Thread: Q2, q3...

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  1. #1

    Q2, q3...

    I was scanning the investor reports. Given the way Activision/Blizzard tracks its numbers I don't think the game is going to really get rocked until Q2, Q3.

    Whereas the game has maybe two months of adequately playable content, its not until Q1 that many players are going to realize that its time to unsub (many pay for subs in bulk, so that can actually get extended quite a bit). Unless I misunderstand how they track their numbers, if a player was playing at the start of Q1 that player still gets counted as part of the subscriber base as reported to investors. If the player bought a six month sub in bulk, that's going to get extended to Q2. The writing may already be on the wall, but its not actually going to be revealed until quite some time later.

    So, we really aren't going to see if WoD succeeded or failed until Q2 or maybe Q3.

    In this regard, Blizzard played it fairly smart. They didn't release the game until just before the holidays and just before a severe and protracted winter. They absolutely knew they could count on a significant number of return players given their marketing campaign. It is not until after a player has already bought the box and paid his sub costs that it finally dawns on him that WoD is not actually The Burning Crusade v2.

    One of the things I find particularly interesting about WoD is how it precisely disappoints a player's expectations based on the BC v2 type marketing hype. The fact that they actually removed flight in the new WoD zones while attempting to imitate the expansion in which they so famously originally introduced flight into the game would seem to me like a pointed misstep.

    Whereas raising the player base back up to 10 million can be a counted as a success regardless of what happens next, such success will be very negatively impacted if the player base drops radically in the first quarters of the expansion, as I personally expect it will. That in turn will most likely serve as a canary in the coal mine when it comes to how they proceed from here on out. If the numbers stay strong then business will continue as before. If the numbers drop off a cliff, then I think we shall see a revised business plan.

    It sort of comes down to how many times and for how long they can trick the player base into buying the hype.

    Maybe I missed it, but does any official source track the subscribing player base month by month within the reported quarters?

  2. #2
    The Insane Feali's Avatar
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    So.. just like always?

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    I'm pretty sure that most people are aware of that

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    The Lightbringer Issalice's Avatar
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    That's about normal. There are a lot of people that buy their subs in bulk as well, bulks up the sub count even though people aren't actually playing. When those subs run out and people choose not to renew then we will get a better picture, apart from those that sub for a year at a time.

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    The Undying Lochton's Avatar
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    Well, we are in Q1, Q4 looked nice and I think Q1 would as well, look nice. (Nice doens't have to mean bigger numbers, but steady as well)

    But it's common, if something starts in an already going quarter, it's a little easier to see for the next one.
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  6. #6
    The thing I laugh about is how ppl talk about subs going down when blizzard will still be rolling in the money.

  7. #7
    Quote Originally Posted by stomination View Post
    The thing I laugh about is how ppl talk about subs going down when blizzard will still be rolling in the money.
    Well I don't know about most people but I personally wanted to believe that WoD was going to be a smashing success. It was worth the 60 dollars and the sub money to play during November, December, and January, everyone was excited and in a festive mood on account of the holiday season. Lots of good times.

    But now? Well, if you ever saw the Madagascar movies, there's a scene where the animals finally make it back to the zoo after a long journey. But when they get back into their pens, and see that the jungle scenes are just painted on the walls and there's no depth to anything, they realize that they don't fit in there anymore. And for me that's just what WoW has become, a painted scene on a wall that has no depth or substance to it, even though I can laugh and joke with my friends through the fence.

    But I guess that's just what WoW, and to a greater extent PC gaming, has turned into for me. There's too much meta now, too many people with their minds on the win instead of the game, and the rest just don't give a damn. There's not much middle ground left, and it sucks. Honestly I come to these forums (out of habit) and read some of the stuff like this and think "who the fuck actually cares about this shit?" then I realize...there are actually people out there who DO care. They actually wake up, read this shit which is from a world so removed from their own, they can't hope to relate to it at all, yet somehow this matters to people, WAY more than it should...as if having 3 million more or less subscriptions somehow legitimizes a game which has already secured its place in history. This isn't anything against you OP, because if it wasn't you, someone else would have posted the same thing.

    Anyways, I guess this is just the ramblings of a gamer who finds he doesn't have a place in gaming anymore, but maybe that's a good thing. Perhaps it's time to leave the zoo and head to the jungle again. And maybe watch Madagascar again...either way, good luck to you all!
    Happy new year to all, and to all a good night!

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    Spam Assassin! MoanaLisa's Avatar
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    Potentially 6.2 will make a difference. It depends on what's in it and when it drops. Trying to predict future subscription numbers without having the vaguest clue about the content and timing of future patches doesn't make a lot of sense.

    If the patches are bad then the expansion will go over a cliff. If they are good then there will still be some losses but nothing they aren't already expecting. As always it will probably be somewhere in the middle.

    Another thing to think about is how long the expansion is planned to run. They can trade some subscription losses for expansion sales if they can manage to get something out without a year of nothing at the end.

    Subscriptions still matter of course but expansion sales are going to start mattering a lot more if they become more frequent. There's a short term strategy and a long-term strategy.
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    Elemental Lord clevin's Avatar
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    I was quite honestly surprised that subs didn't dip more late in MoP as the game went through a 14 month stretch of absolutely nothing new... and almost 7m people STILL paid Blizzard. Given that, I don't even try to predict things anymore. We'll absolutely see fall off in the next 2 quarters, the game always sees that - a pop up as people resubscribe to try the new expac with some percentage leaving as time goes on.

    What Blizzard knows,though, is that they have a core group of 5-8m who will sub almost no matter what.... so they have little incentive to bunch up content to retain subs. They're quite obviously spreading content out so that players think "Oh, well, next month X is out...". BRF just as Highmaul is really stale. BRF LFR not fully available until late March.... that takes people through April. 6.1 does nothing content-wise, but I'd bet 6.2 is out in May or June and that takes us through summer. There's a carrot out there just.... a bit... further....

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    Spam Assassin! MoanaLisa's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by clevin View Post
    What Blizzard knows,though, is that they have a core group of 5-8m who will sub almost no matter what.... so they have little incentive to bunch up content to retain subs. They're quite obviously spreading content out so that players think "Oh, well, next month X is out...". BRF just as Highmaul is really stale. BRF LFR not fully available until late March.... that takes people through April. 6.1 does nothing content-wise, but I'd bet 6.2 is out in May or June and that takes us through summer. There's a carrot out there just.... a bit... further....
    Accurate.

    Forum expectations are such that Blizzard is failing if they don't maintain subscriptions without losses. Blizzard's expectations are that people will drop out as time goes by and they'll budget around that expected rate of drop and with their core revenue in mind. And if things don't go as well as even they expect they have some cards to play. Their usual promotions, a patch where Draenor flying is introduced comes to mind. There are others. People blathering away on forums are instantly irrelevant if events turn out in such a way that they meet their internal forecasts.

    They need a good 6.2 though and it might come along sooner than people think. 6.1 is mostly a systems patch (which if you really read the patch notes it's an easy conclusion to arrive at). Meanwhile the content people have been laboring away on whatever 6.2 is going to be. There's some overlap there but not a lot so behind the scenes that might be further along than we know. On the other hand they may not be ahead at all if reactions to launch caused them to change their direction in some radical way and they're reworking stuff.

    No one here knows but we'll find out eventually.
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  11. #11
    Elemental Lord clevin's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by MoanaLisa View Post
    Accurate.

    Forum expectations are such that Blizzard is failing if they don't maintain subscriptions without losses. Blizzard's expectations are that people will drop out as time goes by and they'll budget around that expected rate of drop and with their core revenue in mind. And if things don't go as well as even they expect they have some cards to play. Their usual promotions, a patch where Draenor flying is introduced comes to mind. There are others. People blathering away on forums are instantly irrelevant if events turn out in such a way that they meet their internal forecasts.

    They need a good 6.2 though and it might come along sooner than people think. 6.1 is mostly a systems patch (which if you really read the patch notes it's an easy conclusion to arrive at). Meanwhile the content people have been laboring away on whatever 6.2 is going to be. There's some overlap there but not a lot so behind the scenes that might be further along than we know. On the other hand they may not be ahead at all if reactions to launch caused them to change their direction in some radical way and they're reworking stuff.

    No one here knows but we'll find out eventually.
    My thought is that 6.1 drops late Feb with 6.2 ~3 months later. That puts 6.2 in late May/early June. For the LFR crowd, BRF isn't fully out until late March, that means they'll likely run it until late April or so (depending on how lucky people are with drops). Normal/heroic raiders will be done around that time too (not done as in first clear, but done as in farming becoming less relevant). A 6.2 in May that adds a new raid tier, new quest hub and perhaps even a couple of 5 mans or some mechanics to make the existing 5 mans relevant (upgrades bought with Apexis, say)... that patch will likely last people the summer if it drops at the end of May.

  12. #12
    Spam Assassin! MoanaLisa's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by clevin View Post
    My thought is that 6.1 drops late Feb with 6.2 ~3 months later. That puts 6.2 in late May/early June. For the LFR crowd, BRF isn't fully out until late March, that means they'll likely run it until late April or so (depending on how lucky people are with drops). Normal/heroic raiders will be done around that time too (not done as in first clear, but done as in farming becoming less relevant). A 6.2 in May that adds a new raid tier, new quest hub and perhaps even a couple of 5 mans or some mechanics to make the existing 5 mans relevant (upgrades bought with Apexis, say)... that patch will likely last people the summer if it drops at the end of May.
    It makes sense. End of May or first part of June props up Q2. PTR for that would be up in April(ish).
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  13. #13
    Quote Originally Posted by clevin View Post
    My thought is that 6.1 drops late Feb with 6.2 ~3 months later. That puts 6.2 in late May/early June. For the LFR crowd, BRF isn't fully out until late March, that means they'll likely run it until late April or so (depending on how lucky people are with drops). Normal/heroic raiders will be done around that time too (not done as in first clear, but done as in farming becoming less relevant). A 6.2 in May that adds a new raid tier, new quest hub and perhaps even a couple of 5 mans or some mechanics to make the existing 5 mans relevant (upgrades bought with Apexis, say)... that patch will likely last people the summer if it drops at the end of May.
    6.2 has to be significant, in all areas of the game. It's ludicrous that the story won't move forward for another 3-4 months. Do you really think Ashran and garrisons will be enough for those who don't raid?(It's still a significant number of players who don't raid, despite the push to get them into it). MoP at least had engaging LFR and a long legendary grind to work on. I think the habitual subs have already cleared all the old stuff they wanted to, and pet battles and archeology have never really clicked with the overall majority of players. Just a month casually doing garrisons will level most players past existing 5 mans. The cockblocking in the raid PUG world is going to keep a lot of players from trying it.

    2-3 months, with the current state of the game...tough call. I honestly don't know. If players still keep subbing above 8 million, I'll be surprised...and that will just mean players like me are gone, and have been replaced by a new kind of player. (Which I think is true, anyway, to an extent) They won't keep 10 million, they'd have to have an epic, homerun expansion like Wrath for that, and they don't even come close with WoD. They had a huge windfall with WoD sales, it's up to them to keep them, and I'm pretty skeptical.

    And, you guys who sit there and chortle that they can burn millions of players because they're rolling in money? Doesn't work that way. Go read the documents Blizzard submitted to the SEC about how they run their business. They have (according to the latest filing) a billion dollar loan they're servicing, and a massive revolving line of credit to use and pay off - it's standard for businesses that size to maintain credit ratings, to expand and such, instead of raiding their reserves. They state pretty bluntly that they need to maintain or grow subs and sales, or that will impact their ability to service those loans, and failing to do so will impact their ability to operate effectively. They also need to control sub loss so it doesn't impact their stock price - and they've already told the investors to expect a drop.

    Trust me in that the top guys at Blizzard are not sitting there like you are, saying "Don't like the game? Then GTFO - we still make millions, lol, newb!". That kind of thinking is the product of naive idiots who only care selfishly that THEY like the game, and only care about themselves. No company in the world got rich by telling current customers to fuck off.

  14. #14
    Elemental Lord clevin's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Gadzooks View Post
    6.2 has to be significant, in all areas of the game. It's ludicrous that the story won't move forward for another 3-4 months. Do you really think Ashran and garrisons will be enough for those who don't raid?(It's still a significant number of players who don't raid, despite the push to get them into it). MoP at least had engaging LFR and a long legendary grind to work on. I think the habitual subs have already cleared all the old stuff they wanted to, and pet battles and archeology have never really clicked with the overall majority of players. Just a month casually doing garrisons will level most players past existing 5 mans. The cockblocking in the raid PUG world is going to keep a lot of players from trying it.

    2-3 months, with the current state of the game...tough call. I honestly don't know. If players still keep subbing above 8 million, I'll be surprised...
    And yet 6.8 million were left at the end of MoP even though they produced absolutely NOTHING new for over a year.


    Trust me in that the top guys at Blizzard are not sitting there like you are, saying "Don't like the game? Then GTFO - we still make millions, lol, newb!". That kind of thinking is the product of naive idiots who only care selfishly that THEY like the game, and only care about themselves. No company in the world got rich by telling current customers to fuck off.
    Of course they're not. But that doesn't alter the fact that 6.1 has no new playable content and it' incredibly unlikely that 6.2 will drop in less than 3 months from 6.1's release. So no matter how much you or I might want new content, we're looking at another 3 months or so with only BRF as recently released content.

    I'm not excusing this (read my recent post history...) but it is what it is. Me, I think there's something very broken in their creation toolchain. It takes them far too long to create, test and release content. But that's their problem. As a player, I just look at it each time my time card runs out and think "Am I having fun? Do I want to spend $15 on the game right now or should I wait for some new content?"

  15. #15
    Spam Assassin! MoanaLisa's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Gadzooks View Post
    They have (according to the latest filing) a billion dollar loan they're servicing, and a massive revolving line of credit to use and pay off - it's standard for businesses that size to maintain credit ratings, to expand and such, instead of raiding their reserves. They state pretty bluntly that they need to maintain or grow subs and sales, or that will impact their ability to service those loans, and failing to do so will impact their ability to operate effectively. They also need to control sub loss so it doesn't impact their stock price - and they've already told the investors to expect a drop.
    That however is Activision as a whole and not just Blizzard is it not? Enmeshed in all of that financial information is stuff about CoD, Skylanders (and it's very profitable marketing and toys) and everything else that Activision has a hand in.

    Blizzard is an important part of Activision to be sure but it's not even half of Activision's total revenue and WoW is only a piece of that. The entire financial fate of Activision is not particularly dependent on Blizzard subscription ups and downs which by now are expected and taken into account in their future plans and forecasts. Services anyone? Expansion price increase of $10/unit anyone? Level 90 boost anyone? That's revenue too and some compensation for all of that. Does anyone who has a thinking cap to put on not really understand that Blizzard has a decent guess of how many will stay no matter what; how many are likely to be subscribed for six months or more and how many are going to be in and out of the game on a regular basis?

    Of course they will attempt to design in such a way that they improve their numbers for those that come and go but can anyone seriously be thinking that Blizzard expects 10,000,000 people to hang on no matter what for twelve months at a time? Get real.
    Last edited by MoanaLisa; 2015-02-15 at 11:31 PM.
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  16. #16
    Quote Originally Posted by MoanaLisa View Post
    That however is Activision as a whole and not just Blizzard is it not? Enmeshed in all of that financial information is stuff about CoD, Skylanders (and it's very profitable marketing and toys) and everything else that Activision has a hand in.

    Blizzard is an important part of Activision to be sure but it's not even half of Activision's total revenue and WoW is only a piece of that. The entire financial fate of Activision is not particularly dependent on Blizzard subscription ups and downs which by now are expected and taken into account in their future plans and forecasts. Services anyone? Expansion price increase of $10/unit anyone? Level 90 boost anyone? That's revenue too and some compensation for all of that. Does anyone who has a thinking cap to put on not really understand that Blizzard has a decent guess of how many will stay no matter what; how many are likely to be subscribed for six months or more and how many are going to be in and out of the game on a regular basis?

    Of course they will attempt to design in such a way that they improve their numbers for those that come and go but can anyone seriously be thinking that Blizzard expects 10,000,000 people to hang on no matter what for twelve months at a time? Get real.
    Honestly, I don't know what the hell they're thinking in Irvine anymore. If I were an investor, (I am, but not in Activision/Blizzard) with my experience with their products, their stock would be and is a hard sell. Video game stocks are risky as it is, and this isn't banking, where they're "too big to fail". Their fall will just take a lot longer as they have more resources to lean on. Look at Microsoft - during the first couple of years of Balmer at the reins, he was the most untouchable guy in the industry, but even he got his walking papers handed to him by Gates and the board of directors.

    That's why I don't have a clue what will happen. 6.2 will show us the direction of the game, if they're listening to players, and the future earnings calls will tell the tale. Nothing makes sense now, from little things, to big, broad scale business model things.

    And...don't discount the amped up, regular releases to the cash shop. One mount is one month's sub. One paid boost is 3. They might be able to replace lost subs with that - which wouldn't be a bad business model, but bad for players in the long run, as content is put behind a pay wall.

    The more time goes on, the more I see WoD as WoW 1.5, they made deep, fundamental changes to the game, and it's a transition from the old school players to the new ones who play. Maybe the devs looked at the reaction of players to MoP - the fit, finish and content was grade A, but the average response was "Gay", and "Pandas are dumb", and "worst expansion ever". So they decided, "hey, if that's the mentality of players now, why kill ourselves, when they're just going to piss on it and moan and complain? Here. All the raids you can eat, and we made the rest of the game incredibly dumb so you don't have to 'waste time" on dailies and professions and quests and all the irritating lower content like dungeons. Go at it. We'll be able to take more vacation time since we're not going to do overtime on stuff you hate, no matter what we do.".

  17. #17
    The Undying Cthulhu 2020's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by MoanaLisa View Post
    Potentially 6.2 will make a difference. It depends on what's in it and when it drops. Trying to predict future subscription numbers without having the vaguest clue about the content and timing of future patches doesn't make a lot of sense.

    If the patches are bad then the expansion will go over a cliff. If they are good then there will still be some losses but nothing they aren't already expecting. As always it will probably be somewhere in the middle.

    Another thing to think about is how long the expansion is planned to run. They can trade some subscription losses for expansion sales if they can manage to get something out without a year of nothing at the end.

    Subscriptions still matter of course but expansion sales are going to start mattering a lot more if they become more frequent. There's a short term strategy and a long-term strategy.
    It seems that their "plan" was to make this a short expansion, possibly even only two raid tiers? But each with multiple raids, and then release the next expansion after only a year and a half, instead of the usual two years. But we'll wait and see. I'm finding plenty to do myself, and I don't need sub numbers to validate my fun in a game.
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  18. #18
    The thing about trying to ascertain patterns is that the events have to had occurred in the first place.

    Forecasting is an attempt to circumvent that, but it still is a poor comparison to the event taking place.

    Forecasting, in terms of data, will never be superior than data obtained from the event itself.

    Still though, that's not to say 'that forecasting is without merit.'

    It's just that forecasting, to me, is speculation, and it isn't a comparable substitute to the event happening.
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  19. #19
    The Undying Cthulhu 2020's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by MoanaLisa View Post
    Accurate.

    Forum expectations are such that Blizzard is failing if they don't maintain subscriptions without losses. Blizzard's expectations are that people will drop out as time goes by and they'll budget around that expected rate of drop and with their core revenue in mind. And if things don't go as well as even they expect they have some cards to play. Their usual promotions, a patch where Draenor flying is introduced comes to mind. There are others. People blathering away on forums are instantly irrelevant if events turn out in such a way that they meet their internal forecasts.

    They need a good 6.2 though and it might come along sooner than people think. 6.1 is mostly a systems patch (which if you really read the patch notes it's an easy conclusion to arrive at). Meanwhile the content people have been laboring away on whatever 6.2 is going to be. There's some overlap there but not a lot so behind the scenes that might be further along than we know. On the other hand they may not be ahead at all if reactions to launch caused them to change their direction in some radical way and they're reworking stuff.

    No one here knows but we'll find out eventually.
    Heh, yeah. I imagine if sub numbers drop faster than they expected, then they'll drop flight on WoD. It won't actually add anything to the game content wise, but a bunch of people whose entire lives were absolutely ruined over no flight will come flocking back. The vast majority of the player base does not care enough about flight for it to be a make or break for their subs. But dropping flight IS a potential trump card for faster than expected sub losses. It will buy them 3-6 months worth of surging sub numbers, at least until those flight people get bored and subconsciously realize that lack of flight wasn't their problem with the game all along. It's that they were just bored.
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  20. #20
    Spam Assassin! MoanaLisa's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by The Batman View Post
    But we'll wait and see. I'm finding plenty to do myself, and I don't need sub numbers to validate my fun in a game.
    Like you, I have plenty to do as well.

    I've called into question the notion that many of the regular forum posters both here and at Blizzard's boards have that basically goes "I'm done and bored so everyone must be done and bored."

    We have no idea at all how many people are at this place although it's not surprising that those that play a lot and post all the time, being the most involved with the game, would get there first. What we don't know is how many people there are that play casually, are nowhere near done, and wouldn't mind a little more time to be caught up with things on their main and alts. Blizzard has clues about that; we don't.

    The best I can say is that I've been leveling an alt the last couple of weeks and have yet to get to an elite that there wasn't someone else around to help. That suggests that there's a fair number of people who are nowhere near 'finished'. I see a lot of people around while leveling. The additions of the music box in 6.1 and some of the other things that piggyback onto already existing open world and garrison content may be just fine for them.

    This, of course, will be pooh-pooh'ed here. That's expected. The world view of the game reflected in forum threads/posts often bears no relationship to the actual reality of the game.

    - - - Updated - - -

    Quote Originally Posted by taliey View Post
    The thing about trying to ascertain patterns is that the events have to had occurred in the first place.

    Forecasting is an attempt to circumvent that, but it still is a poor comparison to the event taking place.

    Forecasting, in terms of data, will never be superior than data obtained from the event itself.

    Still though, that's not to say 'that forecasting is without merit.'

    It's just that forecasting, to me, is speculation, and it isn't a comparable substitute to the event happening.
    I don't know of a business that doesn't plan around them though. If a company offering a subscription service has consistently had X number of subscribers in good times and bad and that base shows a relatively consistent pattern of growth or loss you can bet that a business forecast will incorporate that. There is a lot of uncertainty inherent in forecasting for entertainment industries as it's impossible to predict whether something is going to be a hit or a miss. Nonetheless, good management will hedge their forecasts in conservative ways so that damage done on downsides is minimal. Upside is always good and companies need to be agile enough to take advantage of it. If Blizzard is terrible at anything it's the latter. They are very slow to respond to swift market changes although it's quite clear by now that they are aware of this and moving their business to the extent that they can towards more agile development.
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