World of Warcraft: Shadowlands Becomes Fastest-Selling PC Game of All Time

[munkeyinorbit]

as much as i like wow i find this very hard to believe,some shady stat manipulation going on.

Explain what stat manipulation you think is going on. It's pretty clear. It is so clear that the number of subs is at the highest it has been in 10 years or they are lying. It isn't inconceivable for this to be true. Remember Classic has just released the most anticipated raid since ICC. It was a failure gameplay wise but a lot of people have been waiting for it for years.

[deenman]

I dont get the logic of people complaining that pre orders dont count as day 1...they could cancel the pre order whenever they want to

Anyways,wile getting the game now is easier than it was in wrath days,its still amazing that after all these years its still breaking records,considering how on the decline the mmo genre has been

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They never once said subs are at the highest in a decade, they said this year's play time was highest in a decade -- and we all know they cherry picked that stat because of the entirely enforced grind mechanics built into BFA.

There is no way they have more than 4.5M subs at peak (including Classic) with each recent expansion release -- and they clearly say only (and it is "only" compared to big games) 3.7M have purchased Shadowlands.

Without proof, you can't say there are more subs than 3.7M right now, and there will be drastically less than 3.7M within a few months as there is after every expansion release peak.

so by that logic,wrath 12 min subs was a lie,it was only 2 mil

[det]

as much as i like wow i find this very hard to believe,some shady stat manipulation going on.

This is the moment where people would offer facts. "Hard to believe" thus "shady stat manipulation is going on" is not gonna do.

Beyond the fact that, yes...pre-orders also are counted among "day 1" sales (as has been agreed upon here) - what "stat manipulations" do you accuse people / Blizzard of?

I mean...if they say they sold 3.7 million units, it won't work if they only sold 1 million come the moment they have to file tax reports...so...enlighten us?

so by that logic,wrath 12 min subs was a lie,it was only 2 mil

Just like the guy I quoted above, yes indeed...during WotLK, people claimed the 12 million sub number was manipulated / a lie. (also..something...something...at that time China could buy gaming hours and had no sub or so, IIRC)

[Druantis]

I agree, there is no reason to believe WoW is dead at all.

After 16 years, it is down to but maintains 3M average continual subs per month

which is $45M per month in revenue

which is just over a half Billion ($540M) dollars in sub income per year.

On top of the 3.7M x $/unit in Shadowland unit sales (min $185M)

All before store, tokens, and in-game services revenue.

WoW is not going anywhere, and with bloodsucking ko-tick's constant office closures, removing development costs by not creating new classes and races, firing costly experienced talent and replacing with younger cheaper workers without families and willing to work huge hours for the opportunity, merging of realms/servers to reduce costs, and the continual reskinning/repurposing of old content, WoW will generate massive income for years to come.

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This is the moment where people would offer facts. "Hard to believe" thus "shady stat manipulation is going on" is not gonna do.

Beyond the fact that, yes...pre-orders also are counted among "day 1" sales (as has been agreed upon here) - what "stat manipulations" do you accuse people / Blizzard of?

I mean...if they say they sold 3.7 million units, it won't work if they only sold 1 million come the moment they have to file tax reports...so...enlighten us?

No one is saying they didn't sell 3.7M units, we're saying that's about what the level of subs are as well, people who think WoW is anywhere near 5.5M (which is what WoD was down to before Blizz stopped reporting the continually declining sub numbers and focused on playing time metrics) or higher are just completely wrong.

[Kumorii]

Man, so many people in denial. Why does it matter if the game is successful or not? Move on if you hate it so much that you want to see it fail.

It's a successful game no matter how you spin it. Yes even WoD and cata was successful even with its big declines... That speaks more about how big the game is. That it can have huge decline and STILL be successful.

[det]

And with how big WoW seems when you are playing (I loved it before bloodsucking ko-tick came along), you should always compare it to actual massive pop games for perspective:

https://trends.google.com/trends/exp...nite,minecraft

https://i.imgur.com/7D5d4XD.png

...and why? Why not compare it to other MMOs? What do you do if you want to find out how FFXIV or SWotoR is doing? Or the upcoming AoC and A new World? You compare them to Minecraft and Fortnite and call them a failiure? OR you try and see how they do in relation to WoW?

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No one is saying they didn't sell 3.7M units, we're saying that's about what the level of subs are as well, people who think WoW is anywhere near 5.5M (which is what WoD was at before Blizz stopped reporting the continually declining sub numbers and focused on playing time metrics) or higher are just completely wrong.

The guy I quoted, I quoted fully. So far his sentence is pretty vague. Everything beyond that...what he means "stat manipulation" is up to him to explain. I added a question of my own, see if I get a reply.

[Druantis]

I gave you the link -- you can check other MMOs in comparison to WoW yourself.

I never said anything about stat manipulation -- you are looking at other people's posts and mixing them up.

[Mainphrame]

Blizzard seems to make this claim about whatever the latest expansion happens to be. Conveniently, it is always the latest (and current) one that is the 'fastest selling PC game of all time'. Makes you wonder.

[Roar-Powah]

Way to use cleaver wording Blizzard. Total sales matter, no some bs number that is a total from 1 year. Expansion is a DLC and not stand alone game, this is fastest selling bs is just that bs. Release sub numbers Blizzard, then you can brag on and on, this is nothing more than a fluff piece.

[det]

I gave you the link -- you can check other MMOs in comparison to WoW yourself.

I never said anything about stat manipulation -- you are looking at other people's posts and mixing them up.

I know you didn't say anything about stat manipulation.

I am not mixing anything up. You quoted my reply (post 223) to another guy (natpick) in post 224 who accused them of stat manipulation. Then you answered to the reply that I gave to somebody else.

Way to use cleaver wording Blizzard. Total sales matter, no some bs number that is a total from 1 year. Expansion is a DLC and not stand alone game, this is fastest selling bs is just that bs.

Total sales matter? Well...Diablo 3 sold 30 million units and to the people who wanted to call it shit and a failure...those total sales didn't matter at all.

[Druantis]

Blizz has good reasons for not posting sub numbers or any direct metrics with competitors (but like i explained above, despite "only" having 3M average monthly subs compared to the glory years, they're still making over a half billion a year just with WoW, so it's not going anywhere):



https://trends.google.com/trends/exp...raft,runescape

[Swnem]

Corona helping the business.

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Blizz has good reasons for not posting sub numbers or any direct metrics with competitors (but like i explained above, despite "only" having 3M average monthly subs compared to the glory years, they're still making over a half billion a year just with WoW, so it's not going anywhere):



https://trends.google.com/trends/exp...raft,runescape

Oh people here will get so triggered if you post the one comparing it to FFXIV.

[Druantis]

Corona helping the business.

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Oh people here will get so triggered if you post the one comparing it to FFXIV.

I've only ever played Warcraft (well, except my old BioWare days), but here you are:



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Though it's much worse if you look at just the United States:



Again though, as I showed above how WoW itself is still raking in over a half to three quarters of a billion a year, it's not going anywhere...

[Kel_Sceptic]

Blizz has good reasons for not posting sub numbers or any direct metrics with competitors (but like i explained above, despite "only" having 3M average monthly subs compared to the glory years, they're still making over a half billion a year just with WoW, so it's not going anywhere):



https://trends.google.com/trends/exp...raft,runescape

Those results are showing only what YOU want to belive, not the reality.
Just becasue you only see a portion of the sky, doesn't mean that's the only sky it exists.

No one uses World of Warcraft to search anything about World of Warcraft
Think outside of the box.

The game is doing fine, and if it is doing better then the last decade, then now it has more subs then WoD had. Ofc they will decline, but even at 3milion players, this game is still the king and, I will repeat myself, even at its lowest, where we all shit on BFA systems, we still played 1 year out of 2 that means we bought every damn expansion.

I'm having a blast in SL and I hope it will continue as much as it will.

GL HF, be open minded.

Darkness, dude, you deserve your name. But for you, as it seems, your glass of WoW will be always HALF empty, never HALF full.

[Druantis]

Lol, you don't work professionally in the field if you think wow is a search term on its own, as it includes WOW airline, the band Bow Wow, and a thousand other search connections.

Nice try though, but don't panic I'm only challenging part of your make believe worldview, because, as I said, WoW still generates 1/2 to 3/4 of a BILLION dollars per year in revenue with its 3M average monthly subs, so it's not going anywhere.

Whereas your made up search of "wow" shows that presently it has half the interest of Fortnite, which has 350 MILLION players. So are you suggesting world of warcraft at its peak in 2008 had 500M players and currently has 175M players? Hah hah, you should go work for Rudy!

And there is no argument you can win here, Blizz has officially proven you are wrong, because it wouldn't have stopped publishing sub numbers if they were as good as you wish them to be (constantly declining down to 5.5M by end of WoD when they stopped reporting for this very reason -- and they've declined since then until they've leveled out to 3M average with temporary peaks during expansion releases).

[Kel_Sceptic]

Lol, you don't work professionally in the field if you think wow is a search term on it's own, as it includes WOW airline, the band Bow Wow, and a thousand other terms..

^
This happens when you are a troll hater and don't belive even what Google has to say about "Related QUERIES TOP".
Have you ever searched the term "wow" on google, or better on duckduckgo, to see what are the first hundreds results ?

Stop bending reality to your needs and face it, face the results. The trend growing until 2012, showed on the google trending graph ... sure has alot to do with "WOW airline, the band Bow Wow, and a thousand other terms."

Grow up, leave the game if you hate it or criticize it with constructive realistic facts. Sure BFA had the worst systems in the word, seems like blizzard learned from that and listened to the comunity.

Hope for the best.

[Druantis]

^
This happens when you are a troll hater and don't belive even what Google has to say about "Related QUERIES TOP".
Have you ever searched the term "wow" on google, or better on duckduckgo, to see what are the first hundreds results ?

Stop bending reality to your needs and face it, face the results. The trend growing until 2012, showed on the google trending graph ... sure has alot to do with "WOW airline, the band Bow Wow, and a thousand other terms."

Grow up, leave the game if you hate it or criticize it with constructive realistic facts. Sure BFA had the worst systems in the word, seems like blizzard learned from that and listened to the comunity.

Hope for the best.

I love how you completely avoided my third and fourth paragraphs so you could bend reality. Don't worry, the new Matrix will be out soon, so you can keep living your dream.

[Kel_Sceptic]

I love how you completely avoided my third paragraph so you could bend reality. Don't worry, the new Matrix will be out soon, so you can keep living your dream.

My GOD, to bad you pointed that out, cause you might not have underlined how big of a "math genius" and number interpreter you are.

Whereas your made up search of "wow" shows that presently it has half the interest of Fortnite, which has 350 MILLION players. So are you suggesting world of warcraft has 175M players? Hah hah!

If this is your logic, you clearly aren't working in any IT-seo related domain.

Your logic is that the number of searches are related to numbers of players ? How about me searching 5 things wow torghast booses; wow covenant night fae, wow armory 2v2, and so on ?

Dude, how can you even make a statement that popularity number= players number ?

The fact that all the spikes are alligned to each expansion release, to classic release, and so on.
I rest my case, you go on now and preach us how bad wow is, how low wow is, how your glass can be even more less then empty

[deenman]

I love how you completely avoided my third and fourth paragraphs so you could bend reality. Don't worry, the new Matrix will be out soon, so you can keep living your dream.

wait...theres a matrix coming out?!?!

[Druantis]

Whereas your made up search of "wow" shows that presently it has half the interest of Fortnite, which has 350 MILLION players. So are you suggesting world of warcraft at its peak in 2008 had 500M players and currently has 175M players? Hah hah, you should go work for Rudy!

And there is no argument you can win here, Blizz has officially proven you are wrong, because it wouldn't have stopped publishing sub numbers if they were as good as you wish them to be (constantly declining down to 5.5M by end of WoD when they stopped reporting for this very reason -- and they've declined since then until they've leveled out to 3M average with temporary peaks during expansion releases).

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wait...theres a matrix coming out?!?!

You bet, unlike my worthy opponent, I actually know what I'm talking about!