Originally posted by Skuz

I think MoP will be shown to support the old adage of :

"Stories of my death are somewhat premature"

WoW has a history of population fluctuations & I think that's mostly due to the timescales in which they release content, Morhaime's assment is pretty much how I also see things, MoP will likely annoy a lot of people hoping for WoW to continue to lose subs in millions per quarter.

The King isn't dead just yet.

The quote was actually

The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated

and its by Twain after reading in a New York paper an obitury for himself.

WoW is on the downward spiral and next year, I think, we are going to see major changes at Activision/Bioware.

It's been pointed out once, and it should be pointed out again.

Blizzard just have their most successful quarter ever.

Originally posted by Illyssia

WoW is on the downward spiral and next year, I think, we are going to see major changes at Activision/Bioware.

Bioware isn't part of Activision. I think you are mixing up companies.

Originally posted by lotaparty
some people will agree with me that wow is fastly becoming a sinking ship . yes there are some hardcore type of fans of wow who will not leave the game at any cost but they are very less in quantity . my prediction is that the game will lose its subscribers and be below 1 million mark in two years time . that is my view  though .

Originally posted by dotdotdash

It's been pointed out once, and it should be pointed out again.

Blizzard just have their most successful quarter ever.

@lota

Well if you had sunk several years of your life into a character loaded with achievements, mounts, the best gear each tier has to offer, I don't think you'd want to dump all that work into the trash, would you?

@dotdot

Wasn't that mostly due to their cash shop?

Originally posted by Enigmatus

@dotdot

Wasn't that mostly due to their cash shop?

 

I don't think it matters at all.

Blizzard are a company. Their main goal, at least at this stage in their development, is to increase cashflow and revenues, and to increase the value shareholders get out of the company.

They've achieved that, regardless of how they achieved it. World of Warcraft could tank, but if Blizzard are still reporting year-on-year gains then as far as anyone who matters is concerned... they're achieveing the goals they set out to acheieve.

Originally posted by Enigmatus

I don't really care if people tell me that this game has 9 million people left; I'll point out they had roughly 11 - 12 miliion at the beginning of 2011, and that losing nearly 1/4 of your subscription base in less than 2 years is nothing to laugh at.

From what I also understand, World of Warcraft is implied to be a massive percentage (apparently 60%ish) of Activision Blizzard's profits, so if World of Warcraft doesn't stabilize, they risk losing even more of their money, which means less money will be pushed into the development of World of Warcraft, assuming they actually even put in a fraction of the money they earned into actually improving and evolving the World of Warcraft (considering the snail's pace that which they release content, probably not), which means content may start coming out in even smaller chunks and take even longer to come out, and that's not taking into consideration the fact that they are still pumping money into the development of HotS and Titan, the latter of which is still pretty much a mystery to the general public.

Also, for those who will throw the "they still have 9 million left, that's still far more than the next highest subscription MMO, which is going free to play in the fall and is failing in sub retention," I'd argue to tell that to the investors/shareholders (I forgot which one it was, someone refresh my memory); I'm willing to be that all they are seeing right now is 3 million subscriptions worth of money gone down the drain, and while Blizzard might have been able to stem the worst of the losses with their Annual Passes, Diablo 3, the profits from the cash shop, and I think Starcraft 2, the suits are very likely putting pressure on Blizzard to make sure it doesn't go down any further.

With all that said, they still maintain their throne as King of MMOs, but even then I could argue that the reason they maintained it for so  long was because their competitors between the years 2005 - 2011 were mediocre at best, craptacular at worst, and marred with poor management, and because even though they probably could have put in a lot more into their game, they still put out very polished and apparently enjoyable content in comparison to existing competition.

But now that there is potential competition that might actually be able to force people to think about why they would pay a sub to a game that updates content at the pace of a snail, and whose most recent expansion was generally pretty bland at the end (Dragon Soul doesn't hold a candle to the likes of Icecrown Citadel, or even the supposed weakest raid in that expansion, Trials of the Crusader) to more recent offerings like a game that sets itself in a world of conspiracy, a future game that has a whimsical take on Sci-fi in a Pixar like manner, and a game that, while not some super revolutionary second coming of Christ, improves on many old MMO mechanics by a significant amount. Heck, I'd argue even RIFT is starting to gain some momentum, witht ehir ridiculously fast content output and general polish, although how long that lasts depends on how successful Storm Legion turns out to be.

For those who didn't read the entire thing:

We may not think it's too much of an issue because WoW has many subs left, but if it keeps going, WoW is definitely losing it's throne as the King. IT WON'T DIE, but it's past its prime.

P.S. I still like WoW, I just felt it wasn't enjoyable enough to be worth paying money for, so I talked with my wallet and left.

It seems like most mmos today lose 1/4 of their customers in the first month, let alone over 2 years.

Originally posted by dotdotdash

It's been pointed out once, and it should be pointed out again.

Blizzard just have their most successful quarter ever.

Hmm, that's not really very acccurate as for Activision/ Blizzard  their total revenue fell 6.2 percent to $1.08 billion.

The key thing for them is sustained sales and growth. If they could get about 15 million signing on every week to Battle.net all would be well. However, they can't and WoW subs (their most persistent game) declining means they have an online game system designed to hold 15 to 20 million that has about 9 million or so now. 

Factor into all of this the strong possibility of takeover then you could be talking massive shake-up in Activision/ Blizzard to keep profits. Remember folks now Diablo 3 is launched there isn't really any new game on the near horizon again for the company. The Blizzard bubble may have in reality burst finally.

Originally posted by Praetalus
Bottom line... There is still a shit load of players. Never understood why some of you care so much about blizzards financials. Wait til mop hits and everyone goes back lol. Happens every time. 

And a couple of months later they all leave again because it's still the same WoW from 10 years ago. And those leaving again are taking even more people with them. Yes you are right, every WoW expansion brings a lot of players back, but they are very very rarely staying, and after every expansion released WoW ends up with less subscribers then they had. It's like one step forward, two steps back...

Originally posted by Thorgald

Originally posted by Praetalus
Bottom line... There is still a shit load of players. Never understood why some of you care so much about blizzards financials. Wait til mop hits and everyone goes back lol. Happens every time. 

And a couple of months later they all leave again because it's still the same WoW from 10 years ago. And those leaving again are taking even more people with them. Yes you are right, every WoW expansion brings a lot of players back, but they are very very rarely staying, and after every expansion released WoW ends up with less subscribers then they had. It's like one step forward, two steps back...

if that was the case then i doubt they'd still even have 9m playing, WoW is still the number 1 game, and no matter how hard people try to talk the game down, fact is, no other game even approaches WoW's appeal, and i think thats where a lot of the jealousy stems from, yes MoP will no doubt bring those figures up to 11m again, or at least 10m+ how long they stay, doesnt really matter that much, it just shows that other games, fantasy ones at least, are the 2nd choice. I don't think this is going to change until we get some real innovation in MMO's, though for what its worth, GW2, doesnt have that 'X' factor whatever, that will break the mould, i seriously doubt that any Themepark game will.

Cataclysm was a really bad expansion for WoW. While I didn't like WOTLK at all, I think Cata really dropped the ball. It was only during this expansion that they started bleeding subs like crazy. I think that they made a huge mistake to focus on revamping the 1-60 experience. They spent too much on revamping 1-60 so they didn't release enough endgame content. They failed to release Cata on time, so during the end of Wotlk people got pissed off at the lack of content. Cata failed miserably at delivering  content. I really hope MOP picks up the pace.

They really have to pull their act together because Blizzard is too dependent on WoW at the moment. They need to release more games and stop relying so much on WoW. They still have SC2 HOTS in the pipeline but I am not sure if that is going to be enough. Lets see what Titan and the D3 expansions hold for the future.

I find it really sad that so many PC fans hate so much on Blizzard, even wanting the company to go under. You do realise that Blizzard is one of the very FEW companies still loyal to the PC platform? So many of you hate consoles yet you also hate one of the few wildly successful PC only companies.

I would be very sad if Blizzard go bankrupt...three of the most engaging and popular PC universes will go to waste. Blizzard has been the company which I have always admired and I love their games. But they really need to rethink their strategy as their quality (their major selling point) has been severely lacking recently.

Originally posted by Illyssia
Free-to-play game, e.g. Runescape, have in theory many more players than WoW.

so does Farmville... just saying

Originally posted by fivoroth

Cataclysm was a really bad expansion for WoW. While I didn't like WOTLK at all, I think Cata really dropped the ball. It was only during this expansion that they started bleeding subs like crazy. I think that they made a huge mistake to focus on revamping the 1-60 experience. They spent too much on revamping 1-60 so they didn't release enough endgame content. They failed to release Cata on time, so during the end of Wotlk people got pissed off at the lack of content. Cata failed miserably at delivering  content. I really hope MOP picks up the pace.

They really have to pull their act together because Blizzard is too dependent on WoW at the moment. They need to release more games and stop relying so much on WoW. They still have SC2 HOTS in the pipeline but I am not sure if that is going to be enough. Lets see what Titan and the D3 expansions hold for the future.

I find it really sad that so many PC fans hate so much on Blizzard, even wanting the company to go under. You do realise that Blizzard is one of the very FEW companies still loyal to the PC platform? So many of you hate consoles yet you also hate one of the few wildly successful PC only companies.

I would be very sad if Blizzard go bankrupt...three of the most engaging and popular PC universes will go to waste. Blizzard has been the company which I have always admired and I love their games. But they really need to rethink their strategy as their quality (their major selling point) has been severely lacking recently.

I did check up their wikipedia, and I was surprised at the fact that they have not created any new IPs aside from the currently mysterious Titan; To me, that kind of makes it seem like they are too dependent on these 3 IPs to the point that if all of them were to suffer any major losses, Blizzard doesn't have anything to fall back on.

"Net revenues (including "subscriptions, boxed products, expansion packs, licensing royalties, and value-added services") were $181 million in the latest quarter compared to $359 million in the comparable quarter a year earlier"

50% drop in revenues, that is no drop in the bucket.  Anyone who thinks Mist is going to bring all those people back is not facing reality.  Wow is starting to really show it's age and it will only get worse.

Originally posted by NBlitz

Originally posted by Valua

Originally posted by sammandar

Originally posted by Slampig
OH NO! Only 9.1 million... You know how many a million is, right?

I would not be surprised if we keep hearing this kind of reaction all the way back down to 1 million subs.

 

True, because even at 1 million subs it would still be the largest subscription based MMORPG. You realise that yeah?

 

 

In the West...In the WESTERN world.

I get tired of repeating this...but I'll never give up.

 

IF and only IF WoW ever dipped to as low as 1 million subscribers it would only be a matter of time for the next MMO to snatch WoW's wig...in the West.

We've seen many P2P titles sell over 1 million units in no time flat...retention kicking in afterwards but that's beside the point.

WoW +/- 1 million subs, new kid on the block sells +1 million copies with great retention rate...bam, the true end of WoW's era in the West.

But in the eastern world aren't most MMO's free to play? Especially the large ones, where they rely on their cash shops?

If thats the case, then actually, WoW has more active subscibers than any MMO in the world. (I define a subscriber the same as Blizzard, as someone who has paid to play WoW in the month.)

Also, no MMO in the entire world makes even close to the money Blizzard makes from WoW.

Also, it's not easy for any MMO to keep retention, I can't actually think of any that has kept it's players for long other than WoW in the west. 

So I still believe that even at 1 million subs WoW would still be the largest MMO in the west, possibly in the world.

Originally posted by Valua

Originally posted by NBlitz

Originally posted by Valua

Originally posted by sammandar

Originally posted by Slampig
OH NO! Only 9.1 million... You know how many a million is, right?

I would not be surprised if we keep hearing this kind of reaction all the way back down to 1 million subs.

 

True, because even at 1 million subs it would still be the largest subscription based MMORPG. You realise that yeah?

 

 

In the West...In the WESTERN world.

I get tired of repeating this...but I'll never give up.

 

IF and only IF WoW ever dipped to as low as 1 million subscribers it would only be a matter of time for the next MMO to snatch WoW's wig...in the West.

We've seen many P2P titles sell over 1 million units in no time flat...retention kicking in afterwards but that's beside the point.

WoW +/- 1 million subs, new kid on the block sells +1 million copies with great retention rate...bam, the true end of WoW's era in the West.

 

But in the eastern world aren't most MMO's free to play? Especially the large ones, where they rely on their cash shops?

If thats the case, then actually, WoW has more active subscibers than any MMO in the world. (I define a subscriber the same as Blizzard, as someone who has paid to play WoW in the month.)

Also, no MMO in the entire world makes even close to the money Blizzard makes from WoW.

Also, it's not easy for any MMO to keep retention, I can't actually think of any that has kept it's players for long other than WoW in the west. 

So I still believe that even at 1 million subs WoW would still be the largest MMO in the west, possibly in the world.

I don't know about most, but just looking at the ones in the top list currently in South-Korea (http://www.gametrics.com/) the MMOs (Blade & Soul, Aion, TERA) listed there are P2P. 

"Since commercialization, B&S has been taking the lead of the online player number."

Keep in mind before B&S, Aion was the most played P2P MMO in South-Korea until B&S launched. Aion sat at an easy 3.5 million subs (most of it in S-Korea).

B&S has yet to launch in the rest of the world...just wow. 

I don't know about that.

Not big but steady: EvE.

Yes.

No.