February 7: Blizzard Conference Call

[Kangodo]

It's astonishing the amount of people here that can't comprehend that a 400k loss in 3 months with content pumping in at a rapid pace is bad.

How is it a bad thing..?

Do you want to know what bad means?
Bad is when you lose 60% of your paying customers in your first year.
Bad is when you have to go F2P shortly after launch.

This shit isn't bad, it's better than expected.
If you expect a game to grow or be stable after 8 years, that means you don't understand the entire market.
It's a market that has to bring out a new CoD-game every single year to be taken serious..
But you are complaining about a 10 million-sub company that loses 4% of their subs after gaining a lot more three months ago? Really?

[Hakto]

It's astonishing the amount of people here that can't comprehend that a 400k loss in 3 months with content pumping in at a rapid pace is bad.

It's absolutely astonishing and quite frankly embarrassing. It's a fansite but people simply cannot wrap their heads around that this game is oozing subs at a rate equal or higher to cata year-by-year basis with content being pushed, unlike Cata.

It's amazing to me just how many of you are absolutely clueless.

Wake. Up. It's one thing to hate on the game, but seeing this bile is sickening.



Look at this. Just absolutely laughable. No thought put into it. What an embarrassment you all are.

WOW has lost 600k subs over the 12 months from Q4 2011 to Q4 2012. Overall I would say that isn't bad.

There has been some fluctuation, but 600k is the loss in that 12 month period.

[Alastaircrawly]

WOW has lost 600k subs over the 12 months from Q4 2011 to Q4 2012. Overall I would say that isn't bad.

There has been some fluctuation, but 600k is the loss in that 12 month period.

think your math is off

Q1 2011 - 600,000 subscribers lost
Q2 2011 - 300,000 subscribers lost
Q3 2011 - 800,000 subscribers lost
Q4 2011 - 100,000 subscribers lost

Q1 2012 - Subscribers remained flat (no lost reported)
Q2 2012 - 1.1 Million subscribers lost
Q3 2012 - 10 Million Plus players (900k plus player gain)
Q4 2013 - 400,000 PLUS subscribers lost

[mosely]

I guess the question now is, was that 400,000 subscribers who learned their lesson, or 400,000 people who will be back for the next expansion?

My guess is the latter. I may even be one of them.

[Alastaircrawly]

I guess the question now is, was that 400,000 subscribers who learned their lesson, or 400,000 people who will be back for the next expansion?

My guess is the latter. I may even be one of them.

My guess would be the subs will continued to decline.

[Hakto]

think your math is off

Q1 2011 - 600,000 subscribers lost
Q2 2011 - 300,000 subscribers lost
Q3 2011 - 800,000 subscribers lost
Q4 2011 - 100,000 subscribers lost

Q1 2012 - Subscribers remained flat (no lost reported)
Q2 2012 - 1.1 Million subscribers lost
Q3 2012 - 10 Million Plus players (900k plus player gain)
Q4 2013 - 400,000 PLUS subscribers lost

how is it off? at the end of Q4 2011 Wow had 10.2 mill subs, at end of Q4 2012 Wow has 9.6 mill subs - seems like pretty spot on math to me.

10.2 mill minus 9.6 mill comes to 600k no matter how many times I do the math.

World of Warcraft lost 100,000 subscribers, down to 10.2 million. This was a total lost of 1.8 million for the year.

[McNeil]

I hope this wakes up Blizzard even more to make better content, which is for once not just dailys and scenario's.

I'd like to see more very large and difficult 5-man dungeons, that takes atleast a full hour to entirely clear. And I'd like to see large NON linear raids with a lot of bosses. Throne of Thunder is a good direction, but its linear as f****

[Freese]

I'd like to see more very large and difficult 5-man dungeons, that takes atleast a full hour to entirely clear

Challenge modes?

[Ausr]

I hope this wakes up Blizzard even more to make better content, which is for once not just dailys and scenario's.

I'd like to see more very large and difficult 5-man dungeons, that takes atleast a full hour to entirely clear. And I'd like to see large NON linear raids with a lot of bosses. Throne of Thunder is a good direction, but its linear as f****

Ah yes, back to Cata dungeons that were just boring as hell. That clearly worked out well.

[muchtoohigh]

How is it a bad thing..?

Do you want to know what bad means?
Bad is when you lose 60% of your paying customers in your first year.
Bad is when you have to go F2P shortly after launch.

This shit isn't bad, it's better than expected.
If you expect a game to grow or be stable after 8 years, that means you don't understand the entire market.
It's a market that has to bring out a new CoD-game every single year to be taken serious..
But you are complaining about a 10 million-sub company that loses 4% of their subs after gaining a lot more three months ago? Really?

Its the fact that they lost 400k in a quarter where they had just released a brand new expansion and were making a very strong push to keep players interested in the game with more regular content updates (or at least lots more announcements of them). If they lose that much with all that, its a disturbing trend for the following quarters when they have a lot less to sell.

[Osmeric]

Its the fact that they lost 400k in a quarter where they had just released a brand new expansion and were making a very strong push to keep players interested in the game with more regular content updates (or at least lots more announcements of them). If they lose that much with all that, its a disturbing trend for the following quarters when they have a lot less to sell.

Actually, we should expect the first quarter to be when they lose many customers, since that's when their customers first encounter major design changes.

In Cataclysm, the losses were primarily right after release (1.1M, in west then in China), and near the end, as DS got boring and D3 came out.

[Alastaircrawly]

how is it off? at the end of Q4 2011 Wow had 10.2 mill subs, at end of Q4 2012 Wow has 9.6 mill subs - seems like pretty spot on math to me.

10.2 mill minus 9.6 mill comes to 600k no matter how many times I do the math.

They lost 1.6 million PLUS subs from Q4 2011 to Q4 2012

To say they only lost 600k subs would be wrong

Before mope came out Wow had 9.1 million subs.

When mop pushed it up to 10 million plus
and Q4 2012 ended with 9.6 million

So the lost for was 400k PLUS

[Nerraw]

I'd like to see more very large and difficult 5-man dungeons, that takes atleast a full hour to entirely clear.

They did that with Cataclysm. A lot of people quit over that.

[killidan]

I hope this wakes up Blizzard even more to make better content, which is for once not just dailys and scenario's.

I'd like to see more very large and difficult 5-man dungeons, that takes atleast a full hour to entirely clear. And I'd like to see large NON linear raids with a lot of bosses. Throne of Thunder is a good direction, but its linear as f****

Yes, large difficult 5mans and raids, I would love to, but Just not the direction the game is moving.

[Hakto]

They lost 1.6 million PLUS subs from Q4 2011 to Q4 2012

To say they only lost 600k subs would be wrong

Before mope came out Wow had 9.1 million subs.

When mop pushed it up to 10 million plus
and Q4 2012 ended with 9.6 million

So the lost for was 400k PLUS

You really are some kind of special aren't you?

At the Q4 conference call of 2011 the sub count was 10.2 million - look it up, it is a matter of public record.

At the Q4 conference call of 2012, the sub count was 9.6 million - again it's a matter of public record.

That is a loss of 600k for the year, or are you honestly going to quibble over a couple hundred to a few k subs AT MOST in either direction.

They lost 1.6 million PLUS subs from Q4 2011 to Q4 2012

Even using your wildest guesses how do you come up with this? 10.2 mill with a loss of 1.6 mill would put it at 8.6 now not 9.6.

Or are you simply adding all the losses without taking any of the gains over the year into account?

That isn't how balance sheets work.

[killidan]

They did that with Cataclysm. A lot of people quit over that.

Correlation, not causality. We don't know for sure how many people quit over hard dungeons.

One point to consider is the change in cata was steep after faceroll work dungeons.

They did it very abruptly, a more gradual fix could avoid alienating players and even make them feel like they are progressing and getting better.

[Alastaircrawly]

You really are some kind of special aren't you?

At the Q4 conference call of 2011 the sub count was 10.2 million - look it up, it is a matter of public record.

At the Q4 conference call of 2012, the sub count was 9.6 million - again it's a matter of public record.

That is a loss of 600k for the year, or are you honestly going to quibble over a couple hundred to a few k subs AT MOST in either direction.

Q1 2011 - 600,000 subscribers lost
Q2 2011 - 300,000 subscribers lost
Q3 2011 - 800,000 subscribers lost
Q4 2011 - 100,000 subscribers lost

Q1 2012 - Subscribers remained flat (no lost reported)
Q2 2012 - 1.1 Million subscribers lost
Q3 2012 - 10 Million Plus players (900k plus player gain)
Q4 2013 - 400,000 PLUS subscribers lost

Was taken from http://investor.activision.com/results.cfm

You are IGNORING Q1-Q3 2012 and by doing this you are IGNORING the sub gains and sub loses during that time.

Wow lost well over 400k subs during Q4 2011 to Q4 2012 in fact it lost 1.6 million plus. While having a gain of 900k plus subs

[MoanaLisa]

Correlation, not causality. We don't know for sure how many people quit over hard dungeons.

While we surely don't know how many, we know it was enough that Blizzard higher-ups admitted very specifically that it was a problem in Cataclysm post-mortems. That means something.

[Hakto]

Q1 2011 - 600,000 subscribers lost
Q2 2011 - 300,000 subscribers lost
Q3 2011 - 800,000 subscribers lost
Q4 2011 - 100,000 subscribers lost

Q1 2012 - Subscribers remained flat (no lost reported)
Q2 2012 - 1.1 Million subscribers lost
Q3 2012 - 10 Million Plus players (900k plus player gain)
Q4 2013 - 400,000 PLUS subscribers lost

Was taken from http://investor.activision.com/results.cfm

You are IGNORING Q1-Q3 2012 and by doing this you are IGNORING the sub gains and sub loses during that time.

Wow lost well over 400k subs during Q4 2011 to Q4 2012 in fact it lost 1.6 million plus. While having a gain of 900k plus subs

If you want to put it in terms of pure losses of subs (don't see any relevance myself) I'm 100% sure they lost a lot more than 1.6 million during that financial year in terms of subbed accounts that unsubbed, this was offset by a number of accounts that were either new accounts ore re-subbed accounts.

This is irrelevant, what is relevant to this discussion is the number of active subs at any given time which is a net loss or gain over a certain period.

I suspect there has been 20-30 million subs or more lost since 2004, as Blizzard themselves have stated: there have been many more players that have stopped playing than currently play, you could use that logic to state that wow has lost over 10 million subs.

I will link you the important facts:

Blizzard Entertainment’s World of Warcraft® Remains #1 Subscription-based MMORPG with
Approximately 10.2 Million Subscribers as of 12/31/11

As of December 31, 2012, Blizzard Entertainment’s World of Warcraft remains the #1
subscription-based MMORPG, with more than 9.6 million subscribers.

That results in an overall loss of 600k subs for the year, put all the spin on it you like, that is the fact.

[Pann]

You really are some kind of special aren't you?

Is there any need for this kind of insult?

Q1 2011 - 600,000 subscribers lost
Q2 2011 - 300,000 subscribers lost
Q3 2011 - 800,000 subscribers lost
Q4 2011 - 100,000 subscribers lost

Q1 2012 - Subscribers remained flat (no lost reported)
Q2 2012 - 1.1 Million subscribers lost
Q3 2012 - 10 Million Plus players (900k plus player gain)
Q4 2013 - 400,000 PLUS subscribers lost

Was taken from http://investor.activision.com/results.cfm

You are IGNORING Q1-Q3 2012 and by doing this you are IGNORING the sub gains and sub loses during that time.

Wow lost well over 400k subs during Q4 2011 to Q4 2012 in fact it lost 1.6 million plus. While having a gain of 900k plus subs

I do see where you are going with this but whilst it is safe to say that there were number of players that returned and number that quit but ultimately we are never going to know the actual number of losses and gains so we can only go on the total figures that Blizzard release.