3rd Quarter Sub Loss Predictions!

[Glorious Leader]

That's the problem of all MMOs nowadays. The segregation of players into hardcores and casuals is just a big mess that causes mutual name calling.

The developers tend to exacerbate this in a number of ways.

[Deleted]

That's the problem of all MMOs nowadays. The segregation of players into hardcores and casuals is just a big mess that causes mutual name calling.

That's because game developers think that they can shoe horn everyone into a on-size-fits-all MMO and not understanding why they fail. Greed is king in the genre now days and quality suffers from it.

[ringpriest]

I'm usually completely wrong on guessing sub gains/losses, but I voted "Other" because I'm predicting a mild gain.

It's my guess/opinion that a lot of the losses MoP has been seeing post-launch were actually delayed reactions to the awfulness that was Cataclysm. Blizz did everything they could to pad sub numbers during Cata, and I think it took a long time for the all the people for whom Cata killed the game, or maybe for whom MoP just wasn't quite enough (for whatever reason) to drop out. But that should have all shaken out of the system by now, and MoP is presumably losing or keeping subs solely on its own merits. 5.4 has clearly been popular, so I'm going to predict a slight gain in subs.

[Zaqwert]

It will be a mild loss, like 100-300k or something like that.

I would expect small losses like that every quarter except when expansions come out, which will see small increases.

Really don't ever expect to see any meaningful increase outside of new expansions ever again.

[Beat5beat]

Who cares?

Why is it that the same few people seemingly relish the idea of sub losses. I'd even go so far as to say its like a gleeful horniness over the game slowing down.

The game isn't shutting down any time remotely soon. What a sad life it must be to be on a WoW fan website just constantly talking down about the game. Sounds like a huge waste of time broseph.

Move on already. At least other people provide (sometimes) interesting criticisms that Blizzard should take. I cannot say the same for you.

I don't think it really has anything to do with them being happy about the actual sub loss or wanting Blizzard to fail.

I think it's more about a joy and hilarity that is gained from watching a certain group of rabid Blizzard defenders (that defend blizzard no matter what) scramble to make a new defense as to why Blizzard is not failing or this is not the downfall of Blizzard or insert X defense. Your response is actually one of the responses they get excited over.


Personally, I hope for a huge sub loss, because I don't think that Blizzard is trying hard enough. They produce far too little content for charging $15 bucks a month. The original reason they charged this much was a claim of server costs + adding content. Server costs are extremely low now so that excuse doesn't fly. They rarely put out content, as they spend most of their money developing expansions and other games. To me this is a rip off to the consumer and I hope it hits Blizzard where it hurts most, right in the wallet.

I mean consider just a moment the over $50 million dollars they are bringing in off subs each month. Most blockbuster games don't cost $50 million to produce. So EVERY single month, they are bringing in more than most companies use to produce an entire blockbuster game. And how much content do we get from this? Timeless isle? Awesome job.

[dope_danny]

I could honestly see it being the biggest loss yet purely because the time between 5.2 and 5.4 was pretty much "come back, get korkron gear!" for people who unsubbed but those still subbed at the time had no reason to play if they were casual players and i imagine the drought of content pushed a lot away before 5.4 hit.

[Mormolyce]

I'm really looking forward to Blizzcon and all the things they're going to announce, especially in WoW.

Couldn't give less of a shit about the sub numbers.

[rasako]

Who cares?

Why is it that the same few people seemingly relish the idea of sub losses. I'd even go so far as to say its like a gleeful horniness over the game slowing down.

The game isn't shutting down any time remotely soon. What a sad life it must be to be on a WoW fan website just constantly talking down about the game. Sounds like a huge waste of time broseph.

Move on already. At least other people provide (sometimes) interesting criticisms that Blizzard should take. I cannot say the same for you.

The hypocrisy in this post is utterly astounding. I have yet to see you add a single positive thing to ANY discussion on this forum yet.

[Mormolyce]

The fact that this is something people want to discuss, and even (based on the ! in the title) are excited to discuss, is rather depressing.

Morbid isn't it?

And all these people suddenly had all these things happen with the start of cata? Look, I don't want to argue mate but Blizz has been doing bare minimum and making the most illogical decisions for the past couple of years.

People have been making schadenfreude posts about WoW's inevitable doom as long as I've been reading forums. Even back when the subs were still growing.

I think you might get away with claiming Blizz coasted during Cata, it was certainly less revolutionary than other expansions, but in MoP they've done anything but the bare minimum. Personally I've felt almost overwhelmed by how much content and variety they put into it.

[Deleted]

I guess some of you will be making this threads untill WoW loses last players, then you finally will be happy and free of hate

[prwraith]

I like wow but I'm predicting a sub drop.

And I'm hoping the trend continues. Innovation via actual competition for the top spot needs to be reintroduced.

[lopk]

Considering that SoO was released (albeit in the middle of Q3), I would imagine that the damage is less rather than more. Still, that makes me fear for Q4!

[Glorious Leader]

.

I think you might get away with claiming Blizz coasted during Cata, it was certainly less revolutionary than other expansions, but in MoP they've done anything but the bare minimum. Personally I've felt almost overwhelmed by how much content and variety they put into it.

By their own admission mists or any expansion cannot be revolutionary. Mists has been regressive at best, the "content" is basically the same shit but it takes twice as long to do. The "content" is really just raids. On the other hand I could list PLENTY of things to do in cataclysm but nobody did them without any gear apparently and subsequently that wasn't considered content. Standards seem to change depending on the flavor of the expansion I guess.

[jbombard]

Well based on how subs have been trending I think it is squarely in the 500,000 - 1 million range. If it flattens off a bit it will end up closer to 500,000 if it continues full speed closer to 1 million.

Even though I am not currently playing anymore I hope it starts to level off soon. If it continues as is we are start getting out of encouraging competition area and into the unable to continue to provide content at the same pace area. If it starts to decelerate now maybe things will completely level off at around 4 million subs a couple years from now.

- - - Updated - - -

By their own admission mists or any expansion cannot be revolutionary. Mists has been regressive at best, the "content" is basically the same shit but it takes twice as long to do. The "content" is really just raids. On the other hand I could list PLENTY of things to do in cataclysm but nobody did them without any gear apparently and subsequently that wasn't considered content. Standards seem to change depending on the flavor of the expansion I guess.

I think they have been playing a bit of trial and error since the big sub crash of Cataclysm. LFR only seemed to postpone things for a short time and then the rapid decline in subs has continued on as usual. Hopefully they find the right formula soon.

[Deleted]

Thinking that the sub loss of Q3 will be more extreme than most people think it will be. I won't be surprised if it's more than a million, why?
- Many people are annoyed by the fact that you can either play on a dead realm or on a realm with a 1+ hour login queue.
- Many people are annoyed by the fact that virtual realms are rolling out so terribly slow.
- ToT was a disappointment for a lot of people after all the hype.
- SoO was an even bigger disappointment, another raid with 60% refurbished scenery and uninspiring trash / old boss mechanics.
- some good games game out in Q3 that will have pulled people away from playing wow.

I think it's all for the better though, Blizzard needs this wake-up call. Slowly losing their monopoly might mean they start innovating and making awesome content like in the old times again instead of endlessly milking their customers with 5-minute-made storemounts and refurbished content (scenery etc).

[BeneditaNBeatriz]

it will go down to ~7M subs by end of the year. But next year it will raise to ~8.5/9 in the 1st q .

after that it will go down 1/2 to 4.5/5 M subs and will stay near 4M for a wile. ( wildstar / archeage / eso / eqnext ).

this is not a prediction. it will indeed happen

[Gimlix]

Thinking that the sub loss of Q3 will be more extreme than most people think it will be. I won't be surprised if it's more than a million, why?
- Many people are annoyed by the fact that you can either play on a dead realm or on a realm with a 1+ hour login queue.
- Many people are annoyed by the fact that virtual realms are rolling out so terribly slow.
- ToT was a disappointment for a lot of people after all the hype.
- SoO was an even bigger disappointment, another raid with 60% refurbished scenery and uninspiring trash / old boss mechanics.
- some good games game out in Q3 that will have pulled people away from playing wow.

I think it's all for the better though, Blizzard needs this wake-up call. Slowly losing their monopoly might mean they start innovating and making awesome content like in the old times again instead of endlessly milking their customers with 5-minute-made storemounts and refurbished content (scenery etc).

Lol nobody was dissapointed in ToT, ToT was a raid most of the 'real' raiders were very happy with.

- - - Updated - - -

it will go down to ~7M subs by end of the year. But next year it will raise to ~8.5/9 in the 1st q .

after that it will go down 1/2 to 4.5/5 M subs and will stay near 4M for a wile. ( wildstar / archeage / eso / eqnext ).

this is not a prediction. it will indeed happen

Just like GW2 and SWTOR effected WoW when they were released. ow wait NOT!

[Lafdet]

Going to go with 500k-1M options mostly due to the fact that SoO isn't too interesting for me personally, and some of my friends have said the same.

TCCY buff might have driven away players, without even looking at the fix and whatnot ^^'

[Deadite]

Just like GW2 and SWTOR effected WoW when they were released. ow wait NOT!

I am sure it was just a coincidence those games gained millions of players while WoW lost millions. Yip....

[Vankrys]

it will go down to ~7M subs by end of the year. But next year it will raise to ~8.5/9 in the 1st q .

after that it will go down 1/2 to 4.5/5 M subs and will stay near 4M for a wile. ( wildstar / archeage / eso / eqnext ).

this is not a prediction. it will indeed happen

i doubt wow would ever go back to 9M sub though, even with the release with a new expansion. We have no information about next expansion, which means, it is not releasing for a good 6 month at least. By the time the new expansion hits, wow would be lucky to have 5 millions sub. From then, i don't see it going up 9M.

Realistically, wow was and is a good game, but it's on a decline, has been for the past 3 years, people just move on to new games, it's the normal way of things. We would normally be around the time Titan should be close to release, to succeed to wow. Unfortunately, Titan has been delayed indefinitely.

And it is my belief that hearthstone will have a negative impact overall on wow. Yes it might attract some players to wow but i am affraid it will drive more to terminate their subs, prefering to play hearthstone.