We finally know WoW's sub count post-Legion! (kinda)

[Draco-Onis]

There's nothing contradictory about my stance. When he made videos using API scrapes to make similar arguments, I called him out because that is a really stupid way to try to come to a conclusion about subscriber levels. This time, he was using information shared by top brass at Blizzard so the nature of the argument he's making is completely different. It has nothing to do with bias and everything to do with how he came to conclusions he came to. I agree with the methodology he used in this video because it matches data we already knew from the QRs. That doesn't mean I agree with the methodology he used in other similar videos.

Given the fragmentation of the player base, has it ever crossed your mind that he could be correct on all counts? he was talking about DF numbers and QRs aren't reliable data either. These all are guesses and extrapolation since there is no official number.

[Relapses]

Given the fragmentation of the player base, has it ever crossed your mind that he could be correct on all counts?

Okay and? He still used shoddy data collection techniques to support foregone conclusions in these videos. The criticism I had for him then is the same exact criticism I'd have for him today. At least here there's some amount of culpability on Blizzard's part given they shared the graph he used to figure out these numbers. There's a fundamental difference in the way the data was collected and interpreted which is important to distinguish. Bad hypotheses supported by bad data collection intended purely to generate hate clicks should not be given a pass simply because he happened to come to a more reasonable conclusion later on down the road.

he was talking about DF numbers and QRs aren't reliable data either. These all are guesses and extrapolation since there is no official number.

The QRs are Blizzard's calling card to their investors. There may not be numbers attached but it's the closest Blizzard comes to publicly informing anybody of the overall health of the game. There are far too many instances where the rhetoric from the QR matches what happens on the graph for it to just be coincidental. The numbers themselves are fuzzy, I've admitted as much throughout this thread. But the overall message of the graph points out that even at its worse, WoW was doing a lot better than the skeptics would be comfortable admitting and the game is in a great position to continue its domination in the MMO sector even as it crests its twentieth birthday.

[Draco-Onis]

Okay and? He still used shoddy data collection techniques to support foregone conclusions in these videos. The criticism I had for him then is the same exact criticism I'd have for him today. At least here there's some amount of culpability on Blizzard's part given they shared the graph he used to figure out these numbers. There's a fundamental difference in the way the data was collected and interpreted which is important to distinguish. Bad hypotheses supported by bad data collection intended purely to generate hate clicks should not be given a pass simply because he happened to come to a more reasonable conclusion later on down the road.

If not for parses, how would you measure raid and mythic dungeon participation? that's something most people use. It seems to me that's a pretty accurate way to plot trends and the health of the game when it comes to its end game content. You seem to be more bothered about what that trend showed about the health of retail by the way when it rebounded he said it was.

The QRs are Blizzard's calling card to their investors. There may not be numbers attached but it's the closest Blizzard comes to publicly informing anybody of the overall health of the game. There are far too many instances where the rhetoric from the QR matches what happens on the graph for it to just be coincidental. The numbers themselves are fuzzy, I've admitted as much throughout this thread. But the overall message of the graph points out that even at its worse, WoW was doing a lot better than the skeptics would be comfortable admitting and the game is in a great position to continue its domination in the MMO sector even as it crests its twentieth birthday.

MMOs aren't dominating anything, it's still lucrative but its an not as dominating or profitable as other genres which is why Blizzard has tried to branch out and failed. The genre itself has seen better days hopefully some new innovations come in and revive it but that's not very likely given the high barrier to entry and the stickiness of existing MMOs. Frankly I am happy with the progress of DF but I am weary because the player base is so split up meaning less people are going to be playing retail.

As you have said QRs are not numbers and Blizzard is opaque for a reason WOW numbers had too much of an effect on the stock so they stopped. I am hopping with the MS buyout that changes since Blizzard alone is not enough to move that stock.

[Relapses]

If not for parses, how would you measure raid and mythic dungeon participation? that's something most people use. It seems to me that's a pretty accurate way to plot trends and the health of the game when it comes to its end game content. You seem to be more bothered about what that trend showed about the health of retail by the way when it rebounded he said it was.

It's a bad way to gauge how the game as a whole is doing since so few players engage in end game activities. And this isn't necessarily a fault of the game -- it tries its best to push people into this content -- but the lopsided conclusion that the game is doing poorly because raid participation is down doesn't track with me. It's exceptionally bad when you consider how M+ is replacing the content loop for many people who previously raided (myself included in this demographic); it just seems unfairly biased against the health of the game and is misleading almost by default.

MMOs aren't dominating anything, it's still lucrative but its an not as dominating or profitable as other genres which is why Blizzard has tried to branch out and failed. The genre itself has seen better days hopefully some new innovations come in and revive it but that's not very likely given the high barrier to entry and the stickiness of existing MMOs. Frankly I am happy with the progress of DF but I am weary because the player base is so split up meaning less people are going to be playing retail.

Look man, I'm with you on an ideological level. I campaigned against Legacy for years prior to Blizzard introducing it and the main argument I had was that it would fragment the playerbase in a bad way. Now that it's happened, however, I try to look at the glass half-full. Even if the playerbase is segmented, everybody is still paying the same subscription fee. And if Blizzard can leverage content droughts with new shit in Classic to help keep the lights on then that's good news for both Classic and retail players. Can this be done forever? Who knows. But the recent uptick on the graph post-SoD/Amirdrassil seems to indicate, to me, that there's still plenty of fuel left in the engine.

As you have said QRs are not numbers and Blizzard is opaque for a reason WOW numbers had too much of an effect on the stock so they stopped. I am hopping with the MS buyout that changes since Blizzard alone is not enough to move that stock.

QRs stopped after Blizzard was absorbed by Microsoft; I'm sure we'll start getting them again by the end of the year. Unless you're referring to them stopping subscription reporting back in WoD? If you are, the counter-argument there is two-fold: The industry as a whole was moving towards MAUs as more consistent metric to measure engagement and if Blizzard really were concerned about poor subscription numbers impacting the stock negatively, you'd think they would make the switch before they announced they lost more than 4 million subs in a single quarter. But that's just my personal spin on it.

[Whitedragon]

Runescape is a free to play game, its not sub based as that is optional, those three (wow, ffxiv and ffxi), are exclusievely subscription, you cannot access them otherwise without paying a monthly fee (or pre-paid card), and they are the only games left that are still like that, everything else has gone buy to play or free to play

To be fair the chunk of Runescape that is free is only marginally bigger/better then the free trials of WoW and FF XIV, so saying its built around free is kind of disingenuous.

[Big Thanks]

WoW China info:

In 2 days, 2 Million accounts pre registered to WoW
147000 accounts reactivated
92000 accounts recoverd

Source is my favorite MMO-youtuber (no idea how he found this info):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0m0y...GamingHardcore

[Pann]

WoW China info:

In 2 days, 2 Million accounts pre registered to WoW
147000 accounts reactivated
92000 accounts recoverd

Source is my favorite MMO-youtuber (no idea how he found this info):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0m0y...GamingHardcore

I'm guessing he got it from here - https://www.wowhead.com/news/over-tw...o-china-338733

I read in the FT that it was estimated that there was three million players (I can't remember if this was players/subs or individual accounts) at the time of the China shutdown, the fact that two thirds of them have registered interest in returning in such a short period of time is impressive.

[Big Thanks]

I'm guessing he got it from here - https://www.wowhead.com/news/over-tw...o-china-338733

I read in the FT that it was estimated that there was three million players (I can't remember if this was players/subs or individual accounts) at the time of the China shutdown, the fact that two thirds of them have registered interest in returning in such a short period of time is impressive.

Oh...is 2 day old info my bad

[Cacti Finder]

I wish classic/retail all the best, but the subscriber numbers and reactivated account number accounts feels like obfuscated information. I'm not saying that its false information, but that it doesn't tell me who is playing where. Like if you got 7.25 million subscribers, whats the split between retail and classic? As there will always be X% playing only retail, Y% playing only classic, and Z% that play both.

That for the GDC crowd and for the investors, they showed them a massaged graph that will make it appear much better than the current state of either alone, which is why I take it only for a pinch of salt with such a graph. As Classic WoW is basically its own MMO at this point with its own subcategories (Vanilla, TBC, WOTLK, SoD) and then you have Retail. Like if the numbers said there was 4 million subscribers, but 1 million of that played only retail, 1 million play only classic, and 2 million play both, this tells you a much different "story" with a graph.

[Relapses]

That for the GDC crowd and for the investors, they showed them a massaged graph that will make it appear much better than the current state of either alone, which is why I take it only for a pinch of salt with such a graph. As Classic WoW is basically its own MMO at this point with its own subcategories (Vanilla, TBC, WOTLK, SoD) and then you have Retail. Like if the numbers said there was 4 million subscribers, but 1 million of that played only retail, 1 million play only classic, and 2 million play both, this tells you a much different "story" with a graph.

Is knowing the split between retail and Classic really all that important when all WoW players pay the same $15/mo? Players would only use this information to demand Blizzard drop content for one version of the game and focus on the one they play instead.

[Cacti Finder]

Is knowing the split between retail and Classic really all that important when all WoW players pay the same $15/mo? Players would only use this information to demand Blizzard drop content for one version of the game and focus on the one they play instead.

Is it really necessary to know the population of a realm? Whether its a dead realm, an overpopulated one, or someone where in between? Is it really necessary to know what faction is dominant on which realm especially if its a pvp realm?

Sure there are trolls that will use that information negatively, but that isn't a wow-only thing. People will make informed decisions based on numbers and second-hand opinion for day to day things. Like a movie, or groceries, or peoples reviews on a computer component, or even if a game that can have multiple people online together like an mmorpg is lively or not.

[Relapses]

Is it really necessary to know the population of a realm? Whether its a dead realm, an overpopulated one, or someone where in between? Is it really necessary to know what faction is dominant on which realm especially if its a pvp realm?

Sites like ironforge.pro exist for this very purpose. And honestly, I think the existence of sites like this are a net negative. Most Classic realms start out with an almost 50/50 H:A split. It's only once players start using sites like ironforge.pro to make "informed decisions" that we end up with Horde/Alliance dominated realms and once that ball starts rolling it's almost impossible to stop.

Sure there are trolls that will use that information negatively, but that isn't a wow-only thing. People will make informed decisions based on numbers and second-hand opinion for day to day things. Like a movie, or groceries, or peoples reviews on a computer component, or even if a game that can have multiple people online together like an mmorpg is lively or not.

The decision for which flavor WoW a newcomer should play shouldn't be predicated by a question of how many people in total are playing the version of WoW they're going to engage with. Since both versions have the same $15/mo subscription fee, the answer to this question is all-but-meaningless to anybody except the people who feel entitled to the knowledge that their preferred version of WoW is doing better than the others.

[pinkz]

This whole thread is weird when Bellular says something bad about WOW he is just a annoying washed up youtuber looking for clicks but when it's "good news" you quote him cheerfully?

Bellular along with many other click bait streamers did the...as he says it BING BING WAHOO....WOW is back

if you are streamer/youtuber, Microsoft or a investor in MSFT this is good news that WOW sub numbers are at or near what they were in Legion, imo alot of influencers are being intellectually dishonest with the WOW is back bing bing wahoo narrative

WOW, world of warcraft in Legion was Legion with 8 mil subbed and playing Legion. WOW in 2024 consists of the game split into separate games or versions considered part of retail, but are outside of retail, splitting the player base. if you are not on the latest bing bing wahoo version the game you are in can be very dead
-- Classic WOW
-- Classic WOW SOD
-- Classic WOW HC
-- Classic WOW WOTLK
-- Classic WOW CATA
-- DF retail
-- DF retail plunderstorm
-- DF retail MOP remix

blizzard can't balance retail, having issues in SOD, plunderstorm and soon with MOP remix punching too many ways

[lurkanomics]

Sites like ironforge.pro exist for this very purpose. And honestly, I think the existence of sites like this are a net negative. Most Classic realms start out with an almost 50/50 H:A split. It's only once players start using sites like ironforge.pro to make "informed decisions" that we end up with Horde/Alliance dominated realms and once that ball starts rolling it's almost impossible to stop.



The decision for which flavor WoW a newcomer should play shouldn't be predicated by a question of how many people in total are playing the version of WoW they're going to engage with. Since both versions have the same $15/mo subscription fee, the answer to this question is all-but-meaningless to anybody except the people who feel entitled to the knowledge that their preferred version of WoW is doing better than the others.

Yeah I guess this is neither here nor there but I'm sure you would agree that during the original lk run when population was at its peak most servers probably were no worse than 55/45 - maaaybe during vanilla it might have been a little worse with an alliance skew cause of having all the pretty classes but that's about it, if someone was brand new and by themselves other than choosing between normal and pvp they probably choose the server that sounded the coolest to them

[Dracullus]

-- Classic WOW
-- Classic WOW SOD
-- Classic WOW HC
-- Classic WOW WOTLK
-- Classic WOW CATA
-- DF retail
-- DF retail plunderstorm
-- DF retail MOP remix

Dude, why stoping on this, add DF and TWW on this list separately. Hell, add TBC and every previous expansion, 2 things not going on at same time doesn't seem to be issue for you while creating it. Or even go more wild, if 50 versions of Classic are separate games, than maybe RP and Normal servers are as well xD.

[ArenaDk]

If it was such a huge success, why didn't it outsell? No statement was ever made about It's immense success such as you are touting off.

Kindly give your knees and throat a rest honey.

´´ The game sucks because it isnt the most sold pc game of all time´´ alright buddy, I guess everything outside of Shadowlands is bad

[pinkz]

Dude, why stoping on this, add DF and TWW on this list separately. Hell, add TBC and every previous expansion, 2 things not going on at same time doesn't seem to be issue for you while creating it. Or even go more wild, if 50 versions of Classic are separate games, than maybe RP and Normal servers are as well xD.

i do not consider retail RP and normal as separate, when i go into BGs, LFR, and LFDs i still play the same game, interact and can be CRZ'd to them with invites