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  1. #641
    Wow, so many drama queens in this threat it's kind of funny!! =D

    WoW is certainly not dead. People need to stop saying this ignorant statement. Is WoW dying? That remains to be seen. Cataclysm was the most lackluster expansion they have released for the game so far, despite the massive overhaul of content. The problem was it was directed at the wrong end of the playerbase, and raids were balanced for the wrong end of the playerbase. As much as the leveling experience sucked, it was a very bad idea to put so much work into content under max level. The problem is that most people are going to level one alt to see the new stuff, and then be done with it and want more shit to do. The problem was that so much development time went into new shiny low level content that they had their hands tied with how much end game they could push out this expansion. They will not make the same mistake with MoP as they did with Cata.

    Also, the raid finder is certainly not going to be a flop, as so many of you claim. Was LFD a flop? 98% (bullshit statistic) of LFD runs go smoothly. And sorry, but smoothly does not mean that you finished in 20 minutes and no one died. If you carry that over into LFR, and expect no one to die and to one shot every boss, you're stupid. Blizzard is not going to design content where you can literally walk in, steamroll everything in one shot with a group of strangers, some of which are probably fairly new to raiding. That would be a horrible design. They will tune the LFR difficulty for lesser experienced players, and it'll be perfect for the tool if people who are going to rage and freak out over a wipe in a raid don't use it and say it's broken, because those people are cancerous, and it will be good for them to stay out of the raid finder tool. Runs would be a lot more successful if people had patience and understanding that you aren't supposed to one shot everything.

    The major problem with subscriptions is that these quarterly reports don't actually show a live representation of what the subscriber base is doing. They can't show that 4.2 gained 500k+ subs (anecdotal), but after two months the content was consumed so people started unsubbing until 4.3. They don't show that in the quarterly reports. All they show is what they have at this moment. It makes sense that Blizzard lost that many subs in China, it is still competition and they tend to prefer much more grindy games, and consume content faster than we do in many cases. The Chinese playerbase will fly through content, and unlike here, their preferred flavor of MMO's are readily available when Blizzard doesn't deliver content fast enough for them.

    Also, I think that it's fairly humorous that there is such an uprising to bring back WotLK, when there were endless threads on this exact same forum claiming WotLK was the worst expansion ever and murdered WoW. Just a little anecdote about how you people twist things so you have something to complain about.

    That being said, the game will be fine. They have one major source of revenue funding the development of 4 games right now. This is eating up A LOT of development time. Blizzard is in full swing developing D3, Titan and expansions for WoW and SC 2, so once a couple of those bites are off the plate in terms of content development, I'm sure that more hands will be freed up to polish Blizzard's flagship franchise.

    Also, again, just to point it out, the Monk animations currently break the old model skeletons, so in order to make the Monk available to all races (except Worgen and Goblin), they have to remake at least the skeletons of the old models, and if they are doing that, there is a solid possibility that an entire remodel will come along with it.

  2. #642
    MoP gives extreme casuals something to do. This will more likely stem the tide of people leaving, rather than bring any new players in. That's a problem they still need to solve, and doing so will cause an absolute fucking tsunami of QQ from people who feel that those not wanting to devote their entire life to a game don't deserve end game play...

  3. #643
    most of the un-subs are from asia?
    then whats the point with MoP? wasnt its "between the lines" goal was to be extra attractive to the new asian market?

    they could have done an amazing asian themed xpac but went with the shallow walt disney kong fu panda for the pokimon generation aspect.

    so now the asians showed they couldnt care less...the westerns showed their disappointment from that ridicules xpac.

    so now blizz has little time to make things right again before things get to the point of no return..

  4. #644
    Quote Originally Posted by Muni View Post
    I believe we're all in denial about the
    games we love. ie: the game is slowly but surely coming to an end. 1.7 million subscribers in 3/4th of a year. The downslide will only continue...it's already started to snowball.

    Theres no reason to come in and act in such denial though...the games had an amazing run...time to let go.
    You're exactly right man.. The game has the most subscribers of any MMO on the market, 3x the next highest subscriber base, and has the most polished game available with reliable service and fun and innovative gameplay (FL encounters were some of the most well designed fights released in the game so far). Totally time to let this game go though. /sarcasm.

  5. #645
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    10.3 million...isnt that like 8 million more than any other mmo?
    Your mother was a hamster, and your father smelled of elderberries.

  6. #646
    Quote Originally Posted by john duo View Post
    most of the un-subs are from asia?
    then whats the point with MoP? wasnt its "between the lines" goal was to be extra attractive to the new asian market?

    they could have done an amazing asian themed xpac but went with the shallow walt disney kong fu panda for the pokimon generation aspect.

    so now the asians showed they couldnt care less...the westerns showed their disappointment from that ridicules xpac.

    so now blizz has little time to make things right again before things get to the point of no return..
    MoP was not designed to appeal to the Asian market. It's a completely subjective and somewhat ridiculous statement however. Pandaren's have been in lore for over 12 years. The Asian market has been... one. I think it's safe to say that MoP was not a strike at increasing revenue from the Asian market, which already produces pitiful revenue compared to the Western market. Simply put, Blizzard wanted Pandaren's to be in the next expansion because it's fun and a plot device that allows them to escalate Alliance v. Horde conflict without having to kill everyone to make the ending not totally stupid.

    And sorry, but a fraction of the Asian market left. Just as a very small fraction of the Western market has voiced their very small and subjective opinion about the next expansion.

  7. #647
    Deleted
    Who cares how many subscribers a game has ? Since when is numbers indicative of anything related to the game's actual quality for me the consummer ?
    Millions of people like football, I don't. "My god less people like football OMG football must suck/be dying !" Nope, that's not how it works I'm afraid.

    In after, and indeed before the majority of ,conspiracy BS about how the game is "dying" or some shit.

  8. #648
    Quote Originally Posted by erdi View Post
    Earnings for this year compared to last year have risen by about 100M due to operating cost reductions of about 100M. Revenues have remained stagnant. What does this mean? Losses in revenues from their subscriptions have been offset by gains in other areas.

    Now, head on over to the "Activision Blizzard Announces Better-Than-Expected Third Quarter 2011 Net Revenues and Earnings" article on their activision blizzard earnings page (I can't link it yet because I'm new)

    If we go down to "GAAP Net Revenues by Segment/Platform Mix", all we are told is that "Online subscriptions" has increased by 28M compared to the 2010 quarter.

    What are "Online Subscriptions" revenue defined as?

    Revenue from online subscriptions consists of revenue from all World of Warcraft products, including subscriptions, boxed products, expansion packs, licensing royalties, and value-added services.

    We know that no "boxed products" or "expansion packs" were released for WoW in this quarter (except in China).
    We know that there are about 1.7M fewer subscribers for World of Warcraft than there were in quarter 3 2010.
    There is a $76.6M (1.7Mx15x3) deficit that needs to be reconciled here, plus the fact that revenue actually rose by $28M.

    Sure, some of this can be accounted to box sales and expansion packs from new players (and China, anyone? Coincidence?), but the rest of this $104.6M void must have been filled from value-added services, and this is not sustainable, especially when you have fewer customers to offer these value-added services to.

    Now, if we look at the "Non-GAAP Net Revenues by Segment/Platform Mix", we see that there has been a drop in "Online subscriptions" by $7M.

    Should we be worried? Maybe not yet but we shouldn't be celebrating because the whole Activision Blizzard company's revenue increased by 1%.
    finally someone that actually can read and understand a quarterly report.

    Well done, very well done

    ---------- Post added 2011-11-09 at 11:39 AM ----------

    Quote Originally Posted by Blackdecker View Post
    Obvious they will lose amount of subscribers this and in the next month, not only this but it helps: BF3,MW3,Skyrim,Batman,Assassins Creed, Uncharted 3...
    The peoples who don't raid will probably isn't pay this month, like me.
    Q3 - Jul to Sep

    they havent announced the loses (assumption) they will have from Q4 - OCT to DEC, that is the quarter where all those games got released, so dont expect a rise in Q4, especially with SWTOR coming out in Q4


  9. #649
    Even when WoW is far from dead, Cataclysm injured WoW, and its a deep injure.

    They had a very successfull game with Wrath and they made the mistake of changing it completely. Wrath in Asia has been hiding this because since Asia still had Wrath they were still playing and enjoying.

    But Cataclysm reached Asia.

    Now we can only hope Blizzard realizes the mistake they made with cataclysm and give us back the game quality we had in Wrath and TBC.

  10. #650
    Deleted
    Quote Originally Posted by Firebane View Post
    Who cares how many subscribers a game has ? Since when is numbers indicative of anything related to the game's actual quality for me the consummer ?
    Millions of people like football, I don't. "My god less people like football OMG football must suck/be dying !" Nope, that's not how it works I'm afraid.

    In after, and indeed before the majority of ,conspiracy BS about how the game is "dying" or some shit.

    This game is in a constant change ever since sunwell m8.
    In general the changes made, let certain people down during the time.

    A decline in subs shows that some or many of the latest changes that happened with Cata, have driven people out, at a higher pace than usualy.
    Also it shows that many more people still playing would like to see many of those changes reversed, including the some of the announced ones for the upcoming expansion.

    You understand now why people care? They are hoping that things will change to their favor, as part of the measures blizzard will take to reverse the decline.
    I find it hard to believe, that so many people fail to grasp it.
    I find it easier to believe that the brain dead -in game- activity started affecting us in the other aspects of life (like posting) lol.
    That and to make a "cool" comment. (the "if you like the game why don't you just enjoy playing it" short of comment).

  11. #651
    Quote Originally Posted by 0wn3d View Post
    Investors are very far removed from Blizzard,
    The dominant one (that owns 60% of outstanding ATVI shares) just controls the board, which decides if the execs at Blizzard keep their jobs. They are "far removed" in the sense that if they say "jump" the execs have to say "how high?"
    "There is a pervasive myth that making content hard will induce players to rise to the occasion. We find the opposite. " -- Ghostcrawler
    "The bit about hardcore players not always caring about the long term interests of the game is spot on." -- Ghostcrawler
    "Do you want a game with no casuals so about 500 players?"

  12. #652
    WHy does it matter? Becasue wow funds Blizzard, D3, SC2, Titan, all paid for by wow.

    When wow starts to not give as much money, things get cut.


    and trust me LFR will fail, only way it wont is if the raid gets nerfed to the point of ignoring any and all mechanics. - Ive tried it on the PTR, many many times.

    People are putting up the difficulty of 5mans as a reason for the sub loss, how the hell do you expect those very people to manage a 25man raid boss?
    A man chooses, a Slave obeys. OBEY! - Andrew Ryan, Bioshock

  13. #653
    Quote Originally Posted by spirits330 View Post
    PBlizzard themselves said that subs normally drop during summer anyway (after their Q2 numbers came out).
    At that point, Blizzard must have had preliminary data on how Q3 was going, in particular how China was reacting to the Cata release. I interpreted those statements as preemptive excuse making for bad Q3 results.
    "There is a pervasive myth that making content hard will induce players to rise to the occasion. We find the opposite. " -- Ghostcrawler
    "The bit about hardcore players not always caring about the long term interests of the game is spot on." -- Ghostcrawler
    "Do you want a game with no casuals so about 500 players?"

  14. #654
    Deleted
    I havent noticed anything, everyone i played with still plays, and if 10 million more quit that still wont change

  15. #655
    Deleted
    But we said that subs will rise again when 4.2 hits, because the Q2 results was from before the Molten Front!

    So, what happened?

    Ok, I will tell you the secret: People don't enjoy doing daily quests! When players saw how shitty the Molten Front really is, they just gave up and left (well, 800k of 'em :P).
    Last edited by mmocc955237267; 2011-11-09 at 12:15 PM.

  16. #656
    The Patient Mynsc's Avatar
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    I'm sorry if this has been posted before (not going to read 33 pages just to check), but Blizzard made MORE MONEY from WoW this year compared to 2010, even with the decreasing subscriptions. 200 million $ more...


    Online subscriptions = revenue from all World of Warcraft products, including subscriptions, boxed products, expansion packs, licensing royalties, and value-added services.

    Source for all this: http://investor.activision.com/relea...leaseID=622018

    Reasons:
    - most of their subscriptions loss comes from China, which is not a very profitable market right now for WoW.
    - the first 9 months of 2011 caught a nice chunk of Cataclysm sales, while the first 9 months of 2010 didn't catch too many WotlK ones.
    - paid digital services have been on the rise for both Activision and Blizzard.

    Bottom line is, money wise they've done great this year. Losing subscribers is indeed something to be afraid of, but no real reason to start the doomsday rumors.
    Last edited by Mynsc; 2011-11-09 at 12:17 PM.
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  17. #657
    Quote Originally Posted by Azidonis View Post
    Here's one... how much longer is Ghostcrawler going to be able to keep his job?
    I'm amazed he's still there. IMO, the rotation changes to make dps/tanking more interactive and "fun" are a major contributor to the negative reaction of many players. They add decision making overhead to encounters that amplifies their difficulty, over and above what the encounter mechanics themselves would cause.
    "There is a pervasive myth that making content hard will induce players to rise to the occasion. We find the opposite. " -- Ghostcrawler
    "The bit about hardcore players not always caring about the long term interests of the game is spot on." -- Ghostcrawler
    "Do you want a game with no casuals so about 500 players?"

  18. #658
    Quote Originally Posted by Mynsc View Post
    I'm sorry if this has been posted before (not going to read 33 pages just to check), but Blizzard made MORE MONEY from WoW this year compared to 2010, even with the decreasing subscriptions. 200 million $ more...


    Online subscriptions = revenue from all World of Warcraft products, including subscriptions, boxed products, expansion packs, licensing royalties, and value-added services.

    Source for all this: http://investor.activision.com/relea...leaseID=622018

    Reasons:
    - most of their subscriptions loss comes from China, which is not a very profitable market right now for WoW.
    - the first 9 months of 2011 caught a nice chunk of Cataclysm sales, while the first 9 months of 2010 didn't catch too many WotlK ones.
    - paid digital services have been on the rise for both Activision and Blizzard.

    Bottom line is, money wise they've done great this year. Losing subscribers is indeed something to be afraid of, but no real reason to start the doomsday rumors.
    Actually you are wrong in one thing.

    Most of this quarter loss come from China, but most of the 900k that left before this quarter were from NA/EU.

    The better revenue comes from a new expoansion that needs to be bought (last year didnt have one) and an increase in paid services and vanity items.

    This doesn't mean WoW is dying, this means Blizzard should pay attention to this and take actions about it.

  19. #659
    Mynsc: those numbers went up primarily because of box sales for Cata. Looking at non-GAAP numbers for Q3, actual recurring income is in decline from the previous year's quarter. Say that again: quarterly revenue without deferred Cata sales is lower than the lowest point of Wrath.
    "There is a pervasive myth that making content hard will induce players to rise to the occasion. We find the opposite. " -- Ghostcrawler
    "The bit about hardcore players not always caring about the long term interests of the game is spot on." -- Ghostcrawler
    "Do you want a game with no casuals so about 500 players?"

  20. #660
    The Lightbringer shadowkras's Avatar
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    If you didn't want to read a discussion about the loss in subs why did you even click this thread?
    There is nothing wrong with discussing the loss of subs.
    The problem starts when everybody starts to believe they are stock market strategists.

    I would believe blizzard has people FAR more experienced on business strategy than anyone who could possibly post in here, so maybe focus on something else other than "how could blizzard fix the sub loss".

    - They are not losing money.
    - WoW is not dying.

    See:
    Wow, so many drama queens in this threat it's kind of funny!! =D
    Last edited by shadowkras; 2011-11-09 at 12:24 PM.
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