TBC and Woltk did nothing for wow subs

[Nak88]

Wrong, the real answer is TBC and Wrath kept WoW franchise alive because Retail was at its lowest point after the BFA and SL catastrophes.

[Askyl]

People that loved Classic already played, so not sure how anyone would expect any different.

[Kathandira]

Exactly this. Tbc literally was released during the "darkest" time in wow history with the mass exodus and the lawsuit. Retail probably reached it's lowest sub count by far during this period.

Since 1 subscription applies to 4 different versions of the game, it is hard to really say which players went to which version just by sub count.

In one of those dips, a large amount of players could have left to play other games, but some started playing Classic instead. But that chart wouldn't capture any of that.

It is incomplete data.

[Lahis]

So, are we gonna talk about how with the released numbers, we finally saw that classic tbc and woltk literally had ZERO Impact on sub numbers, while dragonflight currently is above the peak of real tbc and classic ?

Any theories why that could be ? Will cata also fail like tbc and woltk?

It only looks like that because Shadowlands was so bad that the people subbing for classic barely kept the overall subs at level.

Without Classic the dip would have been much greater.

[LordVargK]

There are no released numbers.

You people shouldn't take Bellular seriously. He threw random numbers on the graph, said some yada yada and now you treat it like the bible.

Just because you are not intelligent enough to understand how those numbers came to be doesn't mean those numbers are not correct. Just trust smarter people if you have no ideo.

[allegrian]

Wrath Classic was actually a success. Literally just look at the graph. There was a rise in subs coinciding with Wrath Classic, leading up to DF's release 2 months later.






So Wrath Classic was actually a success.

As for TBC Classic, it did keep subs afloat for a time. But then the following month we had Korthia + State-filed lawswuit + Sylvanas cinematic fiasco "i WiLl NeVeR sErVe": it was literally the darkest period in this game's history, clearly even worse than WoD.

So it's not really surprising that TBC Classic couldn't keep the same momentum as Classic 2019, Wrath Classic, and SoD.

All retail expansions release in the middle of the raising curve, so it's hard to say how much it raised because of wotlk classic vs DF release hype

[schmonz]

I still would like a tbc realm.

[StillMcfuu]

The chart does more to show that classic players left in far fewer numbers than retail and continued to play while retail numbers fluctuate and drop quickly after releases.

[FelPlague]

There are no released numbers.

You people shouldn't take Bellular seriously. He threw random numbers on the graph, said some yada yada and now you treat it like the bible.

Idk if you know. But blizzard released the graph. Not bellular.
Bellular just put numbers to it, but numbers does not change the graph. 1 million or 10 million, tbc and wotlk barely nudged the numbers, whatever they were.

[Ragedaug]

So, are we gonna talk about how with the released numbers, we finally saw that classic tbc and woltk literally had ZERO Impact on sub numbers, while dragonflight currently is above the peak of real tbc and classic ?

Any theories why that could be ? Will cata also fail like tbc and woltk?

Before you can create a good theory, you have to have a solid premise. Yours is flawed.

The Classic bump started in Vanilla. So once TBC and Wrath rolled around, the players who wanted that nostalgic experience of running through the old game were already there. The impact TBC and Wrath have on subs is the same impact Classic Vanilla had on subs.

[Myradin]

Before you can create a good theory, you have to have a solid premise. Yours is flawed.

The Classic bump started in Vanilla. So once TBC and Wrath rolled around, the players who wanted that nostalgic experience of running through the old game were already there. The impact TBC and Wrath have on subs is the same impact Classic Vanilla had on subs.

Based on what? There's no garuntee people who signed up for Classic did so for TBC/Wrath. They could have simply prefered classic, or rode the decade long hypetrain thinking classic was something it wasn't.

Heck the lack of perma-TBC server suggests blizz doesn't consider it successful enough to keep aroud.

[crusadernero]

There are no released numbers.

You people shouldn't take Bellular seriously. He threw random numbers on the graph, said some yada yada and now you treat it like the bible.

Oh the graph didnt show you what you wanted it to show?

[Khaza-R]

So, are we gonna talk about how with the released numbers, we finally saw that classic tbc and woltk literally had ZERO Impact on sub numbers, while dragonflight currently is above the peak of real tbc and classic ?

Any theories why that could be ? Will cata also fail like tbc and woltk?

This is why critical thinking skills are needed when looking at data. Why would you think that TBC or Wrath would increase subs like a traditional expansion?

In order for that to happen people would of had to skip Classic and only played TBC or Wrath in order for their to be a net increase in subs. While there are some of those people around, they are ultimatley so miniscule it didn't make an impact.

[M1r4g3]

They did have a large impact to offset the loss of players from the complete failure that was shadowlands, but the bunch of retail players that switched to classic also quit after realizing classic isn't for them + classic players naturally quitting etc, which is why it looks stagnant.
However none of this is the case for dragonflight, even if you were to assume that the entire bump was SoD, the drop off before that is very mild compared to anything before meaning its doing great.

[Erolian]

I love how people look at the graph and just for some reason think the logo for the classic expansions lines up directly with when they were released lmao. Its so cringe there was a year and a half between TBC and Wotlk and 2 months between Wotlk and DF but its all roughly equally spaced and people just have no critical thinking at all

[FAILoZOFF]

Wrong, the real answer is TBC and Wrath kept WoW franchise alive because Retail was at its lowest point after the BFA and SL catastrophes.

based on what?
me and few other people i know play just classic with no interest in retail, so if it wasnt for classic we would not be there

so classic did "something" for WoW subs ;]

[Ragedaug]

Based on what? There's no garuntee people who signed up for Classic did so for TBC/Wrath. They could have simply prefered classic, or rode the decade long hypetrain thinking classic was something it wasn't.

Heck the lack of perma-TBC server suggests blizz doesn't consider it successful enough to keep aroud.

It suggests that very few of the Classic players stayed to play Vanilla, so there was no point keeping perma TBC servers which would be mostly dead, which is my point. Those Vanilla players moved to TBC, then moved to Wrath.

- - - Updated - - -

based on what?
me and few other people i know play just classic with no interest in retail, so if it wasnt for classic we would not be there

so classic did "something" for WoW subs ;]

Yes, basically this. Lots of folks I know play and sub only for Classic who would not sub for Retail (including me).

[Ermelloth]

Lots of folks I know play and sub only for Classic who would not sub for Retail (including me).

Same here. Unless there were Wrath Classic, Vanilla HC and SoD, I would cancel sub long ago. Retail is abysmally bad.

[Zka]

There are no released numbers.

You people shouldn't take Bellular seriously. He threw random numbers on the graph, said some yada yada and now you treat it like the bible.

Geeez, these are OFFICIAL charts. Bellular only added numeric interpretation to the charts based on OFFICIAL statements.
The curve in the chart IS OFFICIAL and the numbers are very close to reality.

On topic: classic, BC, LK and SOD are mostly played by the same set of people, therefore no big sub spike happened when anything post vanilla was released - the people interested in these products were already playing.

[Rngmonster The God]

So, are we gonna talk about how with the released numbers, we finally saw that classic tbc and woltk literally had ZERO Impact on sub numbers, while dragonflight currently is above the peak of real tbc and classic ?

Any theories why that could be ? Will cata also fail like tbc and woltk?

Say hello to your hate boner from me.

Same here. Unless there were Wrath Classic, Vanilla HC and SoD, I would cancel sub long ago. Retail is abysmally bad.

Same same. Without Classic, i would have not resubbed back in 2019.