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  1. #821
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    Quote Originally Posted by Zdrasti View Post
    WoW is amazingly popular in Asia and that's a great accomplishment. However, it is not the point. The point is that Chinese "subs" are vastly different from other "subs" to the point that they really shouldn't be called subs at all.

    Let me give you an analogy. Carnivals usually have two means by which you can go on the rides. You can buy tickets and each ride costs a certain number of tickets. Alternately you can buy a wrist band, hand stamp, etc that lets you ride all day. The latter is like the WoW subscription model for US/EU whereas the former is like the Chinese model. Blizzard however lumps them together and what is more, they call them both subscriptions. This would be like the carnival lumping wrist bands and ticket sales together and calling them all wrist band sales.

    There's two things to complain about here. First you shouldn't lump apples and oranges together. Second, if you choose to lump them together, you shouldn't call the combined objects apples.
    They're users playing World of Warcraft at this present moment. As such, the 10 million number may not be very good from a financial point of view in estimating Blizzard's revenues but indicates very well how many people are playing this game as of September 2012

  2. #822
    Quote Originally Posted by Lassira View Post
    Would have been higher if they didn't just forget to add content for a year.

    It did pretty well considering a major competitor just came out also.
    Flawed logic, when it was...
    1: Only 9 months, not a year.
    2: ICC WAS a year (and Ruby Sanctum wasn't content, it was a story-bridge into Cata that was cleared MAYBE a half-dozen times and left to rot) and brought in more sales for Cata, than WotLK did.

    Wait til we see the 30-day sales... once people have read reviews, or listened to friends/guildies and upgraded. Wouldn't shock me if it exceeded the first month sales of other expansion releases.
    Games are not necessarily "easier" today. You are just a better player.
    It takes more now to impress many gamers than it did 2-5 years ago, because so much has already been seen and done.
    Many players expect to be wow'd with every release of a beloved franchise.
    These are generally NOT the fault of the developers, but the fault of many players over-hyping and/or setting expectations too high.

  3. #823
    Quote Originally Posted by ZeroEdgeir View Post
    Flawed logic, when it was...
    1: Only 9 months, not a year.
    2: ICC WAS a year (and Ruby Sanctum wasn't content, it was a story-bridge into Cata that was cleared MAYBE a half-dozen times and left to rot) and brought in more sales for Cata, than WotLK did.

    Wait til we see the 30-day sales... once people have read reviews, or listened to friends/guildies and upgraded. Wouldn't shock me if it exceeded the first month sales of other expansion releases.
    Yeah but it's also the quality of the content. ICC had 12 bosses, 3 heroic dungeons (that were actually fun and challenging for awhile), and then you got the little bonus boss in Ruby Sanctum. Dragon Soul was 8 ridiculously easy bosses, and 3 laughable heroic dungeons that were cleared in 20 minutes each. Everyone I know has cleared at least Normal Dragon Soul (and at least 8,000 guilds cleared it on heroic, according to wowprogress last I checked). Some people never killed Lich King (me included) because while you could PUG some of ICC at 30% normal, it still required at least SOME coordination.

    Not saying you are wrong or the other person is wrong. Just pointing out that Dragon Soul may have only been 9 months but...those were some LONG 9 months.

  4. #824
    Quote Originally Posted by Fishyface View Post
    That number will go back under 10 million in 6 months. So tbh i wouldnt brag about that, just gotta do more pr spin in the future
    Unless the slew of New/Returning/Resubbing after AP is over players outweigh the people who won't be resubbing when AP drops.

  5. #825
    Quote Originally Posted by ZeroEdgeir View Post
    Wait til we see the 30-day sales... once people have read reviews, or listened to friends/guildies and upgraded. Wouldn't shock me if it exceeded the first month sales of other expansion releases.
    Its not going to exceed the first month sales of Cata unless they start selling copies in china for 2cents a box. Cata added 1.3 mil to its day one purchases after the first month, each expansions first month sales had been increase by 100k an expansion. If players continued their buying trend then first month mop sales would have added 1.4 mil. Sadly mop sold 2.7 in its first week, it may still get 1.4 mil but thats still worse than what cata did.

  6. #826
    Quote Originally Posted by Reakash View Post
    Unless the slew of New/Returning/Resubbing after AP is over players outweigh the people who won't be resubbing when AP drops.
    Not only this, but people who are currently playing and enjoying WoW on the AP will still be subscribing, I'm sure. Most people who didn't want to play anymore cancelled the Annual Pass. It wasn't hard, you just lost all the benefits of having it.

    Blizzard announced that some 1.2 million people bought the Annual Pass. They never announced how many cancelled, and I know there are probably a good amount from seeing posts and knowing friends who cancelled, etc.

  7. #827
    Spam Assassin! MoanaLisa's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Zeek Daniels View Post
    World of Warcraftsubscribers include individuals who have paid a subscription fee or have an active prepaid card to play World of Warcraft, as well as those who have purchased the game and are within their free month of access. Internet Game Room players who have accessed the game over the last thirty days are also counted as subscribers. The above definition excludes all players under free promotional subscriptions, expired or cancelled subscriptions, and expired prepaid cards.

    So they dont say anything about ppl with multiple accounts or more than one active pre paid card. Or game room players with multiple accounts. Its still inflating.

    and my point about the chinese isnt how much they are paying its how its counted. They pay per hour or w.e but they only have to access it once to becounted as a full sub. A sub in my book is a person who is paying for a full month, not a person who only wants to play for a few hours each month because thats all they can afford yet blizz makes it look like they have access the entire month when they dont.
    Well, the definition is there for anyone to read and it's fair to assume that that's how they calculate their numbers. People may have an agenda to somehow press a different definition on people and for them I would suggest you start up your own business and define your financials any way you please within the limits of the law. It's clear enough to me that they report subscribers not players which takes care of the 'problem' of people with multiple accounts. As a bonus, gold farmers are counted too. Hurray!
    "...money's most powerful ability is to allow bad people to continue doing bad things at the expense of those who don't have it."

  8. #828
    Quote Originally Posted by Wowalixi View Post
    Not saying you are wrong or the other person is wrong. Just pointing out that Dragon Soul may have only been 9 months but...those were some LONG 9 months.
    What Wowalixi is trying to get at is that if most guilds cleared DS 3 months in they still had to wait 6 more months for new content. If most guilds cleared ICC 9 months in they only had to wait 3 months for more content. Not saying thats what happened but i know in the 25 man guild i was in ( and i was in 2) One never got to do heroics, and the other eventually got stuck on heroic LK, and that was while RS was still going. My guild cleared 10 DS the 2nd day it was out. Pretty sure LK was gated and you couldnt clear it that fast.

    Quote Originally Posted by Wowalixi View Post
    Not only this, but people who are currently playing and enjoying WoW on the AP will still be subscribing, I'm sure. Most people who didn't want to play anymore cancelled the Annual Pass. It wasn't hard, you just lost all the benefits of having it.
    Quote Originally Posted by Wowalixi View Post
    Blizzard announced that some 1.2 million people bought the Annual Pass. They never announced how many cancelled, and I know there are probably a good amount from seeing posts and knowing friends who cancelled, etc.


    Im a AP holder who didnt get MoP. Cancelling my sub in a few weeks so i can still play D3

    Last edited by Zeek Daniels; 2012-10-06 at 07:02 PM.

  9. #829
    Quote Originally Posted by Wowalixi View Post
    I didn't insult you. I was pointing out that you were arguing in a field which you clearly had limited or no knowledge in. Besides I was attacking your use of an analogy to prove your point. That analogy was based on false facts and a misrepresentation of how businesses work. Am I supposed to just let you get away with posting wrong facts, or should I tell you that your facts are wrong?

    You assume that Blizzard has some switch they can flick and automatically it will sort every player that qualifies under a certain criteria. You also assume that Blizzard has a liability to report the full extent of their criteria. As far as Blizzard is concerned, a subscription is well defined on their page. That's all they care about. They don't care how long you play. They don't care what you're doing in game. They don't even care if you bought an Annual Pass and haven't played since July. All they see is a little green check mark under "Active" for your account and count you. It's the same way census workers count the population of a city.

    As for your last paragraph, sure calling them subscriptions might be a bad term. But it doesn't matter what they're called. As players it shouldn't matter what the number is. If I'm having a good time, I don't care how many other people are having a good time. And like I said, don't use the argument of "we deserve to know what the true facts are" because the only people who really deserve to know are investors, and they shouldn't be coming to these forums for financial information anyways.
    You make a lot of assumptions and claim I'm saying a whole lot more than I actually am. My point is very narrow and very specific. Subscriptions in US/EU and Asia are dramatically different products. My carnival analogy spoke simply to that to allow people to disconnect emotionally from WoW.

    As far as how Blizzard runs shop with the data it has and what it chooses to publish that's its call, its a grown company and can make its own decisions. We however can criticize what it does. It chooses to lump them together and call them all subscriptions -- ok that's fine. I and others claim that its a bad term and I give my reasons.

    As for your other points. An analogy is merely an analogy and is used to help gain understanding about a particular concept (the two different products in this case) -- nothing about facts or false facts here. No, I don't care about Blizzard making everyone qualify under a certain criterion. They like many companies sell different things -- their published data is lacking detail. As for the little green checkmark and whatever else you think they see, I claim you may actually be the one with "limited or no knowledge" about such things. Companies collect and use tremendous amounts of data for analytics. It's Blizzard's call how they run shop, but I am certain their investors would be horrified if they simply ignored their ability to use this data. As for the we deserve to know argument, well people are using the information that is published to the investors. These forums are merely a place where we discuss things, but the information we are discussing comes from the same data investors get. Bottom line, you bring up a whole bunch of things that are irrelevant to the point I'm making. Ultimately it even seems like you agree with me.

  10. #830
    Quote Originally Posted by Zdrasti View Post
    You make a lot of assumptions and claim I'm saying a whole lot more than I actually am. My point is very narrow and very specific. Subscriptions in US/EU and Asia are dramatically different products. My carnival analogy spoke simply to that to allow people to disconnect emotionally from WoW.

    As far as how Blizzard runs shop with the data it has and what it chooses to publish that's its call, its a grown company and can make its own decisions. We however can criticize what it does. It chooses to lump them together and call them all subscriptions -- ok that's fine. I and others claim that its a bad term and I give my reasons.

    As for your other points. An analogy is merely an analogy and is used to help gain understanding about a particular concept (the two different products in this case) -- nothing about facts or false facts here. No, I don't care about Blizzard making everyone qualify under a certain criterion. They like many companies sell different things -- their published data is lacking detail. As for the little green checkmark and whatever else you think they see, I claim you may actually be the one with "limited or no knowledge" about such things. Companies collect and use tremendous amounts of data for analytics. It's Blizzard's call how they run shop, but I am certain their investors would be horrified if they simply ignored their ability to use this data. As for the we deserve to know argument, well people are using the information that is published to the investors. These forums are merely a place where we discuss things, but the information we are discussing comes from the same data investors get. Bottom line, you bring up a whole bunch of things that are irrelevant to the point I'm making. Ultimately it even seems like you agree with me.
    I don't agree with you in the least bit. I don't see anything wrong with the way Blizzard publishes their subscription numbers, and think it's ludicrous for you to expect them to divulge intimate details about the inner working of the company. What they choose to push out and call subscriptions is clearly defined and has been since the time WoW started setting records. How many other MMOs can you say even boast that reputation? Many MMOs don't even publish their subscription numbers for the public and if so they are incredibly vague. (I still remember SW:TOR bloating their initial subscription numbers by including people who were still on a free month, since it didn't fully release until December 20th. They boasted an amazing 2 million subscriptions at the time! Well no duh, because every single person who bought the game had a free month of playtime!) My primary point is that we as players ultimately have no stake in the numbers, and many don't understand them, so we apply false meaning to them to make ourselves feel important, whether for good or bad. Too much attention is being drawn to a simple number that is bound to be vague due to the ways Blizzard chooses to simplify it.

    You're stating that Blizzard needs to differentiate between apples and oranges. I'm stating that it doesn't matter, because subscriptions are just a scapegoat, a number to make players feel proud and important. No real investor would pay attention to subscriptions.

    Just to make things clearer, here's an example:

    Say your friend comes to you and asks you for $100. He says it's for a good investment, that he's developing a mobile app or something, whatever you want to make up, and promises to pay you back DOUBLE what you loaned him. Now you know your friend, you know he's trustworthy, blah blah, so you cut him a check for $100.

    Two months later he comes back and gives you TRIPLE what you invested him. He says that his app was better than he expected, and he reaped more than he thought that he would. Would you then start demanding that he give you explicit details of how his app sold? Would you want to know how much people paid for it? Would you ask him how much of that was selling advertisements in the app? If his app had a premium and a free option, would you demand he break it down for you how much of each he sold? Or would you just be happy if he told you how much he had earned off the app?

    All an investor cares about is the money. They don't care about finicky details that are defined by the corporation. They don't care whether it's a premium account, or a bonus account, or a collector's account, or a free account. They just care that their investment is returned and that the company they are investing in is boasting solid profits, etc.

    It's a loose example, I know, but I hope it just pushes across the point I'm trying to make. Money is money, profits are profits. Ignore the little number called "subscriptions" for a bit, and just focus on the fact that WoW has been and will be, for awhile, the most financially successful MMORPG of all time.
    Last edited by IxilaFA; 2012-10-06 at 07:58 PM.

  11. #831
    Quote Originally Posted by Wowalixi View Post
    You're stating that Blizzard needs to differentiate between apples and oranges. I'm stating that it doesn't matter, because subscriptions are just a scapegoat, a number to make players feel proud and important. No real investor would pay attention to subscriptions.
    I'll let you think that one through one more time.

  12. #832
    Quote Originally Posted by Zdrasti View Post
    I'll let you think that one through one more time.
    Um, great? No details or arguments or anything?

    If you're superior, why do you bother posting on these forums? Clearly you know everything that you need to know about this topic already.

  13. #833
    Quote Originally Posted by Wowalixi View Post
    Um, great? No details or arguments or anything?

    If you're superior, why do you bother posting on these forums? Clearly you know everything that you need to know about this topic already.
    Again I never said I'm superior, you're just putting words in my mouth. People make silly mistakes all the time, especially when they're arguing. You made such a silly mistake and I gave you the chance to correct it. I'll target it even more closely so you can correct your statement or if you insist, you can stand by it.

    "No real investor would pay attention to subscriptions."

  14. #834
    so all we know for sure is that there are less that 10 million people playing WoW.

  15. #835
    Quote Originally Posted by Wowalixi View Post
    I seriously doubt you're a statistical analyst, and if so, I would never hire you. If myself, a simple layman, can tell where the difference falls in those numbers, hopefully someone who is trained to analyze statistics could figure it out.
    the fact you are saying that you understand the numbers proves that you dont know what you are talking about. i can tell you for a fact that you cant; because quite simply you dont have sufficient data, Blizzard doesnt provide it to the general public, even when a chunk of that public are notionally the company owners.

    what Blizzard calls "subscribers" for a given period includes numbers for the west, which are subscribers in the sense that they are paying a regular fee, and the east, who work on an hourly pay to play basis. each western subscription represents a substantially larger income than the average eastern player. it also includes people who were only subscribed for a single day in the quarter (in the west) or who played for only a single hour in the quarter (in the east). it includes people who are known to be "reliable" subscribers, and those who Blizzard can see will play for a defined period after each expansion or major content drop, then walk away from the game for a period of time. it contains people who log on every day, and those who only play a couple of times a week, for raids.

    Blizzard have access to data that allows them to evaluate the health of the game, and see the effect of their efforts on demographics within their subscribers. we dont know this breakdown (they have never released this level of data) and we dont know how it is changing over time. all we have is conjecture and supposition, but its a fun thing to do, if you like that sort of thing.

    it does make a mockery of either side stating that they know what is going on based on the information available to the general public, however. there may be a million more people playing since MoP dropped, but that may hide a fall in western subscriptions of a million, with a 2 million rise in chinese players using korean game servers. great for the numbers, terrible for income. or it may be the complete opposite, with a huge rise in western subscriptions while all the chinese players stop using the korean versions and wait for MoP to start in their own countries.

    the truth, i suspect, lies somewhere between the two. because if the west had improved that much i suspect Blizzards PR department would be trumpeting it.

    as for your veiled insult towards me, i would offer this retort; if your post represents your understanding of statistics, and their analysis, then trust me, i wouldnt dream of working for you.
    When challenging a Kzin, a simple scream of rage is sufficient. You scream and you leap.
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  16. #836
    Quote Originally Posted by Zdrasti View Post
    WoW is amazingly popular in Asia and that's a great accomplishment. However, it is not the point. The point is that Chinese "subs" are vastly different from other "subs" to the point that they really shouldn't be called subs at all.

    Let me give you an analogy. Carnivals usually have two means by which you can go on the rides. You can buy tickets and each ride costs a certain number of tickets. Alternately you can buy a wrist band, hand stamp, etc that lets you ride all day. The latter is like the WoW subscription model for US/EU whereas the former is like the Chinese model. Blizzard however lumps them together and what is more, they call them both subscriptions. This would be like the carnival lumping wrist bands and ticket sales together and calling them all wrist band sales.

    There's two things to complain about here. First you shouldn't lump apples and oranges together. Second, if you choose to lump them together, you shouldn't call the combined objects apples.
    We have day-pass users, and we have pay-per-ride people, the number Blizzard reports is how many people have visited their park. It doesn't matter if you think they're too poor or too foreign to count as "real" people, the important thing is that many people have gone to Blizzard to have a good time.

    If you want to get in to the financial nitty-gritty there are lots of other numbers in the quarterly reports, the 10 million number is just a ball-park figure of how many people have played WoW in the last month.

  17. #837
    Quote Originally Posted by Dhrizzle View Post
    We have day-pass users, and we have pay-per-ride people, the number Blizzard reports is how many people have visited their park. It doesn't matter if you think they're too poor or too foreign to count as "real" people, the important thing is that many people have gone to Blizzard to have a good time.
    I never said anything about not counting them as "real" people, you have me confused with others whose statements border on racism. That being said, I guess I should thank you for echoing my post?

  18. #838
    Deleted
    Quote Originally Posted by Huehuecoyotl View Post
    The volume of new game features and content in MoP is a direct consequence of people cancelling subscriptions during Cataclysm. You're welcome.
    Just wanted to tell you I fully agree with your signature. It truly is. Hopefully for the people playing they still get lots of content and it isn't just a "buff" at start of expansion to lure unsuspecting people (because if it is, it kind of worked).

  19. #839
    Spam Assassin! MoanaLisa's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Zdrasti View Post
    Again I never said I'm superior, you're just putting words in my mouth. People make silly mistakes all the time, especially when they're arguing. You made such a silly mistake and I gave you the chance to correct it. I'll target it even more closely so you can correct your statement or if you insist, you can stand by it.

    "No real investor would pay attention to subscriptions."
    You could add the word 'just' in there in front of subscriptions. But the point he makes is true. Losing 2,000,000 subscriptions in China has a much different impact on the information that an investor would look at first than losing 2,000,000 subscriptions in US/EU. So a smart investor wouldn't necessarily pay that much attention to just subscriptions. Same goes for gains: gaining 2,000,000 in US/EU will have a larger impact than 2,000,000 in China. So subscriptions are an incomplete and bad methodology for determining health of a company. D3 matters. So does SCII. So does COD for that matter since investors invest in ACTV. I'll get to that in a second. No one here ever talks about that when yakking on endlessly about subscriptions being up or down. Before anyone screams about what a failure D3 was, in an investor's eyes, it wasn't at all. 10+million in sales is not a failure. Ever.

    In a larger sense though, someone investing in ACTV will think about Blizzard's subscriptions somewhat down the list. ACTV is a lot bigger than just Blizzard. Blizzard's important but it's not everything. Not even close. That's one reason why all of these conversations about "Blizzard's investors" are largely besides the point. If Blizzard has a terrible quarter and Activision releases a new COD title to over-the-top sales, an 'investor' will hardly notice what's going on at Blizzard.
    Last edited by MoanaLisa; 2012-10-06 at 10:52 PM.
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  20. #840
    Quote Originally Posted by Kangodo View Post
    All we know for sure? No, we aren't.
    The only numbers we are aware of tell us it's over 10 million.
    You can keep ignoring that all you want, but that doesn't make you right.
    wrong. the only numbers we have tell us that Blizzard latest numbers for "subscribers" is over 10 million. for all we know that includes 9 million people who played MoP for one day in september and have now cancelled their subscription or stopped paying for game time. we dont know if there are more than 10 million people playing WoW, we dont know if there are less. we. dont. know.
    When challenging a Kzin, a simple scream of rage is sufficient. You scream and you leap.
    Quote Originally Posted by George Carlin
    Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.
    Quote Originally Posted by Douglas Adams
    It is a well-known fact that those people who must want to rule people are, ipso facto, those least suited to do it... anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job.

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