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

Originally Posted by Karagar

Citation Needed.

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Err..if this is an official financial report Blizzard CAN'T lie about sub. numbers in it without people going to jail for fraud...and unless the executive/financial people at Blizzard have been drinking copious amounts of lead-based paint I really doubt they're that stupid.

i think what was meant was that these figures are a month or two out of date - the sub count would only have dropped in that time. granted, not THAT much but its still troubling.

That's quite a big chunk of players, around 7-8%. While it's clear that no game can last forever, I really think Blizzard were too passive and self-confident and the changes they've done in MoP just came too late. In the end WoW has always kept people playing because of friends, and now it's a domino effect that can't be stopped.

Personally I started playing with some friends again to check out the new expansion, but really we're just waiting for the Elder Scrolls MMO.

I honestly, felt like WOTLK hit the sweet spot.

Seperate raid lockouts for both 10 and 25 man meant I could raid 25 man with my guild and 10 man with friends, without having pressure to have an alt.
the "emblem" system, gave a small advantage to the 'hardcore' raiders who could clear everything fast and in the week.

I simply can not imagine a 25-man pug any more (which used to happen a lot) for any alt I had, and they were really fun to do.
Wintergrasp was damn awesome. VoA was something everybody wanted, unfortunately we don't have this in MoP and I don't think the alternative in cata was widely taken to.

The community has been absolutely destroyed. There was no need for LFR when 10-mans back then filled this kind of 'hole' and you had the positive of even being able to pug a 25-man and get the 'top' loot. You can only dream of that now. I'd like to say LFD was a part of this, but I also feel that due to it not being the actual end objective, it didn't really matter. Everyone PvE orientated wants to raid, not always do dungeons.

Not many prestigious mounts and titles now either, people want stuff to aim for and show off.

Just how I personally feel. Blizzard have taken things out their own game and failed to provide cement to then fill the holes they left. The only thing I've really been impressed with was the brawlers guild. Who honestly is really happy about quest hubs being developed? In WOTLK we had one mandatory grind and then it was over, the rest came with doing the raids.

If anything it was the hardcore raiders becoming bored at the end of this and perhaps waiting until next tier or making alts. Everyone else had a lot to aim for PvE wise.

Originally Posted by Rioo

but really we're just waiting for the Elder Scrolls MMO.

Isn't everyone just waiting for ESO?

Originally Posted by Wildtree

If my memory doesn't cheat on me...
Isn't it that Blizzards connection timeline to larger corporation is rather this:
It was Vivendi to put money into Blizzard at first, to fund their ability to increase their production teams? Activision came in later..
Now if my memory is correct, this development is then rather negative, since it seems to put Blizzard even more entangled with ATVI. I wish one had more insight into the business structure behind the scenes, and the possibility of whether Blizzard had the financial ability of breaking entirely free without having to answer to any partners.

Without hard data, the speculation over why the subs are lost really became a moot point.

Small changes may help though to stop this somehow...
The 50% valor buff... For Christs sake make this truly account wide, not just affecting toons on the same realm. It may actually help with reanimation of dead realms where still tons of currently abandoned toons exist. Finalize the system to make players able to send account wide mails cross realm. If I could send stuff to that old TBC toon I haven't played in ages anymore, I may actually play it again.. (that's an example, not a subjective demand. I have no TBC toon I haven't played in a while lol)

In fact, stop the nonsense of paid character transfer. It is nowadays a nonsense. It used to be justified to pay for it, because it involved a lot more work.
Nowadays it's a perfected system that ends in toons being moved in less than 15 minutes. Make realm transfers free for toons, and at the same time close high pop realms down, so they can no longer be overpopulated because everyone and their grandma wants to move there, since it's trendy to be on that realm.

If there is anything on the technical part of the game I see as the most negative impact then it's this:
The game is getting close to 10 years anniversary. With that said, stop the ongoing nonsense of class balancing. Stop listening to the QQ and demands of nerfing and buffing.
I am a professional IRL. I do my job, and I know my craft. I have a skill set. If after almost 10 years I still do not know my skills, I am not a professional...
Coming from there, after almost 10 years a constant class/spec balancing, with countless changes almost daily, is a very bad thing. That's unprofessional, that's a very bad performance. This aspect should long be a non-issue.
There will never be any true balance. And there shouldn't be one. Classes and specs should be unique from one another. Not everyone needs the same tools. Not everyone needs the same abilities. So instead of tinkering with the classes and specs, tinker with the content we mastering. We have 11 classes, now if - for example - a raid has 11 bosses, and each encounter gives an edge to one of the classes, at the end of the day, all classes are treated equally, and no one can bitch about how they are treated like an unwanted step child.
Why am I pointing this out? Because the majority of the players aren't geeks and nerds. They play the game for fun and leisure. They don't want to relearn their toons every few month. Playing WOW effectively requires a lot of work outside the actual game. This was always true, but it's a lot more work and study today as it was in older days.
And that is a bad thing.

THIS !!
But unfotunatly for as there ar still ppl in charge like Ghostcravler whu lost the conection with the game loong loong time ago .Its there lives and its them whu be unemployed soon(Devs),Diablo had Jay and we have GC but we can alwais find another thing to do

Originally Posted by moveth

Inc uninformed people thinking they know what this means.

If you know there are uninformed people, please, inform us! Tell us what we should know about another quarter with less people paying for a thing than before!

When WoW ends it will rise again. The PHONEIX shall rise from it's ashes as player ran versions of the game!

Originally Posted by Kilpi

I think Activision is worse than EA. EA don't publish all kinds of rubbish just for a chance of a few bucks (Activision's Deadpool as recent example).

are you trying to say the deadpool game wasnt good? because thats bullshit

I really loathe the "X is still huge" argument.

Well yes, compared to every other competitor 7.7 million is, but nonetheless it's a steady decline since the beginning of Cataclysm. And compared to the 12 million high, the shit hit the fan a long time ago.

I couldn't care less about subscription numbers. They will keep rolling out product as long as they have subscribers and I will enjoy the game as long as they keep rolling out the content.
I mean shit...it's $14 per month. Sometimes I spend that on a shot and a beer as soon as I walk into the pub on the weekend.

atleast there seems to be alot less haters this time.

maybe we wont have a million threads about this for a month

Truth be told. I never did much research on Vivendi. I always though that it was activisions bitch and that they are letting activision hold the reins. this buyout of vivendi's shares just makes it official. but form seeing the bull that the two companies are doing, running the gaming industry like a business with the only goal of making money and not also trying to make the games they make true interesting and unique sucks. I mean compared to most other games that score around 60-75 on average. activisions games only score around 45-65 on average.

The fact of the matter is that they only rate the success or their games based on the money it earns them not the score and a acclaim. Look at the prototype series great series that would have earned them a massive profit. but nooo. Those short sighted idiots close down radical entertainment along with the other game developing companies like Bizarre Creations and Raven Software. Developers that produces games that score around 80 mark.

Sure WoW still has tons of subscribers and all, but the real question in my opinion is: When will the day that activison finally sucks blizz dry and toss it aside come? That my concern about blizz if it can't fight back at activision and establish it own independence before it's too late it's as good as dead.

lets see if blizzard can fix this with the next expansion. Because mop is not really good for us old wow players, its too calm and peaceful and fluffy.

They already said long time ago that Mop is "calm before the storm"-expansion, so next we should have something bigger than just pandaria with pandas.

oh noes! : /

The game is old, and I had been subscribed for almost 8 years. Financial times were tough, I unsubbed. I don't see myself coming back. Most friends are gone, the game has lost its luster. The game grew too big, and too many of the people who saw it when it was small abandoned it. I genuinely think so. Now, many of the devs don't understand the underpinnings of the game that kept its players going and attracted more than it pushed away. So we're here. People leave, more people leave because their friends leave, and so on.

But I can at least say that the first few years of WoW, I genuinely enjoyed the game. Just a shame it has turned into a boring timesink, now.

I don't know if that is good or bad news. I just wish Blizzard could buy themselves out of the merger with Activision. But seeing as World of WarCraft, their most profitable product, is steadily declining on profitability, I can't see that happenening. Then again, maybe Kotick will think that WoW's fad is over, and try to get rid of the "dead weight of the company that does not make Call of Duties," and Blizzard can get themselves free once more after decades, to produce their games without "guidance and suggestions from above." And that way all the silliness of trying to milk customers, with subpar products even can stop. And we can get some good old genuine Blizzard games once again. One can still hope at least

As for WoW's decline, as I have said before: they doomed themselves the moment they decided to develop new content only for those interested in instanced content (group/raid dungeons, battlegrounds, arenas, scenarios); because it is easier, and cheaper, to develop for. Yet that way they left the vast majority of the players with no content. An open-world role-playing game with very little actual open-world role-playing content: from six main campaigns in vanilla to only two in the expansions, from almost fourty zones in vanilla to only 8(!) in the expansions, and so on. They tried to cheat their way forward, and bribe casual players with shiny rewards instead of content. It workd for some years, but even the rewards started to lose their appeal; and the players just leave. If only they kept producing as much content for each expansion as vanilla had... but "ifs" don't have much practical application.

Well, this is natural, Wow is on decline, it doesn't mean the game is going to die anytime soon, but all that you can see now is less people is playing
the game every quarter, so, probably with a new expansion will gain some subs but, will decline more over time, the game is old, but blizzard know
this cow has alot of milk, so in my thoughts game industry will have to deal with WoW for at least 3-4 more years, enough for 2 more expansions.

But Blizzard will have to show their quality soon enough with good games, Titan as wow successor, will need to be a amazing game, but honestly
even blizzard will get the hit on another games because wow is and eventually was so succesful.

Can't say I'm really shocked that subs are still declining. Still a high number of players but a leak in any bucket needs to be fixed.

I give it less than a year and this game will adopt something similar to Free 2 Play with a flourishing cash shop. Hell, the base for F2P shop is there now, less than a year and it will be a full cash shop. Blizzard is always slow to the table but they do iron out most of the kinks others games stumble with.

as soon as the next patch most will be back, just like each patch or expansion

Tbh I'm surprised its not more than that....
Actuall subs are prolly even less concidering stolen/hacked accounts