WoW Down to 7.7 Million Subscribers, Activision Blizzard Purchases Vivendi's Shares

It's the summer...I think you can always expect numbers to decline this time of year.

Originally Posted by Maccann

... and even the world 1st race this time lasted a month (only icc took longer due to LK beeing over tunned)

actually LK was gated and also had the attempt system crap.

Originally Posted by docterfreeze

Honestly never heard of that, I hear people blaming activision more than anything, and I would too. Activision is probably right up there with EA for most greedy gaming company.

I always said "it's blizzard's fault"

Originally Posted by Maccann

to all those people that say that the game is too casual and easy now, how many of you have killed lei shen heroic? or even jinrock on heroic? yeah thought so. the raids are as hard as ever, and even the world 1st race this time lasted a month (only icc took longer due to LK beeing over tunned)

But that's bullshit.

TBC took a lot longer than a month and ICC was gated so it isn't really a worthwhile comparison

Sinking ship for both stock owners and WoW fanboys

Would say them starting to play around with the blizzard store, and let people use it from ingame is a clear sign they are getting closer to free 2 play or atleast lowering the cost per month.

Originally Posted by Rippet

and the reason for that is the blizzard store...
you're already making people pay 13 euro a month
but if you wanna have a ugly transmog helm you'll have to pay another 12 !
or a unique mount another 20 !

I've also heard or read somewhere on a website they're gonna add pay for extra xp boosts to lvl up quicker & pay for more Charms of lesser good so you don't have to do dailies anymore... ( apperently this is going to be tested on the Korean servers) anyways if they do this they just anal raped their own game.

"An investment group that includes Bobby Kotick and Brian Kelly, who put up $100 million together, as well as Tencent and other partners is purchasing 172 million shares for $2.3 billion. This group will own 24.9% of the company." And with Tencent as a shareholder now, these are not going to go away any time soon, sadly.

Originally Posted by Maccann

to all those people that say that the game is too casual and easy now, how many of you have killed lei shen heroic? or even jinrock on heroic? yeah thought so. the raids are as hard as ever, and even the world 1st race this time lasted a month (only icc took longer due to LK beeing over tunned)

What do heroic modes have to do with the success of the game?! Do you realise how small a portion of the playerbase actually gives a damn about raiding? Do you understand that if WoW was catering to "raiders" it would never have surpassed even half a million subscriptions? It's the casuals that made the game the frantic success that is has been, and still is. Those "poor scrubs that run around doing quests and don't know how to even socket gems," not the "ultra-cool shinies-equipped from top-to-bottom wannabe pro raiders." And if Blizzard catered to those casuals instead of the elitists, maybe the game would still be above 10 million subscriptions. It's the focus on raiding and instanced PvP, at the expense of open-world role-playing content, that made the game boring for most players. Not "heroic Lei Shen."

Originally Posted by Rippet

and the reason for that is the blizzard store...
you're already making people pay 13 euro a month
but if you wanna have a ugly transmog helm you'll have to pay another 12 !
or a unique mount another 20 !

I've also heard or read somewhere on a website they're gonna add pay for extra xp boosts to lvl up quicker & pay for more Charms of lesser good so you don't have to do dailies anymore... ( apperently this is going to be tested on the Korean servers) anyways if they do this they just anal raped their own game.

Please tell me how something OPTIONAL is killing the game? Don't like it? Then DON'T fucking purchase anything from the store, it's not hard.

i can see the subs stabilizing around 8 mil by the 3rd quarter. except for a couple of bad and very specific class changes everything else looks amazing, especially flex raiding and all that. it will bring all those thousands of players without guild or struggling guilds with members between 10-24 together.

Would love to see WoW's sub numbers without all the botting accounts active.

And as for the whole shares crap...

http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain...sion-blizzard/

It is also to much of a hazzle for new players to get started I think, it is going to cost them quite a lot. And then they need to get to max lvl, and then catch up to the current content before the game really begins.

People are crazy to think they would go free to play yet though, WoW is still a big cash cow after all.

Originally Posted by TylerN

It is also to much of a hazzle for new players to get started I think, it is going to cost them quite a lot. And then they need to get to max lvl, and then catch up to the current content before the game really begins.

People are crazy to think they would go free to play yet though, WoW is still a big cash cow after all.

I'd say some of the most fun I had in WoW was through leveling up and exploring.

Most players don't come into the game thinking "I need to get max level as quickly as I can"

Originally Posted by Mormolyce

Ugh now I have to hear about the sub decline for months.

Hey guys I have a pet hate in the game I'm going to blame the sub loss entirely on that and act as if that's justified.

My feelings exactly. Incoming wall of "WoW is dying because of <x>" threads.

Not surprised. I think they are suffering due to the child like nature of this expansion.

Frankly this isn't all because of MoP (but that didn't help) but because for the first time in a long time WoW is starting to show it's age and limitations. There is also the death by 1000 cuts as well since there are now a lot of very good MMO's out and more in the near horizon that now can be said are "next gen". That wasn't the case when Wrath or even when Cata was out.

Originally Posted by Tidehoof

Not surprised. I think they are suffering due to the child like nature of this expansion.

It's child-like? Hmm...doesn't feel that way to me. I guess the pet battle crap could be childish...but i'm not forced to do it so I don't.

When will people realize sub drop is nothing new. It's near the end of an expansion. It will skyrocket again next expansion, then slowly drop off over the course of that one too. It has done this every single expansion...

People get the game back, get bored and take breaks. The game isn't dying (even if those sub drops were perm, 7.7m is like 7m more than any other sub MMO)...

Originally Posted by Theupsman

Ok, dunno where you get you data...but hardcore players are the minority and always have been. If blizz could choose to lose ALL the hardcore players but retain ALL the casual players, they would be in a much better position.

You're missing a major point.

If the game becomes so easy (which it has) casuals will be able to be done with the content fast.

Why play after you've cleared all the content?

I don't consider myself hardcore or casual i'm kind of in between. I can tell you without batting a eye i can come back every patch and can be done with all the new content they put out within 3-5 hours did you see what i said 3-5 hours that's CRAZY. I am excluding that joke patch Isle of thunder, dailys as content that's a laugh on its own. They've just made everything so easy to obtain. There is absolutely no point to keep playing for me after i do this.

Back in BC the game wasn't super damn hard but it was a lot harder. I enjoyed playing the entire xpac I saw every raid, i did every boss outside Illadin. I was not mad that i didn't see Illadin, i don't know where this "Let people see content" thing came from. If you're just handed the content than there is no sense of accomplishment. The heroics were challenging enough to make the casual players feel like they accomplished something clearing a heroic for a epic off the last boss was very rewarding.

I hate to break it to you but people are greedy, they want to do things for themselves, that's what the feeling of accomplishment does for people. If you're clearing all this content and don't get the feeling that "I did this I'm a God" than you don't got a very good game anymore.

only 600k loss? Ghostcrawler is clearly doing his job!

Originally Posted by Salech

guild wars 2 have 2-3 million logging in every day to play, yeah it's not subscriptions but it is quite abit, and sub based MMO's are far and few between now really.

Is there a source for that? I liketo follow the VG business, but I havent't seen evidence of a number that high. Last I had seen was that GW2 total sales had hit 3 million, not daily logins.

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Originally Posted by xenogear3

Sinking ship for both stock owners and WoW fanboys

The stock is up massively on this news today. Try again.