WoW Down to 9.6 Million Subscribers

[kojinshugi]

i love how if you look objectively at a 500k drop out of 10+ million subscribers and you dont really think its much of a big deal, you're a fanboi!

its gonna affect their bottom line, sure, but will it really affect wow any? not likely.

It's a 5% drop. How is a 5% drop a big deal?

If Rift went from 1 million to 950k, would that be a big deal?

[AK_47]

Was to be expected, 6 months since Pandaria and the first REAL patch content is not out yet.

[Aquamonkey]

Point to where that information resides in any of the recent Press releases. THANKS!


4:23PM Activision Blizzard beats by $0.06, beats on revs; guides Q1 EPS in-line, revs below consensus; guides FY13 EPS below consensus, revs below consensus; increases cash dividend to $0.19/share (ATVI) 12.06 +0.12 : Reports Q4 (Dec) earnings of $0.78 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.06 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.72; revenues rose 7.8% year/year to $2.6 bln vs the $2.44 bln consensus.

Co issues mixed guidance for Q1, sees EPS of $0.10, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.10 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q1 revs of $690 mln vs. $716.16 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.
Co issues downside guidance for FY13, sees EPS of $0.80, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.98 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees FY13 revs of $4.175 bln vs. $4.57 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.
Additionally, on March 12, 2013, Blizzard Entertainment expects to release StarCraft? II: Heart of the Swarm , the first expansion to Blizzard's award-winning real-time strategy game StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty?.

It's in the Quarterly Reports. All of them. And I rounded up.

[Exodeus]

Thank fucking god Blizzard does not design the game according to the preferences of people who prefer hours of mindless, repetitive grinding to performing the same basic actions in short, structured quests that vary from day to day.

The idea that missing a day leaves you "behind" is preposterous. Do 45 dailies a week, whenever you want them, and you have enough for charms. You can do that in two days. Miss an entire week of August Celestials, and you're still gaining rep at a speed that's way ahead of how fast you can earn valor to spend.

It's literally impossible to earn enough valor to require doing dailies every day. It's literally impossible to spend enough charms to require doing dailies every day. You neglected to spend 10 minutes working out your progression path, and deluded yourself into thinking you're "forced" into dailies. You are literally a man punching himself in the face and then yelling at everyone else for "making you do it".

I'm not asking for the old way to be the only way i would just prefer it still be available instead of dailies forced down my throat quests are imo fun only one time on rare occasions like battle of undercity maybe 2-3 times.

[zuluslayer]

I'am still subscribing but i never play anymore. Guess the actual number of players is much lower. Seems the casual bendover killed the spirit of the game for good.

[Tharkkun]

I'm still subbed but i hate dailies with a passion i'd much rather still be needing to farm 50 soulshards and 20+ essence of air(for the gold for flasks,pots,food,mana oil, scrolls and so on) per day, dailies for silly coins and valour just to give you a edge/boost is beyond boring and you HAVE to do the dailies cause all the valour gear is locked behind it and as soon as you are finally done they release a new faction with yes even more dailies.......
And as for rep farmin i'd rather farm the damn cave in silithus for twilight texts or run with those dusts then the fucking dailies!!!!
Atleast then i could do my farming when i damn well pleased and not have to log in every day otherwise i have fallen behind again FUCK DAILIES!

Here's the deal though. You can only earn 1000 valor per week. So realistically there's no benefit to doing 1 factions dailies versus 6 every day. You're not going to be able to buy the gear regardless. So focus on one or two tops and if you want more, do it.

Many people, including you are stuck in the mindset of maxing all your reputations every day. You're burning yourself out for no reason.

In 5.2 the valor prices are dropping but I doubt you'll be able to squeeze in two items per week so the grind won't change.

[Sengiratolom]

That's a really ridiculous statement. DLC is adding some stuff like new weapons (or items in general), outfits, maps, campaigns and all that stuff. An addon on the other hand usually changes the whole playing experience.

Addon(in wow)= clientside modification of the ui

MoP is an expansion= large server side and client side update on the game with lore, lvl caps, new mechanics and what not.

DLC would prolly be closer to unrealtournament single player bots (read oponents) with improved AIs

[Immitis]

i cant find the almost 13 million announcement so until i find it ill just say over 12 million. but still the highest amount of subs were at cata launch.

[kojinshugi]

I'm not asking for the old way to be the only way i would just prefer it still be available instead of dailies forced down my throat quests are imo fun only one time on rare occasions like battle of undercity maybe 2-3 times.

How is farming soul shards more fun? You're still killing 50 things. There's just exclamation points to click. There's also achievements added if you're a completionist.

Also, did you never do the Rolling daily? I could do that for hours.

[caninepawprints]

9.6 million subscribers is good, but I think they could get it back up there if they brought the play-style from Wrath of the Lich King back. I think that's when WoW was the most fun. I could AOE grind when I wanted to, and healing was actually fun!

[Necrosaro123]

I play the game but right now, mostly for old content and leveling alts, just like i did with CATA. There is nothing pulling me to play MOP endgame content, i find it to be annoying to play and repetitive. Playing old characters allows me to test new abilities, transmog, roles and even races, sometimes i even enjoy old dungeons because i'm able to farm materials and transmog items to play the AH. And that kind of gameplay is really boring for most players and not being worth of 25USD for a subscription.

WoW demands too much from players who can hardly play the game every night, the item hunt is not really interesting and became boring after a month, i can't find any other reason to have players on a game they really don't enjoy to play.

[Immitis]

How is farming soul shards more fun? You're still killing 50 things. There's just exclamation points to click. There's also achievements added if you're a completionist.

Also, did you never do the Rolling daily? I could do that for hours.

sure the rolling daily is fun... unless you're trying to do the achievement on an old computer and you're moving so fast even if you complete it in time you dont load the finish line up until after you pass it and have to try and time a spin around to hit the line

[Mortavius]

I love how when these discussions come up, the worst sorts of people raise their heads.

Those who love to label and call out folks with names like "You fanboys never quit." Like enjoying something and supporting it is a BAD thing all of a sudden.

And the whole argument is stupid. I can sum it up so easily.

Fact #1: WoW lost a bunch of subscribers.
Fact #2: WoW still has more subscribers than any other MMO out there, and many combined.

But people feel the need to tack on arguments to each side, and make their's the "correct" viewpoint. "WoW *only* lost X many subs." "WoW lost that many subs, and they're losing money."

Can't you all see that you folks are arguing the same damn thing?!?

No matter what you all say, no matter what horrible names and labels you apply to each other and everything else, nothing will change as a result of your actions on this forum today.

So why not show some kindness to each other, and discuss something reasonably?

[Chry]

Thus concludes my prediction as true.

Laughing at all of the fanbois that were ready willing and able to defend WoW's sub numbers pre today. (some even claiming a gain! hah!)

[Granyala]

I could AOE grind when I wanted to, and healing was actually fun!

No. Healing was the incarnation of Boring in Wrath.

Me never wants to go back to that.

[OneSent]

And still 3.6 million more subscribers compared to how many there were when I first bought the game and when the the game was at it's best: Vanilla/The Burning Crusade.

WoW could lose 4 million subs and probably be better for it.

[kojinshugi]

25USD for a subscription.

Since when is the subscription 25 bucks?

WoW demands too much from players who can hardly play the game every night, the item hunt is not really interesting and became boring after a month, i can't find any other reason to have players on a game they really don't enjoy to play.

Have you ever considered that not everyone likes the same things? Plenty of people do like the item hunt. I personally have zero interest in survival horror, but I don't go on Resident Evil forums complaining that the game sucks and should involve more raiding.

[Chry]

And still 3.6 million more subscribers compared to how many there were when I first bought the game and when the the game was at it's best: Vanilla/The Burning Crusade.

WoW could lose 4 million subs and probably be better for it.

Nope. Game was at its factual best during WotLK. Opinions don't matter, the numbers do.

[Duster505]

See.. this is what i don't get.... You contradict me..fair enough... with an argument you contradict yourself in?

I don't even..

Aside from contradicting yourself, you're also advocating something not exactly related to what i said, aside from an assumed sense of understanding what i said.

You first attribute the drop in subscribers to demographic shifts. Then you continue with the argument that only a select few progress through normal mode, further strengthening your argument with the fact that players require progression to stick around, which goes against your initial state that players quite because they progress? I mean..what?

That's not even counting the fact that you're referring to a minority as a "majority". We know for a fact the number of subscribers dropped by ~5%. Last i checked 5% is still far away off from 100%, or even 50% for that matter.

I'm pretty sure i know what you wanted to say, but i'm also pretty sure what you actually said is not what you wanted to say.

You're also analyzing the entire thing in a bubble, which is simply stupid.

Its called meaningful content. LFR and daily quests are not meaningful content. It creates even worse players than what we have already. And it leads to what? 5% nerf per wipe in LFR?

Would be much better to push players into active social gaming with guild on active servers (meaning server merges) and if it means that Normal content needs to be downtuned for that to work... Yes - better than pretty much everything that MOP stands for right now.

[Celista]

Thank fucking god Blizzard does not design the game according to the preferences of people who prefer hours of mindless, repetitive grinding to performing the same basic actions in short, structured quests that vary from day to day.

Mob grinding = mindless repetitive actions in order to achieve a desired goal (rep, items, xp)
Level capped dailies = mindless repetitive actions in order to achieve a desired goal (rep, currency, items)

At least with mob grinding you can get it all done in a few days as opposed to dailies which are gated...and required if you want to spend your valor points. >.<

Terrible terrible game design, I'm tired of reading posts from people trying to defend it. It's just god awful.