600k Sub Loss EXPLAINED

[Deleted]

I would be more glad if they would lose more. Maybe they can wake up and see where they are going.

Then please enlighten us; where are they going?

[dan828]

why does this matter?

Because if true, it'll cause a drastic change in the course blizzard set for this expansion. AKA, nerfing the hell out of everything.

[Playintrafic]

Well.. they made it harder. A lot of people that wanted faceroll content quit.

Also
Rift.

Also.
Sub loss after newness of expac wore off. Happens every time.

[vesseblah]

In January of 2010, there were 11.5mil subscribers. In October, there were 12mil. An increase of .5mil over 3/4ths of a year (roughly). Which is .667mil/year. This was a pretty steady growth as can be found on mmodata.net.

In early May, Blizz announced the loss, meaning they are at 11.4mil subscribers. But this is only half the story.

Now that we all know that was a lie and people kept joining and given all same conditions blizzard should have 12.333mil, but they have 11.4 mil. SOOOOO the actual loss over the period of OCT - MAY is roughly (guestimated, on the low end, as in, it could be higher than this).

933k Subs LOST

Not such small potatos anymore? Is it? As less and less people joined, more and more people left creating a deficit.

I hope more people understand this now.

It will take me about 3 lines to debunk the 30 lines of garbage of the OP.

What you failed to count in along with the prediction of growth was the release of expansion. Subscriptions are always at lowest point at the end of expansion, and highest point just before and just after it comes out (October). The end of 2010 numbers were massively inflated by the Cataclysm release, therefore the rest of the post is just inane drivel that can be summarized as "Lies, damn lies and statistics".

[Frinata]

I'm going to go ahead and disqualify anything Zeppi has to say as he is clearly a troller. Seriously he has a post on why blizzard "fails".

Getting on to topic, or closer to it, Calling those who say "5% is nothing" A troll, is like saying lindsay lohan didn't do drugs. It's not true. 5% to Blizzard for ONE game literally is just a nudge. You need to remember they have three. Count them, three current franchises. Wow, Starcraft, and Diablo. That's the three legs to Blizzard's stool, and a fourth one is being errected. If wow's 5% loss was something huge, don't you think they'd stop productions on the legs to help reconstruct? They haven't. Now. This can mean two things to you, it all depends on what kind of person you are. If your a glass half full kind of guy, then it means that Blizzard is confident that the 5% won't impact largely, and will be rebuilt. If your a glass half empty kind of person, get your tin foil hats, it's Wow Rapture time.

That being said. Or rather typed, I do note that the 5% left with reason, but, 5% leaving isn't all that fair, 1% atleast was banned. So 4% is our actual number lets presume. 1% got karma'd. 4% left for other games or other reasons, lets not get into where they went. They left, yes. Will they come back? Maybe. Blizzard won't rely on that though. Blizzard is a multi-billion dollar company who has been at it for 20 years. Do you honostly think your inexperienced ass can do better?

Wheres your company?

[Dashield28]

OP is delusional and has no real explanation other than "this is why I think it happened"

This thread is SO original, try the search feature before stepping up to the soap box buddy

Thanks for telling me what you think happened. I saw the other thread, it was the reason i made this one. It was the whole reason the first thing i said about those delusional people who think they should take 600k at face value.

[Vestig3]

I want 2 minutes of my life back.

[anyaka21]

You do know that Cataclysm isn't out in China yet and shitloads of subs were lost when the massive ban-waves came out. Also it's normal for people to unsub when they have completed the raids already many times and there will be lots and lots of people re subscribing after 4.2 hits.

Not so big potatos anymore? Is it?

I hope you understand this now.

You forgot something very simple, this is data from March, not May. This is essentially 1,000,000ish subscribers leaving in the 1st 3 months of an expansion. This isn't mid expansion. Thus I can't agree with the finishing of content argument.

If you look at that, especially in terms of raiding, I'm gonna guess that on normal Nef, of those that have done completed normal mode, that at the end of march approx 100,000 people have finished (I'm taking this loosely from wowprogress data because it won't show me exactly how many guilds had killed nef on normal without toggling through it to get from dec to end of march). Add that as as now roughly 19,000 guilds, mostly 10 man, have done normal nef which is only 32% of those that raid.

Thus, again, I don't buy the "people are done with current content" argument. Because clearly, as of right now, the majority of those that raid haven't even finished current content.

And while there is certainly an argument to be made for those quitting because they don't raid and as thus finished current content, there is also an argument to be made for a lot of those people would have stayed if the content was more accessible. Add to the troubles of heroic 5mans into the mix and progression came to a halt for a lot of people.

[Goosfraba]

OP, you care about this a little too much. You're scaring us.

At another poster: truth is absolute. Anything less than truth is a lie. Find a scenario where I am wrong about that.

Also, when an officer of Blizzard (or affiliated party) speaks about things like subscription numbers, it's not for our benefit. It's them reporting to shareholders who are largely financially interested in that magical number of subscriptions. I promise the investors don't care about how many were gained vs lost. They care about net change.

[Combatbutler]

Even if they lost 4 million subscriptions who cares as long as I can still raid with my guild i couldn't care less

[mindbomb]

OP

What do you gain by being correct or incorrect on this matter? See tons of these threads. Besides the desire to be right on a forum, is there a motive that would push you to do this research? Are you trying to gather support to make Blizzard behave differently?

[Dashield28]

It will take me about 3 lines to debunk the 30 lines of garbage of the OP.

What you failed to count in along with the prediction of growth was the release of expansion. Subscriptions are always at lowest point at the end of expansion, and highest point just before and just after it comes out (October). The end of 2010 numbers were massively inflated by the Cataclysm release, therefore the rest of the post is just inane drivel that can be summarized as "Lies, damn lies and statistics".

So you are saying that the steady increase from January to October was a lie? That people started activating their subscirptions for CAT in January? or are you saying that since October was the end of the previous expac, the 12 million is actually to low point and should have gone up drastically since then?

You have contradicted yourelf in the same sentence. Either they have been increasing since january (as the data points, not declining as you suggest) or that Oct was the low point in subscriptsion because of the expac release even at 12mil. Cant be both ways.

[Darsithis]

First off, I would like to say to all of those people claiming "LOL 600k thats like 5% pff thats nothing" that you obviously have no concept of business or math. Please stop posting your "opinions" on any topics related to that.

For everyone else who actually wants to understand how that works, please see below.

I will start my estimations based on first quarter of 2010 announcement. This follows the recovery track after China rejoined, and the announcement of CATA release the following December.

In January of 2010, there were 11.5mil subscribers. In October, there were 12mil. An increase of .5mil over 3/4ths of a year (roughly). Which is .667mil/year. This was a pretty steady growth as can be found on mmodata.net.

In early May, Blizz announced the loss, meaning they are at 11.4mil subscribers. But this is only half the story.

I give you this argument. The trolls who state that 5% decrease is nothing, WOULD BE RIGHT, if NO ONE JOINED WOW between October 2010 and May 2011. So Imagine that over a period of (for simplicity) 6 months, no one person opened an account. None of us believe that. So, here is what happened.

We take the estimated growth from between Jan - Oct of 2011, average it out (.667mil/year or .333 mil/ 6 months).

Next we add that to the 12mil announced in Oct. - 12.333mil. Why? Because this would be the total of subscritions we would estimate based on steady growth observed over 3/4ths of the year before 12mil to carry on until the announcement made in May.

So, assuming that people joined wow at a steady rate and left at a steady rate (new accounts > cancelled accounts) Blizzard should have announced that in May they had 12.333mil subscibers.

But, they said their new total was 11.4mil and they claimed they lost 600k subscriptions. THAT IS A LIE. BLATANT LIE. Those who do not know any better, would take them at their word.

Everyone else would be like: So Blizzard, you mean to tell me that you stopped taking new subscriptions? o'rly? You closed wow to new people? LIAR YOU HAVE RECRUIT A FRIEND.

Now that we all know that was a lie and people kept joining and given all same conditions blizzard should have 12.333mil, but they have 11.4 mil. SOOOOO the actual loss over the period of OCT - MAY is roughly (guestimated, on the low end, as in, it could be higher than this).

933k Subs LOST

Not such small potatos anymore? Is it? As less and less people joined, more and more people left creating a deficit.

I hope more people understand this now.

Blizzard didn't lie: They never said they LOST 600,000 subscribers. They said their current subscription level is 600,000 less than it was at the previous count, against 12,000,000. It is no different than our job market in the United States. One month the total employed increases by 150,000 but the next month decreases by 300,000. Then the market re-increases by 100,000 the following month. That's a NET loss of 50,000 jobs over those 3 months. It's not a loss of 300,000 and it's not a gain of 150,000, but a simple loss of 50k. That doesn't mean that new people aren't finding work. It just means the overall pace of job shedding was greater than the pace of job gains. Fluctuations are normal, and the historical trend of World of Warcraft is that the total subscriptions goes up - currently to 11,400,000 from 0. The same allegory again: our stock market performs the same way. There are dips, depressions, and recessions, but historically the end result is the market climbs higher and higher. Blizzard could easily have lost 2 million subs, gained 1.4 million new subs, and ended up with...you guessed it...a net loss of 600,000.

A net loss of 600,000 subscribers isn't a huge deal - WoW sheds subscribers every day. Some people move on to other games. Others can't afford it any more. Some go back to school and it's just not worth the time. Even more are "lost" because Blizzard banhammers famers, botters, and sellers. It's not a sign of the "exodus". It's been pointed out numerous times on many of these threads the trend expansions take. As content is released, a portion of those people will return.

[anyaka21]

It will take me about 3 lines to debunk the 30 lines of garbage of the OP.

What you failed to count in along with the prediction of growth was the release of expansion. Subscriptions are always at lowest point at the end of expansion, and highest point just before and just after it comes out (October). The end of 2010 numbers were massively inflated by the Cataclysm release, therefore the rest of the post is just inane drivel that can be summarized as "Lies, damn lies and statistics".

it's also very easy to debunk your numbers. Subs were announced in October at 12million, before the release of Cata. Cata was released early december. Thus at the end of Wrath, the numbers were at it's HIGHEST, and now essentially 3 months into the expansion, subs are dropping.

I'm also having trouble understanding your numbers. You say 1st that numbers are at their lowest at end of an expansion, but back that statistic up with numbers at their highest just before the beginning of an expansion. Correct me if I'm wrong here, but aren't those THE SAME TIME??

[Dashield28]

OP

What do you gain by being correct or incorrect on this matter? See tons of these threads. Besides the desire to be right on a forum, is there a motive that would push you to do this research? Are you trying to gather support to make Blizzard behave differently?

What about sanity? Or maybe to have somethign to link next time some ignorant fanboy posts how 600k is nothing but 5% loss.

[sithorion]

waaaaaaaait a second. Does 'we lost 600k subscribers' implies that they've only lost 600k, and there were no new subscribers?? No, it implies that the TOTAL of subscribers went down with 600k. That is also + the new ones. So, it is not a lie from blizzard. They just said they've lost 600k in total of subscribers. Don't blame the boss when the slaves are stupid.

[ptwonline]

Because if true, it'll cause a drastic change in the course blizzard set for this expansion. AKA, nerfing the hell out of everything.

Hopefully it will also mean that they'll hire more developers to keep the cash cow up and running instead of letting it dry up much faster than they expected.

[Biggiej]

I will just say blizzard isn't doing it self any favors by wanting to do this "premium" service gimmick.

[Ionite]

We take the estimated growth from between Jan - Oct of 2011, average it out (.667mil/year or .333 mil/ 6 months).

Next we add that to the 12mil announced in Oct. - 12.333mil. Why? Because this would be the total of subscritions we would estimate based on steady growth observed over 3/4ths of the year before 12mil to carry on until the announcement made in May.

So, assuming that people joined wow at a steady rate and left at a steady rate (new accounts > cancelled accounts) Blizzard should have announced that in May they had 12.333mil subscibers.

So what you're doing is guessing how many people joined. Good job.

Anyway, if they, for example, lost 900k subs but gained 300k what's the bloody difference? I mean, some people were coming and leaving all the time the game was out. Or do the new accounts somehow do not count as such with people on them who play the game?

They never lied. Read the news. They didn't say "we lost 600k subscriptions", they said "then we had this many, now we have this many". So yes, they were referring to the general number which took both new accounts and the cancelled ones into account. Nothing about number of lost accounts whatsoever. Come to think of it, you used the news which never had the exact expression used by company representatives, and somehow you even got that wrong.

Edit: I see while I was typing all this, Darsithis and sithorion already pointed that out.

[Flaks]

Blizzard didn't lie: They never said they LOST 600,000 subscribers. They said their current subscription level is 600,000 less than it was at the previous count, against 12,000,000.

As much as I love your analysis OP and personally believe it to be true the only factual information provided in this entire thread was given by the quoted portion of the above poster. The rest of his post is also just plain opinionated drivel.