WoW Subscriber estimates

[arcaneshot]

My feeling is it wont have moved, but Blizzard will not differentiate between wow token subs and paid subs.

There's no reason not to save for the fact that the income is higher. They're otherwise no different from people buying time cards.

[TEHPALLYTANK]

So much stupid, packed into so few words. I'm impressed.

Indeed, you somehow failed to understand a satirical post.

[corebit]

WoW token will have no effect on Q1 numbers, since it only came out after the quarter was over.

Don't forget RAF.

[Deleted]

they're definitely feeling the pinch, wow tokens, cashing in as much as they can, and censoring posts with competing MMO's names on the official forums.

[kamil84]

They will count all those tokens they sold as suscription numbers and therefore you will get a total coverup of what's going on in the game. Only the activity levels posted the other days reflect the real situation in WoW.

[NuLogic]

9.4 million is my guess but i'm bad at guessing.

[Saucerian]

Legitimizing gold selling probably propped up their revenue nicely, but I agree with those who've pointed out that the number of people they've retained by allowing the purchase of game time for gold, will be relatively small. It likely had little net effect on active accounts. Activity is still way down.

I'd guess 9.3 million. Probably no lower than 9.

[Osmeric]

Legitimizing gold selling probably propped up their revenue nicely,

If only someone had observed in this thread already that token sales didn't start until after the end of Q1.

[Dekkers]

they're definitely feeling the pinch, wow tokens, cashing in as much as they can, and censoring posts with competing MMO's names on the official forums.

They have also been taking down vanilla wow Twitch streams... pathetic. They must be desperate going after streams with 50 viewers LOL.

I would not be surprised if subs dropped to 7 million. I think the following quarter will be the real drop though.

[Deleted]

Just as important as subscriber count, is the time people spend actually in game.

It can forecast a trend for the months ahead and predict how likely people will renew their sub or add another game time card. I fear that's going to go steeply downhill over the summer, even with the wow token we may see it go below pandarian levels.

[Conscious]

Down by 1.2 million, to 8.8 M.

My confidence in this guess is low.

Why's that?

I'm thinking 8 million high, 6.5 low.

[ComputerNerd]

inb4 someone says the WoW token will skew things...the token was released AFTER the quarter ended on March 31st.

As to the topic of the thread, I have no earthly idea. It's definitely a loss, so it won't be above 10 million.

The fact that it could potentially have an impact is a worthy discussion if people could be sensible about it, but this is the wow community.
That won't happen.
Time will tell for future results though, but I do wonder just how open blizzard are wiling to be regarding the numbers there.
Numbers alone from the view of an outsider may not be that helpful as there will be some players who switched some cash sub payments if not all of them to gold.
Though the timing of the next may at least be when they have had time to stabilise.

[viirevox]

Totally guessed. We'll see.

[Wrathonia]

I thought the quarter ended before tokens went live.

It did, but people don't like facts around here. Senseless conspiracy theories and made up nonsense is better.

[Osmeric]

Why's that?

I'm thinking 8 million high, 6.5 low.

Two things: the release in 2014 was a bit later than the Cataclysm release was in 2010, so there's a bit more of the "new car smell" remaining in Q1 this time. Also, I'm trying to scale the decline in subs by looking at WCR and comparing the activity decline now to what we saw in Cataclysm.

It could be higher though, since China wasn't on Cata yet in Q1 2011.

[hrugner]

Well, I would have expected it to be back down to pre-release values but I didn't expect the huge nostalgia bump lasting for two quarters either so who knows.

[mauserr]

Well this looks like a dick size poll.

[ringpriest]

They will count all those tokens they sold as suscription numbers and therefore you will get a total coverup of what's going on in the game. Only the activity levels posted the other days reflect the real situation in WoW.

Doubtful. They're likely just going to count active accounts (including those active with tokens). It would be nice (from an objectively curious perspective) if Blizz would break down subs further, but they'll doubtless only release the absolutely minimum information they're legally required to.

[Niwes]

what numbers do you mean ? the real ones or the calculated and scaled ones or the polished (i.e. wow token) ones ?

my assumption: ~7.5mio polished (thats what you see in the quarter report), 3.0.-3.8 the real ones.

[mauserr]

what numbers do you mean ? the real ones or the calculated and scaled ones or the polished (i.e. wow token) ones ?

my assumption: ~7.5mio polished (thats what you see in the quarter report), 3.0.-3.8 the real ones.

Now where the fuck did you come from with whose 3kk subs?