Will Blizzard release sub numbers of Classic eventually?

[MoanaLisa]

I replied to this on another thread. If they only do sharding at the initial release as they have professed, you could make classic population assessments based on the populations of the servers during realm selection ( low, med, high). It won't be a perfect science, but you could at least assess the direction of the trend.

Their current infrastructure allows them to reset realm capacities overnight if need be. Therefore high pop realms can go to low without any real change in population. They have done this several times. I think that the metric you suggest will be very unreliable for determining anything.

[Maudib]

you don't make anything but the sub of classic player's thats the problem. and what im getting out, you cant increase the value of the MAU's from quarter to quarter or get profit boosts out of them on demand with sale's.

12mil subs is fucking small change in 2019.
were in a whole different world and standard of successful in 2019 than we were in 2004 and execs want 2019 successful not 2004 successful.

But just like Blizzard is giving 4 free days to ANYONE to play BfA... the idea is to get them to sub/race change/server transfer/etc. Of course they expect that a percentage of Classic players will also play BfA and convert to all the post sub purchases.

You seem to think that Classic isn't a profitable thing... why would this hugely successful company make such a blunder? Or maybe, just maybe, they know/understand their business better than you do?

Maybe they can see the benefits from varying angles that you simply haven't considered?

It's all good man... I agree with you in many ways... I personally believe that for the very reasons you listed, modern WoW's days are limited... too much cost, not enough ROI... but Classic is a different beast... it's dirt cheap to produce... and despite you decrying maybe 60-100 million a month revenue... a billion a year revenue is a lot of money... especially if it costs next to nothing to produce.

[Triceron]

It's the same subscription as retail.

The only stats you would get are how many people downloading and logging into Classic, and that number will be bloated by all the Retail players who have access to Classic and just wish to check it out but not play more than a month's worth.

So you may as well call that a WoW subscription number than a Classic or Retail one.

[Monster Hunter]

But just like Blizzard is giving 4 free days to ANYONE to play BfA... the idea is to get them to sub/race change/server transfer/etc. Of course they expect that a percentage of Classic players will also play BfA and convert to all the post sub purchases.

You seem to think that Classic isn't a profitable thing... why would this hugely successful company make such a blunder? Or maybe, just maybe, they know/understand their business better than you do?

Maybe they can see the benefits from varying angles that you simply haven't considered?

It's all good man... I agree with you in many ways... I personally believe that for the very reasons you listed, modern WoW's days are limited... too much cost, not enough ROI... but Classic is a different beast... it's dirt cheap to produce... and despite you decrying maybe 60-100 million a month revenue... a billion a year revenue is a lot of money... especially if it costs next to nothing to produce.

You would think that. But having worked at big company's that have passed off on twice those margins "because its to small for them" I have to be very pessimistic here. Its clear internally classic isn't a big project, and it's not even reported on in the quarterly financials or advertised to them.

But as the free 4 days shows in a ways the sub fee isnt what they care about. It's people buying all the extra stuff, and wow classic just doesn't have any way to monotize it without players crossing over to retail or it nolonger being classic.

I've sat in to many board room meetings to have an optimism that blizzard is any different than any other big American company and the staff they sacked off in a "record year" confirms that above the lowest management layer if they see classic as a threat the the microtransaction milk machine, then they will force it to comply or can it.

Eod classic get 12 mil subs, means fuck all when they can drop something like overwatch 2 or something like that for 15 to 20 mil MAU's buying hundreds of pounds of loot boxes.

It's like Microsoft opening a sandwich shop, yea it's profitable but isn't the margins the investors are looking for at this size of company.

[Odintdk]

Neckbeards are not the mainstream playerbase. So, no.

[Triptych]

It seems really unlikely. I can't imagine why they would. There will be a drop-off after launch--I don't care what anyone else says--and then they've set a precedent. Additonally the subs are the same for Classic/Retail so if they're not reporting it now they won't report it then.

It would be great if everyone got it through their skulls that ATVI isn't using this as a metric any longer. No one else does in the gaming industry so why should they? It's really simple but people just can't let it go I guess.

If I had to bet you will never again here a word from Blizzard Entertainment about how many people are actively subscribed to any of their games.

The idea that they will do this to deliberately slap-in-the-face the "You think you do but you don't" crowd is one of the most moronic 12-year-old-inspired ideas that I've read here recently. Just dumb. Businesses don't work that way. It's unprofessional and the sort of thing that angsty teenagers do in a fit of emotion.

Why the FUCK would any game company do that? Just why? It pisses me off no end that anyone thinks the adults in the room at Blizzard Entertainment entertain thoughts like this. Jesus Christ.

Blizzard's agenda is to make money. Generate revenue. Create games that are profitable. They aren't waiting in secret getting ready to point at their customers, yell HA-HA! LOSERS! and tell them to fuck off.

This post is great - perfectly encapsulates everything that was running through my mind when I read the OP. So glad that someone else already wrote it, and I don't have to. Bravo!

[garicasha]

Releasing the sub numbers would be like the post-mortem after a US presidential election. The winners claim they have a mandate from the voters, the centrist losers argue they lost because they weren't centrist enough, the extremist losers argue they lost because they weren't extreme enough; but in the end people use the results to try to justify their previously-held beliefs even though there really isn't enough data to argue cause and effect.