A great MMO cannot happen without a subscription and is a major reason WoW's on top

[Pann]

I'd rather have good and unique new content every 6 months (seriously, its not been a year yet, stop crying) then shallow content every two weeks that doesn't even get used for long.

You mean like The Timeless Isle? Or Battlefield: Barrens?

[Huehuecoyotl]

I'd rather have good and unique new content every 6 months (seriously, its not been a year yet, stop crying) then shallow content every two weeks that doesn't even get used for long.

Oh, I'm sorry. I forgot that WoW has new content coming out....errr....some time around xmas isn't it? Which would make it over a year, wouldn't it?

Trust me, I'm not crying at this point. Just laughing.

[creamo42]

Does anyone remember at MoP launch when Blizzard said they'd never pull another ICC (year-long raiding tier) on us?

#ESO

[fixx]

lol

If you think "lol" is proper counterargument please go back to 4chan and leave forums to adults.

700k players, no subscription, updates every two weeks.

7 million players, subscription, no update for a year.

And all that GW2 bi-weekly content combined together from first two years is about how much? Half of WoW expansion roughly?

[Grogo]

If you think "lol" is proper counterargument please go back to 4chan and leave forums to adults.

As sson as someone uses the lol for a response, disregard and discount, just a waste of time at that point.

[Pann]

And all that GW2 bi-weekly content combined together from first two years is about how much? Half of WoW expansion roughly?

Even if this is the case seeing as the average WOW expansion lasts two years it makes WOW's content three times more expensive than GW2's before you factor in WOW's box costs.

[Arewn]

Considering you're hanging around still proclaiming how bad WoW is, I think you're the one with issues. Denial of your own addictions, I'm guessing.

Either way, bye and we won't miss you.

I'm not going anywhere so no need to miss me nor was that what I was doing. Ended the conversation precisely because of attitudes like this rendering further discussion meaningless.

If you think "lol" is proper counterargument please go back to 4chan and leave forums to adults.

It's not a counter argument. It's dismissal. It's giving up. It's stopping wasting my time with someone who can't distinguish between objectivity and personal preference.
Also, I don't frequent 4chan (or reddit, or similar forums), and "leave it to the adults" isn't any better then a "lol" response.

So naner naner boo boo you big dummy head.

[Viikkis]

Well considering how much money Blizz makes they are way too slow with new content..

[Awe]

They went from 223 servers at launch to 17 servers worldwide.

So a good estimate would be 250k+ regular players. Rift has 15 servers (coming from 99 severs at launch).

GW2 triples that number to 53 servers or around 600/700k+ regular players.

It's odd to some that a game which costs 180 dollars per year to connect to the servers like WoW would have far more western players than all these free things combined.

Not to me. Because WoW is the standard reference. If you decide to play an MMORPG, you better play the reference.

700k players, no subscription, updates every two weeks.

7 million players, subscription, no update for a year.

If you decide to pay an MMORPG you better pay the reference.

You are talking to a wall, or to a troll rather. The last sentence from the garble you quoted is the essence of it. "WoW is the standard reference. If you decide to play an MMORPG, you better play the reference." Yeah right. God forbid someone would like to play something else than a "reference". The hell, we should all dine only in McDonalds, drive in Toyotas, shop in Walmart, listen to Eminem and masturbate to photos of Miss Universe. Everything else and we are doing it wrong. Isn't it obvious that the guy is a troll? Becouse I refuse to believe anyone could be that stupid.

[Ytlayol]

You are talking to a wall, or to a troll rather. The last sentence from the garble you quoted is the essence of it. "WoW is the standard reference. If you decide to play an MMORPG, you better play the reference." Yeah right. God forbid someone would like to play something else than a "reference". The hell, we should all dine only in McDonalds, drive in Toyotas, shop in Walmart, listen to Eminem and masturbate to photos of Miss Universe. Everything else and we are doing it wrong. Isn't it obvious that the guy is a troll? Becouse I refuse to believe anyone could be that stupid.

He is the #1 Blizzard fan. In general, I feel sad for people who get so emotionally invested into a company's product, especially video games. But I can understand why people go so far, it can mean they lack the self confidence and latch on to a company's success to make them feel good about them self. Or the game played a major role in their life in which they have to defend it since it influenced them so much. In the end though, fanboys are pretty derpy and annoying to deal with haha.

[Manhands]

MMOs are just not what gamers want. It was a novel fad that started in the late 1990s, but yeah...

Take a game like Grand Theft Auto V. It's gross revenues within a single weekend of launch were like an entire year of what Blizzard could expect from WoW subs. Sure, players will only have purchased it once, but they also added an MMO style online component to the game, which is free to play (micro transaction in game currency for sale) and whatever way you decide to play it. Story mode, sand box style, MMO style, the game is fucking fun.

And it crippled it's launch revenues by not launching on the PC. This is console only, and Rockstar could basically buy Blizzard Entertainment with their GTA V proceeds if they wanted to.

Gamers want to buy a game once, and they want it all. And GTA V delivered that, and it's basically the most profitable anything ever made in the history of capitalism.

At first you sounded knowledgeable, and your revenue 'numbers' upheld your point. Then I did some research. Even at 7.5M subscriptions at $15 (ignoring EU's €13 ~ $17.5), WoW makes $1.35B a year from the subscriptions. Add in the cash shop? Well, let me actually provide some links:

http://files.shareholder.com/downloa...des_2-6-14.pdf
http://www.gamespot.com/articles/gra.../1100-6417498/

Looking at Q4, all of Take-Two (which owns Rockstar, I guess) generated $767.7M. Blizzard generated $4.5B. Just from subscriptions alone in WoW, it generated $338M. How much would that be if you included the cash shop and realm transfer/race changes? $400M? $500M?

So while a non-MMO like GTAV had a huge spike of over $1B in a weekend and is now generating a bit of revenue from releasing on new platforms, that will die out and they will need to start spending the $200M to create GTA VI. How many years will that take? Meanwhile, WoW will be generating its $100M+ every month in that entire stretch.

To your point that Take-Two, a $767M/quarter company (which was a record for them), can buy Blizzard, a $4.5B/quarter company, is completely wrong. You got a bit starry-eyed at the $1B over a weekend.

Um, yeah, so I guess parroting the revenue numbers was to debunk the idea that Take-Two can buy Blizzard. I also felt like writing it down somewhere after doing the research.

It doesn't actually answer the question as to whether subscriptions can work for a new game. Is it that the subscription model no longer works? Or is it that every new game that charges a subscription gets compared to WoW, the giant in that market, and falls short? Given that the subscription initially worked for SWTOR, I bet it's the latter.

[zed zebes]

I like how this thread has gone from discussing whether a sub equates to success or quality to just making up concurrency numbers for other games.

Manhands: If you want to do revenue comparisons, you should check shareholder reports. You can't multiply sub numbers by sub costs, because at least half of those sub numbers aren't subscriptions but Chinese log-ins. I am not sure how Blizz works their China parnership, but I imagine a lot of it is royalties.

[Deleted]

False.
Read my signature.
Titan will be a success no matter what.

[Pann]

At first you sounded knowledgeable, and your revenue 'numbers' upheld your point. Then I did some research. Even at 7.5M subscriptions at $15 (ignoring EU's €13 ~ $17.5), WoW makes $1.35B a year from the subscriptions. Add in the cash shop? Well, let me actually provide some links:

http://files.shareholder.com/downloa...des_2-6-14.pdf
http://www.gamespot.com/articles/gra.../1100-6417498/

Looking at Q4, all of Take-Two (which owns Rockstar, I guess) generated $767.7M. Blizzard generated $4.5B. Just from subscriptions alone in WoW, it generated $338M. How much would that be if you included the cash shop and realm transfer/race changes? $400M? $500M?

So while a non-MMO like GTAV had a huge spike of over $1B in a weekend and is now generating a bit of revenue from releasing on new platforms, that will die out and they will need to start spending the $200M to create GTA VI. How many years will that take? Meanwhile, WoW will be generating its $100M+ every month in that entire stretch.

To your point that Take-Two, a $767M/quarter company (which was a record for them), can buy Blizzard, a $4.5B/quarter company, is completely wrong. You got a bit starry-eyed at the $1B over a weekend.

Um, yeah, so I guess parroting the revenue numbers was to debunk the idea that Take-Two can buy Blizzard. I also felt like writing it down somewhere after doing the research.

It doesn't actually answer the question as to whether subscriptions can work for a new game. Is it that the subscription model no longer works? Or is it that every new game that charges a subscription gets compared to WoW, the giant in that market, and falls short? Given that the subscription initially worked for SWTOR, I bet it's the latter.

My word, where to start?

Half, maybe more, of WOW subscribers are based in China that do not pay a monthly subscription fee but instead pay per minute with time cards which results in a much lower revenue figure per account than western subs.

The link you provided shows Activision Blizzard's total revenue not Blizzard. Also the $4.5 billion is ATVI's YEARLY revenue not quarterly. I have no idea where you got the figure of $338 million for WOW's subscription revenue from as it appears nowhere in either of your links. The actual figures for WOW in Q4 were $198 million which includes the cash shop as as well as any box sales.

The article relating to Take Two estimates there total yearly revenue at $2.35+ billion which is over double that of Blizzard's 2013 total of $1.124 billion.

[Banzhe]

Does a great MMO need to charge for the original game, all the expansions, a subscription and have a cash shop?

What exactly do you get for your subscription? Blizzard says it's mainly customer support. I've paid a $15 dollar sub for almost a decade, that's well over a thousand dollars. I got ahold of a GM in game once, and lately I had to call and wait for 20 minutes on hold (on my cell). Those are the only 2 times I've really needed customer support. Well, besides tickets I canceled because they were taking waaaaay too long to go through.

Let me put it simply and be very frank with you. Your money and mine is lining people's pockets and being reinvested into other projects which you'll be charged for when they're released. That's right, they'll take your money and use it to develop all these new games, and then charge you again for them when they're released. That's why you pay a sub. So Blizzard can release a game in every genre, dominate the market, and monopolize the business.

^This!

You'd have to be pretty damn naive to think your subscription fee's are going to anything else

[Deleted]

GTA V -snip-

I must be a minority but I thought GTA V was terrible and a waste of money. I also despair at the number of youths who play games like that and will no doubt try to emulate such nonsense.

[Grogo]

I must be a minority but I thought GTA V was terrible and a waste of money. I also despair at the number of youths who play games like that and will no doubt try to emulate such nonsense.

Yes I agree, I would much rather them come in WoW and kill 10 of this and 5 of that daily and the numerous "bring me the head of ...." Isn't GTA V an adult game and not to be sold to minors?

[Traveler Voltin]

I must be a minority but I thought GTA V was terrible and a waste of money. I also despair at the number of youths who play games like that and will no doubt try to emulate such nonsense.

yeah i would say you are the minority since. GTA V won game of the year.
i havent played it but i do want to find out why people like it so much.

[lawow74]

Nope. WoW is on top because it found that virgin territory of casual MMO gamers and gobbled it up ASAP, and remained king of the hill by keeping a standard of quality in a small market. That market has since grown far beyond Blizzard's ability to control, and their attempts to please as many types of gamers as possible have only slowed the inevitable sub loss. More and more people are gravitating away for different styles of MMO, different kinds of games entirely. Eventually, that height in the market will diminish like a mountain slowly dug down and spread around evenly in the surrounding flatland.

[Deleted]

yeah i would say you are the minority since. GTA V won game of the year.
i havent played it but i do want to find out why people like it so much.

Yea and Call of Duty has won multiple game of the year awards. I bet you also think Bioshock Infinite has a marvelous story that is simply 2deep4me to understand.

Awards mean jack shit.