Wow sub numbers now below Burning Crusade

[Tierbook]

well they've got 2 months till the next conference call so we shall see how much people liked this patch then.... February 7th to be specific

[Osmeric]

There isn't some physical law of the universe that says that a game's popularity can only last so long. There's no reason the sub numbers couldn't have kept climbing or remained steady after WotLK. The simple fact of the matter is that the game just started sucking more after Cataclysm came out, apparently. Players weren't happy, so they left.

However, WoW could certainly earn back the subs if Blizzard brought back what made the game so enthralling in the first place. After all, it's still the best MMORPG out there I think.

Actually, while it isn't a "physical law of the universe", I think there is a reason WoW's popularity had to decline.

The game is built on an inherent contradiction. On the one hand, the value proposition of the game is the psychic reward one gets from doing something that's challenging, in a social context. On the other hand, nothing that most players can do can be challenging. So, the game has always had a design where large numbers of suckers are brought in so the small fraction that can actually do the reward content feel they're on top.

But this was never sustainable. It only worked because there was a fresh supply of MMO virgins to exploit, to bring into the game with misleading optimism on their chances, only to chew them up and spit them out as they grew disillusioned. Once that supply had been tapped, the game had to decline.

[yjmark]

Actually, while it isn't a "physical law of the universe", I think there is a reason WoW's popularity had to decline.

The game is built on an inherent contradiction. On the one hand, the value proposition of the game is the psychic reward one gets from doing something that's challenging, in a social context. On the other hand, nothing that most players can do can be challenging. So, the game has always had a design where large numbers of suckers are brought in so the small fraction that can actually do the reward content feel they're on top.

But this was never sustainable. It only worked because there was a fresh supply of MMO virgins to exploit, to bring into the game with misleading optimism on their chances, only to chew them up and spit them out as they grew disillusioned. Once that supply had been tapped, the game had to decline.

That is one of a dozen reasons WoW's popularity delined. Other ones are:

1) Game is old (probably the biggest reason)
2) More competition
3) People burned out (the number of hours people put into WoW is astounding)
4) Far East Market Conditions

[mvaliz]

That is one of a dozen reasons WoW's popularity delined. Other ones are:

1) Game is old (probably the biggest reason)
2) More competition
3) People burned out (the number of hours people put into WoW is astounding)
4) Far East Market Conditions

I'd also like to point out that the price isn't very good at all when you boil it down.

It used to be, but in today's market I can buy a brand-new $60 game or three $20 used games for 4 months subscription to WoW.

When I took a year-long break from Cata and came back at the final patch, I calculated what I missed;

ZG/ZA revamp
Molten Front
Firelands Raid zone

That was IT.

That's what my $180 would've bought me in content.

Are those THREE content options equal to Skyrim, Grand Theft Auto and Diablo 3's content COMBINED?

This is also excluding the purchase of the expansion also, which is generally $40.

[SideTracked]

The gaming industry is increasing all the time, as well as our population since 2004. So how is it that we have lost 5 million subscribers? Its true people do move on to other things the "older gamers" which have been mentioned before but where are the new generation, the replacements?

If you go on the offical WoW forums you will find many free trial player whom start playing for the first time level up in like a few hours to the maximum level and don't want to create an account because they say its boring and too easy, yet the whole business model for this company is to attract more new customers, this doesn't add up.

So that leads me too the fact that either this new generation prefers consoles over PC games, if that is the case its clearly down to marketing the game and / or that the current ideas for expansions past and present since have been bland and uninteresting or even worse then that the content is below par and people think its not enough to lure them back to sub again.

If they don't have the time? time is infinite! or resources then wtf are they working on Titan(?) I would really like to know what is actually going on inside of Blizzard HQ in terms of WoW as I fear for its future.

[The Penguin]

...not normal!? That's actually true as it's AMAZING it's not fallen further years ago.

So true. And Ghostcrawler was fired. Coincidence? I think not.

And if you say he moved on to better things, you clearly don't understand how Industry and Political PR works.


Ghostcrawler's departure will bring back a LOT of subs. People don't appreciate being treated like trash.

[cool_freezer]

So true. And Ghostcrawler was fired. Coincidence? I think not.

And if you say he moved on to better things, you clearly don't understand how Industry and Political PR works.


Ghostcrawler's departure will bring back a LOT of subs. People don't appreciate being treated like trash.

and what about the point that he and he alone decided to go and move on to the next adventure in his life dont you get? stop spreading shit like he got fired, there is NO FUCKING PROOF ABOUT IT, even if you are right...

[Deleted]

weird that Cataclysm had the oposit effect and caused most people to end their subscriptions

[Lillemus]

The gaming industry is increasing all the time, as well as our population since 2004. So how is it that we have lost 5 million subscribers? Its true people do move on to other things the "older gamers" which have been mentioned before but where are the new generation, the replacements?

If you go on the offical WoW forums you will find many free trial player whom start playing for the first time level up in like a few hours to the maximum level and don't want to create an account because they say its boring and too easy, yet the whole business model for this company is to attract more new customers, this doesn't add up.

So you're saying that the trial level cap should raised to, 60/70/80/90?

So that leads me too the fact that either this new generation prefers consoles over PC games, if that is the case its clearly down to marketing the game and / or that the current ideas for expansions past and present since have been bland and uninteresting or even worse then that the content is below par and people think its not enough to lure them back to sub again.

If they don't have the time? time is infinite! or resources then wtf are they working on Titan(?) I would really like to know what is actually going on inside of Blizzard HQ in terms of WoW as I fear for its future.

All of my coming statements are based entirely on anecdotal evidence and personal observations, but all of this is, so I guess mine are as valid as the next guy's, but here goes.
World of Warcraft is huge, new expansion / max level content is what the devs work on. So when a new players joins up he is seeing 1% of the content offered to him, and it's hard to explain that it gets a lot bigger/better/harder, especially with the amount of time it takes for things to get a lot bigger / better / harder.
If I had to play 40 hours in Skyrim in order for me to reach the first amount of challenging content I would probably have dropped it as well (fastest dev speedrun in Skyrim is less than 2 hours fun fact.)
So when comparing WoW to other games (and newer MMOs) it is simply very hard to approach, unless you already know someone in the game who can inform you of that it gets bigger/better/harder, but the "friend of a current player" market is not that big.

Now with the anecdotal experience I have with Sub drops. Not a single one of my in-game friends stopped because this game was too easy / hard / boring. This list counts probably somewhere around 70-80 people. They've all stopped because of real life issues, being burned out or because their friends stopped (due to the 2 reasons listed before). Getting these people back (for Blizzard itself) is quite hard, as they would have to convince them as a group to return to the game.
I recently managed to convince 3 from my old guilds to return (where approx 40 people on that list are from) and that has brought in a surge of old players now counting 12 total players returning to the game.
But fact is, it's not anything Blizzard did or did not do that made them quit, neither was it anything Blizz did or did not do that made them come back.

[Valenhil]

Ghostcrawler's departure will bring back a LOT of subs. People don't appreciate being treated like trash.

Ghostcrawler by himself had about as much influence on the game as you do. In order to have someone to blame, the fanbase seems to have elevated Ghostcrawler from the lead of a team to patron of all class changes.

This might sound crazy, but sometimes there isn't one particular person to point fingers at.

[Deleted]

PVP Numbers are sooo dead.
Season 3 TWO Realmpools had the same ammount of pvp players as ALL merged realmpools together in our current season.
Let that sink in S3 >2< Realmpools = current complete pvp playerbase.

Their numbers doesnt even come close to the cataclysm we've gone through in pvp.

[Deleted]

Wow F2P ~FTW! The gold diggers !

[Dormie]

I'd also like to point out that the price isn't very good at all when you boil it down.

It used to be, but in today's market I can buy a brand-new $60 game or three $20 used games for 4 months subscription to WoW.

When I took a year-long break from Cata and came back at the final patch, I calculated what I missed;

ZG/ZA revamp
Molten Front
Firelands Raid zone

That was IT.

That's what my $180 would've bought me in content.

Are those THREE content options equal to Skyrim, Grand Theft Auto and Diablo 3's content COMBINED?

This is also excluding the purchase of the expansion also, which is generally $40.

Price is probably a big thing keeping new players away. I could either pay out the ass for lackluster WoW, or get literally 20+ games off of Steam.

[Deleted]

It is in fact normal and while it's not good it is something that happened to all MMORPGs ever released. Especially western ones. Check Everquest, check Dark Age of Camelot for comparison:



There is only one exception: Eve Online. But it's so unique and special it does not really belong in the same category.

Damn, the climb and subsequent decline of Warhammer Online was pretty quick.

[BenBos]

That's what my $180 would've bought me in content.

Are those THREE content options equal to Skyrim, Grand Theft Auto and Diablo 3's content COMBINED?

This is also excluding the purchase of the expansion also, which is generally $40.

Yes WOW is worth it, without a doubt.

As Azeroth is a WORLD you live/play in and the rest are merely video games. With Skyrim a single player puppet experience. I don't want to play endlessly in a puppet world.

Getting compliments from NPC puppets is embarassing really.

GTA is pure kids stuff. You don't live in that world.

And D3 was a great experience as long as the AH's were in. Now it is 4 times the same content to down artificially monsters with X times health.

I play WOW (not enough), Hearthstone and Heavy Rain on the PS3 and all these games seperately give me more pleasure than your 3 examples combined these days.

But WOW is the only one with a world I meet friends and guild members in.

What people (and haters) don't understand is the CLUB mentality of WOW players.

You pay a subscription to belong to that club. That's something free to play MMO's will never grab.

That club mentality... includes even ex WoW players who don't seem to get disconnected from the game at all !

That club mentality will spread into a Blizzard club feeling, where F2P games like HS and HOTS will unite the players even more. Along with a sub based WOW that ultimately will level off at around 4 or 5 million players.

But have NO doubt: every new Blizzard game will reach those 10 + million (ex) paying members again. Starting with HS (the one exception would be the D3 expansion as that one is too far off its Original design).

That club mentality will ALSO assure Blizzard's next MMORPG will be of gigantic proportions ONCE all this free to play garbage will have fallen flat on its face.

Expect 15 million to try to get in at launch already. But not before 2017 as the MMO sector is still in its shake out period.


2014 will be THE big year for Blizzard with Hearthstone and HOTS making a HUGE splash in the gaming field.

It also means Blizzard is no longer depending on WOW as their main revenue: f2p games that actually make money instead of f2p MMo's that go f2p to survive ....

-----

So I wonder why these threads keep popping up: financially Blizzard has new milking cows just around the corner and ... WoW player wise there is not even a problem with endless connected realms to populate Azeroth.

tldr: the more we play HS at home in beta, the more the game grows after 3 months... Or it wouldn't susrpise me that HS in 2 years time will make MORE money than WOW... (spreading over 90 million i PAds and 3 billion smart phones ...). Hearthsone is not the only card game on those platforms, but it sure beats hell out of all of them in ease of play and rewards...

- - - Updated - - -

The gaming industry is increasing all the time, as well as our population since 2004. So how is it that we have lost 5 million subscribers? .

If they don't have the time? time is infinite! or resources then wtf are they working on Titan(?) I would really like to know what is actually going on inside of Blizzard HQ in terms of WoW as I fear for its future.

Because the subscription based MMORPG market has crumbled to unseen low proportions over the last 3 years... . Everything else but EVE (500k) and WOW (7 million +) is free to play in the offer.

Have you ever been in a market that's offering goods for free ?

It's a simple shake out as free to play in MMORPG's are a sinking ship in the long run (MMo's are far too expensive to support this model in the long run).

---
Your second question is in the same logic.

Blizzard gives priority to the REAL new money makers in 2014: free to play games like HS that actually MAKE money in F2p instead of going free to play to survive (in MMORPG's)...

We will have to wait until the shake out of this (free to play) MMORPG industry is finished. Probably within 3 to 5 more years.

In the meantime just be assured that games like Hearthstone will bring in MUCH more money than any free to play MMORPG AND are much easier to make and maintain.

All very simple and logical.

[LeperHerring]

As Azeroth is a WORLD you live/play in and the rest are merely video games.
But WOW is the only one with a world I meet friends and guild members in.

It used to be. It was a huge world where you could choose to do different things. It was a world and game where you actually made friends, because the game was setup in a way that encouraged people to be social and to build teams and guilds. Unfortunately all that has slowly eroded away with ever increasing number of anti-social features (LFD/LFR), streamlining (teleport/fly everywhere) and reduction of scope and variety of content (obsoleting all other content besides the current raid tier).

[Lillemus]

It used to be. It was a huge world where you could choose to do different things. It was a world and game where you actually made friends, because the game was setup in a way that encouraged people to be social and to build teams and guilds. Unfortunately all that has slowly eroded away with ever increasing number of anti-social features (LFD/LFR), streamlining (teleport/fly everywhere) and reduction of scope and variety of content (obsoleting all other content besides the current raid tier).

It still is, it's a world where you find friends who likes doing the same things in-game just as it always was. You don't like the game anymore, but your failure to create new social connections in the game is the hardly the fault of the game.

[LeperHerring]

It still is, it's a world where you find friends who likes doing the same things in-game just as it always was. You don't like the game anymore, but your failure to create new social connections in the game is the hardly the fault of the game.

I wonder what game you're playing, but that's most definitely not true on my old realm. It had a great community, it had a bunch of old, well managed raiding guilds and there were communities of people doing 5 mans together. None of that exists anymore. The game systems changes have destroyed all that. Now you just push a button, get teleported into an instance with random people, smash some buttons for a while and "win". I'm sure if you go to one of the handful of highest population servers, you can still get something out of it. But I'm not willing to pay $100+ just to move my characters out of the "medium" realm that's completely dead.

The game simply does not catalyze the kinds of social experience and community formation as it used to. And that's purely down to systems design.

[Lillemus]

I wonder what game you're playing, but that's most definitely not true on my old realm. It had a great community, it had a bunch of old, well managed raiding guilds and there were communities of people doing 5 mans together. None of that exists anymore. The game systems changes have destroyed all that. Now you just push a button, get teleported into an instance with random people, smash some buttons for a while and "win". I'm sure if you go to one of the handful of highest population servers, you can still get something out of it. But I'm not willing to pay $100+ just to move my characters out of the "medium" realm that's completely dead.

The game simply does not catalyze the kinds of social experience and community formation as it used to. And that's purely down to systems design.

You are right, the forced communities are gone, the ones you HAD to be a part of if you wanted to see content. Now there are the communities left where people actually like each-other. Some people do LFR and LFD because they don't want to talk to other people, it's beyond me why they are playing an MMO, but that's their business, the fact that they have the option doesn't bother me.
I still have a large network of several guilds that I talk to, but that also comes from continuously playing the game, so maybe that's why we see the game so differently.

[Deleted]

It used to be. It was a huge world where you could choose to do different things. It was a world and game where you actually made friends, because the game was setup in a way that encouraged people to be social and to build teams and guilds. Unfortunately all that has slowly eroded away with ever increasing number of anti-social features (LFD/LFR), streamlining (teleport/fly everywhere) and reduction of scope and variety of content (obsoleting all other content besides the current raid tier).

100% Agree.

1) Try to start a new guild. Should I even tell you why the GAME itself fails there? I think you are smart enough to figure it out.
2) Try to start a new alt, try to make friends during the leveling process.
I actually made a guild inviting people I encountered during my leveling in TBC late/wrath. LFD in low levels is a joke and totally uninteresting and just a grinding process to pick up levels faster without doing quests. Noone even wanted to reply to a "Hi" when I entered a dungeon. Again does it or does it not the game promote such behavior since group quests are gone, everything is soloable and LFD is a joke?
3) When you reach 90 try to find a starting raiding guild.
I was laughing at a guy that I although I linked him my ToT HC (i only miss Lei-Shen and Ra-den) he asked for ilvl higher than the flex ilvl itself to join a test flex raid with his guild. And from what I saw in OQueue that behavior is now the norm. Who is to blame than the developers themselves that they lack the vision to see why the raiding guilds are suffering and they promote the elitists? Its latest tier or gtfo? Good luck with that as soon as the subs drop to find new players.

Put yourselves in that position and then you will realize why people that left wow, return for 1-2 months only to leave again for good. You know how many good players that I knew when they saw this shit going on, they immediately unsubscribed?

The game and its community right now, is nothing like it was when it was growing. It is toxic, anti-social, new guilds cant be formed bcs of the 25 lvl perk and old guilds cant find new players because they do not want the progress but they ask for ranks and the logs. No cooperation, no motivation for people that just start to learn the game to get interested enough to invest in-game time to learn their class to move on to the next step of raiding difficulty.

A MMO without the 2 Ms is just an RPG online. And as such there are many games now and if I may say, much better than wow. If you tell me: "if you do not like it, do not play it" just THINK what it means for you. In the end you will play alone. The fact alone that we put some time to type the reasons why we do not play, it should instead make you think than puting your fingers in your ears and sing "lalalala I am not listening". It is NO SURPRISE that if you check most of the game-critics you will see the game around 4.5 out of 10. Have you asked yourself why? Have you even read what they say about the game?

Sorry but I really see the subs falling even under 4m (maybe more?) before the new expansion is even released in beta.