ACtivision/Blizzard Earnings Call - Legion "slightly" better than WoD...

[Oftenwrongsoong]

Saw this on the forums:

Well, today is the day for ATVI's quarterly earnings call. For those of you that have followed those in the past, Blizzard no longer releases subscription numbers for World of Warcraft.

For those of you that think Legion has been knocking the socks off WoW and bringing subscribers back in drovers--think again.

"World of Warcraft time spent grew [year over year] and Legion's overall performance is slightly ahead of the prior expansion."

http://imgur.com/a/6yHzi

"Slightly" better than Warlords of Draenor, yikes. For those that don't remember, the last subscriber number we have for WoD is 5.5 million (before they stopped reporting this number). See http://www.mmo-champion.com/content/...er-at-Blizzcon

Clearly, "everyone" is not coming back for Legion. If they did, they left again.

I blame artifacts being the central focus of the entire expansion, in addition to it being the main villain and final boss of the expansion.

[Deleted]

I'm sure they weren't talking about subs, as subs are a bad way to measure performance. They are probably talking about profit in general, and WoD did very well at that. The game is still making them tons of money, so where's the problem?

[Count Zero]

It says overall performance. Meaning we don't know if they mean subs, income, both, neither, or what.

Revenue could be up with subs down. Subs could be up with revenue down. Both could be up. Maybe they're using a different metric.

[Oftenwrongsoong]

I'm sure they weren't talking about subs, as subs are a bad way to measure performance. They are probably talking about profit in general, and WoD did very well at that. The game is still making them tons of money, so where's the problem?

Negative, they were talking about time spent playing the game. Read the slide, or click the video on the front page and rewind to when they were discussing it.

[Magicpot]

I'm sure they weren't talking about subs, as subs are a bad way to measure performance. They are probably talking about profit in general, and WoD did very well at that. The game is still making them tons of money, so where's the problem?

Considering how the shop is cancer for the game, subs should be the ONLY thing that matters.

[ComputerNerd]

They are referring negatively to whatever metric someone who wants to bash the game wants it to be.
Subs were proven to be a measure that the community was too damn stupid to appreciate.
If subs went up, either blizzard were lying, or catering to the wrong audience.
And if subs went down they were absolute proof of some specific gripe amongst a large number of other changes.

This is why we can't have nice things like transparency.
Stupid people.

[Riistov]

Saw this on the forums:

They were referring to time spent in game, not subs or income. Nice try.

[Andonais]

Considering how the shop is cancer for the game, subs should be the ONLY thing that matters.

Revenue is what matters for a company.

[Deleted]

Considering how the shop is cancer for the game, subs should be the ONLY thing that matters.

The shop that makes them tons of money? Yeah, total cancer for the game. Subs don't matter because they make a lot of money through other means, like the shop. It's not that hard to understand.

[Riistov]

Considering how the shop is cancer for the game, subs should be the ONLY thing that matters.

Its not, and they aren't.

Subs stopped being a meaningful metric to measure profit years ago.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

So does time played mean the average person or every one who plays over all, either way don't really see how it's relevant to anything.

[Thage]

They were referring to time spent in game, not subs or income. Nice try.

This. Since... I wanna say Q2 2016 they've measured player activity for the month as the measure of success, and that was around the time they started putting in bribes like Draenor Pathfinder and current-season arena gear from Ashran to keep players logged in between Garrison trips. Stands to reason that player activity is still high in Legion thanks to a wider and more intensive gear treadmill coupled with a strong patch cadence.

That's not so say I doubt subs are still at 10 million like Legion launch, because burnout has been a thing for high-end players and there's a big contingent of casual players who sub, do the new shiny stuff, and unsub until the next patch. But what it means is the players who are sticking around are more engaged and staying ingame at a level the devs consider a success.

[Deleted]

Negative, they were talking about time spent playing the game. Read the slide, or click the video on the front page and rewind to when they were discussing it.

Time spent playing the game doesn't tell us how well the game is doing and how much money they are making. Just because people play the game slightly more than in WoD doesn't mean it is also only making slightly more money than in WoD. Money is what matters. People don't play that much because they get like 15-30 minutes of "content" once a week. But they still have to be subscribed every week to do that. They still have to pay money. They just made it possible to convert gold to battlenet balance, the price for the token has doubled. They are making a shit ton more money from that alone.

I have usually only bought one token per month for gametime since Legion released. That's 20€ for them a month from me (indirectly). Ever since I can convert the token to battlenet balance, I have spent 100€ of balance on HotS skins, and about 500€ on 27 server transfers, plus a year's sub for another 120€. Do the math. They must be swimming in money now.

[Oftenwrongsoong]

Revenue is what matters for a company.

Less time of a game being played means less people playing. Logic?

E.g., If Hearthstone had 40 million games played last year, and 100 million games played this year, does that mean more or less people are playing this year than last year? This is 3rd grade placement testing stuff here.

[Bathory]

Which WoD are we talking about? Release WoD or mid/end WoD?

Keep in mind WoD did hit the highest numbers WOW had seen in a long time.

[Oftenwrongsoong]

This. Since... I wanna say Q2 2016 they've measured player activity for the month as the measure of success, and that was around the time they started putting in bribes like Draenor Pathfinder and current-season arena gear from Ashran to keep players logged in between Garrison trips. Stands to reason that player activity is still high in Legion thanks to a wider and more intensive gear treadmill coupled with a strong patch cadence.

That's not so say I doubt subs are still at 10 million like Legion launch, because burnout has been a thing for high-end players and there's a big contingent of casual players who sub, do the new shiny stuff, and unsub until the next patch. But what it means is the players who are sticking around are more engaged and staying ingame at a level the devs consider a success.

Yes, they now only report MAUs instead of subscribers.

Take a look at what the report said about WoW's MAUs.

Blizzard had the biggest Q1 online player community in its history with MAUsA of 41 million, up
58% year‐over‐year. Overwatch continues to be Blizzard’s fastest growing new franchise, reaching
over 30 million players globally less than a year after launch. Overwatch is now the 8th billion‐
dollar franchise in Activision Blizzard’s portfolio. Hearthstone® MAUsA grew year‐over‐year and
quarter‐over‐quarter, despite no content releases in the first quarter, and recently surpassed the 70
million registered player milestone life‐to‐date.

Notice anything? They don't even mention WoW. If MAUs were up, or close to WoD, they would have put it in the report. They are simply hoping people gloss over this.

http://files.shareholder.com/downloa...ss_Release.pdf

[Jtbrig7390]

Keep in mind WoD did hit the highest numbers WOW had seen in a long time.

Ummmm no we didn't. That was early WOD right after release and then subs dropped, Its also why the last reported number was 5.5million.

[Aeluron Lightsong]

No idea what Slightly better means. Without any context I'm not gonna believe what people speculate.

[Bathory]

Ummmm no we didn't. That was early WOD right after release

Dat contradiction tho


If you bothered to comprehend what I said, I literally posed the same question you responded to me with. Are we talking early WoD when the numbers were high or are we talking mid/end, when subs were low.

[Riistov]

But what it means is the players who are sticking around are more engaged and staying ingame at a level the devs consider a success.

My guild/friends list confirms this. I know its anecdotal, but still...its FAR more full than it was back in BRF.