February 7: Blizzard Conference Call

[Elysara]

Can we lock this thread now MODS?

This thread is just going to delve into "400K IS A HUGE LOSS AND IF YOU DON'T AGREE WITH ME YOUR A FANBOY"

[BenBos]

WOW: 9.600.000 subs

The rest stands at 0.000.000 subs (as free to play).

So it clear the free to play MMO market has an impact.

Blizzard had the biggest revenue ever in its history : 1.6 BILLION dollars for the fiscal year 2012.

[Destil]

I dont have dummy accounts, and i dont consider 4.3 a failure. It was considered by the community though.

Also, i am repeating things because people dont seem to get it.

Roughly the same amount of sub loss than the start of Cata, yet some people think its not bad.

If it's as bad as Cata we'll be seeing, what, 900k next Quarter?

Some things just can't be helped.

While half the community says Mists is the best expansion WoW's ever had, the other half says it's the worst.

[Crashdummy]

You're comparing a patch to an expansion?

No, comparing a patch with another patch. If you want to compare expansions, Cata launch 600k loss. MoP, roughly the same.

[hyphnos]

Matter of opinion then. I don't find 400k is that much in the slightest.

It's not really a matter of opinion. It's a matter of how that 400k loss was constructed. If it was lose a million NA/EU subs and replace 600k of them with Chinese subs then it's a huge deal. If it was a 1 million sub loss in China and a 600k gain in NA/EU it would be a huge gain.

It's more likely the former than the latter because if there was a big increase in the high value western subs, Blizzard wouldn't let that go unmentioned.

Cataclysm's bleed in it's first quarter wasn't fluffed by giving out free copies of WoW and Christmas and the Q1 losses were 600k which at the time was a 5% drop.
400k against 10 million is 4%, so really Mists isn't off to a start much better than Cataclysm's.

[Kangodo]

I dont have dummy accounts, and i dont consider 4.3 a failure. It was considered by the community though.

No, it wasn't?

Also, i am repeating things because people dont seem to get it.

People have this natural reaction to ignore bullshit.

Roughly the same amount of sub loss than the start of Cata, yet some people think its not bad.

Yes, they make mistake after mistake.. We get it.
My mistakes get me dumped or kicked out of schools.
Their mistakes gets them a multibillion-dollar company.
I would gladly trade.

[Destil]

Can we lock this thread now MODS?

This thread is just going to delve into "400K IS A HUGE LOSS AND IF YOU DON'T AGREE WITH ME YOUR A FANBOY"

I'm kind of inclined to agree. No matter how I'm arguing apparently that's all it's coming across as.

[Crashdummy]

If it's as bad as Cata we'll be seeing, what, 900k next Quarter?

Some things just can't be helped.

While half the community says Mists is the best expansion WoW's ever had, the other half says it's the worst.

If my memory doesnt fail, cata numbers were:
-600k
-300k
-800k

So if its the same loss than Cata, next quarter would be 300k loss.

[zylathas]

when will the true call start by the way? Have been trying to check if there is any more info, but couldn't find it.

[Leonard McCoy]

Read the rest of my posts and yes, it makes perfect sense.

Not an excuse.

It's a reason.

Your hate for Dailies blinds you, Leonard.

It's a multitude of reasons at this point why WoW is still losing some subscribers, but that reason is the main one.

I know people who had played the game since they were 14 to 22.

That's.

A lot.

Of Time.

And after that much time spent, anyone would want to quit.

If I was still playing this game 8 years later, to be honest I think I would've quit by now.

It's an ABSOLUTE EXCUSE. It defends the developers BECAUSE THEY HAVEN'T INNOVATED ENOUGH. Nothing has been done to give the game any new life in mists. NObody in the god damned company had an idea except apparently pokemon and dailies. PHENOMENAL. I can IMAGINE the conversation that went on.

Hey man we need to give people something to do? and get them out into the world?
OH I KNOW DAILIES
*they all look at each other and nod*

DONE.

[Destil]

If my memory doesnt fail, cata numbers were:
-600k
-300k
-800k

So if its the same loss than Cata, next quarter would be 300k loss.

Or next quarter might be a 300k gain.

Or subscribers might be back at 12 million.

Or everyone quits the game.

Who knows.

[Orangetai420]

9.6 million people still playing and running those dailies. They must be doing something right.

You make the assumption that everyone does dailies.

[Destil]

It's an ABSOLUTE EXCUSE. It defends the developers BECAUSE THEY HAVEN'T INNOVATED ENOUGH. Nothing has been done to give the game any new life in mists. NObody in the god damned company had an idea except apparently pokemon and dailies. PHENOMENAL. I can IMAGINE the conversation that went on.

Hey man we need to give people something to do? and get them out into the world?
OH I KNOW DAILIES
*they all look at each other and nod*

DONE.

"My opinion reasoning is different than yours so it's an excuse."

If that's the approach we're going to take with a civil debate, then I'm done with it.

[AD Arbsbear]

See y'all in May !!! I'm gunna go play WoW now.

[Crashdummy]

No, it wasn't?
People have this natural reaction to ignore bullshit.

Yes, they make mistake after mistake.. We get it.
My mistakes get me dumped or kicked out of schools.
Their mistakes gets them a multibillion-dollar company.
I would gladly trade.

Actually, their mistakes makes them earn less money. They still make money, of course, just less that if they dont make this mistakes.

[BeastmasterGuardian]

9.6 million people still playing and running those dailies. They must be doing something right.

Anything above 5M is still a win considering the sad lapse in other MMO subs. Even those that went Free2Play are still losing people cause the freebies still need money to unlock all the subscriber content. (I'm talking to you, SWtOR)

After having come off the worst expansion ever that was Cataclysm, and introducing Panda's and Dailies (to an extreme), they still have almost 10M paying customers. My hats off to them. They won't listen to the community, cause in all honesty, most players have no idea WHAT they want

[RoKPaNda]

No, really, guys ... The sub numbers CAN'T go up to peak levels. Short of some kind of horrible and unspeakable dark bargains WoW is never going to be able to hit it's peak numbers again. The BEST that WoW can hope for is a stable number with bumps for major patches and expansions. That's it. That's the best it's going to get it being completely honest and realistic. Drops like this shortly after the release of an expansion shouldn't be a surprise, a lot of people don't play new games for very long. A lot of people do, but a lot of people don't as well.

It doesn't mean as much as some people seem to think. Look at EQ1 and EQ2. They're STILL going. WoW will be here and still going for a long time after it drops below the 1 million subs mark. The difference between WoW losing .5m people and a game like say ... SWTOR losing .5m people, is that for WoW 500,000 people is a dent, for SWTOR it was like 33% of their subscriber base.

Next quarter we'll either see a small bump back to 10m due to an exciting patch or we'll see more losses. It happens. The only place to go now is down. WoW is in a decline, it happens, it's not a problem for people that like the game.

[BenBos]

Actually, their mistakes makes them earn less money. They still make money, of course, just less that if they dont make this mistakes.

Actually Blizzard's yearly revenue was more than 1.6 billion dollars for 2012, a new record and UP with 400 million compared to last year.

[Kangodo]

Actually, their mistakes makes them earn less money. They still make money, of course, just less that if they dont make this mistakes.

So we also have their revenue numbers?

[Crashdummy]

Or next quarter might be a 300k gain.

Or subscribers might be back at 12 million.

Or everyone quits the game.

Who knows.

Yeah, who knows what next quiarter will bring. All we know is that the start of MoP had roughly the same loss than the start of Cata, which is NOT a good thing.