Blizzard further hides revenues from World of Warcraft

[Dejablue]

Saying "I did some math" without showing the actual math is pretty much pointless.

I did some math and solved the Poincaré Conjecture. Now give me my million dollars.

Too late:

[Soxoffender]

meh. This Give it to me now and easy attitude is why Blizzard changed their game in the first place.

Exactly. Glad someone finally had the balls to point out that some guy wanting a link to investor information is why WoW has gone to shit.

[rda]

Let's just for a second entertain the notion that maybe I can't write clearly: Your response should be then to seek clarification instead of just assuming confidently that you got what I was trying to say and attacking me for it.

I didn't attack you, I replied that I disagree with what you wrote. That you meant something other than what you wrote is your problem, not mine.

If you don't write something clearly and your thought looks different from what you meant, there's no obligation on anyone to try and ask you a second time what you really meant to say. You wanted to say A, managed to say B instead, fine, people take it that you meant to say B.

I don't know what you are trying to achieve here.

[Low Hanging Fruit]

More information I couldn't care less about. Anyone able to log in can tell you sub numbers are in the crapper. Guess what. It is going to be worse. WoD seriously delivered next to no content for its whole life cycle. Now the news comes out nothing minus a pre patch until what realistically is September.

They really don't have to tell me when things are good or bad. Because both are insanely apparent in the game and in the community. Having numbers to justify my fantasies on why the game fell apart or is still strong doesn't fucking matter. Maybe I am just grown up enough to not give a shit and just ride the river. At least until I don't want to anymore and then I just get out of it. But hey if I feel like riding it again I do it. WoW has just stopped being super centric in my life. I hope you guys and gals that let it run your shows still enjoy bickering with the same people over the same points over and over again. But I guess for now you don't get numbers to hang all your debates on.

[gamingmuscle]

Because I've invested a lot of time and work into this game. I'd prefer it stay healthy, if it's about to die I feel like I wasted my time and probably shouldn't waste anymore.

Sub numbers don't directly indicate game health. At some point every healthy game declines. Gradual declines sounds healthy to me, spikes down do not.

[Kheirn]

Too late:

Dangit, forgot that that was the only one that was solved... Now I wasted time solving something pointless. Rats.

[rda]

Sub numbers don't directly indicate game health. At some point every healthy game declines. Gradual declines sounds healthy to me, spikes down do not.

A decline is not healthy, a decline means that the game gets less healthy.

Sub numbers might not tell the whole picture, but in a sub-based game, they do tell 90% of it.

[SodiumChloride]

Sub numbers don't directly indicate game health. At some point every healthy game declines. Gradual declines sounds healthy to me, spikes down do not.

I don't think the bean counters care whether the game is "healthy" - however you definite "healthy".

They care about cost and revenue. The latter is a hard limit on the former.

Long story short, the lower the revenue, the lower the development budget. This is maths. This is financial reality.

[MCMLXXXII]

I don't think the bean counters care whether the game is "healthy" - however you definite "healthy".

They care about cost and revenue. The latter is a hard limit on the former.

Long story short, the lower the revenue, the lower the development budget. This is maths. This is financial reality.

This is true but investments are also used to get more revenue. You can see this as a loss on short term but it will probably end up as profit on a long term.

[gamingmuscle]

A decline is not healthy, a decline means that the game gets less healthy.

Sub numbers might not tell the whole picture, but in a sub-based game, they do tell 90% of it.

No. Decline is normal. No game is going to perpetually grow. Eventually it will peak and then slowly decline.

- - - Updated - - -

I don't think the bean counters care whether the game is "healthy" - however you definite "healthy".

They care about cost and revenue. The latter is a hard limit on the former.

Long story short, the lower the revenue, the lower the development budget. This is maths. This is financial reality.

True. But haven't micro transactions offset or even completely eliminated that loss?
Also it is probably why they have diversified their product line. They have several revenue streams instead of just one.

[rda]

No. Decline is normal. No game is going to perpetually grow. Eventually it will peak and then slowly decline.

That no game is going to perpetually grow doesn't mean that the decline is healthy. The decline means that the "health" decreases. Your universal model for all games of "it will peak and then decline" is described in health-related terms as "the game gets bigger and healthier, then it peaks, and then it starts losing health and eventually dies". "Health" measures how close the game is to being dead, same as with humans.

[SodiumChloride]

This is true but investments are also used to get more revenue. You can see this as a loss on short term but it will probably end up as profit on a long term.

Really depends on whether they believe they will get more revenue than what they spend in development cost.

True. But haven't micro transactions offset or even completely eliminated that loss?

We will see I suppose.

PS: To be blunt, the nature of game development is not on their side. Cost are raising as the baseline graphical fidelity acceptable for a modern game continues to increase.

Personally I'm a tad worried about the MMO genre as a whole.

Everyone is already using every trick in the book. Reusing animation skeletons. Reskinning models. MMOs with modern graphic engines like FFXIV I won't be surprise are probably even reusing textures - it's less noticeable if you vary the lighting conditions; as those textures interact with lighting in a more advance way than say pre-Doom 3 games.

[rda]

True. But haven't micro transactions offset or even completely eliminated that loss?

Not nearly.

[ComputerNerd]

It's mind numbing that people are asking for a source when I've said its their q1 results.

And what was the reasoning and working behind your "maths".
Something which is going to be very questionable at best.

The community has repeatedly been shown incapable of honest interpretation of information.
So it is not surprising that it isn't handed out so readily any more.

Declines are always heralded as "proof", while stabilization or even increases are called out as lies or catering to the casuals.
"This is why we can't have nice things such as subscriber numbers."

[Raelbo]

That no game is going to perpetually grow doesn't mean that the decline is healthy. The decline means that the "health" decreases. Your universal model for all games of "it will peak and then decline" is described in health-related terms as "the game gets bigger and healthier, then it peaks, and then it starts losing health and eventually dies". "Health" measures how close the game is to being dead, same as with humans.

You're arguing the semantics of the word "healthy", but missing the point he was making.

Health is a relative term. A "healthy" octogenarian is probably a lot less healthy than an "unhealthy" teenager. WoW is definitely suffering from the effects of old age, and that will lead to a decline in sub numbers. The question of its state of "health" though should be measured relative to its age. It's quite possible for it to be in a state of decline but still relatively healthy compared to what would be considered "normal" - or vice versa.

[lightofdawn]

what a fuckin joke... MMO subs fluctuate, they always have and always will. if its the meta to hate on shit so hard then go do it on facebook, at least there people can filter out the bullshit by blocking people

[rda]

You're arguing the semantics of the word "healthy", but missing the point he was making.

Health is a relative term. A "healthy" octogenarian is probably a lot less healthy than an "unhealthy" teenager. WoW is definitely suffering from the effects of old age, and that will lead to a decline in sub numbers. The question of its state of "health" though should be measured relative to its age. It's quite possible for it to be in a state of decline but still relatively healthy compared to what would be considered "normal" - or vice versa.

I understand the point he is making, that's a wrong use of words. "A healthy decline ending with a healthy death", based on both the decline and the death being "expected" is an oxymoron.

The game is losing subs and thus is getting less healthy. That's the end of it. If he wants to say that this is expected / normal / whatever, we can talk about that (and I'd disagree), but that's another discussion.

"The question of its state of "health" though should be measured relative to its age." - No.

[Raelbo]

True. But haven't micro transactions offset or even completely eliminated that loss?

They will have mitigated it to some extent, but WoW is almost certainly making a lot less money now than at its peak. That being said, at its peak it was extremely profitable. Just because it is less profitable now doesn't mean it's not sufficiently profitable to remain worthwhile. In other words, less revenue doesn't necessarily mean less development budget - not yet at any rate.

[Deleted]

They will have mitigated it to some extent, but WoW is almost certainly making a lot less money now than at its peak.

Source: your ass.

Until you prove otherwise ofc.

[Noctifer616]

They will have mitigated it to some extent, but WoW is almost certainly making a lot less money now than at its peak. That being said, at its peak it was extremely profitable. Just because it is less profitable now doesn't mean it's not sufficiently profitable to remain worthwhile. In other words, less revenue doesn't necessarily mean less development budget - not yet at any rate.

Don't mix revenue and profit. During it's peak they had a lot more customer support people, something they have reduced over time by adding mechanics that simply lowered the number of jobs customer support was handling. Hardware is today cheaper and more power efficient. Microtransactions have huge margings and there is more of them then in the past.

While revenue has dropped over the years, we don't actually know how much (if any) profits have dropped.

- - - Updated - - -

Source: your ass.

Until you prove otherwise ofc.

They have been reporting WoW revenue numbers for years, you can look them up in Activision Blizzards financial reports.