Originally posted by Eir_S

Originally posted by slickbizzle

Originally posted by escarreta
Can someone explain me what are doing 7.3 million players in wow? If was sold just 2.7 million and has 10 million subscribers...

 

Same way it had 12 million "subscribers" and sold 4-5 million copies of Cata. China doesn't buy the game or expansions.  It's free. They pay for time played.    So now, they have 10 million "subscribers" and sold 2.7 million copies worldwide. 

So essentially, their "subscription" numbers never meant much.

To paraphrase someone in a now-locked thread, this is the first expansion to sell less than the previous one, how is that a good thing?

To put it into better perspective:

Units sold by expansion:

Vanilla(2004)

    240,000 within the first 24 hours

The Burning Crusade

    2.4 million within the first 24 hours
    3.5 million within the month

Wrath of the Lich King

    2.8 million within the first 24 hours

Cataclysm

    3.3 million within the first 24 hours
    4.7 million within the month

Mists of Panderia

    2.7 million within the first week

Subscriber Base Timeline

    DEC 2005 - 5 million
    JUL 2007 - 8 million
    JAN 2008 - Over 10 million
    OCT 2010 - Over 12 million
    May 2011 - 10.3 million
    AUG 2012 - 9.1 million
    OCT 2012 - Over 10 million

As anyone can see MoP has fallen short of evry expansion that preceeds it. Take into account that 3Q reports that 1.1 million subscribers canceled accounts and its not looking good.  We all know that Blizzard releases statistics when they find it to thier benefit.

Lets not forget that though MoP may have 10 million subscribers right now, it is a fair bet that come January when the yearly D3 sub is up for many that that number will fall by alot more than many may realize.

(Thanks to Reddit for the stats :D)

Originally posted by Slampig

Originally posted by Truelevel
How much more content will WoW have in the future,,, Can they keep it up?

Why couldn't they? If SOE can keep pumping out expansions for EverQuest I don't see why Blizzard can't keep putting out new expansions for  their game as well.

Exactly. As long they make money, Wow will continue to pump up content. And after all this years I was never bored with any expansion. Actually every expansion was able to pump in a lot of fresh air and keep me busy for up to half year before leveled all my alts or needed detour for other reasons. With any game out there is best to quit for some time after maybe few months to keep interest fresh and to try other games. Wow, swtor, gw2, rift, ... will sure keep me busy for many many years to come.

I think MOP launched at a bit of an inopportune time, what with DS3, TSW to a lesser extent, and GW2 releasing right in front of it. (and some other good single player titles if I recall correctly, I don't follow that market much)

I think many WOW vets are currently tied up in some other titles right now, but fully intend to play MOP once they get some free time in their schedule.

For many WOW players, they know it won't take long to burn through the new levels and jump on the gear grind treadmill again, so there's not quite the same rush.  I'll bet over a bit longer period of time MOP sales will catch up to Cata's and it certainly will make Blizz a bunch of money.

My son and his 5 friends were all avid WOW players, but right now not one of them is currently playing nor bought the expansion.

But they are thinking about it.  One or two are trying to coax the others, and the consensus seems to be maybe around Christmas break, since they are all too busy right now with school and other activities.

The game is 8 years old people. There comes a point where you can not expect every expansion to always outside the previous expansion. What would that say for WoW if every expansion sold more or 2x as many copies as the previous expansion? You would be looking at a game that would virtually never die if that was the case.

In all reality 2.7 million copies in even 1 week is freakin amazing. Most MMO's in general would die to sell that many copies an increase its subscription numbers 8 years into its life cycle.

When its all said and done I have no doubt that MoP will sell over 4 million copies within the next 3 months. Most MMOs in general would die to sell 4 million copies of an expansion.

One thing also to take into account MoP is not a required expansion to play the game. If your into just arenas MoP is not required to do arenas, rated bgs, dungeons, ect. If you wish to do the latest raid content that you will need to have MoP but not everyone is into raiding.

Originally posted by Mothanos

 

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Originally posted by Zylaxx

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Originally posted by Truelevel How much more content will WoW have in the future,,, Can they keep it up?

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No because pretty soon everyone will have leveled up all the needed faction and then be on the sidelines waiting once every 9 months for the next patch.

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This is what made alot of people rage quit, after the promise from Blizzard to push out contend faster and more frequently.
Instead they lied and let people pay for 10 months without any serious contend update.
Combine this with all the rage over the panda's and catering to the asia market and you see why they sold 2.7 mill in 1 week instead of 4 million compared to Cataclysmn.

Its still a massive number tough wich i dint realy expected, but they are way lower then Cataclysm and thats a bad sign for Blizzard.
We all know MMO's sky rocket in a patch / expansion and bleed dry in the months after that.

Q4 will be something alot of stock holders are interested in as we can see how long retention MoP has.

 

People like yourself keep blaming pandas and the asian theme for the drop in sales but I can tell you for myself and everyone I know the reason the sales are poorer is because of cataclysm. That expansion was crap. The game has lost close to 3 million subs since Cata came out, to sell 2.7 million in one week is pretty good.

Percentage wise comparing sales with sub numbers the expansion sold as well as the previous ones did.

Originally posted by Thomas2006

The game is 8 years old people. There comes a point where you can not expect every expansion to always outside the previous expansion. What would that say for WoW if every expansion sold more or 2x as many copies as the previous expansion? You would be looking at a game that would virtually never die if that was the case.

In all reality 2.7 million copies in even 1 week is freakin amazing. Most MMO's in general would die to sell that many copies an increase its subscription numbers 8 years into its life cycle.

When its all said and done I have no doubt that MoP will sell over 4 million copies within the next 3 months. Most MMOs in general would die to sell 4 million copies of an expansion.

One thing also to take into account MoP is not a required expansion to play the game. If your into just arenas MoP is not required to do arenas, rated bgs, dungeons, ect. If you wish to do the latest raid content that you will need to have MoP but not everyone is into raiding.

Did people honestly think the game would keep growing forever? It is unbelievable that it did. Look at SWTOR and GW2. Those games didn't even make a complete month before the population began to decline.....

WoW continues to have massive amounts of players for a decade to come.
But what people are aware of is that WoW lost its touch.
Blizzard is milking their players dry to the bone and many players are not buying into the hype again.

People wont forget they paid 10 months worth of subs for a bad expansion with no contend updates.
This reflect MoP sales directly, if Cataclysm was a huge succes MoP would have sold more then Cataclysm.

This is not the case and 10 million subs ? realy ? 7 million dont pay a sub they pay per hour ... 1 cent per hour :P
2.7 million boxes sold included digital + box sales is not bad, but it aint good by a long shot either, it shows WoW is losing its ground and people are turning away from it.

And this is Blizzards faulth, not haters / fanboys / marketing / GW2, if Blizzard would hold on their promises and do more for the playerbase and dint add panda's It would have been a huge succes.

I dont believe stockholders or Blizzard finance managers are happy with this result.
Unless they dont care anymore and just try to milk out the players as much as they can before Titan is releasing.

Originally posted by Mothanos

WoW continues to have massive amounts of players for a decade to come.
But what people are aware of is that WoW lost its touch.
Blizzard is milking their players dry to the bone and many players are not buying into the hype again.

People wont forget they paid 10 months worth of subs for a bad expansion with no contend updates.
This reflect MoP sales directly, if Cataclysm was a huge succes MoP would have sold more then Cataclysm.

This is not the case and 10 million subs ? realy ? 7 million dont pay a sub they pay per hour ... 1 cent per hour :P
2.7 million boxes sold included digital + box sales is not bad, but it aint good by a long shot either, it shows WoW is losing its ground and people are turning away from it.

And this is Blizzards faulth, not haters / fanboys / marketing / GW2, if Blizzard would hold on their promises and do more for the playerbase and dint add panda's It would have been a huge succes.

I dont believe stockholders or Blizzard finance managers are happy with this result.
Unless they dont care anymore and just try to milk out the players as much as they can before Titan is releasing.

 

It's fairly obvious WoW is in "milking" mode, and has been for awhile. Any of the original team from WoW still at Blizzard was reallocated to Titan. I thought I remembered reading that the live team and expansion team are now one in the same for WoW. They will keep on making content until people stop paying all together, which probably won't be for a long, long time.

Originally posted by Kaneth

Originally posted by Mothanos

WoW continues to have massive amounts of players for a decade to come.
But what people are aware of is that WoW lost its touch.
Blizzard is milking their players dry to the bone and many players are not buying into the hype again.

People wont forget they paid 10 months worth of subs for a bad expansion with no contend updates.
This reflect MoP sales directly, if Cataclysm was a huge succes MoP would have sold more then Cataclysm.

This is not the case and 10 million subs ? realy ? 7 million dont pay a sub they pay per hour ... 1 cent per hour :P
2.7 million boxes sold included digital + box sales is not bad, but it aint good by a long shot either, it shows WoW is losing its ground and people are turning away from it.

And this is Blizzards faulth, not haters / fanboys / marketing / GW2, if Blizzard would hold on their promises and do more for the playerbase and dint add panda's It would have been a huge succes.

I dont believe stockholders or Blizzard finance managers are happy with this result.
Unless they dont care anymore and just try to milk out the players as much as they can before Titan is releasing.

 

It's fairly obvious WoW is in "milking" mode, and has been for awhile. Any of the original team from WoW still at Blizzard was reallocated to Titan. I thought I remembered reading that the live team and expansion team are now one in the same for WoW. They will keep on making content until people stop paying all together, which probably won't be for a long, long time.

The content they make is easily worth £8.99 a month though, you are only being milked if you hate the game but are for some reason still paying a sub or buying stuff from there over priced store.

Originally posted by Mothanos

WoW continues to have massive amounts of players for a decade to come.
But what people are aware of is that WoW lost its touch.
Blizzard is milking their players dry to the bone and many players are not buying into the hype again.

People wont forget they paid 10 months worth of subs for a bad expansion with no contend updates.
This reflect MoP sales directly, if Cataclysm was a huge succes MoP would have sold more then Cataclysm.

This is not the case and 10 million subs ? realy ? 7 million dont pay a sub they pay per hour ... 1 cent per hour :P
2.7 million boxes sold included digital + box sales is not bad, but it aint good by a long shot either, it shows WoW is losing its ground and people are turning away from it.

And this is Blizzards faulth, not haters / fanboys / marketing / GW2, if Blizzard would hold on their promises and do more for the playerbase and dint add panda's It would have been a huge succes.

I dont believe stockholders or Blizzard finance managers are happy with this result.
Unless they dont care anymore and just try to milk out the players as much as they can before Titan is releasing.

 

The end of the world (of warcraft) is nigh.

Well I was a huge critic of Pandaria when they showed the trailer ,but after buying it and playing it I have to say I am enjoying it very much and glad I got it. I am now a fan of the expansion. I hated Cataclysm,but this expansion has some similar feel as BC did even though it is a different story to it. I love the fact that everyone cannot fly until 90 to take time and explore and enjoy what they have created for us to play. If you are thinking about buying it I can tell you from my own experience that you might be pleasantly surprise. Know this the quests are pretty much the way they have always been with a few new ones,but the look of the expansion for old graphics looks really good. Anyway not gonna sit here and be a "fan" boy. If your skeptical and have enjoy Blizzards WoW in the past I think you will change your mind if you buy it.I know I am having a blast with it:P

Originally posted by Akumawraith

Originally posted by Eir_S

Originally posted by slickbizzle

Originally posted by escarreta
Can someone explain me what are doing 7.3 million players in wow? If was sold just 2.7 million and has 10 million subscribers...

 

Same way it had 12 million "subscribers" and sold 4-5 million copies of Cata. China doesn't buy the game or expansions.  It's free. They pay for time played.    So now, they have 10 million "subscribers" and sold 2.7 million copies worldwide. 

So essentially, their "subscription" numbers never meant much.

To paraphrase someone in a now-locked thread, this is the first expansion to sell less than the previous one, how is that a good thing?

To put it into better perspective:

Units sold by expansion:

Vanilla(2004)

    240,000 within the first 24 hours

The Burning Crusade

    2.4 million within the first 24 hours
    3.5 million within the month

Wrath of the Lich King

    2.8 million within the first 24 hours

Cataclysm

    3.3 million within the first 24 hours
    4.7 million within the month

Mists of Panderia

    2.7 million within the first week

Subscriber Base Timeline

    DEC 2005 - 5 million
    JUL 2007 - 8 million
    JAN 2008 - Over 10 million
    OCT 2010 - Over 12 million
    May 2011 - 10.3 million
    AUG 2012 - 9.1 million
    OCT 2012 - Over 10 million

As anyone can see MoP has fallen short of evry expansion that preceeds it. Take into account that 3Q reports that 1.1 million subscribers canceled accounts and its not looking good.  We all know that Blizzard releases statistics when they find it to thier benefit.

Lets not forget that though MoP may have 10 million subscribers right now, it is a fair bet that come January when the yearly D3 sub is up for many that that number will fall by alot more than many may realize.

(Thanks to Reddit for the stats :D)

I'd be interested to know if the current 10 million who are subscribed are mostly the same people as 4 years ago or are new people.

Generally speaking, the problem with all games is that you get bored of them.

I bet 90% of the players where from EU / USA back then.
Today its 75% asia and 25% EU+ USA combined.

for what its worth, i hope it was intended move to conquer asia with panda's as they made alot more EU/USA players quit then any previous expansions.

EU pays 12.99 a month
Asia pays 1 cent per hour

lets see their profit in Q4 to see how much income they lost verus subs they gained in asia and what brings in more profit for BLizzard.

This has a direct effect on money throw into the game, or lack off money thrown into the game.

It seems to me Titan is almost comming out of the shadows, we should see some glimpse within the upcomming months i think.

Originally posted by Truelevel
How much more content will WoW have in the future,,, Can they keep it up?

      I think they can keep up the content, the question is will the content be believable?.....I mean if were getting kung fu Panda in this expansion, who knows what comes next?

Originally posted by strangiato2112

Originally posted by asmkm22

Originally posted by FrodoFragins

That sounds believable.  Cata sold 3.3million in 24 hours but turned off a lot of players.  They had to expect a drop in sales on this expansion.  2.7 million in a week is nothing to sneeze at.  I wonder how many people are actively playing in MoP in Asia.  I'd assume they've lost roughly the same % of players as well, but who knows.

 

It shows just how many people are looking for alternatives to WOW in games like SWTOR and GW2.  Rift could have been huge if it was based on a well known IP.

 

Rift didn't need a well-known IP.  Just an interesting one.

Bingo.  Rifts lack of success had nothing to do with lack of established IP, as all an established IP does is draw customers to try your game, and Rift had absolutely zero issues getting people to try their game.  They just have had very poor retention.  For all Rift does right it is devoid of soul.

Not really.  Rift only attracted a fraction of the number of players for SWTOR or GW2.  Even though the market was craving a replacement for WOW when Rift released.

All of the top MMO sales in the western market were for well known IPs.  WOW, EQ2, LOTRO, AOC, WAR, SWTOR and GW2.

Rift did great considering it was an unknown dev and IP.  But it would have attracted probably twice as many people if it had a well known IP attached.  I think that's a large reason why games like TERA, Aion and TSW struggled to even sell boxes.

Rift is really the exception to the rule though as they probably sold close to what AOC and WAR did.

Originally posted by Mothanos

 

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Originally posted by Zylaxx

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Originally posted by Truelevel How much more content will WoW have in the future,,, Can they keep it up?

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No because pretty soon everyone will have leveled up all the needed faction and then be on the sidelines waiting once every 9 months for the next patch.

---

 

This is what made alot of people rage quit, after the promise from Blizzard to push out contend faster and more frequently.
Instead they lied and let people pay for 10 months without any serious contend update.
Combine this with all the rage over the panda's and catering to the asia market and you see why they sold 2.7 mill in 1 week instead of 4 million compared to Cataclysmn.

Its still a massive number tough wich i dint realy expected, but they are way lower then Cataclysm and thats a bad sign for Blizzard.
We all know MMO's sky rocket in a patch / expansion and bleed dry in the months after that.

Q4 will be something alot of stock holders are interested in as we can see how long retention MoP has.

 

I don't recall this much controversy when they catered to the Viking market with Wrath.

Originally posted by rygard49

Originally posted by Mothanos

This is what made alot of people rage quit, after the promise from Blizzard to push out contend faster and more frequently.
Instead they lied and let people pay for 10 months without any serious contend update.
Combine this with all the rage over the panda's and catering to the asia market and you see why they sold 2.7 mill in 1 week instead of 4 million compared to Cataclysmn.

Its still a massive number tough wich i dint realy expected, but they are way lower then Cataclysm and thats a bad sign for Blizzard.
We all know MMO's sky rocket in a patch / expansion and bleed dry in the months after that.

Q4 will be something alot of stock holders are interested in as we can see how long retention MoP has.

 

I don't recall this much controversy when they catered to the Viking market with Wrath.

Well, apparently the Viking/Norse market is perceived as manly and mature, while pandas are perceived as cute, cuddly, or in Kung Fu Panda's case, SKADOOSH!

...P.S. Both are still awesome regardless.

Originally posted by Teala
I and my partner still haven't bought Mist of Pandaria and we're letting our subs go this month.    We did the Mist beta and didn't like the changes they made to the talent trees or the cross character achievements.   That means that for the first time since 2004, neither of us will have a WoW account.    We did like the new Panda's and Pandaria, we just didn't like the changes that came with it to the core game play.   Blizzard lost two fans here.  I wonder how many others feel as we do?

/waves hand furiously in air

My partner and I are right there with you guys.  For the first time since 2004, neither of us has a WoW account right now and for the same reasons you mentioned and even more than that.  I used to think Blizz could do no wrong, you know, like paparadelios does (another forumite).   We no longer believe that hooey.