and zero. [zero to 1.5 million]
Despite China forbidding blizzard from accepting new accounts or operating their game for most of last year, China somehow massively grew AND grew at an almost identical rate as the rest of the world declined! How convenient.
Square peg, round hole. You can hammer away at it all you like.
I was playing WoW the first day it came out and I was so hooked. I played that game like 8-12 hours a day for like 6 months straight (then again, it was my very first MMO expereince). Now when I play it I get this awful feeling inside of me and after about one instance I am burned out. To be honest, I am so sick and tired of WoW. I can't wait for the WoW killer to come along because this game is old news to me, even starting to look like it. I have purchased a couple of MMO's (like Warhammer), but they flopped. I had high hopes for Age of Conan. I wish you people would let WoW die so Blizzard will release information on it's new MMO. Blizzard is not going to release information on the new MMO as long as WoW is making them millions and millions of dollars every year. They will most likely release information on the new MMO under two circumstances. 1, if a WoW killer really does come out any time soon or 2, if WoW killes its self due to just how old it is, then I can see them releasing info on the new MMO. I take back what I said earlier, Blizzard is going to release info on the new MMO even if these two things dont happen, however, Blizzard would be more prone to releasing info on the new MMO if WoW started to die. It's been a year now since mention of the new MMO? I am sure they have something they could give us, at least more information as to what it will be like. I hate to say it but WoW just sucks, at least for me. The only reason I play it is because a lot of my friends do, it is the only thing that has kept me interested in the game. The game all on its own does not truly intrigue me anymore. I really hope these brain dead companies get it straight for the next MMORPG. I just want WoW to die, I can't even understand how you people after 6 years can still be really into this game. If for friends and family I can understand, but to play it because it is still fun? How the hell are you guys not burned out yet? If my room mate stopped playing I would cancle my account today.
What i never get is when people talk about the Elephant and the "old guard" no one ever Mentions The Realm, which is still kicking, and predates UO (or comes close, i know i played The Realm before UO) or City of Heroes, which is just as old as WoW, and the grand father of the superhero MMO genre.
Yes you could say that the WoW killer is a term that will never come true. But i think the wow killer wont be just a single competitor, but all those competitors you say are beasts lurking in the darkness, in other words the WoW killer[b]s[/b] will be the rest of the industry itself, morpgs where pretty much all the same before second life (i mean no extreme differences), with second life i believe something changed in the hearts and minds of both players and the industry I and I also think new windows opened, now there are entirely different games from the trend, such as global agenda, which by themselves could threaten WoW just because of their individuality.
Global Agenda already launched but its pretty much still a newborn, there are a couple of things already changing, some going another direction from what was originally intended. But I simply used it as an example of how different one game can be from most of its same genre. Morpgs were always changing little by little, like baby-steps, but nowadays those steps seem to become larger and larger in some instances.
I suspect in a few years WoW will just be left behind in terms of hype/popularity (being known and being popular are different things), still even if that happened they wont loose many customers since its so easy to play and grand-looking.
Ok just to put it simply, wow will never live forever. Just like donkey kong (old version) it will eventually get old and they have to make world of world of warcraft. Then that would get old and then they would have to make The new world of the world that is warcraft. Eventually they would run out of names and go back to calling it with numbers. At this point there is no more WoW then there would be only warcraft. btw just have to say it :P
MMORPG - Many Men Online Roleplaying Girls
Haha, ahhh yes...the foretold coming of.....the WoW killer.
Well the truth is, there exists a publisher that is currently developing one such MMO.
An MMO that like excalibur shall be drawn from the stone to vanquish the beast known as "WoW". This publisher has virtually unlimited resources, hordes of programmers, time - tested lore, and unparalled experience in MMO design.
This MMO is so top secret that it hath not a name, and shall be known hereto as...."The Destroyer".
At the hour of The Destroyer's coming, not only shall the towering WoW monster come crashing to the ground; the lands of Vana'diel and Eorzea will emplode, both Elyos and Asmodians shall fall from the sky, and during the second war of guilds there shall be a dynamic event in which The Destroyer comes to wtf pwn all in the face.
The coming of The Destroyer shall be depicted on cans of the sweet dew of the mountain. Thy glowing picture box of baseball games and reality TV shall be interrupted with images of The Destroyer in it's mighty glory. Stock markets shall bellow and cry under the crushing news of The Destroyer's coming.
The coming of The Destroyer shall be foretold by CNN, CNBC, and Fox News. They shall speak of it's creator...the source of The Destroyer...the publisher of The Destroyer known only as.........
Activision Blizzard.
Because if you think that when WoW peaks, which will take god-knows how long (New Hero class, anyone? That's what I tought); if you truly believe that they won't already have finished their next gen MMO that they have just been waiting to unleash, then you are dumber than a box of hair you stupid, stupid idiot.
As of being an Ex-guildmate of Jamie, I do see exactly where Jamie is coming from in this situation. The bore of all the game going on over and over again doing the same thing every week just gets boring and the only reason some people do stay around is because of the friends they have made or even to be able to level up and learn new things. World of warcraft may become surpassed by many other games and that blizzard is working on other games at the same time as Warcraft, it just creates too much clutter for them to be able to uphold everyones interest to continue to play World of Warcraft. Other companies may pass them in sales because of it and Blizzard games may fall a little bit. World of Warcraft will be one of those games played very much after they decide to slow down inbetween each patch and boredom will grow, but it will be a little bit of a downfall with all the new content that will be completed and make everyone able to finish the newer content more quickly. Previewing the newer content and having people show it off will make people less interested when it actually comes out to be able to keep up their excitment. It is understandable that they would want to lure people into it more by allowing them to play in the BETA, but its only going to make it where they play there, and go back to the original game, finish the content all with being bored of finishing it all up. Some of the things make it where there isnt much to do about it but just continue through with what happens, but either way it will be very much of a downfall for World of Warcraft.