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Post by
Eccentrica
This
is a link to one of the documents released yesterday and can be found on the Activision Blizzard website on the Investor Relations tab. Page 5 of this document defines 'subscriptions'.
I copy/paste it here for your convenience.
Subscriber Definition: 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.
Post by
JDLKY
::snip::
Subscriber Definition: 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.
Interesting. The way it reads to me is that if you were a subscription type payer and paid for at least one month game time during the quarter you are counted even if you had cancelled by the end of the quarter. That means this number lags. So if tons of people really are turned of by some feature like oh, say CRZ, it won't show until they have been inactive for an entire quarter. (i.e. not yet)
OTOH time card payers are just the opposite. The only thing that matters is if they were active on the last day of the quarter. While this will miss players who have burned thru the content and their current time card but who will be coming back its seems to me to be a decent number on average.
Post by
lonewarrior
This
is a link to one of the documents released yesterday and can be found on the Activision Blizzard website on the Investor Relations tab. Page 5 of this document defines 'subscriptions'.
I copy/paste it here for your convenience.
Subscriber Definition: 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.
Also those pre-paid minute cards used in the Asian market also skew the numbers. A person could have bought a card or got one for a gift, played for five minutes and never again and still be counted.
All fine for the revenue numbers, but for us the players the final analysis has to be players actually logged in.
I know first hand nearly a dozen or so players who are yearly subs who were playing MoP at the start, but are not playing now.
I was on my original server the other day, it is just heart breaking to see what a shell of it's former self the realm has become. I was in Stormwind and if I say it was a ghost town, that is a good day.
Stormwind use to be a bustling town like it is on my new server and the community was active.
Even one of the top raiding guilds in the world decided set up home there until things went bad.
So 9+ million players, well they certainly aren't on my old server so what do those numbers really mean.
CRZ/LFR has provided more game interaction, but not bonding interaction., which was a key component of Vanilla/TBC and early parts of Wrath.
Blizz needs to take the next step and provide the means for players to make lasting acquaintances with those they meet in randoms/CRZ.
Otherwise, just like LFR, you que, run, loot and leave group with barely a word spoken and when you've had your fill of that and there is no social medium to keep you logged in, players are logging out.
Post by
Wowpixel
Interesting. The way it reads to me is that if you were a subscription type payer and paid for at least one month game time during the quarter you are counted even if you had cancelled by the end of the quarter. That means this number lags. So if tons of people really are turned of by some feature like oh, say CRZ, it won't show until they have been inactive for an entire quarter. (i.e. not yet)
That's right. It's a shell game.
Activision-Blizzard also times the release of new expansions near these quarterly reports. Which fluffs the numbers even more, and gives them a shiny PR release to talk about.
But it all still doesn't translate to boots on the ground. 9.6 million subscriptions and we still have low population realms, and "busy" for CRZ is 8 people at a quest hub. And that's due to the 9.6 million are divided into 3 regions (US+Oceania; Europe; and China), and they don't play together.
The 9.6 million is worldwide, but we don't play with others worldwide. Only by region.
Post by
Adamsm
And yet....still several million more then a lot of other MMO's have ever had....
Post by
Wowpixel
And yet....still several million more then a lot of other MMO's have ever had....
Doesn't matter. It's that type of numbers arrogance that led to EQ having the most MMO subscribers to what they have today.
Never ever overplay a hand. It will lose.
Post by
Adamsm
And yet....still several million more then a lot of other MMO's have ever had....
Doesn't matter. It's that type of numbers arrogance that led to EQ having the most MMO subscribers to what they have today.
Never ever overplay a hand. It will lose.
So..the fact that it's 8 year old game, and still has the record numbers for any MMO, means absolutely nothing? Nevermind the fact that for the sales this year Blizzard has had both the number 1 and number three spot with Diablo 3 and MoP; you still would think they are a 'bad' investment? Alright then.
Post by
Wowpixel
So..the fact that it's 8 year old game
How old is Dungeons and Dragons, again? And what edition is it today?
Can't have it both ways: "we're popular by the numbers!", but when confronted about the problems, "It's 8 years-old and people will tire of it!".
You want a game to last and be as interesting today as it was in 2004. Yet 8 years later we still have the very issues that never has been fixed from day one (e.g., like separating PvP stats from PvE stats), that would improve game play. Instead things are build on top of designs never originally designed into the game, and the headaches it causes due to it.
We can have Cata, but we can't have separate PvP and PvE stats. We can have tier sets coming out of pores, but spell plate BoAs are non-existent. We can have 100000000001 agility gear, but shields don't exist in normal+ raids (in fact in 3 years time I only saw my shield drop once...what is the incentive to raid with that RNG? It's a waste of time).
If you want to know what players are tired of is this soup of unfinished business going on for 8 years. That's when players grow tired and move on (e.g., more have played WoW and left than are currently playing).
Post by
Adamsm
See, no matter what anyone posts here, you are going to pick it apart because apparently you dislike where the game is going and you almost see ecstatic to see it 'failing'; so you know what, be gloom and doom, and completely forget about the fact that recent sub loss is equal to the existing SWTOR player base, that games such as EVE, Everquest and Runescape, which are far older then WoW are still going on and still have a player base.
But I have to ask: (e.g., more have played WoW and left than are currently playing).Can you actually back up this hyperbole?
Post by
Wowpixel
See, no matter what anyone posts here, you are going to pick it apart
Compared to answering in memes 71k times?
And yes, that can be backed up, as it came straight from a blue.
Blizzard realizes this, and they're putting too much effort in trying to attract TBC players who now are out of college, married and starting mid-life. And if that RIFT poll about the age of gamers is true, we have 2 main age groups playing MMORPGs: the kids of the 11 year-old to 22 year-old bracket; and those over 40. It's the latter with the most disposable income. The publisher who taps into that market is the richer one (and I've seen by how much in other MMOs by how much....1+k/mon appetites).
Post by
Adamsm
How about a link to that Blue post; cause it's not that I disbelieve you but well...okay yeah it is. Until you provide a link, not going believe what you say, since the numbers are showing otherwise.
Post by
588688
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
Adamsm
I'll enjoy it while it lasts, fortunately, it won't be a long while till it's officially dead, I'm sure.
/roll eyes Yes, because losing 600k subs, is a 'sure sign of death'. And considering that Runescape and Everquest are still going, don't think you'll see WoW being dead any time soon.
Post by
588688
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
Adamsm
I believe this to be a sign. And according to most of the people who see the death of WoW, the following things have been a sign: Welfare Epics, LFD, LFR, Cata, MoP, Pandaren, Monks, Death Knights, *insert flavour of the month item here*...and yet the game still keeps a record number of subs.
The game will go till Blizzard makes no money on it...and as the rest of that post says, they made mad cash on both D3 and MoP, so no chance of the cash cow drying up any day soon.
Post by
Azrile
I still don't get why people care about the numbers so much.
Two reasons
1. Look at TSW - Subs dropped, half the dev team was fired and the game is on auto-pilot. It will be a long time before WOW gets to the point of this, but you can be sure that subscription numbers directly influence CS etc. In other games, it directly relates to the speed of content patches.
2. What went wrong, and how can we change it - You can bet your butt that the reason MoP heroics are easy and why content patches are coming fast is because of Sub drops in Cata. The devs probably do care a lot about forum feedback and whining.. but when subscription numbers dropped 1M last year, my guess is someone higher up took notice and DEMANDED that things be changed that were perceived to have caused the drop. What this means? If you are happy with the game and subs drop rapidly.. expect things to be shaken-up that you might not like. Conversely, if you hate a feature and everyone else is complaing about it, and subs drop rapidly, expect that feedback to be taken much more seriously and action taken more quickly to fix it.
I think sub numbers really validate whining on the forums, especially in regards to the initial heroic dungeons in Cata.
I think the change to dailies with 5.1 and 5.2 were because the people on the forums, not because of the sub losses, which are pretty expected.
Post by
Azrile
quarterly performance will determine whether Blizzard stays the course or pivots to change directionI think Cata shows that's not exactly true.
As for CRZ, I doubt it's going anywhere, since it is getting the effect that Blizzard wants in the game world, which is people out and about and filling up the empty zones.
I think it exactly proves it. The three biggest issues most people had with Cata
1. Heroic dungeons that were overly challenging for pugs
2. Not enough non-group content for lvl 85s
3. Delay between patches.
I am pretty confident that the ´course in MOP´ in regard to these three issues was directly related to the drop in subs.
Post by
Azrile
You all really need to remember that World of Warcraft is only one of their many many games. A loss in subscriptions for one of their games isn't going to be their overall focus when looking at how healthy ATVI is. Overall, the company made significantly more in 2012 than it did in 2011. The company is growing. That is good for WoW! :)
Just to point out that in every financial news article I read yesterday and today regarding ATVI. Not once was WOW´s subscription numbers mentioned. Most of them didn´t even mention WOW at all except for the box sales of MoP.
The stock was up 11% yesterday.. that is HUGE amount of money I made.
Post by
Azrile
So WoW has lost what subs it gained with MOP, in only 4 months since it's release. Meh, I think the game is slowly on the decline, but I don't really care, I'll enjoy it while it lasts, fortunately, it won't be a long while till it's officially dead, I'm sure.
Math
This time last year WOW reported 9.1M subscribers
This year, wow reported 9.6M subscribers.
It is down from the launch of the expansion, but it is up year over year.
Post by
Eccentrica
I admit to great curiousity as well, though if numbers had dipped I would have expected to see Blizzard store sales on the Battlechest, Cata and MoP on the launcher when I logged in yesterday. In fact I'm eagerly anticipating a sale as I need another license.
And those very three are on sale today in the store. Surprise, surprise. Same old, same old, $5 Battlechest, $10 Cata and $20 MoP.
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