The game is in a good place I think, and from the rumors I've heard, a lot of subs will be lost in Asian countries. I would say 100k-200k tops, or slightly more than that.
The game is in a good place I think, and from the rumors I've heard, a lot of subs will be lost in Asian countries. I would say 100k-200k tops, or slightly more than that.
Last edited by Ceece; 2013-05-04 at 01:10 PM.
Wise words.
Discussing Wow subs on Wow forums will always get a very narrow response from the Wow players... they live in a bubble and r very blinkered to the overall gaming world. Ur right to say that the paid subs industry is on the decline massively across the gaming industry, its pretty much only Wow thats managing to grab money out of gamers pockets every month these days. All of the other games have seen that the future is different and are adjusting thier financial models accordingly.
IMO WoW has entered its EOL stage, so subs won't go back up significantly anymore.
I'd say it'll drop by 200k/400k per quarter unless activision-blizzard makes a mistake or a new competitor has a significant success (eg Neverwinter, Teso, ...)
The biggest drop should obviously happen around Titan's release maybe in 2-3 years at which point I'd be surprised if WoW had more then 1.5-2 millions subs left.
Again a very traditional answer and analysis in an industry that is no longer subscription based but free to p(l)ay.
New competitor? In the subscription based industry? Wow .... that would be the first one in ... 7 years.
Also Blizzard has so many cards up its sleeves...
Some examples: combo subs for Titan and WoW, WoW turning to free to play, FreeTitan for those subscribing to annual WoW, get a Titan sub and have WoW for free ... Etc...
Even in 2013 you can already predict combos : gain HS cards by having a WoW sub, buy HS packages and get a month free subs...
So many possibilities, I know all terribly painful for the WoW haters, but let's face it: blizzard has dozens of these in the pipeline.
"There is a pervasive myth that making content hard will induce players to rise to the occasion. We find the opposite. " -- Ghostcrawler
"The bit about hardcore players not always caring about the long term interests of the game is spot on." -- Ghostcrawler
"Do you want a game with no casuals so about 500 players?"
The standard these days is free to p(l)ay. Very simple. MOST tried subscription based mmo's, but ALL went free to play as their player base melted faster than snow on a hot summer's day.
Of course people still discuss WoW subs in the same way over these 7 years, but they forget that the subscription based model failed to deliver, execept for very few. So the industry in which these paid subs need to be gathered ... Changed.
As such the fight for WoW subscriptions has to be seen in a new mmo industry. And that's why I stated that total revenue of a company is the best indicator for the health of a company.
Not some subs going down or up as there are many more ways these days used to gather money.
Of course Blizzard will always have the advantage to adapt or set another pace: like stated above, by including deals.
But the core of the discussion is ... The battle for subscriptions is already over a long time ago, since Blizzard won that battle to the money pit.
Now they just will make sure WoW will be kept played by millions by adapting small changes to the subscriptions (combo deals).
But that's just a reflection of the situation where (1) MMOs have large sunk costs, but low operating costs, and (2) most MMOs fail.
In that situation, the failures go F2P. As long as they are bringing in enough revenue to cover operating costs, they aren't shut down. They can persist in a zombie-like state of years.
This is why I suggest you look at money, not "subs".
"There is a pervasive myth that making content hard will induce players to rise to the occasion. We find the opposite. " -- Ghostcrawler
"The bit about hardcore players not always caring about the long term interests of the game is spot on." -- Ghostcrawler
"Do you want a game with no casuals so about 500 players?"
F2P as a revenue model is interesting. I don't think it will ever really be the financial engine that creates the sort of juggernaut game that World of Warcraft has been. For one thing it's easy to feel less invested in F2P games (largely because you are less invested) and quite easy to drop them for months at a time. Same goes for B2P. The reality is that there's nothing about World of Warcraft as a business model that is helpful for a game design studio looking to do an MMO.
It's just more evidence that Blizzard was in the right place with the right game at the right time in 2005 and that World of Warcraft is an outlier that is a terrible example from a business perspective if you're looking to emulate success. It's unique in that sense and attempts to define rules for how it works as a business are fruitless. Given the history of nearly every attempt to copy its success it shouldn't work.
And that in a nutshell is why I think threads like this, while always fascinating and one of my favorite subjects to discuss, never really get to the essence of the thing.
EDIT: Just to reiterate and give a nod to the topic subs are likely to be down a bit now and probably for the next several years. There will likely be little bumps up now and then, particularly when a new expansion launches but overall a long-term graph will show a downward trend. BenBos has it right about the subscription MMO market shrinking. It doesn't really much matter what Blizzard does at this point. New players aren't overly interested in paying a flat rate fee/month to play an eight-year-old game and the age of the game will dictate that people will leave over time. So it's on a glide path. Blizzard can extend that glide path greatly by continuing to invest in designing new content for the game but I'm of the opinion that future growth simply based on that is unlikely. That makes Blizzard's revenue and financial plans for Titan all the more interesting.
Last edited by MoanaLisa; 2013-05-04 at 04:38 PM.
"...money's most powerful ability is to allow bad people to continue doing bad things at the expense of those who don't have it."
The conference call is the only reliable way to know what's really going on worldwide. There are other ways to sort of detect trends but they are unreliable at best and totally misleading at worst. I've seen attempts to predict numbers using wowprogress but that only counts raiders so is 100% useless at saying anything about the general population at large. There's not really anything very helpful to figure it out on a worldwide basis.
"...money's most powerful ability is to allow bad people to continue doing bad things at the expense of those who don't have it."
The earnings call is always the first time they announce the sub numbers. I can't see any other reason than a massive gain for them to mention it outside of the call and I don't think that is going to happen.
This is not strictly true both xfire and warcraft realms activity have mirrored sub losses in the past.
Last edited by Pann; 2013-05-04 at 04:45 PM.
This is actually a very interesting observation, and i cant help but agree with it.
Wow basically took the entire cake a long time ago and others havent stood a chance to have a slice since... theyve basically created their own monopoly within the subs MMO market.
When u consider that Wow has 9.6million subscribers and ive seen reports that show there ENTIRE paid subs market is around 11-12million, u can see that there isnt much of a market in the first place. Wow is pretty much the only game using subs in the current gaming market, and as long as they can convince its players that they are happy then theyll continue to charge subs.
I predict that we do not see any newly released MMOs charging subs in future, its simply not the way to get players into your game. Theyll think outside of the box and create a system where they make money yet dont charge monthly subs. Games like GW2 are doing fantastic and are living proof that u dont need subs to be successful in the current market.
Blizzard have NEVER released their subs figures and they will do everything they can to hide them.
The only reason they appear within the quarterly conference call to their shareholders is because that kind of financial information must be supplied BY LAW. Although even if u read the smallprint within their own financial report is says that the 9.6million IS ESTIMATED within Blizzard. Make what u will of that fact
I should have been clearer. People in the past have compared have used xfire to say that in Month 1 activity was X and in Month 3 activity was X-30%, therefore WoW has lost 30% of its subs. That's the sort of thing I was really thinking about. You can't use either of those to come to any conclusion other than probably up or probably down and even then I think it's unreliable given that if you've followed xfire for other games it clearly has some problems. Wowprogress being a measurement of raiding only has some of the same issues. It's very sketchy to try and make any reasonable judgments about what subscribers generally are doing by looking at a single niche activity.
"...money's most powerful ability is to allow bad people to continue doing bad things at the expense of those who don't have it."
Small sub loss and people will say WoW is dying etc.
Well 4 more days and we will have our answers
CRZ was in and active months before MoP came out. I assume you forgot about that?
EDIT: I was actually totally excited for MoP and was praising everything I've heard about it... until CRZ hit and then my whole will to play was just lost as I lost a MAJOR fun aspect of why I still play WoW. Yes, I'm aware the Pandaria zones don't have CRZ... that's kinda my point... My WHOLE game isn't always in end-game zones. I actually still am pro-MoP in design... which is why you won't find me posting much, if at all, on any specific MoP criticism threads as I can't honestly give my opinion on the game itself. :P
The only think I CAN criticize is CRZ though - as I experienced THAT $(*#^!!! :P
EDIT 2: For your info, from what I've read I'm actually STILL very pro-MoP in design as it sounds like they went back to a lot of Wrath-style gameplay. So, trust me, I don't WANT to say it lost subs as I want a return to Wrath-style gameplay and design... but I have to be honest with myself with other factors too - not act out of blind fan devotion or fan nerdrage. :P
Last edited by mvaliz; 2013-05-05 at 05:08 AM.
Oh, yeah.
I can't wait for the forum, which is basically the only part of the community that cares and is only 1 or 2% of the populace, to explode with arguments because apparently sub numbers affect how they play a game.
I miss the days where people would simply enjoy the game instead of making a soap opera out of it.
...but the BULK of WoW and Blizz's profits still come from WoW subs - and WoW subs currently dictate the potential future content dedication it will receive AND is the ultimate indicator if the content they are delivering is well received or not. I don't believe the bulk here in the forums care for anything the Quarterly investor talks about other than that... as it IS a WoW forum fan site + other MMORPGs - and not a Blizzard fan site. :P
Trust me, Subs talk. You think their radical design shift from Hardcore to back to Wrath-style gameplay in one overnight patch with Dragon Soul WASN'T based on a year of perpetual subscription losses that stemmed from Cataclysm's LAUNCH day? :P
Yes, I'm MORE than certain they're taking the natural change from Sub-based MMOs into account too with numbers. This is why a 200-400 sub loss is not that harrowing, unlike a 800k-1 mil losses that Cata suffered from.