Subs: Will they start reporting #s again?

[melodramocracy]

They'll report how many units Legion sells. Beyond that, I doubt you'll see quarterly numbers again.

[thelightthatstrays]

I love all those armchair game devs we have here.
Yeah guys, WoW is dead. That's why you stay here all day talking about it.

It's that blizzard doesn't want to talk about wow that proves it's dead. Did you read the transcript from the last call? It was all about hearthstone and overwatch. Plus, with tokens wow essentially went ftp. It's income is based more on micro transactions rather than regular subscriptions. They don't want to expose the number of players that aren't really paying to play or the number of token buying suckers that subsidies them.

[Zantos]

It's that blizzard doesn't want to talk about wow that proves it's dead. Did you read the transcript from the last call? It was all about hearthstone and overwatch. Plus, with tokens wow essentially went ftp. It's income is based more on micro transactions rather than regular subscriptions. They don't want to expose the number of players that aren't really paying to play or the number of token buying suckers that subsidies them.

Doesn't matter if they are not paying to play when they buy a token, the one who bought the token gave blizzard More money in the long run anyway. So I don't see why they would hide that. If they say 2k players are playing currently using the token, that is 5$ extra they got per each one of those players. I could see it being an up sell to show them that "Hey, we got people to buy 2k tokens, which gave us 5$ extra per purchase".

To op, doubtful. Watching the numbers plummet in WoD was painful. It had the fastest and largest drop in WoW's history to date. For the first time ever, the game failed to gain any subscribers with an expansions launch, and even fell below the sub count that it started with. It had some of the largest drops to date as well. I doubt they want anyone to see them again. If anything, its so their share holders don't see the massive drops and try to get them to give up on WoW.

[thelightthatstrays]

Doesn't matter if they are not paying to play when they buy a token, the one who bought the token gave blizzard More money in the long run anyway. So I don't see why they would hide that. If they say 2k players are playing currently using the token, that is 5$ extra they got per each one of those players. I could see it being an up sell to show them that "Hey, we got people to buy 2k tokens, which gave us 5$ extra per purchase".

Of course they are thrilled that they are getting more for play hours out of token purchases. ...and no, they aren't going to crow about that number. If a third of the less than 1.5 million MAUs for wow are playing on tokens rather than subs that just means that it's another half million that wouldn't be playing if they couldn't for free.

Have they stated how many pretty orders have been sold yet anywhere?

[Zantos]

Of course they are thrilled that they are getting more for play hours out of token purchases. ...and no, they aren't going to crow about that number. If a third of the less than 1.5 million MAUs for wow are playing on tokens rather than subs that just means that it's another half million that wouldn't be playing if they couldn't for free.

Have they stated how many pretty orders have been sold yet anywhere?

"shrug" I never pay attention to pre-orders since that number can change. So I don't know if they have stated that or not yet.

[Azgraal]

As nice as the expansion is looking (at least for the .0 patch, we all know what happened after 6.0) and as much as I want WoW to thrive to keep playing it, I think aimig at 10Mil at launch is highly unrealistic.

- - - Updated - - -

If a third of the less than 1.5 million MAUs for wow are playing on tokens rather than subs that just means that it's another half million that wouldn't be playing if they couldn't for free.

That's silly to assume. Anecdotic as it might be, I'm paying my sub with gold simply because I CAN, if it weren't a possibility I'd just resume paying with real life money as I had thus far.

[Justpassing]

"Analysts"

[WowIsDead64]

You can gather the same data from subscription revenue.

It isn't so reliable due to different payment methods in different countries. For example: 1 billion dollars revenue per year = 1000000000$ / 12 / 15$ = 5.5 millions of players, while real number of players can be 10 or even 12 millions of players. And success of content should be measured via it's popularity. And only number of players = popularity.

[ComputerNerd]

It's that blizzard doesn't want to talk about wow that proves it's dead. Did you read the transcript from the last call? It was all about hearthstone and overwatch. Plus, with tokens wow essentially went ftp. It's income is based more on micro transactions rather than regular subscriptions. They don't want to expose the number of players that aren't really paying to play or the number of token buying suckers that subsidies them.

It doesnt prove anything of the sort.
What happened when there was a rise ?
Blizzard were accused of lying, of fabricating or fudging the numbers.
Of catering to the "casuals" etc.
The community is just not capable of doing anything positive with that information.
It will always be twisted as soon as it doesn't support an argument.

Look at all the wow token arguments, about how blizzard are "manipulating" the token price to sell more - when the US price should be a more desirable target than the apparently "clearly" manipulated EU price as that has a higher population of players.
But that argument keeps coming up, despite there being no proof in the slightest and it being a flawed argument for that reason I just described.

It isn't so reliable due to different payment methods in different countries. For example: 1 billion dollars revenue per year = 1000000000$ / 12 / 15$ = 5.5 millions of players, while real number of players can be 10 or even 12 millions of players. And success of content should be measured via it's popularity. And only number of players = popularity.

And subscription numbers do not in any way prove anything at all about the popularity of any "content".
Those numbers were simply attributed to whatever the latest gripe was.

[thelightthatstrays]

- - - Updated - - -



That's silly to assume. Anecdotic as it might be, I'm paying my sub with gold simply because I CAN, if it weren't a possibility I'd just resume paying with real life money as I had thus far.

That's hypothetical and self serving. If you were actually paying to play you'd likely reconsider your position. You just don't want the suckers paying cash for tokens to catch on. I get it.

[Grenzstein]

It doesnt prove anything of the sort.
What happened when there was a rise ?
Blizzard were accused of lying, of fabricating or fudging the numbers.
Of catering to the "casuals" etc.
The community is just not capable of doing anything positive with that information.
It will always be twisted as soon as it doesn't support an argument.

Yep.
WoW has been steadily dying since 2004 according to our great armchair developers on this forum.

[McNeil]

It would be a really bad move if they blatantly only reveal sub reports when the game is in a healthy position, and then after a couple of quarters when the expansion hits going ''well it turns out reporting subs wasn't a good metric after all, it was a cool try though and we're sure the subs will stabilise around 7 million for the rest of the year''. Then again, the fans would swallow about everything.

[Tharkkun]

It isn't so reliable due to different payment methods in different countries. For example: 1 billion dollars revenue per year = 1000000000$ / 12 / 15$ = 5.5 millions of players, while real number of players can be 10 or even 12 millions of players. And success of content should be measured via it's popularity. And only number of players = popularity.

That's the players way of determining popularity. My game has more players than yours. My game has more active Twitch streams than yours. Blah blah.

You also have hundreds of thousands of players who leave their account active and don't play for months at a time. Do you count them as well? You shouldn't but they are counted. So numbers alone is very unreliable. Revenue is a much better method of tracking a healthy population but that even has it's flaws. Blizzard left the cat and mouse game that other competitors left years ago. Why do you think no other game reports subs numbers anymore?

[Mawnix]

Nope. Haven't cared about them the last 10 years. Still don't now.

[Bathory]

I doubt they'll show them anymore now that the token is a thing.

[WowIsDead64]

That's the players way of determining popularity. My game has more players than yours. My game has more active Twitch streams than yours. Blah blah.

You also have hundreds of thousands of players who leave their account active and don't play for months at a time. Do you count them as well? You shouldn't but they are counted. So numbers alone is very unreliable. Revenue is a much better method of tracking a healthy population but that even has it's flaws. Blizzard left the cat and mouse game that other competitors left years ago. Why do you think no other game reports subs numbers anymore?

Revenue also includes "microtransactions" (including paid services), that can be up to 25% of it. And "microtransactions" can't be treated as measure of success, cuz F2P games for example can have minority of so called "whales", that can donate thousands of dollars, but overall game have just 4K players. No. Only number of active subs - is real measure of success. Revenue - is measure of financial success, which is important for investors and game developers themselves, yeah, but not for players, sorry.

[Bathory]

WoW is dead! The new xpac and the new class a huge amount of people have wanted from the start is coming but it doesn't matter! It's dead!!!!! Oh lawdddddddddddd


/s

[Pandragon]

No, because if the subs drop by 1 person you all start a witch hunt against blizzard. who really cares about them reporting sub numbers except for people who want to go "the game is dying. its dropped in subs"?

[Pann]

That's the players way of determining popularity. My game has more players than yours. My game has more active Twitch streams than yours. Blah blah.

You also have hundreds of thousands of players who leave their account active and don't play for months at a time. Do you count them as well? You shouldn't but they are counted. So numbers alone is very unreliable. Revenue is a much better method of tracking a healthy population but that even has it's flaws. Blizzard left the cat and mouse game that other competitors left years ago. Why do you think no other game reports subs numbers anymore?

How are you planning on tracking WoW's revenue when it is no longer reported?

[Sythos]

I think, yes, if Legion will be success, and no, if it won't. Blizzard are very double-standarded: they report numbers, when it's success, and stop reporting them, when it's fail. But at least they 100% will report number of players at launch.

Your signature is quite possibly one of the dumbest things I have ever read, by the way. It's astoundingly awful.