Activision Blizzard Fourth Quarter Calendar 2013 Results Conference Call today...

[Fenixdown]

I sense a slight increase... From my perception I've seen quite a few people resub lately, Friends list, Guildies, even the local /2 troll. Most all are prepping for WoD.

Since he was the first in this thread to correctly predict an increase, does he win anything?

[Deleted]

Yes, thats what i'm saying. What is your presumption about that? Because the game was becoming supercool, where nothing has really changed?

My presumption is there are many many factors in WoW sub numbers.

Can I see that the launch of Flex kept some people subbed, sure I can see that (so that is kind of SoO related).

Can I see the Recruit a Friend relaunch had an effect, sure.

They had a massive box sale over Xmas.

Way to many people read way to much into sub numbers.

And way way to many people go "OMFG WoW Sucks becasue subs are down when x happened".

The game is old, it is in decline and it will never (ever) have 12 millions subs ever again.

I very much believe in product life cycle.

I love MoP and I play most days, I will stop playing when I stop having fun it is that simple.

[Deleted]

Pleasantly surprised. I honestly thought it would drop below 7 million.

[Osmeric]

Since he was the first in this threadHe wins to correctly predict an increase, does he win anything?

He wins +1 internets and one golfclap!

Seriously, good prediction.

[freighttrain]

What you are arguing is that a for profit company, doesnt care about profits...gl with that

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You should care, if Blizz continues to muck this process up of massive sub losses inbetween content there will come a day when the servers are shut down and you wont have anythign to play. That is why I care. I dont want this game to go away, I want Blizz to make smart choices so that people stick around and then I can continue to play. That is why you should care, pretty ignorant not to

First of all, read all all the shareholder reports since the losses began. Where have the vast majority of sub losses come from? The Eastern markets. You know that place where small fraction of revenues come from even though it accounted fro nearly a tad bit more than 50% of the 12M sub count. Blizzard has consistently said the Western Markets are stable and/or growing. You know, the area where people pay the full price for subs and where the vast majority of revenues come from.

WoW is in good shape for years to come. Do I expect to play this game for ever? No. Could I get bored with it? Of course. Would I be terribly upset if Blizzard makes a decision that alters my enjoyment of the game which ultimately makes me quit? No. In the end it is just a game. My in game friends are my real friends and family, and a few of the in game only friends I do have their emails and phone numbers so I could keep in contact with them if I wanted, but I could walk away from WoW this morning and It would have zero impact on me since I would pick up another game, or series of games to fulfill my gaming appetite ore even pick up a new hobby.

Not to mention, Blizzard has lost nearly half of its sustained Customer base shortly after MoP, yet, despite your claims, I find the game more enjoyable even though less monies were rolling in.

[Synstir]

A very pleasant surprise to see the subs go up, for a change.
This is actually great and I hope Blizzard can keep this up.

[DeadmanWalking]

Gonna be some haters spitting teeth today. "What do you mean that everything I don't like doesn't necessarily cause sub losses!? I'm a representative of the majority of the playerbase because I'm the only person I know that's me!".

[freighttrain]

I think you may be right about Blizz wanting to bring back old players, but if so, they're going about it all backward. They're not returning the game to it's classic state, or an improved and more modern version of it. They're appear to be keeping the same old crapfest of shallow gameplay, EZ-mode for everyone all the time, and linear railroads everywhere. And then they're slapping a BC-colored coat of paint over it and going, "See! It's just like the good old days!" Trading on respected names while producing inferior product to milk the max amount of cash is what kills brand names, not what rejuvinates them. It's too early to say for certain how WoD will turn out, but with stuff like garrisons, stat removal, and an expanded in-game cash shop, all signs point to crap.

As opposed the the depth of game play that was Vanilla? WoW never had depth. It was the laughing stock of MMOs in terms of depth and difficulty. It was designed that way on purpose to get everyone and anyone involved in MMOs. Stop pretending that WoW was ever difficult or deep.

Vanilla was pretty linear. You started at 1 and worked your way to 60. At 60 you ran level 60 dungeons to get your dungeon sets then walk into MC. Then followed that up with Ony, BWL, ZG/AQ 20, AQ 40, then Naxx 40 if you were the fortunate few. There was nothing else to do. Sure you had 4 paths but they all lead you to the exact same spot. Today we have so much more, and while some things might not be for everyone, we have so much more to do than the hit level cap and raid that was the "glory days" these forums seem to believe in.

Have you set foot in WoD yet? You can tell us about how much of an inferior product it is? Try not to judge a book by its cover. You do realize they removed four BS stats that server no purpose but as artificial walls, and replaced them with fun and useful stats and then added tertiary stats on top of that. I actually agree with the armor/gear/stat changes. I hated nothing more than to get a new piece but had to go reforge it because it had a bad stat on it and then reforge a few other pieces just to make my numbers hit my caps again. Min/maxing will still be there and really, unless you are progression mythic raider it will not mater. The changes look to bring fun back to getting gear. All pieces will be useful. Secondaries are being made useful to all specs. Yes you may want mastery over crit lets say, but you will not be gimped by having mastery in WoD like you can be now.

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lol "healthy engagement" from hearthstone, game must be bringing in boatloads of cash...

I was reading about Twitter recently and they used engagement for people using Twitter. While I am sure there are plenty of sucker paying for shit that will get deleted when it goes live, I am certain they mean more people are playing Hearthstone than they expected.

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Heres the thing to which I said in every thread about the expected sub "losses" and that's that I had never seen the big pop servers queues get this out of hand the entirety of mists of pandaria. Basically ever since blizzcon the game went from a 100 person queue on Tuesday primetime to a 1600 queue on primetime which meant some people were playing something.

You on Stormrage too?

[-Superman-]

A very pleasant surprise to see the subs go up, for a change.
This is actually great and I hope Blizzard can keep this up.

Yep, lots of folks gonna be mad about this. Guessing folks are resubbing in preparation for WoD.

[Deleted]

Whoa now that was unexpected.
I guess wod got people more excited than what many of us thought.
Nice to see it going up for a change. Mop's graph was looking grim enough already.

[-Superman-]

Whoa now that was unexpected.
I guess wod got people more excited than what many of us thought.
Nice to see it going up for a change. Mop's graph was looking grim enough already.

Guessing a lot of the naysayers from this very thread are too busy making omlettes from the egg on their face to make an appearance

[melodramocracy]

lols, so let me check...

the reasons subs went up was that the last tier was released 4 months before the end of the quarter?

Really?

That is whats your saying?

If you had said RaF relaunch, The WoW Box sale they did over xmas, Flex etc etc sure I can buy all that.

I don't buy that SoO has anything to do with the sub increase.

Most players were still very busy with SoO, which was released less than a month before the start of the 4th quarter. Add to that the hype created by Blizzcon for the generally well received WoD during that quarter, and you see why a sub increase makes sense (but is a pleasant surprise nonetheless).

I'm just glad the 'it's just old' crowd needs to find a new excuse next time subs drop off.

[Lime]

While it's nice to see the sub count up, it won't last. The game is old. Once the WoD hype settles down (a few months after it's released), I expect the numbers to start dropping again. No matter how Blizzard tries to dress it up, its still the same game every expansion. The people bored with it now (not necessarily content-wise, but gameplay-wise) are the same ones who will get bored with it as soon as the hype is gone.

[Deleted]

A pleasant surprise. Not an enormous gain, but it's good to see that the numbers are holding steady. Obviously Siege of Orgrimmar was a contributing factor here and some sub losses in 2014 Q1 are to be expected. But given the rise this time, and the small number of losses from the last report I could easily see WoW at 8 subs and climbing if they manage to push WoD out by May or June.

[-Superman-]

While it's nice to see the sub count up, it won't last. The game is old.

Well, that didn't take long.

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http://www.examiner.com/article/worl...-earnings-call

With a drop of 600,000 players reported in July 2013 and another decline of 100,000 by November 2013 , many were curious what "World of Warcraft" subscription numbers would look like this quarter. After all, a new expansion was announced at BlizzCon since then. According to the earnings released today, subscriptions are up again.

A firm 7.6 million were subscribed to the game in November 2013. That number is up by 200,000 to 7.8 million today. "Warlords of Draenor" pre-ordering is likely coming soon considering the boosted level 90 additions to the public test realm. With that in mind, numbers could possibly increase again. However, it's entirely possible that subscriber numbers will even out and steady during this time.

At the beginning of 2013 subscribers were down to 8.3 million after losing 1.3 million in that quarter. At its peak, "World of Warcraft" was subscribed to by over 12 million gamers. Those interested in this quarter can check out the full press release here.

Up to almost 8M... not bad.

[Osmeric]

Well, that didn't take long.

I think we're likely to see a decline in Q1 2014, but I'm reducing my estimate of how big that decline will be.

Myself, I'm hoping casual PvP makes a recovery in the next season. I've always enjoyed casual PvP at the end of expansions.

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Christ, the game is down over two million subs since MoP launched; what horrible design flaw is supposed to have driven those people away, and what do you imagine suddenly fixed it now?

Dailies are not needed, for rep or lesser charms. The difficulty chasm between LFR and Normal has been bridged. Realms are being combined.

[rda]

The *only* reason the figures are near zero and not a siginficant loss is that SoO was pretty fresh when the quarter for which they report numbers began. Heck, SoO LFR wasn't even fully unlocked yet. That's the only reason. The rest is done by the mechanics of their counting - if you logged in even once in the quarter, you are "active" and you are part of the 7.8 millions that they report (and of course you logged in at least once since November, if you are still here).

The real deal is the next two quarters prior to WoD. There's going to be a siginficant loss in both, Blizzard themselves expect it. The real deal is in just how much they are going to lose. It's going to be more than 1 mil for sure, that'd be expected. But if it's something like 2+ mil, that's going to be a catastrophe.

And then we'll face the first quarter of WoD with the ultimate moment of truth: will they have the numbers that they had in the beginning of MoP or not. If they will climb back to MoP numbers, that'll be a significant success and one would be able to say that they kinda turned the ship around. If they won't, it's just going to be continued decline all over again, the same sad story that we had for years now where they just can't stop the bleeding.

My bet is on WoD NOT making the numbers of MoP in its first quarter, and the continued decline.

[Eviscero]

Q1 2014 I predict 2 million sub loss. By Q3 2014, predict 1 million sub gain.

[Osmeric]

The rest is done by the mechanics of their counting - if you logged in even once in the quarter, you are "active" and you are part of the 7.8 millions that they report

This is incorrect.

[Deadite]

I am honestly flabbergasted sub numbers went up. How they can gain subs after telling people there will be no new content for 8 months to a year is unfathomable to me. They must have sorcerer's working for them. The player base of this game never ceases to amaze me in how they are happy with literally nothing.