"The survey results have Lazard Capital projecting a potential 900,000-1.6million player drop due to the the imminent launch of Star Wars: The Old Republic alone. 50% of those who were actively subscribed to World of Warcraft during the time of the survey stated they would be purchasing The Old Republic, while 38% said they may pick up the title."

Wow, that's a huge bite out of the WoW population. I can say for a fact that TOR is awesome and I'm pretty sure it's going to lead to a serious decline in WoW's numbers.

SWTOR is the hot news atm, but once people realize how limited the content on a new game is, they will be back playing Wow in no time.

Originally posted by Ozmodan

SWTOR is the hot news atm, but once people realize how limited the content on a new game is, they will be back playing Wow in no time.

agree sheeps will be sheeps what can you do?

Activsion/Blizzard are parasites on MMO/Gaming industry they suck all money and blurt out crap products that people keep on buying GODS KNOWS WHY...

WHATS WITH YOU PEOPLE STOP FEED THESES CASH COWS

World of Warcraft out dated game now pandas? Cata was bad and worst expasion to date and u think adding pandas going make a better game? Same crap over n over

Call of Duty = COW CASHING on HYPE and reputation nothing more look at Modern warefare 3 its same BS since COD 4 its same gameplay since CoD4 its same CRAP OVER N  OVER

dont you guys see the patten? its a marketing scam and they very lucky people are sheeps  sooner or later people will realize this and stop feeding this fat bad company money they dont diserve for theses half arsed crap they call games

Battlefield 3 is a game Call of Duty is not a game they do same crap over n over Battlfield did try new things and used new engine

Blizzard Activtion used a 12 year old Quake engine same since GODS KNOW HOW LONG

dont get me wrong quake is good but this just goes show these sheeps that do wat others do and follow the hype

Expect the same announcement when GW2 is about to launch. Who knew WOW was the newest speculation spot on Wall Street?

I just ask my self.... What would Tyrion Lanister do?

Most answers are most likley best not put in to reality.

But honestly anyone thinking that WoW will not loose a good chunk of players is in denial... Anyone who blame it at the pandas is a fool... And in the end wpeople will play the games they find fun any way.

Originally posted by Dracondis

Welcome to the business cycle.  Everyone moves from game to game.  WoW toi EQ2, back to WoW, to Rift, back to WoW, to SWTOR, back to WoW...

I see a pattern emerging...

 

Untill now theres been some truth in that . But its simply because the games out there havn't either been that good or havn't had mass appeal . Also a lot of people playing Rift at the moment are one time WoW players and many of them havn't gone back because Rifts a solid enough game to keep them interested . The problem with your theory is its based on past games and past Warcraft .

StarWarsTOR is a totally different beast from anything you or I have experianced in the last 7 years since WoW was released .

I don't know if you've been in the beta or not but if you had been I've a feeling you would be less certain that the majority of players will find themselves back in WoW .  Also the problem is Blizzard needs to have a major rethink about WoW and look to why its losing subs but they are on cruise control .

Blizzard need to give bored players something intresting and challenging again and that needs changes at the top and some new blood to come in and shake things up .

You see Blizzard needs to give players something to come back to and untill they do there is nothing to come back to .

And Pandas just don't cut it . They really need to cancel this expansion and release something people can get excited about .

381 players is a truly pathetic survey quantity given the scale of the MMO marketplace as a whole.

I've no issue with downgrading stocks & tbh I would have given the article more credibility if it had been made without mentioning the survey at all, since Activision Blizzard themselves already said they lost a million subs & the marketing behemoth that will surely rev it's engines in earnest come the start of December for SWTOR's release is bound to have an impact.

But, 381, if anything the "survey" does more to highlight the severe lack of understanding about the MMO marketplace that the "money-men" have, i.e. it's woefully inadequate to make any kind of judgements based on such a paltry number, it's like sniffing the bath-water without going any closer than 50-feet.

I think it's insane that the stock would drop based on stockholders assumption that a 7+ year old game won't experience a subscriber loss.  They just released a smash hit FPS and the outlook is still downgraded.  Investors are more jittery than a tasmanian devil on red bull.

Originally posted by Abdar

http://kotaku.com/5857400/call-of-duty-modern-warfare-3-shatters-all-sales-records-surprises-no-one

I'm not putting much stock in this thread. WoW, albeit important income for the company, isn't it's only hand that feeds.

 

You honestly think Kotick would prop up an under-performing title? lolololololololololol. That man is purely profit driven.

I also, love how people don't understand the basics of "Surveys". Surveys, by design, require only a small number of participants to get an accurate number.

http://www.sciencebuddies.org/science-fair-projects/project_ideas/Soc_participants.shtml

OOOOOOH MAAAAH GAAAWD, The analyst's survey has an error of ~5.12%. Yes, clearly he should have sampled all ~13million current AND former WoW players.

On a side note, I do wonder if the survey account for that Annual Pass gimic...christ I wished I had watched the BlizzCon '11 and stayed up-to-date with the "next expansion"-talk; I would have paid the ~$60 for D3 and dropped WoW......pandas??? seriously?! Just because retards thought that an April Fools joke was "awesome".....

Why are people even still playing this game?  There's little to no social interaction and the quality of "RPG" is sorely lacking compared to any even decent RPG, let alone something as titanic as Skyrim right now.  So, what's the point?  'X' million asshats running around showing each other their e-peen in purple text still?   Fascinating that since '04 nothing has changed in this joke of a genre.

Originally posted by mgilbrtsn

I know this is 'news', but let it go.  Are we going to have to hear every about every event that marks the decline of WOW.  It was bound to happen eventually, let it go.  People love this topic and I just don't get it.  LET IT GO.  The guy back in 1900 who predicted that WOW would decline is indeed nostrodamous.  He predicted it, let him take all the credit in the world and move on.

 

10 million people subscribed to this game and you don't get why it's a popular point of discussion?  For the same reason that people can't agree to disagree abotu politics and religion...stupidity, obviously. :)

wow will be around for a long log time.  I'll will be playing it as long as it is around.  all the little kids that get bored easy will jump ship but will come back once there is something new.

maybe the guy never heard of a worldwide crisis that hits especialy hard on europe and the usa and that this could be one of the reason's why some people stop playing?

D3, MoP and the SC2 expansion will raise the stock rating quite a bit imo.

The drop in subscribers is NOT due to StarWars coming out, or "age" of the game, as you put it.  I was offended by your article and you do not speak for the huge number of people who have left the game.  You obviously do not have your finger on the pulse of the playing community.

The reason people left the game is that when Cataclysm came out, they re-wired the game completely.  They changed how a lot of classes worked and nerfed some of them so badly, they were unplayable and the game become unenjoyable.  All the years you put into a beloved character and it was no longer what you originally picked to play.  That was not a good plan, Blizz.

Next, they changed raiding to be so ridiculous that only a few could do it.  You have to be able to click your mouse while standing on your head and rubbing your tummy, run through fire, heal or cast spells, fight, and get yelled at by your leader for not doing it precisely.  It was a game changer.

Blizz seemed to no longer care for the casual player, which is the 50% that they lost and perhaps more.  Some just stay because they love the game so much. 

Those are the real reasons why the game is not doing well.  It doesn't matter how "old" the game is or that some new one, and there are several, is coming out.  WoW fans are too loyal to leave for silly things like that.  The changes in the game are what killed it.  It is still savable.

Blizzard is being run by a bunch of fools with stupid ideas.  You reap what you sow.  Fix what you have broken and nerfed and the game will be loved and playable, once again.

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Originally posted by ambiorix
maybe the guy never heard of a worldwide crisis that hits especialy hard on europe and the usa and that this could be one of the reason's why some people stop playing?

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WoW can't possibly be losing 900k to 1.6 million players, since it doesn't have that many to begin with. You can't count somebody who downloaded a free trial or registered for the game or played a few months or years or just periodically as a regular player.  Most WoW players left the game years ago or only play it off and on, with so many quality free games out there like DDO (best combat system EVER), LOTRO (WoW clone done better than WoW), City of Heroes/Villains, and now DC Universe Online, among others.  I usually play WoW 1 or 2 months a year so my roommate and I can get our fixes of something different, grab the free Christmas junk, and get sick of it all over again and then cancel it til the next year so we can get back to playing actual fun games.  I seriously doubt WoW has 500k active subscribers who play it every month.  

Originally posted by spyyder976

WoW can't possibly be losing 900k to 1.6 million players, since it doesn't have that many to begin with. You can't count somebody who downloaded a free trial or registered for the game or played a few months or years or just periodically as a regular player.

there's one in every thread.  they are very strict about who they count as a subscriber for these numbers.  If they used your definition the numbers would never go down.

Originally posted by lizardbones

A great many of the people who stopped playing were in China. Which is odd, because they're making even more money from their Chinese subscriptions (or however they gather the money in...wheelbarrows probably).

Do you base that on any actual numbers? The article said nothing about where people quitting are from, and Blizzard have as far as I know been quit about it as well, last time they mentioned how big percentage of their players were from China was in early 2009 to my knowledge.

And they don't make more money on Chinese customers, no way. The company that manages the game in China want some of the profits as well, and the hourly fee model in China will only generate more money from absolute fanatics.

It ios of course possible that Chinese people buy more junk in the cash shop, but westerners buy some crap as well so I doubt they earn more on Chinese players, particularly without any good numbers supporting it.

All that said, downgrading the stocks just based on Wow is stupid unless they know something about Diablo 3 that we don't know. Blizzard is more than Wow and A-B is more than Blizzard. For all we know might Diablo 3 become a really huge success that will pull in more money than Wow are "losing".