Mop - 2.7 million sold in first week

[Gray_Matter]

As was explained earlier, it doesn't count as a subscription unless they log in. We have no way of knowing how many people "pre-ordered" in China and logged in or not. You could say that a lot did but I could say that they waited until the 2nd.

That's exactly why Blizzard did the release in this way. It's close to impossible to gauge what the state is. You can't directly compare 1 weeks sales with 1 day (previous announcements) and while they have said that it's pre China launch, they have also said that growth was across "all regions". There is a lot of smoke and mirrors going on which is unfortunate. I can understand why, because people want to be part of something successful and this gives the impression that MoP is a success which would encourage more sales. No two ways about it, though, there is a lot of spin involved.

---------- Post added 2012-10-04 at 07:03 PM ----------

I still don't see any spin the what they said? Did they not tell you it was after a week?

The spin is in the 10 million number. The implication is that the 900k new subscribers didn't include any from China yet that is obviously not the case.

[vizzle]

WoTLK had a 12million subscriber base and 3.3 million purchased the upgrade

Cata had 9million subscriber base and 2.7 million purchased the upgrade

Considering Cata had less subscribers percentage wise it upgraded nearly the same.

First day vs. First week.

[Dasffion]

The spin is in the 10 million number. The implication is that the 900k new subscribers didn't include any from China yet that is obviously not the case.

How did they imply that when they specifically said that it's growth across all major regions. They certainly did imply that there will be more from China once MoP is released but I don't think it's spin to say so since it's more than likely true.

[Zeek Daniels]

As was explained earlier, it doesn't count as a subscription unless they log in. We have no way of knowing how many people "pre-ordered" in China and logged in or not. You could say that a lot did but I could say that they waited until the 2nd.

and i could say that most player like to check out pre patch activity to get their ducks in a row b4 playing. I pretty sure major class changes are somthing that brings players back. Im pretty sure anyone that bought game time logged in a week or more in advance to get their toons ready. If i was planning on getting MoP and my sub wasnt running, i would have came back soon as they changed all the talents.

[Dasffion]

and i could say that most player like to check out pre patch activity to get their ducks in a row b4 playing.

and both of us could be wrong, or one of us could be right, or it could be somewhere in between. There's no way of knowing. You're just speculating.

[Zeek Daniels]

Weekly figures
TBC: 2.4M Day 1 sales + ???Day 2 Sales + ???Day 3 Sales + ???Day 4 sales + ???Day 5 sales + ???Day 6 sales + ???Day 7 sales = ???
WotLK: 2.8M Day 1 sales + ???Day 2 Sales + ???Day 3 Sales + ???Day 4 sales + ???Day 5 sales + ???Day 6 sales + ???Day 7 sales = ???
Cata: 3.3M Day 1 sales + ???Day 2 Sales + ???Day 3 Sales + ???Day 4 sales + ???Day 5 sales + ???Day 6 sales + ???Day 7 sales =???
MoP: ???Day 1 sales + ???Day 2 Sales + ???Day 3 Sales + ???Day 4 sales + ???Day 5 sales + ???Day 6 sales + ???Day 7 sales = 2.7M


For future record:
The Burning Crusade - 3.5M First Month
Wrath of the Lich King - 4M First Month
Cataclysm - 4.7M First Month
Pandaria - ??? First Month

So judging by those numbers sales increased by 1.1mil after day 1 for BC for the first month, 1.2 mil for wrath, and 1.3 for cata. So seeing as how its been increasing by 100k per expansion we can expact that trend to continue or at least be in the same ball park with 1.4 mil for the first month of MoP.

So seeing as how MoP sales are the first week and not day like the others we can only guess that the number is somewhere around 2.3-2.6 mil which puts the monthly sales around 3.7-4mil. So what we see is that your looking at sales between BC and Wrath. Not a good thing.

[Fagatronics]

WoTLK had a 12million subscriber base and 3.3 million purchased the upgrade

Cata had 9million subscriber base and 2.7 million purchased the upgrade

Considering Cata had less subscribers percentage wise it upgraded nearly the same.

Is it really inconceivable that people who haven't played the last 9 months due to the terrible content and lack of content since December of last year bought the game to try it out. That means they were not apart of the 9.1 million subs of last quarter and only now are subs. Meaning they should not be used in your comparison of MoP sales to subs ratio. I don't know why this percent of the subs buying MoP is so wildly important but it's flawed.

[Zeek Daniels]

Is it really inconceivable that people who haven't played the last 9 months due to the terrible content and lack of content since December of last year bought the game to try it out. That means they were not apart of the 9.1 million subs of last quarter and only now are subs. Meaning they should not be used in your comparison of MoP sales to subs ratio. I don't know why this percent of the subs buying MoP is so wildly important but it's flawed.

I think the % of subs buying MoP gives you a rough idea of the NA/EU playerbase. and i mean extremely rough.

[DeadmanWalking]

I'm amazed at the contortions that haters make to make any wow news bad news, its almost on par with politicians but politicians can afford to pay smart people to think for them in party think tanks.

[vizzle]

So judging by those numbers sales increased by 1.1mil after day 1 for BC for the first month, 1.2 mil for wrath, and 1.3 for cata. So seeing as how its been increasing by 100k per expansion we can expact that trend to continue or at least be in the same ball park with 1.4 mil for the first month of MoP.

So seeing as how MoP sales are the first week and not day like the others we can only guess that the number is somewhere around 2.3-2.6 mil which puts the monthly sales around 3.7-4mil. So what we see is that your looking at sales between BC and Wrath. Not a good thing.

Why would the trend continue when the other trend (rise in initial burst) went the other way? If we're looking at parallels then the increase over the month should be lower than wrath as well. I would go as far to say that since so many people are buying digital lately, more of the sales have probably already been bought than before -- it makes sense. Back then, people would be lining up and going out to stores, and it's an inconvenience really, but now most people are just buying digitally.

There will be less sales over the next month than there were for the last 3 expansions. I would guess about 1 million.

Edit: Actually no, because yea, the number they reported is first week, not first day. So probably another 500-700k I would say.

[Orange Joe]

The spin is in the 10 million number. The implication is that the 900k new subscribers didn't include any from China yet that is obviously not the case.

Again what spin? Did they not say ALL MAJOR REGIONS? being china is half of wow subs that would be a major region right?

[Deleted]

I know the fanboys will see this as an excuse to say that WoW isn't dying.

But these numbers actually once again confirm the decline. Everyone knew the release of an expansion would temporarily bring back some people, so surpassing the 10 million mark again was expectable.

However, take a look at the numbers itself. 2.7 million copies sold? It's funny that they compare these first week sales against TBC, WotLK and Cataclysm first day sales. Except for TBC, the previous expansions sold more copies the first day than this expansion did the first week. This only confirms that the decline is continuing. The release of an expansion slows it down, but it will continue afterwards.

I'm expecting 7 million subscribers by the end of MoP. Maybe I'm even generous.

[Gray_Matter]

Again what spin? Did they not say ALL MAJOR REGIONS? being china is half of wow subs that would be a major region right?

Why specifically say pre China launch? What value does it hold if the 10 million comes from all regions? The only reason to add that in was to imply that the 10 million figure excludes the subscribers from China. Why did they also not release the sales from the first day? Why did they chose to release only the sales from the first week? Those are "tricks" that marketing does to convey the message that they want conveyed. In other words spin.

[Zeek Daniels]

Why would the trend continue when the other trend (rise in initial burst) went the other way? If we're looking at parallels then the increase over the month should be lower than wrath as well. I would go as far to say that since so many people are buying digital lately, more of the sales have probably already been bought than before -- it makes sense. Back then, people would be lining up and going out to stores, and it's an inconvenience really, but now most people are just buying digitally.

There will be less sales over the next month than there were for the last 3 expansions. I would guess about 1 million.

Edit: Actually no, because yea, the number they reported is first week, not first day. So probably another 500-700k I would say.

im just estimating. it should be around that number. trends show that an increasing amount of ppl have been buying each expansion later in the month so even with lower inital sales it could still get more on the back end. but its still an estimate.

Again what spin? Did they not say ALL MAJOR REGIONS? being china is half of wow subs that would be a major region right?

I think what hes trying to get at is that the number of subs will not increase by much because of china next quarter like ppl have been posting because he belives the majority that were not playing started playing again around the same time MoP launched in NA/EU and were added to the sub numbers. I think the spin is that because MoP hadnt launched in china that there wasnt a significant increase in subs there when this guy thinks there was. So it makes it seem as if subs will go up after MoP launches in china when it wont go up by much because they are already paying.

[Gray_Matter]

I'm amazed at the contortions that haters make to make any wow news bad news, its almost on par with politicians but politicians can afford to pay smart people to think for them in party think tanks.

Why is everyone that disagrees with you on wow a "hater"?

[levandor]

I know the fanboys will see this as an excuse to say that WoW isn't dying.

But these numbers actually once again confirm the decline. Everyone knew the release of an expansion would temporarily bring back some people, so surpassing the 10 million mark again was expectable.

However, take a look at the numbers itself. 2.7 million copies sold? It's funny that they compare these first week sales against TBC, WotLK and Cataclysm first day sales. Except for TBC, the previous expansions sold more copies the first day than this expansion did the first week. This only confirms that the decline is continuing. The release of an expansion slows it down, but it will continue afterwards.

I'm expecting 7 million subscribers by the end of MoP. Maybe I'm even generous.

Might want to explain me, why should I care?
All *i* care for is the question if i have fun, and thats what i have (again) after MoP hit, but i guess you need to be a sheep and follow the masses to be "cool" right?

Couldnt give a damn about WoW declining or raising in nummbers into the Billions, because it does not change the slightest thing for me

[vizzle]

im just estimating. it should be around that number. trends show that an increasing amount of ppl have been buying each expansion later in the month so even with lower inital sales it could still get more on the back end. but its still an estimate.

You're looking at it the wrong way.

The trend of the increasing sales of the first month is dependent on the trend of the increasing sales of the first day. First day sales increased for TBC, then Wrath, then Cata. First month sales increased as well. MoP is the first expansion where first day (not even first week) sales didn't increase, but fell considerably when compared to its predecessor (Cata). Therefore, we should not be expecting the first month sales to be following the increasing trend.

I mean, I see it all the time with articles on Cracked and their views (being a writer there, I count it religiously). It updates every 15 minutes. You can always tell which articles will hit 2-3 million views just from the first 30 minutes of observing. That initial burst is the most important part.

[Eggoman]

Assuming sales rate are linear and same as Cata, I predict 3.4m in a month.


Most likely sales rate are a power curve so if that was the case then launch day was ~2.2m and final tally at the end of the month would be ~3m.


*Notice sales rates went down only in Cata but kept going up in BC/WotLK. Reflects the trends of subs going up in those eras and down in Cata.

[Conscious]

Why is everyone that disagrees with you on wow a "hater"?

I'm curious as to why this is as well.

[MoanaLisa]

Is it really inconceivable that people who haven't played the last 9 months due to the terrible content and lack of content since December of last year bought the game to try it out. That means they were not apart of the 9.1 million subs of last quarter and only now are subs. Meaning they should not be used in your comparison of MoP sales to subs ratio. I don't know why this percent of the subs buying MoP is so wildly important but it's flawed.

Because it's a better--but not by any means perfect--way of seeing how MoP is doing based on current subscribers over a period of time versus other expansions. What percentage buys into an expansion is more more meaningful than comparing MoP sales to how many units are sold when Cataclysm dropped with a far higher subscriber base. That said, no one really knows much of anything without a longer time frame to measure. MoP is a week, the rest were days. And you have a fair point in that there were more people to come back at the start of MoP than in previous expansions. That said, that same effect happens to some extent at the start of every expansion so it's something of a wash but not entirely.

In addition to this, while Wrath and Cataclysm came out during November-December, i.e. just before or directly in the holiday buying season while MoP didn't.

If you want to make sales comparisons, a much more interesting one will be in mid-January assuming that 5.1 drops sometime during November. A new patch (if it's good) + holiday buying and good word of mouth could leave things in a very good place at the end of the year.

Lastly, as I've mentioned a few times already, revenue/profits from sales will be higher with MoP due to the number of units they've sold digitally. Blizzard gets all of that versus the past where with a box sale, after expenses and retail markup they were likely getting 60%-70% of it. That's a big deal.