BFA subs, and someone's probably getting fired

[Divinexve]

I'll go ahead and let you ruminate on the sheer irony of what you just said after quoting me.

The truth hurts sometimes my dude

[Relapses]

The truth hurts sometimes my dude

When "the truth" is an extrapolation you've made from incomplete data that was procured from an unreliable source on a website whose only purpose is to publish exploits... you don't have much of a solid foundation for an argument.

In the eyes of the WoW community, the game is always dying for one reason or another. Players just want "proof" so they can smugly boast about their opinions being valid. This is the reason subscriber levels are no longer published.

[omeomorfismo]

so now everyone can pull out random number without explanation, proof, anything and be believed only because the thesis boosts the ego of some (considering the fucking 56 pages, a lot) doomsayers?
lol

[Musta]

The source is second-hand - someone claims to have a read a post by someone else. That person supposedly discovered an undocumented endpoint in the blizzard web api which allowed access to subscription end dates for players when enumerating all players. The first part is possible, considering the endpoints regarding accounts were changed to a new version two days ago, but it's important to note that the veracitiy of the data is heavily dependent on the second part - iterating over all players. That's normally not possible in these web apis.

Even if the data is not reliable from a numeric point of view, it's still pretty serious if Blizzard accidentally leaked sub information for individual accounts. It could possibly fall under the kind of data breaches that need to be reported to various government/state agencies in some countries.

One could also argue that the api, even without a speculative breach, is problematic from a gdpr point of view. There's a reason Valve/Steam heavily restricted what can be retrieved via the API when gdpr went into effect.

Yeah i just believe if subs were indeed 1.7m blizzard would be screaming right now.

[Deficineiron]

Remember that this number excludes Chinese subs, while the previous reports did. So total sub number including China would be higher than 3.2M/1.7M

also it is unclear to me if it even includes folks who didn't buy bfa but had active subs.(western). hopefully ss's of the bad thread from the bad place show up at some point with details, which are said to have been present.

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Yeah i just believe if subs were indeed 1.7m blizzard would be screaming right now.

a free fancy mount for 6 month sub is a tell that something was wrong. you have to assume that mount was meant for something else (as in cash shop?)

[Musta]

also it is unclear to me if it even includes folks who didn't buy bfa but had active subs.(western). hopefully ss's of the bad thread from the bad place show up at some point with details, which are said to have been present.

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a free fancy mount for 6 month sub is a tell that something was wrong. you have to assume that mount was meant for something else (as in cash shop?)

Perhaps. But 1.7 is too low. It would be a shitstorm on blizz offices and heads rolling and much more damage control and listening to feedbacks

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All hands on deck situation.

[Deficineiron]

Perhaps. But 1.7 is too low. It would be a shitstorm on blizz offices and heads rolling and much more damage control and listening to feedbacks

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All hands on deck situation.

well that is 1.7 western, which may not be that much lower than the wod low.

remember, a very big head DID roll, possibly, just recently at blizz.

[Wingspan]

Nah the numbers are no longer reported because wow is a dying game and Blizz doesnt want people to think its extra dead by tossing sub numbers

Pretty much this. If sub numbers (or their equivalent) were good or even just increasing, then Blizzard would be shouting it from the treetops.

Bliz used sub numbers as both a selling tool for potential players and as reassurance for investors. So long as those numbers were good, it was a VERY win/win situation for them.

The fact that they are not reported pretty much assures that that things are not well. The only real question is how bad it really is.

[Relapses]

a free fancy mount for 6 month sub is a tell that something was wrong. you have to assume that mount was meant for something else (as in cash shop?)

This conspiracy theory was debunked shortly after it was released. Blizzard planned that mount well in advance and its timing had little (if anything) to do with attrition. The thread was deleted but you can read the responses here.

[Musta]

well that is 1.7 western, which may not be that much lower than the wod low.

remember, a very big head DID roll, possibly, just recently at blizz.

Yes but the reaction from blizzard doesnt fit a major crises like 1.7... I IMO would assume if subs were indeed this low they would lick our boots.

[Deficineiron]

Yes but the reaction from blizzard doesnt fit a major crises like 1.7... I IMO would assume if subs were indeed this low they would lick our boots.

i am not sure 1.7 is the number to watch - it is the % decline between the two numbers. if there were really 4.5m western? now more like 2.4 or whatever.

[Wingspan]

This conspiracy theory was debunked shortly after it was released. Blizzard planned that mount well in advance and its timing had little (if anything) to do with attrition. The thread was deleted but you can read the responses here.

The mount was planned but I am not sure that data linking it to the 6 month sub promo was ever datamined. If not, then it was probably pulled and used in the promo as an emergency to stop bleeding subs.

Even if they DID plan this for a 6-month promo, it just means that they had no confidence in the ability of the expansion to retain players... because you should NEVER need a special retention promo in the first 2 months of a brand new expansion.

[Musta]

i am not sure 1.7 is the number to watch - it is the % decline between the two numbers. if there were really 4.5m western? now more like 2.4 or whatever.

i really bet they will not let the cash cow die like this. Something big must be coming or we are looking at an expac announcement at gamescon again.

[Trumpcat]

The (false) number of subs is lower than the BfA copies sold at launch, not counting sold post launch. So apparently hundreds of thousands of people buy a WoW expansion to not play it.

Honestly, people.. Your Azerite system is dull and you totally lost it.

I have no faith in anything blizzard says being the truth.

Sold units is a business number and it is accurate, it is about investors, about taxes, about many, many things. They can either say or not say the number, but they can't give a fake number, it is law, it is finance, it is things.

Give me a break, paniced gamers.

[Trassk]

so now everyone can pull out random number without explanation, proof, anything and be believed only because the thesis boosts the ego of some (considering the fucking 56 pages, a lot) doomsayers?
lol

pretty much. I mean they were doing this before blizzard gave out the information, but now they don't these same doomsayers need unsubstantiated sources to feed that ego boost.

[Lurker1]

That weakauras addon author is a hero.

The best WoW community member every to speak up on behalf of WoW community. That is seriously a good person and with a great heart. The passions oozes from them as they are clearly trying to help WoW by spreading the truth.

Can't stop or hide the truth from leaking!

More like spreading lies.

[Deficineiron]

The mount was planned but I am not sure that data linking it to the 6 month sub promo was ever datamined. If not, then it was probably pulled and used in the promo as an emergency to stop bleeding subs.

Even if they DID plan this for a 6-month promo, it just means that they had no confidence in the ability of the expansion to retain players... because you should NEVER need a special retention promo in the first 2 months of a brand new expansion.

exactly. It is the exact opposite of how such promo's are timed.

[wombinator04]

More and more people need to admit that WoD wasn't all that bad. You know it to be true.

[Musta]

More and more people need to admit that WoD wasn't all that bad. You know it to be true.

never. the best thing wod did was bring us legion.

[alturic]

I'm sure it's been asked in here, but I don't understand how a Blizzard API leaking subscription data is somehow correlated to WeakAura user count?