WoW's sub decline: Mirroring the gaming industry as a whole?

[tenzing21]

WoW... with more than 8 million players subscribed...I'd say

The number of people playing Wow is around 865,000 worldwide. There haven't even been over a million paid subs for a few months now, and they were below 2mil for almost all of last year. Since only 5 million or so copies of Mop have been sold, kinda hard to have 8 million subs...

[Deleted]

The number of people playing Wow is around 865,000 worldwide. There haven't even been over a million paid subs for a few months now, and they were below 2mil for almost all of last year. Since only 5 million or so copies of Mop have been sold, kinda hard to have 8 million subs...

lol @ completely making up numbers.
in my opinion swtor has a billion subs and wow 100.000

[Deleted]

Since they have no active subscriptions, they are not called upon to account for the number of active accounts.

And Blizzard does count inactive accounts within its fiogures... FACT.

I think it was Mike Morhaime (or another high ranking Blizzard employee) who did an interview (i think for the financial press) back in Wrath where he admitted that only around 50% of Wow subsciptions login more than once per month. He went on to say its a concern for Blizzard and they want to encourage those players to login more. Thats a fukking hell of alot of inactive accounts which r paying cash to Blizzard every month.

So basically at any one time around 50% of Blizzard subs r actually logging in more than once per month... the other 50% dont login but they still pay their monthly subs.

This is no different to games like GW2. Sure not everyone who bought GW2 logs in regularly... but *drum roll* that was exactly how the game was designed to be! *shock horror face!*

Basically Blizzard does not release how many people login every month and nor does GW2... its the same.

GW2 shows how many unit sales they made and Wow shows how many monthly subscriptions is has.

[Pugbot]

So I saw an article with this chart in it. It shows that since 2010 when WoW was at it's peak, amount of money people spend on games and PC games has declined each subsequent year. To me this clearly shows that WoW's decline isn't some crazy "Blizzard is awful, Ghostcrawler is an idiot" but is largely a reflection on the changing preferences of consumers.



I don't know how, in a market like that, anyone would expect WoWs subs to not decline noticeably.

Fortunately several other people have pointed out how easy it is to misinterpret statistics so I don't have to.

My only comment will be that WoW is an old game, and if anybody is expecting it to continue growing or maintain its peak, then you're fairly delusional. Of course its going to start dropping off, especially when "its the same old shit" every expansion. They do a FANTASTIC job, don't get me wrong, but its still the same game no matter what sword the boss is holding or what color the dungeon is, nobody is going to play forever and there are many other games now to consider playing than WoW for newcomers to the market. WoW originated as a cutting edge MMO, it is no longer and will continue to decline without serious overhaul that changes the game entirely. The veteran players get bored and move on. Game companies don't recognize the effect veterans have on the community. If you don't keep them interested you will fail.

[Deleted]

http://www.zacks.com/stock/news/9753...line-Yet-Again

Mar 2013...

http://www.zacks.com/stock/news/8820...line-Yet-Again

Dec 2012

How many of these thread do you want.
Just to quote from the last link:

"Video game retail sales declined for the twelfth consecutive month in November 2012. According to market research firm NPD, U.S video game store sales slumped 11.0% year over year to $2.25 billion in the month of November."

And the year before that you had the same rate...

As of the start of 2013 it has been worse even.


---
But within this video game business ... ALL those latest sub based MMORPG that needed to go free to play to survive is freightening even....

Latest update:

http://www.businessweek.com/news/201...il-npd-reports

"U.S. retail sales of video-game hardware, software and accessories fell 25 percent to $495.2 million last month, ..."

Tbh i dont really care about those stats. Are they worlwide? Or only US? Retail stores? Or online buys? Most people buy games online nowadays, you know, as with lots of other things.

With the human population growing, games getting better and better, I refuse to believe that gaming is in a decline because some site i never heard of has some article and statistics which are probably not even accurate.

[Deleted]

Tbh i dont really care about those stats. Are they worlwide? Or only US? Retail stores? Or online buys? Most people buy games online nowadays, you know, as with lots of other things.

With the human population growing, games getting better and better, I refuse to believe that gaming is in a decline because some site i never heard of has some article and statistics which are probably not even accurate.

Benbos has been proven wrong by many people in this thread... dont worry hes shut up now

[Mazinger-Z]

And Blizzard does count inactive accounts within its fiogures... FACT.

Don't be obtuse.

Morhaime is talking about people with who are still subscribers who are paying but not logging in (there are many people like this). They count that as revenue, because its money coming in, even if the account is considered inactive. It is still income counted in a financial statement.

GW2 has no subscription, so whether or not people are playing does not impact their bottom line (outside of operating costs). It certainly does not bring any revenue in. Anyone playing is a POTENTIAL source of revenue post-box-sale, but POTENTIAL doesn't mean anything in a financial statement.

ArenaNet is counting its gem store revenue, Blizzard is counting the income from not only their own store and services, but also their subscriptions. And in fact, only people with active accounts.

The difference is that with Blizzard, you have an active metric of people who are putting money into the game, because they report subscriber numbers, which people harp on. Since there is no such model in GW2, you only have revenue from box sales and gem sales. The 1st quarter of this year showed a substantial dip following the previous quarter, which was part of the GW2 hype and Christmas season. Second quarter financials will probably be very telling. Another drop off would infer that GW2 is actually nowhere near as sustainable as WoW. Again, since GW2 posts fewer metrics than WoW, stating how many people are playing it is pure speculation.

All we know is that its hit 3 million, but not 4 million. If it had hit 4 million, they'd be crowing from the rooftops about it. But they say nothing about what their retention rate is, just the box sales. And the gem store is a major part of their financial model, otherwise they wouldn't push a new lottery box every 2-4 weeks.

[Deleted]

Don't be obtuse.

Morhaime is talking about people with who are still subscribers who are paying but not logging in (there are many people like this). They count that as revenue, because its money coming in, even if the account is considered inactive. It is still income counted in a financial statement.

That was precisely my point...

GW2 got the money they wanted when they sold the game... if u login after that isnt an issue. Blizzard gets their money every month from your sub regardless if players login or not.

Both of these games have inactive accounts and both of them do not release how many do or dont login.

basically it was pointless bringing this up in the first place... thats my point.

[BenBos]

Tbh i dont really care about those stats. Are they worlwide? Or only US? Retail stores? Or online buys? Most people buy games online nowadays, you know, as with lots of other things.

With the human population growing, games getting better and better, I refuse to believe that gaming is in a decline because some site i never heard of has some article and statistics which are probably not even accurate.

You may refuse to think the video game sales are in decline, but my links above proved the opposite.

All the rest is bla bla bla.

Here, I'll add the latest one just in case anyone is in doubt.

http://www.businessweek.com/news/201...il-npd-reports

The reason is simple: people "play" social media these days instead of playing video games.

Like the article said: iPads and other social media "games" replaced traditional video gaming (MMORPG play included).

Of course F2P models for MMORPG's are a last straw to save the furniture ...

Those thinking this is just a lull between new consoles ...

yeah the new Sony portable and WII U are doing "fantastic" isn't it ...

---------- Post added 2013-06-26 at 08:51 PM ----------

The number of people playing Wow is around 865,000 worldwide. There haven't even been over a million paid subs for a few months now, and they were below 2mil for almost all of last year. Since only 5 million or so copies of Mop have been sold, kinda hard to have 8 million subs...

Yep and in the latest quarter (a quarter = 3 months just to be sure you can count) ... WOW made 275 million dollars (GAAP !) from Blizzard selling Columbian drugs too !

[Tharkkun]

I was picking Benbos up on his claim over the past 2 years... and in the past 2 years most have LAUNCHED as F2P or B2P. Therefore accusations of them failing are totally unwarranted.

GW2 for example is still growing and its been out almost a year now.

Diablo 3 is still beating it.

really?

Ive played all the other MMOs out there and quality isnt much different. Theyve simply invested in different parts of their MMO. Some dont have raiding, others invested in massive PvP worlds. Others invested heavily in story and questing.

This idea of quality is totally subjective, afterall Wow looks the most out of date graphically than all of them yet that doesnt effect their subs much.

Basically there isnt much difference in quality between F2P or B2P games to Wow or Eve, who are pretty much the only paid subs MMO games out there right now.

I disagree. The quality of pc gaming in general was slowly declining. Sure you had your hits but more and more games were coming out with stop bugs, unfinished endings or unusable multiplayer. WoW's quality forced companies to step up because it was embarrassing. Electronic Arts was one of the most guilty publishers at the time.

Aside from launch day or planned maintenance you are guaranteed that you can login to WoW and do virtually anything that's advertised. That wasn't always the case in many other games. So yes the quality of WoW has pushed the industry to be better as a whole.

But if you want to talk about content quality I have been through EQ, EQ2, Dark Age of Camelot, Guild Wars, City of Heroes, Age of Conan, Asheron's Call, Warhammer Online, Swtor, Rift and recently dabbled in Neverwinter. The only ones worth a damn in that list was EQ, Daoc and City of Heroes. The rest were infested with bugs, unfinished content and lag.

Bugs to me are stop problems that prevent me from playing the game. Stuck on an island, unable to zone, npc stuck 100 feet in the air or under the damn world, can't complete a quest. Having a NPC be missing a head, my cloak not displaying, walking animation gone, etc are cosmetic and don't limit my gameplay.

WoW does not look out of date in MOP and even most of Cataclysm which is where the game is current. You need a computer capable of displaying this on Ultra but it's there. WoW has the cartoon feel to it so if compared to say Neverwinter, Rift or SWTOR it looks less realistic but overall detail is the same.

[tenzing21]

lol @ completely making up numbers.

fanbois will boi. You post is useless, since anyone can observe the metrics for themselves; some realms don't even have 200 active subs, so, um.. yeah.

[BenBos]

this is BenBos you are talking to. he doesnt read anything you write, at least not properly. his standard practice is to pick up a couple of sentences, deliberately misunderstand them, then repeat the same tired lines he uses every time, in every thread. and even when you do pick apart his points to prove he is completely, hilariously wrong, he just ignores you and carries on repeating the same nonsense.

nice to see his old "GW2 doesnt even have mounts!" line making a return. thought that one had been put out to pasture.

The only ones NOT reading my links are the usual suspects.

So I repeat nonsense by stating (and proving) that a subscription model is by far the BEST way to collect resources (money) for having extreme polished open world play in ever lasting adventures in MMORPG ?

---

Ok So then ... Does GW2 have mounts now to replace their loading screens ? Nope.

Does GW2 have an open ended world you can cross without loading screens ? Nope.

Does it have ANY other transportation to jump from one instance to another than a loading screen ? Nope.

GW2 is sewed together with loading screens to jump from one instanced map to another. Someone should tell GW2 fans the wheel was invented thousands of years ago already.

And 75 million dollars over 2 years (in sold boxes - deducting retail/distribution costs) is not going to change that in the future either.


Bottom line : a GOOD open world MMORPG with decent polish AND state of the art background loading worlds that expand endlessly is not supported by B2P or F2P mechanics.

Proof: 15 years of MMORPG history.

[Deleted]

You may refuse to think the video game sales are in decline, but my links above proved the opposite.

All the rest is bla bla bla.

Here, I'll add the latest one just in case anyone is in doubt.

http://www.businessweek.com/news/201...il-npd-reports

ok ill shout it louder cos ur obviously missing what evryone has said to u benbos.

YOUR STATS R RETAIL SALES ONLY U ****

Your sources do not show any digital sales of videogames... and that market is growing massively.

Dude do yourself a favour and stop posting cos everyone in this thread has told u that your data is wrong... ru actually blind?

[Pann]

ok ill shout it louder cos ur obviously missing what evryone has said to u benbos.

YOUR STATS R RETAIL SALES ONLY U ****

Your sources do not show any digital sales of videogames... and that market is growing massively.

Dude do yourself a favour and stop posting cos everyone in this thread has told u that your data is wrong... ru actually blind?

I was about to point that out, I am now convinced that he is on a wind up at... at least I hope he is... if he is not, words fail me.

[BenBos]

ok ill shout it louder cos ur obviously missing what evryone has said to u benbos.

YOUR STATS R RETAIL SALES ONLY U ****

Your sources do not show any digital sales of videogames... and that market is growing massively.

Dude do yourself a favour and stop posting cos everyone in this thread has told u that your data is wrong... ru actually blind?

You can ... not ... read: Here a quote of my link:

"Sales of packaged game products are sinking as more consumers download games on smartphones and tablet.

And what did I write ?

"iPads and other social media "games" replaced traditional video gaming (MMORPG play included)."

And just above that: "The reason is simple: people "play" social media these days instead of playing video games"...

It shows you simply flip when you see BenBos . The same applies to Pann. Funny how some dudes lose all pedals and NOT reading my posts ...

Ough, that hurt didn't it ?

[Pann]

You can ... not ... read: Here a quote of my link:

"Sales of packaged game products are sinking as more consumers download games on smartphones and tablet.

And what did I write ?

"iPads and other social media "games" replaced traditional video gaming (MMORPG play included)."

It shows you simply flip when you see BenBos .

Ough, that hurt didn't it ?

The second word in the article is "RETAIL" the actual quote that is relevant is "U.S. retail sales of video-game hardware, software and accessories fell 25 percent to $495.2 million last month, as consumers shifted to digital titles played on mobile devices and awaited next-generation consoles." Honestly there is no hope if you cannot even read the links that supposedly prove your point.

[BenBos]

The second word in the article is "RETAIL" the actual quote that is relevant is "U.S. retail sales of video-game hardware, software and accessories fell 25 percent to $495.2 million last month, as consumers shifted to digital titles played on mobile devices and awaited next-generation consoles." Honestly there is no hope if you cannot even read the links that supposedly prove your point.

While you left out: "Sales of packaged game products are sinking as more consumers download games on smartphones and tablet..."

... which I alluded to by stating people "play" now the social media.

You are being intellectual dishonest by NOT citing the sentences I alluded to. Simple as that.

BTW: Hardware and accessories can't be downloaded....

))

[Deleted]

While you left out: "Sales of packaged game products are sinking as more consumers download games on smartphones and tablet..."

... which I alluded to by stating people "play" now the social media.

You are being intellectual dishonest by NOT citing the sentences I alluded to. Simple as that.

BTW: Hardware and accessories can't be downloaded....

))

Dude really ur a troll.

The report u linked has a title... that title says RETAIL fell by 25%.

Its a report about retail videogaming... and ur promoting that report as fact of the entire videogames industry is dying and therefore Wow is only dying because thats whats happening everywhere else in gaming.

Firstly, thats not true, and secondly u cannot make such an assumption from a report which has fukk all to do with the overall videogames industry.

[Pann]

While you left out: "Sales of packaged game products are sinking as more consumers download games on smartphones and tablet..."

... which I alluded to by stating people "play" now the social media.

BTW: Hardware and accessories can't be downloaded....

))
Owned.

That says exactly the same as the first line packaged game products are retail sales. Hardware and accessory sales are always going to be decline at this stage in the current generation of consoles' lifespans. Undoubtedly there is an increase in gaming on smartphones and tablets which appeal to broader demographics than console or pc gaming however there has been a trend for the past few years that, pc especially, games are being sold online rather than through retail outlets.

Oh and before declaring that the whole gaming industry is in decline based on one article perhaps you should pay attention to the following "Video-game makers voluntarily report their sales tallies. Nintendo Co. (7974) and Sony don’t typically release monthly figures." So all this article proves is that retail X Box sales are down towards the end of the current generation.

[BenBos]

Dude really ur a troll.

The report u linked has a title... that title says RETAIL fell by 25%.

Its a report about retail videogaming... and ur promoting that report as fact of the entire videogames industry is dying and therefore Wow is only dying because thats whats happening everywhere else in gaming.

Firstly, thats not true, and secondly u cannot make such an assumption from a report which has fukk all to do with the overall videogames industry.

Hardware is ONLY sold by retail btw as are accessories. You can't download these things.

The further decline is due to social media who replace traditional video gaming. That's well indicated in the article...



And I mentioned this rising of iPads a LONG time ago as one of the causes of the decline.

Nothing new here.

As I stated this a year ago already:

2008 ..had no iPads, had no social media, and had hardly free to play mmorpg's.

That changed all...

Wow's subscriptions have to battle all these 3 these days, that simply were hardly present a few years ago.

And apparently the complete video game industry is suffering too.



Secondly : my point has always been the same : you need to view WOW subscriptions within a changing industry. Clear cut and dry.