http://www.wow.com/2009/09/29/is-wows-audience-still-increasing/#continued

13.1 million players in August 2009.

Ok the discussions can begin. WOW haters first in line to the left, then the WOW fans over to the right.

Three, two, one ... START.

The hic up in China didn't happen ?
 

They are not official numbers...move along nothing to see here.

Well I don't believe WoW has decreased in the west at least, Wotlk never out of the top 3 sales spots since release, huge server queues on patch days and blizzard having to upgrade their instance server tech to cope with the demand convince me of that.

I find it hard to see how WoW has grown by some 1.5million in a year considering china has only just began allowing new players into WoW as of this month, but I guess as suggested most players could of hopped over to the TW servers.

I would still rather wait for a press release from blizzard.

Has WoTLK been released in China yet? Wouldnt be unexpected for the numbers to increase again when it does.

 Well, i say LoTRO has now 15 million.... discuss it people.

Both mine and that sites have nothing of official so they are both allowed here.

Even Zorndorf would say thats impossible, because XFire clearly shows a decrease in wow's players... and we all know how wow ppl love xfire numbers

Congratz to Blizzard.

WOW is still a cartoonish themepark made for little kids.

This is no different than using Xfire to say the exact same thing..........

So why'd you even post this?

Originally posted by SlyLoK

Has WoTLK been released in China yet? Wouldnt be unexpected for the numbers to increase again when it does.

WOTLK is in beta on china at the moment.

Looking at the china situation, wow was only offline for a month, it then came back online for almost 2 months as F2P (for current players - no new players allowed), and only a week or two back was back to full P2P operation.

So the whole China thing might not of been this huge issue we think it was subscriber way, those that didn't want to wait to see the fate of WoW could of hopped to the TW servers.

Originally posted by SlyLoK

Has WoTLK been released in China yet? Wouldnt be unexpected for the numbers to increase again when it does.

Uhm, all chinese servers are closed down and have been so since spring.

These numbers are bullocks and if it had been true, don't you think Blizzard would have published an official statement?

No, there isn't even a slight dip when all the chinese servers went down, you would think that over 5 million players that can't play would make a impact on the graph. As they say, some have probably started to play on taiwanese servers but even if everyone would move (yeah, right) would we still see a huge dive floowed by a slow rise again until everyone got their new account up and running.

It is possible that Wow is still increasing in the west, their top score here was last time I heard 5,5 million players (the week after the release of WoTLK). say that it actually is 6 million there and add another million south koreans and some people in Taiwan. That would still only be 8 million players and that is high counting, Idon't believe for a second that all Chinese player play on foreign servers, they could get arrested for that.

Sorry, this is a pure fantasy number right now, the game probably hold half that number. But that is still impressive.

One thing is sure: Everytime in the past when they got higher numbers have Blizzard released them right away. Unless someone could give us a good reason why they havn't released a single number since November we can all assume that they have fewer players now then they had then.

Originally posted by coffee

WOTLK is in beta on china at the moment.

Looking at the china situation, wow was only offline for a month, it then came back online for almost 2 months as F2P (for current players - no new players allowed), and only a week or two back was back to full P2P operation.

So the whole China thing might not of been this huge issue we think it was subscriber way, those that didn't want to wait to see the fate of WoW could of hopped to the TW servers.

Could you link to anything about that? It is not what I been reading elsewhere and it sounds interesting.

The graph lies!

 "I'm not sure how much of this is legit, but stick with us for the information first, and then stay for the debunking."

This in fact says it all... poor attempt to make the market believe in  a player raise

Originally posted by Loke666

Originally posted by coffee

WOTLK is in beta on china at the moment.

Looking at the china situation, wow was only offline for a month, it then came back online for almost 2 months as F2P (for current players - no new players allowed), and only a week or two back was back to full P2P operation.

So the whole China thing might not of been this huge issue we think it was subscriber way, those that didn't want to wait to see the fate of WoW could of hopped to the TW servers.

 

Could you link to anything about that? It is not what I been reading elsewhere and it sounds interesting.

http://www.wow.com/2009/09/21/wow-back-online-in-china/

Clearly WOW is available in China as we type.

I think - like you say - the graph doesn't lie, but the samples came from non Chinese computers.

The rise could partly come from Chinese playing on Taiwan servers.

I guess my answer would be, "who cares?"

Nothing against WoW, but for it, and any other game, as long as enough people are playing to keep the doors open and new content coming in a time frame that is acceptable to me... I'm happy.  If more people play a game other than mine, good for them and I hope they enjoy it.  As long as my game stays open that's great.

Originally posted by Loke666

Originally posted by coffee

WOTLK is in beta on china at the moment.

Looking at the china situation, wow was only offline for a month, it then came back online for almost 2 months as F2P (for current players - no new players allowed), and only a week or two back was back to full P2P operation.

So the whole China thing might not of been this huge issue we think it was subscriber way, those that didn't want to wait to see the fate of WoW could of hopped to the TW servers.

 

Could you link to anything about that? It is not what I been reading elsewhere and it sounds interesting.

http://www.wow.com/2009/09/21/wow-back-online-in-china/ - all servers back online

www.wow.com/2009/08/17/wow-is-free-to-play-in-china-fate-still-being-decided-by-govern - wow free to play

 Do they count all the trial accounts ?  You can go create a trial account in 10 minutes or less and be in game the way they have the streaming download.  I've made a number of trial accounts all it takes is making up an email address.

Originally posted by skarwolf

 Do they count all the trial accounts ?  You can go create a trial account in 10 minutes or less and be in game the way they have the streaming download.  I've made a number of trial accounts all it takes is making up an email address.

No they only count active subs for a month.

Originally posted by skarwolf

 Do they count all the trial accounts ?  You can go create a trial account in 10 minutes or less and be in game the way they have the streaming download.  I've made a number of trial accounts all it takes is making up an email address.

World of Warcraft's 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.

 one thing is sure american market is slowly getting out of wow xfire proves it

331000 on xfire last month this week week was 220000 something

so other market that havent played wow as deeply as us are starting to play it 

Hard to know if it's actually real or not.  Don't know how China is doing now.

Keep in mind that the application that use to track application may be inaccurate. 

And even if it is accurate, wow is free to play in China during that time of tracking. 

but if wotlk is actually release in China, there will be alot more player.

Yeah this thread is pretty much a "rubbing the dirt in your face you WoW haters thread," personally I don't hate WoW, and you're information is b.s.

1/10 for trolling...move along...>>

Marketing gimmick.

I just like how Blizzard themselves does the math.    I won't explain cause it's all been said before, but WoW's CURRENT AND ACTIVE SUBSCRIBERS is nowhere near even the OFFICIAL numbers Blizzard puts out.    

Regardless, of who's right, wrong or otherwise, are there still people to fill your meaningless raids to grind for your never dropping purples?   As long as you can answer yes to that question, I guess WoW is still being played by enough people to make any topic like this pointless!

WoW still sucks and anyone who has played it for a long period of time should have thier opinion on future MMOs be null and void.

thats why we are getting these crappy MMOs, because every WoWtard has to run to check out the new game and when its not WoW in a different skin they post.

"omg WoW does X and it has 11 million subscribers ... so thats how you should do it"

"if this game isn't more like WoW its going to fail!"

you want to know why we are not getting sandbox games, if you pay for a WoW account ... its YOUR fault. why would game companies take a chance on a high risk sandbox game. when they see how many subscribers are out there willing to play WoW. So yes I do blame the gamer, blizzard is there to make money nothing more nothing less. they aren't going to put out games that push the evolution of MMOs. its obvious gamers dont want that so they will churn out the same tried and true MMO and the zerg will flock to it.

if you want more sandbox games, you have to show game developers you want that .... subscribe to EVE, Fallen Earth, Ryzom or hell any other sandbox game out there. the more subs those games have the more game companies will see there is want for that type of game.

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Originally posted by sigurd57
I just like how Blizzard themselves does the math.    I won't explain cause it's all been said before, but WoW's CURRENT AND ACTIVE SUBSCRIBERS is nowhere near even the OFFICIAL numbers Blizzard puts out.

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Would really like an explanation of that statement to be honest, if someone has their subscription paid up for that month or has payed to play in that month, how are they not a "current" or "active" subscriber???

For all the stick that Blizzard get, they have always been by far the most honest about their numbers compared to many games that pad them out or don't ever release numbers in the first place. OK, even a player like me that likes the game is still not gonna take the number reported here as anything other than guess work unless Blizzard themselves make an official count available, but it isn't beyond the realms of possibility. Economic downturn is forcing people to find ever cheaper forms of entertainment and many more people stay home when they would have gone out in the past. That coupled with the boost of Wrath coming to China, those sort of number increases are not impossible, but again, it is a wait and see for the real numbers.