WoW down to 8.3mil subscribers

[Correction]

To avoid confusion, note that 'subscriber' has always included anybody who logs into WoW from a net cafe once every 30 days, which is how a lot of asian players access the game. This is where a lot of the volatility has come from ever since Wrath came out.

Q2 2012: 9 million
Q3 2012: 10 million
Q4 2012: 9.6 million
today: 8.3 million

This represents a 5-year low for WoW's numbers. I guess Titan can't come soon enough for Blizzard. Even if we see another WoW expansion it's likely the sub base will contract to Vanilla levels by this time next year.

[Ksandra]

This represents a 5-year low for WoW's numbers. I guess Titan can't come soon enough for Blizzard. Even if we see another WoW expansion it's likely the sub base will contract to Vanilla levels by this time next year.

notsureifserious.jpg

Ya it's going down, but it's insanely cheap to run an mmo. Vanilla levels is still not going to be that big a deal.

[Kiarax]

Do asian players not pay a monthly fee?

[Ksandra]

Do asian players not pay a monthly fee?

It's against china law. Companies have to charge per hour because China has a limit as to how many hours people (children?) can play.

[Kiarax]

Gotcha. Have they ever released (or at least recently) numbers on how many of their players are in asia compared to US/EU? I doubt Blizzard are too worried if they're making a monthly sub off of the majority of these people.

[Ksandra]

Gotcha. Have they ever released (or at least recently) numbers on how many of their players are in asia compared to US/EU? I doubt Blizzard are too worried if they're making a monthly sub off of the majority of these people.

No, but all around their buildings they have these cool little screens that have lights were people are playing. For sure a lot of lights were going on in China, but there were a ton everywhere else. Since they don't release the numbers, of course the negative nancys want to claim it's all Chinese, but it really isn't.

[D44kpunk]

imo, MMOs are currently a dying breed, i'm honestly surprised WoW even has that many subscribers. moba-type games are way more popular right now.

[Correction]

notsureifserious.jpg

Serious about...?

[Ksandra]

Serious about...?

the negativity


@ kiarax, this is the screen I was talking about:

Apparently they have these digital boards in random places that show dots of where people are currently playing WoW (somehow there was a dot in the ocean, and wtf is wrong with Australia...slackers):

Unfortunately you can't see the US lights because of the glare, but there were a lot. And as you can tell there's a fuckton of euro, too.

[Anakron]

Looks like very few people playing in Canada, except for small patches near the border with the US? Or is that just where most Canadians are?

[Ksandra]

Think that's the livable areas lol. idk Canada's fucking cold.

[Korialstrasz]

Looks like very few people playing in Canada, except for small patches near the border with the US? Or is that just where most Canadians are?

Something like 80-90% of Canadians live within 100 miles of the US border.

[Correction]

the negativity

It's a guess, but from 2011 to 2012 they shed > 1 million subscribers. From 2012 to 2013 they shed another 600k. They've lost twice what they lost all of last year in the first 3 months of this year. It's not negativity, it's an unoptimistic outlook.

I'm not saying WoW is doomed, but it is definitely shrinking quite a bit, which is the kind of thing you have to look at if it's your job to assign resources to a continuing franchise. We already know they're under pressure to release smaller expansions more often. An increase in the rate of attrition only validates this idea and it means we'll see more things the size of Hearthstone and fewer things like Cataclysm (think scope, not content). It's interesting to think of this as the context for Blizzard to plan and build out whatever level 91-100 content they have in mind.

[Anakron]

While it's true that WoW can live on with much less subscribers, I do wonder what it's like for the director. With most companies and products (not necessarily games), you're almost always expected to meet the forecasts, and if you do, they'll simply up the forecast next year. So it'd be interesting to know what their internal expectations are for the game, especially from the financial arm.

[Meresgi]

Pay to play MMOs are gonna die out soon, pretty much every MMO hitting the market goes f2p with cash shop nowadays and that's how it should be. It's kind of stupid how I can pay $15/month for WoW and get the same amount of content in a given time span as another f2p MMO, not to mention GM tickets in WoW still take as long as f2p MMOs for some reason. To be honest I would be glad to see WoW die out just because it might stop all these new MMOs from trying to copy it and failing over and over again. Need new blood in the MMO scene, not woW clones.

[Ksandra]

Is there any evidence to suggest that legit f2p (like GW2) create more money than the ree-ree ones that are play2win?

Until I see trends that suggest more are going the GW2 route, then I'll still be happy with monthly subs.

[Therin]

I hate F2P because it encourages people to spend boundless amounts of cash on the game to get ahead. There's no way you can ever be at the top without spending more than what you would normally spend on a subscription fee because if there was, there would be no need to have a cash shop (from the company's standpoint) and therefore they wouldn't make any money.

Take EVE for example. If you don't buy PLEX and sell it in-game you'll never be able to afford the biggest ships and the best fittings. Or at least it would take you about 5 years to catch up with the current end-game, in which case it would have evolved and you'd be behind again. And EVE isn't even F2P - they have a subscription fee and PLEX is still pretty much necessary.

[Correction]

GM tickets in WoW still take as long as f2p MMOs for some reason.

This is not a huge mystery. 8 million subscribers waiting 3 days for a GM ticket to resolve vs 1 million subscribers waiting 3 days for a GM ticket to resolve means both companies are allocating customer support resources at identical rep/customer ratios.

[Scythiroth]

Pay to play MMOs are gonna die out soon, pretty much every MMO hitting the market goes f2p with cash shop nowadays and that's how it should be. It's kind of stupid how I can pay $15/month for WoW and get the same amount of content in a given time span as another f2p MMO, not to mention GM tickets in WoW still take as long as f2p MMOs for some reason. To be honest I would be glad to see WoW die out just because it might stop all these new MMOs from trying to copy it and failing over and over again. Need new blood in the MMO scene, not woW clones.

I've been thinking this a while now. No idea how people can still be excited for the next WoW clone every month or two and then just end up going back to WoW most likely. However, some F2P games are pretty much WoW clones as well, at least from what I've seen/played. >.>

I've just been having fun in PSO2 with a few friends. Cannot stand content that requires 10+ people and basically becomes a second job and with this, I can just do whatever I want, whenever I want. I know not everyone would agree with that though and still do enjoy raid type content.

Spoiler: show

I just wish Sega of America weren't so terrible and would actually release it here and up to date with Japan's patches.

edit: And yeah, the cash shops in some F2P games are pretty ridiculous. I'd much rather they stick to cosmetic stuff or maybe other minor things, depends on the game.

[Meresgi]

I hate F2P because it encourages people to spend boundless amounts of cash on the game to get ahead. There's no way you can ever be at the top without spending more than what you would normally spend on a subscription fee because if there was, there would be no need to have a cash shop (from the company's standpoint) and therefore they wouldn't make any money.

Take EVE for example. If you don't buy PLEX and sell it in-game you'll never be able to afford the biggest ships and the best fittings. Or at least it would take you about 5 years to catch up with the current end-game, in which case it would have evolved and you'd be behind again. And EVE isn't even F2P - they have a subscription fee and PLEX is still pretty much necessary.

There has to be moderation, and i'm all for cash shops selling cosmetic shit and then other shit you can get in the game, like TERA does, but less so then how TERA works. I'm able to grind most of the end game dungeons, sell the equipment and shit for gold and then buy costumes I want because I dont care about the TOP TOP TOP elite super OP mega gear, having the decent rep vendor gear that's above what you can get in the normal dungeons works for me. If you want the top of the line shit then you have to grind for it a hell of a lot in game, or go the route of paying for items off the cash shop and selling them for gold to in turn purchase the gear and crap you want.

It's like that way in WoW though, the people with a TON of time to spend on farming heroic raids will always have the top gear with the best enchants, or buy their way into a RBG/3v3 team for pvp or into a guild raid run for heroic weapons/armor. Hell the guild I was in in WOTLK sold heroic deathwing runs for hundreds of thousands of gold to people who were more then willing to purchase it, so it's not like a sub game somehow doesn't see this playstyle.

This is not a huge mystery. 8 million subscribers waiting 3 days for a GM ticket to resolve vs 1 million subscribers waiting 3 days for a GM ticket to resolve means both companies are allocating customer support resources at identical rep/customer ratios.

True, though in paying for that customer service with WoW i'm always irritated when my character is stuck or a quest is completely broken and my ticket says "5 day wait time!" lol. Usually they are decent at getting to you depending on how you phrase your ticket though with keywords.