Originally posted by Jackdog Henry Ford sold over 15 million model T's which was a record for it's time. Wow was the Model T of MMO's, it made MMO history but it's business model and the raid end game is out dated just like turning a hand crank to start the engine in auto's is outdated. Not sure how many people will want to spend box price and 15 dollars a month just to play a panda character other than some pre teens. I could be surprised, time will tell
Yes MOP will sell out previous expansions and then you will come back again when next WOW expansion l is about to be released to say the same very thing. For someone who has been around these forums for so long i am afraid you didn't learn anything . WOW still has a lot of life left into it and i am sure they will release another couple of expansions before Titan.
It is the same old routine of speculations about how many won't be willing to buy new expansion (yeah never heard that one before) and how WOW is an old horse, stale analogies with cars, raid end game is dated or dead and so on.
Also lots of pre teens play GW2 you say it as if it is a bad thing? and how are you so sure only some pre teens would play pandas? when some gentleman associated asura and GW2 with 'pre teens' and 'sissies' he was ripped to shreads. Why double standards?
No mature individual would try to generalise the player base of any MMO whther GW2 or WOW into kiddies, pre teens or whatever terms you guys use for back handed insults.
I may be short on my prediction. GW2 announced that they had sold 2M boxes so far, with another 10 days until MOP. I had predicted that MOP would sell double, in it´s first day (and only in the west), than GW2 sold in the month leading up to MOP. While most of GW2 occurred the first week, you gotta figure they are still pulling in 100k per week... so give them 2.3M boxes when MOP launches.
I don´t think MOP gets 4.6M sales, even 4.2 will be pushing it.
One telling thing though is how many people are riding around on the collector´s edition Mounts. Not only does that indicate that a ton of people have already bought MOP, but that they paid $60 for it. Those mounts are so common now that I wouldn´t even use it if I had it.
2M for GW2 is a huge number... but in reality, MOP will sell almost double that in 1 day to people who will also have to pay $15 per month, and that is only in the West.
I like Blizzard´s business model much better.
I'm not sure what one has to do with the other. If you have a pool of roughly 5 million paying subscribers (excluding asian countries because they have different models) who I would assume is waiting for new content would it not be surprising that they sold 3 mil+ copies the first day? This doesn't have anything to do with pricing models.
I'll throw my hat in and say that if MoP crosses 3.5mil sales in a month I'd be surprised. By Christmas it may be about 5mil. This is at original retail cost mind you, 59.99.
I'll throw my hat in and say that if MoP crosses 3.5mil sales in a month I'd be surprised. By Christmas it may be about 5mil. This is at original retail cost mind you, 59.99.
I agree MOP will outsell Cata in overall sales but i doubt it will for launch
Blizzard has nice deal right now that upgrading any acct for 60.00 (or less) will get you mop and all expansions
Selling is nothing of a point with an IP like WoW, the point is retaining players.
How many copy of Diablo 3 Blizzard sold? how many players are still playing it? lot less than the amount of copy sold.
My point is : selling when just out, they know their jobs, they'll sell a lot. If player are still playing 2 or 3 month later is another bedtime story.
I lost interrest with many MMO since they are a treadmill to keep you walking your money in their pockets.
Of course MoP will sell well . Theres still 9 million people playing WoW a significant proportion of them will want to buy it on release day .It will be well down on previous expansions I think .
I'm seeing nothing like the same buzz in WoW that there was about previous expansions in game chat and nothing like the returning numbers of players you get shortly before an new expansion .
I'm not planning on rushing out to get MoP I'm going to give up WoW for a while and play GW2 once this month sub runs out . If Blizzard offer MoP at 75 percent off sometime or give it away free as they did Cata I'll daresay I'll return at some point in the future .
Before we compare numbers we'll need to wait untill GW2 has released its fourth expansion pack .
The best we can do is compare Vanilla WoW to GW2 in thier first months sales .
GW2 has sold far more boxes in two weeks so far than WoW did in its first month .
I may be short on my prediction. GW2 announced that they had sold 2M boxes so far, with another 10 days until MOP. I had predicted that MOP would sell double, in it´s first day (and only in the west), than GW2 sold in the month leading up to MOP.
im expecting MOP West to sell less than Cata West - but will see soon enough
Too bad we most likely wont. In general Blizzard does not report "boxsales" but only "sales". They never release Cata West and unlikely will release MOP West.
And those a practically worldwide unlike GW2s current purely Western success story. The only reason WoW China is never included is simply because they lack long behind in release schedule, not because of the payment model. Blizzard didnt announce "sold boxes" the past years, but game licences "sold", even if they come for "free" like in Korea or Taiwan, where everyone will be automatically upgraded to MOP and treated as a "sale", if they just log into the game after release once. They keep mentioning "China not included" of course, to fool the press, clueless outsider and their naive fanbase to believe the sales are actually "all Western". If a foreign region is not included Blizzard always greatly emphasizes it. Not so much the other way around when they are.
Its in their best intereset some clueless gamer and blind fanbois keep comparing WoWs global sales with Western only sales of games like GW2.
If GW2 had been released in Korea, Taiwan and Latin America no doubt it might have been close to 3 Million already, even as a newcomer.
If it had been released in China on top of that with as much advertisement support as Blizzard is providing to their games GW2 could have easily idled around 4-6 Million "active accounts" by now. Not too much far away from Blizzard 9 Million "subscriber" as Blizzard calls their global active accounts.
Still GW2 already surpassed 2 Million sales only is the EU and US with 1/20 of Blizzards marketing hype budget.
You are pulling this stuff out of your backside aren't you? Completely untrue. No facts, no proof. Just some wild speculations.
Mission in life: Vanquish all MMORPG.com trolls - especially TESO, WOW and GW2 trolls.
Originally posted by Jackdog Henry Ford sold over 15 million model T's which was a record for it's time. Wow was the Model T of MMO's, it made MMO history but it's business model and the raid end game is out dated just like turning a hand crank to start the engine in auto's is outdated. Not sure how many people will want to spend box price and 15 dollars a month just to play a panda character other than some pre teens. I could be surprised, time will tell
Yes MOP will sell out previous expansions and then you will come back again when next WOW expansion l is about to be released to say the same very thing. For someone who has been around these forums for so long i am afraid you didn't learn anything . WOW still has a lot of life left into it and i am sure they will release another couple of expansions before Titan.
you seem to think WoW has the same sub base it had in 2008 - 2009, it doesn't. Turbine started teh trend toward F2P with DDO and followed it with LoTRO. Now 15 dollars a month plus a box fee plus a cash shop makes no more sense than the old pay per minute online services we had back in the 80's when the flat rate internet services came out in the 90's
I may be short on my prediction. GW2 announced that they had sold 2M boxes so far, with another 10 days until MOP. I had predicted that MOP would sell double, in it´s first day (and only in the west), than GW2 sold in the month leading up to MOP. While most of GW2 occurred the first week, you gotta figure they are still pulling in 100k per week... so give them 2.3M boxes when MOP launches.
I don´t think MOP gets 4.6M sales, even 4.2 will be pushing it.
One telling thing though is how many people are riding around on the collector´s edition Mounts. Not only does that indicate that a ton of people have already bought MOP, but that they paid $60 for it. Those mounts are so common now that I wouldn´t even use it if I had it.
2M for GW2 is a huge number... but in reality, MOP will sell almost double that in 1 day to people who will also have to pay $15 per month, and that is only in the West.
I like Blizzard´s business model much better.
You are talking about game with that.... 9m subscribers ? Are you trying to compare sales of most popular MMO with Chuck Norris on the adverts that rule the MMO market for almost 8 years with game that come out 2 weaks ago and even didn't had so much advertisment around ?
Compare this game with fresh MMO and their sales in first 2 weeks and then we can talk. Right now you are just trolling or you really have no idea what you are talking about.
I would guess slightly less than Cataclysm, which is still significantly more than GW2. At a high level it seems like WoW is slowly in decline and MoP doesn't seem all that exciting. I also think there might be some former WoW players that are currently satistified with GW2.
The sales numbers for MoP should be a good indication of the health of WoW.
Many WoW players who enjoy GW2, will still play WoW! The 2 games can be played in the "same time". So WoW will be fine! I am pretty sure that it will sell at least like Cata!
Well these can't really be played at the same time.
People will ditch GW2 when MoP comes.
They might however return to GW2 when MoP is burned through.
I think it is quite possible that MoP sells around 4m copies.
I was kind of surprised when I saw that GW sold only 2m copies. I expected different numbers.
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lol do you really even understand what you are saying?? WoWs last expansion sold more in one day than GW2 has sold in a month.....One day not 8 years......
I may be short on my prediction. GW2 announced that they had sold 2M boxes so far, with another 10 days until MOP. I had predicted that MOP would sell double, in it´s first day (and only in the west), than GW2 sold in the month leading up to MOP. While most of GW2 occurred the first week, you gotta figure they are still pulling in 100k per week... so give them 2.3M boxes when MOP launches.
I don´t think MOP gets 4.6M sales, even 4.2 will be pushing it.
One telling thing though is how many people are riding around on the collector´s edition Mounts. Not only does that indicate that a ton of people have already bought MOP, but that they paid $60 for it. Those mounts are so common now that I wouldn´t even use it if I had it.
2M for GW2 is a huge number... but in reality, MOP will sell almost double that in 1 day to people who will also have to pay $15 per month, and that is only in the West.
I like Blizzard´s business model much better.
Putting the two games aside
OP please explain to me: Why you like Blizzard's business model better.
$15 a month versus $0 per month and both games you have the option to purchase items in a cash shop.
I am looking at it from the business´s side of things, not from the players side of things. But from the players side of things, I will say this.. a successful SUB game means you are sure that your effort in the past will be there next year. You want to jump into a game like TSW that just laid off most of their dev team? You want to pour time into a game that won´t get updates unless vanity clothing sells well in the cash shop.
There is a ´permanence´ about wow and it´s 10M subscribers. It will be a long long LONG time before the servers get turned off. I still remember Earth n Beyond. I spent a few hours one day mining.. finally ready to upgrade... the next day, they gave their lights out notice.
But my comment above was from Blizzards side of things. Their business model is much more profitable and steady. GW2 now must count on vanity items to fund further content patches.
Originally posted by Jackdog Henry Ford sold over 15 million model T's which was a record for it's time. Wow was the Model T of MMO's, it made MMO history but it's business model and the raid end game is out dated just like turning a hand crank to start the engine in auto's is outdated. Not sure how many people will want to spend box price and 15 dollars a month just to play a panda character other than some pre teens. I could be surprised, time will tell
Yes MOP will sell out previous expansions and then you will come back again when next WOW expansion l is about to be released to say the same very thing. For someone who has been around these forums for so long i am afraid you didn't learn anything . WOW still has a lot of life left into it and i am sure they will release another couple of expansions before Titan.
you seem to think WoW has the same sub base it had in 2008 - 2009, it doesn't. Turbine started teh trend toward F2P with DDO and followed it with LoTRO. Now 15 dollars a month plus a box fee plus a cash shop makes no more sense than the old pay per minute online services we had back in the 80's when the flat rate internet services came out in the 90's
Blizzard is just to vain/greedy to realize it
WOW is immensly more profitable than DDO and other free2play games. Yes, Bliz may be greedy, but it is the purpose of every company (especially a publicly traded company) to make as much profit as possible.
And you are absolutely wrong about your ´subscription based is old school´.. You know how I know? Because WOW has more ´players´ than DDO, LOTRO, EQ2, AOC combined. If what you were saying were true, than those games would be flooded with players. The fact that FREE games cannot keep the same number of players as a subscription game proves you are wrong. You are also wrong from the business side of it. Do you think those games are more profiable than WOW with thier cash shop model?
Free2play cashshops are a last gasp of breath for games that are dying, it is not the ´new´ business model moving forward. Instead of pulling an Earth and Beyond, these dying games found a way to squeek out a little more money. And DDO (the first) is the only one that seemed to have much success with it. AOC has less servers and less players than when it charged a subscription fee.
I'm not sure what one has to do with the other. If you have a pool of roughly 5 million paying subscribers (excluding asian countries because they have different models) who I would assume is waiting for new content would it not be surprising that they sold 3 mil+ copies the first day? This doesn't have anything to do with pricing models.
I'll throw my hat in and say that if MoP crosses 3.5mil sales in a month I'd be surprised. By Christmas it may be about 5mil. This is at original retail cost mind you, 59.99.
Good. We get it. You Blizz and dislike GW2. Lovely. So what? I'm having fun in GW2 and you're having fun in WoW. It doesn't matter. GW2 is a good game and you can go on and on and on and on and on and on about how MoP will outsell GW2. Remember a good chunk of WoW's current player base is from china. Not to be racist but what else do you expect. I sincerely hope you have fun but for me, I got sick of paying $15 a month just to fly in circles around orgrimmar in a high population server. So. Have fun. Stop bashing GW2 (I post the same about WoW on GW2 forums i.e "stop bashing on WoW cause it's got a higher number of players") and live your life. Ugh. People should stop comparing games and just post ABOUT the games in general.
I am looking at it from the business´s side of things, not from the players side of things. But from the players side of things, I will say this.. a successful SUB game means you are sure that your effort in the past will be there next year. You want to jump into a game like TSW that just laid off most of their dev team? You want to pour time into a game that won´t get updates unless vanity clothing sells well in the cash shop.
There is a ´permanence´ about wow and it´s 10M subscribers. It will be a long long LONG time before the servers get turned off. I still remember Earth n Beyond. I spent a few hours one day mining.. finally ready to upgrade... the next day, they gave their lights out notice.
But my comment above was from Blizzards side of things. Their business model is much more profitable and steady. GW2 now must count on vanity items to fund further content patches.
I'd say Guild Wars 1 contests that logic somewhat.
But given your other comments, I ain't about to budge your agenda.
"The knowledge of the theory of logic has no tendency whatever to make men good reasoners." - Thomas B. Macaulay
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel J. Boorstin
I may be short on my prediction. GW2 announced that they had sold 2M boxes so far, with another 10 days until MOP. I had predicted that MOP would sell double, in it´s first day (and only in the west), than GW2 sold in the month leading up to MOP. While most of GW2 occurred the first week, you gotta figure they are still pulling in 100k per week... so give them 2.3M boxes when MOP launches.
I don´t think MOP gets 4.6M sales, even 4.2 will be pushing it.
One telling thing though is how many people are riding around on the collector´s edition Mounts. Not only does that indicate that a ton of people have already bought MOP, but that they paid $60 for it. Those mounts are so common now that I wouldn´t even use it if I had it.
2M for GW2 is a huge number... but in reality, MOP will sell almost double that in 1 day to people who will also have to pay $15 per month, and that is only in the West.
I like Blizzard´s business model much better.
Putting the two games aside
OP please explain to me: Why you like Blizzard's business model better.
$15 a month versus $0 per month and both games you have the option to purchase items in a cash shop.
It's not a matter of one business model being better then the other. If ANET used Blizzards model it would fail just as hard as all other AAA models that have tried it. On the other hand if Blizzard went f2p they would not make as much as they do currently with their high sub numbers. Each company has been smart enough to use the best business model in regards to money coming in. Of course only one of these is really proven in Blizzard, as we really have no clue if f2p will be able to make major money yet but really it was ANETs only choice for success.
Really it's apples and oranges, you can't really compare a company like Nordstrom or Macy's to Walmart because while they are both going after people who buy clothes, they are completely different. I like both models. Oh and as far as subs dropping and MOP not going to do well. Subs always drop before an expansion, they did so in WOTLK as well however there was a lot less going on at that time, Diable 3, SWTOR and GW2 has all caused people to move away from Wow, I do not believe that will be a perm move and I expect by end of the year Wow will be back over 10M easy, though maybe not back to the 12M high.
I'm not sure what one has to do with the other. If you have a pool of roughly 5 million paying subscribers (excluding asian countries because they have different models) who I would assume is waiting for new content would it not be surprising that they sold 3 mil+ copies the first day? This doesn't have anything to do with pricing models.
I'll throw my hat in and say that if MoP crosses 3.5mil sales in a month I'd be surprised. By Christmas it may be about 5mil. This is at original retail cost mind you, 59.99.
MOP is $40
Yes $40 dollars, also assuming noone returns for MOP Blizzard already has what 5M or close to western subs right now. I'm sure pretty much all of those people will be buying MOP doesn't make much sense to keep on Subbing without it. I bet when you include people coming back 4M will be hit pretty easily and pretty quick.
I am looking at it from the business´s side of things, not from the players side of things. But from the players side of things, I will say this.. a successful SUB game means you are sure that your effort in the past will be there next year. You want to jump into a game like TSW that just laid off most of their dev team? You want to pour time into a game that won´t get updates unless vanity clothing sells well in the cash shop.
There is a ´permanence´ about wow and it´s 10M subscribers. It will be a long long LONG time before the servers get turned off. I still remember Earth n Beyond. I spent a few hours one day mining.. finally ready to upgrade... the next day, they gave their lights out notice.
But my comment above was from Blizzards side of things. Their business model is much more profitable and steady. GW2 now must count on vanity items to fund further content patches.
To the part in red, it's to bad the fun factor of the game won't last. As each expansion has released many of the people I know have split sooner. I know I grow bored to tears of the game to the point that I try to find ways to make the leveling experience interesting except 2 hitting mobs really got old. I sadly have to agree that MOP will sell more than GW2 did probably on its first night if it hasn't already. It is Blizzard after all and I don't know of many companys that can let down their fanbase with a release like CATA and D3, only to have the fanbase come back for more of the same crap. Doesn't mean I think it is a superior product, only it has time on it's side as well as the fact that they market the game like no other MMO (Chuck Norris anyone).
I do however feel your last comments seem odd since I don't know how squeezing your fanbase for cash in the name of profit is a good thing when you look at what they have produced with the 6+ years of subs. Sure you can argue that sub base means funding for steadier development and longevity, but I haven't seen anything that tells me that all these millions of subscribers has led to better content since I personally feel I got more out of each FFXI expansion than anything I got out of Blizzards although that is merely my opinion. As far as the last comment on GW2, they seem to have done pretty well with revinues form their first game so I think it is too early to claim anything regarding updates and content.
Originally posted by Jackdog Henry Ford sold over 15 million model T's which was a record for it's time. Wow was the Model T of MMO's, it made MMO history but it's business model and the raid end game is out dated just like turning a hand crank to start the engine in auto's is outdated. Not sure how many people will want to spend box price and 15 dollars a month just to play a panda character other than some pre teens. I could be surprised, time will tell
Yes MOP will sell out previous expansions and then you will come back again when next WOW expansion l is about to be released to say the same very thing. For someone who has been around these forums for so long i am afraid you didn't learn anything . WOW still has a lot of life left into it and i am sure they will release another couple of expansions before Titan.
you seem to think WoW has the same sub base it had in 2008 - 2009, it doesn't. Turbine started teh trend toward F2P with DDO and followed it with LoTRO. Now 15 dollars a month plus a box fee plus a cash shop makes no more sense than the old pay per minute online services we had back in the 80's when the flat rate internet services came out in the 90's
Blizzard is just to vain/greedy to realize it
Yes that is exactly what i think and when MOP will release you will be proven wrong once again. Been there and done that. Same old song and dance every time new WOW expansion is to be released.
And i like how you cut the rest of my post where i commented reagrding your absurd 'pre teens' generalisation.
I may be short on my prediction. GW2 announced that they had sold 2M boxes so far, with another 10 days until MOP. I had predicted that MOP would sell double, in it´s first day (and only in the west), than GW2 sold in the month leading up to MOP. While most of GW2 occurred the first week, you gotta figure they are still pulling in 100k per week... so give them 2.3M boxes when MOP launches.
I don´t think MOP gets 4.6M sales, even 4.2 will be pushing it.
One telling thing though is how many people are riding around on the collector´s edition Mounts. Not only does that indicate that a ton of people have already bought MOP, but that they paid $60 for it. Those mounts are so common now that I wouldn´t even use it if I had it.
2M for GW2 is a huge number... but in reality, MOP will sell almost double that in 1 day to people who will also have to pay $15 per month, and that is only in the West.
I like Blizzard´s business model much better.
Putting the two games aside
OP please explain to me: Why you like Blizzard's business model better.
$15 a month versus $0 per month and both games you have the option to purchase items in a cash shop.
My guess is Blizzards business model is better because it will net them more money than GW2, but GW2 obviously has the momentum in the gaming industry atm.
Gw2 box sales have relatively no effect on MoP box sales.
I'd say it will get more then that 2M, but I expect it to be the weakest expansion release for WoW in some time. Simply put, people are tired of WoW or just disliking the way in which its going that they don't want to play it. Wotlk had been quite a downhill slide for the game as it seemed to go quickly down after Ulduar. Even before that, there were to many flaws that the game was rather lack luster to many players.
I know personally I have no plans to Play WoW again, specially considering Rift exists and fills that raiding gap far better then WoW had since Ulduar. Im just tired of the game and completely dislike the direction where its being taken and I'm not alone.
I know more people that have quit WoW and don't plan on coming back than I know people that plan on staying. I don't think MoP will see Cata numbers ever.
Comments
Yes MOP will sell out previous expansions and then you will come back again when next WOW expansion l is about to be released to say the same very thing. For someone who has been around these forums for so long i am afraid you didn't learn anything . WOW still has a lot of life left into it and i am sure they will release another couple of expansions before Titan.
It is the same old routine of speculations about how many won't be willing to buy new expansion (yeah never heard that one before) and how WOW is an old horse, stale analogies with cars, raid end game is dated or dead and so on.
Also lots of pre teens play GW2 you say it as if it is a bad thing? and how are you so sure only some pre teens would play pandas? when some gentleman associated asura and GW2 with 'pre teens' and 'sissies' he was ripped to shreads. Why double standards?
No mature individual would try to generalise the player base of any MMO whther GW2 or WOW into kiddies, pre teens or whatever terms you guys use for back handed insults.
I'm not sure what one has to do with the other. If you have a pool of roughly 5 million paying subscribers (excluding asian countries because they have different models) who I would assume is waiting for new content would it not be surprising that they sold 3 mil+ copies the first day? This doesn't have anything to do with pricing models.
I'll throw my hat in and say that if MoP crosses 3.5mil sales in a month I'd be surprised. By Christmas it may be about 5mil. This is at original retail cost mind you, 59.99.
I agree MOP will outsell Cata in overall sales but i doubt it will for launch
Blizzard has nice deal right now that upgrading any acct for 60.00 (or less) will get you mop and all expansions
$109.96 USD - 45%= $59.99 USD (assumes upgrading from trial acct)
whether that deal remains post launch - is to be seen
EQ2 fan sites
Selling is nothing of a point with an IP like WoW, the point is retaining players.
How many copy of Diablo 3 Blizzard sold? how many players are still playing it? lot less than the amount of copy sold.
My point is : selling when just out, they know their jobs, they'll sell a lot. If player are still playing 2 or 3 month later is another bedtime story.
I lost interrest with many MMO since they are a treadmill to keep you walking your money in their pockets.
Of course MoP will sell well . Theres still 9 million people playing WoW a significant proportion of them will want to buy it on release day .It will be well down on previous expansions I think .
I'm seeing nothing like the same buzz in WoW that there was about previous expansions in game chat and nothing like the returning numbers of players you get shortly before an new expansion .
I'm not planning on rushing out to get MoP I'm going to give up WoW for a while and play GW2 once this month sub runs out . If Blizzard offer MoP at 75 percent off sometime or give it away free as they did Cata I'll daresay I'll return at some point in the future .
Before we compare numbers we'll need to wait untill GW2 has released its fourth expansion pack .
The best we can do is compare Vanilla WoW to GW2 in thier first months sales .
GW2 has sold far more boxes in two weeks so far than WoW did in its first month .
You are pulling this stuff out of your backside aren't you? Completely untrue. No facts, no proof. Just some wild speculations.
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you seem to think WoW has the same sub base it had in 2008 - 2009, it doesn't. Turbine started teh trend toward F2P with DDO and followed it with LoTRO. Now 15 dollars a month plus a box fee plus a cash shop makes no more sense than the old pay per minute online services we had back in the 80's when the flat rate internet services came out in the 90's
Blizzard is just to vain/greedy to realize it
I miss DAoC
You are talking about game with that.... 9m subscribers ? Are you trying to compare sales of most popular MMO with Chuck Norris on the adverts that rule the MMO market for almost 8 years with game that come out 2 weaks ago and even didn't had so much advertisment around ?
Compare this game with fresh MMO and their sales in first 2 weeks and then we can talk. Right now you are just trolling or you really have no idea what you are talking about.
Well these can't really be played at the same time.
People will ditch GW2 when MoP comes.
They might however return to GW2 when MoP is burned through.
lol do you really even understand what you are saying?? WoWs last expansion sold more in one day than GW2 has sold in a month.....One day not 8 years......
I am looking at it from the business´s side of things, not from the players side of things. But from the players side of things, I will say this.. a successful SUB game means you are sure that your effort in the past will be there next year. You want to jump into a game like TSW that just laid off most of their dev team? You want to pour time into a game that won´t get updates unless vanity clothing sells well in the cash shop.
There is a ´permanence´ about wow and it´s 10M subscribers. It will be a long long LONG time before the servers get turned off. I still remember Earth n Beyond. I spent a few hours one day mining.. finally ready to upgrade... the next day, they gave their lights out notice.
But my comment above was from Blizzards side of things. Their business model is much more profitable and steady. GW2 now must count on vanity items to fund further content patches.
WOW is immensly more profitable than DDO and other free2play games. Yes, Bliz may be greedy, but it is the purpose of every company (especially a publicly traded company) to make as much profit as possible.
And you are absolutely wrong about your ´subscription based is old school´.. You know how I know? Because WOW has more ´players´ than DDO, LOTRO, EQ2, AOC combined. If what you were saying were true, than those games would be flooded with players. The fact that FREE games cannot keep the same number of players as a subscription game proves you are wrong. You are also wrong from the business side of it. Do you think those games are more profiable than WOW with thier cash shop model?
Free2play cashshops are a last gasp of breath for games that are dying, it is not the ´new´ business model moving forward. Instead of pulling an Earth and Beyond, these dying games found a way to squeek out a little more money. And DDO (the first) is the only one that seemed to have much success with it. AOC has less servers and less players than when it charged a subscription fee.
MOP is $40
Play for fun. Play to win. Play for perfection. Play with friends. Play in another world. Why do you play?
I'd say Guild Wars 1 contests that logic somewhat.
But given your other comments, I ain't about to budge your agenda.
"The knowledge of the theory of logic has no tendency whatever to make men good reasoners." - Thomas B. Macaulay
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel J. Boorstin
It's not a matter of one business model being better then the other. If ANET used Blizzards model it would fail just as hard as all other AAA models that have tried it. On the other hand if Blizzard went f2p they would not make as much as they do currently with their high sub numbers. Each company has been smart enough to use the best business model in regards to money coming in. Of course only one of these is really proven in Blizzard, as we really have no clue if f2p will be able to make major money yet but really it was ANETs only choice for success.
Really it's apples and oranges, you can't really compare a company like Nordstrom or Macy's to Walmart because while they are both going after people who buy clothes, they are completely different. I like both models. Oh and as far as subs dropping and MOP not going to do well. Subs always drop before an expansion, they did so in WOTLK as well however there was a lot less going on at that time, Diable 3, SWTOR and GW2 has all caused people to move away from Wow, I do not believe that will be a perm move and I expect by end of the year Wow will be back over 10M easy, though maybe not back to the 12M high.
Yes $40 dollars, also assuming noone returns for MOP Blizzard already has what 5M or close to western subs right now. I'm sure pretty much all of those people will be buying MOP doesn't make much sense to keep on Subbing without it. I bet when you include people coming back 4M will be hit pretty easily and pretty quick.
To the part in red, it's to bad the fun factor of the game won't last. As each expansion has released many of the people I know have split sooner. I know I grow bored to tears of the game to the point that I try to find ways to make the leveling experience interesting except 2 hitting mobs really got old. I sadly have to agree that MOP will sell more than GW2 did probably on its first night if it hasn't already. It is Blizzard after all and I don't know of many companys that can let down their fanbase with a release like CATA and D3, only to have the fanbase come back for more of the same crap. Doesn't mean I think it is a superior product, only it has time on it's side as well as the fact that they market the game like no other MMO (Chuck Norris anyone).
I do however feel your last comments seem odd since I don't know how squeezing your fanbase for cash in the name of profit is a good thing when you look at what they have produced with the 6+ years of subs. Sure you can argue that sub base means funding for steadier development and longevity, but I haven't seen anything that tells me that all these millions of subscribers has led to better content since I personally feel I got more out of each FFXI expansion than anything I got out of Blizzards although that is merely my opinion. As far as the last comment on GW2, they seem to have done pretty well with revinues form their first game so I think it is too early to claim anything regarding updates and content.
RIP Jimmy "The Rev" Sullivan and Paul Gray.
Yes that is exactly what i think and when MOP will release you will be proven wrong once again. Been there and done that. Same old song and dance every time new WOW expansion is to be released.
And i like how you cut the rest of my post where i commented reagrding your absurd 'pre teens' generalisation.
My guess is Blizzards business model is better because it will net them more money than GW2, but GW2 obviously has the momentum in the gaming industry atm.
Gw2 box sales have relatively no effect on MoP box sales.
I'd say it will get more then that 2M, but I expect it to be the weakest expansion release for WoW in some time. Simply put, people are tired of WoW or just disliking the way in which its going that they don't want to play it. Wotlk had been quite a downhill slide for the game as it seemed to go quickly down after Ulduar. Even before that, there were to many flaws that the game was rather lack luster to many players.
I know personally I have no plans to Play WoW again, specially considering Rift exists and fills that raiding gap far better then WoW had since Ulduar. Im just tired of the game and completely dislike the direction where its being taken and I'm not alone.