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

Originally Posted by Vayshan

All those haters who like to see WoW die... if WoW loses millions more they will do something to bring those ppl back Just saying. They're not gonne let their huge cashcow bleed to death.

What are you talking about? If they lose millions more subs there wont be a game and then it will be too late. Numbers of subs doesnt mean numbers of players. Blizzard refuses to let us know how many wow players they actually have.

Blizzard is already bleeding. Within a year they lost 1.8M subs equal to 27M dollars per month in subs alone. They should do something now. Why do you think they introduced annual passes? They didnt do that out of kindness to the players.

I like how blizzard says that everything is in good shape and that there is nothing to worry about. Just what the
Captain onboard Costa concordia said right after they hit a reef and shipwrecked.

Originally Posted by Collected

Where does it say that? If there was even the slightest hint that MoP was going to be in 2013 in this call don't you think Boubouille might have pointed that out? If MoP came out in 2013 it would be the longest expansion pack development time in WoW history.. they've never taken that long. Also they're holding the big press tour in March, the one that Boubouille pointed out typically happens 1 month before F&F alpha starts. All signs point to a 2012 release.

http://www.gamespot.com/news/diablo-...-again-6350086

Activision pushes action RPG to April-June quarter; company not expecting to ship both Starcraft II: Heart of the Swarm and WOW: Mists of Pandaria this year.

MoP may happen this year, but I bet SC2 HoS is closer to release than MoP.

---------- Post added 2012-02-10 at 10:36 AM ----------

Originally Posted by Granyala

Hehe made me laugh.On a more serious note though: It will hit the fan in Q1/Q2 because it always hits the fan between the last raid and the release of a new XP.

This actually wasn't the case with WotLK. The game enjoyed steady growth after Uld was released all the way till Cata.

Skyrim, Swtor, Bf3, there where many "blockbuster" games in Q4/2011 that affected especially those players who got bored with wow. The Cata Expansion seems to have failed aftermath, after 6/7 years of WoW it just did not deliver like BC or WOTLK did.
But I really bet MoP will pump 2 Million new subs if Blizzard presents something new and different, just a mix of back-to-the roots experience and "innovations" beside a new class and an redesigned talent system.
GW 2 will just be the next AoC/Rift/SWTOR/LOTR/AIOn/WaR. Alle those games have their player base, but they don't even have combined 10 Mio subs, right? btw, I played all of them, at least for 4-12 weeks, cancelled all.

"December was a good month for us."

They really have no ambitions or accepted the fact that lead designer is crap...
I personally didnt expect loss of subs due to annual pass and 4.3 release but hell, seems wow loses more subs every day than i expected, now its ggonna fall even more since 4.3 is burning out and mop is few months away.

Blizz... fire your lead "designer" before he sinlge handedly destroys wow

Problem is now DS is already getting old and boring, this quarter won't be so good. Unless they announce some new dungeons/raid then it'll quiet down before MoP again and all the doomsayers will be back.

lol only 100k ...and in 1-2 months a lot of players from ToR will probably go back to wow too

Originally Posted by Embodier

Skyrim, Swtor, Bf3, there where many "blockbuster" games in Q4/2011 that affected especially those players who got bored with wow. The Cata Expansion seems to have failed aftermath, after 6/7 years of WoW it just did not deliver like BC or WOTLK did.
But I really bet MoP will pump 2 Million new subs if Blizzard presents something new and different, just a mix of back-to-the roots experience and "innovations" beside a new class and an redesigned talent system.
GW 2 will just be the next AoC/Rift/SWTOR/LOTR/AIOn/WaR. Alle those games have their player base, but they don't even have combined 10 Mio subs, right? btw, I played all of them, at least for 4-12 weeks, cancelled all.

And what good does the 10 mill playerbase do to WoW ? Blizz treats majority of the subscription income as profit or capital for future ventures ... the game itself gets updates like some 500k subscription MMO. Nothing to celebrate imho.

Originally Posted by martinboy

What are you talking about? If they lose millions more subs there wont be a game and then it will be too late. Numbers of subs doesnt mean numbers of players. Blizzard refuses to let us know how many wow players they actually have.

Blizzard is already bleeding. Within a year they lost 1.8M subs equal to 27M dollars per month in subs alone. They should do something now. Why do you think they introduced annual passes? They didnt do that out of kindness to the players.

I like how blizzard says that everything is in good shape and that there is nothing to worry about. Just what the
Captain onboard Costa concordia said right after they hit a reef and shipwrecked.

Numbers of active subs is the closest to actual players you could get. Not many leave a sub running and not play at all afterall.

Blizzard is bleeding, but your numbers are wrong. If you read their annual reports you will see they mention most their lost playerbase is from the Asiatic regions which averages lower monthly sub fees to EU and US due to the sub method. When will people stop saying WoW costs everyone $15 a month FFS. Its been mentioned, noted and said hundreds of times and people are still so ignorant? There is different payment methods even in the US (6month, 12 month etc getting discounts) so no reason for anyone to not actually know that those numbers are false.

Losing 100k with a 'WoW killer" MMORPG, 2 of the biggest FPS games in history is pretty good overall. In any case, they reason they say that is this is an investor report not a report to the gaming community. You really think they are going to say we look bad when they want their stocks to go up?

Losing subs != stabilising. Not losing subs but not gaining subs == stabilising

Originally Posted by Repefe

And what good does the 10 mill playerbase do to WoW ? Blizz treats majority of the subscription income as profit or capital for future ventures ... the game itself gets updates like some 500k subscription MMO. Nothing to celebrate imho.

I would agree with you here! Maybe it's time to change some og the lead designers, maybe we should wait what MoP will provide. I claim it will be a big win/success or a disappointment; there will be no grey, not in our mmo culture and the way we gamers/customers judge, as you can read here ;-)

Whatev's, whether it's 100 thousand or 3 million lost, I'm still enjoying the game.

/logs on and has fun

Because only 100k went to SWTOR, not the other 1.7M that were alread out of WoW... lol

Computing only the effect of Annual Pass + 4.3 + Asia market, saying "stabilized" is clever and their answer for boring months of DS will be D3... as if all that player base wants to play D3 instead of WoW...

If you consider that the base should go trough the skies with the asian market, but instead kept losing subs overall, need to be really blind to not see the bad shape of US/EU base.

When they said that LFR was the best thing ever because tons of players (read, alts) were doing it, someone asked that then, it could mean that mcdonalds was the best and healthiest food around the world because it sells a lot... Blizzard didn't answer anything else anymore... lol.

Anyway, funny to see ppl caring like it is a soccer game or whatever sport you fit into... they're companies, couldn't care less, only care about the state of the game and if it's not good, cya.

Good news, really thougt there should be bigger loss. So when next expansion i guess they will gain a good 1-2 milion players more. Really top notch to keep so many players in a game for so many years, RESPECT to blizzard for that.

Every night i now pray that they can bring back a little of the feeling i had the first 3-4 years of wow in next expansion, would sell my grandma if they could.
And as a side note i dont "want" D3 now, i Neeeeed it! NOW!!!

Originally Posted by UltraUgly

Good news, really thougt there should be bigger loss. So when next expansion i guess they will gain a good 1-2 milion players more. Really top notch to keep so many players in a game for so many years, RESPECT to blizzard for that.

Every night i now pray that they can bring back a little of the feeling i had the first 3-4 years of wow in next expansion, would sell my grandma if they could.
And as a side note i dont "want" D3 now, i Neeeeed it! NOW!!!

The loss is there, just hidden by the asian market.

And don't think that a new xpac will grab more players than the ones alread playing.

Originally Posted by Dundebuns

Losing subs != stabilising. Not losing subs but not gaining subs == stabilising

Stabilise =/= Stagnate

After so many years playing, (having lots of alts etc been there done that, got the tabard, killed the dragon.) I find it hard to justify giving time to wow at the moment, it doesn't mean that I will never play wow again, of course I will. But having done all the current content, and considering the amount of hours logged on alts. There is currently nothing worth doing, I do need another alt with all the trimmings, I have enough.

I do think Blizzard have misfired on wow this year, I believe the numbers will continue to drop until the next expansion, and perhaps they should of held back Deathwing a couple of months or giving us something else to do because its going to be a long wait (relatively) for the expansion.

I guess with the release of Diablo III being delayed, this has probably caused a bit of the issue, because we don't have that to jump into.

Back to Skyrim I guess

But don't worry wow we still love you in this house

This company cracks me up, they expect the numbers to go back up again release of pandacraft.. well no shit.. people are going to be fooled into the 'this exp fixes all of the things \o' idea again. If cata is anything to go by they are clearly running on fumes, they spend more time making promises than working on them imo. Yes the game has been around for a number of years but the reasons they give as to the loss in subs to me shows they really don't give a toss. It's a case of we still have 10mil+ who stick with us because *insert mind-numbingly tripe reason here* so we're not worried.. to me that translates to - 'Hey we know people are jumpin ship and so many keep playing out of habit and the fact there isnt anything much better out their but we're gona keep throwing stuff out, too early, too little and recolored and it will be all nice and fluffy. We're also going to spend more development time on mini games like chinpokomon battles and such so you have something to log in for.. and more achievements... the lack of content and almost insta nerfs which they seem to promise in advance now. Anywho, same old same old!

Originally Posted by dess

I think I have a theory as to why Blizzard is not worry about their Q4 results.

It has nothing to do with their competitors, and certainly not with the whiny kids -- i is hardcore no one catters to me ;_; wahwahwah.

Drum Roll:
TITAN will arrive when we least expected, TITAN will be the wow killer and guess who is developing it? Yeah, Blizz. So, no I wont be playing swtor its not my thing, no i wont be playing gw2(i play the first, never trust f2p mmo's - not really f2p if you have to buy the box right?), no i wont be playing (insert mmo game here). I will wait for titan, not because i'm a blizz fan, or any of the sort. The mmo that catches my attention is the one the reporter gets the name out of the developer in a blooper moment. I don't need shiny graphic videos telling me about their innovative new system.


LONG LIVE TITAN!

Guild Wars has never, ever been F2P, that's a serious misinformation, it is B2P, which is way different.

Originally Posted by Repefe

If MoP is not to release in 2012 as it looks from the financial report ... the whole annual pass will really be a big fuck you, from Blizz, to players, with <3, for money. 100k lost in the quarter that WoW got new content ? Imagin 4 quarters when it will get no content ...

The annual pass guarantees that Blizzard will have to allow beta access before the end of November else they would most likely invite suit. Same goes for Diablo 3 release, by signing people up to Annual Pass and not letting them out afterward they have committed themselves to fixed dates. Seeing that they have a pile of money it won't be very difficult to imagine application for class status. There are lots of lawyers out there who play wow.

I like to take each month as it comes on WoW.. I cancel my subscription every time I purchase 1 month play time to prevent any further charges to my card after a month expires but then go and buy another month, I wonder if this gets taken into account to a loss of subscription