February 7: Blizzard Conference Call

[Mosotti]

I don't know about subscription drop, my server, Tarren Mill EU was LOW when I free transferred from Outland, now it's HIGH. The number of items on AH almost doubled since 3 months ago

Some dudes got life sentences just 2 years ago.

Those dudes did much more than lying to stock holders...

I think SWTOR is a great example that you CAN "lie". It's all in the "subscription" definition. Remember SWTOR giving 1 free month just before the meeting? Right... The same can be said in WoW, for example, about every one that's not paying a monthly subscription. A fair subscription announcement would say "We have x million subscribers, y million of them paying that much, z million of them having this other subscription model, paying that much".

Cause they gave us no real numbers last call and just want to put MoP in the best possible light.

Anyone who's played MoP and is not completely insane (like "omg, TBS was the best expansion cause it had an attunement for everything") will agree it's the best expansion yet... Actually they even put back a kind of that TBC horrible thing, through the reputation requirements combined with the removal of reputation tabards

[Ferocity]

Amount of subs doesn't reflect quality of game. "More" doesn't always equal "better".

But I think we will see some recession, as AP have run out, and I see lots of people turned away from MoP by dailies and CRZ. Recession might not look big at first as some APs will still be active, and a lot of free game-time was sent out to to non-subscribed people.

Anyone who's played MoP and is not completely insane (like "omg, TBS was the best expansion cause it had an attunement for everything") will agree it's the best expansion yet... Actually they even put back a kind of that TBC horrible thing, through the reputation requirements combined with the removal of reputation tabards

Indeed, as there was no "TBS" expansion ever, and in TBC you could grind necessary rep in dungeons.

[Synstir]

Stopped right there!

There is, in NO WAY, any chance that they're going to blame their own development staff for any sub losses. They will spin it on "marketing conditions"... and even try to cover it up with good news.

If they even HINTED that their staff might've been at fault, the Stockholders would demand mass replacements.

Look at history... the last time they had the 1.1 million loss they blamed it on crossover from Diablo III sales - quickly jumping to how it sold over 10 million its first weekend. Prior to that they said the majority of losses were from China (meaning they pay less than main subs) and that was due to a "recent recession." (which we all know the only thing the players were receding from was Cataclysm's gameplay. :P)

So, what I am confused about it is, if you are able to determine that they will come up with "marketing conditions" or that they will spin it on something or that will use good news to cover it all up, why do you think those stockholders won't be able to do that? They are investors, aren't they? They do this for a living, while you are just playing a game.

Don you think that blizzard will give some more credeibility to their stockholders and not just think they are morons?

Think about it a while.......

---------- Post added 2013-01-24 at 09:06 AM ----------

Amount of subs doesn't reflect quality of game. "More" doesn't always equal "better".

While I agree with this statement, I have to add that the trend of those subs will effect quality in the end (and that is what it is about).
If numbers keep dropping then there will be a point that development of the game will suffer, just because lack of money.

[Tauren]

you know the game isnt doing good when people only re sub during major content updates.. sersly

[Nerraw]

you know the game isnt doing good when people only re sub during major content updates.. sersly

This has always happened. It's nothing new.

[Deleted]

So, what I am confused about it is, if you are able to determine that they will come up with "marketing conditions" or that they will spin it on something or that will use good news to cover it all up, why do you think those stockholders won't be able to do that? They are investors, aren't they? They do this for a living, while you are just playing a game.

Don you think that blizzard will give some more credeibility to their stockholders and not just think they are morons?

Think about it a while.......

Because one of them is the authority and the other group likes to be convinced. Without the info they can only speculate. You don't wake up sleeping dogs by calling your own product dogfood. You quietly fire the guy, that's enough of a message.

With the Asian market not using the sub system the sub number has diminished in value. Rest assured also, there is someone getting paid a lot of money every month to manipulate the numbers anywhere he can to make them look more positive. That's the same fellow who in SWTOR came up with the free month trick

[Radalek]

Facts from my server, Outland EU. We had no queues at all for the last 2 months but now in last few weeks it started again...and it got higher and higher peaking at 800 people queue in the evenings. Activity on the server is much higher than 2 months ago. I saw people saying the same for some other servers. It might be too small of a sample but it surely doesn't look to me that numbers are falling.

[Osmeric]

It definitely has always happened, but has it been to the same extent? I know folks that resubbed for 4.3, did LFR and the new 5 mans then immediately unsubbed. "LOL I BEAT WOW," is what one of my friends said. A lot of those folks did the same thing with MoP. Played for the first month or two, did LFR and then said "see ya later."

Those people are going to have some fun getting up to ilvl 480 for T15 LFR.

[Synstir]

Because one of them is the authority and the other group likes to be convinced. Without the info they can only speculate. You don't wake up sleeping dogs by calling your own product dogfood. You quietly fire the guy, that's enough of a message.

With the Asian market not using the sub system the sub number has diminished in value. Rest assured also, there is someone getting paid a lot of money every month to manipulate the numbers anywhere he can to make them look more positive. That's the same fellow who in SWTOR came up with the free month trick

The stockholders are interested in the profit and the growth of that profit.
if subs are declining and playing time (Asia) is getting shorter, there will be questions.
Companies will investigate this and find causes, after that solutions must be implemented.

Remember 4.3? That was a real turn during cata.

Now we have in MoP the philosophy that players need to log on more..... appearantly this is to have the Asian players more online time, as they are paying for their time online.
Everything in MoP is designed to have players log on more frequently, dailies are there to ensure players will come online every day and spend time online (= payment).

How this pays off will be visible in the near future.

If this brings in more profit, then we'll keep dailies as a major part of our endgame.
In the end, we don't know what is valued more, subs or paying for time online.

A sub is a constant money stream which will not fluctuate during time of subscription. Here the policy will be keep players subscribed.... the time spend online doesn't matter, cause the sub is per month.

Paying for time online is risky. It depends on "things-to-do" in-game. If players can be occupied, whichever way, then that is good business. The more and longer players are online, the more money comes in. But this is not a constant stream of money, it depends on logging on. So Blizzard needs to ensure that players log on an spend some time online. This philosophy works different than the sub-model. In this model income in dependant on "things-to-do", so the policy of bringing out smaller patches at a faster rate is the way to go. We can't have 6 months in between patches when we want players to log on. we don't want players to take a break, because they did everything and no content is left. So raid-patches and non-raid patches with less time in between in the answer.

Now we will logon daily and grind rep. In this was Blizzard is maximizing on-line time and at the same time minimizing development costs (no 5 man content in patches, repeatable quest, long grinds). All of this fits very well in what you are saying: sub number less important, time online more important.

I am very curious if the will switch to the asian model in US and EU.

[Deleted]

Osmeric what are you talking about? You need 470 for MSV and the other 2 require 480. The people who "saw the content and unsubbed" have 480, else they could not have seen HoF and ToES.

I know Blizzard did add gate to increase subs (esp getting an extra month on people like Virtua.)

It definitely has always happened, but has it been to the same extent? I know folks that resubbed for 4.3, did LFR and the new 5 mans then immediately unsubbed. "LOL I BEAT WOW," is what one of my friends said. A lot of those folks did the same thing with MoP. Played for the first month or two, did LFR and then said "see ya later." I'm beginning to become one of those guys, I unsubbed back in November, I plan on resubbing some time during the next content patch, doing LFR, then immediately unsubbing.

Same here, this is how I am planning to continue to play WoW. I really can't be bothered with any grinds whatsoever, I want to spend the minimum amount of time to see maximum amount of content. If that means I'm not able to play N or HC raid, so be it.

Even in WotLK, it was difficult to see all of the content of a patch in a month. Other than Trial of the Crusader, that is. On my server at least, it was pretty rare for PUGs to actually do a full ICC run until 4.0 came out. It's a lot easier now to see everything the game has to offer. Hit that dungeon queue button as many times as you need to reach whatever item level you need to hit that LFR queue button. Hit that once for each "segment," and congratulations, "I BEAT WOW LOL!"

If your server couldn't PuG 12/12 N before 4.0 that means you were playing on a very bad server. That was already with 30% nerf, mind you! You can say the same about 4.0 and 4.2, but then came LFR.

[Synstir]

Osmeric what are you talking about? You need 470 for MSV and the other 2 require 480.

Shouldn't this be 460 for msv and 470 for the other 2?

[Osmeric]

Shouldn't be a problem. Are they not adding new 5 mans?

Nope, no new 5 mans.

They'll also be way behind the curve on getting their sha-touched weapons and the legendary chain.

---------- Post added 2013-01-24 at 01:32 PM ----------

Osmeric what are you talking about? You need 470 for MSV and the other 2 require 480.

460 for MSV, 470 for HoF/ToES.

[Deleted]

Yeah true. Well either way Blizzard doesn't want LFR players to be forced to do Normal. VP cost is halved. Yeah there would be a small catch up game, and nope no new LFD instances in 5.2, Virtua. If Virtua had paid for 1 month extra and played a few more LFR he'd have 480 if you assume a 12,5% drop chance without lucky charms. But you should take some lucky charms into equation (I would say at least 3) since playing the daily quest once constitutes seeing the content and you're already on your way to get the first 3 then.

In my case I'm sure the 300k I got left will help me getting an epic item which increases my ilvl (tho I had more than 500 ilvl when I quit so I don't foresee any trouble doing LFR in 5.2, nor 5.3 actually).

As for your comment on Sha touched gem. I got that one, but even if I wouldn't you simply get it from LFR in that one month time frame.

One other thing I'd like to add is people who do not do the grind game in dailies etc are missing out on the unlocked content.

[Tabbycat]

I predict they'll release more information about Project Titan.

Of course that might just be wishful thinking on my part.

Darn you Blizz, tell us more about Titan already.

[McNeil]

Just 2 more weeks untill we know the truth

[Zaqwert]

It definitely has always happened, but has it been to the same extent? I know folks that resubbed for 4.3, did LFR and the new 5 mans then immediately unsubbed. "LOL I BEAT WOW," is what one of my friends said. A lot of those folks did the same thing with MoP. Played for the first month or two, did LFR and then said "see ya later." I'm beginning to become one of those guys, I unsubbed back in November, I plan on resubbing some time during the next content patch, doing LFR, then immediately unsubbing.

Even in WotLK, it was difficult to see all of the content of a patch in a month. Other than Trial of the Crusader, that is. On my server at least, it was pretty rare for PUGs to actually do a full ICC run until 4.0 came out. It's a lot easier now to see everything the game has to offer. Hit that dungeon queue button as many times as you need to reach whatever item level you need to hit that LFR queue button. Hit that once for each "segment," and congratulations, "I BEAT WOW LOL!"

This might just be the "new normal" when it comes to WoW. I mean the features are built to promote this playstyle. As long as it's profitable for Blizzard they'll keep doing it. Obviouslyt hey'd like everyone to stay subbed all the time but even if someone buys an expack and then subs for like 2-3 months at at ime at major content patches, that's still probably a very profitable business.

The game does feel more like like a console type game, with levels, that you can "beat" rather than an ongoing live world, and it can be argued Blizzard has intentionally made it so.

[Arbs]

Just 2 more weeks untill we know the truth

What truth?? Be more specific

---------- Post added 2013-01-24 at 12:46 PM ----------

Well since this is the Q4 of 2012 results, I am guessing there will be a small increase in subs because of new content and holidays.

Ya some people don't realize Q4 ended on December 31st

---------- Post added 2013-01-24 at 12:50 PM ----------

Didn't they give MoP + 4 months to all Diablo players? yeah.

Only if we bought the Collector's Edition while having the Annual Pass I believe.

---------- Post added 2013-01-24 at 12:51 PM ----------

Lion's Arch is in overflow from 6 am to Midnight 7 days a week on just about every server. No one hangs out in the other cities.

So bascially, Lion Arch is the Stormwind/Orgrimmar of GW2.

---------- Post added 2013-01-24 at 12:54 PM ----------

You expect roughly the size of the entire playerbase of EU and US combined to have stopped playing over the course of 3 months?

Thats a real head scratcher, Dunno if Mall is serious or outta the loop.

---------- Post added 2013-01-24 at 12:56 PM ----------

this xpac seem to has alot more ppl enjoying than cata did to think the sub would drop drastically is crazy and can hardly be backed up

I feel the same way.

---------- Post added 2013-01-24 at 12:59 PM ----------

nope it was

Good way to Fluff numbers

Or that is the date before Christmas and the christmas deals end.

Another reason I believe the subs are down in Q4: If they were up, they would've already announced it like they did a week after Q3 ended with Pandaria's release.

Or MoP just released & Q3 ended on September 30th. An they annouced the subs with MoP sales like they always do after an expansion releases.

[Deleted]

So bascially, Lion Arch is the Stormwind/Orgrimmar of GW2.

Yes, like Fleet is in SWTOR. Your point?

[Tziva]

I know anecdotal evidence (in either direction) doesn't count for much, but it doesn't surprise me how much by personal experience regarding game activity contrasts with others'.

I've seen a lot of people comment about how dead and empty the game is now, but this is actually the most active I've seen it since Wrath within my social circle. While some of the people I knew who left in Cataclysm didn't come back for Mists, I don't know a single person personally who has unsubbed since the expansion launched. My guild -- which has always been a very small exclusive group due to the no-recruit/invite-only policy -- has almost doubled in activity in the last few months. In Cata, we had one ten man raid. This time around, we have two full guild raids, and another that is about 60% guildies.

[mikencarly]

I know anecdotal evidence (in either direction) doesn't count for much, but it doesn't surprise me how much by personal experience regarding game activity contrasts with others'.

I've seen a lot of people comment about how dead and empty the game is now, but this is actually the most active I've seen it since Wrath within my social circle. While some of the people I knew who left in Cataclysm didn't come back for Mists, I don't know a single person personally who has unsubbed since the expansion launched. My guild -- which has always been a very small exclusive group due to the no-recruit/invite-only policy -- has almost doubled in activity in the last few months. In Cata, we had one ten man raid. This time around, we have two full guild raids, and another that is about 60% guildies.

I have to agree 100% which is why i would say 10.5 million or almost 11million sub count for the sub total.