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

[GreenJesus]

Okay I call BS. Afer WoD I know a lot of people who will never trust Blizzard again.

[Krille]

Okay I call BS. Afer WoD I know a lot of people who will never trust Blizzard again.

After WoD i know a lot of people who really want Legion to be a good game and will buy it. Do you trust me? Do you understand that personal anecdotes mean nothing?

[callipygoustp]

If you were an investor you would know the name of the company you invested in is Activision-Blizzard.

LOL hahahahaha, yeah, that's what you had to say?

[SirCowdog]

The number of people playing Overwatch is relevant because it is a new game and most shareholders want to know if newer products are being well received and profitable. Unlike Overwatch, Wow has already proven itself to be profitable long term.

Let's not start rationalizing and apologizing for Blizzard. They don't need us to do it, they have highly paid professionals to do it for them already.

Refusing to report number of players in WoW while highlighting the number of players in Overwatch is blatant manipulation of statistics in order to put the best face on things, and suggests an underlying dishonesty that isn't worthy. I guarantee you that if subscription numbers jump up to a high enough level in WoW after Legion launches, they'll report those numbers again in some form or another.

Don't get me wrong, however. I really do hope Legion is successful, and signifies a return to the higher quality MMO that Blizzard used to release. But lets not gloss over or attempt to sugar coat things either.

[Krille]

Let's not start rationalizing and apologizing for Blizzard. They don't need us to do it, they have highly paid professionals to do it for them already.

Refusing to report number of players in WoW while highlighting the number of players in Overwatch is blatant manipulation of statistics in order to put the best face on things, and suggests an underlying dishonesty that isn't worthy. I guarantee you that if subscription numbers jump up to a high enough level in WoW after Legion launches, they'll report those numbers again in some form or another.

Don't get me wrong, however. I really do hope Legion is successful, and signifies a return to the higher quality MMO that Blizzard used to release. But lets not gloss over or attempt to sugar coat things either.

If a bigger shareholder wanted to know specifics i'm sure they could. Let's just say that speculation about WoW's living or dying is not good for neither Blizzard or their shareholders. The release of sub numbers fueled this debate for years. I'm confident their shareholders agreed to conceal the actual number of subscribers to the general public for some very obvious reasons, one being stated above.

[Nillah]

I know a lot of people that stopped playing during WoD and are coming back for Legion, myself included. Just my opinion but it looks a LOT better than WoD so far, it's not unreasonable to think a lot of players will be coming back.

[Fenixdown]

Your opinion , looks better than mop and wod to me.

Your opinion. Looks just as bad as Warlords to me, if not worse.

[Gadzooks]

What numbers are you concluding this from? I don't see anything like it. In fact, they themselves talk about WoW revenues consistently declining.

On one of the confrence calls last year Morhaime stated as fact that despite sub losses, WoW was still profiting because of cash shop purchases and token sales. I don't recall him making a statement of WoW revenues consistentluy declining. Can you pull up the report they filed with the SEC that states that? It would be one of the four they did last year.

Yes, but they have no continuous revenue stream at least for now - that 500 mil is from selling boxes. Well, boxes end, ask Diablo 3.

Overwatch has a cash shop, you do understand? They sell loot crates, and from what I can see from my friends who play, people buy a LOT of them. So, yes they DO have a revenue stream.

- - - Updated - - -

If a bigger shareholder wanted to know specifics i'm sure they could. Let's just say that speculation about WoW's living or dying is not good for neither Blizzard or their shareholders. The release of sub numbers fueled this debate for years. I'm confident their shareholders agreed to conceal the actual number of subscribers to the general public for some very obvious reasons, one being stated above.

The bigger picture is that even if WoW were to "die", Blizzard would continue on. They have purposely moved into new franchises and platforms to keep from going under if WoW falters - and they've done a pretty damned good job of it, and that is the important message to investors - they're making a LOT of great games that make a lot of money. If one of them gets shut down, your invested dollars will still see a profit.

Back when WoW provided most of the income for the company, the health of the game mattered very much to the investors. Now? Not so much. It's not a conspiracy to be figured out. When people invest in your company, you show off the successes - and Overwatch got a lot of attention because they knocked one out of the park, are making a mountain of money, and the investors need to know.

Wow sub numbers is just not that a compelling story for investors now. Pretty simple concept.

[Baine]

pre purchases is for the addicts and they obviously will never go away.
you have to be dumb to pre purchase, so this only shows how many stupid and addicted people still exist.

I usually not pre-purchase, but I always do with WoW because I know I will have fun with the expansion. Sure, each might not be pure gold, but I can say that I had fun even in Warlords (MoP remains my top expansion however).

[Krille]

The bigger picture is that even if WoW were to "die", Blizzard would continue on. They have purposely moved into new franchises and platforms to keep from going under if WoW falters - and they've done a pretty damned good job of it, and that is the important message to investors - they're making a LOT of great games that make a lot of money. If one of them gets shut down, your invested dollars will still see a profit.

Back when WoW provided most of the income for the company, the health of the game mattered very much to the investors. Now? Not so much. It's not a conspiracy to be figured out. When people invest in your company, you show off the successes - and Overwatch got a lot of attention because they knocked one out of the park, are making a mountain of money, and the investors need to know.

Wow sub numbers is just not that a compelling story for investors now. Pretty simple concept.

Agreed. I think that's a very valid reasoning as well. And we as customers of WoW should be happy about this, it might mean they have to spend less time catering to everyone and focus more on their solid group of players that sub regardless.

- - - Updated - - -

I usually not pre-purchase, but I always do with WoW because I know I will have fun with the expansion. Sure, each might not be pure gold, but I can say that I had fun even in Warlords (MoP remains my top expansion however).

For the 40 bucks you sure get enough entertainment out of it. Even if i hate an expansion i have spent about some 200 hours of gametime on it. That's value to me.

[Maudib]

Someone just explain one thing to me...

Why did Blizz make capitol cities CRZ? If you are expecting servers to fill up to the brim with all these pre-order peeps, you know.. "in line with WoD preorders".

It's a joke now to log in SW and see lots of people.. but none of them are from your already connected servers...

In just under 4 weeks... we will all know firsthand just how many people bought and are playing the expansion.

[Deleted]

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.

I can't really tell what's wrong. I can only tell what I didn't like. It's subjective, and bare in mind that it was the first ten or so levels for every class. As I said it might very well be awesome at high levels, but if the first ten levels are boring nobody will be willing to do the 100 after that.

Mage was just dull. It got somewhat better when you could pick arcane at 10, but nothing. Granted I was never a big fan of mage to begin with, but it's just uninteresting. Well if it hasn't been changed, maybe that is the problem.

Affli was very efffective, but also very boring. I almost fell asleep during combat. Apply dots and launch a channeled spell. Okaaaay, after that you wait. I really missed shadow bolt for the first ten levels. I also found the soul shard system underused. I mean I never had to pay attention to it. Demo was nice to play, but that's one specialization out of three and with every specialization being able to summon demons, it isn't really set appart from destru and affli on lower levels.
At least that's how I see it.
You know I think it would be for the best to simply forget about this whole specialization business.

Lock and mage were the better ones by the way. Rogue is a joke while Monk and Hunter literally made me cry. I'm not gonna claim something riddiculous l,ike Blizzard raping my childhood or whatever perople say in a situation like this, but from now on the only wow expansion I'm going to buy and play is the one I make.

[Maudib]

Except that's not even remotely close to what was said. They made no comment on subs. They said pre-purchases were in line with previous expansions. Last expansion pre-purchases were sitting at 1.5 million around April. Which was about 6 months before release. We don't know what the pre-purchase number was 1 second before WoD went live. We don't know how many copies of WoD were sold. We only know that 3.3 million copies were sold in the first 24 hours.


World of Warcraft

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

Very true... so if WoW is at about 3 to 3.5 million subs now (a guesstimate many people would agree with) and MANY of them are the ones who prepurchased...

Then I'd say Legion is going to miss the 10 million mark WoD started with by only a few million... like maybe 5 million people less playing. That's not significant in any way.

Even after giving the game away at the movies...

[Deleted]

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!

That would only be correct if all those 10 million players pre-purchased WoD, which I very much doubt. Many simply bought it in a store on or around the release.

[khazmodan]

That means dead servers again

no no no, the servers will actually be teaming with people...but they might just be a bunch of anonymous phased people from other servers that you cant talk or trade with. Smoke and mirrors helps simulate community but it died with the Lich King.

[Deadite]

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

Legion will have to sell twice the number that WoD did for that to happen.

[Gimlix]

"in line" is a relative term. It means they expect the same % bump at launch. The end of mop had around 5.7 mil at it's low point, and moved up to 10. By all accounts, wod's low point was about 3-4 mil, so expect about 6.8-8 mil for launch.

Now you are pulling numbers out your arsh. WoD ended at 5M so far we knew. So don't cut another 2M from that.

[Maudib]

Now you are pulling numbers out your arsh. WoD ended at 5M so far we knew. So don't cut another 2M from that.

HAHA! So since Blizzard stopped revealing sub counts... and even though WoD was on a FAST decline... it's safe to assume everyone stopped unsubbing right when Blizzard stopped reporting.

Cool story. Anyone playing this game could see in-game participation continue to decline. 3 to 3.5 million TOPS are subbed to wow and that includes all of the world markets.

[Rorschachs]

Even if this is not just a marketing crap. (Why would they say they have low presales when they can say otherwise and why would you believe them when they have all the reasons to lie, they lied before AND they can't be hold accountable).
The 2 mil rabid fanboys that preorder every expansion =/= the sub numbers.

No company as big as Blizzard lies to their shareholders about things they can't keep secret. I know you want WoW to die so much; because you are probably one of those no-lifers that stop playing a game and still crawl around in the forums; but it's not happening anytime soon.

[Maudib]

Blizzard doesn;t lie... they spin... and they are every bit as good at spinning as politicians are.

People are so gullible.

One thing is perfectly clear... WoW paved the way financially for the other franchises to be built... now the other games are carrying WoW.