What's your predictions for the Q1 Call?

[Belize]

My prediction? Everyone will make a big deal out of it for no apparent reason.

Just like every other quarter calls. Still don't understand why it matters that much...

[Deleted]

Considering there was only 1 sentence about Wow in the last conference call and Starcraft getting the vast majority of attention i predict more of the same.

The one sentence about Wow as follows ~

"As of December 31, 2012, Blizzard Entertainment’s World of Warcraft remains the #1 subscription - based MMORPG, with more than 9.6 million subscribers."

I predict that the figure of 9.6mill wont go up, how much it goes down is all everyone wants to discuss.

Korea closed 14 servers this month, but considering this upcoming conference call is for 1st Jan to 31st Mar this wont effect it much.

[Thetruth1400]

I don't really care and I'm curious as to why others do?

I consume Blizz's product, thats the sum total of my relatioship with them. I don't follow Audi's results and obsess over their sales figures because I drive one.

For me personally, I own shares of ATVI stock and the game performance can have a real impact on the stock price. I picked it up in November 2011 for about 13.50 right after the MoP expansion was announced and the stock decreased until February of this year where it reached around 14.50. It's currently sitting at 14.82. If WoW performs poorly, it's time for me to dump the stock. If MoP is doing well though, it's worth hanging on to.

My thoughts on it though is that MoP is going to see another loss of about 800,000. Most of those I assume will come from the Asian market. If my hunch is correct, the stock just isn't worth holding on to. One of the biggest things I look forward to is this quarterly report for guidance.

As for other things I expect to see, probably more updates about Starcraft, probably something about Diablo having an expansion this year, definitely something about Hearthstone and probably a "big announcement" for Blizzcon which will probably be the next game, and on that note, also something about Blizzcon.

[Sett]

I predict there will be threads of pro-WoW and anti-WoW people going at each other to claim the game is dying/China is to blame/QQ Diablo launch sucked/SC2 doesn't count/Blizzard is killing XYZ game.

Also maybe a Hearthstone is for children thing in there too.




...In all seriousness, I think it's a drop overseas but stable in NA.

[Conscious]

They tend to not give specific names when announcing how many games they plan to publish

and I also predict we will have 100 threads after screaming "wow is dead" even if the game only lost 30 subscribers

Only 100?! You're letting us off too easy!

OT: Going to say a loss, anywhere between 200k - 400k, mainly due to the abrupt turn around they're having in design philosophy, similar to mid Cataclysm.

[Seranthor]

For me personally, I own shares of ATVI stock and the game performance can have a real impact on the stock price. I picked it up in November 2011 for about 13.50 right after the MoP expansion was announced and the stock decreased until February of this year where it reached around 14.50. It's currently sitting at 14.82. If WoW performs poorly, it's time for me to dump the stock. If MoP is doing well though, it's worth hanging on to.

My thoughts on it though is that MoP is going to see another loss of about 800,000. Most of those I assume will come from the Asian market. If my hunch is correct, the stock just isn't worth holding on to. One of the biggest things I look forward to is this quarterly report for guidance.

As for other things I expect to see, probably more updates about Starcraft, probably something about Diablo having an expansion this year, definitely something about Hearthstone and probably a "big announcement" for Blizzcon which will probably be the next game, and on that note, also something about Blizzcon.

its still rated as a buy from the folks I deal with... I bought in Jan 2010 at 10 1/8 and plan to keep it.

[mvaliz]

As I said in the previous thread - either subs stayed the same or went down. If they went up - Blizz would've already put out a press release saying so as they did 1 week after Q3 ended.

As I said in the previous thread - either 200-400k loss tops. I'm not playing so I can't comment as to why that might be (odd for me to be even hazarding an informed opinion, I know :P) but basically, from the outside, I don't see anything that would be pulling people away from WoW like Diablo 3 did with the 1 mil lost last time - and there REALLY wasn't a major radical shift in gameplay design since Panda launch that I know of... but then again the CRZ garbage is still in on PVE realms (which is why I'm not playing and many MANY have voiced as well) and I've read the problems with gating behind dallies still being some kinda issue...

[Gandrake]

Definitely expecting subscription loss, but it is difficult to estimate. They are making some really strange changes in the next patch. Some of them are really good, some of them are just difficult to justify.

I am kind of excited for 5.3, but I'm definitely not going to be playing my Warrior anymore.

[melodramocracy]

Many posters using the numbers to bolster their own opinions.

Subs drop: "SEE I TOLD YOU NORMALS WAS TOO HARD"
Subs rise: "SEE I TOLD YOU FOLKS LOVE PANDAS"
Subs stay the same: "WOWS DEAD NO NEW BLOOD"

[But I Hate You All]

Oh joy, Alastair is back with more rousing discussion over the failings of Blizzard.

Anything constructive to add to discussion?



---------- Post added 2013-04-27 at 09:55 PM ----------

I predict there will be threads of pro-WoW and anti-WoW people going at each other to claim the game is dying/China is to blame/QQ Diablo launch sucked/SC2 doesn't count/Blizzard is killing XYZ game.

Also maybe a Hearthstone is for children thing in there too.




...In all seriousness, I think it's a drop overseas but stable in NA.

You're probably going to be right

[Halifax]

I don't really care and I'm curious as to why others do?

I consume Blizz's product, thats the sum total of my relatioship with them. I don't follow Audi's results and obsess over their sales figures because I drive one.

Because people really want to see Blizzard fail for some insane reason, even though they're one of the only big game makers consistently churning out awesome games.

[But I Hate You All]

Because people really want to see Blizzard fail for some insane reason, even though they're one of the only big game makers consistently churning out awesome games.

People also loved to scream wow has X million more players than any other game. Lets not forget they care about the numbers too

[Seranthor]

People also loved to scream wow has X million more players than any other game. Lets not forget they care about the numbers too

Actually, I dont care how many people are playing. I base my continued descision to play on the following.

1. Do I have the money?
2. Do I have the time to play?
3. Can I log in when I chose?
4. Am I enjoying myself?

[KCguy]

I honestly don't care what they have to say, mainly because anything related to any upcoming game will be at Blizzcon, and I don't care about the whole "subs" thing. The game IMO is fantastic and better than it has ever been, and anyone who wants to leave because they feel other wise, they can and will. Their opinion. Blizzard has tried very hard this expansion and with more people working on the game than ever before, I'm cool with the direction of the game and the next expansion coming up.

[Mirishka]

I predict that I don't care what the results are. What matters for me is that I still enjoy the game and that the people I care about still enjoy.

Don't give a rats ass if 1 million+ people just up and randomly unsub tomorrow, and it boggles my mind how people on these forums practically froth at the mouth waiting to hear how many subs WoW loses. Kind of pathetic, IMO.

[Phuongvi]

I don't think they are gonna loose subs, I will say they will gain more subs

And special bulletin, Flying mount are remove from the game :troll

[teddabear]

MoP is pretty good, ToT is good as well. I just did Firelands for the first time, omg that was amazingly bad. Everything about it was absolutely awful, I don't understand how something like that gets released. I think WoW will continue to see fallout from Cataclysm. The game is much better now but Blizzard severely damaged the social fabric of the game, perhaps irrevocably. There are huge imbalances between the classes in DPS, healing and tanking, I don't get why Blizzard doesn't realize that is bad for their bottom line. I think Q1 numbers will be pretty good. On the other hand I predict Q2 numbers will not be good unless Blizzard finally decides to balance their game. Something they haven't done in 3 years.

[MasterHamster]

Doesn't take a genius to predict sub changes for a game that's 8 years old.

Too bad an inevitable stage in any popular products popularity is used as a way of strengthening negative opinion that can be as diverse as the playerbase.
You see it in every damn thread as subs have gone down. "It was due to x! -No it was due to y! -Guys, it was obviously z. -You're all wrong, it's because of Hello Kitty."

Is Apple as a company failing because the iPhone isn't the behemoth it once was? When Samsung at some point will stop increasing in the global market, are the Galaxy smartphones dying?

So sick and tired of this mentality that WoW subs has to go up by half a million every quarter, or else it's obviously doing something wrong. The biggest factor in WoWs declining subs is its age. That's it. Cliché. Hard to prove. Yet that's simply it. How many new players have you met recently? How large can the potential "new player" base be after this long? Up until Cataclysm, the game was still new enough (not to mention unchallenged by other MMOs) to attract way more new players than players quitting. Eventually those will equalize, then players quitting the game will be higher than the new players coming in.

And I'm certain there are people reading this post thinking things like "PvP is an unbalanced mess, that's why!" or "I don't like ToT/the latest raid, obviously no one else does." or even "I STILL HAVE TO DO DAILIES/MONOTONOUS TASKS NOW AND THEN?!"

None of which are anything unique to MoP.

[Arbs]

Many posters using the numbers to bolster their own opinions.

Subs drop: "SEE I TOLD YOU NORMALS WAS TOO HARD"
Subs rise: "SEE I TOLD YOU FOLKS LOVE PANDAS"
Subs stay the same: "WOWS DEAD NO NEW BLOOD"

Melodra, you said it perfectly .

Doesn't take a genius to predict sub changes for a game that's 8 years old.

Too bad an inevitable stage in any popular products popularity is used as a way of strengthening negative opinion that can be as diverse as the playerbase.
You see it in every damn thread as subs have gone down. "It was due to x! -No it was due to y! -Guys, it was obviously z. -You're all wrong, it's because of Hello Kitty."

Is Apple as a company failing because the iPhones aren't the behemoth it once was? When Samsung at some point will stop increasing in the global market, are the Galaxy smartphones dying?

So sick and tired of this mentality that WoW subs has to go up by half a million every quarter, or else it's obviously doing something wrong. The biggest factor in WoWs declining subs is its age. That's it. Cliché. Hard to prove. Yet that's simply it. How many new players have you met recently? How large can the potential "new player" base be after this long? Up until Cataclysm, the game was still new enough (not to mention unchallenged by other MMOs) to attract way more new players than players quitting. Eventually those will equalize, then players quitting the game will be higher than the new players coming in.

And I'm certain there are people reading this post thinking things like "PvP is an unbalanced mess, that's why!" or "I don't like ToT/the latest raid, obviously no one else does." or even "I STILL HAVE TO DO DAILIES/MONOTONOUS TASKS NOW AND THEN?!"

None of which are anything unique to MoP.

I agree, like the numbers numbers from this quarterly report will already be outta date when they are released. Even if there is a rise or drop, I will still play.

Its the same pattern like usual, if the sub numbers drops, its becomes this big deal (Blah, Blah, Blah), If the subs rise there apparently faked or BS'd (Blah, Blah, Blah).

All I'm gunna be doing is what I do every quarterly report, is sit in a comfy lawn chair with sunglasses & popcorn and watch the show. Because its kinda of pathetic that people that who don't play the game they seem to really care about the games sub numbers in general & also try to scrap up any crumbs that they can scavenge just to give a game they either hate or don't play anymore a negative light or perspective.

[Strafer]

25 million subscribers.