WoW subscription numbers

[Tziva]

Not random at all. Just check the progress on raids & heroic dungeons on your realm, the number of "dead realms" and the progress on non-asian realms. You will see the real age of most of the US, LA and Europe community with that. Blizzard is never going to give you any info about their subs, but even the prices on the AH can tell you about it. its not about just "Guessing", but right now, the public opinion of MOP is really mediocre compared to other games like GW2. But getting this info, involves a lot of reading forums, reviews, etc. Just telling you my own experience on realms like Quel'telas, Ragnaros (the worst of all) and Drakkari (all the LA realms i play). Gul'dan and Kirin Tor where my second realms on US, but sadly they really difficult to get some progress there, with a lot of underage players around trying to raid.

You are inventing a correlation between age and raid progress, which is one you cannot support. You are illogically extrapolating that to "old players left, all that is left is new players." You're basing it off your anecdotal experience on just two of hundreds or servers. You're drizzling that with data you glean from some web reviews, which are far from accurate sources.

If that's not random conjecture, I don't know what is.

[IxilaFA]

You want evidence? How 'bout the fact the game is 8 years old and for the past 4 years has had a trend of spiking on major content release, then declining gradually during dry period, like right now.

You don't need evidence for something that can be explained with common sense. If blizzard was still noticeably gaining subs we'd hear about it because it's something you WANT people to know, it's a sign of success that the new content as a whole is bringing tons more players into the game.

That would be the outlier. The game playerbase declining when new content hasn't been added within the month is just normal and expected.

At this point, almost everyone who would play WoW has played or tried it. New content like "OMG heroic raids that are epic as hell!" is not going to attract new players anymore. When Blizzard reached 12 million people, they probably maxed out the entire population of people who were interested in playing MMOs. So of course when new content comes out you'll see a spike and then a decline, because that new content isn't going to draw out new players and the old players, naturally, unsubscribe all the time because of reason X and reason Y.

I'd say WoW's current problem is not keeping its player base, but attracting new players. They set the gold standard in the MMO edition and attracted every person ever interested in MMOs. Now they need to figure out how to attract the next generation and keep them interested. Perhaps this is what Titan will achieve, who knows?

As for sub numbers, I really don't care. My guild is active and still raids and I've seen the amount of players online at one time at a max between 15 and 17 every raiding night, where in Cata we'd have 11 or 12. Not trying to say this proof, just saying that WoW is still active enough for my liking.

[Gimlix]

I also don't care about subs, but the number of children playing MOP on LA realms are higher than never, but children doesn't have money like the adult community, it's logical that the subs will drop. Older players are already retired or planning on retiring, it's not normal for anyone to keep playing the same game for years, having so many new games and "cheaper" to keep you entertained. Also keep in mind that consoles have taken almost every company that used to make games for PC, and that most of these "MMO" are cheaper than WoW, and with a younger audience... you know...

Well Why do you care if a child plays, If someone is 14 doesn't mean he sucks and trolls the forums or anything, I know classmates who were 12 when they were playing vanilla WoW..
And my whole guild is 20+.
I don't see that much kids to be true, atleast not in the raiding erea.

[Dasffion]

Only time will tell, but don't expect an 7 years old game to be as good as a new game, we all love WoW, but many guys on the internet (posting everyday here, on blizzard forums, on IGN reviews, metacritics, amazon, eurogamer.net, and a lot of other web pages on the internet) are not longer interested in the game, people change, the games evolve and only blizzard may know if they do what they have to do to keep the game alive and fresh. But right now MOP is being seen as a game focused on Asian players (China) and underage community, and we all know that many veteran players are losing fate on Blizzard on games. I never saw a community so sad with blizzard when they released Diablo 3 and the mediocre interest they got into Starcraft 2, right now we are going to see another Starcraft 2 exp. coming next year because of the high appeal it as on asian communities like Korea and China.

Just keep reading, we can't "Guess" things, but at least we can get informed about it.

---------- Post added 2012-12-18 at 11:04 AM ----------



It's the review of Blizzard forums + web pages reviews + forums on the internet. Older community are clearly different from younger ones, you can see that in every realm you may play, as i told you before, even the AH can tell you how old the community is (Higher prices on junk vs Prices on actually valuable items). I have already posted you many reviews and personal experiences, and it's logical that it may attract younger audience, the theme on this game is more "childish" for that kind of audience. However most of the negative feedback came from players who always say that they have been playing WoW since Classic.[COLOR="red"]

If you want to completely ignore all the positive reviews and focus solely on the negative ones then I can see where you'd have a view like this but doing so would be rather idiotic. I've seen a lot more positive comments about MoP than I normally see about a game and that's saying a lot because people don't normally post stuff to praise a product, not nearly as much as they will to write something negative anyway.

You have a very skewed view though and you're obviously not going to see reason.

EDIT: I'm still very confused as how you know there are so many children though. I've known teens that act like adults and adults that act like teens. There's no way to know the age of someone from how they behave on a video game.

[Dasffion]

Raid progression. I haven't been able to raid on those realms i posted, because the community is not well organized. I normally use Raid Finder in order to raid MOP.

How does this equate to most of your realm being underage? Do you think that adults get some magical ability to be organized when they turn 18? Adults can't be unorganized?

[Tziva]

It's the review of Blizzard forums + web pages reviews + forums on the internet.

You cannot project relevant data from video game review sites. You can't even correctly project genuine opinion of the game from project reviews, much less extrapolate that opinion into subscription costs.

First, online reviews are a very limited sample. We're talking a statistically insignificant portion of the player population. On top of that, it's self selected, which automatically makes it's validity of a sample in question particularly in this context. Second, the kind of players who post reviews are generally those who have strong opinions either way, so by nature of being a review site, it is going to attract people who are excessively pleased or excessively critical, and not necessarily in a proportion that represents the general population. What you're missing is the thousands or millions of people who are comfortably content or apathetic which could theoretically make up the largest portion of subscribers. Finally, for all you know, all the negative reviews were made by one bitter guy, or all the positive ones by some crazed fanboy or paid marketer.

Third, just because someone is really happy or really pleased with the game doesn't mean they're still paying monthly subscription fees. Although it seems intuitive to make that connection, it's actually an illogical correlation. A significant portion of the people on this forum alone bitching about dailies are still paying for the game by their own admission. Consider that everyone complaining on the official forums is. Many who have left the game doesn't sit around to complain about it -- they move on to something else they do enjoy -- and we can't really track those people. And in the other camp, I'm sure there are also people who enjoy the game but can't afford the monthly fee or don't have time to play enough to justify the cost. It's also worth noting that some of those peole who rated the game stopped playing in Cataclysm or earlier and haven't even played it, which makes their opinion irrelevant even if such a correlation did exist (consider that many of them were posted before the game was even released). So, to cap: "Favourable opinion" != "has a subscription" nor does "Low opinion" != "cancelled subscription."

In short, there are dozens of reasons why you can't take website reviews of a game for anything more than the opinions of the few particular people who made them, and why you can't logically extrapolate anything they say onto the general player base.

These kinds of ridiculous ramblings don't even warrant a proper response, but there you have it: your sources are not not statistically relevant, your premises are invalid, and your conclusion has no believable basis.

as i told you before, even the AH can tell you how old the community is (Higher prices on junk vs Prices on actually valuable items). I have already posted you many reviews and personal experiences, and it's logical that it may attract younger audience, the theme on this game is more "childish" for that kind of audience. However most of the negative feedback came from players who always say that they have been playing WoW since Classic.

Completely conjecture with regards to ages and maturity. Opinion, not logic, that the theme is "childish" and attracts children. Correlation between AH Prices is invented. Personal experiences are irrelevant. All of this sounds made up on the spot.

Furthermore, according to every statistic on WoW I have seen, there aren't even very many minor players that play this game. The only two significant studies on WoW demographics I have seen (done by third parties, one being the very respectable PARC) have the average age of players in their late 20s and very, very few players under 18.... even less if you don't count China. Your claim not only requires me to believe a bunch of illogical premises, but also assumes that there are actually a huge majority of young players among subscribers when nothing has ever suggested this is true.

And, as I explained above in great detail, reviews are not a valid source of opinions, of subscriptions, and especially not of the active demographic of WoW players.

[Dasffion]

I posted a neutral battle.net review, did you read it?. I don't put MOP on the trash bin, but i'm telling you (many times) why the community doesn't like MOP and which parts of it.
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How i know there are too many children on MOP? i also said that before, Ventrilo, RaidCall, Voicechat, etc. On LA Realms.

---------- Post added 2012-12-18 at 11:31 AM ----------



There is a clear difference between an adult play style and teenager-children play style. What's that difference? Organization & DISCIPLINE

Again, is there some magical ability that adults get when they turn 18 that makes them organized and makes them have discipline? Age doesn't have anything to do with it. There are Adults that are unorganized and don't have discipline and there are kids that do.

As for VOIPs, you've talked to everyone on your realm? You know that a majority of them are underage? Of course voice isn't a sure sign either. My 26 year old wife sounds like she's about 15 on the phone.

So do you have anything real to contribute to this or are you going to continue making up nonsense?

[Dasffion]

I always talk with those players, because i'm the one that make those raids, i only admit those who use raidcall, ventrilo etc. and believe me, those guys are children and teenagers, it's not the first time since WOTLK that i have done raids. Back in WOTLK i always had guys from 20+ on my raids on Drakkari & Queltelas realms. And yes, there is a big difference in the game play, believe it or not, older guys who play video games know how to do these things. Many of them where excellent on raids

So you really have talked to everyone on your realm and are able to determine that a majority of them are underage? I highly doubt that.

And AGAIN being older doesn't magically make you better at playing video games. I'm 32 and I'm sure there are plenty of teenagers that can run circles around me.

[Dasffion]

You highly doubt that, because you don't like what you read.....sure.

It doesn't have anything to do with not liking what I read, it has to do with not believing that you have been on voice chat with thousands of people and have kept track of how old they SOUND.

I'm done talking to you though you're just full of nonsense. You have no idea of what you're talking about and can't seem to grasp that maturity plays a much more important part in what you're describing than age does.

[whatthefudge]

Subs could be at an all time low or an all time high, neither one would have any effect on the amount of enjoyment I get from the game in the immediate future.

[Ferocity]

I don't know why people are so much interested in number of subs (and another thread about it?) as if it equals to quality. As I wrote before if some soap opera is viewed by hundreds of millions of housewives, does it make better than some obscure but very thought-out thriller? This is also the reason of Rift popularity and more disciplined forums of other games. They know their niches.

WoW tried to go for all niches at once, to shoot down all birds with 1 bullet. Sure, there are pet battles, challenge modes, etc. But nothing of it has any real depth. Even more so, game was rapidly losing it's depth since Cata. It was Art, now it is pop-media (not sure about proper English word here). There is a lot of fluff, but core of the game is in awful condition - it is broken now (1 colorful example: leveling up = losing power).

Oh and from business point of view: there was nice advice given by one businessman - "always value your old customers". Sure MoP tried to fill a lot of niches at once to get as much new customers as possible, but they alienated those old customers, who survived Cataclysm, even more. WoW is not new game, and it is bad move to change target demographic so late in it's life (and a lot of changes were made to appeal to younger generation - starting from further dumbifying game systems (new talents, non-scaling mana pool, etc.) and ending with dexterity-based encounters). It won't go without any harmful repercussions.

[shise]

The less subs, the best the game is.


That's fact ^^

[Nerraw]

The less subs, the best the game is.


That's fact ^^

I do agree that the game would do better if it shed a couple of million of people. Not only would the ingame environment get a boost if the quitters actually quit, but Blizzard would also step up their game to keep the rest of the playerbase interested.

[Leonard McCoy]

The less subs, the best the game is.


That's fact ^^

It's true. Game lost plenty of subscribers in cataclysm and it was the best I'm guessing? Some days mmo champion forum some days....

[But I Hate You All]

Since you are blinded by your hate for Blizzard I will just say a couple things. First off Cata was the first expansion that had Digital downloads readily available and it was released in December. I have never heard of a company releasing a game and in the same month put it on sale. MoP has been out 3 months, not that big of deal to have it on sale. Second BC and Wrath didn't have digital downloads available for them until about halfway through Wrath. So when the games are only available in box form you don't really sell boxes on websites like this. You can buy it from a retailer like Wal-Mart, Best-Buy, Target or whatever. So your argument is automatically invalid.

Good job in ignoring 90% of my post. Also saying someones argument is invalid is moronic

---------- Post added 2012-12-18 at 12:06 PM ----------

You should pay attention to steam december 20 to jan. 7.

Will do <3

[Darsithis]

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Tziva, we may like or not those reviews, but that's the only way to know what people think about the game. And what i told you about the AH, is also true, Gul'dan prices on Glyphs are cheap, not because they are easy to get, easy to farm, etc. But it's because that inscription player is mature with the way he post the prices on the AH. Just look at the prices on LA realms, even a green level 7 item cost around 200g, because they don't even know how much that thing cost. Gold & Gametime selling on LA realms indicate the number of children farming materials, items, pets, etc. just to sell them for stupid prices, just because they pay WoW with gold

It's one way to find out, of course, though as Tziva pointed out, reviews are easily faked. It's a leap, though, to take aggregated reviews (real or not), and apply them to millions of people and say "subs must be falling because 20 reviews on Amazon.com are bad".

I don't understand how prices really equate age. Posting something too high or too low has nothing to do with age and everything to do with inexperience in business and economics.

[But I Hate You All]

Because games like Rift with a fraction of the subs of WoW can't afford to develop new content. Right?

I really think blizzard has a higher cost of operations than Trion but that is just option

---------- Post added 2012-12-18 at 12:14 PM ----------

It's one way to find out, of course, though as Tziva pointed out, reviews are easily faked. It's a leap, though, to take aggregated reviews (real or not), and apply them to millions of people and say "subs must be falling because 20 reviews on Amazon.com are bad".

I don't understand how prices really equate age. Posting something too high or too low has nothing to do with age and everything to do with inexperience in business and economics.

I know this is off topic but do you sleep? lol

[Byniri]

The subscription numbers are really content dependant, remember back in CATA when those Zandalari dungeons came out? That really killed the subs numbers. Let me post you a graphic of WoW subs on 2012:

*snip big ass graph*

All those MMOs seem to be declining in the past few years.

MMOs in general might be declining as a whole.

[Zoneseek]

I don't know why people are so much interested in number of subs (and another thread about it?) as if it equals to quality. As I wrote before if some soap opera is viewed by hundreds of millions of housewives, does it make better than some obscure but very thought-out thriller? This is also the reason of Rift popularity and more disciplined forums of other games. They know their niches.

I agree 100%. Its almost like the average wow player thinks wow needs to be #1 to be the best game, I wonder if they also think twilight is the best movie series ever made and justin beiber is the best singer in the world. Myself, I couldn't care less how many people play wow, as long as its fun ill be around.

[dacoolist]

A: Please, every single time you come in talking about MoP, you call it fucking "mope". Stop it.
B: Want to know why they posted they had 10m then and haven't anything since? Because they were losing subs and were happy to get back to 10m shared it with everyone. We the players, or so I hope, like to see the game back up there so it would make sense to release the numbers then.
C: There are no indicators other than you going to every thread saying the game is dying or it's terrible. If there are indicators, go away and back up your claim.

inb4 fanboy

I have to say, this post made me die of laughter!


- I personally believe they will stay above 10 million for the first year of "MOP" then drop to 9 at the end.