View Poll Results: How many subs will be cancelled by the end of MoP?

Voters
1131. This poll is closed
  • 0 people will have canceled

    316 27.94%
  • Less than 500,000

    223 19.72%
  • 500,000 - 1,000,000

    188 16.62%
  • 1,000,001 - 2,000,000

    156 13.79%
  • 2,000,001 - 3,000,000

    90 7.96%
  • More than 3,000,000

    158 13.97%
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  1. #241
    Quote Originally Posted by BenBos View Post
    But the latest in game graph shows ... an increase ... even before MoP launched ...

    )) Of course : another Blizzard game launched in that same period: one that sold 10.000.000 copies in May and June (you can see the influence right there on the graph).

    http://www.warcraftrealms.com/weekly...hp?serverid=-1

    BEFORE that: WOW subs were stable at around 10-10.5 million...

    The graph shows the influence of D3. Nothing more nothing less... The latest report of 9.1 M was from that same period. You can surely see the UPWARD trend
    Benny, my friend Ben you just don't read more than a few posts at a time do you?

    I have stated throughout this thread I expect the numbers to show an initial upturn (increase). I have admitted that many times. However I expect the downward trend to continue by the end.

    I cant get much more clear than I have been.

    But I see you won't let go until you "win" even though that would be impossible unless you can provide us with irrefutable empirical data from the end of MoP numbers right now in September 2012, only a few days after launch.

    So I am going to no longer respond because it's feeding your emotions and you're posting things that later may make you look to be foolish. So I bid you adieu for the evening.

  2. #242
    @BenBos

    I don't care if the game start with 9 million subscribers or 10 million subscribers or 11, next call they will obviously tell us that numbers have gone up because that's the way it works with every expansion. However, the months before next expansion there will be a decline. Can you deny that or are you sure that Blizzard will keep it's playerbase at 12m subs give or take 1m for MoP's duration?

  3. #243
    People that are playing WoW will probably not want to quit.

  4. #244
    Quote Originally Posted by Exroyal View Post
    @BenBos

    I don't care if the game start with 9 million subscribers or 10 million subscribers or 11, next call they will obviously tell us that numbers have gone up because that's the way it works with every expansion. However, the months before next expansion there will be a decline. Can you deny that or are you sure that Blizzard will keep it's playerbase at 12m subs give or take 1m for MoP's duration?
    I only pointed out that the IN game stats (albeit with bad undersampling I know) shows an increase that is comparable to March 2012 figures.

    http://www.warcraftrealms.com/weekly...hp?serverid=-1

    So this graph explains one thing: the influence of another Blizzard game during that period (logical).

    So ... we have here a small proof that the 10.2 million were a downward trend of the 12 million over 2 years, but the 9.1 million was a hic up due to the launch of the 10.000.000 copies sold for Diablo 3.

    The question is: what will the player numbers be in 2014 ?

    I don't know. If Blizzard includes a global subscription together with other games (like Titan), the subscriptions could go up like a rocket. You talk about players ? What if they introduce a free to play method, a combo sub, an RMAH ?

    The problem is that people tend to believe that the player numbers are a reflexion of in game mechanics.

    That's simply not true: the market can change, the competition might falter, might increase and ____ PROOF ABOVE --- Blizzard own games are a MUCH bigger competition than any competitor.

    So in the END:

    With the CROSS REALM OPEN WORLD mechanics: these discussions are rather meaningless as WOW will ALWAYS have millions to unite on their servers.

    WOW surpassed the limits of single realm play with MoP. You simply do not understand it yet ...

    A game with cross realm play will always last much longer than single realm MMO's, the rest is marketing.


    ----
    So the lack of an UP in players by the OP is odd as Blizzard could use a complete different strategy to up the number of players with ease...

    Combo subs with Titan, free to play, RMAH, free to play with in game publicity etc ...
    Last edited by BenBos; 2012-09-26 at 11:54 PM.

  5. #245
    Quote Originally Posted by BenBos View Post
    Not impressed.

    http://www.warcraftrealms.com/weekly...hp?serverid=-1

    PROVES that the 9 million number was clearly ONLY due to the 10.000.000 copies launch of Diablo 3...
    Except they said there were losses in China in Q2 2012, and not only does China not have D3, WCR doesn't track them.
    "There is a pervasive myth that making content hard will induce players to rise to the occasion. We find the opposite. " -- Ghostcrawler
    "The bit about hardcore players not always caring about the long term interests of the game is spot on." -- Ghostcrawler
    "Do you want a game with no casuals so about 500 players?"

  6. #246
    Quote Originally Posted by Osmeric View Post
    Except they said there were losses in China in Q2 2012, and not only does China not have D3, WCR doesn't track them.
    You read wrong.

    They said WOW lost subs in the EAST. Korea and Taiwan are part of that too.

    Diablo 3 was played massively over there and still is. And btw a LOT of Chinese play on Taiwan servers (there are even Chinese Diablo cafes as mentioned on Diablofan.com)

    But the graph is pretty clear: D3 has had a huge impact on WOW activity.

    And the Sep WOW activity before the MoP launch has reached the same levels as Mar again...
    Last edited by BenBos; 2012-09-27 at 12:23 AM.

  7. #247
    I am Murloc! Kevyne-Shandris's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by BenBos View Post
    I only pointed out that the IN game stats (albeit with bad undersampling I know) shows an increase that is comparable to March 2012 figures.
    Now compare it to the stats from even the summer (the slowest time in WoW) with WotLK. WotLK still had more players playing (yeah, as we could have 3AM 25man raids).

    Ever since the numbers have been declining. The worst drop came almost the next day of Ghostcrawler's "l2p" blog post.

    Like with SOE, it's apparent in all these games, if the devs come off as arrogant gamers leave enmasse.
    From the #1 Cata review on Amazon.com: "Blizzard's greatest misstep was blaming players instead of admitting their mistakes.
    They've convinced half of the population that the other half are unskilled whiners, causing a permanent rift in the community."


  8. #248
    Pandaren Monk Edison's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Snarebusta View Post
    Over 3 million. A tiered subscription model with F2P coming during the end of 2013.
    lol they would have to lose about 99% of their subs to go F2P. Keep wishing tho.
    I thought I did, but apparently I don't

    If you die you die but if you don't die you still die.

  9. #249
    Quote Originally Posted by Kevyne-Shandris View Post
    Now compare it to the stats from even the summer (the slowest time in WoW) with WotLK. WotLK still had more players playing (yeah, as we could have 3AM 25man raids).

    Ever since the numbers have been declining. The worst drop came almost the next day of Ghostcrawler's "l2p" blog post.

    Like with SOE, it's apparent in all these games, if the devs come off as arrogant gamers leave enmasse.
    The graph I put up above shows that MARKETING had more impact than player content.

    http://www.warcraftrealms.com/weekly...hp?serverid=-1

    You see the dip in May/June ? : Launch of Diablo 3: 10.000.000 copies sold... WOW activity dropped in game.

    You see the surge in Apr ? Call back program: you got a brand new lvl 80 for free...

    You see IN game troubles are very rarely a cause of drop in player activity. Players adapt.

    Far more influence comes from marketing and overall market factors.

    Also very curious that WCR shows Diablo had a MUCH bigger impact that GW2. You can see slightly the GW2 impact in Sep, but those 1M losses were certainly due to D3 launch.

    That's why I say that this tread is meaningless: Blizzard could announce an in game publicity and stop subscriptions and the number of players would rocket.

    At the same time when Blizzard will announce their new free DOTA game, you'll see a huge drop.

    ---

    But in the end: with the new regrouping of players through CS play, all this discussion is meaningless as WOW is complete independant these days of player numbers: the days you only play with 2 K players of your server are gone for good. So 5, 7, 9 or 100M: cross server play avoids all player problems in the future.

    Also the graph shows that WOW INCREASED its in game activity (players) in the last 3 months significantly. So with the next expansion coming, I don't see a further drop this year. The rest is marketing.
    Last edited by BenBos; 2012-09-27 at 12:58 AM.

  10. #250
    I am Murloc! Kevyne-Shandris's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by BenBos View Post
    You see IN game troubles are very rarely a cause of drop in player activity. Players adapt.
    http://s970.photobucket.com/albums/a...s-02082012.png

    'nuff said.
    From the #1 Cata review on Amazon.com: "Blizzard's greatest misstep was blaming players instead of admitting their mistakes.
    They've convinced half of the population that the other half are unskilled whiners, causing a permanent rift in the community."


  11. #251
    Subs lost or gain will depen on how other patch will goes

    They lost subs during cata because they dropped the ball at 4.1

  12. #252
    Quote Originally Posted by Dch48 View Post
    I completely disagree with the "state of serious decline" statement. While I do agree that even a 5 million base would still be very profitable and enough to keep the game going indefinitely, WoW is far from being in a condition that serious. I look for sub numbers of 10.5 million at the end of MoP and maybe even a peak of 11 during it's run.

    I am one of those who had no problems with the last two content patches of Cata as well. The Firelands patch was excellent with a new hub, new pet taming challenges for us Hunters and a very good and challenging raid even in normal mode. I would say that Rag was a little too hard though and should have been toned down some. The only thing I found wrong with Dragon Soul again had to do with Rag in Firelands. It was odd that the main enemy of the whole Xpac was easier to take down than Ragnaros was. If they would have toned Rag down however, that anomaly would not have existed. All things considered, I would say those last 2 patches actually saved Cata after the big mistake Blizz made in ramping up difficulty in the initial end game content you saw after the awesome leveling experience. It was like being at full speed and raring to go and running straight into a brick wall. Yes, the 5 man Heroics were too easy in WotLK. I did most of them before even doing the normal modes, but the ones in Cata were far too difficult at first. They have said that the ones in MoP will be somewhere in between and that sounds good to me. I am really sick of reading how the last two patches of Cata were bad and were responsible for the decline in sub numbers when any thinking person knows that it was due far more to the combination of the launch of D3 coupled with boredom caused by the overly long wait for MoP to arrive. More than half of the ones who temporarily unsubbed will be back and from what I'm seeing and reading, maybe already have returned.

    For me the biggest thing they did wrong in Cata was the combined raid lockouts for 10 and 25 man versions. They seem to be continuing that and I still feel it is a mistake.

    ---------- Post added 2012-09-26 at 05:42 PM ----------

    It most certainly is not and there should be another option for up to a million gained.
    I didn't mean serious decline as in ragnarok is upon WoW. I meant it as in that WoW is in fact in decline. You don't lose as many subs as WoW did within a year and not have a decline.

    As for the bold, this is MMO-Champion. This horrible website is king for having a volatile community who say all manner of things. Just look at Rorcanna who posted earlier in the thread: Rorcanna for the longest time did NOTHING but herald GW2 as the messiah, and now look; his "new" messiah is World of Warcraft.

    Just wait for the technical data when it is finally released; assumptions can always lead to disaster.

  13. #253
    I don't think MoP can really save the game. I WANT it to, but the game is aging, and people are growing tired of it. I'd say a 1-2M loss in subscribers across the expansion. Just general boredom and lack of inspiration. I can see the same issues we saw in cataclysm being repeated in MoP.

  14. #254
    I am Murloc! Conscious's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by BenBos View Post
    Or to make it easy on you ... will you substract 2 M from 9M (already up by now) or 2M by the new number in November (probably 11M as it already shows a 10 M trend BEFORE the actual launch )....?
    Hate to burst your bubble, but those numbers are in the hundreds of thousands, not millions.

    Also, that activity is well within the average it seems. Nothing special here.

  15. #255
    Quote Originally Posted by Edison View Post
    lol they would have to lose about 99% of their subs to go F2P. Keep wishing tho.
    Not necessarily. Swtor lost about 30% before the decision was made to go f2p. They still have around 1 million paying customers and will be free with mt's late this fall.

    99% drop for any p2p game would be cataclysmic and result in closure not a change in pricing models.

  16. #256
    Quote Originally Posted by Darsithis View Post
    I vote for 0 people having canceled.
    I voted the same.
    Ppl will here the awesome stories about mop and actually come back to play.

  17. #257
    Quote Originally Posted by Oldschoolwow View Post
    99% drop for any p2p game would be cataclysmic
    I see what you did there.

    Seriously however, I dont think WoW will be closed ever as long as Blizzard will be alive. They wil just stop updating it and reduce it to like one server per region. But it will remain there "forever" to honor the legacy of the game.

  18. #258
    The link I posted is not the be all and end all of purchase numbers for MoP, but it is the first known source to predict how well this expansion will perform that some find to be credible.

    http://www.vgchartz.com/article/2503...s-of-pandaria/

    Again these are not absolute numbers and should be taken only as a reference.

  19. #259
    Deleted
    A loss, alot of people here are kinda stupid thinking WoW will ever see 11 million Players again (not subscribers ..players they probably only have about 4 million true subscribers the rest pay penuts in china, which is why 8.8million players only brought in $60 mil per month in the last quarter iirc, do the math of $15 a month on that)

    In the short term it might hold steady, it won't increase, Pandaria isnt released in China and they were already bleeding players there, so that will continue to bleed and the only indicator on sales is that its performing to only 60% of Cataclysms numbers, which doesnt enthuse me that the bleeding of China will be made up by western increases. Then the quarter after you have have cancellation of annual passes and competition from the Xmas lead up games, its not a sunny outlook IMO.

    Long term its only going to go down, 18 months of decrease isnt a flash in the pan isnt a reaction to one event, its a trend, a constant bleed over many many months, and indications are that MoP doesnt do anything drastically new that will reverse that, i say MoP could dip as low as 6 millio, before the end of MoP we could see the end of player numbers in conference calls and a plan to move to a hybrid F2P model

  20. #260
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    how did so many people vote 0 ... LOL what a joke

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