Activision-Blizzard a declining stock? How it effects WoW?

[BrerBear]

The addicts will dismiss Xfire without hesitation and any trends indicated by that won't matter unless the statistics come from their only one true God, Blizzard.

Praise Blizzard.

Amen.

I wouldn't be so quick to gloat.

First off, hours played =/= subs. People always play more hours at expansion launch.

Second, Xfire has lost more than 50% of its total hours of play across all MMOs in less than one year (row 25). So maybe everyone is dropping all their MMO playtime, or.... maybe Xfire itself is what is on a rapid decline.

[Celista]

MoP numbers are going to take a major nosedive this year. Here are just a few of the reasons:

• MMO-Burnout. At some point the grind just takes its toll.
• Weather - spring is upon us, those wasting time playing in the winter might want a break.
• MoP quality. Though some love it, a sampling of message boards indicates there is a fair amount of players disenchanted with the game.
• Other games. Yes, I know this is unthinkable, but players do move on to play other games.
• Private servers. Vanilla private servers exist and as more and more players discovers the scene, they'll opt out of a monthly sub. Some of these servers have been around for years and even mighty Blizzard can't seem to get them shut down.

Are we even allowed to talk about private servers here? In any case most of them are full of bugs and aren't worth playing save maybe 1-2...also most of the points you mentioned happen EVERY year, people pop in and out of the game all of the time for a variety of reasons.

[Kiniun]

After D3 failure and sub-par expansions (Cata and MoP) Bliz has taken a hit to their reputation.

I mean, it's fairly obvious that both WoW and D3 are currently designed as so called cash-cow games. I for one, have no sympathy whatsoever for Blizzard anymore.

[BenBos]

I wouldn't be so quick to gloat.

First off, hours played =/= subs. People always play more hours at expansion launch.

Second, Xfire has lost more than 50% of its total hours of play across all MMOs in less than one year (row 25). So maybe everyone is dropping all their MMO playtime, or.... maybe Xfire itself is what is on a rapid decline.

http://www.warcraftrealms.com/weekly...hp?serverid=-1

Shows a clear increase over the last year for WOW.

Xfire is a tool in decline indeed. All MMO's lost huge amounts of playing time. But GW2 lost 4 times as many as WOW.

---------- Post added 2013-02-01 at 02:09 AM ----------

After D3 failure and sub-par expansions (Cata and MoP) Bliz has taken a hit to their reputation.

I mean, it's fairly obvious that both WoW and D3 are currently designed as so called cash-cow games. I for one, have no sympathy whatsoever for Blizzard anymore.

First MoP is not a subpar expansion.

Secondly a game which sells 12.000.000 copies as a PC only is not a failure. (and millions still play it as seen through the AH).

Third: I would like all communists going out of the gaming world really. If you don't like the fact that Blizzard makes 1.4 billion dollar per year and the Activision group makes 4.8 billion dollars as a whole for making video games people ... BUY legally ..., please leave the room.

[Slowpoke is a Gamer]

http://www.warcraftrealms.com/weekly...hp?serverid=-1

Shows a clear increase over the last year for WOW.

Xfire is a tool in decline indeed. All MMO's lost huge amounts of playing time. But GW2 lost 4 times as many as WOW.

---------- Post added 2013-02-01 at 02:09 AM ----------



First MoP is not a subpar expansion.

Secondly a game which sells 12.000.000 copies as a PC only is not a failure. (and millions still play it as seen through the AH).

Third: I would like all communists going out of the gaming world really. If you don't like the fact that Blizzard makes 1.4 billion dollar per year and the Activision group makes 4.8 billion dollars as a whole for making video games people ... BUY legally ..., please leave the room.

Love your guts to call out number three there. Love it.


Anyway, as for all MMOs, it's true. Let's look at recent history. All of WoW's original competition is dead (F2P counts as dead to me), ToR is dead after just a year, GW2 is at best treading water, none of the other hot-button MMOs out there even took off at launch. FF14 is looking at majorly rebuilding the game a'la Cata to save itself from going totally dead.

If WoW is still bleeding subs, then why aren't these other games on the rise?

Because people don't want what MMOs are selling. They want fast, in/out, queue-based gameplay. They want FPSes.

[Jazara]

Lmao at people calling D3 a failure. If by failure you mean it sold higher than expected and is still being played, then all Blizzard games are complete failures. If you hate Blizz so much, stop playing their games. If you have stopped playing, and you're frequenting forums to bash their games, then you have less of a life than the people you call addicts.

[BenBos]

Love your guts to call out number three there. Love it.


Anyway, as for all MMOs, it's true. Let's look at recent history. All of WoW's original competition is dead (F2P counts as dead to me), ToR is dead after just a year, GW2 is at best treading water, none of the other hot-button MMOs out there even took off at launch. FF14 is looking at majorly rebuilding the game a'la Cata to save itself from going totally dead.

If WoW is still bleeding subs, then why aren't these other games on the rise?

Because people don't want what MMOs are selling. They want fast, in/out, queue-based gameplay. They want FPSes.

I think there is indeed a huge decline in general MMO interest. People are a little fed up with the genre and ...

the end result is that IF you want to play an MMORPG, why not subscribe to the ONE everyone else played some time (and you probably yourself played).

That's the reasoning.

Playing for "free" is not the same for an MMORPG really: the CLUB fee (subscriptions) mentality is REALLY needed for long term goals like attunements, reputation grinds etc...

What makes the MMO market long in the tooth are 2 facts:

1. Too long attunements/rep grinds/leveling before you get instant rewards.
2. No solo challenge. Everything is group challenge, but solo challenge is something an MMO can't afford or you simply stop playing.

The market now is for quick hop in and out games, possible with PvP.

WOW will be the main MMORPG for years to come but if I were Blizzard : they have ALL the time in the world before the launch of Titan because the MMO market is saturated. Not even FREE of subscription games can obtain WOW like player figures and simply by the fact the market is no longer there to be spread.

The Secret World: 200K copies and dying within 10 months... says it all really.

[Teriz]

Love your guts to call out number three there. Love it.


Anyway, as for all MMOs, it's true. Let's look at recent history. All of WoW's original competition is dead (F2P counts as dead to me), ToR is dead after just a year, GW2 is at best treading water, none of the other hot-button MMOs out there even took off at launch. FF14 is looking at majorly rebuilding the game a'la Cata to save itself from going totally dead.

If WoW is still bleeding subs, then why aren't these other games on the rise?

Because people don't want what MMOs are selling. They want fast, in/out, queue-based gameplay. They want FPSes.

I agree with almost everything you said. As soon as SWTOR went F2P, I was done with that game. I knew that once that happened, there was going to be ridiculous restrictions based on who is subscribed and who isn't. Which in turn hurts the community. Over time, the F2P MMOs slowly bleed out until they're dead and the servers close.

It truly is a remarkable achievement that WoW is still doing so well with its subscriber base.

I also agree that MMOs in general are fading out. I don't know what can save the genre at this point, but after WoW ends, I don't think we're going to see another MMO rise up to take its place. That includes Titan. WoW hit at just the right time, and ironically it killed its genre because it was simply too popular. It also didn't help that its competitors are less talented and refuse to learn from WoW's example. They're too busy trying to reinvent the wheel instead of improving on it.

[papaz]

Lmao at people calling D3 a failure. If by failure you mean it sold higher than expected and is still being played, then all Blizzard games are complete failures. If you hate Blizz so much, stop playing their games. If you have stopped playing, and you're frequenting forums to bash their games, then you have less of a life than the people you call addicts.

Even Warhammer Online goes into the category "still being played".

You don't bring forth any good definition of success yourelf so I don't know what you are laughing at.

If box sales are the factor of success or "higher than expected" than I guarantee you will be surprised by the amount of successful games out there.

I don't care about the business point of view more than I'm hoping game companies don't go bancrupcy.

But if you see mass exodus from a game that is supposed to last for years and years (and I'm not only pointing a finger at D3 but the list is long) then something is wrong no matter how many boxes it sold.

[Mosotti]

After D3 failure and sub-par expansions (Cata and MoP) Bliz has taken a hit to their reputation.

I mean, it's fairly obvious that both WoW and D3 are currently designed as so called cash-cow games. I for one, have no sympathy whatsoever for Blizzard anymore.

Every game company in the universe would suck monkey dick just to have a piece of shit failure like D3. As for Cata and MoP, they are subpar only for the mentally deranged living-in-the-past TBC freaks...

And some news flash for everyone who's clueless about what companies are after: money. MONEY, MONEY, MONEY, MONEY... At least as a cash cow, WoW has a high production value. There are lots of other cash cows that suck ass.

Anyway, it's funny to see now "WoW is dying" threads based on "analysis". There is no difference between an "analyst" and a gipsy telling your future with a glass globe. The global economy almost collapsed 4 years ago because of these so called analysts. They must be using the anus instead of their brains, that's why the name...

[The Handsome Stranger]

Stock price is amazingly important in the modern world.

Here is one scenario.

Say the Activision-Blizz stock price tumbles to pink sheet level, if it does, then Activision-Blizz has serious, serious issues and in laymans terms, is about to be swallowed by just about any finanicaly stable company that wants to own what Acti/Blizz has to offer.

What if EA decided to buy up all Acti/Blizz stock?

Thats something to think about.

Or what if another company, like say Apple buys out all Acti/Blizz stock and decides the best return of investment is to break up all the titles and sells them one by one to the highest bidder?

You really cannot say stock is not important. I assure you Acti/Blizz keeps a close eye minute by minute watching the ticker on the stock price.

[Nimitzles]

Even though MoP is much better then cataclysm there is definitely a downward trend on EU servers, although I believe Asian subs numbers will negate the downward trend in US and EU. The main mistake blizz made for sub numbers was making 10s and 25s equal. 25 man raiding guilds had more stain power and these guilds added a lot more to realm communities even for non raiders.

If you look at realms like Kazzak where there is a lot of 25 man raiding guilds still, the realm itself is thriving compared to the realms where GMs and officers ditched 25s for 10s for faster progress or less effort in running them.

[Celista]

After D3 failure and sub-par expansions (Cata and MoP) Bliz has taken a hit to their reputation.

I mean, it's fairly obvious that both WoW and D3 are currently designed as so called cash-cow games. I for one, have no sympathy whatsoever for Blizzard anymore.

I just got a new gaming PC a week ago...didn't get around to downloading my free copy of Diablo until tonight, had the annual pass and it wouldn't run on my old pos computer.

Good lord, I know the game cost me nothing but wtf? Turned it off after 10 minutes of gameplay. D: Sad now.

Lmao at people calling D3 a failure. If by failure you mean it sold higher than expected and is still being played, then all Blizzard games are complete failures. If you hate Blizz so much, stop playing their games. If you have stopped playing, and you're frequenting forums to bash their games, then you have less of a life than the people you call addicts.

I like Blizzard games, but as of late I really don't know how to feel. MoP is generally better than Cata except for dailies.

[Deleted]

Assuming that site can even be trusted, then the stock price of Activision-Blizzard dropping will affect WoW by a very precise amount: nothing. Nada. No difference whatsoever. Or well, if anything, Blizzard would work harder to make WoW a better game.

This community cares far too much about the business side of things. That is really none of our concern.

Wrong. For example, much needed server merges are even less likely to happen in current situation, because it would freak out shareholders. Profit from milking customers with PCTs from dead servers is more important than ever.

[Pann]

Rubbish, pure and utter rubbish.

FIRST: when Wacraft realms shows a downward trend it is a good tool. When warcraft realms shows an upward trend it is false. LAUGHS/

Actually what happens in these grahs from year to year activity is that the quarterly figures match a trend in Warcraft Realms pretty good. On a year to year basis WOW is in an upward trend CLEARLY.

Warcraft realms and Xfire cannot be used be over the course of a year as the number of users varies over time making a like for like comparison difficult the shorter the period the less likely the number of users has changed thus more accurate the trend. As far as the figures only being accurate when there is a downward trend, I do believe that both Warcraft realms and Xfire showed an increase in activity with the release of 5.0 which was later supported by the Q3 figures. Over the past two years or so both have been accurate in predicting trends in subscriber numbers, positive and negative it just so happens that most quarters subscriber numbers have dropped, until such a time as the figures from one or both of them contradict those from Blizzard they remain the best tools we have for predicting trends in sub numbers.

[Bolson13]

He is a private investor and a MBA student. AKA, you are reading way too much into it.

Also, VGchartz as a source, lol. VGchartz has been off by millions on occasions

[Pann]

He is a private investor and a MBA student. AKA, you are reading way too much into it.

Also, VGchartz as a source, lol. VGchartz has been off by millions on occasions

I have to say I agree with you although I do agree with his analyses that Activision Blizzard will decline to value, maybe Titan will be the answer to everyone's prayers and attract millions of new players. What is disappointing, although not surprising, is that certain posters dismiss the author as a liar, a moron, etc simply because he does not write how wonderful Blizzard are.

[rogas]

I think 'titan' is code-word for 'when wow starts to sink... titanic? I don't think blizz has a plan b, they are totally commited to wow, like it should be... I predict in 10 years from now, wow will still be the greatest mmo universe out there...

[Deleted]

He gets paid per pageview, so it's a pretty easy scam really, you pick on a company / game / thing that people can get (lets be polite) 'passionate' about make some derogatory comments or just bad analysis and get some people to spread the link round to places you know people who play the game hang out.

click, click, click, click

Profit.

Despite it being almost total rubbish.

Nineteen analysts have rated the stock with a buy rating, two have issued an overweight rating, and four have given a hold rating to the company’s stock. The stock has a consensus rating of buy and an average price target of $15.31.

http://www.jagsreport.com/2013/01/br...blizzard-atvi/

[Bolson13]

I have to say I agree with you although I do agree with his analyses that Activision Blizzard will decline to value, maybe Titan will be the answer to everyone's prayers and attract millions of new players. What is disappointing, although not surprising, is that certain posters dismiss the author as a liar, a moron, etc simply because he does not write how wonderful Blizzard are.

I think he presents his analysis of 2013 pretty clearly and to the point. Yes, WoW will probably see a decline, CoD is reaching its peak etc. However, he pulls this line through into the future far too easily. He only talks about the sales figures of Titan a bit (which doesn't show much analysis to begin with, just his expectation). And in general he talks about the sales figures too much.

A good analyst would also analyse the chances for future growth and more important the direction of the company. To me it sounds a bit like he is assuming A-B will sit on their hands. A good analyst would also value the fact that A-B has in the recent past made some good decisions to increase profits of current IP's. For instance the annual pass as well as the Elite system for CoD (even though they quit, it didn't impact the sales of the newest game hense it will probably have been profitable or at least it shows that they are trying to maximise revenue). Other things in the past are for instance making a Spanish version of WoW. As the average income rises in this part of the world, it is potentially one of the biggest growth markets of gaming in general. Plus the lax computer requirements of WoW make it a prime candidate.

Anyways, I am just brainstorming. However, I think a good analyst should also focus on this part of the business in stead of just sales. Especially when you are trying to analyze a business's future. For a blog it is fine, It is probably his hobby and a small investor that is completely out of the loop will get some information from it but it is simply not the quality of work that you would expect of a analyst that advices big investors or gives tips in the bigger media outlets. And certainly not worth to be taken as seriously as some are doing in this thread.