Mop - 2.7 million sold in first week

[Intropid]

If this is it's 'rightful place', then It won't be here much longer. You can't have dismal numbers like this on an expansion release and expect it to still be called 'king' in a couple of months. No where near realistic.

True.
As much as I am enjoying Mists of Pandaria so far I think we should take these numbers with a pinch of salt and look back at the numbers in a few months to get an idealistic number. A game is going to sell more on it's release, this is fact. Although if people continue to subscribe and buy the game over a few months we can get a realistic look at the numbers.

If Barbies Adventure Castle was going to sell on steam, it would sell....somewhat on Day1 although would it sell after Day1? Not a lot that's for sure.

[Samaramon]

Oh look, the kermit avatar and the cake avatar are under every reply.

[KrazyK923]

You don't need to be psychic to see the patterns. Just need to have your eyes open.

aka, biased.

You can't have dismal numbers like this on an expansion release and expect it to still be called 'king' in a couple of months. No where near realistic.

But I thought BC was the best...and yet MoP sold more. Hell, it only sold 100,000 less than Wrath, which many other people also call the best.

I'm not sure where the number "dismal" you're referring to is coming from, but you should probably try to look a bit less obvious.

All of this.

You do realize what you quoted is just false, right? WoW doesn't have to surpass 12 million for it to grow. It has to surpass what it currently has. I'm not sure you could be more blatantly biased if you tried dude.

[melodramocracy]

The GW2 sig and avatar is not helping me take your statement seriously.

The general trend is for that to indeed happen though. It happens with both expansions here and with other new games.

In fact, I'd say that with the overall scope of content being *easier* in MoP, you'll see a higher sub fluctuation between patches than you've seen in other expansions. Time will tell.

[Thulvaso]

Oh look, the kermit avatar and the cake avatar are under every reply.

Who has the cake avatar ?

[Conscious]

Oh look, the kermit avatar and the cake avatar are under every reply.

Oh no, someone's being realistic.

Anything but that.

The game sold like shit, I don't know what you want me to say.

The numbers disappointed even me, of all people. And I'm the biggest pessimist on these forums.

[Matchu]

With a game that has a monthly revenue model, based on subscribers, yes it very much is how growth works.

As opposed to coke, which is sold daily? I'm not following the reasoning.

[Jacob6875]

Those numbers were over a period of 7 days, versus Cataclysm's one.

They only managed to bring back 900k people.

It's sold less than Wrath.

I don't know where you're seeing success, if only you're just trying to find something to be positive about. No harm in that I suppose.

You do realize that 900k people is like 3x the subscriber base of most recent "wow killers" don't you? The game is 8 years old. It is expected that the sales of expacs will slowly decline in sales as time goes on. But for an 8 year old mmorpg the numbers wow has are unprecedented. Arguing the game is not successful is laughable when you look at it from any logical point of view.

[Duridi]

Very good numbers imho, considering rising competition and the (totally unjustified), bad reputation that Cata had.
/clap

Rising competition?

Guess it depends a bit how you define it . They have plenty of games trying, but falling flat on their face. I would hardly call that competition.

[Zeek Daniels]

The GW2 sig and avatar is not helping me take your statement seriously.

Yea its not and i actually like WoW im just not putting a blind eye to whats really going on. I see alot of ppl saying these numbers are a good thing but its a decline from Cata. 3.3 mil sales in 24 hours vs 2.7 mil in a week. So im wondering where all the subs are coming from. Ive seen ppl talk about the china thing, some ppl say they count subs different and it inflates numbers and others say thats not accurate. All i know is that china has half if not more than half of the sub base for WoW. Now i see ppl posting that china doesnt add to the expansion numbers even tho it sells there. So 2.7 mil players from NA/EU out of around 4 mil maybe bought MoP in the first week. What are the other 1.3 mil doing? are most of that 1.3 annual pass subs that arnt buying MoP (im included in that) or maybe its just a small portion that arnt buying MoP. Either way the numbers are going down after AP runs out. Then lets see what the subs are.

Rising competition?

Guess it depends a bit how you define it . They have plenty of games trying, but falling flat on their face. I would hardly call that competition.

Your actually pretty wrong here. In the NA/EU market those games competed fairly well. Swotr prolly had about 40% of the NA/EU market in terms of subs at its height. GW2 Sales wise had the same. I know alot of ppl like to throw out the 9.2 or the 10 or the 12 mil subs for WoW but you cant use those numbers when comparing to recent MMO launches. The NA/EU playerbase is somewhere between 4-5 million subscribers. So if swtor is pulling 2 mil at its height it was actually doing fairly well. Swtor isnt competing with Blizz in china so you cant add those numbers in. Thats like a US only restaurant chain competing against a EU/NA restaurant chain. The EU/NA chain is gonna make way more money and have a ton more customers just because of the fact that its area of distribution is bigger. The only thing the US chain is compeating with is the EU/NA resturants in the US.

[Freese]

so basically blizz is still hanging onto the Annual pass Sub base of 1.2 mil players some of whom arnt going to resub once it ends. And you added those who came back for mists. Really nothing to see here. Its going to go down in a month or so.

I don't understand this. Why do people think that all AP holders hate the game? You really think that ALL 1.2 million players who have the AP will just quit when it's up? Well, I'm about to prove you wrong: I have the AP and don't plan on quitting.

[Dhrizzle]

I corrected my statement. They aren't fudged, but they are presented as to deceive those who aren't precise.

You mean people who don't know days and weeks are different things?

Ouch, sold less than Wrath did.

That can't be good :<

How are you continuously surprised when a game past its prime doesn't perform as well as it did at its peak?

[KrazyK923]

Oh no, someone's being realistic.

Anything but that.

The game sold like shit, I don't know what you want me to say.

The numbers disappointed even me, of all people. And I'm the biggest pessimist on these forums.

I don't think you understand what pessimist means...

"The game sold like shit." Again, what are you basing that on? You realize you can compare that to previous expansions, and they have it right on the front page, right?

[MoanaLisa]

If this is it's 'rightful place', then It won't be here much longer. You can't have dismal numbers like this on an expansion release and expect it to still be called 'king' in a couple of months. No where near realistic.

When Rift or SW:TOR sells 2.7 million copies of an expansion in a week, be sure and let us know that they won't be around much longer either. Even for you, it's a bit over the top to say that sales like this mean "it won't be here much longer". I'm quite sure that Bioware and Trion would be happy enough to have 'dismal' sales like this.

[Freese]

Because it is not growth. Growth means exceeding your previous state. World of WarCraft's previous state has at a time been a bit more than 9 million subscribers, but before that it was well above 12 million. So, until it gets to that 12 milliom + once more, it is not growth, it is recovery. You can brandish it as growth, but that is, like Blizzard's press release, a deceiving move. Because just like a lot of people did not realise that there was no first-day sales figure for Mists, but an attempt to compare the first-week sales with those of the first-day sales of previous expansions, so in the case of growth, one can name recovery growth, but it is nothing but an attempt to deceive the perception of people. When you tell someone that there is growth in a game's profits, what he understands is that the game is making more money than ever, not that it is making more money than a specific period of time. Most people don't associate growth with recovery. They prefer recovery to be named exactly that, recovery. It is of course up to the individual to name recovery whatever he wants to, but he shouldn't expect others to agree with his naming. And so, for most people, not about this game, but sales in general, growth means treading new ground, not reclaiming lost one.

Alright, so it's "recovery" and not "growth." Is recovery a bad thing, then?

[Millennía]

Very strong sales numbers indeed. I wonder how many sales they will get from China since they just launched there

[Conscious]

As opposed to coke, which is sold daily? I'm not following the reasoning.

Cataclysm brought us to 12 Million.

We were recently at 9.1 Million.

Now we're at 10 million.

We've still a net loss of two million.

With a subscriber based game and revenue model, growth is calculated both quarterly and annually. We may have Q3 Growth, but for the FY2012, we're still -2 Million subscribers. Do you see what I'm talking about?

The same does actually apply to Coke, if they sell 1M units in Q3, and they're up in total from 3M units to 4M units, but prior to that Coke had been at 5M units, they're still - 1M Units for the FY2012.

Still follow me?

Very strong sales numbers indeed. I wonder how many sales they will get from China since they just launched there

You can't be serious ._.

[Dhrizzle]

Very strong sales numbers indeed. I wonder how many sales they will get from China since they just launched there

No "sales" so to speak, but I think returning players should boost the numbers to at least 11, possibly 12 million.

[KrazyK923]

You can't be serious ._.

I don't see how you can be serious. Especially when you compare two comments like:

ToR is far from dead. I hate to break it to you.

And

I mean come on, it only brought 900k people back? Like, that's it? On top of the fact it sold like shit.

[Thulvaso]

You can't be serious ._.

Right, what do you mean by this. The game has sold well, for a 8 year old game it is incredible. Now obviously the launch in China will increase to even more sales, what is the exact problem here.