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  1. #181
    Quote Originally Posted by Immitis View Post
    isnt eve like a space ship mmo where most of the content is driven by what players do O_o
    basically yeah. you log in, and then do southshore-taren mill for a few hours. then set your skills to automatically raise while you aren´t playing. Then maybe go and pay for your subscription with ingame currency. Then you log-out and go to one of your other 30 free accounts and do the same thing.

  2. #182
    Quote Originally Posted by Alastaircrawly View Post
    And the combated this

    Vp gear shifted to jp, HOT heroics, Annual pass, SOR with a free 80, LFR, Wow sales left and right, new ROF mount.
    i dont thin things like vp gear and lfr and whatnot had much to do with anything since those were planned for quite some time O-O
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    "so what do we do?" "well jack, you stand there and say 'gee rocket raccoon I'm so glad you brought that Unfeasibly large cannon with you..' and i go like this BRAKKA BRAKKA BRAKKA" - Rocket Raccoon

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  3. #183
    Quote Originally Posted by MoanaLisa View Post
    Activision cash-on-hand at around or somewhere north of 3.0 billion is about correct. They have no debt at the moment either.

    http://ycharts.com/companies/ATVI/cash_and_equivalents

    Stepping into moderator text for a moment, it's entirely possible for people to discuss this in a civil manner and without reference to other games which inevitably leads to game vs. game shenanigans, infractions and thread closures. Consider yourselves informed. - ML
    If you discuss WOW subscriptions be prepared to place that fact into the "subscription" MMO market of today...

    As free to play is the norm and subscription based games are so rare these days (that even dedicated websites that tracked subscriptions no longer are updated), it is only natural to look into the industry as a whole in numbers, leading automatically to the names of other games.

    It makes no sense to talk about subscriptions (and search the reason of subs within a game mechanic as a so called valid argument) and at the same time ignoring the GENERAL market of other (free to play) games that have a MUCH bigger impact on WOW subscription fees and its staying power.

    In other words: if you talk about WOW subscriptions, you have to look at the industry as a whole. and you can't stay within the limits of in game trivial things like CRZ which have the impact of a mouse when there are 20 hurding elephants around...
    Last edited by BenBos; 2013-02-03 at 02:30 AM.

  4. #184
    Deleted
    Quote Originally Posted by BenBos View Post
    It is just a matter of time before US and EU will be linked too. And most EU countries pay the same if not more than the US.

    SC2 shows the way: they even deleted the seperate region servers.

    Blizzard next plans is just having one giant server cluster per game.
    i was already grouping EU&US together. The refference was to Asian players which pay much less and on a different model. Russia pays also only 60% of eu players which means 2m eu players = 3m russian players in terms of income. Throwing a single summed sub number arround is a huger oversimplification

  5. #185
    Quote Originally Posted by Pann View Post
    Not sure if that is a typo but WOW dropped to 9.1 million prior to 5.0 when it went back up to 10 million.



    So do you think WOW will gain or lose subs? As Titan is rumoured to be free to play why do think people will pay to play a beta version? If past performance is anything to go by 2014 will bring nothing for several months and towards the end there will be an expansion. 2015 is a long way away and there is no guarantee that the movie will be out by then and that it would appeal to non-WOW players. Free subscription seems like a bad idea to me, the majority of people that go to see the movie will already be subscribers thus they will lose sub money those that are not are unlikely to spend £80 plus buying WOW plus four or five expansions in order take advantage of a free subscription.
    Titan is ´rumored´to be f2p? haha, by whom, all the people who can´t afford $15 per month? There is NO WAY Blizzard would create a MMO and launch it f2p. Remember, Titan was planned when WOW really became runaway successful.. when it was going from 2 to 6M players seemingly over night. I have no doubt, and would bet $100 on the fact that Titan is going to be COD in space with a $15/month subscription. It will definitely be a FPS and will have a theme drastically different than WOW, that way there is no cannablising. Basically Activision looked at all those COD players and said ´wouldn´t it be great if we had them paying $15 per month like the 6M WOW players do.´ My only doubt about Titan is if it will be sci-fi based (laser type weapons) of it will be more modern-type weaponry like CoD.

  6. #186
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    Quote Originally Posted by MoanaLisa View Post
    With the financial reporting coming up later this week threads like this are inevitable and fine as long as there aren't multiples. Since I closed the other one that was mildly related to this topic a few hours ago <glares at certain people...you know who you are> this is fine. Forums are about, if nothing else, speculation, opinions and wild guesses.

    Just don't insult one another and stay on topic. -ML [Front-Seat Mod]
    Problem with these things is they often devolve into "X feature caused everyone in my guild to quit, therefor the game died." Which then earns a response of "I like X!" And they just start shouting down each other.
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  7. #187
    Quote Originally Posted by Azrile View Post
    Titan is ´rumored´to be f2p? haha, by whom, all the people who can´t afford $15 per month? There is NO WAY Blizzard would create a MMO and launch it f2p. Remember, Titan was planned when WOW really became runaway successful.. when it was going from 2 to 6M players seemingly over night. I have no doubt, and would bet $100 on the fact that Titan is going to be COD in space with a $15/month subscription. It will definitely be a FPS and will have a theme drastically different than WOW, that way there is no cannablising. Basically Activision looked at all those COD players and said ´wouldn´t it be great if we had them paying $15 per month like the 6M WOW players do.´ My only doubt about Titan is if it will be sci-fi based (laser type weapons) of it will be more modern-type weaponry like CoD.
    um bty the fact that blizzard was hiring people to put ingame ads into a new mmo.... and that they said they were planning on trying to connect it to facebook... and that its meant to both not be competing with wow and be a much more casual drop in drop out type of game... all those things point to either free to play or some kind of free sub if you have wow
    "I was a normal baby for 30 seconds, then ninjas stole my mamma" - Deadpool
    "so what do we do?" "well jack, you stand there and say 'gee rocket raccoon I'm so glad you brought that Unfeasibly large cannon with you..' and i go like this BRAKKA BRAKKA BRAKKA" - Rocket Raccoon

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  8. #188
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    Quote Originally Posted by MoanaLisa View Post
    Stepping into moderator text for a moment, it's entirely possible for people to discuss this in a civil manner and without reference to other games which inevitably leads to game vs. game shenanigans, infractions and thread closures. Consider yourselves informed. - ML
    Problem with this no offence is the same people keep doing it in different threads. You warn them than they quit till a different thread or they try to tell you game vs game is needed to talk wow subs

  9. #189
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    Quote Originally Posted by BenBos View Post
    It makes no sense to talk about subscriptions (and search the reason of subs within a game mechanic as a so called valid argument) and at the same time ignoring the GENERAL market of other (free to play) games that have a MUCH bigger impact on WOW subscription fees and its staying power.
    Markets aren't the same thing as other game titles and speculation about game specifics which generally aren't available isn't overly useful.

    Since I asked nicely, I'm sure you will find a way.
    Last edited by MoanaLisa; 2013-02-03 at 02:38 AM. Reason: Edited for specificity
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  10. #190
    Quote Originally Posted by dokhidamo View Post
    Problem with these things is they often devolve into "X feature caused everyone in my guild to quit, therefor the game died." Which then earns a response of "I like X!" And they just start shouting down each other.
    Yep, while - in reality - the MUCH more important market factors are way more deciding for subscriptions and active player numbers. In this case: the market of subscriptions dried up completely for the vast majority of the industrial players in the field.

    So we are not supposed to talk about these players that went free to play then? For what reason ? To view WOW as an isolated case and that subs are only related to in game issues... ?

    Of course not, but I get the impression that some don't want to pin point the REAL problem of this thread: WOW is STILL a subscription based game with a massive number of paid subscriptions.

    While most of the industry is now down to 0.000.000 subs.

    Quite a deal really.
    Last edited by BenBos; 2013-02-03 at 02:40 AM.

  11. #191
    Deleted
    Quote Originally Posted by BenBos View Post
    What a joke really.

    WOW remaning at 10 million subscriptions in a time where there simply is no more a subscription competition by lack of ... competitors in this bracket (> 500K), you actually make sentences like these ???

    The rest stands at 0.000.000 subs and had to go free to play in order to survive.

    Even COD Elite went free and has no longer a subscription fee dude.

    And this 8 year old game trodds along the same subscription numbers it had for more than 5 years...


    That shows class. Nothing more nothing less.

    We won.
    Hmm, if by "we won" you mean the competition is falling short then the only real winners are Blizzard, the consumer? - Im not so sure. Are you a share holder? if not I find your stance rather odd.

  12. #192
    Quote Originally Posted by bt4 View Post
    i was already grouping EU&US together. The refference was to Asian players which pay much less and on a different model. Russia pays also only 60% of eu players which means 2m eu players = 3m russian players in terms of income. Throwing a single summed sub number arround is a huger oversimplification
    Yeah, but Blizzard has been consistent with what it calls a subscriber, basically anyone who has paid any amount of money in the last 30 days. The actual subscription number is largely ignored by the financial analysts.. it is a nice prop, but everyone just wants to see earnings and profit margin.

    Not to shoot myself in the foot as a fanboy, but it is one of the reasons the stock did not dive when they announced subscriptions had dropped so much. Because Blizzard said, and the dollar amounts showed that the vast majority of the subscribers lost were in china, and were probably the lowest paying ones at that. The financials for WOW did not look anywhere near as bad as you would think with a 20% subscriber loss. In fact, if Blizzard had not announced the subscription numbers being down, you wouldn´t have even been able to tell it by their profits that quarter.

  13. #193
    Quote Originally Posted by Attsey View Post
    Hmm, if by "we won" you mean the competition is falling short then the only real winners are Blizzard, the consumer? - Im not so sure. Are you a share holder? if not I find your stance rather odd.
    Nah, it is just a general joke after having to endure "WOW killers" for 7 years in a row now. There was this thread once where every new game that would launch had its "we will kill WOW with this game post".

    I always said: we will kill your game first dude.

    It is kidding really.
    Last edited by BenBos; 2013-02-03 at 02:47 AM.

  14. #194
    Quote Originally Posted by Immitis View Post
    um bty the fact that blizzard was hiring people to put ingame ads into a new mmo.... and that they said they were planning on trying to connect it to facebook... and that its meant to both not be competing with wow and be a much more casual drop in drop out type of game... all those things point to either free to play or some kind of free sub if you have wow
    where were they hiring people to put ingame ads in a new MMO? Where did they say they were connecting Titan to facebook? Where did they say it would be a ´drop in drop out´ type of game?

    You make 4 statements, 1 of which is common sense ( they don´t want to compete with WOW) and then 3 others that are not from Blizzard at all... and then make those 3 false statements proof that your comment is correct? Blizzard never said those things.

    Then you have to look at the other silly evidence. Two of the first developers to move over to the new project were hardcore raiders who were responsible for Vanilla being so heavily raid-centric and hardcore. Yep, those are the types of guys you want building wowville. The other evidence is Zynga. you really think Blizzard (ie greedy bastards) are going to abandon the WOW subscription model and instead follow a company that has gone from IPO to near bankruptcy in 2 years? Plants-vz-zombies, angry birds, farmville are all really cool games that made a quick buck for their developers.. but they aren´t even a whif of what WOW makes. Blizzard did not spend 3-4 years already developing a MMO to mimic farmville.

    Also, aside from DDO, there is no evidence that F2P MMOs actually can earn a profit. DDO was the first AAA game to make the switch, so drew a lot of attention.. but EQ2, AOC, TSW and SWTOR have all made the switch and none of them are even significant to talk about as far as overall players, let alone having the profit margin of WOW or even what they had before they went f2p. They hype around f2p MMOs all began and ended with DDO, the only one where the developers actually said profits increased.. 4 years ago.

  15. #195
    Deleted
    Quote Originally Posted by Azrile View Post
    Not to shoot myself in the foot as a fanboy, but it is one of the reasons the stock did not dive when they announced subscriptions had dropped so much. Because Blizzard said, and the dollar amounts showed that the vast majority of the subscribers lost were in china, and were probably the lowest paying ones at that. The financials for WOW did not look anywhere near as bad as you would think with a 20% subscriber loss. In fact, if Blizzard had not announced the subscription numbers being down, you wouldn´t have even been able to tell it by their profits that quarter.
    That's interesting. Wonder if that was the start of the exclusive adjustments to asian servers to fix those drops. It's pretty clear that they play different, if the reception differs enough to show so much influence on customers then adjusting the game to the regions playerbase seems worth the effort.

  16. #196
    Quote Originally Posted by BenBos View Post
    Nah, it is just a general joke after having to endure "WOW killers" for 7 years in a row now. There was this thread once where every new game that would launch had its "we will kill WOW with this game post".

    I always said: we will kill your game first dude.

    It is kidding really.
    my favorite was on a different site a player wrote a long post about boxing.. how AOC and Warhammer would be a 1-2 combination that would floor WOW. They even disected how each games features would carve up different parts of WOW. From AOCs amazing graphics, amazing combat controls, and large scale seiges... to Warhammers openworld pvp and IP.

  17. #197
    Quote Originally Posted by sandmoth12 View Post
    You can't tell me what matters to me because I decide that myself, and one thing that matters to me is subscription base numbers.
    Pointless thread... and reading your replies I can see you are such a """""mature man"""""...

    What do you want us to tell you???

    -"yeah wow sucks and it will die this year without a doubt"

    or maybe

    -"yeah wow kicks every other game's ass, it'll will never die"

    Does it really matter for you what other people think about a game you like/dislike so you can feel that you have the absolute truth about a game that millions of people play???

    Pathetic... enough said.-

  18. #198
    Quote Originally Posted by bt4 View Post
    That's interesting. Wonder if that was the start of the exclusive adjustments to asian servers to fix those drops. It's pretty clear that they play different, if the reception differs enough to show so much influence on customers then adjusting the game to the regions playerbase seems worth the effort.
    Cata didn´t launch in China until 7 months after the USA. Basically the huge drop in subscribers came about when China was in the ´ok, lets farm LK for 9 more months´ phase.

    Also, there is a myth that somehow they play less than we do. But their raid progress per server is similar to normal western servers. I think it is one of the things ´haters´ liked to say when Blizz puts out subscription numbers ´yeah, but they are counting a person from china who only played and payed for 1 hour last month´... while technically true, they would count that person, the fact is there is nothing about china servers that would indicate they have a substantial number of players playing such a small amount. But the truth is also that even a very hardcore player in China would pay substantially less than $15 per month.

    Also to note.. the lag between western and China expansion launches is now almost gone. China launched only a week after the USA.

  19. #199
    I'm gonna say around 8 million.

    I don't know if it's been launched in China yet but I don't think the Western market is doing exceptionally well at the moment.

    Call it a hunch. I don't really have anything to back up my claims. I just think I know WHY people might be quitting right now like they did in Cataclysm (going back on set precedents and all that jazz).
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  20. #200
    Quote Originally Posted by Azrile View Post
    Cata didn´t launch in China until 7 months after the USA. Basically the huge drop in subscribers came about when China was in the ´ok, lets farm LK for 9 more months´ phase.
    Except we know many of the losses in Q1 and Q2 were outside of China, because revenue was also dropping fairly rapidly. Also, they explained the losses in Q3 as being primarily in China (we estimate maybe 500K out of the 800K net losses in Q3 2011 where there, again from revenue.) If losses in Q1 and Q2 had been in China they would have have said that then, to cushion the bad news.
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