They lost 1.1 million subscribers since May. Don't try to make it sound better than it is, the subscription model is dead. B2P and Freemium is the way it's going to be for this genre, it's really the best option now.
Every xpac from here on out is to help stabilize the dropping subs... With that said, there next mmo more than likely will use a hybrid payment model.. They seen that person are quiting the mmo genre all together not just there games..
Gamers now-a-days have far too many choices for one game to strap them in anymore. Guild wars 2 this month, play that for 1-2 month then move on to the next "IT" game, either on console or pc..
Originally posted by Valentina They lost 1.1 million subscribers since May. Don't try to make it sound better than it is, the subscription model is dead. B2P and Freemium is the way it's going to be for this genre, it's really the best option now.
WoW is still 10 times more profitable and successful than any s c freemium game. Compare it to terrible games like Lotro. The numbers will speak for themselves.
If the game is a success and quality is high enough P2P is the best option. If profits and the number of players are 5-10% compared to WoW and the trend is bad going freemium/f2p could be a way to save the game. The other option would be to pull the plug... But people that understand how that works will also realize the game is fail... Even if it might be fun to play for free for some time..
Sure, there are a ton of people holding onto the past, but the future for mmos looks free-to-play for sure. And, I bet you Activision/Blizzard have plans for this right here and right now.
Ok ... Lets say that WOW has 4 million active subs... say the average is paying 13.00 per month ... with free months, 1, 3 and 6 month subs as well.. that is still 52 million per month now take that over 12 months and you get 624 million per year.. I do not know how the company stays in business .... What do you think it costs to run the company for a year ... salaries, utilities, and everything else... maybe 120 million (rough) So they make and easy 500 million proffit per year
If you do a rough factor of that over the last 8 years, say for better numbers they only made 400 million average over the last 8 (Both high and low years) that makes 3.2 billion in that time ... I think wow is not going anywhere for a while .. or will just be replaced by whatever titan is.
I believe that WoW's decline has more to do with the fact that it's just old, and people are tired of playing it. Nothing short of a complete redesign will bring back players long term. At this point in the game's lifespan, I believe it's best for them to stick to their guns and wide the profit wave for as long as possibly, leaving any new features and risks to Titan.
Ok ... Lets say that WOW has 4 million active subs... say the average is paying 13.00 per month ... with free months, 1, 3 and 6 month subs as well.. that is still 52 million per month now take that over 12 months and you get 624 million per year.. I do not know how the company stays in business .... What do you think it costs to run the company for a year ... salaries, utilities, and everything else... maybe 120 million (rough) So they make and easy 500 million proffit per year
If you do a rough factor of that over the last 8 years, say for better numbers they only made 400 million average over the last 8 (Both high and low years) that makes 3.2 billion in that time ... I think wow is not going anywhere for a while .. or will just be replaced by whatever titan is.
..and that doesn't even touch on all the cash shop sales and general merchandising of everything from school notebooks to boardgames and plush dolls. I'd be surprised if they DIDN'T have WOW branded toilet paper out there..." Whether your ass belongs to the Alliance or the Horde.... wipe it with WOW !!!!........ millions of people can't be wrong!!!"
WoW could use 90% more of thier subs and still have the most subs out of any MMO...um yeah, it's the end of the world!
...of Warcraft.
I think you meant lose, right? If they do lose 90% of their remaining subs that would only mean WoW would still have the most subs out of any MMO...in the West.
You should check out how many subs some Asian MMOs are rocking.
WoW lost 3M subs from their peak and launched a new expansion
Hell yeah, WoW is dying !
If they keep on losing 1M subs a year, they'll have to shut down the servers around the year 2020...
That's the problem with this type of thread, even though WoW is losing millions of subs a year now the WoW-tards still try to defend the out-moded sub system which dates back even longer than WoW itself, but which is finaly now in 2012 coming to an end.
Originally posted by thamighty213 The thing is though its not 9.1m subscribers it's probably around 3m subs and 6.1m in the asian model of things where a subscriber is simply a user who has logged in within a 60 day period.
I'm more interested in the NA/EU numbers also...I dont really count the asian countries playing in a internet cafe as a sub.....
WoW lost 3M subs from their peak and launched a new expansion
Hell yeah, WoW is dying !
If they keep on losing 1M subs a year, they'll have to shut down the servers around the year 2020...
That's the problem with this type of thread, even though WoW is losing millions of subs a year now the WoW-tards still try to defend the out-moded sub system which dates back even longer than WoW itself, but which is finaly now in 2012 coming to an end.
That's the problem with this kind of thread, once the WoW-hate-brigade starts blabbering nonsense, all logic is lost
Btw, I've never even played WoW. I don't ever intend to either. But that doesn't mean that my brain has shut down. I can still spot a "the sky is falling !" thread a mile away
blizzard can't keep dragging on WoW. their "project titan" was schedueled for 2012 but they have delayed that until 2014. so that means they will release at least one more expansion in next 2 years. but even so they can't just keep dragging on both wow and titan. ultimately they have to let go off wow and release titan. actually when the titan talk started players of wow were looking for wow2 with update graphics, combat etc. but blizzard confirmed that it won't be warcraft related. so basically the reason why blizzard is not really worried about sub decline is that they want the sub to decline, they can't just suddenly close a game that have over 9 million players(right now but even in last year it was 12mil), i am not saying that they are intentionally letting it drop, just that they don't care at all. it will die, yes, it has to die, for if it does not then blizzard can't move forward.
Oh no an eight year old game is losing subs!!! *SHOCK* *HORROR*
It cracks me up how all the wow-haters jump for glee that WoW has dropped subs as if that should be some shock after 8 years. As others have stated, the major sub losses should have happened years ago. The fact that WoW has hung on as dominantly as it has is amazing and will likely never be duplicated!
MoP will bump the population for the short term and then I won't be surprised at all if the population does begin to fall again. It's just the nature of an aging beast.
Even EQ was only king for 5 years, WoW has been king for 8, and even with the sub loss will still be king for a few more. By the time WoW drops into the 3-4 million range they will launch Titan and keep on rolling.
However, WoW will likely continue on with 1-2 million subs, for many years after that which would still make it a major player in the MMO market, just not the overwhelmingly dominant one!
I'm sorry to all you haters, but WoW's going to be around for a LONG, LONG time for you all to hate on. LOL!
After all these years the numbers were bound to drop, its a lot to ask gamers to play year after year but blizz did something right and got that to happen.
Warcarft will fade away some day but it wont be because of all the people that scream for its downfall.
Even if they drop down to 1 mil subs that will still be better then most companies out there and i believe blizzard has a big enough fanbase to keep it from ever dropping really low.
i'm sticking with them til the end because i find it fun enough to do so. Those that no longer have fun with WoW hope you find a game that will keep you as long as WoW has kept me
"The great thing about human language is that it prevents us from sticking to the matter at hand." - Lewis Thomas
Oh my god! This is horrible. For the first time in 5 years they may actually make less than 1B on the game and all it's merchandise. This is the end!!!
GW2 doesn't have raids? Dude I was on a raid boss at level 10 with my Norn. It was an open world boss but still a bunch of lets say 15-17 people (can't remember exactly) were fighting one for about 15 min or something.
Music is the science of manipulating people trough sound.
You know what I find lately even more hilarious than ANY of the usual WoW fanboy nonsense...
An occurence repeating once or twice in almost every topic or every 10 or so pages about the subs: WoW fanboys using fuzzy math to estimate overly positive WoW revenues up to the 200-million range per month, usually with the severly flawed "X-million active accounts * 13$"-formular often resulting in doubled or even trippled values and off by several 10-million per month or 100-millions per quarter.
And then pretend everything is fine and great and dandy and claim WoW is like "still" dominating 90% of the market or whatever they deluded themself to believe. Not that it ever even did.
All in face of the fact that.... just like this time again.... Blizzard (almost always) is reporting these sub numbers at the same event they report these financials in public.
Basically they are creating assumptions, use twist and flawed formulas to "calculate" great WoW revenues based of PR releases about some fuzzy account numbers Blizzard calls subscriber for damage controll or hype, everytime Blizzard is releasing the accurate values of these revenues in public ...
Its like calculating the temperature of the weather forcast based on grey and white pixels on the cloud map when the exact temperature of your location is already displayed right next to it.
I would like to clarify that I am not a fanboi and i do not have a Current Wow Sub ,,, I am in fact an accountant and this is just simple rough number to prove that a drop to less than a 10 milion sub base is not going to be the death of WOW. A drop in subs is not something that will be a major inpact to the company. The company is still highly profitable and still has a ton of cash availble to it. Now having a new idea, or better content is not the focus here.
There will never be another game like this in the mmorpg market that's for sure.
I'm sure that's what EQ players said.
change the phrase to There will never be another subscription game like this in the mmorpg market
and its probably true
GIven the exponential growth of the world's population, and emerging gaming markets in several key territories, as well as an ever increasing trend towards online gaming, it seems to me that it is a folly to suggest that WoW will be the biggest there ever was.
WoW was the breakthrough for MMOs, like Titanic was for $1 billion movies.
Comments
Gamers now-a-days have far too many choices for one game to strap them in anymore. Guild wars 2 this month, play that for 1-2 month then move on to the next "IT" game, either on console or pc..
WoW is still 10 times more profitable and successful than any s c freemium game. Compare it to terrible games like Lotro. The numbers will speak for themselves.
If the game is a success and quality is high enough P2P is the best option. If profits and the number of players are 5-10% compared to WoW and the trend is bad going freemium/f2p could be a way to save the game. The other option would be to pull the plug... But people that understand how that works will also realize the game is fail... Even if it might be fun to play for free for some time..
Good article here from Ars Tech on then death of the monthly sub...
http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2012/08/good-riddance-the-death-of-online-gamings-monthly-subscription-model/
Sure, there are a ton of people holding onto the past, but the future for mmos looks free-to-play for sure. And, I bet you Activision/Blizzard have plans for this right here and right now.
WoW could use 90% more of thier subs and still have the most subs out of any MMO...um yeah, it's the end of the world!
...of Warcraft.
SW:TOR lost 1M subs from their peak and went F2P.
WoW lost 3M subs from their peak and launched a new expansion
Hell yeah, WoW is dying !
If they keep on losing 1M subs a year, they'll have to shut down the servers around the year 2020...
Ok ... Lets say that WOW has 4 million active subs... say the average is paying 13.00 per month ... with free months, 1, 3 and 6 month subs as well.. that is still 52 million per month now take that over 12 months and you get 624 million per year.. I do not know how the company stays in business .... What do you think it costs to run the company for a year ... salaries, utilities, and everything else... maybe 120 million (rough) So they make and easy 500 million proffit per year
If you do a rough factor of that over the last 8 years, say for better numbers they only made 400 million average over the last 8 (Both high and low years) that makes 3.2 billion in that time ... I think wow is not going anywhere for a while .. or will just be replaced by whatever titan is.
..and that doesn't even touch on all the cash shop sales and general merchandising of everything from school notebooks to boardgames and plush dolls. I'd be surprised if they DIDN'T have WOW branded toilet paper out there..." Whether your ass belongs to the Alliance or the Horde.... wipe it with WOW !!!!........ millions of people can't be wrong!!!"
I think you meant lose, right? If they do lose 90% of their remaining subs that would only mean WoW would still have the most subs out of any MMO...in the West.
You should check out how many subs some Asian MMOs are rocking.
That's the problem with this type of thread, even though WoW is losing millions of subs a year now the WoW-tards still try to defend the out-moded sub system which dates back even longer than WoW itself, but which is finaly now in 2012 coming to an end.
I'm more interested in the NA/EU numbers also...I dont really count the asian countries playing in a internet cafe as a sub.....
That's the problem with this kind of thread, once the WoW-hate-brigade starts blabbering nonsense, all logic is lost
Btw, I've never even played WoW. I don't ever intend to either. But that doesn't mean that my brain has shut down. I can still spot a "the sky is falling !" thread a mile away
Oh no an eight year old game is losing subs!!! *SHOCK* *HORROR*
It cracks me up how all the wow-haters jump for glee that WoW has dropped subs as if that should be some shock after 8 years. As others have stated, the major sub losses should have happened years ago. The fact that WoW has hung on as dominantly as it has is amazing and will likely never be duplicated!
MoP will bump the population for the short term and then I won't be surprised at all if the population does begin to fall again. It's just the nature of an aging beast.
Even EQ was only king for 5 years, WoW has been king for 8, and even with the sub loss will still be king for a few more. By the time WoW drops into the 3-4 million range they will launch Titan and keep on rolling.
However, WoW will likely continue on with 1-2 million subs, for many years after that which would still make it a major player in the MMO market, just not the overwhelmingly dominant one!
I'm sorry to all you haters, but WoW's going to be around for a LONG, LONG time for you all to hate on. LOL!
After all these years the numbers were bound to drop, its a lot to ask gamers to play year after year but blizz did something right and got that to happen.
Warcarft will fade away some day but it wont be because of all the people that scream for its downfall.
Even if they drop down to 1 mil subs that will still be better then most companies out there and i believe blizzard has a big enough fanbase to keep it from ever dropping really low.
i'm sticking with them til the end because i find it fun enough to do so. Those that no longer have fun with WoW hope you find a game that will keep you as long as WoW has kept me
"The great thing about human language is that it prevents us from sticking to the matter at hand."
- Lewis Thomas
Music is the science of manipulating people trough sound.
I would like to clarify that I am not a fanboi and i do not have a Current Wow Sub ,,, I am in fact an accountant and this is just simple rough number to prove that a drop to less than a 10 milion sub base is not going to be the death of WOW. A drop in subs is not something that will be a major inpact to the company. The company is still highly profitable and still has a ton of cash availble to it. Now having a new idea, or better content is not the focus here.
True, because even at 1 million subs it would still be the largest subscription based MMORPG. You realise that yeah?
GIven the exponential growth of the world's population, and emerging gaming markets in several key territories, as well as an ever increasing trend towards online gaming, it seems to me that it is a folly to suggest that WoW will be the biggest there ever was.
WoW was the breakthrough for MMOs, like Titanic was for $1 billion movies.