February 7: Blizzard Conference Call

[slackjawsix]

9.5 hours till the QQ if they drop and if it went up OMG STOP COUNTING CHINA THEY ARENT REAL!

[Deleted]

9.5 hours till the QQ if they drop and if it went up OMG STOP COUNTING CHINA THEY ARENT REAL!

And if they drop it will be OMG IT'S MOSTLY FROM CHINA THEY ARENT REAL!

---------- Post added 2013-02-07 at 12:16 PM ----------

I can't say I hate Blizzard for it, they are just a buisness

I can say that I do hate Blizzard for it. "Being a business" is no excuse. There are plenty of businesses that put the customer first instead of trying to extort money wherever possible. I tend to be a customer of those businesses and I'm no longer Blizzard's customer.

[Zeek Daniels]

This is true the reason people come back is not that much the game itself but they friends you played with. If they are still playing you are more likely to come back. If they are gone though...well you are as free as a bird now.

I actually am on vent regularly with old WoW buddies who still play together but i dont. Havent played WoW retail since october? I have no itch to comeback i can talk to them all i want on vent, and play other MMO's and PC games.

I do think we will see a drop in subs because i think alot of ppl who took the annual pass have let their sub run out and are still playing d3 or have quit both games.

[Deleted]

I can say that I do hate Blizzard for it. "Being a business" is no excuse. There are plenty of businesses that put the customer first instead of trying to extort money wherever possible. I tend to be a customer of those businesses and I'm no longer Blizzard's customer.

Those business on the most part don't succeed.
As a business your first goal is profit.
There are lots of ways that Blizzard could easily squeeze more money from subs like a larger vanity item market, creating a premium account, doing what LotRO did with an infinite account etc.

[ro9ue]

I got $10 on 8mil.

[klaps_05]

maybe just under 10, i rly have no clue of chinese/asian player base and their intentions

[BenBos]

Free fall on sub departement.
It was considered that 600k was a major decline.
Then Q2 2012 Redifined "major".
I believe the game lost 500k to 800k subs since expension start.
We wont know till next week i guess judging from previous times.
I dont care currently about the rest of Blizzard's products.

Nicely ignoring the launch of a 10.000.000 copies sold new Blizzard game in that quarter...

The disucssions about Blizzard never stops with so many ignorant factors really.

---------- Post added 2013-02-07 at 01:33 PM ----------

I got $10 on 8mil.

TY, money taken and raising $50... You're bad at poker aren't you ?

[Deleted]

maybe just under 10, i rly have no clue of chinese/asian player base and their intentions

Given the Asian players play a different amount for the game (much less, and per hour) they shouldn't be count the same as a sub. But Blizzard decided at some point they should count the same. Weird huh? Talking about giving your own statistics less credibility.

[BenBos]

I don't know..
The daily system is a complaint of many people.
But if it takes 6 months without any fresh content to drop the subs by 1 million, then something as optional as dailies can't hurt the game that much.
That's my take on it!

IN game features never were a big reason for a rise or a drop. The launch of another Blizzard fantasy game or the free to play industry are ...

[Beefhammer]

9 or 10 millions players didn't mean that they are still playing or active in game.

9 millions ''in the world'' maybe but i would love to see the number for North America/Europe only.

Why does that matter. Do SA accounts not count? How about AU/NZ accounts? What about Asian accounts? They all count. This is so ridiculous thinking that NA/EU accounts only matter.

[BenBos]

Given the Asian players play a different amount for the game (much less, and per hour) they shouldn't be count the same as a sub. But Blizzard decided at some point they should count the same. Weird huh? Talking about giving your own statistics less credibility.

It is the default system of China. They have the communist party control everything: that includes HOW games are paid for and played.

Did you even know the China government does NOT allow consoles over there ?

So what do you want Blizzard to do? Overthrow the government and change their laws ???

Also playing by the hour is not "cheap" either. You can compare it with your cell phone contract based per time used... Is that cheap too ?

[Beefhammer]

Numbers are a metric that can be manipulated in many different ways. the haters will say game is dying a slow death, the fan's will say it is still the most successful MMO in the world the truth will be somewhere in the middle and the stock market will truly determine the fate of the game.

Unless they lost over 8M subs it is still the most successful MMO in the world. Actually even if it died today it is still the most successful MMO ever. Sub count at this point is moot in determining its success since it became the biggest and most successful less than a year after launch and no one has come close since.

[Deepsidedj]

When is the conference? i dont know how this CET PET works. Im from Europe

[BenBos]

Unless they lost over 8M subs it is still the most successful MMO in the world. Actually even if it died today it is still the most successful MMO ever. Sub count at this point is moot in determining its success since it became the biggest and most successful less than a year after launch and no one has come close since.

Not even telling 90% of the rest of the bunch all went free to play and no longer HAVE subscriptions.

So people are discussing a vacuum situation here and don't want to SEE the reality: where are those other million subscription based games ???

[Deleted]

It is the default system of China. They have the communist party control everything: that includes HOW games are paid for and played.

Did you even know the China government does NOT allow consoles over there ?

So what do you want Blizzard to do? Overthrow the government and their laws ???

I never said I DISAGREED with the way people in some random country I've never been pay for a game. Local market, policy, culture, law it is everything. I see a company who operates in an other country as a GUEST.

With that said my post was about how Blizzard counts the subscriptions.

I don't see how you could interpret my post the way you did.

[Beefhammer]

That's quite interesting.
Seems to fit with my speculation that the current amount of subs will be around 8.3 million in my previous post earlier in this thread (with a worst case 7.5 mill, best case 9 mill).

They said they sold 1.2 million annual passes. So that is about 10% of the wow population. Of those 1.2 million passes, only 378k are level 90 with the mount. Of course there might be people who have yet to reach level 90, but it still means a potential drop of ~822k+ people from annual passes alone.

Don't forget most players never reach level cap with 1 character and I do not think MoP has been released in all regions unless it has been recently.

[Arbs]

Given the Asian players play a different amount for the game (much less, and per hour) they shouldn't be count the same as a sub. But Blizzard decided at some point they should count the same. Weird huh? Talking about giving your own statistics less credibility.

Why shouldn't they count ?? They are paying a service like the rest of us, It just different cause of there government laws & rules.

Don't forget most players never reach level cap with 1 character and I do not think MoP has been released in all regions unless it has been recently.

It been released in all Regions, China didn't get MoP until a week or so after it was released in Us & EU.

[xanzul]

9 or 10 millions players didn't mean that they are still playing or active in game.

9 millions ''in the world'' maybe but i would love to see the number for North America/Europe only.

Shareholders don't give a fuck about that. Again for the millionth time paying accounts are paying accounts regardless of who they are, where they are from, why they pay, how much they pay, how they pay, why they play, how much they play, or how many accounts they have. I have a feeling I will have to repeat this at least another dozen times once the new numbers are out. I'm sorry haters but Blizzard isn't falling to its knees in financial ruin just yet.

[Oogly]

When is the conference? i dont know how this CET PET works. Im from Europe

Pacific time is 8 hours behind GMT (the standard). The conference call is at 13:30 pacific time so if you are in the UK it will be at 9:30pm tonight, 10:30 for GMT+1 (France Germany Spain Netherlands Belgium etc, most of western europe) and 11:30 for eastern europe that is considered GMT+2.

[xanzul]

Numbers are a metric that can be manipulated in many different ways. the haters will say game is dying a slow death, the fan's will say it is still the most successful MMO in the world the truth will be somewhere in the middle and the stock market will truly determine the fate of the game.

Again the numbers are the numbers no spin doctoring involved. This just simply isn't a subjective matter, I'm sorry but it just isn't. If Blizzard states there are a certain number of active subscriptions then thats that and that is all there is to it. Again the shareholders don't give a fuck about the politics of these forums and the agendas people are constantly pushing. All that matters is that Blizzard is turning a profit and it matters not if people are playing Wow 24/7 or 5 minutes a month. Paying accounts are paying accounts. Period. End of story. It isn't up for debate.