"Legion pre-purchases are tracking in-line with the previous expansion."

[Khuros]

Not really, no. Especially since WoD will be ending with lower numbers than MoP did so would have to sell much more than WoD did.

What? They arnt even releasing their numbers anymore. So your just blowing smoke.

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Blizzard are tricky birds.... GOing into WoD we had about 7 mill subs and it jumped to 10 mill... a 43% increase... then dropped to a guestimated 3 mill or less a 70% loss loss.

If they are "on track" that could mean a 43% increase over the 3 mill... or 4.29 mill... then if we lose another 70%?

1.28 million left playing in 6-9 months.

See how numbers can be evil?

They don't release numbers anymore. I'd like to see your numbers. 3mill huh? Show me facts.

[Relapses]

They don't release numbers anymore. I'd like to see your numbers. 3mill huh? Show me facts.

You don't need numbers when you're feeding out of the anti-Blizzard-WoW-is-dying-oh-God-help-us circlejerk. "Facts" and "reasonable analysis" are merely inconvenient deterrents from their doom and gloom narrative.

[Khuros]

You don't need numbers when you're feeding out of the anti-Blizzard-WoW-is-dying-oh-God-help-us circlejerk. "Facts" and "reasonable analysis" are merely inconvenient deterrents from their doom and gloom narrative.

Agreed
/10things

[Maudib]

What? They arnt even releasing their numbers anymore. So your just blowing smoke.

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They don't release numbers anymore. I'd like to see your numbers. 3mill huh? Show me facts.

Last report is 5.5 mill subs 9 months ago... that already is LESS than what Pandaria ended with. So that is supported by factual info.


Legion started at 10 million and LAST reported number was 5.5 mill NINE months ago. But yeah.. you are right... because Blizzard decided to no longer report the numbers... the loss of subs just stop.

Just like closing your eyes means no one can see you.

[Kolvarg]

I'd say it's very possible we get back to 10M, although very likely it will just drop down again, even if Legion is universally accepted as the best expansion yet.

We can't forget not everyone buys expansions though - assuming that doesn't change since eastern countries are now swapping to the monthly subscription. With that said, I do believe when they say the movie has had positive impact in the eastern market as it was fairly successful there, so if expansion sales are on par with WoD, it's very likely we'll see similar launch numbers.

Wether that will be actually true or not, we'll have to wait and see, imo it could go even higher, or be a fairly smaller bump than WoD.

Idk about that. WoW still probably makes more than hearthstone, but i guess i could be wrong.

WoW still makes a LOT more than any other Blizz game, it's estimated was the #4th top grossing pc game of 2015 with total $814 million (only LoL, Crossfire and Dungeon Fighter Online above it), while Hearthstone, iirc, averages $20 million monthly which should be around $240 million yearly across PC & Mobile.

I mean, just counting subs, even if it was down to 4M, that's still even $60M/month - although we do have to keep in mind a lot of those subs are in the eastern market which doesn't really give much direct profit to Blizz afaik. Even just 1.5M US/EU subs gets them more than $20M/month, not counting expansion and in-game services/items sales.

The only way Hearthstone "wins" is that it is undoubtfully a LOT more profitable than WoW, when you look at it by "percentages" and not raw values (many many times smaller investment, very lower maintenance costs, for still a pretty huge revenue). It just makes a lot of money with very little investment/upkeep, while WoW is likely the biggest money sink for Blizz, from the 100+ people in xpac and patch development, technical team and CS team, to servers.

[Varitok]

Blizzard could release their own Pokemon Go app where you catch in game pets and charge 10 dollars for it and still have more players than Pokemon Go. Everything the company touches turns into gold.

Starcraft died with its expansions though and Heroes of the Storm isn't doing very good. I agree, they excel at nearly everything they do though.

[Bathory]

NOOOO, Blizzard actually isn't going bankrupt, and there was I, hoping that my buttpain would finally get recognized!

So accurate.

[Azgraal]

So you're trying to tell me WoW is NOT dying?...

[Raelbo]

Legion started at 10 million and LAST reported number was 5.5 NINE months ago. But yeah.. you are right... because Blizzard decided to no longer report the numbers... the loss of subs just stop.

Just like closing your eyes means no one can see you.

Either way it's pure speculation since we don't have numbers. All we can do is apply anecdotal evidence of what we have observed and a some educated reasoning


Your theory: it will suffer same percentage loss as it did in previous equal period of time. Reasons: you assume constant loss rate. Not entirely unreasonable.

My theory: it's a bit more complicated than that. I too expect WoW to lose subs at a decaying exponential rate. But I would work off a different base to you.

Here are the known facts
WoW was at around 7 million players near the end of MoP. It jumped up to 10 million at the start of WoD and then fell to 5.5 million 6 months later. There are multiple ways to interpret this data:

1) Your way: WoW lost 45% of it's player base in 6 months - or put another way - around 70% per annum.
2) Alternative way: WoW lost mostly the players that returned to check out legion. They bought the expansion, played through the open world content and then unsubbed again. At the same time WoW continued to lose players. However this means that in approximately a year, WoW actually fell from 7M to 5.5M which is only about 20% per annum. In other words, I have filtered out the brief spike of temporarily returning players from the equation.

It is rational to assume that the game is losing subs at a fairly constant percentage per annum. But as you can see, the manner in which you choose to predict that rate vastly affects your assumption of where the game is today.

I reckon they are probably at around 4-4.5M on that basis.

Also, anecdotally, I noticed a lot of people I know coming back and then quitting again in the first six months of WoD. Since then things stabilised a lot with very few quitting and even a few returning over the next year. And in the last 2 months there has been a significant surge in returning players. Maybe my server/community is the exception, but all things being equal, and given that it fits the model I reckon makes the most sense, the most likely explanation is that most servers are, as expected, fairly similar.

What I predict for Legion:

A massive spike in numbers as droves of players return to check out the next expansion. But I also expect a significant number of those to disappear after a few months. That doesn't mean I think Legion will be bad. It simply means that a lot of players of old have moved on and into a new paradigm where they will return to check out new content but have little interest in getting back into the routine of the game. They want to see the story, enjoy the campaign and catch up with old friends, but they don't really want to get heavily involved in any serious or competitive aspect of the game. Over time and expansions going forward I expect the actual playerbase to continue to decline on the decaying exponential that has been patently clear since WotLK.

[Twilight Cultist]

Yes, and they waited and saw the ability holocaust. So why did they still preorder?

Do they really enjoy pressing the same button over and over again as combat? Sure it might look different at level 100, but the game pretty much forces you to make one of each class. Otherwise you miss out on most of the content. You roll a fresh hunter, aaand instant disappointment. Same for monk, rogue, lock and mage. Couldn't even bring myself to try the rest.

I really wanted to like Legion, but I just can't.

Whats wrong with Lock/Mage? Demo and Affliction have more depth than they did in WoD and mage, relative to most classes, has been unchanged.

[Gadfly]

I doubt that is true, Wow used to bring in well over a billion dollars a year, even if its half that i doubt any other blizzard game comes close. Wow is still Blizzards main cash cow I think.

Yep, HS has a higher Percentage of profit... but it is still a fraction of what WoW makes.

Ex:
HS makes 250 million a year, and costs 50 million - 4:1 ratio. 200 million profit.... 4x ROI
Wow makes 750 million a year and costs 250 million - 2:1 ratio. 500 million profit. 2x ROI

That 4x ROI is flashy and good to show/boast about to investors and stock holders. But you can only invest so much into it.

[Raelbo]

So you're trying to tell me WoW is NOT dying?...

Everything is dying. WoW included. It started dying the day the first subscriber quit and it will finish dying the day the last subscriber quits. That doesn't mean that it's death is near or that it can't continue to churn out new expansions for many years to come.

[Tijuana]

Not really, no. Especially since WoD will be ending with lower numbers than MoP did so would have to sell much more than WoD did.

Every player needs a copy of the game, not just people who were un-subbed. The numbers at the end of WoD are irrelevant to how many copies they need to sell to get back to 10m.

[Raelbo]

Yep, HS has a higher Percentage of profit... but it is still a fraction of what WoW makes.

Ex:
HS makes 250 million a year, and costs 50 million - 4:1 ratio. 200 million profit.... 4x ROI
Wow makes 750 million a year and costs 250 million - 2:1 ratio. 500 million profit. 2x ROI

That 4x ROI is flashy and good to show/boast about to investors and stock holders. But you can only invest so much into it.

Another important thing to consider here is the symbiotic relationship between the WoW, Hearthstone and Heroes of the Storm franchises. Hearthstone is able to exist and thrive because of WoW and so too is Heroes (at least partially).

Not only is this a brilliant move by Blizzard in maximising the value they get out of their IP, it also is good news for WoW because it means that it has more value to Blizzard than just looking at the revenue from WoW alone. In theory WoW could justify its existence even if it was making a lot less money, simply due to the fact that WoW contributes to the success of their other titles.

[Relapses]

Not only is this a brilliant move by Blizzard in maximising the value they get out of their IP, it also is good news for WoW because it means that it has more value to Blizzard than just looking at the revenue from WoW alone. In theory WoW could justify its existence even if it was making a lot less money, simply due to the fact that WoW contributes to the success of their other titles.

You're correct. The problem is people frequently use information from the investor QRs to support outlandish and often flat-out wrong viewpoints. I suppose a lot of it has to do with players feeling as if they need to vindicate their opinion which disagrees with the direction WoW is heading so they try to manipulate the information to fit a narrative which coincides the "downfall" of WoW with whatever random thing they feel Blizzard fucked up.

There's no way for us to know the exact numbers since they're no longer reported. But even if we did, it wouldn't really serve much purpose since the same people would use the information to support the same unfounded arguments.

[Khuros]

Last report is 5.5 mill subs 9 months ago... that already is LESS than what Pandaria ended with. So that is supported by factual info.


Legion started at 10 million and LAST reported number was 5.5 mill NINE months ago. But yeah.. you are right... because Blizzard decided to no longer report the numbers... the loss of subs just stop.

Just like closing your eyes means no one can see you.

There you go again. You're saying legion is starting with 10M subs. Again you are just blowing smoke. You have 0 facts or numbers to back it up.

[DarkAmbient]

As you basing that on anything Blizzard said, or just your anecdotal beliefs? Also, did you take into consideration that Blizzard just said to its board members that this expansions sales were in line with WoD(which destroyed expectations, because nobody really expected 10m)?

I think the exact same people who bought WoD will buy Legion, and that the numbers won't vary much until vanilla players start dying off due to old age.

Do you know what exactly Blizzard meant by "tracking in-line"? Because they didn't say. They could have put a number to the presales but they didn't. What they might have meant is that a similar percentage of current subscribers have prepurchased Legion. If that's true then it doesn't bode well. But we'll have to wait and see.

[corebit]

All my friends who played WoD are coming back to play Legion. So here's a +1 anecdotal evidence for the Legion pre-orders being in-line.

[Zyky]

From the front page.

So, I guess that means we'll be back up to 10 million~ subs for Legion launch, since that was the WoD numbers, correct?

Well, I'm happy and this is good news for our game!

I mean, Blizzard could easily be lying to us. Pulling the wool over our eyes. Don't expect it to be true without the facts, which they'll never release.

[TheTaurenOrc]

But guysssss they wont tell us the sub numbers... until they want to guarantee they will tell us to much fanfare