I guess ultimatly boths haters and lovers of WoW can take something from the figures .

Remember they are an approximation still Blizzard states this themselves but lets for arguements sake assume they are correct .

For haters . Blizzard didnt't release day one figures for MoP and waited till they could put a possative spin on  them . As industry analysts have pointed out this still points to a 30 percent decline overall since the release of cataclysm and WoW is expected to continue its slow downward trend in a few months time .

http://www.vg247.com/2012/10/04/mists-of-pandaria-sales-show-30-decline-over-cataclysm-sales-says-analyst/comment-page-1/

For Lovers . Its a vindication for Blizzard that MoP wasn't as badly recieved as some peolple had suspected . Its boosted subscriber numbers by a million and whos to say the downward trend will continue . Warcraft has bucked the tred many times before .

I still play WoW now and again but I wouldn't say I love it as much as I once did nor do I hate it .So i'll try and take the balanced view . I was there at the start of MoP for about a week untill my sub ran out . I havn't brough MoP ( i ll wait untill its on offer sometime in the future ) . What I saw was a boost in players but when I compare the number of high/full english speaking servers at release of MoP to Cata there were 15-18  compared to 35-40 . Which was quite a drop . There were a few locked servers and few more medium ones and a lot of low severs .

I have looked at the us realm status servers they appear to be doing a lot better than the EU ones so maybe being fair the bulk of the boost in subs come from them and not the EU ones .

My thoughts about the annoucement of the 2.7 is Blizzard choosing to use the word appoximately to describe the numbers when they were talking about Cataclysm were quite happy to use "over 3.3. million " and not approximately 3.3 million .

Maybe I'm getting cynical in my old age but when I hear a politician saying something is approximately this or that I tend to get the feeling  hes putting a possative spin on something . You see approximations are evasive by thier nature they arn't exactly lies but theres a lot of room for maneuvre when you use the word .

Say a politican says theres approximately been a loss of 3 million dollar on something or another and it turns out to be 4 million . When hes questioned about this his answer will always be "it was only an approximation based on what sources gave us at the time " .

This makes me think Blizzard may have used analysts numbers  from the likes of Brean, Murray, Carret and Co rather than data they have collected themselves .

Then again I could be wrong .  Approximately is just a word after all . It could be a slip of the tounge . But then again the devil could be in the details .

Edit that title should read " prove something " .

Not that suprising, I thought it would be less actually.

They have alienated a lot of players with this addon (wtf..kung fu panda?) and MANY have quit before it's release (including myself)

The funny thing is they still claim to have 10-11 million members, yet only 2.7 have bought the addon over the first week (compared to previous addons which sold over 3 mil on day 1). Hmm..... :P

Originally posted by Grunch
I wonder how much of their budget is used on marketing. They seem to have the most advertising then any other mmorpg. I see commercials for MoP on ESPN all the time. Also during football etc. Back in the day they would just pay some guy to put on a panda costume and go door to door informing people about the latest expansion.

Should be somewhat above 100 Million US$ on top of regular marketing expenses for the last quarter and about 200-250 Million in total (inc. other Activision games and general expenses).  They easily topped the volume and frequency of Cataclysms advertising, so it should be at least higher than during Cata.

Additional MOP boxsales + renewed subscription revenues on top of regular WoW sales should be around 150 Million US$, and somewhere between 300-350 Million in total (for WoW) for the (last ) 3rd quarter.

Hello, does anyone really knows if Blizzard still have 10milion subscribers, as I was reading that this number is not correct: if someone buys 2 game cards, this count as 2 subscribers, is that correct? Thx for the answer.

Originally posted by Letsinod
So basically their 8 year old game's XPac sold more copies than almost any other MMO on the market.  How disappointing...

Originally posted by smh_alot

Originally posted by Letsinod
So basically their 8 year old game's XPac sold more copies than almost any other MMO on the market.  How disappointing...

 

Well, with a playerbase of still around 9-10 mln, had you really expected anything else?

 

However, SWTOR had around 2 mln sales after launch and GW2 apparently too, so that's not that far off compared to WoW's sales number, pretty damn close actually. Also, 2.7 mln sales for a 10 mln playerbase - or let's say half of that outside of China - not that impressive imo.

 

Game is 8 years old for God sakes. If GW2 and SWTOR sells 2+ million expansion packs after 8 years and have player base of around 10 million then come back and tell us how you feel.

Not impressed...yeah no surprise there. People have been trying to down play success of WOW for years now.

im still kinda confused why anyone gives two snots about WoW's XP selling X amount.  if WoW has 2mill users then its pretty self evident that 2mill will buy the xp. so going "oh GW2 only sold 1mill copies but wow's xp sold 2mill" is dumb. thats like the old mcdonalds total burgers sold sign... 

now if blizzard makes a WoW 2.0 and that sells 2mill copies then ill be impressed. until then, who cares about XPs :/  people still playing wow will have to buy it so the numbers arent really impressive at all :/ 

Originally posted by NasherUK

Not that suprising, I thought it would be less actually.

 

They have alienated a lot of players with this addon (wtf..kung fu panda?) and MANY have quit before it's release (including myself)

 

The funny thing is they still claim to have 10-11 million members, yet only 2.7 have bought the addon over the first week (compared to previous addons which sold over 3 mil on day 1). Hmm..... :P

But was MOP released in China and Brazil, if not then you can see why the sales would not reflect the sub base.

Originally posted by Istavaan
so much for the 10 million subs, we can all call that bs now.

You know something? insider informaiton? would like to share with rest of us your facts?

Originally posted by Letsinod
So basically their 8 year old game's XPac sold more copies than almost any other MMO on the market.  How disappointing...

Actually....

It IS disappointing when you compare WoW against, well....WoW.  When the player base is several TIMES what they sold in expansions, that is disheartening.  I think it's very telling, and it's not telling anything good.  Other xpacs sold more than MoP.  This is a downward shift even if small. 

For an 8 y/o game 2.7 millions boxes are not bad at all, decline or not.

I didn't bouight MOP because I don't like Pandas, but kudos to Blizzard for convincing 2.7 Millions the expansion was good enough

Originally posted by just1opinion

Originally posted by Letsinod
So basically their 8 year old game's XPac sold more copies than almost any other MMO on the market.  How disappointing...

Actually....

It IS disappointing when you compare WoW against, well....WoW.  When the player base is several TIMES what they sold in expansions, that is disheartening.  I think it's very telling, and it's not telling anything good.

BC, WOTLK , Cata all sold not even half compared to their total player base. yes they sold more than MOP but if you are going to compare it to the total population, back then WOW had 11 million players. So i guess WOW has been telling us something for 6 to 7 years now? guess all those expacs were disheartning too.

MoP was not released in china during that number count. But still it says something when a 8 year old game manages to sale more copies of its expansion then most new MMO's coming out.

Just an FYI. Not only did i not get the figures wrong, but it is as bad as I claimed. For the record not a hater of WoW itself, but of those who took it to the terrible direction they took it to without the slightest concern for players needs or innovation.

http://www.vg247.com/2012/09/28/mists-of-pandaria-sales-below-expectations-says-analyst-firm/

Huge typo in two places, 1st is the claim that it was 700k first week, it was the actual sales the first day.

Second, their comparison to Cata's sales fails to take this time period into account. Cata's sales were 3.3mil the first day not the first week. 

http://venturebeat.com/2010/12/13/record-braking-world-of-warcraft-cataclysm-sells-3-3m-units-in-its-first-day-of-sales/

Claiming that these sales are a good thing, for a company as big as bllzzard is being nearsighted. 2.7 mil in the first week is a warning sign.

And finally it's only a matter of time for people to burn thru it because there was such little content people burned thru it in two months on the test servers.

Oh and comparing the elephant in the room who has multiple expansions numbers with untested IP's first release is just nonsense.

I deal with the facts. Sorry.

Originally posted by Thomas2006

MoP was not released in china during that number count. But still it says something when a 8 year old game manages to sale more copies of its expansion then most new MMO's coming out.

Shh...don't tell them that MOP wasn't released in China.