Yeah but most people know that if half your player base doesn't actually pay a monthy subscription fee but are still called "Subscribers" its kinda dodgy. Kinda like this....
Pre-orders for Diablo 3 have set a new record for Blizzard. This number includes units pre-ordered as part of the Annual Pass promotion, as well as retail and digital pre-orders.
Seriously? They count 1-1.5 million copies they have to give away for nothing and add that into the figure they call sales? Am i alone in thinking that is all manner of wrong? I know Diablo 3 will be huge and sell alot of copies but that to me seems beyond sketchy.
That 10.2 number is such BS. If you include all kinds of tricks like include semi active chinese accounts you can maybe get to that number but really. All PR bullshit.
Video games and the female audience. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R8ZVZRsy8N8
People are all happy about the 10.2 million, but they lost over 1.8 due to incompetence. 10.2 is a great number given there isn't any competition out there yea, but what about those lost between the cracks due to the casuals/hardcore catering? @____@
Video games and the female audience. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R8ZVZRsy8N8
@Ghostcrawler:Some advice: [My pet issue] is why there were sub losses is one of the weaker arguments players use. Players don't have that data.
Not entirely. If I'm an investor or board member, I don't want the company or management to be 'cooking the books' so that the numbers look good. I want to know what the prospects for revenue from the property actually are. From that perspective, something like the Annual Pass can be a mixed bag. It's good because it locks in revenue and gives the customer added value, but potentially bad because it's costing the company future revenue (D3 purchases) in order to make the numbers look good right now. Similarly, if the purpose of the Scroll of Resurrection (and accompanying free 80) is to bring lapsed subscribers back into the fold and get them playing again, that's excellent. If, on the other tentacle, the Blizzard management team has no good-faith belief that the SoR will actually increase long-term subs and they're just trying to make the numbers look good before the Q1 review, it's arguably deception and misrepresentation.
Last edited by ringpriest; 2012-05-09 at 09:39 PM. Reason: Removed comment on D3 pre-orders, since Blizz is apparently counting non-revenue generating Annual Pass copies in that total.
As long as they plainly state it for investors to see there is nothing shady going on at all. If you are worried about it just subtract 1.5 million from their final sales.
Personally I believe a majority of the Annual Pass holders got it with at least partial interest (enough to buy the game anyways) in it.
Low IQ detected!! Warning! Fact: AP was counted into the subscribes? It was..No hating, pure fact...AP subscribers means active players? Of course not (Still, the number if subscribers is standing...no doubt about that..but on my server (Arathor EU)whole guilds moved from Horde to Alliance, because of the lack of playerbase, my guild struggling to make any 10 man run anywhere at least 1-2 times/week due the lack of players....No hating in this, just simple facts..I don`t know how the things going on other servers, but on arathor shitloads of ppl went away and waiting for MoP..DS was fking boring a month ago and to stay on that for another few months....dunno what blizz thinks..Personally i was not online in the last 3 weeks more than 10-20 mins/week, because it`s pointless...) But D3 is on it`s way sooooon and GW2 too...so who the hell cares?