WoW Up to 10 Million Subscribers, Garrison Campaign Quests Active, Nov 19 Hotfixes

Originally Posted by Dastreus

So is this counting trial accounts? I mean... they DID run ad campaigns for WoD more than they did MoP, and that'd definitely spike trial subscription counts. What I want to see is the numbers for next quarter.

About 3 million posts over the last 9.5 years have been made to explain trial accounts are and were never included in the definition of WOW's subscriptions. So obviously they are not.

If you want to see the numbers for next quarter, they will probably be the same (or more) as most Eastern countries are just launching ... today.

Also Blizzard starts with the PvP and Raid season in early December, so I doubt many people will just leave through Dec/Jan.

Besides if you are this sick over the fact WOW is back on the 10.000.000 mark, perhaps it is better to leave this planet until at least 2017 as 2016 will be THE year of WOW with the movie incoming and of course a new expansion following it in its trail.

This thread and the number of people saying "pfft whatever this happens every expansion launch" has me convinced that an alarming number of MMO-Champion readers don't actually know how to read charts. Because no, a 3 million subscriber bump leading up to an expansion has NEVER happened. Not even close. In this game's 10 year history, it is in fact WoW's largest quarter-to-quarter subscriber growth EVER. The game took a year to even get its first 3 million subscribers. This is...shocking. World of Warcraft might be the most mysterious game to ever exist. Its appeal defies conventional wisdom.

Originally Posted by Brooxi

I canceled my account and got a refund on my preorder of WOD after I was prevent from playing by blizzard locking my server. I didn't preorder WOD to sit in a queue all day and be prevented from playing.

I wonder how many others did the same.

You were the only one ....

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Originally Posted by Nekosom

This thread and the number of people saying "pfft whatever this happens every expansion launch" has me convinced that an alarming number of MMO-Champion readers don't actually know how to read charts. Because no, a 3 million subscriber bump leading up to an expansion has NEVER happened. Not even close. In this game's 10 year history, it is in fact WoW's largest quarter-to-quarter subscriber growth EVER. The game took a year to even get its first 3 million subscribers. This is...shocking. World of Warcraft might be the most mysterious game to ever exist. Its appeal defies conventional wisdom.

A tiny but important point here: we ARE talking about subscriptions, not even players.

While other games (COD included with its Elite service) did not even manage to keep the subscriptions going after one or two years...

This game boosted its SUBCRIPTIONS with 3 million after 10 years ...

And it is not even the end as I am quite sure the 12 million records will be broken in the next expansion ... when the Warcraft movie hits in 2016...

Jokingly had that number in my head. While is an interesting sight, I am more interested in how stable those numbers will be. Makes me also wonder what brought players back if it was the story, the return of engaging content, or all of the above.

Originally Posted by Henkdejager

This explains the crappy servers tho. Yet i do question, how did they manage to keep it up back in wrath ?

More server resource consuming tech on top of keeping high population realms available for transfer even ones that saw queues. High population realms continually draw in players from lower population realms to replace players who left. When players return especially in numbers like that, there will be a large conflict. To a point this is still Blizzards fault. Those realms would have already had issues at launch with Blizzards poor management and poor management with greed went to bite both Blizzard and customers in the ass.

Originally Posted by BenBos

You were the only one ....

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A tiny but important point here: we ARE talking about subscriptions, not even players.

While other games (COD included with its Elite service) did not even manage to keep the subscriptions going after one or two years...

This game boosted its SUBCRIPTIONS with 3 million after 10 years ...

And it is not even the end as I am quite sure the 12 million records will be broken in the next expansion ... when the Warcraft movie hits in 2016...

what growth? WoW peaked at the start of cataclysm, it jsut reached the MOP numbers at start and also tells the story that when it goes for so long without content ppl drop subs.

obligatory, wow is going to die post

Someone point me to the post where Jaylock's head actually explodes please.

Originally Posted by iceberg265

I find this very hard to believe, congrats to Blizzard if its true though, very nice accomplishment.

There would be very serious legal repercussions if they lied. It just wouldn't happen. They're a corporation with legal obligations to the government and their shareholders. It doesn't matter that the products they sell are "just" video games, the laws about reporting their income and sales are the same as for any other company.

TLDR: While the initial launch was awful WoD is bloody brilliant!!! WoW isn't dead, long way off.

I think the WOW movie is going to have a huge effect. If they really pull off the 50%human and 50%orc storylines. There will be a whole new generation that never heard of the OvH intial games. They could easily have all time high subscribers.

10 million but 3.3 mil buy the expansion? That doesn't add up.

Actually read the post. It says there were ONLY 3.3m Purchases of WOD.

That means there are 3.3m Real Subscribers + 6.7m Free-to-Play 'Chinese' Accounts.

Back in TBC before they had launched their Chinese version of the game they had 11 million REAL subscribers.

So as I read it WOW is DOWN 70% on historical fully paid subscription levels.

Originally Posted by Expat

Actually read the post. It says there were ONLY 3.3m Purchases of WOD.

That means there are 3.3m Real Subscribers + 6.7m Free-to-Play 'Chinese' Accounts.

Back in TBC before they had launched their Chinese version of the game they had 11 million REAL subscribers.

So as I read it WOW is DOWN 70% on historical fully paid subscription levels.

OR maybe there are subs that haven't bought WoD, for various reasons.

Originally Posted by Expat

Actually read the post. It says there were ONLY 3.3m Purchases of WOD.

That means there are 3.3m Real Subscribers + 6.7m Free-to-Play 'Chinese' Accounts.

Back in TBC before they had launched their Chinese version of the game they had 11 million REAL subscribers.

So as I read it WOW is DOWN 70% on historical fully paid subscription levels.

Horseshit.

In its first month, TBC sold 3.5 million copies. The game had 8 million subscribers then.

Originally Posted by Expat

Actually read the post. It says there were ONLY 3.3m Purchases of WOD.

That means there are 3.3m Real Subscribers + 6.7m Free-to-Play 'Chinese' Accounts.

Back in TBC before they had launched their Chinese version of the game they had 11 million REAL subscribers.

So as I read it WOW is DOWN 70% on historical fully paid subscription levels.

Or 6.7 million havent bought the xpac yet for many different reasons? Talk about jumping to conclusions based on little evidence. These numbers probably dont even count China as they just got the xpac yesterday over there.

Originally Posted by Expat

Actually read the post. It says there were ONLY 3.3m Purchases of WOD.

That means there are 3.3m Real Subscribers + 6.7m Free-to-Play 'Chinese' Accounts.

Back in TBC before they had launched their Chinese version of the game they had 11 million REAL subscribers.

So as I read it WOW is DOWN 70% on historical fully paid subscription levels.

Blizzard Entertainment today announced that as of the first 24 hours of the expansion's availability, more than 3.3 million copies had sold-through

As I read it ...
That is the issue, that statement is very ambiguous.
One possible interpretation could be those sales happened during the 24 hours AFTER release, ie availability of the actual expansion content.
It isn't making it clear one way or another what it actually means.
Stop with the stupid bashing and unfounded accusations, and actually find something to support that first.

Originally Posted by Vargur

OR maybe there are subs that haven't bought WoD, for various reasons.

That would be a very small minority. 3.5 Mil subscribers in NA and Europe isn't that impressive.

Originally Posted by Tennisace

That would be a very small minority. 3.5 Mil subscribers in NA and Europe isn't that impressive.

That would be the majority. A minority of subscribers get the expansion this early. This has always been true, ever since TBC.

Originally Posted by Tennisace

That would be a very small minority. 3.5 Mil subscribers in NA and Europe isn't that impressive.

Some people dont upgrade or even know there is a xpac. Thats why they have the splash screen in game now if you dont upgrade. It does happen probably more than you think. Not everyone even knows there is a patch most times. Trade chat on patch days is evidence of this.

Originally Posted by Azrile

It does include China players who were playing MoP for the last month
It does not include players from china who have not subscribed in the last 30 days, but will likely play in the day when WoD is released.

Probably the majority of china players are accounted for in that 10M, but there still could be a significant bump if there were a lot of them who haven´t logged in during the past 30 days.

The Chinese release schedule had never been this close to the worldwide release in history. This is the probably most relevant reason why the figure went up so much higher than usual. More than the ads, more than the 7 free days, more than the 50% discount, more than the lvl 90s or any other promotions anyone else talks about.

It is the closest release schedule for WoW China in constrast to earlier expansions. Its only days now instead of a delay of multiple months. The figures are from 13.11 and the Chinese release (and all other delayed Asian) was scheduled to 20.11.. Even 6.0 was speed up and released within the same week in China, which also leads perfectly to why pre expansion figures went up on the upper end of realisitc expectations.

People in China don't behave much different than we do and the activity rises already weeks before the launch with every expansion. They have the same hot topic how to best prepare for the expansion as we do. They are fed the same hype and ads as we are. Same for all other Asian countries. They don't continue to be bored and quit without any carrot before their nose until the last minute before the expansion. They don't just all pop up active on release day or later. Logins yes. That is shooting up just like ours. But not longe term activity. The uphill trend when closing into any expansion is something everyone caluclates with. It's in the subs. It's on all statistics. It's obvious when fanboys talk about the increasing number of high and full server again.

The difference is usually they have months delay before their expansion is released. Which adds less to the U.S. launch before the U.S. honeymoon phase is over.