WoW stabilizes over 10M subscribers, down 100k in Q4 2011

This just show SWTOR 5% were a little bit more take that Bioware

Originally Posted by Duallegend

am i the only one wondering how freaking busy the beta will be... with so many anual passes.

That's why I believe it's going to be a very late beta access, similar to BF3 or TOR access. Get in for a few days, a couple weeks before release, get wiped anyways. They won't actually expect you to test things out, despite the name of 'beta testing'. It'll be a very very late build that you'll have access to. The idea of paying for a beta slot essentially means you can't expect to get bug reports, people are paying to play the game instead.

Originally Posted by Culexus

Jeah, those competitors cant offer their product like blizzard does ... oh wait!

Oh and while we're at it ... could you please provide the source you backup that claim on? Very interested to read it .

It's a matter of localizing, modifying the game to fit the market if necessary and securing distribution channels to sell it. I assume it's harder to go for it if you don't have massive income you don't know what to do with. As for source I don't undersand ... it's common knowledge that WoW expanded to eastern and south america markets, locations that other MMOs often don't touch.

Originally Posted by Naynn

It's so annoying to see what kind of person the gamer of today has become. During the first 3 years of WoW only very few people cared about class balance, new content, the number of people playing wow or bug abuses. They played the game because they enjoyed it and that was it. Today it suddenly matters how many fucking people are playing wow/swtor or whatever, lots of people cry every day about class balance and how broken their class is and every bug gets abused. The way people are playing MMO's today is in my opinion the reason the games feel less rewarding and challenging (and obviously the fact that most people have played this game for several years). In the beginning of WoW there wasn't much content offered but the people had fun doing random stuff like fighting each other in Hilsbrad etc. Another thing that bothers me with the player base today is the mindset of most people. Many of them think that they have paid Blizzard their money and now they owe them the fucking game they want. But Blizzard owes them nothing the only thing they are trying to do right now is hold as many players as possible(Which are the casuals just look at the raid stats posted on MMO) to make money. They wont put in any brand new additions to WOW nowadays because of titan. ( why would they fucking hinder their next mmo anyways) So just get over it and play another game or keep bashing a game just to boost your high and mighty ego for absolutely nor reason. In the end I hope that WOW will lose more subs so only the people that want to enjoy the game play it and have fun doing so and everyone else is gone doing something else so I can enjoy the game I like. In short in my opinion it's not Blizzard destroying the game the people playing it are destroying it. (Obviously i don't agree with every decision made by Blizzard)

because we were happy with what blizzard was doing with the game.

Even with the annual pass going out AND xmas happening they still lost 100k subs? And they are happy with that?? Please tell me they see an issue with this ...

Even though DS normal was for casuals i think the HM are though... And i think ppl that are talking about that the game are for casuals tend to forget that there are parts in wow that are for the hardcore player aswell... But please don't make MoP a n00b fiest cuz then wow will probly loss so many members...

Originally Posted by mewmew111

Even with the annual pass going out AND xmas happening they still lost 100k subs? And they are happy with that?? Please tell me they see an issue with this ...

losing players consistently is normal and "good" to some people.

Originally Posted by cateran100

Plus..losing almost 2 million subscribers from the 12 milllion in a year..that`s an epic failure..no matter how great fan you are, that`s roughly 16%...huuuge from every aspect (especially financially...) This shows, the direction where the WoW moved was wrooooong:P

Apparently WoW is an "epic failure" if it does not continue to grow its subscription count forever.
At least that puts it in good company... with every other game.

Surprised it didnt lose more. The announcement of world of pandamon didnt do well to their game.

That's why I believe it's going to be a very late beta access, similar to BF3 or TOR access. Get in for a few days, a couple weeks before release, get wiped anyways. They won't actually expect you to test things out, despite the name of 'beta testing'. It'll be a very very late build that you'll have access to. The idea of paying for a beta slot essentially means you can't expect to get bug reports, people are paying to play the game instead.

Idd, I think there was some interview with a leading games designer (might have been GW2 dude) who said that beta testing (well, what USED to be beta testing) isn't really worth it anymore because (especially) with WoW you just get people who playing the game to get a head start (realm first whatever) and dont acctually try to find bugs. Its like the star wars "beta test" where every tom dick and harry could get in, in reality it was just a stress test..

Anyway, Im glad I was one of those 100k BF3 ftw

I wasn't aware people playing in Asian markets don't count as people. Good to know.

/facepalm, yeah it's racism, that's what it is... A player is not a subscriber. Money talks. Not people getting a free ride. By Blizzard's definition, RuneScape, CityVille, FarmVille etc. are the largest MMOs. Chinese pay *UP* to 1$ USD per month. Subscribers pay 15$ USD. Bragging about having 6-7 million chinese players playing your aging MMORPG is sort of like SWTOR invoking everyone who has paid to see Star Wars at the movies or bought the DVDs into their subscriber count. It's all about marketing.

I wonder how many subs theyll lose after the year for annual pass is over...

Originally Posted by runeb1980@hotmail.com

/facepalm, yeah it's racism, that's what it is... A player is not a subscriber. Money talks. Not people getting a free ride. By Blizzard's definition, RuneScape, CityVille, FarmVille etc. are the largest MMOs. Chinese pay *UP* to 1$ USD per month. Subscribers pay 15$ USD. Bragging about having 6-7 million chinese players playing your aging MMORPG is sort of like SWTOR invoking everyone who has paid to see Star Wars at the movies or bought the DVDs into their subscriber count. It's all about marketing.

Active paying accounts are active paying accounts regardless of the manner in which they pay. Period. Simple as that. End of story. I really don't understand why this is constantly up to debate here aside from twisting reality and facts around to push an anti-Blizzard agenda.

---------- Post added 2012-02-11 at 05:24 PM ----------

Originally Posted by Kameis

I wonder how many subs theyll lose after the year for annual pass is over...

Most people that got the annual pass were intelligent people who realized they were getting a bonus for doing what they were planning to do anyway. They never intended on quitting the game in the first place and that was never what the annual pass was meant to prevent but I can see why the Blizzard haters like stating otherwise despite how idiotic and nonsensical it is.

Hi all ....may I ask something? If y pay with 6 x prepaid card can i have anual pass or need valid card for this offer? pls tell me im confuse!?

This info is a real fake.
Several reasons are there to prove it and it just takes common sense and a bit of memory to understand this.
First of all if you all put yourselves for a moment in blizzard's pants,would you even admit to have lost something like 2 millions of subrscribers?Its funny to see how latercomers from wow would sell their mothers away before admitting the truth,and when i see them defending the game reacting to this fake new with " long live to wow!" or stuff like that i just go srsly how could you take all the shit they're giving you and still you're so retard that you cant see how for a company to admit say a 30% loss would mean going for the full hundred loss JUST by admitting it,because of a huge number of critical consequences that will happen after that 30% loss statement?
Let's say you're a wallstreet guy and the last new you just heard about a company says that 30% of employees went away.Would you even dare putting your money in support of that company?
Point is admitting a huge loss which im sure happened to blizzard this last quarter would mean not only to lose players but also to lose money from different other sources and a general disbelief from players who would start to see the enviroment differently and maybe go like "oh this server is freaking empty imma quit cba rerolling/transfering" well maybe that server is not that empty,but still,just a statement like that would cause randoms to think that way.
That -800k subscribers that happened before was justified as a "chinese market problem" while we all know it wasnt true:that instead was exactly the time when wow started to fall apart while new games started to come out and a single game i wont mention which one (guess most of you know) was responsible for the greatest portion of that loss,but again admitting that what would have meant to people?everyone would have rushed away playing that game instead.
I couldnt help smiling when i've seen people talking absolute nonsense like " they decided to make pandarens because they wanna get back subscribers in China" now thats the real bullshit,cause blizzard keeps on claiming that pandarens made their first appearance in warcraft3 so what they were made for what reason? maybe a chinese programmer was in the staff at the time? maybe a Ranma 1/2 fan? pandarens will be in the next expansion because this is what the game is becoming: a cartoon stylized game that can attract people from all ages especially children(don't get me wrong im not getting polemical im more than happy about it),forget about "blood gore alchool and violence +12 pegi" this game is changing people,wake up.

In short,swtor and all other mmos that came up ever since aion went up got their players somewhere,that is undeniable;most of these games are made on ex wow players and you can easily verify it by checking guilds websites or by asking around if you have time to spare and an open mind for trying out whats new.Also admitting a half defeat always means admitting a bloodbath carnage for a company;if you just sum that up with this question "was blizzard EVER honest when claiming things that were supposed to happen,answering to questions about future features and such?".
Rift and Swtor made the half defeat leave to Tera and GW2 the killing blow,this game wont be for a mature audience from Mop onwards.

Originally Posted by xanzul

Most people that got the annual pass were intelligent people who realized they were getting a bonus for doing what they were planning to do anyway. They never intended on quitting the game in the first place and that was never what the annual pass was meant to prevent but I can see why the Blizzard haters like stating otherwise despite how idiotic and nonsensical it is.

Have you talked to 'most' people? They might have known they would've subscribed anyways, but did they know there wouldn't be any new content past DS? Did they truly know 4.3 was the last of the expansion? I have a feeling they didn't considering that information was brought out less than a month ago.

Even if you don't think it makes any sense it's a very wise business move. Blizzard already knew the following things when they announced the annual pass:
1. 4.3 was the last major content patch for WoW
2. SWTOR, GW2, and Tera will likely be released during the gap between 4.3 and MoP's release
3. Subscriptions are already going downhill, they need something additional to entice people to stick around, which:
a. The annual pass allows them to still 'count' in their subscription, even though they may not play again during the year pass, especially if the MoP beta doesn't even occur during the period.
b. Provide incentives to stay, i.e. D3 and a MoP beta slot(which I believe most people have different impressions of what access this means).

If you think everyone or even a good chunk of the people that are looking negatively on this annual pass business are blizzard haters, maybe you need to take a step back from your fanboyism.

Originally Posted by Sephiracle

Have you talked to 'most' people? They might have known they would've subscribed anyways, but did they know there wouldn't be any new content past DS? Did they truly know 4.3 was the last of the expansion? I have a feeling they didn't considering that information was brought out less than a month ago.

Even if you don't think it makes any sense it's a very wise business move. Blizzard already knew the following things when they announced the annual pass:
1. 4.3 was the last major content patch for WoW
2. SWTOR, GW2, and Tera will likely be released during the gap between 4.3 and MoP's release
3. Subscriptions are already going downhill, they need something additional to entice people to stick around, which:
a. The annual pass allows them to still 'count' in their subscription, even though they may not play again during the year pass, especially if the MoP beta doesn't even occur during the period.
b. Provide incentives to stay, i.e. D3 and a MoP beta slot(which I believe most people have different impressions of what access this means).

If you think everyone or even a good chunk of the people that are looking negatively on this annual pass business are blizzard haters, maybe you need to take a step back from your fanboyism.

I do not hate Activision-Blizzard, but it is still a very crude business move. Like any good company, they want money. Activision-Blizzard is very, very good at making money, much more so than any other MMO company before them. That is the most impressive thing as a company they have done; it is not their "titan" of an MMO that changes nothing at all from within a stale genre, but their monopoly of the MMO genre, and their impeccable business sense.

It's just a shell game if people really did buy an annual pass to get Diablo III "free" assuming these people would have bought D3 anyway.

Originally Posted by BrerBear

Apparently WoW is an "epic failure" if it does not continue to grow its subscription count forever.
At least that puts it in good company... with every other game.

Let's forget the fact that when they started to make this game super casual/streamlined people quit playing. Yes, that's epic failing. Going into a direction the company thinks is the best thing to do and then lose 2 million subs is an epic failure.
(Please don't say that they would have lost more subscriptions if they didn't change things because that is just bullshit. You can't know that. The only fact is that when they made this game extremely casual and streamlined players started to leave more than ever before. And before that subscriptions only went up.)

---------- Post added 2012-02-13 at 09:28 AM ----------

Originally Posted by Into

And this is the final nail in the coffin for the hardcores who wanted Burning Crusade 2.0. Granted the Xmas season helped but LFR has been a massive success despite how controversial it has been amongst the raiders. Making heroics take 15 min again with fast queues for casuals and adding a super easy raiding mode has softened the blow for Blizzard. We can argue all day what WoW should be, but these numbers and this last year show that WotLK is really where this game should have gone toward to show growth, not go back to a ancient Everquest type model. All that bruhaha talk, all that "lets make epics matter again", all that elitism during Cataclysm beta has been showned to appeal to a minor audience Its 2012, the days of telling people to "raid or die" is over, LFR was just what this game needed whether we like it or not, numbers do not lie.

LFR is just a patch for a short time. Just wait for MoP when people have done several tiers by doing LFR, it's going to get boring really fast. Or are you really going to spam your 10 alts through LFR just to gear them? How is that fun, doing the same crap over and over again? Standing in queue in Orgrimmar every week for the same boring dungeon or raid.
If you make content this easy you better be ready to pump out three times as much content. Instead they give us less and they make you grind raids for months.

Next quarter subs will be down 500k.

Originally Posted by Into

And this is the final nail in the coffin for the hardcores who wanted Burning Crusade 2.0.

I see it brought up that Cata was supposed to be BC 2.0 or going back to BC and I really dont see it as such. To me Cata is WotLK with less and lame content, with too many nobs turned in Blizzards attempt to cater to everyone.