February 7: Blizzard Conference Call

[Mawnix]

Wrath of the Lich King had 12 million subs.

Yes, MOP is a weak expansion in comparison.

Did you ignore that the game is 8 years old and Cata caused a lot of subscribers to leave and never want to return on purpose?

[Slowpoke is a Gamer]

Wrath of the Lich King had 12 million subs.

Yes, MOP is a weak expansion in comparison.

Weak compared to content form 4 years ago. Strong compared to content from 1 year ago.

[Leonard McCoy]

Are you reading what I said?
You can't compare a game to something it used to do over 2 years ago!

We have a million Davids and they can't kill the giant.
Therefore the giant is succesful.

WHO FUCKING CARES? Are you people serious? Are you trying to turn this into a game vs game thread? Nobody gives a rats ass about your justification. We are comparing WOW TO WOW not wow to whoever else the fuck cares. Man you people really need to stretch yourselves to defend this game. We can absolutely compare WOW TO WOW from 2 years ago BECAUSE IT'S THE SAME FUCKING GAME. SAME DEVELOPER. You just don't like the fucking comparison because it shows mists sales were anemic.

[Mawnix]

"wow is competing against all forms of entertainment" -Blizzard

interesting excuse

Reason*

Don't pine this into excuses. They're a company of mature adults, not 4 year olds who set a plant on fire and lied about it.

[BenBos]

They had four big titles over the course of the year so it was never going to be a bad year financially this does not change the fact that a loss during a period where they had an expansion launch and Christmas is a concern.

4 big titles in 2012? I must have missed 2 Blizzard titles then ...

[Leonard McCoy]

Which other MMO has LFR?

LFD, yes. LFR, I can't think of any.

You could que for raids as a group in swtor. Rift to I think.

[But I Hate You All]

Did you ignore that the game is 8 years old and Cata caused a lot of subscribers to leave and never want to return on purpose?

Did you ignore the game gets constant updates and revamps on purpose?

Its a different game from 8 yrs ago

[Osmeric]

Actually Blizzard's yearly revenue was more than 1.6 billion dollars for 2012, a new record and UP with 400 million compared to last year.

That tends to happen in years when they release an expansion.

[JhanZ]

You gotta spend money to make money. Adding a bunch of daily quest hubs and throwing a gear carrot behind them isn't content. Who would want to spend $15 a month to have to daily quests on every character they make?

Unfortunately, it is content. It's just terrible content.

I can definitely see the loss now. Even more than before. How many people are actually raiding? From my experience and my friend's opinions, LFR isn't very fun. That, coupled with dailies, are supposed to be a casual's endgame. How could a person possibly get more excited from moving to 5.2 dailies after finishing 5.1 dailies, and before that 5.0 dailies?

Dailies, dailies, dailies. It's just awful content. I can't believe they actually think this passes for good content for the MAJORITY of players. Yes, majority. A very small percentage actually raid. So all that's left is LFR and dailies. It makes complete sense that people lose interest.

And you know what? They've already confirmed more of that is coming in 5.3, 5.4... etc. What gives them this unbridled confidence that tells them dailies are acceptable?

[McNeil]

I'd still like to know how many of the 9.6 million subs are actually bots...

Maybe Kungen was right, that about 90% are bots :P

[Mawnix]

Unfortunately, it is content. It's just terrible content.

I can definitely see the loss now. Even more than before. How many people are actually raiding? From my experience and my friend's opinions, LFR isn't very fun. That, coupled with dailies, are supposed to be a casual's endgame. How could a person possibly get more excited from moving to 5.2 dailies after finishing 5.1 dailies, and before that 5.0 dailies?

Dailies, dailies, dailies. It's just awful content. I can't believe they actually think this passes for good content for the MAJORITY of players. Yes, majority. A very small percentage actually raid. So all that's left is LFR and dailies. It makes complete sense that people lose interest.

And you know what? They've already confirmed more of that is coming in 5.3, 5.3... etc. What gives them this unbridled confidence that tells them dailies are acceptable?

You have yet to answer my question.

[PrairieChicken]

Did you ignore that the game is 8 years old and Cata caused a lot of subscribers to leave and never want to return on purpose?

We are comparing it to MoP launch(10mil+) so there is no reason to include Cata - it was over long ago

[Leonard McCoy]

Did you ignore that the game is 8 years old and Cata caused a lot of subscribers to leave and never want to return on purpose?

Yes because it's a weak excuse. I'm sorry. Do you honestly think the developers feel that way? HOw fucking demoralizing must that be? HEy guys no matter what we do people are just gonna leave so fuck it all...

[hyphnos]

Because when you play the game 8/30 days a month, you can't really justify the nearly $2 a day.

That was one of the leading player complaints going into MoP "There's not enough for us to do at the cap to justify a monthly fee."

Now they're complaining "There's too much to do at the cap to justify playing the game."

Playing 8 days a month was a choice made by people who were in fact, still paying to play the game. The idea that playing 2 days a week for 7 hrs is less entertainment value than playing 7 hrs over 7 days is ridiculous. The number of hours of entertainment is the same so the dollar value is the same.

Going into MoP max the max level content was 10 months old and I think you are confusing, like Blizzard, the fact that players got bored after 10 months of the same max level content with the idea that they wanted more hours of play required. Forcing people to play on a more rigid schedule doesn't increase the amount of time they have in RL to play and thus it won't increase the value of WoW. If anything it lowers it as they can no longer get the most out of the game from the time they spend in it.

There isn't really "too much to do" at level cap now - they just want you to do TOO MUCH of what there is. There's a HUGE difference between having so much you want to do you can't do it and just having a lot of stuff to do just to get your currency and coins for the week.

[SamR]

WHO FUCKING CARES? Are you people serious? Are you trying to turn this into a game vs game thread? Nobody gives a rats ass about your justification. We are comparing WOW TO WOW not wow to whoever else the fuck cares. Man you people really need to stretch yourselves to defend this game. We can absolutely compare WOW TO WOW from 2 years ago BECAUSE IT'S THE SAME FUCKING GAME. SAME DEVELOPER. You just don't like the fucking comparison because it shows mists sales were anemic.

5 minutes before this post you posted about all the cool stuff that Rift was doing compared to WoW. Now you're hyperventilating about not giving a rats ass about other games.

[Flaks]

4 big titles in 2012? I must have missed 2 Blizzard titles then ...

2 huge titles who's success was based entirely on their prequels and hardly on the merits what they delivered.

[BenBos]

"wow is competing against all forms of entertainment" -Blizzard

interesting excuse

But right in line what I said: WOW 2012 has to compete within a complete different industry than in 2009/2010.

Free to play
A game industry that lost 23% in revenue per year.
Other markets and gaming trends.

These are far more important than a quest.

In 2008 there were at least 10 other subscription based MMORPG's. These days practically all dissappeared or went free to play.

People have no clue that the descend of WOW subscriptions will be the descend of sub based MMORPG's....

Enjoy your I Pads and cash shops from the developpers.

[JhanZ]

You have yet to answer my question.

What is your question? You have an impeccable talent for replying insanely quickly to something.

[Mawnix]

Did you ignore the game gets constant updates and revamps on purpose?

Its a different game from 8 yrs ago

As you say, Alastair: Refer to post 854.

[Leonard McCoy]

Weak compared to content form 4 years ago. Strong compared to content from 1 year ago.

Based on what? and if it is well it isn't very much...