Can we stop claiming 12 million WoW subs can't be wrong?

VengeSunsoar

No a good game is not the same as a high quality game. Many people think wow is a terrible game. Many people think wow is a high quality game.

Good can refer to many more thing than the quality as the forums show.

This is not a difficult concept

Bladestrom

He was arguing 'we' say it's 12 million, whoever we are. most just don't care, but I will add, my son was 6 when I started playing, now I play occasionally as does he - that will be why numbers have not collapsed. Asside from this, just where does he think the sub money (billion or so a year or something in that magnitude) comes from.

Creslin321

Originally posted by Holophonist

Originally posted by VengeSunsoar
Good or bad could be referring to the quality or your overall impression of the game or simple whether you like it out night.

Not just high or low quality. Definitely not.

I'm not sure what trivial waste of time you're pulling me into but a good game is the same as a high quality game. a bad game is the same as a low quality game.

He might be using quality to mean "production value" as opposed to "enjoyability."

For example...Minecraft has very low production value, but for many people, is highly enjoyable.

VengeSunsoar

A Good game is a comment on the overall game. Quality is usually referring to some technical aspect.

Bladestrom

Wow is both high quality and a good game. It could be argued that it is tired and has a confused core gameplay, but that is another topic.

VengeSunsoar

Exactly. Good is subjective. It refers to far more issues than quality.

Eir_S

There's no "right" or "wrong" about it.  It's a game, it's a popular game at that, and really, what matters to me when I AM playing WoW is that there are ALWAYS tons of people online.

Holophonist

Originally posted by Creslin321

Originally posted by Holophonist

Originally posted by VengeSunsoar
Good or bad could be referring to the quality or your overall impression of the game or simple whether you like it out night.

Not just high or low quality. Definitely not.

I'm not sure what trivial waste of time you're pulling me into but a good game is the same as a high quality game. a bad game is the same as a low quality game.

He might be using quality to mean "production value" as opposed to "enjoyability."

For example...Minecraft has very low production value, but for many people, is highly enjoyable.

I understand what he thinks he's saying. But while he's saying it, he's saying I'm wrong, which I'm not. He thinks high quality means well made or "technically impressive" or whatever else.

VengeSunsoar

I'm saying people can still feel a game is a good game even it is low quality

Creslin321

Originally posted by Holophonist

Originally posted by Creslin321

Originally posted by Holophonist

Originally posted by VengeSunsoar
Good or bad could be referring to the quality or your overall impression of the game or simple whether you like it out night.

Not just high or low quality. Definitely not.

I'm not sure what trivial waste of time you're pulling me into but a good game is the same as a high quality game. a bad game is the same as a low quality game.

He might be using quality to mean "production value" as opposed to "enjoyability."

For example...Minecraft has very low production value, but for many people, is highly enjoyable.

I understand what he thinks he's saying. But while he's saying it, he's saying I'm wrong, which I'm not. He thinks high quality means well made or "technically impressive" or whatever else.

Well, I think that when you are talking about judging something that has many, many different aspects that are "judgable."  You really need to define what you mean when you say "quality."  Otherwise, it could lead to misunderstandings like this .

EDIT:  And by "you" I mean the editorial you...not you Holophonist .

Holophonist

Originally posted by VengeSunsoar
No a good game is not the same as a high quality game. Many people think wow is a terrible game. Many people think wow is a high quality game.

Good can refer to many more thing than the quality as the forums show.

This is not a difficult concept

The quality of a game includes more than just how well it's made technically. There's nothing about the definition of the word quality that makes it exclusive to how well a video game is made. I think LoL is a low quality game, even though it's very polished and well-made. That's why I say it's a bad game, but it's well-made. I don't say it's a bad game, but a high quality game.

 

Are there people who use the term "high quality" in a way that it doesn't HAVE to be used? Probably. Do I care? NO. Does it make my previous statement wrong? NO. Especially consider I've since clarified it. There is NOTHING about the definitions of these words that make me wrong, so stop wasting my time with semantics, and stop being smug about it.

Foobarx

Okay... 12 million WoW subs can't be right!

 

There you go OP!

VengeSunsoar

And others say it lol is a good game regardless of the quality.

Holophonist

Originally posted by Creslin321

Originally posted by Holophonist

Originally posted by Creslin321

Originally posted by Holophonist

Originally posted by VengeSunsoar
Good or bad could be referring to the quality or your overall impression of the game or simple whether you like it out night.

Not just high or low quality. Definitely not.

I'm not sure what trivial waste of time you're pulling me into but a good game is the same as a high quality game. a bad game is the same as a low quality game.

He might be using quality to mean "production value" as opposed to "enjoyability."

For example...Minecraft has very low production value, but for many people, is highly enjoyable.

I understand what he thinks he's saying. But while he's saying it, he's saying I'm wrong, which I'm not. He thinks high quality means well made or "technically impressive" or whatever else.

Well, I think that when you are talking about judging something that has many, many different aspects that are "judgable."  You really need to define what you mean when you say "quality."  Otherwise, it could lead to misunderstandings like this .

EDIT:  And by "you" I mean the editorial you...not you Holophonist .

It was clear.

 

The truth is it's neither 100% objective or 100% subjective. Like I said, some people are merely ignorant of better games; games that they themselves would enjoy more but don't know about them. Sometimes it may be an example of not wanting to try something new, but once you do, you end up enjoying it more.

And it's not *me* deciding anything. However, it is me, you, anybody else who wants to discuss it. There isn't any 1 person who can declare a game to be "good" or "bad", but that DOES NOT MEAN that you can't have objective discussions regarding different games.

How would you decide the quality of a game? By the number of subscribers? So LoL is the best game ever? Or are you saying quality simply doesn't exist when it comes to games?

 

I'm not sure how you can read that paragraph, especially in the context of the entire post, and NOT know what I mean by quality. Venge is just being petty for some reason.

VengeSunsoar

Good is entirely subjective.

Other aspects may not be.

Kyleran

Originally posted by DarLorkar

It is kind of sad really. How often people want to beat this dead horse.

It all comes down to the fact that WOW has, and can ,lose more subs than almost any other "Western" game will ever have , and still be king of the heap.

This should be celebrated, all those new people brought into the market makes it possible to have all the option people do today in games. Lot of bad.. but a few decent games as well came from the popularity  WOW created.

 

So true, I hold Blizzard responsible for leading the charge to destroy the MMORPG genre and lead about it's general decline to the state we have today.

Immensely popular and profitable among the masses, however totally shallow gaming experiences that are a shadow of what I expected this genre to evolve into.

 

MurlockDance

Of course subscribers to WoW can't be wrong. If they ended up paying a subscription for a game they hated, perhaps, but how many people do you know do that? I personally don't know of any.

I am not wrong for liking WoW nor are you wrong for disliking WoW.

Popularity of a game does not mean that it is the best game ever, just that a lot of people happen to like it for whatever reason. One is also not a sheep for liking a popular game.

DrunkWolf

Look how many people voted for Obama and they were wrong.   so yes 12 million people CAN be wrong.

DrunkWolf

Originally posted by Kyleran

Originally posted by DarLorkar

It is kind of sad really. How often people want to beat this dead horse.

It all comes down to the fact that WOW has, and can ,lose more subs than almost any other "Western" game will ever have , and still be king of the heap.

This should be celebrated, all those new people brought into the market makes it possible to have all the option people do today in games. Lot of bad.. but a few decent games as well came from the popularity  WOW created.

 

So true, I hold Blizzard responsible for leading the charge to destroy the MMORPG genre and lead about it's general decline to the state we have today.

Immensely popular and profitable among the masses, however totally shallow gaming experiences that are a shadow of what I expected this genre to evolve into.

 

This

TheLizardbones

Originally posted by Creslin321

Over 247 billion served can't be wrong!!!

.

.

.

Oh shit.....

 

Just as a note on Super Size Me, more than one researcher has tried not been able to replicate the results.  Some people actually lost weight.

 

A note on McDonald's, if the food didn't taste good, however little organic material it actually contains, people wouldn't eat there.  I don't live down the road from one of the busiest McDonald's in the world because the food is horrible, but convenient.

 

Eir_S

Originally posted by Kyleran

Originally posted by DarLorkar

It is kind of sad really. How often people want to beat this dead horse.

It all comes down to the fact that WOW has, and can ,lose more subs than almost any other "Western" game will ever have , and still be king of the heap.

This should be celebrated, all those new people brought into the market makes it possible to have all the option people do today in games. Lot of bad.. but a few decent games as well came from the popularity  WOW created.

 

So true, I hold Blizzard responsible for leading the charge to destroy the MMORPG genre and lead about it's general decline to the state we have today.

Immensely popular and profitable among the masses, however totally shallow gaming experiences that are a shadow of what I expected this genre to evolve into.

Who says you'd even have MMO's to play if it weren't for WoW?

Holophonist

Originally posted by Eir_S

Originally posted by Kyleran

Originally posted by DarLorkar

It is kind of sad really. How often people want to beat this dead horse.

It all comes down to the fact that WOW has, and can ,lose more subs than almost any other "Western" game will ever have , and still be king of the heap.

This should be celebrated, all those new people brought into the market makes it possible to have all the option people do today in games. Lot of bad.. but a few decent games as well came from the popularity  WOW created.

 

So true, I hold Blizzard responsible for leading the charge to destroy the MMORPG genre and lead about it's general decline to the state we have today.

Immensely popular and profitable among the masses, however totally shallow gaming experiences that are a shadow of what I expected this genre to evolve into.

Who says you'd even have MMO's to play if it weren't for WoW?

That's a comment on how good WoW is at spurring other game development, not how good the game is.

Bigdaddyx

Originally posted by Kyleran

Originally posted by DarLorkar

It is kind of sad really. How often people want to beat this dead horse.

It all comes down to the fact that WOW has, and can ,lose more subs than almost any other "Western" game will ever have , and still be king of the heap.

This should be celebrated, all those new people brought into the market makes it possible to have all the option people do today in games. Lot of bad.. but a few decent games as well came from the popularity  WOW created.

 

So true, I hold Blizzard responsible for leading the charge to destroy the MMORPG genre and lead about it's general decline to the state we have today.

Immensely popular and profitable among the masses, however totally shallow gaming experiences that are a shadow of what I expected this genre to evolve into.

 

Got to love the exaggeration.... 'DESTROY the MMORPG genre'. All right, i bet entire MMO market is in shambles and all people employed in this business cry themselves to sleep every night....scraping whatever they can get their hands on to feed their families. Nothing but ruins and devastation as far as you can see.

TheLizardbones

Originally posted by CazNeerg

Originally posted by lizardbones

The average annual income in China is one eighth the income in the U.S. and the middle class is nearly nonexistent.  For most families, annual income is less than $3,000 a year.  Yes, they are paying cents on the dollar, but how much are they paying as a percentage of their income?  The average American pays less than 0.21% of their annual income, while the average Chinese player pays 0.36% of their annual income.  So yes, Chinese players pay a lot less to play WoW.  They also earn a lot less. 

That's all true.  But I'm not talking about whether the level of financial commitment from the player is the same, I'm talking about whether the numbers actually received by the company are equivalent, which they clearly aren't.  Treating a pay-per-hour "subscriber" as equivalent to a pay-per-month subscriber for the purpose of reporting subscriber numbers renders those numbers useless.  By mashing the numbers from two fundamentally different revenue models together and reporting the total as if they were equivalent, you pollute the data set, and might as well not report the numbers at all.

 

Blizzard has addressed this on their forums.  The Chinese 'subscribers' are unique players playing an equivalent number of hours in the past month relative to Western players, and paying a comparable amount when adjusted for income.  In 2010, WoW had over twelve million unique and active players (subscribers) logging into their servers and paying to play the game.  Quibble over the definition all you want.  The Blizzard definition of Chinese "Subscriber" was equivalent to a Western "Subscriber".

 

The MMORPG genre, in 2010 had to have more than twelve million people because WoW did not encompass every single MMORPG player in existence at that time.

 

**

 

As a side note, I think the reason people want to attack the numbers is because twelve million documented people playing the same game does indicate that the game is "good" to a great many people.  Far more than nearly any other MMORPG that has ever existed.  I'm not sure why this is an issue though.  Millions of people like soccer, and I find it boring, but that doesn't mean soccer is a bad game.  It just means I don't really like watching it.

 

**

 

For the curious, here is Blizzard's definition of a "Subscriber" as it relates to Chinese players.

World of Warcraft subscribers include individuals who have paid a subscription fee or have an active prepaid card to play World of Warcraft, as well as those who have purchased the game and are within their free month of access. Internet Game Room players who have accessed the game over the last thirty days are also counted as subscribers. The above definition excludes all players under free promotional subscriptions, expired or cancelled subscriptions, and expired prepaid cards. Subscribers in licensees’ territories are defined along the same rules.

 

So it's possible that a Chinese player only played an hour last month and was counted.  It doesn't seem super likely that someone driving to an internet cafe would make the effort to get there, and then not play.

 

If the issue at hand is whether or not people find the game enjoyable, then in China, where the game is no more expensive and no cheaper than other games, six million people played the game in 2010.  As a popularity contest, that's not bad.

 

azzamasin

More like 2-3 Million NA/EU subs.  Everyone knows the Chinese shouldn't count based on the fact the ypay by the hour in internet café's.