3rd Quarter Sub Loss Predictions!

[Vankrys]

Well, SW started of in fact with 1.7 million copies sold (or was it 2 million) - then plummeted to under 500 000 IIRC. Aion from 4 million to 2 million. Do you have a source how many play SW and GW2 today, I supposed SW numbers rose when it went F2P.

Then again...none of those games combined appear to have sucked up the 4.5 million that WoW lost

When exactly is that Q3 announcement again?

last year it was november 7th

[BeneditaNBeatriz]

" Just like GW2 and SWTOR effected WoW when they were released. ow wait NOT! "

Ermmm.....

You should be playing a dif WoW then us then. Cause you can see that WoW subs were indeed afected...thats why the drop in subs...you know? the sub drop we know about? Or... hmmm 2+2= 4 ... :s stay in school kids please.

I am fan boy of WoW... so i cant see that you said that for beeing a fan boy also as me. But some other reason.

[Deleted]

Lol nobody was dissapointed in ToT, ToT was a raid most of the 'real' raiders were very happy with.

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Read your own post, compare your statement of "nobody" to your statement of "real raiders". Then think. Then find out that "real raiders" are like 5% of the playerbase. Then find out that the other 95% is not "nobody" but the majority of the playerbase.
Then think "omg jajfiasjfddsfk the uther 95% are happiezzz toooooo!", because you are you.
Then go to mmo-champion main page and look at statistics of raid clears: http://www.mmo-champion.com/content/...Fan-Art-Update

%of players that completed MSV on any difficulty (including lfr): 76%
%of players that completed ToT on any difficulty (including lfr): 54%

A 22% drop, [sarcasm]yeah i am pretty sure "nobody" was disappointed with ToT [/sarcasm]

[Deleted]

If people were 'disappointed' with ToT then they should reconsider if WoW is really their game.
It hardly gets better than that..

Hardly gets better than that? It's another "follow-the-paved-road" raid with mainly uninspiring bosses (Durumu and Dark animus as possible positive exceptions), dull scenery and dull trash. Raids need to be more like Ulduar/Black Temple/Karazhan etc. again.

[Deleted]

I'm guessing the current number to be between 6-7M but I suspect it'll drop rapidly after SoO LFR is out for a few weeks.

[Osmeric]

Considering that SoO was released (albeit in the middle of Q3), I would imagine that the damage is less rather than more. Still, that makes me fear for Q4!

SoO was released Sept. 10, which is 3/4 of the way through Q3. Someone who resubbed for it would still be subbed when Q3 ended.

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" Just like GW2 and SWTOR effected WoW when they were released. ow wait NOT! "

Ermmm.....

You should be playing a dif WoW then us then. Cause you can see that WoW subs were indeed afected...thats why the drop in subs...you know? the sub drop we know about? Or... hmmm 2+2= 4 ... :s stay in school kids please.

WoW subs were rather stable the quarter SWTOR released, and the quarter after. And by Q2 2012, SWTOR was already in serious decline, so it's dubious to attribute the WoW sub decline then to SWTOR.

[Deleted]

1 or 2 millions

[igame]

Hardly gets better than that? It's another "follow-the-paved-road" raid with mainly uninspiring bosses (Durumu and Dark animus as possible positive exceptions), dull scenery and dull trash. Raids need to be more like Ulduar/Black Temple/Karazhan etc. again.

Hear hear. As much as I support your sentiment, blizzard now only do half hearted stuff, so raids like those will never happen again, sadly.

[Lanthanum]

I don't think the sub loss in Q3 will be too bad, maybe 100-500K. The really interesting one will be at the end of Q4 when the content is stale and people are waiting for the new expansion. That number could be 1-2 million.

[McNeil]

When do we hear the next amount of subs the game currently has? I don't expect it to be that high since 5.4 released, but the ones coming after can be disastrous for the game.

[Glorious Leader]

If people were 'disappointed' with ToT then they should reconsider if WoW is really their game.
It hardly gets better than that..

I was terrible disapointed in tot but then again I never had high expectations. The raid was fucking terrible and that was what they compared to ulduar. What a a fucking joke.

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Lol nobody was dissapointed in ToT, ToT was a raid most of the 'real' raiders were very happy with.

See above. Throne was a terrible fucking raid and is endemic of everything wrong with this game.

[Lemmiwink]

SoO was released this quarter + Blizzcon and the expectations concerning the new expansion is just around the corner. I think there won't be a sub loss this quarter, if anything they will see the sub count go up to around 8 million. +300.000 is my guess.

[Deleted]

SoO was released this quarter + Blizzcon and the expectations concerning the new expansion is just around the corner. I think there won't be a sub loss this quarter, if anything they will see the sub count go up to around 8 million. +300.000 is my guess.

Sorry but lol
Wondering what kind of rock you are living under.

[Nihth]

last year it was november 7th

Activision Blizzard Third Quarter Calendar 2013 Results Conference Call at Nov 06, 2013
1:30 PM PT

[Afrospinach]

my money is on the 100-500k bracket, but definitely on the low end of that scale. Maybe 200-300.

[Peso]

Definitely close to 1 million probably 800K.

[Osmeric]

One wildcard is the question of what's happening in Asia. Korea is way down, I've heard. What's happening in China? That big competing MMO that came out around the same time as MoP may be dwindling?

[Judic]

I never understood why people cared about sub loss so much. Blizzard is trying to fix the realm pop issue with the new connected realms feature. Once realm pop is less of an issue, subs shouldn't really be an issue either. If you have fun playing the game, then play it. If you don't, then don't.

[Lemmiwink]

Sorry but lol
Wondering what kind of rock you are living under.

Last patch has in the past seen a little raise in sub numbers. I know WoW is in a declining state but for this specific quarter I don't think there will be a sub loss. Next quarter there will be, the game will continue to bleed subs as long as their target demographic is everyone. Blizz needs to reinvent to stop the over time decline, and it can't be a small change either. They have to decide if they are gonna cater to the casuals/family/hard core/on and off-er market or if they are gonna segment it down to a more specific consumer demographic. If I was them I'd go back to the semi-hard core + casual PvP segment which clearly gave the biggest number of subs.

I said 4 seconds after I heard MoP was the last expansion that this would bring WoW under 10 million subs. When I saw the Pokemon mini-game I adjusted it to 9. When I saw the last raid tier in Cata and their direction forward (talents etc.) I adjusted it to around 6 million within the expansions lifetime. My friends and guild thought I was way off but so far my predictions. All my friends quit about 3 weeks into MoP, the guild disbanded within 2 months, I quit 3 months in (recently got back into to test timeless isle and SoO) and I am pretty sure this is what is happening all over the place.

I have compared WoW and the MoP expansion to Nokia. Nokia tried to force something the consumers didn't want (symbian) on to their customers. Apple and android came out and a huge chunk of Nokia's premium market went away over night. Nokia then decided to roll with something that was even simpler and much less popular when they went with Windows phone. They stubbornly held on their strategy and today they are the very definition of a huge mega corporation that failed.

When Blizzard announced MoP most of the people I know in-game was less than impressed. They were already unhappy with Cata's direction. Blizzard went on to forcing class homogenization, over-simplification and dumbing down on their player base in true mega corporation style. They made the community even more toxic with the introduction of LFR, now people could be asshats in an even bigger fora + it killed off most casual raid guilds. They forced the new talent system onto people even though many people warned them on their own forums. MoP is what I would classify as an innovation and marketing disaster. Strictly speaking of numbers here of course, I personally enjoyed alot of the MoP content, I just wasn't captivated by it.

My thoughts about WoW is that without a massive investment in the game engine and a clear target demographic, WoW actually run the risk of dying off pretty soon. My reason for thinking this is complex, but it involves a buy out of Vivendi financed by loans, which by current revenues they will have trouble maintaining. Which is also the reason I believe Titan was sent "back to the drawing board". They transfered an awful lot of the Titan team to WoW, didn't they? My guess is: There is a bigger feeling of panic in Blizzard HQ than optimism at the moment.

That's the rock I've been living under. But, based on previous experience, I doubt there will be a sub loss this quarter, if there is a change I am leaning more towards a small growth in subs. This quarter. But other than this quarter, if something drastic isn't done, the sub numbers will dwindle and other MMO's will take the former WoW players, be it Wildstar, TESO, FFXIV ARR or any other "big MMO" (which won't be big compared to WoW but I think there will be several 2 million+ MMO's as Blizzard continues to lose the market share they've been sitting on the last 9 years)

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I never understood why people cared about sub loss so much. Blizzard is trying to fix the realm pop issue with the new connected realms feature. Once realm pop is less of an issue, subs shouldn't really be an issue either. If you have fun playing the game, then play it. If you don't, then don't.

Because with the sub loss comes financial crisis. A hit to revenues means blizzards cash flow goes red. If Blizzard's cash flow is negative and they have low liquidity they might end up having to borrow money in order to not having to close the servers while they wait for the subscription money to arrive in their account. Blizzard has invested too much money lately to afford a revenue hit like that and if it continues there won't be a server merger in the world that can save this game. That means no Blizzard, no WoW up to the point where they are a victim of a hostile take-over, most likely by EA. And no, Blizzard is not sitting in their chair saying; 7.7M subs is still pretty good, we are still the biggest MMO on the market like most people on this forum says. There is 1 rule in corporate business, you grow, you grow, you grow. You never shrink.

[Pann]

One wildcard is the question of what's happening in Asia. Korea is way down, I've heard. What's happening in China? That big competing MMO that came out around the same time as MoP may be dwindling?

There was a post from the WOW Korea site that was linked in this thread a few weeks back complaining about PVP balance but whether that was the whining of a few players or a view shared by many remains to been seen. One thing that was interesting though that was stated is that Korean players are moving to Oceanic realms, again I have no idea how many players are doing this, but if this is the case I doubt Blizzard are that concerned.