February 7: Blizzard Conference Call

[Deleted]

Why is that?

For the same reason people hung around in Shatrath, Dalaran, Orgrimmar/Stormwind, and Shrine.

---------- Post added 2013-01-23 at 12:40 AM ----------

[...]
-Content Drought, Daillies, CRZ, color of Jania's hair, color of the sky, pissed in your Wheaties this mourning, Ghostcrawler is a terrorist sleeper agent from Mars...you pick.
[...]

My class being broken.

[Deleted]

Who cares how many people are playing this game? If you enjoy it, play it, if not, don't play it. Its simple as that. Don't look at some stupid numbers.

[Deleted]

...I stand corrected on my assumption. My bad. :P

Well written... and thanks, because I think similarly to you how you are portrayed here - and this makes me even more wary of trying MoP.

2 things I liked in MoP: the storyline, challenge modes.

I can recommend both.

Rest isn't worth my monthly maintenance. Ie. grinds, more grinds, CRZ, ...

---------- Post added 2013-01-23 at 12:46 AM ----------

Read the bolded part. It can't be forced if you have options. Do I need to bring up a dictionary for the word forced?

Ever heard of "picking between two evils" or whatever it is called in English. Like you got two choices, you don't like either, but you must pick one.

[beefster]

---------- Post added 2013-01-23 at 11:27 AM ----------

i agreed with your post and i am unsubbing cause i am not having fun see u in 2014

Who cares how many people are playing this game? If you enjoy it, play it, if not, don't play it. Its simple as that. Don't look at some stupid numbers.

[soxyboi]

Dailies have made several hundres of thousands people unsub. CRZ made another part quit.

Where are these numbers coming from? Every xpac so far has had dailys of some form or another, now blizz have made it so there are enough to always have some quests to do if you like that sort of thing. Imagine this is 'I dont like it so majority of playerbase must not either' type of comment.

OT: Whilst there might be a small dip in subs, I think what people think of as unsubs is in fact players moving to high pop servers where they arent really noticed amongst the masses, yet are obviously missed on smaller servers.

[slackjawsix]

this xpac seem to has alot more ppl enjoying than cata did to think the sub would drop drastically is crazy and can hardly be backed up

[Belletha]

I'm expecting subs to be down to around 9.4M. (-800k ish)
I'm expecting them to say this was due to the misguided effort of front-loading all of those dailies for fresh lvl90s.
I'm expecting them to say they have a plan to get more people to re-sub in 5.2.
I'm expecting them to hint at the 'mystery' feature they haven't told us about to be said plan.
I'm expecting them to announce another Blizz store pet and/or mount.
I'm expecting them to give more details on other IPs (SC2, D3, perhaps even a small update on Titan).
I'm fully expecting them to say that CRZ is a huge success (it is, if by that you mean we see people in the world sometimes), but still has a few bugs to be worked out (dismounting).

[Bolson13]

this xpac seem to has alot more ppl enjoying than cata did to think the sub would drop drastically is crazy and can hardly be backed up

This is my exact feeling as well. It seems to cater to the exact right audience too. Not the casuals who want to level alts constantly nor the hardcore raiders. It seems to focus more on the middle ground players. People that want to see content but more on a relaxed pace yet still with full focus and a good attitude when they DO raid. I think many old timers are enjoying it. And this is also what I see from responses in my guild and people I know. We all play since vanilla and Cata was just horrible. Yet MoP has seen all of our old members return pretty much.

[Synstir]

I think the loss will be more than 1 mil.... it could easily be more even. We will drop below 9 mil subs.

[Osmeric]

The wildcard will be China. There have been hints from some posters that Blizzard is expecting large declines in China, which started in Cataclysm. It could be WoW has just lost its luster there much more than in the rest of the world, for local idiosyncratic reasons.

[Millennía]

Well since this is the Q4 of 2012 results, I am guessing there will be a small increase in subs because of new content and holidays.

[Deleted]

I'm expecting subs to be down to around 9.4M. (-800k ish)
I'm expecting them to say this was due to the misguided effort of front-loading all of those dailies for fresh lvl90s.
I'm expecting them to say they have a plan to get more people to re-sub in 5.2.
I'm expecting them to hint at the 'mystery' feature they haven't told us about to be said plan.
I'm expecting them to announce another Blizz store pet and/or mount.
I'm expecting them to give more details on other IPs (SC2, D3, perhaps even a small update on Titan).
I'm fully expecting them to say that CRZ is a huge success (it is, if by that you mean we see people in the world sometimes), but still has a few bugs to be worked out (dismounting).

Listen to this guy.

[Deleted]

Listen to this guy.

I listened. It was a well written write-up. Short, to the point, without any backup from 3rd party sources or credible arguments.

I'm expecting subs to be down to around 9.9M. (-300k ish)

Why, not telling ya.

The only time I eat this kind of crap is from market analysts who work in the field who have reliable resume, and previous credibility they can build upon. And even then I realize they're not scientists.

[Deleted]

I'm expecting subs to be down to around 9.4M. (-800k ish)
I'm expecting them to say this was due to the misguided effort of front-loading all of those dailies for fresh lvl90s.
I'm expecting them to say they have a plan to get more people to re-sub in 5.2.
I'm expecting them to hint at the 'mystery' feature they haven't told us about to be said plan.
I'm expecting them to announce another Blizz store pet and/or mount.
I'm expecting them to give more details on other IPs (SC2, D3, perhaps even a small update on Titan).
I'm fully expecting them to say that CRZ is a huge success (it is, if by that you mean we see people in the world sometimes), but still has a few bugs to be worked out (dismounting).

Conference calls are for investors and business media. If they make announcements like these - apart from the subscription numbers obviously - I'd expect them to leave the building in a straitjacket. I've been wrong before though.

[Deleted]

Conference calls are for investors and business media. If they make announcements like these - apart from the subscription numbers obviously - I'd expect them to leave the building in a straitjacket. I've been wrong before though.

Just give it up. Gamers don't understand this. They also believe the publisher's and developer's websites are only meant for them (as in for gamers) and for them alone.

[Zaqwert]

I think the days of Blizzard giving out specific and accurate numbers is over. You tend to only talk about your numbers when they are good, I mean you wanna spin everything the best way possible.

It should be slightly worrying that they have begun being more vague in their numbers. So expect them to dot he same thing this time, they'll say they have "around" or "about" a certain number. They even do it with sales now, no longer "we sold 3.6 million copies in 24 hours" it's now "We sold about XYZ copies the first week or so"

Even the way they describe a subscriber is itself horribly flawed and misleading. If they wanted to give the investors a more realistic breakdown they would say how many subs they have in each region, and how many of the subs are monthly subscribers vs. paying a few cents on a game card, etc.

[mvaliz]

I'm expecting subs to be down to around 9.4M. (-800k ish)
I'm expecting them to say this was due to the misguided effort of front-loading all of those dailies for fresh lvl90s.

[snip]

Stopped right there!

There is, in NO WAY, any chance that they're going to blame their own development staff for any sub losses. They will spin it on "marketing conditions"... and even try to cover it up with good news.

If they even HINTED that their staff might've been at fault, the Stockholders would demand mass replacements.

Look at history... the last time they had the 1.1 million loss they blamed it on crossover from Diablo III sales - quickly jumping to how it sold over 10 million its first weekend. Prior to that they said the majority of losses were from China (meaning they pay less than main subs) and that was due to a "recent recession." (which we all know the only thing the players were receding from was Cataclysm's gameplay. :P)

[BrerBear]

My predictions...

1) There will be a ton of people in this thread who are waaaaaay off the mark from the actual results.
2) They will learn nothing from how bad their assessment of the game is and repeat the same mistake three months later.

[mvaliz]

My predictions...

1) There will be a ton of people in this thread who are waaaaaay off the mark from the actual results.
2) They will learn nothing from how bad their assessment of the game is and repeat the same mistake three months later.

About point #2... are you talking about the people in this thread or Blizzard? Or Both? :P

[Belletha]

Conference calls are for investors and business media. If they make announcements like these - apart from the subscription numbers obviously - I'd expect them to leave the building in a straitjacket. I've been wrong before though.

I'm not saying they'll actually SAY the 'mystery feature,' nor will they give more info on their other IPs (esp Titan) other than expectations of sales, release dates, or that they'll have info at Blizzcon.
===

Stopped right there!

There is, in NO WAY, any chance that they're going to blame their own development staff for any sub losses. They will spin it on "marketing conditions"... and even try to cover it up with good news.

If they even HINTED that their staff might've been at fault, the Stockholders would demand mass replacements.

Look at history... the last time they had the 1.1 million loss they blamed it on crossover from Diablo III sales - quickly jumping to how it sold over 10 million its first weekend. Prior to that they said the majority of losses were from China (meaning they pay less than main subs) and that was due to a "recent recession." (which we all know the only thing the players were receding from was Cataclysm's gameplay. :P)

As for this, I don't believe (nor expect) them to PHRASE it the way I stated...