Let me preface this by saying a couple of things:

1) I play WoW and am loving it.  I'm about to enter Outlands and experience expansion content for the first time.

2) I was going to post this on the WoW forums but I didn't want my account banned, even if this story turns out to be true.

 http://tobolds.blogspot.com/2009/07/wow-subscriptions-down-to-5-million.html

Also, I realize that this news pertains to Asian subscribers only, but I'm wondering how this will effect the European and American subscribers, at least from a psychological perspective.  I wonder what effect this will have on subscriber retention and gaining new subscribers. 

In short:

"Now financially this is less of a blow to Blizzard than it sounds. The Chinese players pay only about 6 cents per hour to play WoW, and most of that went to the Chinese operator, so in spite of China providing most of the players, it only provided a small part of the revenues and profits of Blizzard."

Numbers don't matter, the impact they have matters. If Blizzard is still making ridiculous amounts of money with 5 million (allegedly) customers, they can continue to patch and maintain the game. So, I don't care.

I guess NCSOft will be adding 150 new servers to C-Aion. This is like early christmas for them

 Ya I agree financially it doesn't make a big difference, but the could be other effects, although I hope not.  I used to hate WoW, now I love it.

on your second question, 5 million subs are still like printing your own money, so i doubt this will have any impact on WoW

non-asian subs will stay more or less the same, as they have been since 2008,no big gains, no big loses

at least until Aion release, I see Aion rightfully stealing some players from WoW easier than WoW players panicking due to this news and qutting in droves

So wait some blog stating shit as true??  well hell did u know warhammer has 50 million players, im just gona go start a blod up now about that.

 Well his post is factual, with the exception of the 5 million number.  WoW would only be down to 5 million subscribers if the Chinese servers never reopened.

Originally posted by Ahiles

So wait some blog stating shit as true??  well hell did u know warhammer has 50 million players, im just gona go start a blod up now about that.

while its not official, its possible, and more than probable

Everybody knows chinese wow players amount well over 6m,its a fact blizzard never bothered to hide, just like its a fact noone of them can play WoW.

11-6 = 5

I know Blizzard had problems all over China. Northrend expansion still hasn't been released in Chine I believe.

I think Blizzard will just cut business with China, since it seems the Chinese Government is targeting them directly to do bad. It will be a major lose to Blizzard but atleast they can advance and stop having so many restriction just in order to release over there.

No more lunar fest? :p

Originally posted by BaconJA89

 Well his post is factual, with the exception of the 5 million number.  WoW would only be down to 5 million subscribers if the Chinese servers never reopened.

Frankly, I always thought the "Yeah they have 11 million subs, but half of those are Gold Farmers!" jokes were just those: jokes. Any proof that at least half of WoW's subs come from China?

Does it surprise me? No. The game is over half a decade old.

5 million is still major bank for Blizzard, although not nearly as much as it has been for the past 5+ years, obviously. It's still alot better than other games are doing. This bodes well for new and upcoming games, though. Such as Aion, and Star Wars which I think will be the two frontrunners to see major success. Also, Lord of the Rings Online has had major increases in subscribers, and retained them, and on my server  alot of the newer players were leaving World of Warcraft.

In the end it's a natural thing that World of Warcraft will hit a decline, and other games will hit it big, but on that note I don't think there will be a game to of hit 15 million subscribers and retain them the way WoW did at it's peak. I see the playerbase spreading out amongst many games now that there are alot more options than when WoW came out, and there will continue to be more options in the coming years. Blizzard really contributed to this genre becoming mainstream, even people who were not gamers became such due to WoW and MMO's in general, like myself.

Ya know I'm not going to put much stock into this until we get a final outcome because for all we know it may be just temporary if Blizzard wins. Though I find it funny how WOW players would always make a big deal about subscription numbers and now since they may have lost half due to this issue, numbers do not matter anymore because China represents a small portion of Blizzard's income. No big deal, Starcraft 2 and Diablo 3 is on the way, sub numbers for most mmos wil be shrinking when they release. Blizzard should not be concerned at all.

Originally posted by Valentina

Does it surprise me? No. The game is over half a decade old.

5 million is still major bank for Blizzard, although not nearly as much as it has been for the past 5+ years, obviously. It's still alot better than other games are doing. This bodes well for new and upcoming games, though. Such as Aion, and Star Wars which I think will be the two frontrunners to see major success. Also, Lord of the Rings Online has had major increases in subscribers, and retained them, and on my server  alot of the newer players were leaving World of Warcraft.

 

In the end it's a natural thing that World of Warcraft will hit a decline, and other games will hit it big, but on that note I don't think there will be a game to of hit 15 million subscribers and retain them the way WoW did at it's peak. I see the playerbase spreading out amongst many games now that there are alot more options than when WoW came out, and there will continue to be more options in the coming years. Blizzard really contributed to this genre becoming mainstream, even people who were not gamers became such due to WoW and MMO's in general, like myself.

Well, first off, it has nothing to do with the game's quality. Read the article.

Secondly, like you pointed out, Blizzard is still rolling in cash and showering in gold coins. But I'm sure they're not crying over the loss of those Chinese subs; note my post above.

If anyone brings this up, they can say it's a legal, technical issue, rather than a loss of interest or a drop in quality of their game.

 When WoW hit 10 million subscribers, they reported that "Asia is the biggest market at the moment, with more than 5.5 million players, as compared to North America's 2.5 million and 2 million subscribers in Europe."

This is an old blog, but 5.5 million is probably what they had before this news in terms of Asian subs.

This is according to wow.com: http://www.wow.com/2008/01/22/world-of-warcraft-hits-10-million-subscribers/

 Ya I agree, this news has nothing to do with game quality or interest.  But it could hurt future interest.  I think that is the most important part of the news.

I haven't played the game for a year.  Can't muster up one iota of care either way.

I tried. :)

 Well ya I think the point is that people do care about numbers.  The game hasn't changed from this news. But people's perception of it might.

I still play WoW. I have a love/hate relationship with the game. Love some of the features/hate others. Love some of the playerbase/hate most of it. If anything the rise in production value in competing mmo's (mainly Aion) will actually be good for WoW. Blizzard makes a great game, but they have been comfortable resting on their laurels as the leader of the industry atm. Competition is a good thing. One can only hope it makes them provide better content faster to the players that stay on and return (you know everyone is not going to enjoy the competing games as much as they think, it's happened before and it will happen again). Let's just hope that Aion does better then the past competitors for the crown (i.e.) AoC, War. It could be very beneficial to all players WoW or not.

Originally posted by BaconJA89

 Well ya I think the point is that people do care about numbers.  The game hasn't changed from this news. But people's perception of it might.

that would be only a blow for the weak minded fanbois that fap every time they read "11m subs" ,basically because they posted it themselves.

Blizzard will be ok. WoW wll be ok.In the worst of cases that chinese players will find another game and be ok.

I see nothing wrong with the fanbois cringing in pain