World of Warcraft: Current Year
- Thread starter hodj
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Guest, it's time once again for the massively important and exciting FoH Asshat Tournament!
Go here and give us your nominations!Who's been the biggest Asshat in the last year? Give us your worst ones!
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I wonder what Blizzard is banking on for next year. I hope it's not D3 on consoles.
I'm curious how the recent F2P MMO changes are impacting Blizzard's western subs. My guess is they are still about the same in China, but bleeding western subs, although that's totally a guess.
I'm curious how the recent F2P MMO changes are impacting Blizzard's western subs. My guess is they are still about the same in China, but bleeding western subs, although that's totally a guess.
bixxby
Molten Core Raider
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I disagree on the first two. SC2 had beautiful cinematics like always but god damn the story was stupid as hell (just like D3). Diablo 3 provided plenty of fun and if you didn't make your box price back on the RMAH you done fucked up.
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I refused to use the RMAH and by the time it actually worked I was already done with the game and farmed enough resp chests to beat every difficulty. D3 farming isn't nearly as fun as D2 was.
Caeden
Golden Baronet of the Realm
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There isn't one because its not true. Sure, I honestly think that the rate of sub loss in western markets is probably slower than the east, but the anecdotal evidence cannot be ignored. My entire friends list, some 20+ folks, two play wow still. See one or two in d3 and sc2. My guild, a medium core 25 man guild since tbc, is 10 m now but without more than a hand full of gquits. The hasn't logged in a year+ category is 20 strong since new management doesn't cull former mains. Guys I knew irl who played haven't played since early cata at the latest
Oh and virtual servers. Proof positive that there's been might attrition in the west.
The games long in the tooth and MoP was very uninspiring.
Oh and virtual servers. Proof positive that there's been might attrition in the west.
The games long in the tooth and MoP was very uninspiring.
Agraza
Registered Hutt
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I don't doubt it since Asians are the lions share of their subs. However, that quote tells us nothing about what's really happening. The bigger question is how many of their subs are NA/Western subscriber ones vs the cafe ones? 2 Million? 1 Million? 500,000? We know most of their numbers are from China, but specifics would be interesting.
I'm sure there's still a core who are playing, but I know a lot of people have parked their WOW accounts for the interim. It's all speculation, though. Keep working on that cash shop, Blizz!
I'm sure there's still a core who are playing, but I know a lot of people have parked their WOW accounts for the interim. It's all speculation, though. Keep working on that cash shop, Blizz!
spronk
FPS noob
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you can work backwards from their quarterly financial reports since they breakout how much money the wow unit made, and there are only 4 streams of revenue for it: subs, box sales, cash shop, and server xfers/etc. subs make up about 90% of that (outside of xpac month), and NA/EU is around $15/mo and china is pretty much nothing. For the first quarter they made around $240m in revenue which translates into around 4m NA/EU subs give or take 500k, and around $100m in profits. The numbers are probably off since they are what I remember from 3 months ago, but you can go to edgar and look it up yourself. The next quarter reports should be out mid August.
re: guilds, I wouldn't spend any money on xferring until 5.4 is out and virtual servers. You may not need to move at all if you get hooked into a big cluster, and you can join guilds on a virtual server.
you could trywww.wowprogress.com, select your server and browse through the various guilds listed there with "recruiting" in the title
Juvarisx
Florida
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Yea you'd sure show them when the NINE year old game they may still enjoy is down to a Paltry 7.7 MILLION active subscribers. I mean how will the people at Blizzard sleep at night knowing they have experienced a 3 million subscriber drop and still have the most played MMO by miles. Remind me again how the population of EQ or UO or DAoC was 9 years on? If anything Blizzard has been too good at predicting what their playerbase wants and its ludicrous a game this old has this many people still playing with all the new games not to mention platforms (smartphones anyone) have come out since 2004.
The game is fine for people who enjoy MMO's that don't require you to play it 40 hours a week. And hell you CAN play for 40 hours a week and have stuff to do in it if you choose as well. Trolling the WoW thread must be more fun then I can understand I suppose.
The game is fine for people who enjoy MMO's that don't require you to play it 40 hours a week. And hell you CAN play for 40 hours a week and have stuff to do in it if you choose as well. Trolling the WoW thread must be more fun then I can understand I suppose.
Flipmode
EQOA Refugee
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I don't think my server is merging with anyone. I'm on Stormrage it seems to be the biggest US PVE server. Queues to login every day.
Noodleface
A Mod Real Quick
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tad10
Elisha Dushku
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I am sure the people at Blizzard (except for the management) are not sleeping at night because they are updating their resumes. Between subs losses and the buyout heads are going to roll.
The financial reports are available to the public so I don't know how this isn't common knowledge by now:
Even with WoW subs dropping by the millions, Blizzard profits continue to rise every single year. That's Blizzard Entertainment itself, not Activision Blizzard picking up the slack. If you can't fathom how that works and are too fucking lazy to read the reports yourself, here's a quick summary: WoW's development and operational costs drop as time goes on, and Blizzard is still making MILLIONS from Diablo 3 and SC2 sales, whatever you think of those games.
So no, I don't think Blizzard continuing to give Kotick more and more money every year, combined with a strategic buyout that Kotick has been trying to do for years to avoid being used as a piggy bank for Vivendi, leads to any heads rolling any time soon.
Even with WoW subs dropping by the millions, Blizzard profits continue to rise every single year. That's Blizzard Entertainment itself, not Activision Blizzard picking up the slack. If you can't fathom how that works and are too fucking lazy to read the reports yourself, here's a quick summary: WoW's development and operational costs drop as time goes on, and Blizzard is still making MILLIONS from Diablo 3 and SC2 sales, whatever you think of those games.
So no, I don't think Blizzard continuing to give Kotick more and more money every year, combined with a strategic buyout that Kotick has been trying to do for years to avoid being used as a piggy bank for Vivendi, leads to any heads rolling any time soon.
Cybsled
Naxxramas 1.0 Raider
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"Failure" is relative, after all. Keep in mind that WoW has lost more subscriptions than EQ1 and UO had at any point in history, and it still has many multiples over them at any point in history currently.
As has been pointed out, the fact a game that is nearly a decade old still has 7+ mil subs is pretty damned amazing.
As has been pointed out, the fact a game that is nearly a decade old still has 7+ mil subs is pretty damned amazing.