Earnings Call - WoW Classic: Biggest Quarterly Increase in Subs in History

[Daymanmb]

Not when you consider how long it's been...
There's a reason why oldschool games come back every year. Pac-man and the like are great for that back in the day feeling...
You can look at it from food and music too..

For many many people, they never stopped playing Vanilla.. Classic has just hooked another group of people who didnt play on private servers, for whatever reason. Are there going to be drop offs? Absolutely. That obvious observation goes without saying, so much so, its a waste of energy to point it out.

[Medline]

When there's folks who don't realize that reality, it's never a waste of time my friend.
VIVA Sylvanas

[Daymanmb]

When there's folks who don't realize that reality, it's never a waste of time my friend.
VIVA Sylvanas

Show me, show me one person that has said WoW Classic will enjoy unending growth. Youre countering an argument youve never seen anyone make. That is a waste of everyones time.

[Medline]

Show me, show me one person that has said WoW Classic will enjoy unending growth. Youre countering an argument youve never seen anyone make. That is a waste of everyones time.

Alrighty. How about

you think you do but CONTINUEING TO GROW BOYS

or

And yet, so many people on this forum were absolutely sure that Classic is "just nostalgia" and "dead in 2 weeks"

with a bunch of roll eyes emotes

And those are just the first 3 pages of this thread.
It's definitely implied these people think, as you say, wow classic will enjoy unending growth.

[Daymanmb]

Alrighty. How about
or


And those are just the first 3 pages of this thread.
It's definitely implied these people think, as you say, wow classic will enjoy unending growth.

"you think you do but CONTINUEING TO GROW BOYS"
"And yet, so many people on this forum were absolutely sure that Classic is "just nostalgia" and "dead in 2 weeks"
with a bunch of roll eyes emotes"

=/= "WoW Classic will enjoy unending growth". Youre still countering an argument no has made. Stop wasting your time and smarten up.

[plz delete account]

Demon Hunter seemed pretty popular.

DK is still pretty popular. I see one in seven players are DKS, and one in twelve players are DHs...
Monks? 1 in 30.

[Hey There Guys its Metro]

Too bad we got no new playable class which doesn't bode well for Q1 in 2020's numbers.

Did you mean 2021 or something?
Or are you suggesting that people would unsub from 8.3/Classic due to no new class coming in an expansion that wouldn't be out for like two more quarters lol

[Orby]

Retail feels dead, worse than WOD levels at the end. BFA is a ghost town. Classic seeems tobe doing great, I see plenty of people all the time

Hard to beat WoD levels when you were the only one in your garrison feeling like the only player in WoW :P

[Kyphael]

Did you mean 2021 or something?
Or are you suggesting that people would unsub from 8.3/Classic due to no new class coming in an expansion that wouldn't be out for like two more quarters lol

I meant Q4. lol

[Docturphil]

Am I? The typical angry WoW Classic purist you see posting here about how retail fucked their mother and refuses to pay child support are not representative of the majority of players.

Correct. They're not representing the majority of Classic players. They're representing the vast majority. Most Classic players haven't been active here in a long time because they've been sick of retail for years.

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It's included with the same subscription for a reason.

Yes, to boost retail sub numbers in order to justify retail's existence. BfA was a steaming pile of dog turds. It's no coincidence Classic was released exactly half way through BfA.

[Kumorii]

Yes, to boost retail sub numbers in order to justify retail's existence.

I think retail earning money is the only thing they care about to justify it's existence... trying to "trick" with numbers doesn't do anything good.
If blizzard stop earning money on retail it will be discontinued.

[Gadzooks]

I like how you honestly think that classic alone is what effects the stock price of activision, king, and blizzard combined and that there aren't other factors involved.

I didn't even begin to make that assertion, and it's hilarious that you're trying to make the case that I did.

[Relapses]

Correct. They're not representing the majority of Classic players. They're representing the vast majority. Most Classic players haven't been active here in a long time because they've been sick of retail for years.

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Yes, to boost retail sub numbers in order to justify retail's existence. BfA was a steaming pile of dog turds. It's no coincidence Classic was released exactly half way through BfA.

Yep, you figured it out. Classic is the only reason retail exists. This is why Blizzard spent so much of BlizzCon talking about all the great new content coming to Classic. The WoW Classic panel really helped drive home how Blizzard intends to abandon the retail game and refocus on outdated content. I just wish they'd lift the embargo on VODs of the panel...

[ataegina]

Am I? The typical angry WoW Classic purist you see posting here about how retail fucked their mother and refuses to pay child support are not representative of the majority of players.

You fail to understand the mood.

The "typical angry wow classic purist" is not a purist or angry or typical and there is no "majority". They simply love certain things about classic - different ones. Some love the 1 shot pvp. Some love the stunlocks. Some love being able to raidlog. Some love the loooong journey to 60. Some might even love LBRS or looking for Rexxar (sick, sick people...). Most people I spoke with love the sense of accomplishment given by reaching a certain goal (say, 300 engineering with repair bots and pvp helm/trinket/cloak/belt).

Personally, I had more fun in Classic WoW in the past two months than I've had in the past decade of retail - since WOTLK, that is...and the only wow-related thing that's going to be bigger than "classic" servers will be BC servers. I won't be too surprised if Activision see 15M subs then...

It's not that retail did anything bad in particular; it's more like it hasn't had anything good in a decade - literally. It's a pointless, endless, hateful grind for no reason whatsoever. Farm "world quests", farm "artifact power", farm "azerite", run the same m+ 12041041 times - maybe this time you really will get a titanforged with a socket....level professions for no reason whatsoever, as they won't bring anything to the table...farm rep for no reason whatsoever, there's nothing in it for you...only fly at the end of the expansion, when there's NO reason to fly anywhere...

Retail isn't horrible or anything, it's just pointless and not (as) satisfying.

Meanwhile, in classic, some people have MC and Onyxia on farm and they're able to raid log or not log at all for a week and lose absolutely nothing. They've got reputations on the servers, they know people and people know them.

Give it a try and see if you still feel the same way after your first 60.

[Docturphil]

Yep, you figured it out. Classic is the only reason retail exists.

I mean it's definitely a crutch for retail at the very least at this point. BfA sub numbers were quite abysmal from the supposed leaked sub numbers.

[Relapses]

I mean it's definitely a crutch for retail at the very least at this point. BfA sub numbers were quite abysmal from the supposed leaked sub numbers.

They've never been leaked. Both Blizzard and the addon author who published the supposed leak admitted it was incorrectly gathered information. But hey, why let inconvenient things like facts get in the way of your smug hatred of retail?

[papajohn4]

Remember, it was obvious Classic would result in a massive influx on players--there was no question there. The answers we haven't got that I am interested in are:

- How is Classic doing now (servers are becoming lower pops)?
- How it Retail doing now (servers are becoming higher pops, but leveled out and haven't changed for a few weeks now)?
- Obviously tons of players tried Classic and ended up on Retail. Similarly, plenty of Retail players went to Classic. How many of those first-classic players are not playing anymore and how many players from Classic ended up staying on retail and those who went to classic, how many went back to retail?

still on denial? The first months are difficult, it will get easier as the time pass...

[KaPe]

They've never been leaked. Both Blizzard and the addon author who published the supposed leak admitted it was incorrectly gathered information. But hey, why let inconvenient things like facts get in the way of your smug hatred of retail?

"Obviously Blizzard was lying to cover up the numbers. Just like they are being 100% honest now, when talking about Classic. No, I don't see any contradiction in that, why?"

Gotta say, though, the idea that popularity of Classic resulted in Level Squish is a new one. After all, no one has ever complained about that one until just three months ago. And it's not like Blizzard has mentioned having plans about long before Classic was released. Nope, it's all thanks to Classic - and those damn retailers cannot even be grateful for that. What a bunch of haters.

still on denial? The first months are difficult, it will get easier as the time pass...

And here I thought that "easy" only happens on Retail. Which also has nothing to do with Classic population anyway. Unless there are millions people who refuse to subscribe until Phase X is live, the initial sub spike is long over.

[justandulas]

This was a given the minute they told shareholders that wow classic tripled current wow subs. Tripled.

Which likely means retail has about 1 million players and classic has hit about 3

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still on denial? The first months are difficult, it will get easier as the time pass...

His post was textbook denial. Bfa servers have fallen in population since classics launch

While classic servers aren’t as full as they were at launch; it’s beyond delusional to think retail picked them up when these are the people who wouldn’t play retail even if it was free

[namecraft]

WoW classic is the best expansion ever imo. it has the biggest world and difficulty of all of them.