Wow Realm Population

[dacoolist]

People have recently been discussing WoW population in one of the big threads, and in general, this is an often discussed topic.

I want to post a new site which hasn't been around before, which is relevant to that:

https://www.wowrealmpopulation.com/

They use a combination of one of the traditional approaches = seeded armory scans (you first seed your database with names of characters / guilds on each server, then you do armory requests for these characters and guilds, this gets you the names of new characters and guilds, and then you just do this periodically and the scans keep the database up to date), as well as something new = auction house scans (which quickly gets you tons of names of characters and guilds as well, a clever thing to do, because it is very fast and picks up tons of activity).

They have been doing it for some time, I watched them for the last year or so, their numbers were at first sporadic, then started becoming stable and useful wrt various big server groups, then wrt regions, and 6 months or so ago they felt confident enough to start reporting totals per region. Their totals qualitatively matched all important tendencies reported / seen on other sites, so I think we can now count this new site in as reasonably accurate.

So, what they report (for totals, scroll down):

EU characters in database: 3 759 008 of which 1 390 493 is currently considered being active within 2 week period.
US characters in database: 2 983 430 of which 1 091 575 is currently considered being active within 2 week period.

The definition of "active" character is:

"Active character: a character that has performed any of the following activities within 14 days since it was last seen: gained levels, looted something notable (my remark: to appear in the API log, that log skips loot that it does not think is notable in order to be manageable), made a honorable kill, changed or transmogged gear or placed something in the Auction House."

So, according to the site, US + EU currently have 2.5 million *characters* active. Given that this includes alts and that the period for doing something notable is fairly big (two weeks) and that something notable includes utterly trivial things like placing something onto the AH (covers tons of max-levels) or gaining a level (covers all of leveling chars), the number of active players is perhaps something like 1/2 or 1/3 of that -- although this is where we can make big errors, it is unclear what the coefficient for translating character counts into player counts should roughly be.

This misses China. They have some tracking for Taiwan (and Korea), but that's different (and small comparably).

In any case, the usual roster of warcraftrealms + wowprogress + arenatrackers got a new member, and it's good.

Please note that I am not saying that the game is dying or whatever. To clarify, it's rather obvious that BFA is doing terribly, and it has been obvious before. But 8.2 - if they really try - can perhaps stabilize things. And if they really try in 8.2, then who knows what's next, maybe they'll continue trying. This post is there simply to inform others interested in population figures / stats of a relatively new site that wasn't on the horizon before.

I mean lets be honest, the 2.5-3 MAYBE 3.5 Milli subs if someones reaching is probably true..

If you paid 11U$D a month (I'm just giving a number here..) x2.5MILL alone: 25.7MILL a month from subs ALONE at the LEAST. in 12 months that's clear over 308MILLION U$D from subscriptions alone. Blizz prob goes through 500,000U$D a day on devs+support+servers+futures+activision meaning the profit margin is still a 30-40% profit on subscriptions alone

Blizz is making serious cash even IF the subs ALONE at 11U$D and only 2.5MIll

[Dormie]

For the record, so far in the thread, there are many more people talking about the doomsayers and people objecting to trying to measure subs / characters because that's supposedly unhealthy or irrelevant, than the actual doomsayers.

I'd think about that.

Ok, but I was just responding to someone who responded to me saying that the sub count is pretty irrelevant to know if it's not super low.

[Yaney]

personally i have 7 max level toons, I only know 1 person with just 1 120. Most have anything between 3 to 12. So real number would be what.. 2 mil? 1.5?

[Seranthor]

You instantly dismiss ANY negativity with vague comments or a general misunderstanding of what is even being talked about. You're always one of the first to reply to, never really adding anything to discussion other than dismissal. The OP never once claimed this was fact. Yet you dismissed it instantly because it isn't fact? What was the point of your reply?

Then you follow with some vague bullshit about the Warcraft movie selling well in China? That was 3 years ago during an expansion that caused the biggest sub drop off the game has ever seen. Once again - you have no point here.

Blizzard will never release the numbers again because they're cowards. They'd rather measure success on the addicted whales constantly buying tokens to sell for gold and other cash shop bullshit.

What the OP has done here is try to shed some light on what anyone with half a brain knows is another mass sub exodus, probably on the same level as WoD.

Blizzard isn't going to release the numbers because of sentiments like yours. Sub numbers are none of and have never been any of your or any of our business.

[Lurker1]

Blizzard isn't going to release the numbers because of sentiments like yours. Sub numbers are none of and have never been any of your or any of our business.

Bingo they mainly did that for sharholders so they changed the way they counted there money made didn't need to release sub numbers anymore now win win for all.

[rda]

Ok, but I was just responding to someone to responded to me saying that the sub count is pretty irrelevant to know if it's not super low.

Regarding that, by the way.

What's important is not the number of subs after which queues become long - queues pre max-level have already been long for a long time, and queues at max-level won't be long until the number of queuing players indeed drops down to miniscule levels, because everything is per-region. No, what's important is a mark way above the level where there are so few people that even region-wide queues crumble - it's the mark at which Blizzard decide that the game has ran its course and they can no longer afford to make expansions the way they were making them before - and have to do something: say (a) start issuing patches of 1/2 or 1/3 of the normal size calling *that* expansions (eg, several zones, several instances with some recolors from the past, a raid scheduled to open three months after launch and go - that's an expansion), or (b) make the game F2P and start putting tons of things into the shop, or do something similarly drastic.

When specifically is this going to happen and how close we are? Well, I think WoW is Blizzard's most labor-intensive project, only Overwatch comes even close. It is also continuing to lose ground and this is very unlikely to ever change, not with 8.2, not with 9.0, it will just continue to be losing ground forever until it dies. So if I were Blizzard, I'd be looking to ditch WoW as soon as I can and free devs to do easier things (because I could free half of the worst devs and still make the rest do 5-6 games with about the same earning potential as WoW in mobile) and the only limiting factor would be not wanting to lose money while they are still coming in significant amounts. So, if I were Blizzard, I would ditch WoW - by making it F2P or dramatically reducing effort on expansions - when money from WoW would stop being significant. That is, when money from WoW would be something like 5-8% of what I am making overall. How far we are from that? Well, WoW is now something about 40% of Blizzard. But it's declining, and while right now everything Blizzard is declining, something is bound to start growing this year, and that growth will be significant. Same for the next year.

So, when people are talking about how long WoW has realistically got, perhaps it's true that if it was solely about paying for its own continued development and turning a little profit, then maybe it could have went for 10 more years, etc. But since it's not about that and rather about when it's going to reduce to be a small enough part of all Blizzard (well, that's my opinion, maybe Blizzard look at it differently, but I don't see why would they not do what makes sense for the business), and that depends on how successful other parts of Blizzard are, perhaps all we've got -- until drastic changes, not necessarily servers just closing on us, but drastic changes with more or less end of current development -- is 1-2 and at most 3 years.

That's why keeping tabs on how WoW is doing makes sense. It helps understand whether we should fear the next quarterly report. For now, we don't, because they didn't do anything to their other games yet, WoW's share is still big enough to protect it.

[Dystemper]

Blizzard isn't going to release the numbers because of sentiments like yours. Sub numbers are none of and have never been any of your or any of our business.

False. Blizzard is a publicly traded company. That information is used for investors in Thier due diligence .

[Sughs]

You realize that's characters, not accounts/subscriptions?

If I had my subscription active, I would bump up the number by about 20 characters. (13 120's on horde, 7 on alliance IIRC).

People are spread af in cities, old raids, old dungeons, etc. If you only judge it by people in the 6 main zones you won't see much people. Worldwide, including all Asian servers as well I really doubt there's less than 3M active subs. Even with the current state of the game.

[Seranthor]

Bingo they mainly did that for sharholders so they changed the way they counted there money made didn't need to release sub numbers anymore now win win for all.

Except for those that want to use the sub numbers and their change to bolster some position they have...

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False. Blizzard is a publicly traded company. That information is used for investors in Thier due diligence .

If, in fact, as you claim the sub numbers are important to the investors, then Blizzard would still be using them. They are important to the uninformed who attempt to disingenuously use them as a weapon. Now we know you aren't disingenuous, are you?

[dacoolist]

Except for those that want to use the sub numbers and their change to bolster some position they have...

- - - Updated - - -



If, in fact, as you claim the sub numbers are important to the investors, then Blizzard would still be using them. They are important to the uninformed who attempt to disingenuously use them as a weapon. Now we know you aren't disingenuous, are you?

I remember about 8 or 9 years ago I made an account JUST to tell people how dumb it is to base the games state off sub numbers.. I explained that unless they are buying Actiblizz stock: sub numbers mean absolutely NOTHING

One thing I find funny too: If people here think blizz gives a flying fuck about sub numbers, WHY would they allow BFA to even happen. Why not just make the game literally what everyone wants.. KNOW WHY: Because blizz works as a collective, no single person makes every decision. Until people understand this, they will continue to be sheep

[Seranthor]

I remember about 8 or 9 years ago I made an account JUST to tell people how dumb it is to base the games state off sub numbers.. I explained that unless they are buying Actiblizz stock: sub numbers mean absolutely NOTHING

One thing I find funny too: If people here think blizz gives a flying fuck about sub numbers, WHY would they allow BFA to even happen. Why not just make the game literally what everyone wants.. KNOW WHY: Because blizz works as a collective, no single person makes every decision. Until people understand this, they will continue to be sheep

I can not disagree with anything you've said here.

[Dystemper]

Except for those that want to use the sub numbers and their change to bolster some position they have...

- - - Updated - - -



If, in fact, as you claim the sub numbers are important to the investors, then Blizzard would still be using them. They are important to the uninformed who attempt to disingenuously use them as a weapon. Now we know you aren't disingenuous, are you?

That's some grade a tinfoil hat material you have going there .

[rda]

If people here think blizz gives a flying fuck about sub numbers, WHY would they allow BFA to even happen. Why not just make the game literally what everyone wants.. KNOW WHY: Because blizz works as a collective, no single person makes every decision.

This is rolling the eyes a little. Blizzard can "just" make the game literally what everyone wants? Really? Moreover, they don't do it because they "work as a collective"? What?

Stop it. Blizzard cannot make the game what everyone wants. This is impossible. They do care about sub numbers. They made BFA to their best ability and wanted it to be good, but we have what we have because that's their best ability now. Plus because they were told to stop early and release before schedule. Likely to please some stupid quarterly metric.

[Dystemper]

They stopped using sub numbers when the game lost half the subs in a few months time, the fastest decline in the games history. They went to MAU/DAU because it's easier to spin those numbers to investors . Subs still matter . No matter how you try to justify , spin and white knight it away as some vast conspiracy to bring blizzard down.

[Soon-TM]

If you play games more then a a hour a day, it kills your standing . Pretty fast way to not be able to buy goods and services. As it stands now, if you play video games, post on social media or buy "frivolous things" like games , in game purchases etc then you get punished. Once of the punishments is getting your internet throttled way way way back. another is not being allowed public transportation like buses and trains . and this is only with the system not 100% in place, When it goes nation wide in 2020 is where you will see the massive nagative impact on the video game industry . It can potentially kill the mobile phone game business

Quite offtopic, but what are you talking about? Honest question, since I don't live in the US, and have never ever heard about anything like it

[Seranthor]

That's some grade a tinfoil hat material you have going there .

Lets see how long it goes before you see another official sub number. Why you continue to play a game you so obviously hate says a great deal about Blizzard's ability to suck in the easily manipulated.

[rda]

Quite offtopic, but what are you talking about? Honest question, since I don't live in the US, and have never ever heard about anything like it

It's about China. They have this wonderful system where people are rating each other (ratting on each other wouldn't be too far from the truth, although it's pretty involved, if you don't rat... well, it is going to be found out and accounted in your own rating), the rating is global, and an ever-increasing number of government (and other?) services are using it to determine your level of access to them / what you are allowed to do. Brave new world.

[dacoolist]

This is rolling the eyes a little. Blizzard can "just" make the game literally what everyone wants? Really? Moreover, they don't do it because they "work as a collective"? What?

Stop it. Blizzard cannot make the game what everyone wants. This is impossible. They do care about sub numbers. They made BFA to their best ability and wanted it to be good, but we have what we have because that's their best ability now. Plus because they were told to stop early and release before schedule. Likely to please some stupid quarterly metric.

Blizzard has shown time and time again with Expansions like TBC, Wrath, MOP, and LEG that they can MAKE IT RAIN $$.. then they come and just fuck off with xpacs like BFA or WOD.. as much as I dislike BFA sometimes.. WOD was absolutely horrible in comparison - I'll take BFA ANY DAY compared for WOD (IMO). Also Cata.. It was SEMI ok with xmog and heroic rag etc.. but otherwise.. Cata along with WOD and BFA are all DEEPLY horrible in comparison with TBC/WRATH/MOP/LEG

My point stands, they do NOT care about sub numbers - they care about doing what they believe as a collective is the BEST for the game (Which sucks right now obviously)

[Nerovar]

No but we're not at that point and doomsayers knowing the sub count has nothing to do with that.

You literally said sub numbers are irrelevant as long as they're >400k. What a hot take, my dude.

[rda]

Blizzard has shown time and time again with Expansions like TBC, Wrath, MOP, and LEG that they can MAKE IT RAIN $$.. then they come and just fuck off with xpacs like BFA or WOD.. as much as I dislike BFA sometimes.. WOD was absolutely horrible in comparison - I'll take BFA ANY DAY compared for WOD (IMO). Also Cata.. It was SEMI ok with xmog and heroic rag etc.. but otherwise.. Cata along with WOD and BFA are all DEEPLY horrible in comparison with TBC/WRATH/MOP/LEG

My point stands, they do NOT care about sub numbers - they care about doing what they believe as a collective is the BEST for the game (Which sucks right now obviously)

LEG didn't RAIN $$. Legion had less people playing than WoD. Just in case.