2.7 Million copies of MoP sold, WoW passes 10M Subscribers

[Immitis]

Sorry, but I am not making any assumption. The hard data say that after a week MoP sold clearly worse than the other WoW expansions.
This doesn't mean that the game is dead at all, but I think people should really accept it how it is: not a success. I think that Blizzard could have done better, by releasing a better expansion. By blindly praising Blizzard even for this product and this disappointing results, I think people are making a bad service to grant WoW the future it deserves. Sure, the game is 7 years old, but for a MMO, so heavily relying on social aspects and sense of long-term achievement, this isn't only a drawback, but also an advantage over most competitors.

Sure, it's still to be seen how sales and subscriptions will be in a few months, but honestly, given these numbers, I wouldn't hold my hopes too high, really. The game is on the decline and MoP sadly didn't change that trend, even if I am sure it will be a veeeery long and profitable decline.

im sorry but theres a big BIG difference between "not as good as the others" and "not a success"

this is an 8 year old game, thats almost a decade, and it just gained about a million new subscribers when it hasnt gained any subscribers in the last almost 3 years.

calling this anything other then a success is just plain ignorance, is it "oh meh gerd best sales evar" no but it is most definitely a success

[Faw]

The comments here are absolutely disgusting and without any thought.

There are still people saying WoW is dying because it "only" sold 2,7M xpacs in a week WITHOUT Asia. Last time i checked everybody went crazy over the success of GW2's 2M in a week. WoW has 10 million active subscribers, even if 7 million would cancel right now, it would still be the biggest MMO, unbelievable.

[Gsara]

People can white wash the sales all they want, it still sold better in the first week than any other mmo except for previous wow xpacs. If wow is in such drastic measures because of "only" selling close to 3m copies the first week, then where does that put every other mmo released in the last couple of years? Because those games certainly didnt sell close to 3m copies in the first week.

[shamental]

Mmmm who cares? even if the game had 2millions players right now, I'd be playing anyway, this 'subscribers' thing is getting absolutely retarded, for real who cares?

[BreathTaker]

Wait, 7.3 mln ppl still play Cata? lolwhat?

[Nerraw]

It sold for less than the previous two expansions, so yes, it is dying.

It still managed to outsell the new "WoW killer" in less than half the time.

[Gurbz]

This doesn't mean that the game is dead at all, but I think people should really accept it how it is: not a success.

In what world is almost 3 Million first week sales and an increase in subscribers of almost 1 million NOT considered a success. Most MMOs would kill for those sales and subscriber figures.

What were you looking for? You expected more sales than Cata? That would be miraculous considering there are less subscribers. The initial sales numbers are almost identical to every prior expansion when considered as a ratio of sales to subscribers. I just think people are taking the numbers and spinning it to whatever point of view they hold about WoW themselves, because the sales and subscriber numbers are neither phenomenal or terrible.

The posts today are going to fall primarily into two camps. Either you like WoW in general and/or MoP specifically, in which case these numbers are awesome and point to WoW still being the greatest game ever. Or you don't like WoW and/or Mop and these numbers are a sign that Blizzard massively screwed up and the game is on the brink of total collapse. Neither point of view is right. But it seems people need reaffirmation of their own feelings on the subject rather than just doing whatever makes them happy and not worrying about the rest.

[Briga]

The comments here are absolutely disgusting and without any thought.

Agreed.

Look at it this way, MOP sales so far are alone are bigger than the total subscriber base of its nearest rivals in the MMO market...

[Faklor]

People expecting WoW to sell more copies after every new expansion are hilarious, it's just not possible, it has to stagnate or even fall after time, but in no way does this mean that the game is dying.

[Landin55]

I've found questing to be very enjoyable bar Dread Wastes.

Really? One of my favorite zones, personally I dislike the Vale, find the place kinda boring and empty.

[Aberration]

Good for them. I'm loving my Monk so far, little over two levels from stepping foot into pandaria. I can't make an accurate assessment of this expansion because I haven't experienced the new continent and questing yet, but my Monk is a load of fun!

[d3v]

Hah, just have to say hah! to all the people who said they weren't going to release their sales figures as they'd be "poor" and "embarrassing", you know who you are.

Back over 10 million subscribers, judging the fact I have a ~2000 queue on my server pretty much from 14:00 till 0:00 every day, I was expecting the subscription numbers to have gone up.

[subanark]

Ok, so its not as successful initially as previous xpacs, its still doing well though. Also, GW2 might have sucked up some of wow's market (more so than SWTOR), when people realize there isn't much to do in GW2 they will come back to wow.

[reve]

I gues it's not too bad... Some people returned too. MoP is ok I would say.

Though the dailies are annoying, I kinda though we got rid of this whole "be obliged to log in every day to do the same repetitive, boring content" thing when we started grinding rep in dungeons, when we shifted from daily hero to weekly dungeons etc. They were making these changes over 2 expansions and suddenly changed their mind.

Not that this has any impact on the MoP sales, just what personally annoys me.

[Anetulan]

About what I was expecting. A small boost in subs, perhaps more will be coming back with most people liking MoP. The true test of MoP will be if it can keep these subs throughout the expansion. However, with the expansion about to release in China, that's another large number of sales coming in.

Overall, this bodes well for WoW. Maybe it is declining, but it's far from dead.

[Thelxi]

I don't understand why people care so much for these numbers. All that more subscribers mean is more profit for Blizzard, not higher quality content since the game has been running on absolutely minimal budgets ever since wrath anyway. It could lose half of it's subscribers and still turn a nasty profit.

[skeith20]

You people are funny saying that it sold worse than cata.

When cata came out the game at a 12+ million player base and out of those 12 million only 3.3 million of those bought the expansion on first day. That's about 1/4 of the game subscription base.

If you consider that first week sales is very similar to first day sale for mist, Of the 10 million of the subscription base we have now, 2.7 million bought mist which is still about 1/4 of the subscription base.

It would still not be a good comparison since, as someone else mentioned, China and Korea don't pay for their expansions. We'd have to use the proportion of US/EU players out of the 12 and 10 million subscriptions to make a better comparison.

Absolute numbers are useless when doing comparisons like that.

[zenzaliv]

I
Though the dailies are annoying, I kinda though we got rid of this whole "be obliged to log in every day to do the same repetitive, boring content" thing when we started grinding rep in dungeons, when we shifted from daily hero to weekly dungeons etc. They were making these changes over 2 expansions and suddenly changed their mind.

Not that this has any impact on the MoP sales, just what personally annoys me.

Unless your pushing raids the second they are released, there's no penalty in not doing all dailies/skipping days. I never understood the "blizz forces us to do 25+ dailies a day." No one is forcing you to do anything. You can ignore dailies for a week if you choose and it won't affect you. I assume you'll make some response about needing to gear up for raids. Well either you are a hardcore raider, in which case your skill can make up for a few ilvl discrepancies. Your a casual raider, in which case you can gear at your own pace cause casual guild rarely push raids the first or even 2nd week. Or you don't raid, which means you can do dailies whenever the mood strikes you. Only the really skilled min/maxers in hard progression guilds "need" to keep on their dailies.

[resto4life]

Of course it was not gonna sell well on first day, this has been the most hated-attacked expansion, the fact that it still sold 2.7M shows how good feedback the first few buyers provided, i was very unsure about playing MOP with all the panda thing, however, i have been pleasently surprised and im enjoying this expansion so far, jade forest questing/story is pretty cool, totally changed my perspective of the pandaren and brought back the feeling of exploring unknown lore....just like with Silithus and AQ.

As a side note...
I always felt like wow was catching up with known lore, like....go fight the lk cuz its the bad guy from war3, go and fight deathwing cuz its the old bad guy who created the demon soul, go after illidan and defeat the betrayer (again from war3 lore) but now, for the first time, i feel like we are part of brand new lore and the characters are taking part in it, the conflict in pandaria unfolds in an awesome way!

[XingoJenkins]

Look like we have many Activision|Blizzard stakeholders here. Everyone sayin' this game is dying... 10 million subscriptions and it's dying...

What difference is this for you? Are you loosing your money when subscription goes down?

If the game have 23 million and drop to 20 million, the game is dying too?
If the game have 53 million and drop to 50 million, the game is dying too?
If the game have 103 million and drop to 100 million, the game is dying too?

Blizzard now needs satisfy ppl not only with game content, but with new players and more subscription. More and more...

I don't get it why ppl still discuss "WoW is dying" related threads.