Subscriptions only kept growing in Vanilla

[Elias01]

Precisely this. The 100 million accounts number actually does help here. That number was released on its 10 year anniversary. So what that tells us is peak subs were 11 million, but 100 million have played. So actually player retention was terrible!

So in the early days, players came and left, but were replaced by more players as the game was fresh, mmos were in their prime, etc.

As the game got older, players still left.. but they are no longer being replaced.. because as the game got to 10 years and beyond, very few new people are going to try it out. My younger siblings would never dream of trying out a 10 year old MMO.

I don't see how this pattern changes in classic. You will get a huge influx early on and this will drop off to hopefully a stable workable population. I don't see this as a bad thing, it's what most classic people want.

100M was reported during MoP. Vannila, TBC had giant retantion rate. People start quiting game in wotlk and game adopt trend of sub spikes with content updates becousr game become so accessible thay people run out of stuff to do.

[vashe9]

There is a reason why the ONLY sucessful "post wow mmorpg" is FF14 and it has "only" 1M subscribers

[Lurker1]

No they dont. Reason why you see lot of people play mobile games is that everyone have mobile in their pocket. It is kinda hard to walk with pc case you know. But anyone with pc do not prefer playing movile over pc at home. There ia giant pc market. Mmorpg games never were dead. There just wasnt good mmorpg game release since tbc.

Whatever helps you sleep at night wayyyyy more people play mobile games then pc games without even trying.

[Celarent]

The key isn't a younger demographic with limited exposure to the game or the brand.

It's the 25-30 million of 100 million onetime subscribers who leveled past 10 up 'til 2014 when Blizzard last counted. Just one-tenth of that is still a money-printing opportunity.

[Phookah]

New games tend to see growth?



NANI??!?

[iosdeveloper]

WoW Classic won't be the first truly online action game with jumping and no invisible walls on every fence.
I remember being astonished by everything i see in the game my first few weeks... it was very similar to first time use of drugs... a whole new dimension to life.

[Shaetha]

Precisely this. The 100 million accounts number actually does help here. That number was released on its 10 year anniversary. So what that tells us is peak subs were 11 million, but 100 million have played. So actually player retention was terrible!

So in the early days, players came and left, but were replaced by more players as the game was fresh, mmos were in their prime, etc.

As the game got older, players still left.. but they are no longer being replaced.. because as the game got to 10 years and beyond, very few new people are going to try it out. My younger siblings would never dream of trying out a 10 year old MMO.

I don't see how this pattern changes in classic. You will get a huge influx early on and this will drop off to hopefully a stable workable population. I don't see this as a bad thing, it's what most classic people want.

11% retention over 10 years is actually incredibly good numbers, but you're right about the rest.

[RobertMugabe]

Is this a discussion or are you just here looking for validation ? I'd rather be sure before wasting energy arguing how this isn't how it's work

It's a styil thread. Don't bother writing a proper explanation.

- - - Updated - - -

There is a reason why the ONLY sucessful "post wow mmorpg" is FF14 and it has "only" 1M subscribers

LOL there were more successful mmorpg's than FFXIV in the years after WoW released and FFXIV has about as many CCU's as some WoW private servers...

[Valdhammer]

Your first point makes no sense, for reasons I hope you now realize.

Second, your typical 13-22 year old does not have the patience, nor the inclination to play a game like this. Times have changed.

I still think classic will have a sizable audience among the 28+ range.

This was true in 2004 as well. Pretty sure the average player age was about 28 then.

[schwarzkopf]

I anticipate that the number of Classic players will only continue to rise as the months go by.

You anticipate wrong - the experience can't be recaptured, and the classic game is inferior to retail.

That's the reality you have to face.

[Kumorii]

All games, even bad ones and failures such as No Mans Sky launch shows that they increased in sales at release. You are literally starting from 0 so it can only go up from there.

[Thage]

I wouldn't expect Blizzard to recapture lightning in a bottle here. WoW first launched into a perfect storm where many contributing factors came together to cause it to be the ludicrously-popular game it was. While I'm sure Classic will have strong long-term subscription numbers, I wouldn't go so far as to wager constant growth or even over a million long-term subscriptions dedicated to Classic (versus weekend-warrior subs who pop in and out with content lulls in retail, or who just try Classic out before going back to retail). The outside factors that caused WoW to surge like it did on original launch just aren't there anymore.

[Osmeric]

100M was reported during MoP. Vannila, TBC had giant retantion rate. People start quiting game in wotlk and game adopt trend of sub spikes with content updates becousr game become so accessible thay people run out of stuff to do.

People were quitting from the start, it's just that the net change was positive. The notion that no one quit until Wrath is just absurd.

[unbound]

Why wouldn't they keep growing when Classic is released? With an entire new population of gamers, fewer barriers to entry, stable internet now the norm, and with no requirements to buy the boxed game. There have been over 100 million WoW accounts made in WoW's lifetime. Do the math.

I anticipate that the number of Classic players will only continue to rise as the months go by.

There may be some initial growth, but I would not expect to see the same curve as before.

While some here may foolishly believe WoW to be the one, true MMO, there are, in reality, many other compelling MMOs out today...far more than what existed in the mid to late 2000s. And while the total number of available gamers is much larger today than back then, their interests are far more diversified than 15 years ago. For some people, Retail WoW is truly the better experience for them. Classic is being brought back because for some other people, Vanilla WoW was truly the better experience for them. MMOFPS are the game for some, MOBA are the game for others, etc, etc, etc.

I expect Classic to do quite well for Blizz (especially since the cost is a fraction of the cost of a new expansion), but it won't be the massive number of subscriptions that Vanilla was able to achieve.

[Thage]

I don't think they will release Classic subs vs BFA subs.

I don't either. I do think they'll be quick to mention retention rates, for better or worse, as well as stress the (almost inevitably) stronger time spent per-user in Classic versus BFA, though, much like how they were fairly quick to credit Classic beta as a contributing factor to the uptick in subscribers last quarter.

[Super Kami Dende]

Why wouldn't they keep growing when Classic is released?

Because WoW was new and Accessible and the MMO genre as a whole was exploding. Now the MMO market is oversaturated and most kids growing up these days are more interested in Games with quick and fast Matches like Mobas/Battle Royales/Fps'

[Faesroll]

Why wouldn't they keep growing when Classic is released? With an entire new population of gamers, fewer barriers to entry, stable internet now the norm, and with no requirements to buy the boxed game. There have been over 100 million WoW accounts made in WoW's lifetime. Do the math.

I anticipate that the number of Classic players will only continue to rise as the months go by.

Because its a shit game?

[Itori]

Vanilla subs kept growing because it was a quality game with a cheap subscription that could be played on a mediocre pc and the game was built around being both casual and hardcore, the only other contender was everquest 2 and it required a better pc and had a decent but not quite as fun combat system, WoW also had legions of wc2 and wc3 fans behind it so it could do nothing but grow.

[xenogear3]

I just don't see how people can put up with "kill 40 xxx" and "collect 30 yyy".
This yyy has 10% drop chance.

[bloodwulf]

Hey look, its another @styil thread where he makes a topic about something that has been beat to death, and never responds to the thread again.

Lack of competition in vanilla, lack of overall development of the online game industry. There are now tons of viable options that will keep players away.