How will blizzard spin losing another projected 900k-1.6mil players in the next month

[Black Rider]

They are basing their percentages on a survey of 381 online gamers. This is a far cry from the 10.3million that actually play WoW but probably can't be bothered to do a survey. Surveys are also notorious for being filled out by those people with time, or an axe to grind.
Now, this is a standard amount for a survey. but many of these "Online gamers" will probably be hardcore fans who demand X and Y, and were probably going to buy SWTOR anyways.The majority of people usually cannot be bothered, that's why psychologists simply try not to rely on that data alone. Remember this is all speculative. The people *may* say they will buy another game or quit WoW, but how many people do you know have said they will quit but never do?

It really cannot be used as any form of evidence until the decline actually happens, as unlike most MMOs, WoWs core base is the more casual gamer who frankly couldn't give two stuffs about which shiny new game is coming out, and even if they do, they will probably just carry on playing WoW as well. It is very easy to skew the results here tbh, whilst the percentages may look incredibly impressive, only a very naive person would take them as guaranteed.

I can see Blizzards stock price taking a very healthy increase over the next year though once MoP comes out and Diablo 3.

Pretty much this...

[rinleezwins]

IT seems people forget that there are NEW PLAYERS joining wow all the time and there will be even more with the release of the TV ad with Chuck Norris. About SWTOR, just like with all the other MMOs people will get bored eventually and come back to wow. By the way I am not trying to defend blizzard, I just give out some points. If blizzard continues to lose subscribers they will realise they have to change their policy to keep players entertained.

[mvaliz]

Well, to actually ANSWER the OP's question instead of throwing tomatoes at people...

If Blizzard does incur yet another round of massive sub losses next quarter (and indeed I do think they will) there are several angles they can spin it as.

Of course they'll downplay ToR's role - if even mentioning them at all.

What they will do, instead, is comment on how this is the "end of expansion" time... and will point out how there was a small loss of subs during the year-long ICC patch at the end of their expansion...

...which will then conveniently lead them to say that Wrath spiked right back up to 12 million 2 months before Cata... and will say something to the effect of "If that says anything, then expect a similar spike in subs before Mists of Pandaria hits the shelves!"... of course that doesn't mean it WILL happen - but it's always better to push the investors into the future, not the past - particularly when your most recent past consist of a string of disasters spanning over a year... especially after a history of being so successful prior.

If anything, it will get the investors asking "OK, what the hell are you doing wrong now that you weren't doing the past 6 years prior? What changed since then?"

[McFrotton]

First: here's the quote and link "Activision Blizzard raked in $627 million worth of sales, of which $148 million is pure profit. A majority of the revenue -- 62% -- comes from its digital sales." http://massively.joystiq.com/2011/11...riples-profi/3

Seccond does anybody really think D3 will make a giant pile of money? I'm not a fan of the game so I have no clue how big it is, but i was under the impression that it was a small PB compared to WoW. And we don't even know the release date yet for it, and they're giving a "free" copy to everyone that got the annual pass. Also we're not supposed to see MoP until at least Q2 if not Q3 so we're going to see at least 1 if not 2 calls before moP is even on the market. Finally we haven't heard anything about Titan and we'll be lucky to hear about at Blizzcon2012 So I don't think we'll see that before 2013

the real money AH in D3 is gonna be a HIT mark my word right now, this will cash a lot of money for blizzard trust me, Why? because everyone will want their chance at money while playign a game, some people already plan out to do it their living, srly How could you not take this into account, Pretyy sure they will many many xpack to D3 to keep it goign for a long time.

[Necrolepsy]

Meh, I think they have realized the mistakes they've made that culminated with Cataclysm (definitely the worst WoW expansion to date). Hopefully they will work hard to win back subscribers and bring WoW back to its roots. The game has honestly gotten to the point where you may as well just queue for stuff outside the game, then have the game launch when something is ready. They've streamlined it too much.


Titan may do it because the people developing Titan are all the original WoW devs who haven't touched WoW in years because they've been busy on Titan, which may be partially responsible for the way WoW is turning out. Titan could go back to what made WoW special in the past.

Yay Blizzard is developing a WoW clone then? That will surely net in the approval of the masses.

[Deleted]

You know about one or two years ago when Aion came out everyone named it the "Wow-killed" but it turned out to be just another MMO that didn't do any harm to the WoW population. I don't think that this is going to be something different than what people thought Aion would do but even if it does happen I'm sure that this won't do such a huge harm to Blizzard. For example, would a player that's worked over 5 years for his character leave everything for another MMO which he doesn't know any about except a few videos and a trailer? Some might do it but some others might play both games at the same time.

[Scummer]

From what I've seen of Tor footage i am not impressed. The content isn't amazing, the only thing good is the levelling whereas it's end game is still miles away from WoW's. I can see WoW losing a few subs then regaining them in a week.

[WrathDksCataFrostPandaFtl]

SWTOR won't kill WoW but it will hurt it's subs significantly, especially over a longer period.
Titan won't kill WoW and I predict it will fail because it's not the same Blizzard as before (dev wise) and it's not an established IP.
WoW will kill WoW because of how little they seem to care about pushing forward content. Seriously, 6 months for a rehashed dragonblight and reskinned bosses + deathwing? Let's not forget they dumped the abyssal maw and downsized war of the ancients to a 5 man instead of a raid. Be real.

Totally agreed, they're just way too f*ing lazy.

An entire content patch that was rehashed content? You can tell how they don't even care about insulting us anymore.

So since WoW is projected to lose another 900 thousand to 1.6 million players with the release of SWTOR on top of the other 1.1 million lost subscriptions since may. How do you guys think blizzard/Mike is going to try and spin their flagship game losing 2 to 2.7 million subscribers in just over/under eight months to their investors? keeping in mind that we're/they're not even going to see WoW:MoP until at least Q2 if not q3.

So yeah on the next investor call how do you guys think blizzard will try to spin the loss of a projected 2-2.7million players into a good thing?

TO PEOPLE MENTIONING THAT THEY'RE STILL MAKING PROFIT: Over half of the profits they've made have come from the digital items IE sparkle pony which is a one time purchase so unless blizzard decides to never add a new mount/pet for "free" ingame again and make them all like the cub that will eventually dry up to.

To the people who feel the need to be morons about the fact that "i can see the future" read the5th word of my post and read this http://www.gamespot.com/news/activis...clines-6346436

Instead of "people are playing content too quickly" it'll be "well we're all lazy f*ckheads, shit".

[flaggel]

This is all just an opinion.... Like gamestop can now predict the future. Wow has been around since 2004, of course its losing steam. But the wow killer will be the game not trying to beat wow. But that's just what I think.

[Tristan Khan]

So someone decided to downgrade blizzard stocks because they had ask a few question to a whopping 381 online gamers? No wonder the world's in trouble.

[mvaliz]

You are wrong there is a wow killer ......CATACLYSM is the wow killer (number started to decline after cata launch.

Hehe - I always said the company that would bring down WoW would be Blizzard themselves... though I imagined it would happen with Diablo 3, and not via actual screwing up of an expansion's gameplay design. :P

[Sackman]

No, they changed the game, deliberately and with malice aforethought. I hold them responsible 100%.

Now, if they come out and say "idiot upper management made us do it! We're innocent, we had no choice, even though we warned them!" then I might cut them some slack. But I see no evidence that this happened.

I don't think they'd have had nearly this hit if they had not screwed up. Even they admit they screwed up, although dragging them out of them has been like pulling teeth.

They didn't really change the game, they changed a few QoL and parts of the game that created fake dpeth. I don't know what you're implying lol. They made heroics a little more difficult, talents a little less ambiguous and homogenously streamlined buffs.

They are doing this further in MOP, except reverting the heroic change to make heroics easier again. It sounds like you are angry that a few things changed but gameplay is still remarkably similar to how it always has been. Just .. well, better.

[Necrolepsy]

People named Aion the wow killer? People also requested many features in wow that got implemented.

Look at where "people" got wow now. That's not to say the devs don't share a large part of the blame. You should listen to your community but not become it's mindslave.

[Doobers]

ive tried the beta for swtor now. I had planned on quitting wow and play that instead.

Now ive cancelled my preorder. Tbh i dont wanna play wow just with lightsabers and eeeendless booooooooooooooooooooooooooooring conversations with npcs.

Im back at wow for good.

There is your answer.

Lol I was in the same mood as you, I was going to pre-order it, then I got invited to Beta.. After like 5 seconds of running around i'm like.... F*ck this uninstall, reinstall wow.

[Sackman]

That's really all the game has going for it, though. The name is a lot bigger than World of Warcraft was when it launched, and it DEFINITELY has a larger fan base, but you can't just count on every single Starwars fan to be interested in the game. In fact, honestly, from what I've seen the majority of people who want to play it are just general gamers, and not so much die-hard Starwars fans.

That said, Starwars has a lot more going for it than all the other MMOs WoW has had to "compete" with, so if there's anything that even has the potential to be a threat for WoW, it's KOTOR.

In all fairness, Lord of the Rings is more accessible than Star Wars. That had all the potential in the world. But they messed up.

Just looking at IMDB shows that Lord of the Rings is more attractive : http://www.imdb.com/chart/top

Star Wars has a franchise, doesn't make it accessible to all, especially with such a niche theme.

[Necrolepsy]

This, IMO is why GW2 is the only upcoming mmo worth checking out. Swtor is not much different than the typical mmo like WoW. However, why not try a game that is completely free after buying it that has an all new look and more exciting gameplay than your average mmo.

The main reason why swtor is getting a lot of publicity is because it's a serious competitor to wow. there wouldnt be a lot of wow players flocking to swtor unless something was seriously wrong with wow. Ergo, not many want to pay for wow any more, because it already sucks.

Oh and free to play titles are free for a reason. You get what you pay for.

---------- Post added 2011-11-27 at 10:34 PM ----------

Lol I was in the same mood as you, I was going to pre-order it, then I got invited to Beta.. After like 5 seconds of running around i'm like.... F*ck this uninstall, reinstall wow.

Clearly you exhibit adult judgement after 5 seconds of gameplay. You should've been in the WoW beta.

[Azerox]

Old games get old, thats how it goes.

Swtor is also in my favour right now, been playing wow since start

[Dril76]

SWTOR won't kill WoW but it will hurt it's subs significantly, especially over a longer period.
Titan won't kill WoW and I predict it will fail because it's not the same Blizzard as before (dev wise) and it's not an established IP.
WoW will kill WoW because of how little they seem to care about pushing forward content. Seriously, 6 months for a rehashed dragonblight and reskinned bosses + deathwing? Let's not forget they dumped the abyssal maw and downsized war of the ancients to a 5 man instead of a raid. Be real.

So what is your idea, release new content every 2-3 month?
Just a small percentage of people actually play as hardcore as you probably do, and on top of that an even smaller percentage of people tries out PTR's, so many wont even clear raid instances on those 6 month that you are claiming not to be satisfied with, you are the one that needs to stop and think for 5 secs....and maybe get a life outside wow?....ops looks who's talking...well at least i consider myself still minimally logical.
Sorry for the personal attack but i do believe that many like you need to stop and really think a bit.

[Sackman]

Exactly what I was thinking, they should do there patch sequentially, like instead a patch each 6 month we have a wowo patch 3 month later a swtor patch, and going on from this Would be hell less boring, would always switch in between and never die from boredom.

---------- Post added 2011-11-27 at 08:55 AM ----------

Its not 1.1 million but more 1.7 million

Actually its probably more like 2.5 million, as I expect they have also gained around 800k subs.

[Deleted]

omg wow is dying ??????? tell me more about it, please!! wtf xx million subs lost ?? just x million left, damnit

still feeling great about my annual pass and mop, no matter how freaking killhard all these wow killing "new" games will kill wow.

yeah, I'm a wow fanboy, because its by far the best game I ever played for now. and as long as it pleases me, I wont be playing a fresh game with no developer experience versus the experience over the last 7 years.