BFA subs, and someone's probably getting fired

[Maudib]

No? The same as every other expansion, a big spike at launch. a big drop shortly after and then roughly stable or slowly dropping until the next expansion. So if its 1.7mil now I would guess 1.5 mil in 6 months.

All this does is confirm what people like myself have been saying but without "proof". We didn't need Blizzard to tell us that subs are tanking... finally we have confirmation.

Subs are now lowest since BC. The current game simply does not have anywhere NEAR the playability of previous expansions... especially Vanilla, BC, and WotLK.

This is EXACTLY why I feel that Classic is going to smoke "current WoW". Players are going to try it out, realize that it is a much more rewarding game, and stick with it instead of going back to BfA.

Yes. Classic will have MORE subs than BfA. Although we won't likely get numbers from Blizz... it'll be evident from the servers they have to add to keep up with players subbing. Then we will see Blizz spend more time getting Classic BC and Classic WotLK ready than wasting time on new expansions using Ion and friend's failed development philosophy.

[Deleted]

ahhh those private servers must be rubbing their hands together right now wonder how warmane is doing....

[Teri]

Realmpop level 120 :

US : 1.728.601
EU : 2.064.760

Numbers aren't that far off from 3.2/3.4 Million

Take it with a grain of salt, since data from Asia isn't there.

[jibby]

Sales does not equal players.

My husband got disgruntled with WoW (ironically over the state of Shamans) in Cataclysm. He cancelled his sub, but then he bought both MoP and WoD when they came out "Just in case" he ever decided to go back to it. They are still sitting here in our office, unopened and valueless because they added those two Expacs to the main game. I can easily see that people bought BfA and didn't open it.

[Lochton]

It does fall in line with other estimates, however. Look at https://realmpop.com/us.html, filter to level 120 characters only, and it's around 1.7 million. So either this API leak was, indeed, only for one region, and in that region nearly every single person who hit level 120 stayed subbed, and never leveled an alt to 120, or.. It was for both NA and EU (Which has about 2 million max-level characters), and more than half of those max-level characters are either alts, or unsubscribed players.

And, as a personal anecdote, more than half my friends who were playing WoW during Legion.. In fact, more like three quarters, have unsubscribed themselves. Though given we're all RPers, that might be something of a slippery-slope effect, where one migrating to FFXIV draws another, which draws another, etc., regardless of WoW's quality.

But RealmPop has never really given the right number anyways.

[HuxNeva]

I suppose doesn't count the gold token people and just americans

Worldwide minus China he commented, and token bought gametime also has an expiry date just like all the rest, so I would dare to speculate they are in there.

[HordeFanboy]

Hahahaha GOOD finally this garbage Retail wow is dying.

[Dreadlack]

Pretty much in line with what I expected.

[Jamie081]

They literally go on to say that those numbers don't include China and that they might not even be true

[Lochton]

You're sure? You know this as fact? Or you're pretty sure? Honestly I don't know what the facts are. I find it hard to believe Bfa sold more copies than the previous expansions. Wow is more popular than ever? I highly doubt it.

It is considered fraud to release false information at investment calls.

[HuxNeva]

Realmpop level 120 :

US : 1.728.601
EU : 2.064.760

Numbers aren't that far off from 3.2/3.4 Million

Take it with a grain of salt, since data from Asia isn't there.

Realmpop counts characters, not accounts. There is a small window at the start of an expac where these converge (people leveling and gearing their main while not yet going for alts).

[ro9ue]

Except it doesn't line up. It's first day sales not overall sales. BFA had more first day sales than Wrath did. Wrath only had 2.8 mill https://www.statista.com/statistics/...on-pack-sales/. Does this expansion have more players than Wrath? I'd go out on a limb and assume no.

The problem with people assuming current subscriptions are failing to grasp the one simple concept when trying to even begin analyzing the current numbers. That concept is the majority of the customers are not them. The majority of WoWs customers has always skewed more casual than what the average mmo champ or reddit user is, and those players generally only let their subs lapse when there is no content, or the content is too difficult or too in-accessible.

Why do you think WoD was so poorly received? It wasn't because of the lore. It certainly wasn't because of the theme, or else they wouldn't of had such a large return and as much as the pro flying circle jerkers like to tell you it wasn't flying either. It was because there was almost literally no content. Same deal with Cata. Large launch huge drop off. The average player didn't like the dungeon difficulty, despite if you asked the people here they'd tell you the dungeons weren't "too difficult" or were awesome because of the difficulty.

It doesn't seem like box sales correlate to subscription numbers. All it seems to suggest is how many stores bought inventory since it's been relatively the same during the whole life of the game, while the subscription numbers vary.

Take that with digital sales, my thought is that there's like a core base of players around ~3m. But it can still dip below that. Msot people still enjoy the leveling content.

Your last 2 paragraphs are obvious, nothing I disagree with there.

[Lei]

It's fiiiiiiine, cyclical players gonna cycle and all that shit. Next expac will bring all the boyz to the yard. For a month or so. Box sales!

Now one has to wonder how will this affect the quality of the patches (if box sales matter mostly for profit and that's the main bread-bringer, why invest in patches for when many have unsubbed?). For example 8.1 shapes up to be very copy pasted, more of the same-y. Interesting.

[Teri]

Don't know that I'm disgruntled but, I'm basically the same, albeit with BfA sat on my shelf, unopened.

I bought BfA during Pre orders, leveled an allied race to 110, and kinda ended up with burnout so I waited to see how BfA would develop.

I haven't subbed during pre patch or BfA itself.

[SirKickBan]

It's hard to put a finger on exact numbers.This is far from the real sub right now because this doesn't count China.Also keep in mind we have to know if it's counting paid subs and wow tokens.

Blizzard stated it was 10 mil at launch(maybe lying) but to drop to 1.7mil without noticing much change in game is hard to believe.
I'm not defending blizzard I myself am not subbed at moment but going on making statements "wow is dead","classic will be 10 times more popular then bfa" is just pure bs.

It doesn't matter if it's a traditional sub or a token, the player is counted as subscribed either way. All a token does is push the subscription end date back by thirty (I think?) days.

[Jastall]

If it's just NA that makes a lot of sense, but there's no possible way this includes all regions given that BfA sold 3.4M units on launch day alone, with lots more sure to come in the days/weeks after.

So yeah, take this with a giant grain of salt. While the game doe not by any means have tons of subs compared to the days of yore, it's not down to 1.7M.

EDIT: also, 50% of players using Weakauras? Yeah, bullshit. 50% of players barely even enter non-LFR raids. If anyone actually believes fulyl half the playerbase uses that addon they are completely delusional. I'm pretty sure even DBM isn't that popular and it by far the most downloaded addon.

[Redroniksre]

Except it doesn't line up. It's first day sales not overall sales. BFA had more first day sales than Wrath did. Wrath only had 2.8 mill https://www.statista.com/statistics/...on-pack-sales/. Does this expansion have more players than Wrath? I'd go out on a limb and assume no.

The problem with people assuming current subscriptions are failing to grasp the one simple concept when trying to even begin analyzing the current numbers. That concept is the majority of the customers are not them. The majority of WoWs customers has always skewed more casual than what the average mmo champ or reddit user is, and those players generally only let their subs lapse when there is no content, or the content is too difficult or too in-accessible.

Why do you think WoD was so poorly received? It wasn't because of the lore. It certainly wasn't because of the theme, or else they wouldn't of had such a large return and as much as the pro flying circle jerkers like to tell you it wasn't flying either. It was because there was almost literally no content. Same deal with Cata. Large launch huge drop off. The average player didn't like the dungeon difficulty, despite if you asked the people here they'd tell you the dungeons weren't "too difficult" or were awesome because of the difficulty.

Exactly this. People like to think that every player visits MMO-Champ, or the sub-reddit, which they don't. Blizzard is a business, they want money, they also have metrics that we do not. How do you find out what the average/majority player is? Just look at which systems they focus on and continue to move towards, that is what the majority plays.

[Deleted]

Realmpop level 120 :

US : 1.728.601
EU : 2.064.760

Numbers aren't that far off from 3.2/3.4 Million

Take it with a grain of salt, since data from Asia isn't there.

This is really interesting. Also some of these chars are alts.

[Maudib]

Even if the reported numbers are inaccurate, there's still the fact that the sub base was cut almost in half in just 2 months. And 3.2 mil subs is a HUGE sample. But of course Blizzard shills will continue to ignore basics statistics. You aren't doing ANYONE a favor by praising BfA's game design. The more people complain, the faster Blizzard will go into damage control mode and give us Legion v2.

Legion was garbage too.. sry... it dropped a crapload of subs as well... albeit not as much/as fast as BfA... but that is because BfA IS Legion 2.0.

Let's be honest though. Blizzard is full aware of how badly the game is tanking... they have known since WoD. But they are trying to hide behind lies they tell themselves "The genre is just stale." "Players have changed."

But Activision jumped the Blizzard people and said "You will release Classic whether you like it or not." And despite the fact they threw a handful of people at the project, it is getting closer to release. When it does and blows away current WoW... heads will roll. We will FINALLY see a return to what made WoW amazing in expansions.

I will giggle like a schoolgirl when I hear of Ion and friends being fired. These people have damaged WoW as much as Jay Wilson destroyed D3.

It is undeniable.

[darklogrus]

All this does is confirm what people like myself have been saying but without "proof". We didn't need Blizzard to tell us that subs are tanking... finally we have confirmation.

Subs are now lowest since BC. The current game simply does not have anywhere NEAR the playability of previous expansions... especially Vanilla, BC, and WotLK.

This is EXACTLY why I feel that Classic is going to smoke "current WoW". Players are going to try it out, realize that it is a much more rewarding game, and stick with it instead of going back to BfA.

Yes. Classic will have MORE subs than BfA. Although we won't likely get numbers from Blizz... it'll be evident from the servers they have to add to keep up with players subbing. Then we will see Blizz spend more time getting Classic BC and Classic WotLK ready than wasting time on new expansions using Ion and friend's failed development philosophy.

Naa, Blizzard is going to force Classic players to have a active BFA account so they can tell everyone how awesome BFA is still doing..