10.5 - 11
10 - 10.5
9.5 - 10
9 - 9.5
8.5 - 9
8 - 8.5
7.5 - 8
7 - 7.5
6.5 - 7
<6.5m
Players care about this - not Blizzard. They care about $ at the end of the day.
They did for a long time, and it's super annoying, as this gives Blizzard no motivation to improve in any way (e.g. communications, speed of content delivery, etc).
HOWEVER,
Now that we have WoW Token, a lot of paying subscribers will stop paying and revert to their stashed gold - at least for a bit.
So sub numbers that we are going to get will be skewed by that trend of replacing one with another.
$ however will remain the same (or even MORE in Blizzard's favor), because even if you bought your game time from me with gold, I PAID for your subscription, plus gave them $5 extra.
It's all pretty smart really.
*sigh* Personal experiances, Im seeing far more activity still than I ever saw during MoP :P
However, I feel that the quality of WoD so far has lacked compared to previous xpacs, however 6.2 is looking to be one killer of a patch from what I've tested (didnt want to spoil myself to much).
I fully belive that WoD is the filler for something much bigger, at least I wish to hope so... Blizzard has the capability to be great once more, and I truly hope that the next xpac will be.... well, world of warcraft, these filler xpacs lack that personal feel abit :P
You don't see the direct contradiction here?
I assume Blizzard will include wow token subscriptions in their numbers, (why wouldn't they, it makes the numbers higher?) and as a result there will be an increase in numbers, at least for a while. It means fewer people are paying more money, and that's all it means in the short term. That well will eventually run dry though.
However, not every person behind the account will be "paying". People who might have quit if they had to pay for the content may very well stay if all they have to do is hand over gold.
Before, every active account was a paying account - the perosn holding the account paid. Now, it isn't. The ienvitable result is that subscriber numbers are going to remain high, even if activity within the game drops.
EJL
I don't see that playing a big factor because it came out after Q1 ended. Q1 ended March 31. Token didn't come out for a week and a half into April.
For me, I'd guess that we're going to see about 8.5 million to 9 million if Blizzard is lucky, but I expect to see those numbers down to around 5.5 - 6 million by expansion end. If they continue to deliver such lackluster content and so little of it, they're never going to hold numbers like they used to be able to do. If they want to earn those numbers, they have to earn them by releasing the same quality and quantity they used to, not just fair quality like they are now.
7.5-8 million. QTR 2 they will likely stabilize because of the token then Q3 and 4 the decline kicks back in. I'd bet they drop to 5.5-6 million before WoD is over.
Huge loss for sure.
I'd say 8 mil.
Number surely dropped. Could be bad but even I would be shocked to see them at around 5 million.
The hype around wod was never justified so I wouldn't be surprised about the numbers going down a decent amount.
I'm gonna say 8.8-9.3 million.
Odd range, but my gut yells at me if I go lower or higher than that.
FFXIV - Maduin (Dynamis DC)
"Privilege is invisible to those who have it."
Over 9 million at least.
I am going to go with 8 million. They off set a lot of losses with the Asian market.
11 million. Because why the fuck not?
I was seriously surprised when they held that 10 million last time.
Oh man, the blind faith some of you guys have in Blizzard and thinking that sub numbers will be steady or go up. Thanks for the laughs.