| 101 posts found | |
|---|---|
Originally posted by SaintViktor
You gave me alot of thougths... After I read what you typed I just had to do some calculations, now I'm not any expert in this area but I can do basic maths. Just to make a quick check on your theory. And plsease note that I 'm using numbers that is more easy to calculate with. So, let's say that: WoW have 10 000 000 subscribers. In reality they have 2 000 000 subscribers. 2 000 000 x $15 = $30 000 000 $75 000 000 - $120 000 000= -$90 000 000 Eh, I don't think they do this. Ok so they have 8 000 000 subscribers but they falsely buys 2 000 000 subscriptions and cards. Yeah! They could afford this. Hmm, that was odd? They seem to make more money if they don't buy any subscriptions themself. Ahh, maybe they give their employes free subscriptions to the amount of 2 000 000 accounts. Or why even bother with that why don't they just open up 2 millions accounts themself. That could work. OH WAIT! While I am writing this something hits me... Even if they would give away merely 10 000 subscriptions to bolster their numbers it would be leaked somehow. Think of if they would do this by the millions. Yeah, surely the amount of people that pays for the game and not play is neglectable and also accountable towards their subscription numbers without making it flawed. Isn't it?
I'm so broke. I can't even pay attention. |
|
|
First of all i commented on that NPD list before ,you might as well throw it out the window.I stumbled onto it researching the legitimacy of EA's game Spore being rated number 2 before it even hit the shelves.At the time i did a lot of homework and found that most of the games in the list directly fund that marketing company. I did a lot of math on the whole WOW numbers thing before,i don't feel like getting into it,but i figured the ACTUAL concurrent player count is around 4-5 million no where near the 11 million players, people think or try to claim there is.It falls under the same reasoning as AION. That reasoning is that there is a MASSIVE amount of RMT activity going on in both those games.Even though Aion's botting is a little more noticeable,IMO WOW still tops the chart by leaps and bounds for RMT use.I am sure most are aware of add ons that allow multiple accounts to be played via ONE player?this is how RMT utilize 5+ bots to one account.There is legit players that also do this,so there is no way in hell you could ever try to convince ANYONE that there is 11 million actual players.RMT do NOT count as players.Multi controlled accounts do NOT count as multiple players. Then you figure in how many TIME card accounts expire EVERY day,you actually think they have someone totaling up those massive numbers ongoing?An expired time card is not an expired account,they can re activate it the very next day,i highly doubt Blizzard auto removes that account on an expired time card.I would lean closer to the fact that every time someone activates a time card,they claim it as a NEW account,that is MUCH easier than tracking on/off accounts via time cards. Anyhoot,like i said after you figure everything in and realistically ONLY account for REAL players ,the actual player count is around 4-5 million.AION is almost in the same boat,although i doubt multi bot use from one player is as active as in WOW,there is still a TON of RMT activity,they make up a VERY large amount of the accounts. |
|
Originally posted by Wizardry
Are you actually saying that it is harder to distuingished an inactive account using timecards compared to using VISA? I'm so broke. I can't even pay attention. |
|
Tell me the source you have for claiming that in china time cards are active after buying them. It just doesn't make sense you see, best comparison would be mobile phone cards, you also got minutes/money (just like the Chinese payment model) on those, how do they usually get activated? Correct, you get a code that needs to be activated through your cellphone.
|
|
Originally posted by -aLpHa- You are quoting it - why I'm still responding to you is a mystery but one I CAN solve unlike this word. Where is your source again or was it made up on the spot? Don't change the subject just answer. Have I not answered and debated here? Have I not taken on the tougher debate when others were saying "he" won't respond. Well I'm a she and I damn well will respond and I'll use facts and send you to the source not just state things with no backup. Where is your proof that when a card is "purchased" in China the points expire if they are not used within 30 days?
|
|
Originally posted by a_name If the card is active then it is not expired, you're not really trying to prove that the active cards add to the subscriber numbers... That didn't really fit your argumentation, now get back on track I'm so broke. I can't even pay attention. |
|
Originally posted by Orphes If the card is active then it is not expired, you're not really trying to prove that the active cards add to the subscriber numbers... That didn't really fit your argumentation, now get back on track
Maybe you should reread my posts - that is exactly what I state. You must be picking the wrong person to quote. They made the claim of expiration out of nowhere to support I'm not sure what. My statement has been more to the effect of when the card gets printed it is assigned a key that activates it's usage. Without the key it is an inactive piece of cardboard. |
|
I never said points expire, i said if you would buy a 30 DAY game time card and it would be active from that moment on, it would expire. The points system you are talking about are nothing but hours that can be spend through using them. But first you need to charge your account with those points/hours, making it a active account, even if those points aren't used. To get to the point, is Blizzard lying? No they don't.
|
|
Originally posted by a_name
And why do you say that all 5 million chinese players play competitive? I'm so broke. I can't even pay attention. |
|
Originally posted by a_name
Maybe you should reread my posts - that is exactly what I state. You must be picking the wrong person to quote. They made the claim of expiration out of nowhere to support I'm not sure what. My statement has been more to the effect of when the card gets printed it is assigned a key that activates it's usage. Without the key it is an inactive piece of cardboard. Ok, so you are saying that when the card is printed then it is activated and active? That you would believe that the overhead needed to track all sales to see if a card is sold, what is seemingly your defintition of an active game card, is doable is odd. I'm so broke. I can't even pay attention. |
|
Originally posted by Orphes
Maybe you should reread my posts - that is exactly what I state. You must be picking the wrong person to quote. They made the claim of expiration out of nowhere to support I'm not sure what. My statement has been more to the effect of when the card gets printed it is assigned a key that activates it's usage. Without the key it is an inactive piece of cardboard. Ok, so you are saying that when the card is printed then it is activated and active? That you would believe that the overhead needed to track all sales to see if a card is sold, what is seemingly your defintition of an active game card, is doable is odd. Yulp, that's the way I see it. I think it fits perfectly into the marketing. As for tracking i would imagine that sending out active cards say on consignment - 10 cards per 5 retailers for an example. The retailers say we sold 15/50 cards you sent us at months end - now they have 15 "active prepaid cards" lurking that get tallied into the sub composite. If the card gets chewed up by a dog, thrown out the window of a moving car during a fight w/your parents, or used and tied to an account to extract the points, it's all still an "active prepaid card" out there with an individual. If they aren't making a ton of profit off these players due to the distributor eating the profit they use them for sub numbers to advertise the westerners of the popularity of the game. It's not a bad plan, it's worked out so far. In the future tho ppl will become wise if it is plumping like the person that said they logged in during a peak time and it really wasn't that active. Someone else brought up amount of ppl per server and I think that helps to hide something like this IF it is going on. You really don't see every player so 3 million, 5 million, whose to say what those numbers feel like when you play with under X thousand players on your server. That's a number you won't encounter daily so it could easily be a bloated figure. |
|
Originally posted by a_name
That's amazing, you checked all my resource links in 3 minutes and re-checked my math. Ok, I'll bite, does my butt look fat in this?
Didn't need to. You did a fine job of research and obviously went to a lot of effort but your assertion is absurd for a variety of reasons that I'm sure many will be chomping at the bit to point out to you.. No dear it looks fine. "Any sufficiently advanced incompetence is indistinguishable from malice." ~Greys Law |
|
So you want to tell us that WoW's success, is about their information concerning subscription numbers? I really hope you are kidding. Illuminati or Lizardfolk?
|
|
Originally posted by a_name
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. As you can see by the definitions, you cannot count time cards unless people have activated them to in order to play/access the game. Thus unused time cards are not counted.
Once a timecard is sold it cannot be tracked by blizzard, but it does not allow access to play the game until it is entered in the billing system.
Therefor each timecard must be entered into the system and furthermore will be associated with a game account.
Furthermore you can read the definition centers around the ACCOUNT being paid, not the amount of time it is active or how many installments it receives. The focus isn't how an account is payed for, but that it is payed for. There are no provisions for method of payment counting multiple times. |
|
Originally posted by zymurgeist
Didn't need to. You did a fine job of research and obviously went to a lot of effort but your assertion is absurd for a variety of reasons that I'm sure many will be chomping at the bit to point out to you.. No dear it looks fine. lol |
|
Originally posted by Daffid011
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. As you can see by the definitions, you cannot count time cards unless people have activated them to in order to play/access the game. Thus unused time cards are not counted.
Once a timecard is sold it cannot be tracked by blizzard, but it does not allow access to play the game until it is entered in the billing system.
Therefor each timecard must be entered into the system and furthermore will be associated with a game account.
Furthermore you can read the definition centers around the ACCOUNT being paid, not the amount of time it is active or how many installments it receives. The focus isn't how an account is payed for, but that it is payed for. There are no provisions for method of payment counting multiple times.
Nay. you combined two lines to read words across them. That would imply that every person that uses a game card has to be using an "Internet Game Room" but they don't, they could be on a personal home computer or a friends' or a work computer etc. "an active prepaid card to play World of Warcraft" Yup, don't want them to have an active card to Aion trying to play WOW. The word play here goes with that warcraft claim - later they just call it "the game" since it's been defined. |
|
|
Another one of these posts? Seriously, get a life. Blizzard numbers are accurate and the world is not out to get you.
|
|
|
I do not disagree that they had those sub numbers when they made the announcements. Although I am not so sure that they still have that many subs, with how quiet they have been about sub numbers since the last announcements. Their last announcements were in the months after WoTLK was released so it was to be expected they were still growing at the time. Who knows how many subscribers they currently have today? I'm sure they still blow away every other MMO, but who knows if its still nearly 12 million or whatever it was up to? |
|
Originally posted by a_name
No, I don't combine them, I read them to cover both situations. A) being time cards and B) being however they pay at internet rooms/cafes. Let me ask you this. When does a time card become active? The moment you purchase it from a store? You can keep that card for years and it will retain the potential to activate your account the moment you enter the code. There is no expiration from the date of purchase. The card only becomes ACTIVE when you associate it with your account.
You have an interesting idea, but so far it is a complete stretch that looks to be debunked. |
|
Originally posted by Daffid011
No, I don't combine them, I read them to cover both situations. A) being time cards and B) being however they pay at internet rooms/cafes. Let me ask you this. When does a time card become active? The moment you purchase it from a store? You can keep that card for years and it will retain the potential to activate your account the moment you enter the code. There is no expiration from the date of purchase. The card only becomes ACTIVE when you associate it with your account.
You have an interesting idea, but so far it is a complete stretch that looks to be debunked. Exactly, the kicker is where I call it the empasse. Who can define what active means. It can't be active when you purchase it because it sits on a store shelf and is shipped, it's active when the key is assigned. Now it becomes an active prepaid card when it has been purchased. It filled out 2 parameters so it's definition changed from just an active card to "an active prepaid card" because the time is not exhausted (in the case of china points). That would make it an "inactive prepaid card" because if I remember right, that's what you put in your post that once used they are "expired" but the site makes no claim about what a not expired card is - they only use one word - active to describe the card. I suppose what you are expecting to read is that they count "an activated prepaid card" but it says active - just plain old active.
You say it's when you put it into the system, I say it's when it's given a key. 50 ppl could come agree with me, 1000 ppl could come agree with you. It still won't make it true on your side so it's not debunked. It would just mean that more ppl look at it that way. This is where the data isn't existent.
I can pose back the question to you, is a prepaid game card with a false number on it active... or inactive? My logic states it to be inactive because the key is invalid - you also call it inactive because it hasn't been typed into the system whether the key is good or not. Would it make sense for you to pass a card with a good key to a friend and say here... take this inactive card and "active" it... or would you say here, take this inactive card and "activate" it... after all, it's inactive until the numbers hit the website, right? If you follow this statement then why is the card not active when it's the reverse, a real, existing key from the wow distributor that is active but has not been "activated" as you are thinking of it, because you say it's when the card is typed in - we can't go past that.
How does an individual... "have an active prepaid card". That says to me, they purchase or are gifted (have) a card with a legitimate key activation number(an active). The act of "activating" the number via the website can be done at your leisure but the "active" card still counts whether "activated" or not because the words only ask that the card is "active" i.e. valid, usable, real, not a fake. ... "to play world of warcraft"... doesn't say "and are playing" "played this week" not even "has an existing account". Just says the card is off a retailer shelf, is intended to be used to play wow, and has a valid (active) key.
See my gist? I can't think of another way to explain it anymore. I didn't see when it expires and if I did have a picture of a chinese card it wouldn't matter because I can't translate it lol |
|
|
My guestimations: 11mil = 5mil ACTUAL PLAYERS + 6mil GOLD SELLER ACCOUNTS Seriously, my mind just boggles at how many GS accounts get banned daily and just replaced 2 min later. And anyone who's going to try and say "Well, they just don't count them", please explain to me how they'd tell the difference until they actually logged in (thus becoming active)? |
|
Originally posted by a_name How could blizzard possibly know when retail cards are sold? That is the flaw in your theory. Once those cards go into the retail system, blizzard has no idea whos hands they are in. You did miss the part where they only count PLAYERS who have PAID ACCESS the game. If you do not enter the time card code, you cannot access the game. You can't play and thus are not a player. Furthermore, every other evidence points to the numbers being true. From the number of active game servers being appropriate to support a player base that size, rankings in the top ten best selling software list all the way to financial statements backing up the revenue of such a playerbase size.
The only thing you have offered is a creative way to look at a word or two when taken out of the context they are presented. You assumption is that blizzard is being crafty, but when you read the entire statement you can see how specific blizzard is being about only counting players with paid access.
As I said, interesting discussion, but nothing of real merit in your theories.
|
|
|
This entire sorry discussion really centers on the OP trying to define 'active' = 'valid' and uses that to prove that Blizzard is misleading about their numbers. This is of course a circular argument since that definition only makes sense if Blizzard is using some weird semantic tricks to try and mislead the public and its shareholders. So if Blizzard is trying to mislead us then they are using the weird definition and therefore are trying to mislead us. There is no actual proof that Blizzard is using that definition or is trying to mislead us. Furthermore if blizzard is using the number of cards sold and not just the number of cards currently paying for an account, then they are grossly understating their numbers.
|
|
Originally posted by ChaosInc
Trial accounts are not included in WoW's numbers. Active players are not the same as actual player base and trial accounts are separate from paid accounts in billing and sign up. It boggles my mind as to how someone could not possibly understand such a basic concept. Goldseller accounts (paid) are vastly fewer than the GS trial mules that do the actual gold transfers. Before posting such ridiculous thoughts maybe you should take some time and do some research. WoW is the most successful MMO in all of MMO gaming history by leaps and bounds and to deny this is purely childish tantrum antics. |
|
Originally posted by Kilmar Nah, that's those johnny foreigner types. ;) |
|
