Activision Blizzard Q4 2022 Earnings Results

Originally Posted by qwerty123456

There were tons of reasons why people quit, some didn't like it, some moved on, some did so because they thought Blizzard was letting titty grabbers run rampant, some did because they removed sexy pictures and emotes, some did because thier fav streamer started playing Final Fantasy, etc....

Do you have WoW's retention data? I know Blizzard doesn't release it publicly but you wouldn't just invent reasons for people to quit the game, would you?

The internet is a funny place. You're all communists when it suits you, complaining that the capitalistic concept of 'infinite growth' is impossible and no one should be beholden to it and we should all burn it down rah rah rah.

Then a 20 year old game releases a new update that doesn't sell as well as the 18 year old update and you're all heralding the company's downfall as if this is some kind of unacceptable failure.

I know, I know, reeeee we're not all the same people, but the people who stroke themselves to quarterly earnings reports for companies they don't invest in and plan their whole lives around how they will next discuss the death of a video game are definitely the same people.

Well, yeah, the more people stop playing or refuse to start playing a gain, the quicker you'll whittle the playerbase down to its iron core of monogamers who will literally always continue playing WoW.

That's what I suspect is the case in terms of retention, at least.

Originally Posted by Huntermyth

'' Activision Blizzard increased representation for those who identify as women or non-binary to 26% globally, as of the end of November, versus 24% a year earlier ''

why is this relevant in any way ? why would i care what gender is the game developer / producer ? can anyone enlighten a foreigner ?

We do not care. The gaming industry does. Tbf blizz has always had one of the highest represention of different genders on their team. The issue is that they and ALL gaming companies are under huge screwtiny over this. It is more to show those on their back to piss off about it.

Originally Posted by Yarathir

Well, yeah, the more people stop playing or refuse to start playing a gain, the quicker you'll whittle the playerbase down to its iron core of monogamers who will literally always continue playing WoW.

That's what I suspect is the case in terms of retention, at least.

Well, until you cross another threshold and start losing them. I suspect that's what happened, or started to happen, in SL.

Originally Posted by Yarathir

Well, yeah, the more people stop playing or refuse to start playing a gain, the quicker you'll whittle the playerbase down to its iron core of monogamers who will literally always continue playing WoW.

That's what I suspect is the case in terms of retention, at least.

I actually know a lot of people coming back since they see how good the game has become. DF at its core is actually doing everything right.

Let's just stop considering that SL got released during Corona.

I'm not even saying that many other entertaintment platforms broke thier own records... But still. Let's compare DF to the wierdest time in human history in recent years.

Originally Posted by Relapses

Do you have WoW's retention data? I know Blizzard doesn't release it publicly but you wouldn't just invent reasons for people to quit the game, would you?

Do you not remember all those fucking threads here and on the official forums stating x,y, and z? You claiming people only quit because they moved on is the only person inventing reasons. I guess you are some kind of mind reader and knew all those people were lying.

Originally Posted by Nzx

The internet is a funny place. You're all communists when it suits you, complaining that the capitalistic concept of 'infinite growth' is impossible and no one should be beholden to it and we should all burn it down rah rah rah.

It's possible to both be disappointed that a video game you liked didn't sell as well as you may have wanted and dislike the very stupid system we've designed to measure success by.

Originally Posted by Osmeric

Well, until you cross another threshold and start losing them. I suspect that's what happened, or started to happen, in SL.

I do think there's a certain point where you hit a wall. There's players that literally wouldn't quit, even if their next announcement was literal maintenance mode. They just like their WoW. Those people will probably keep playing until the servers shut down.

Originally Posted by qwerty123456

Do you not remember all those fucking threads here and on the official forums stating x,y, and z? You claiming people only quit because they moved on is the only person inventing reasons.

Ah, so you cannot read. I didn't say that was the only reason, I simply said it's more fair to assume that since implying that it's because of any other reason would require you to have access to information that has never been made public.

Originally Posted by Relapses

I think it's more fair to say that the people who quit in Shadowlands quit because they moved on with their lives and fewer people were enticed by Dragonflight. I know this is surprising, but sometimes people quit playing games for reasons that aren't because they hate them.

This is a phenomenon that's been happening since vanilla so it's a completely irrelevant point to bring up.
It is not a secret however that Shadowlands has been the most disliked expansion ever put out for WoW to date, and that can't be ignored.

Dragonflight however seems to be overall very liked by players, and yet has lower sales, how else do you explain that?

Originally Posted by Utrrabbit

No one expected it to have higher sales than previous xpacs not even blizzard, the one thing thst is important here that people are glossing over is the higher player retention. That is they key figure.

Their numbers could of been high at launch, but witgout retention it does not matter. Seeing players staying engaged and enjoying the game is far more important to blizzard at this time as it draws in more players to come back seeing numbers go up from launch not down.

However this doesn't mean much for first month of an expansion. Saying something BRAND NEW has retention a month later is like saying the grass is green. I'm positive that retention is going to go down for Q1 2023. Also they didn't specifically say the retention has been for Dragonflight just for the subscription; so: what I'd like to see is the statistic behind how many people are only playing classic within those sub numbers because I think that would be an interesting view.

Originally Posted by ONCHEhap

This is a phenomenon that's been happening since vanilla so it's a completely irrelevant point to bring up.
It is not a secret however that Shadowlands has been the most disliked expansion ever put out for WoW to date, and that can't be ignored.

Dragonflight however seems to be overall very liked by players, and yet has lower sales, how else do you explain that?

SL that came out during Corona, where Netflix, HBO, Steam and many other platforms also had thier hay day.

It's not everyday, some 17 year old game breaks the fastest selling game of all time. It litteraly requries a pandemic.

Blizzard are forced to do the comparision in thier QR. But there is a lot of greyspots, when the community is doing the comparison.

Originally Posted by Fitsu

Gamers have evolved and Blizzard hasn't kept with them. Your average gamer now wants more depth, more complexity, more challenge and these are all things Blizzard simply do not offer. All they offer is a tight gameplay experience and in 2023 that just isn't enough anymore.

And that's why Sepulcher was so popular with the community, right?

Originally Posted by Agall

If your previous metric was 10 with retention at 7; vs your current metric is 8 with retention at 6 (as a dumb numerical representation) you're still worse off than before, even with higher retention rates.

And how about the pandemic is 10 and you are about figure out life is 10? Compared to 2/10 pandemic now?

I like this metric system more

Originally Posted by ONCHEhap

This is a phenomenon that's been happening since vanilla so it's a completely irrelevant point to bring up.
It is not a secret however that Shadowlands has been the most disliked expansion ever put out for WoW to date, and that can't be ignored.

source: trust me bro

Originally Posted by ONCHEhap

Dragonflight however seems to be overall very liked by players, and yet has lower sales, how else do you explain that?

I liked Avatar 1 and recently a sequel came out. It is well liked. I didn't go to see Avatar 2 in theaters despite it getting rave reviews. By your logic, I didn't go to see Avatar 2 because I hated Avatar 1. Do you think that's a fair assessment?

Originally Posted by Relapses

Ah, so you cannot read. I didn't say that was the only reason, I simply said it's more fair to assume that since implying that it's because of any other reason would require you to have access to information that has never been made public.

I think it's more fair to say that the people who quit in Shadowlands quit because they moved on with their lives and fewer people were enticed by Dragonflight. I know this is surprising, but sometimes people quit playing games for reasons that aren't because they hate them.

No where do you say there are many reasons infact the way you word it makes it sound like everyone quit because they moved on with their lives. If you had said the majority or something like that then you could say I didn't read properly but you didn't.

And why would it be more fair to assume? Do you have any proof? Why are there constantly threads about quitting for x or y but very rarely a thread stating they are just moving on? Why would it have such low audience ratings if it was just from people moving on?

Also you don't have to tell Blizzard why you quit so why would you assume they know why everyone quit?

Originally Posted by qwerty123456

I think it's more fair to say that the people who quit in Shadowlands quit because they moved on with their lives and fewer people were enticed by Dragonflight. I know this is surprising, but sometimes people quit playing games for reasons that aren't because they hate them.

Being filled with hatred is a great way to move on from a game, though.

When there's a sudden surge in people leaving, it's probably because of the game, not because those people all had synchronized life reevaluations.

Originally Posted by Agall

retention rate =/= retention values. See above.

"If your previous metric was 10 with retention at 7; vs your current metric is 8 with retention at 6 (as a dumb numerical representation) you're still worse off than before, even with higher retention rates."

Not really. It means the quality of the product is increasing because less players on average are leaving than the previous expansion. After all, using your examples, the previous metric had 70% retention rate, while the current metric has a 75% retention rate.

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Originally Posted by qwerty123456

If Shadowlands starts with 100 subscribers and 30 leave after a month (70 active subs)and Dragonflight starts with 50 subscribers and 2 leave after a month(48 active subs) they have retained more players than the previous expansion percentage wise. That doesn't mean Dragonflight definitely has less subs as it could also mean something like Shadowlands 100-30+70 Dragonflight 80-9=71. Since we don't have actual numbers he could be correct that Blizzard is bleeding more subscribers but it could also mean subscribers have mostly leveled out and fewer people try and leave.

This isn't about any given number of subscribers or which expansion has more subscribers. The poster I responded to said that "WoW is still bleeding subs" when we have Blizzard outright saying the expansion's retention rate is higher than the previous expansion's.