Activision Blizzard Q3 2012 Earnings Call

[Ferocity]

The important issue about class stacking is ensuring that you don't need to stack a certain class in order to down a fight. The difference between SWP Shaman-stacking and nowadays Garalon-Rogue stacking (no proof of that, btw) is that you don't need Rogues to kill Garalon.

You needed rogues to kill Garalon (normal!) before hot-fix. Unless you were overgearing him to no degree. But problem is not here. One class will always be performing better than other unless we add yet another layer of homogenization, which would definitely be killing blow to whole class system. Only if GC and his team could understand this.

Plus Blizzard doesn't rewrite the rules with every expansion, they just overhaul system mechanics. Change is a good thing. Stagnation is not.

There is difference between "Change" and "Improvement", between "Stagnation" and "Stability". Stability of game systems is very important in RPGs. Also rules were constantly rewritten, not "overhauled". Liked to play your shadow priest as support, mana generator? Enjoyed to tweak your character for different purposes via talents? Combat tables, stat mechanics (GC changed the way how intellect/spirit/spell power works how many times?)? How many stats were "changed" or rather removed from game entirely, just because it was very hard "to balance" around them? It's hard to even find anything in MoP spellbook, because all abilities were thrown in 1 tab into one big mess without even alphabetic order. Not all "Changes" are "Improvements". Oh and change in design of raids: from RPG to 3D Action/Arcade? It's getting cardinally different direction and genre altogether.

Poster above me mentioned dailies, I won't even touch them as there will be spam of posts "Dailies are optional!", but I will tell you one thing - the sooner GC and his team will be replaced, the better for the game. I am not sure that damage done to game by Cata and MoP can really be repaired at this point. But preventing damage is a good thing too.

[Snowraven]

So... have they released numbers? I really don't care of the chat if WoW is better or worse, I don't like the path it's going but people who do, I hope they're happy. I'm curious however of the numbers because, as I said before, bringing WoW to about 6 million or so means other MMOs will be able to catch up and as such improvement will happen faster and better for all MMOs, WoW included because of a thing called competition.

So, any numbers?

[Jalek]

If it's still counting the 1+ million annual pass subscribers from last year (year passes don't run out until mid-Nov to Dec and Jan for most), then their numbers will most likely stay steady at about 10 mil. Next quarter, after they can no longer float on those annual pass subs, they'll prob drop a good 500-1mil in subs again.

Yup I cancelled today, didn't even try MOP, I've logged in once in like 6months but was on annual pass and was bored to death with that silly scenario at level 85.

[Cybran]

Poster above me mentioned dailies, I won't even touch them as there will be spam of posts "Dailies are optional!", but I will tell you one thing - the sooner GC and his team will be replaced, the better for the game. I am not sure that damage done to game by Cata and MoP can really be repaired at this point. But preventing damage is a good thing too.

Got banned from the official forums for talking bad about Daily quests. Before that i got banned for talking bad about Ghostcrawler...

I 100% agree with you. So many things that used to spice up the game like MP5, Armor penetration, Healing/Spell dmg, etc were removed to dumb down the game and limit personalization. What we are getting every new expansion is dumber and dumber version of a game that used to be MMORPG.

So, any numbers?

"2.7 million mop games sold first week and 10 million-ish subscribers" is what they said. They didn't mention that their subscriber revenue has dropped by 25% from 380-ish million last year Q3 to 300-ish million this Q3. This shows that their subs in July and August were low and some people came back in September to try 5.0.4 and Mop. The fact they didnt even release sales numbers of Mop so far is hinting that they are not happy with their numbers and want to keep a low profile until they launch some RAF or scroll for christmas to boost numbers for Q4.

[Slaughty8]

The pathetic thing is that blizzard counts people who do the trials... so if you did the MoP trial, but didn't buy, they count you towards that total... which is flat out stupid, mine ran out today and they'll still count me as a subscriber... Honestly, w/e the number is, I subtract atleast 200,000. I predict that it'll be close if not under 9 mil.

This is exactly why those numbers are flawed and made for "hype the kids/bored ppl" only. If you compare the number of Panda sales, and keep in mind that not every bought copy = active sub, then 10 mil (of which ~6mil belongs to Asia) goes down to maybe 2 mil of total non-asia subs.

[Gniral]

love how haters and doomsayers are always looking for the next quarter's announcements. and every time they have some amusing justifications for their wrong predictions. but hey, i will get you next time, blizzard!!

[Cybran]

love how haters and doomsayers are always looking for the next quarter's announcements. and every time they have some amusing justifications for their wrong predictions. but hey, i will get you next time, blizzard!!

Last call was great for me. Blizzard admitted they lost 1.1 million subscribers.

[Arkkitehti]

Subs rise, can't say how much. In Q4 subs will stay mostly the same, probably a little bit of rise. Can't say what happens in 2013 Q1, really depends on how Blizzard will bring new content.

Btw, this is coming from someone who doesn't play WoW anymore and gets a little smile whenever the subscriber numbers get smaller.

[bajskorv]

This is exactly why those numbers are flawed and made for "hype the kids/bored ppl" only. If you compare the number of Panda sales, and keep in mind that not every bought copy = active sub, then 10 mil (of which ~6mil belongs to Asia) goes down to maybe 2 mil of total non-asia subs.

Your math is way way off, it's more like 200k total non-asia subs at max. And 59k of those 200k are second accounts of multiboxers. The advertisers who pay for an audience of 10 million actual people are getting screwed sideways. I hear there's a class action suit against Blizzard in the works due to this.

[McNeil]

love how haters and doomsayers are always looking for the next quarter's announcements. and every time they have some amusing justifications for their wrong predictions. but hey, i will get you next time, blizzard!!

Last time I actually predicted like only 200k losses, but turned out to be 1.1 million

[Mooboy]

The pathetic thing is that blizzard counts people who do the trials... so if you did the MoP trial, but didn't buy, they count you towards that total... which is flat out stupid, mine ran out today and they'll still count me as a subscriber... Honestly, w/e the number is, I subtract atleast 200,000. I predict that it'll be close if not under 9 mil.

What's really pathetic is that after so many years of this statement at the bottom of the sub numbers:

World of Warcraft's Subscriber Definition

World of Warcraft subscribers include individuals who have paid a subscription fee or have an active prepaid card to play World of Warcraft, as well as those who have purchased the game and are within their free month of access. Internet Game Room players who have accessed the game over the last thirty days are also counted as subscribers. The above definition excludes all players under free promotional subscriptions, expired or cancelled subscriptions, and expired prepaid cards. Subscribers in licensees' territories are defined along the same rules.

That people can still twist and turn little conspiracy theorys in their head that shows they don't know what they're talking about.

Let alone released MoP to fall under one of the worst quarters (subscription wise) for WoW.

Shell games.

What now? How is reporting against the last quarter a shell game? It's what they've always done? Really confused to what you think they did to make it a shell game?

Your math is way way off, it's more like 200k total non-asia subs at max. And 59k of those 200k are second accounts of multiboxers. The advertisers who pay for an audience of 10 million actual people are getting screwed sideways. I hear there's a class action suit against Blizzard in the works due to this.

What advertisers? I've yet to see any adverts in the game (which would be paid for) so if they aren't there, where does the 'class action' come from?

Also that 59K multiboxers seems like a very specific number, that either has a source or is something you pulled out of your ass, which one is it?

[AnthonyUK]

Looking into the numbers it does illustrate just how much damage cataclysm did.

When they launched Cata in Q4 2010 Activ-B coined in $544 million, an increase of a 100million over WOTLKs release quarter

Look at MOP launch Q3 2012 and they coined in $345million

And WOTLKS numbers were $464 million,

its the worst performing Expansion release quarter by a fair distance $200 million down on cata, $120million down on Wotlk.

you can just see how much they're fudging their numbers by they have 10 million players, same as WOTLK yet are that down 25% ish in revenue in the quarter,

[ZenX]

Honestly if the developers think this is TBC like then they didn't play TBC and neither did any of you. The wealth of ignorance on display about the history of the game is stunning. The best is that many of you claim that they tried to make the game TBC like but in the same breath accept the developers claim that "double dipping" through tabards was a bad thing. Well pro tip: I was double dipping in TBC as well. Hell I've been double dipping since vanilla. I got rep in dungeons for argent crusade and thorium brotherhood via turn ins. You have ALWAYS GOT REP FROM DUNGEONS in some fashion or another and to some extent or another. "double dipping" has been a part of this game longer than daily quests. Yet you all accept their bullshit line about "double dipping" as if it's gospel truth when it reality the developers just astutely recognized that this one particular aspect of the game could be exploited much better. Enough they hope to keep you subbed while they pumped out more cheap content. It's a cynical move and I hope it bites them in the ass.

Even if they managed to fully replicate TBC in every way well that would be even dumber. The game has moved on since then, I would trust the developers to acknowledge this and not attempt to regress the game to achieve some paradigm that is clearly skewed by memory and frankly probably not achievable respective to the player base. Not only has wow grown but the players have grown to.

Dailies in TBC were only about mounts, vanity and orgri'la shield (they had no own instance). The raid progression items were obtain through group PvE content, coordination and effort.

The dailies today are the ONLY way to spend your Valor points. Valor points exist to soften RNG and speed up the gearing process. By deciding to gate this Blizzard have forced people to grind their boring SOLO content for months. They are milking longer subs for little to no actual work put in to real GROUP content. Limitation like the new talents make the game more and more arcade and less RPG.



http://www.worldoflogs.com/rankings/...ralon/25N/dps/

Your comment is like hearing Ghostcrawler talk about "Small deltas" i.e. completely wrong.

Its stunning how some people can come short on understanding the links between comparisons.

TBC - You needed to max out your rep with factions and farm heroics to get into the raids
WotLK - You needed to only farm heroics to get into the raids
Cata - You needed to only farm heroics to get into the raids
MoP - You needed to max out your rep with factions and farm heroics to get into the raids

The only main difference is you were able to farm the rep via doing TBC heroics that were locked to daily lockouts gating your progression. Before 2.1 you needed your own key to enter the instances meaning you'd have to walkthrough every required questline assoicated with heroics to forge the key to Karazhan as well as having the appropriate gear.

This is the same form of progression in which you need to repeat the same content with almost no variation at all with having the "feeling" to run all the dungeons (CFR or HR or Eye or Auchiondun series giving their respective reps )

However, with LFD in place they can no longer cap your progression at rep and they have not been really happy how you could just max out your rep via your magic tabard. Getting two bullseyes with a single stone may have seemed like a nice feature but it defeated the purpose of the game. An MMO is a time intesive game and the more you can sink in the more benefit you get(Granted you do improve your playing skills in the meanwhile to tackle harder content).

TL;DR:
-In TBC you needed to do Heroic Dungeons with daily lockouts to max-out your rep
- In MoP you need to do Daily Quests with daily lockouts to max-out your rep
so that you can get the best itemization to get access to raids.

Got banned from the official forums for talking bad about Daily quests. Before that i got banned for talking bad about Ghostcrawler...

I 100% agree with you. So many things that used to spice up the game like MP5, Armor penetration, Healing/Spell dmg, etc were removed to dumb down the game and limit personalization. What we are getting every new expansion is dumber and dumber version of a game that used to be MMORPG.

"2.7 million mop games sold first week and 10 million-ish subscribers" is what they said. They didn't mention that their subscriber revenue has dropped by 25% from 380-ish million last year Q3 to 300-ish million this Q3. This shows that their subs in July and August were low and some people came back in September to try 5.0.4 and Mop. The fact they didnt even release sales numbers of Mop so far is hinting that they are not happy with their numbers and want to keep a low profile until they launch some RAF or scroll for christmas to boost numbers for Q4.

MP5 was a redundant stat.
Armor Penetration and Healing/Spell power are incorporated in different ways into Mastery. Furthermore, you did not really have to choose between these stats and other ones. Why? Because rather than being stats that have the capability of adjusting your gameplay, these stats were rather the soft-caps of hit and expertise you had given your priority to.

Lose your illusion and understand it is a tentacle that is tying you to the past memories, not an actual realization of joy in a moment.

[bajskorv]

TBC - You needed to max out your rep with factions and farm heroics to get into the raids

No, you didn't need to max out your rep with factions and farm heroics to get into the raids in TBC.

[Seriss]

This expansion isn't as appealing to western players and I think we'll see some fall out in the west. Now the asian market may love it and time will tell if their will be an increase that may or may not be their strategy. Yes that is just my opinion.

You shouldn't be generalising like that. Many people like the look of Asian-inspired surroundings and themes.

[ZenX]

No, you didn't need to max out your rep with factions and farm heroics to get into the raids in TBC.

Prior to 2.1, you needed your own keys to access certain instances that progressed you into making other keys that you needed to enter higher difficulty of instances which were bound to reputation requirements -_-

[Galaddriel]

It is somewhat concerning that they didn't say much.
On the other hand, just 1 week before ending the quarter, there was this press-release.
Maybe that is the reason they didn't announce numbers? Who knows?

I was looking on the frontpage for news about the call but strangely nothing.
It seems everything is being kept behind doors this time around.

They probably didn't want say anything after the fiasco of last quarter's report.

"Subs are down 1.1 mill but that's ok! 15 million people logged onto battle.net this last week!"

Then come to find out a week later they were hacked.

[Cybran]

-In TBC you needed to do Heroic Dungeons with daily lockouts to max-out your rep
- In MoP you need to do Daily Quests with daily lockouts to max-out your rep
so that you can get the best itemization to get access to raids.

The dungeons in TBC were hard and rewarding loads of other things beyond Reputation. They gave epic gems and epic items. These dungeons were hard and designed to prepare players for raiding. If you read the forums you will see loads of people (including me) who suggest there should be a daily cap for rep from dungeons or some form of currency dropped in instances that is used to buy commendation items like in Wrath that could be used once a day instead of dailies. We are asking for options, but we will not get them because no one would do dailies and they will have to admit dailies suck.

Dailies are a joke. They are boring and repetitive. They exist to gate the progression and create an illusion of "content". The reason dungeons today can't be used for the same reason as in TBC is because the player base is terrible. The 4.0 dungeons showed that queue content that can't be facerolled has no place in wow.

[Galaddriel]

*duplicate post

[papaz]

I like WoW, but still I want the subs to take a big hit.

Blizzard is best in the business but WoW being big all the time is not good for the market.

WoW needs to take a big hit, Titan needs to be brought forward and Valve needs to make an MMO.

That is for the best of all gamers out there.