No new expansion, instead WoW 2

[Tic Tacs]

Do share your source on the game "barely holding on to 5 million subscribers".

But I see you only have the "muh Wrath!!" argument to fall back on, which is insipid to say the least. This game has over 100 millions accounts created, but even during Wrath it never held more than slightly above a tenth of that number over a long enough period of time. I guess Wrath was a massive failure by that logic.

Source is Blizzard but if you are into financials here you go, not sure if you need to be registered to see the data: https://www.statista.com/statistics/...rs-by-quarter/

Since Activision Blizzard doesn't give by region numbers I can safely assume the US sub numbers are somewhere around 1 million right now.

[Siffredi]

Blizzard simply knows, that in the next 1-2 expansions playerbase could drop, because there's nothing new anymore which they can give to the playerbase. They have to plan in advance what comes next. There are a lot of limitations in the old code which prevent them to realize some ideas. Let's start with real character customization where you can build your own face etc... for example. A new fighting system which is more than just TAB-1-2-3-2-3-2-3-1. Mulithreaded code for clients. An actual gfx engine. Better class customization.

One hint that they possibly are planning WoW2 is the meeting with Nostalrius one year ago. They were interested about what makes Vanilla so attractive to a remarkable playerbase. Maybe they just wanted to know, what they could bring into a WoW2 to make it attractive again to a bigger potential playerbase. Bring back the adventure of a small player in a big world.

Most of the WoW players I know from real live stopped (because ... it's just the same for them and things are getting worse) or bought all expansions but stopped after a months playing the new Expansion - since MOP for sure. And some are hardcore players - it's not that they haven't enough time for WoW.

[Queen of Hamsters]

Source is Blizzard but if you are into financials here you go, not sure if you need to be registered to see the data: https://www.statista.com/statistics/...rs-by-quarter/

Since Activision Blizzard doesn't give by region numbers I can safely assume the US sub numbers are somewhere around 1 million right now.

That only goes up to WoD, seeing as how they stopped announcing subs at the end of WoD. As you should know, we've had a new expansion release since then, which has received critical acclaim all around.

As I suspected, you have not a single source. Your assumption is hilarious considering the financial state of the game and MAU-figures.

[gyrados]

im curious regarding wow 2 can someone explain how it would be diff from wow i mean i dont get it

[Steampunkette]

Game is barely holding on to 5 million subscribers right now, down from 12 million during Wrath days. Who are you kidding? These are worldwide numbers including China and Europe.

i know wow subs are down to 2 million now... they peaked at 7 million start of legion... but now only 2 mill..

5 million x $14.99/month x 12 months = $899,400,000/year.

If they had 7 million at Legion Launch they were looking at $1.2 BILLION per year.

I promise you, WoW does not cost $500,000,000 a year to maintain or create new content.

Hell. Even if it was only 2 million that's still $360 million per year. Well above the costs to maintain and produce content on World of Warcraft.

Keep that Cash-Cow going for almost a Billion per expansion cycle or slice it's throat to compete against yourself with a new WoW?

[Deleted]

Blizzard is much more likely to rebuild their engine as much as they are able over the years, who knows where the actual limitations of that are tbh.. but the notion of a WoW 2 doesn't make sense to me.

That boat sailed when they decided to go for the expansion model and released TBC instead. We're effectively in WoW 7 right now.

[Tic Tacs]

5 million x $14.99/month x 12 months = $899,400,000/year.

If they had 7 million at Legion Launch they were looking at $1.2 BILLION per year.

I promise you, WoW does not cost $500,000,000 a year to maintain or create new content.

Hell. Even if it was only 2 million that's still $360 million per year. Well above the costs to maintain and produce content on World of Warcraft.

Keep that Cash-Cow going for almost a Billion per expansion cycle or slice it's throat to compete against yourself with a new WoW?

Revenue, you have to pay all the development, maintenance expenses for the past 2 years, board, licensing, marketing... and so on. Can you give me actually profits?

Edit: All I'm saying Activision Blizzard's cash cow is slowing down and should be barely profitable in the next 5 years, they need to introduce something new or keep going that route. Since virtually all public companies are driven by profits WoW 2.0 is a viable option.

[Queen of Hamsters]

5 million x $14.99/month x 12 months = $899,400,000/year.

If they had 7 million at Legion Launch they were looking at $1.2 BILLION per year.

I promise you, WoW does not cost $500,000,000 a year to maintain or create new content.

Hell. Even if it was only 2 million that's still $360 million per year. Well above the costs to maintain and produce content on World of Warcraft.

Keep that Cash-Cow going for almost a Billion per expansion cycle or slice it's throat to compete against yourself with a new WoW?

Indeed.
Their profits range in the billion, even during WoD's low point they made 800 million USD from this game.

Quarterly report from August 3:

http://files.shareholder.com/downloa..._Slides_vF.PDF

[Siffredi]

Indeed.
Their profits range in the billion, even during WoD's low point they made 800 million USD from this game.

What about their fixed costs like a lot of employees, infrastructure, the server farm etc...? Of course it's quite lower than what they earn.

[Queen of Hamsters]

What about their fixed costs like a lot of employees, infrastructure, the server farm etc...? Of course it's quite lower than what they earn.

It's safe to say that it's still a massive bulk of profit. This is mostly to combat the people capable of such mental gymnastics that they honestly believe that Legion being what it is, is somehow performing lower than WoD at its lowest point...

[McTurbo]

i heard these same arguments people saying never in everquest also... then wow come out and just trounced it it badly, most of its player base converting over.. while everquest survives even today.. its no where near the heights it was. the same will be with wow 1. sooner or later we will see wow 2 or something will replace wow as the game "to" play. trust me.. ask Everquest, Dark Age of Camelot, or Counterstrike.. all had their time on top too thinking no one is ever.....

[yetgdhfgh]

Ive invested over 10+ years of my life into WoW there is no way iam doing that again for WoW 2!

Even if my achieves, mounts and pets go forward i would seriously think twice about doing it.

[Queen of Hamsters]

i heard these same arguments people saying never in everquest also... then wow come out and just trounced it it badly, most of its player base converting over.. while everquest survives even today.. its no where near the heights it was. the same will be with wow 1. sooner or later we will see wow 2 or something will replace wow as the game "to" play. trust me.. ask Everquest, Dark Age of Camelot, or Counterstrike.. all had their time on top too thinking no one is ever.....

Your song has been sung for 13 years now.

"It'll happen, one of these days WoW won't be as big as it is and we can all breathe a sigh of relief!!"... Meanwhile, new MMORPG's have come and gone.

Counterstrike I can't speak for since it's not even the same type of game, but to my knowledge, EQ nor Dark age of Camelot ever reached the success of WoW.

[infinitemeridian]

WoW 2 already exists and you're playing it - the game has changed so much since it launched.

[McTurbo]

no mmo at the time reached wow's success.. the biggest mmo i think was EQ with 250,000 players and they considered that huge. i remember back in vanilla that one of the devs had mentioned they were shooting for like 350,000 people as an expectation.. and when the game launched with nearly 3 million in the first year.. no one was prepared (hence the state of the servers at launch)

my point was that at some point wow will loose its dominance. who knows when. but it will happen. either by its own or someone elses efforts.

[Tic Tacs]

Indeed.
Their profits range in the billion, even during WoD's low point they made 800 million USD from this game.

Quarterly report from August 3:

http://files.shareholder.com/downloa..._Slides_vF.PDF

Did you just link Q2 financial report for the entire company that includes multiple games, various entities and various investments and somehow manged to link all of their success to just WoW? How old are you?

[Queen of Hamsters]

Did you just link Q2 financial report for the entire company that includes multiple games, various entities and various investments and somehow manged to link all of it to just WoW? How old are you?

Um, no. That would be your mental gymnastics that you're somehow projecting onto me...

You can find out the information for each brand just fine from said quarterly reports and earnings calls, spanning back to 2009 if memory serves me right.

Again, WoD made 800k USD in a year, the year that was the widely acknowledged lowest point of this game since Classic both from sub numbers and the content delivered. Legion so far has been more profitable, well-received and critically acclaimed.

If you really need to believe that WoW is struggling, going against reception and earnings calls, I suppose there's no point though. I mean, you even believe that sub numbers from 2015 still apply today, in the negative direction...

[JustRob]

They will make WoW 2.0 eventually, I can promise you that. If you really think the game is doing good right now in terms of subscription numbers then you are wrong or in complete denial.

You and I have no idea what the subscribtion numbers look like now. Don't act like you're the special snowflake with the insider knowledge.

[kenn9530]

a WoW 2 wouldnt really work, it would have to be a completely different game and a fresh start of which people wouldnt want to give up thier old chars with years of work on them.

Biggest reason people still play wow is the amount of time invested in the game, plus WoW type MMOs are a bit past the times, we need a new evolution of MMOs.

[Steampunkette]

Revenue, you have to pay all the development, maintenance expenses for the past 2 years, board, licensing, marketing... and so on. Can you give me actually profits?

Edit: All I'm saying Activision Blizzard's cash cow is slowing down and should be barely profitable in the next 5 years, they need to introduce something new or keep going that route. Since virtually all public companies are driven by profits WoW 2.0 is a viable option.

Assassin's Creed 2, as a comparison point, cost $24 million dollars to make and sold about 9 million copies. That's a total production value of around $540 million dollars.

WoW makes that in a year, and it certainly doesn't have to create a whole new game with new systems, a new engine, and an all new world as detailed as that of an Assassin's Creed game every year.

For the sake of argument, though, let's say that WoW costs $60 million per year to maintain, advertise, and provide new content. That's about $120 million per development cycle (4 times the budget of that Assassin's Creed game). Over 2 years, the production time, if it's only got 2 million subscribers it's making a net profit of $600 million over and above the $120 million they spent to maintain it and develop the next expansion.