Second Quarter Earnings Call, Find Your Old WoW Friends, 15th Anniversary Collection

[Queen of Hamsters]

Yeah, this right here. It really jumps at you when Activision talks about pursuing new business models...the same way a frigging spider in your boot does.

Those words come from Blizzard though, since it relates to their games and their revenue and their income.
Like it or not, but Activision didn't give us such half-assed jobs as WoD. Blizzard did.

[Kathranis]

This though: "Across Call of Duty, Candy Crush, Warcraft, Hearthstone, Overwatch, and Diablo, they are expanding their development teams and resources so that they can accelerate the delivery of content in the pipeline, pursue new business models, broaden communities, and delight players".

Oooh boy... prepare your anuses for more services on the store...

Not necessarily. They've had some really solid success this past year with standalone non-service oriented games. They were resistant to these sort of releases previously, but I wouldn't be surprised to see more games like Sekiro and the Spyro and Crash remasters in 2020.

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Those words come from Blizzard though, since it relates to their games and their revenue and their income.
Like it or not, but Activision didn't give us such half-assed jobs as WoD. Blizzard did.

It's a general statement that also includes Activision and King properties, though.

[Cyi]

I'm skeptical. If anything Y/Y revenue decreasing means we might see less in the store as it's clear the current model isn't proving to have long term stability.

Or they just need to refine/change the items or services, possibly changing pricing as well. As an example, you couldn't get me to pay money for that new mount, the alabaster thing. Its ugly in my opinion and I have found very few that love it enough to go buy it unless they already own the collectors edition. If they had made that mount cooler, I would have purchased it, like I do most mounts and pets on the store.

I think they need to refocus on what they are releasing and not just on releasing anything because we will just buy it. I know I am slowing becoming more selective.

[Queen of Hamsters]

Not necessarily. They've had some really solid success this past year with standalone non-service oriented games. They were resistant to these sort of releases previously, but I wouldn't be surprised to see more games like Sekiro and the Spyro and Crash remasters in 2020.

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It's a general statement that also includes Activision and King properties, though.

That's true.

Let's revise: The Activision titles are theirs, Blizzard's are theirs.

Activision aren't the only ones speaking, Blizzard has a hand in and thus fault in anything that's bad about their games.

[MrLoque]

Did they wait to announce it after forcing people to sub to play the beta/get names? Lel

People who play Classic Beta do that because they want. Not because Blizzard "forced" them. I don't give a flying fuck about Classic and Blizzard didn't shot me. I'm still here.

[Rogalicus]

Side note: I strongly disliked Legion as well but if it's any consolation I feel like BfA is more akin to WoD than Legion so maybe check it out?

I'm glad that grind is more tolerable this time, but from what I've seen over the last year (when I randomly watched some WoW content), classes didn't really improve over Legion's barebones state and raids are still based on piling the same old mechanics on top of each other until it's barely manageable. I liked it more when the whole fight was built around some interesting concept.

[AceofH]

Another person unaware of what the definition of being forced is.

and you prove you don't understand.
if you want to play the beta you have to be subscribed to wow. you can't get around it.

[Lurker1]

Looks like WoW BFA is WINNING!

[Relapses]

I doubt it's the WoW store being the culprit behind the decrease in revenue (all games are included here), considering it's allowed them to earn more from WoW with fewer subscribers than they did whilst the game had 12 million subs.

No, they'll be expanding on it for sure. And as long as the game doesn't go F2P, I say go for it. At least I can choose not to spend in the store.

/shrug

I understand the cynicism but a part of me hopes that there are people at ActiBlizz who understand that players are quickly burning themselves out with the subscription based quasi-F2P model they've been using.

Actual content is something I think we can all agree would be beneficial to the game and if they're making internal changes to produce more of it that would be much preferred to ... yet another shop mount/pet.

[korijenkins]

I doubt it's the WoW store being the culprit behind the decrease in revenue (all games are included here), considering it's allowed them to earn more from WoW with fewer subscribers than they did whilst the game had 12 million subs.

No, they'll be expanding on it for sure. And as long as the game doesn't go F2P, I say go for it. At least I can choose not to spend in the store.

I am absolutely positive they made more money off the game with 12 million subs than they do with a fraction of that + some ugly store mounts. With 12 million subs the game was making 180 million monthly.

[Low Hanging Fruit]

LOL at having a horse in this race unless you got multiple thousands of dollars to millions of dollars invested in the company. Going by a lot of the logic I see here WotLK and first quarter of WoD were far superior to BFA because hey.. It had them diggies.

Just like or dislike what you want because of you. Not what the investors are happy.

(I know this means I hate BFA or Classic right? Wrong! Playing BFA and so also enjoy Classic.)

[Relapses]

LOL at having a horse in this race unless you got multiple thousands of dollars to millions of dollars invested in the company. Going by a lot of the logic I see here WotLK and first quarter of WoD were far superior to BFA because hey.. It had them diggies.

Just like or dislike what you want because of you. Not what the investors are happy.

(I know this means I hate BFA or Classic right? Wrong! Playing BFA and so also enjoy Classic.)

Being a fan of WoW and wanting it to be successful doesn't have to mean that we can't care about the content of the quarterly reports. If anything, they're the closest we get to a factual representation of how Blizzard is going to move the game going forward. In a way, yeah, it's easy to hand waive the importance to us mere internet plebians but the speculation is fun and I generally enjoy the conversation... and isn't that what discussion forums are for?

[Kathranis]

I am absolutely positive they made more money off the game with 12 million subs than they do with a fraction of that + some ugly store mounts. With 12 million subs the game was making 180 million monthly.

The game never made $180 million a month off subs. That's a very naive interpretation.

They only hit that playerbase size during a fairly brief window. For most of its lifetime WoW has had well below 10 million subscribers. About half of those active accounts were based in China, where the monetization model was entirely different and revenue was shared with a publishing partner. And not all players were paying $15 a month. Many players were also on discounted 3-, 6-, and 12-month recurring subscriptions.

[Alcsaar]

ofcourse subscribers has increased. you've literally forced people to subscribe to play classic beta.

Uh, did you think they were going to spend tons of development time making classic to give to people for free?

[FelPlague]

Must help when you pay no federal taxes.

I mean many companies do this, amazon, netflix, microsoft, like all the largest companies.
blame america, not blizzard.


if there is something within the law that just... gives you a fuck ton of free money, would you not do that?
"I work from home so im going to file my bedroom as work space to save on taxes"
your doing the same thing at them.

[Revak]

It's undeniable that some profits are coming from Classic (to those who think it has no affect). I resubbed just for Classic after being out of the game for awhile. Did I buy BFA and play for awhile, yes. Am I jumping in and playing it some now, yes. But only b/c I have a sub for Classic.

[Lurker1]

I am absolutely positive they made more money off the game with 12 million subs than they do with a fraction of that + some ugly store mounts. With 12 million subs the game was making 180 million monthly.

Disagree that 12million wasn't sustainble anyways more money now for sure.

[dragnipur]

and you prove you don't understand.
if you want to play the beta you have to be subscribed to wow. you can't get around it.

Just because you want something for free this does not mean you will get it.If you don't like what Blizzard is offering you can always go play on a private server.WoW was always a subscription based game.You knew from the start Classic will be part of that subscription.

[SirBeef]

and you prove you don't understand.
if you want to play the beta you have to be subscribed to wow. you can't get around it.

That's not forcing, that is a requirement. That one wouldn volunteer to do willingly. Forcing implies something completely different. Go back to elementary school please.

[Khaza-R]

and you prove you don't understand.
if you want to play the beta you have to be subscribed to wow. you can't get around it.

They obviously weren't going to send beta invites to derelict accounts.

Not sure why you would expect that whatsoever.