Activision Blizzard Q4 2020 Investor Call

[Resentless]

Each character is linked to one server. When you are whispering a char on any of these servers you need to add -servername behind. So a character created on Taerar, it will not be listed in the population for mal'ganis or any of the linked servers.

I see this arguement everytime. Its not the same, cross realms, shards etc etc. Your character belong to the server it was created on. Period

Then why did my server (dragonblight-ghostlands) go from low pop for 4 years to high pop overnight when it got connected to 4 other realms? :Thinking:

[Dazu]

Did you filter out connected realms that show shared population?

Edit: Of course he didn't. So out of EU realms:
Echsenkessel, Taerar, Mal'ganis and Blackhand are connected into one full realm
Lordaeron, Tichondrius and Blackmoore are connected into one full realm
Dentarg and Tarren Mill are connected into one full realm
So real number of full realms is 14, not 20. I'm pretty sure it's the same bullshit for high pop, at least 6 of them is one realm:
Черный Шрам (Blackscar), Гром (Grom), Термоштепсель (Thermaplugg), Борейская тундра (Borean Tundra), Пиратская бухта (Booty Bay) and Ткач Смерти (Deathweaver)

Yeah its pretty poor methodology, seeing as theirs sites which actually track characters.
Still the point is right, classic has nothing on the retail playerbase. That's not necessarily a bad thing or a negative. Classic is older, slower and grindier and many people played it when it was the actual game.

As for people going on about subscriber numbers, they stopped them because people kept making claims based on them like how much money they make or how many people were actually playing etc. So when say China shut down the licensing for a few months and the subs tanked as a result - everyone said how it was obvious WoW was dying and how their servers were dead and X game was the WoW killer etc. Then China came back and the counters were praising how the growth was amazing etc. Plus people complaining numbers were inflated because of 6 month sub bonuses, or how the game became Pay to Win during Cata etc and that's why people stayed sub but they wont last. Or how Raid finder is the reason subs are dropping, or LFG made subs drop. Every time they announced subs, people would do mental gymnastics to tie it to something going on in game at that exact time on whether it raised or dropped. Also everyone was claiming the record subs were only because of China and their sub model during Wrath and counting a 30min player for the entire quarter.

Simply WoW is still doing well, we know this because the game is still being developed. If subs were dropping too badly as has been claimed since first Month of TBC endlessly on forums, blizzard wouldnt have kept developing this long. Yes the game has changed and not everyone likes it still, thats what happens. I loved 1st person shooters when I was younger, now I cant stand them. Doesnt mean the latest CoD is a terrible game, its just not a fun game to me. WoW still appeals to alot of people, and the fact theyve changed course to being more alt friendly and casual friendly for players is likely a big reason Shadowlands is succeeding pretty well (and by casuals I dont mean bad players, but players who cant play daily/long hours etc).

Also, Cata had the most players ever. It was also pretty bad launch and had the steepest decline really quickly. Wrath is the only expansion to maintain high subs above 10mil. Seriously the argument on that is semantics. Cata did the ride the end of Wrath, but it was also interesting in the entire Deathwing theme and revamp of the world so it had its own merits for high subs and hype, but they butchered alot of it and turned people off (Which also happened the first month of TBC but they hype and fixes plus the actual games newness kept it rolling and it turned it out pretty great).

[Rogalicus]

Each character is linked to one server. When you are whispering a char on any of these servers you need to add -servername behind. So a character created on Taerar, it will not be listed in the population for mal'ganis or any of the linked servers.

I see this arguement everytime. Its not the same, cross realms, shards etc etc. Your character belong to the server it was created on. Period

How it's done in the game doesn't matter, realm list reports connected realm population, not individual. You can actually go there and see it for yourself, all the mentioned realms have the same reported population.

[glowpipe]

How it's done in the game doesn't matter, realm list reports connected realm population, not individual. You can actually go there and see it for yourself, all the mentioned realms have the same reported population.

even if that is the case. Its still a shitload more servers with full, high, med and low even after you combined them. Doesn't change the outcome wone bit. Retail is far ahead of classic

[SirBeef]

While I completely agree with you and think that Classic moment has come and gone, the high parses in naxx still needs some explaining

It's a pretty simple explanation in 3 parts. 1, there is nothing else to do in Classic but raid. By contrast you have M+, LFR, PvP, and raiding in Retail.

2, less than 3% of the WoW population at the time set foot into Naxx 40. So there is a draw there to see it in it's original form, not the ez mode WotLK version.

3, classic Naxx requires 40 players, Retail raiding needs a minimum of 10.

[Doffen]

WoW momentum is unusually high for a non-expansion year.

Isnt Q4 the Quarter SL launched? And if they mean this year its just 2 months since SL launched lol. Not here to diss Blizzard, but their wording is always fun to read

[deenman]

Moar Mounts, Pets and Transmog in the store I believe.

about damn time...a game as huge as wow having so few store items is stupid....the store needs to have atleast as many transmog sets as ingame raids sets

i remember the scandal when they removed the few helm mogs from the shop and some mounts/pets,no wonder bfa numbers droped,people unsubed in droves because of that

[twothe]

Interesting. Blizzard releases a new WoW expansion and as a result has less active users than before.

But of course marketing words that as a win as usual...

[Dazu]

Interesting. Blizzard releases a new WoW expansion and as a result has less active users than before.

But of course marketing words that as a win as usual...

Yes Blizzard did have less active users. WoW had more. So anyone with an smidgen of brains knows that the reduced numbers come from D3, OW, HoTS, SC2 or Hearthstone.

[Cavox]

Imagine believing Kotick's data manipulation and lies. Acti-Blizz is stronger than ever, pinky swear fellow kids!

[SirBeef]

Yeah its pretty poor methodology, seeing as theirs sites which actually track characters.
Still the point is right, classic has nothing on the retail playerbase. That's not necessarily a bad thing or a negative. Classic is older, slower and grindier and many people played it when it was the actual game.

As for people going on about subscriber numbers, they stopped them because people kept making claims based on them like how much money they make or how many people were actually playing etc. So when say China shut down the licensing for a few months and the subs tanked as a result - everyone said how it was obvious WoW was dying and how their servers were dead and X game was the WoW killer etc. Then China came back and the counters were praising how the growth was amazing etc. Plus people complaining numbers were inflated because of 6 month sub bonuses, or how the game became Pay to Win during Cata etc and that's why people stayed sub but they wont last. Or how Raid finder is the reason subs are dropping, or LFG made subs drop. Every time they announced subs, people would do mental gymnastics to tie it to something going on in game at that exact time on whether it raised or dropped. Also everyone was claiming the record subs were only because of China and their sub model during Wrath and counting a 30min player for the entire quarter.

Simply WoW is still doing well, we know this because the game is still being developed. If subs were dropping too badly as has been claimed since first Month of TBC endlessly on forums, blizzard wouldnt have kept developing this long. Yes the game has changed and not everyone likes it still, thats what happens. I loved 1st person shooters when I was younger, now I cant stand them. Doesnt mean the latest CoD is a terrible game, its just not a fun game to me. WoW still appeals to alot of people, and the fact theyve changed course to being more alt friendly and casual friendly for players is likely a big reason Shadowlands is succeeding pretty well (and by casuals I dont mean bad players, but players who cant play daily/long hours etc).

Also, Cata had the most players ever. It was also pretty bad launch and had the steepest decline really quickly. Wrath is the only expansion to maintain high subs above 10mil. Seriously the argument on that is semantics. Cata did the ride the end of Wrath, but it was also interesting in the entire Deathwing theme and revamp of the world so it had its own merits for high subs and hype, but they butchered alot of it and turned people off (Which also happened the first month of TBC but they hype and fixes plus the actual games newness kept it rolling and it turned it out pretty great).

They stopped because Sub numbers are not a true representation of engagement/aactivity. Which happened at a time as more precise data were happening. The Switch to MAU was appropriate and is a more accurate reflection of player engagement. It has fuck all to do with player preception of how the game is doing.

As a business owner(retired), I'd rather have accurate data.

WotLK peaked at 12.5M and dipped down to 12 as Cata came out. Cata started at 12 and went down.

[Kolvarg]

Shadowlands had huge numbers and has higher engagement at this point of an expansion than any other in history.

I'll just leave this here:

WOTLK is still #1 in all time subs and engagement. They said in nearly a decade which means it doesnt count WOTLK...MAU's are not active subscriptions which they dont tell you anymore

Technically yes, but that does not necessarily mean it was the best state of the game even from a numbers perspective. WotLK was the peak of concurrent subscribers yes, but it was also when the number of subscribers stagnated - whereas during Classic and TBC it grew exponentially.

It's important not to forget that when subscriber numbers are stable (ie one quarter has 10M, the next quarter still has 10M), it doesn't mean that no one unsubscribed. It just means the net didn't change. There might have been 500k people unsubscribing and 500k different people re-subscribing - the net would be 0. Or it might have even been 1M unsubscribing and 1M subscribing.

Ultimately, I sincerely doubt any specific state of the game - when it comes to individual mechanics or design choices - had any noticeable impact on the growth, stagnation, decline and maturity of the game. It has more to do with timing, luck, marketing and word of mouth.

[Dracullus]

Hateboner for retail (sadly most likely addiction) + detachment from reality + 0 reading comprehension = this thread.

[Pann]

See how that Dot the first dot from the left in the red section is higher than all of the other dots? That was in Cata. Thanks for proving me right.

That is not actually correct. The graph shows western expansion release dates not global, at the time of Cata's launch in western regions China was still on Wrath which was only released there at the end of Q3 '10.

[glowpipe]

It's a pretty simple explanation in 3 parts. 1, there is nothing else to do in Classic but raid. By contrast you have M+, LFR, PvP, and raiding in Retail.

2, less than 3% of the WoW population at the time set foot into Naxx 40. So there is a draw there to see it in it's original form, not the ez mode WotLK version.

3, classic Naxx requires 40 players, Retail raiding needs a minimum of 10.

and how many people do you think logs in pugs etc in retail ? how many casual guilds logs ? Mythic private logs ?
There is not a single log for lfr and a shitload of people do lfr. There are so many variables that the logs doesn't say anything what so ever

[Gorsameth]

I'll just leave this here:

And google trends have very little to do with sub and engagement numbers.

The people who are playing and enjoying the game don't need to be googling WoW to do so.

[Kralljin]

There is not a single log for lfr

There are:

https://www.warcraftlogs.com/zone/ra...6#difficulty=1

and how many people do you think logs in pugs etc in retail ? how many casual guilds logs ? Mythic private logs ?

And what makes you sure that none of those points also apply to Classic?

[Tertullian72]

Interesting report. Activision continues to demonstrate that you don't need to innovate to make money. They'll continue milking their golden cows - Call of Duty, Candy Crush, World of Warcraft. Blizzard itself is propped up by World of Warcraft but is otherwise stagnant. Let's see:

- Heroes of the Storm - lights on maintenance.
- Starcraft series - dead.
- Warcraft RTS - the remaster was a dismal failure, otherwise dead.
- Overwatch - holding pattern pending release of its sequel.
- Hearthstone - ever increasing monetization keeps the money coming in.
- Diablo - Immortal is on its way for mobile gamers, with a probable remaster of Diablo 2 keeping the PC crowd engaged while 4 is completed.

World of Warcraft is the shining success, with Classic rescuing it from the failure of BFA and Shadowlands now restoring the retail game. Impressive for a 16 year old game. Expect the mobile spin off games and maybe a PS5/Xbox version to make even more money.

So stagnant but profitable. For now, anyway.

[Trbn]

best q ever again and yet servers keep dying and number of players on my server through wowprogress went down to 12k from 20

[Dhrizzle]

Except Warcraft logs says otherwise..... More people have parsed and raided in Classic wow then Retail Castle Narthia and it isnt even close


https://classic.warcraftlogs.com/zon...#timespan=1000


https://www.warcraftlogs.com/zone/st...#timespan=1000

this is just naxx btw and it destroys CN in the amount of parses

classic 10 million parses vs retail not even 1 million lmao

How do the numbers change if you include LFR, Normal and Heroic?

- - - Updated - - -

Am I reading correctly that the MAUs actually went down in Q4 despite Shadowlands launching? That doesn't seem right.

Likely a decline in other properties, there's not been a lot going on with Diablo, Overwatch, Starcraft and the non triple-A games recently.