1.3 million sub drop

[Grogo]

Hell I seriously think that WoW is the only MMO left that even has a sub now that I think about it

Eve Online, been going like 8 years now, has a sub fee, has a solid base and in fact has grown lately.

[Pann]

We were talking about the success of Blizzard's competitors and you brought up SW TOR, a game that got released at a time when the revenue from EA took a massive plummet. By all accounts the game failed to bring in the desired revenue that EA wanted from it. How do you think I should respond to that when you bring it up after everything that has happened since it got released? That it was "all well and good" as another poster phrased it to me?

A worker can work hard his/her whole life and barely be able to make a decent living or be recognized for his/her work. Someone else does not need to do even half of that work and still be far more successful and recognized for his/her achievements. Having a successful product may need hard work to make it so, but to what degree it will be successful is not, and it is also not even guaranteed if it will even pay off. You're confusing smart work with hard work.

I say they work hard because that is what's required of them. Also, I don't appreciate when people start talking about laying off people because they did not manage to be quite as successful as before, especially when their work still brings in a respectable amount of success after so many years.

Their head management is planning for newer games like Titan and Blizzard All-Stars as long term goals for the company. They are moving on from WoW being their main source of income when the game cannot bring in the same numbers it did before. The most sensible thing they can do, since relying on WoW like they have done is bad.

I honestly cannot be bothered to keep going around in circles with you.

I will say that although you do not appreciate talking about laying people off what do you think will happen if the sub losses continue as they are?

Among other things, Blizzard has stated that the WoW player base has turned over several times.

But that's what we want to hear. What we don't want to hear is that the same people have been playing the same time-consuming game for 7 years, because at some point, they are either going to die fat and lonely in their mom's basements, or get a life and have a spouse who bitches at someone playing 20 hours a week.

So no actual figures then?

[majesta]

I still stand by that this game will continue to decline because Blizzard has taken almost no steps towards dealing with server populations. There are 246 North American realms. Of that number less than 20 has strong populations, yet some of those are faction one sided. That leaves over 200 realms at low populations with a terrible game experience. Blizzards only solution is you can pay more money per character to transfer to a higher population realm to enjoy the game. That is like saying when you go to buy petrol/gas you pay for it then they charge you an additional fee because you need to use a pump to actually put the gas in your auto. Crazy huh?

[TCceen]

Stability, rate of content and overall ability to compete in pvp and pve with any class (many balance passes) is what keeps me in wow. Sure i have accounts and toons on many of the free to play MMOs but many of them have continuous issues that are never addressed, terrible load times and sporadic news updates about content direction. Maintaining polish while offering many, many endgame activities as well as lower level activities for the casual gamer as well as the hardcore gamer. There are so many things right with the game that even when you think you have found a new game to stick with, you realize what you were missing and still have fun when you come back.

I don't need to know how many people quit for me to care about whether or not I should keep playing WoW. Many of my friends still play wow and I still have a guild i've been in for several years, it still feels like a family. In fact I have no idea how many people still play magic the gathering but I still get together and play with 5 friends! Sure I started that old non electronic game well over 17 years ago but OMG we have fun with it!!!!! Just like in life, it doesn't matter what you do by yourself, because you will always have more fun in the company of others you enjoy.

[Frozen Death Knight]

I honestly cannot be bothered to keep going around in circles with you.

I will say that although you do not appreciate talking about laying people off what do you think will happen if the sub losses continue as they are?

Neither do I. It was a rather tiresome conversation if you ask me.

They will cut the development staff for WoW. Either Blizzard moves those people to other titles like Titan or they have no place in the company anymore. Just because I don't appreciate it in the context I'm presented in this topic does not mean I don't see what is going to happen at some point. WoW will not be around forever (at least not as the biggest MMO on the market subcriber wise), so I have no reason to pretend like it will.

[TCceen]

I still stand by that this game will continue to decline because Blizzard has taken almost no steps towards dealing with server populations. There are 246 North American realms. Of that number less than 20 has strong populations, yet some of those are faction one sided. That leaves over 200 realms at low populations with a terrible game experience. Blizzards only solution is you can pay more money per character to transfer to a higher population realm to enjoy the game. That is like saying when you go to buy petrol/gas you pay for it then they charge you an additional fee because you need to use a pump to actually put the gas in your auto. Crazy huh?

I don't see why server population is of any concern? other than economy and auction house? You can team with anyone on any server through battle tag or Real ID for zone quests, 5 mans, Heroics, LFR, World bosses, all older raids and some of the newer raids as well. The only other thing I can see people caring about server population for would be for world pvp? which also you can do cross realm, and 9/10 is not even considered world PVP it's more like ganking hunting parties out to make solo players miserable.

[HardCoder]

WoW will not be around forever (at least not as the biggest MMO on the market subcriber wise), so I have no reason to pretend like it will.

I don't think this is necessarily the case. WoW may be the largest game in the genre forever, but the genre will die out or morph into something unrecognizable in another 10-20 years.

The thing is that all another game has going for it is the game. What WoW has going for it is that many people have played it before (even if not currently) and have tremendous amounts of time invested in characters. You can always go back to WoW and continue where you left off, around at least a few people you are familiar with. Every time you start with a different game, you are starting from scratch. That has some appeal to some people, of course.

Also, the amount of content present in WoW dwarfs its competitors. There might be comparable amounts of current content but that isn't really what distinguishes WoW from Rift or SWTOR or whatever. There is all this OTHER STUFF to go work on (achievements, mounts, soloing raids, ...) if you are just looking for something to do, and there are millions of people to do it with.

---------- Post added 2013-05-18 at 09:56 AM ----------

I don't see why server population is of any concern? other than economy and auction house? You can team with anyone on any server through battle tag or Real ID for zone quests, 5 mans, Heroics, LFR, World bosses, all older raids and some of the newer raids as well. The only other thing I can see people caring about server population for would be for world pvp? which also you can do cross realm, and 9/10 is not even considered world PVP it's more like ganking hunting parties out to make solo players miserable.

I don't think server populations are a huge problem either. I see posts where people are screaming "MERGE SERVERS NOW BLIZZ!!!" but I don't get a satisfactory reason why it is an urgent problem.

It's true that if you are looking for a spot in a good raiding guild you are SOL on most servers. But then again, that's not really a server population problem. That's because the good raiding guilds have chosen to locate on certain servers. If you are interested in raiding and will be spending 20 hours a week doing it, spending $25 to transfer a main or $100 to transfer a few characters isn't a big deal when you divide it by the 500+ hours of game time you will use per year.

If you are on a stone dead faction then the AH may be pretty close to useless to you. But a robust AH is essential only to a small percentage of players. Smaller economies are more fun for making gold, anyway, as long as they aren't too small.

[Frozen Death Knight]

I don't think this is necessarily the case. WoW may be the largest game in the genre forever, but the genre will die out or morph into something unrecognizable in another 10-20 years.

The thing is that all another game has going for it is the game. What WoW has going for it is that many people have played it before (even if not currently) and have tremendous amounts of time invested in characters. You can always go back to WoW and continue where you left off, around at least a few people you are familiar with. Every time you start with a different game, you are starting from scratch. That has some appeal to some people, of course.

Also, the amount of content present in WoW dwarfs its competitors. There might be comparable amounts of current content but that isn't really what distinguishes WoW from Rift or SWTOR or whatever. There is all this OTHER STUFF to go work on (achievements, mounts, soloing raids, ...) if you are just looking for something to do, and there are millions of people to do it with.

An interesting thought. Though, unless they call the genre something else in the future and the games are completely different from current MMOs, I am not sure how the status quo for WoW as the biggest MMO will remain. Still interesting to think about, however. =p

[Zdrasti]

I don't think this is necessarily the case. WoW may be the largest game in the genre forever, but the genre will die out or morph into something unrecognizable in another 10-20 years.

The thing is that all another game has going for it is the game. What WoW has going for it is that many people have played it before (even if not currently) and have tremendous amounts of time invested in characters. You can always go back to WoW and continue where you left off, around at least a few people you are familiar with. Every time you start with a different game, you are starting from scratch. That has some appeal to some people, of course.

Also, the amount of content present in WoW dwarfs its competitors. There might be comparable amounts of current content but that isn't really what distinguishes WoW from Rift or SWTOR or whatever. There is all this OTHER STUFF to go work on (achievements, mounts, soloing raids, ...) if you are just looking for something to do, and there are millions of people to do it with.

I agree to some extent regarding the sheer amount of content available to someone who is new. There is a lot, but at the same time, all but the most current content is mostly irrelevant for your character's progression. This older content is not only largely irrelevant to your progression, but it has been streamlined and trivialized, or worse, completely removed.

So yes, WoW does have a great deal of content to consume, but they have managed this older content very poorly. Imagine just how vast and amazing WoW would be if they hadn't systematically destroyed older content.

And since examples are always good. I point you to GW1 and how it treats older pve content. It suffers from some of the same issues WoW does in this regard, but to a much smaller extent. Almost all older content is still available, still somewhat challenging, and worthwhile to do and to experience.

[Lilly32]

"Decent free game" is a oxymoron. There's no such thing. You mean shitty, moneygrubbing, F2P games.

Why because they charge for vanity items like mounts, pets, and costumes? Then you might as well lump in WoW because they do the same thing AND charge for a monthly sub fee AND charge you to buy the game and expansions. If Blizzard wants people to come back and also keep new people playing one of two things needs to happen. Either keep the monthly sub fee and stop charging for the game and expansions. Or charge for the game and expansions but get rid of the monthly. Why do they think people want to pay for everything when theres other games out there for free?

[melodramocracy]

Hell I seriously think that WoW is the only MMO left that even has a sub now that I think about it.

I think you're not very familiar with what other games are out there then.

[mvaliz]

Why because they charge for vanity items like mounts, pets, and costumes? Then you might as well lump in WoW because they do the same thing AND charge for a monthly sub fee AND charge you to buy the game and expansions and charge you to transfer each individual character, whereas most MMORPGS offer that for free. If Blizzard wants people to come back and also keep new people playing one of two things needs to happen. Either keep the monthly sub fee and stop charging for the game and expansions. Or charge for the game and expansions but get rid of the monthly. Why do they think people want to pay for everything when theres other games out there for free?

You forgot that one in there. :P

[HardCoder]

So yes, WoW does have a great deal of content to consume, but they have managed this older content very poorly. Imagine just how vast and amazing WoW would be if they hadn't systematically destroyed older content.

It seems to me like Blizzard systematically PRESERVED older content, despite enormous changes in the game.

---------- Post added 2013-05-18 at 06:40 PM ----------

You forgot that one in there. :P

No one is ever going to be able to transfer to Illidan for free.

But when people want free transfers, what they want is a free transfer to Illidan, of course.

(Next year it might be Tich instead of Illidan. But Dear God I doubt it.)

[Fojos]

Most of the losses since Cata have been from China. Who cares about how many people in china play, to be realistic?

[Jtbrig7390]

Most of the losses since Cata have been from China. Who cares about how many people in china play, to be realistic?

Prove that because the only time blizzard has stated that the sub lost for a Quarter was mostly in china was this Quarter.

"Unless I missed something I won't lie I could be wrong"

Even tho china pays a small amount that is still a lot of money out of blizzard's pocket so this whole its only china thing really needs to end cause even if you take 10cents out of every 1 dollar you make it will get to the point where you notice your losing money and wish you had that 10cents extra.

[Fojos]

Prove that because the only time blizzard has stated that the sub lost for a Quarter was mostly in china was this Quarter.

"Unless I missed something I won't lie I could be wrong"

Even tho china pays a small amount that is still a lot of money out of blizzard's pocket so this whole its only china thing really needs to end cause even if you take 10cents out of every 1 dollar you make it will get to the point where you notice your losing money and wish you had that 10cents extra.

http://www.mmo-champion.com/content/...to-9-1-Million

http://www.mmo-champion.com/content/...ce-Q-A-TCG-Art


There's a reason they lost subs but actually gained money.

[HeedmySpeed]

Most of the losses since Cata have been from China. Who cares about how many people in china play, to be realistic?

Why doesn't it matter where the subscriptions are from? That's so ignorant to say they don't matter. Are you saying they don't matter because we don't play with them? Sub losses are sub losses.

[Lilly32]

Most of the losses since Cata have been from China. Who cares about how many people in china play, to be realistic?

Im pretty sure their money spends the same as yours.

[Awe]

http://www.mmo-champion.com/content/...to-9-1-Million

http://www.mmo-champion.com/content/...ce-Q-A-TCG-Art


There's a reason they lost subs but actually gained money.

Blizzard said that West also lost subscribers. So no chance there were any gains. "Majority comes from China" could mean 90% China 10% West, but also 51% China 49% West. And I am guessing that if the loss in West would be small, Blizzard would disclose the specific amount as all those conferences contain as much of suger coating as they can. You can conclude that losses in the West were also significant though you cant prove that or the opposite.

[Jtbrig7390]

http://www.mmo-champion.com/content/...to-9-1-Million

http://www.mmo-champion.com/content/...ce-Q-A-TCG-Art


There's a reason they lost subs but actually gained money.

First link said from the East so that could be Euo or china 2nd did say most from china.

like Heedmyspeed said to you sub lost's are sub losts dose not matter where that is still money blizzard is not getting.

So over all only 2 posts saying from china the rest say from the east or a mix of both out of the past 3 years.

---------- Post added 2013-05-19 at 03:45 AM ----------

Im pretty sure their money spends the same as yours.

for what they pay for 3 months of subs would get us like 2 weeks but I get your point.