Last edited by Kralljin; 2021-02-08 at 06:47 PM.
Funny you say that
Because i think is really interesting Blizzard made more money from Oct-Dec of 2019 compared to Oct-Dec of 2020
100 MILLION more dollars in 2019
Isnt this interesting?
The only thing that happened in that time in 2019 was 1) Blizzcon 2) Classic WoW released a couple months back
But still...they made a shit ton more money in 2020 in total
Your post is complete nonsense but this part stands out to me.
The over all number of MAU going down and the number of wow MAU going up in no way means that it was just people moving from other blizzard games and not outside people coming in, that’s just not how any thing works.
Interest in wow absolutely spiked as evident from things like highest day one sales, MAU rising, they then selfs saying interest is at its highest point in a decade, ect.
And this logically suggests that Blizzard made a lot of revenue the first three quarters, where the Corona lockdown was already massive factor.
Nevermind that those quarterly figures possibly include SL pre orders, thus reducing the profit of Q4 in favour of Q1-3.
40 bucks for a stream and some collectible is sure good business.
Last edited by Kralljin; 2021-02-08 at 07:00 PM.
Wait...im looking again at page 17 of the Earnings PDF
What i said is not the total truth.
What actually happened was:
Oct-Dec 2019 Blizzard made 595 M in revenue AND 260 M in profit
Oct-Dec 2020 Blizzard made 579 M in revenue AND 160 M in profit
So...this only means in 2020 Blizzard had more "costs" in stuff.
They had much more costs in 2020 for some reason.
LoL
I'd say you don't need to keep going after having a great 24 hours. The MAUs suggest it has done quite well not just a good 24 hr initial sale.
They are not going to comment on subs becasue they don't really matter. So any comment about them is fruitless. They have earnings and activity increases. I think that pretty much tells you how well those subs are doing. For example, I have kept an active sub from day one outside of a few hour period when my CC expired. When I started my business I went about 3-4 months without ever logging in. How does that help inform anyone about anything. I paid but I didn't use the product. Investors care about engagement of a product after it being profitable. Subs don't give any information on that. Fact is Engagement went up, revenues went up, it's doing fine and has done fine aft the initial 24 hour period of SL launch.
You guys need to get it through your heads. Sub counts doesn't matter to anyone outside of forum goers. If it did, they would still be reporting them. If they were so important how come other games don't report them? How come SE only posts their online account info as regards to how many people have created a SE account? Player engagement is what matters. If you have 12M accounts and 1M are active what good is that 12M number?
I'm not sure about that. Unless laws are different in California. I took prepayments all year long for our services. They were all recorded as revenues for those months they were received regardless if the work hadn't been done. Even in Nov-Dec if a customer prepaid for the following years service. It was recorded as revenues for that year not the following.
Then you are recording them incorrectly and your accounts are not a true reflection of the business' performance or financial position. Pre-orders should be recorded as a liability until the time the product or service is provided to the customer at which point it is then recorded as sales income as set out in IAS 18.
It was never an issue during tax time nor during the 3 audits we had either. Could it be becasue customers received "free"a winter package of ice melt as part of any prepayments? Or that they were always in full? I just know what my accountant did and it never seemed to be an issue.
And is there any actual evidence that leads you to believe this other than your belief, or do you just assume you're right and everyone who disagrees with you is detached from reality?
Where have I accused anyone of investment fraud?
Did I?
The thing is there's too much guesswork to really tell one way or another. I'll defend vehemently that we shouldn't take everything Blizzard says at face value, especially what is said in investor calls, but to make such a claim is to really just be convinced of a belief with no real evidence, the other way around.
Realistically, it's very possible that Shadowlands did not do as well as other expansions, but WoW in general is still doing very well because of the mix of Shadowlands + Classic. But that's not at all what I'd call a critical state, and we certainly don't know it for sure.
Ultimately the game as been in decay for 10 years, with the spikes of expansion launching never really being able to stagnate the trend. If the trends line is anything to go by at all, then it would suggest that throughout BfA and with the release of Classic WoW has not only stagnated the decay, but even potentially started a small resurgence. I don't completely exlude the possibility that Classic might even be the greater role in that, but even if it is, alone it wouldn't stop the decay at all - certainly not forever. The alternate release of Classic and New expansions, though, could be essential in revitalizing the game.
I don't know, first of all it's important to remember not to forget the value of nostalgia. And this is not to say that it doesn't has its merits, it does. It just means that part of why Classic did so well is because WoW is so popular and infamous in the first place. Similarly to how the recent disney remakes are super popular and succesful, without necessarily being great movies.
With that in mind, I'm not sure changing WoW's modern design to be more like Classic would be the way to go. Ultimately what they have, essentially, is 2 different games that appeal to 2 different audiences, with some overlap. If they choose to only cater to one of them, they'll lose the other. To me the best approach seems to be what they're already doing: keep providing Classic, for those who like Classic, and keep providing modern WoW, for those who like it. Meanwhile the ones that are in the overlap and like both stay subscribed for longer, as they alternate between the two versions as each is updated and the other is in a lull. Seems like a win-win situation to me.
Last edited by Kolvarg; 2021-02-08 at 08:38 PM.
It should be an issue that is picked up on. For a simple example if you pick up a contract in December 2020 to supply goods in 2021 for £100,000 and you record that as sales in Dec '20 then your sales for 2020 will be inflated by £100,000 and understated by £100,000 in 2021, this could have dire consequences if you were looking to secure investment or finance as it would look as if your business is in decline. Now imagine the issues you would face if the customer cancelled the contract in early 2021 and you had to refund the full amount. Therefore you should record the cash as an asset and record a liability for the same amount until the contract is fulfilled and it is then realised as sales revenue.
I imagine that if an accountant is reviewing your accounts they are already recording deferrals and accruals in the correct periods as required but as it all very boring they are probably not telling you the gory details.
Classic is still very popular in China, Shadowlands is vastly more popular than Classic outside of China. There's plenty of stupid stuff in this thread I don't feel like addressing but I'll just leave this here:
Every single metric available will show that Shadowlands is significantly more popular than Classic outside of China. Every single one.
As I already said: WoW is nowhere close to dying with at least 3M active users. That's more than many other MMOs that are running healthy have combined. However the numbers suggest, that the players are not very happy with the direction the game is steering to. If it is the story or the content, or the genere in general I can hardly tell, but that Shadowlands was not very successful as an expansion, that can be interpreted from the numbers we have.
Well, I think it's not unfair to say Blizzard is quite profit oriented. They've had a decade of trial and error, and a shitton of data collected from player habits and reactions to their design choices. The thing is, the game isn't just steering into a new direction all of a sudden, it's been steering in this direction for years and years. Do you really believe that if they thought for one second that changing the direction the game would greatly increase MAUs and overall player retention, they wouldn't have done it by now?
I'm not judging whether the game would be better or worse for it - I think that's ultimately subjective. But it seems counterintuitive to insinuate that Blizzard is somehow supporting their designer's stubornness isntead of forcing them to do what's more lucrative.