Both are still content based on the original game made from the same company. They can very well be compared: both are methods of distributing content.
how so? if i bought Factions - i dont need Prophecies (the original game)
Factions has nothing from original game beyond the same core classes and same game engine
Prophecies, Factions, Nightfall -- are each "stand alone" games, independent of each other
if you bought one campaign, you would never see the other campaigns
-- i met GW1 players that never had interest in buying other campaigns
in a game like WOW, most players are at the upper levels
if you dont buy the latest expansion, you cannot play with the majority of the playerbase
Originally posted by nyxium There are massive queues to get in realms at the moment. That does not mean large sales of MoP however, players could just want to login and roll a free panda without the expansion, or just log in to chew the fat.. after going to the offiical forums I get a preliminary hunch that the panda's are not going down too well, and have put people off the game. So far.
Pandas have definitely been a polarizing part of the game. Either the player is insanely happy with them being added, and thinks it's the greatest thing in the world, or they think they were better left as an April fools joke and only make an already silly expansion even sillier.
The real complaint is the Cross Realm Zones (CRZ). Finding nodes and rare mobs are annoyingly difficult now. Granted, you could argue that rare mobs should be rare, but they've moved beyond simply rare, and into impossible territory. Resource nodes, however, have no such justification. Trying to level up a profession now is aggrivating, to say the least.
A damn near decade old mmorpg sells 2.7 million copies in ONE week before they release in China and this crowd is harking on it selling less that the last expansion? After so long do you really expect the game to continue to out perform itself? While at the same time it's STILL out performing the competition. Let's not debate that little nugget, but do yourself a favor and try to think of ANY mmorpg expansion released that has outperformed it's previous expansion or matched it. You won't find those numbers and you know why? Because no other mmo developer EVER releases those numbers! And no one in the industry cares about them either.
I even tried to look up GW numbers for how the original sold as oppose to the expansions and no one is bothering to seperate the numbers. They are all lumped together as one big number at 6.5 million. And if you divide that number by the number of expansions then you get roughly 1.6 million per release. Now compare that to WoW's numbers at 4.7 million per release with the exception to the last expansion at 2.7 million. And if you lump together Blizzard's game + expansions like GW's, you get a whopping 21.5 million copies of WoW roughly sold.
I repeat, that is not bad for such an old game. To steadily out perform EVERY competitor since it's last exansion release 2 years ago says a lot about the impact it still has on the industry. That list includes: TSW, GW2, SWTOR and a slew of F2P and expansions for all of those games.
And this is coming from a guy that currently enjoying the sh*t out of GW2 and looking foward to enjoying DF: UW, AoW and AA.
You're wrong, its not 6.5 per expansion, its not per box either, its 6.5 million accounts which can me from 1 box sale to all 4 box sales, ...
completely agree. so far i've seen the press online do everything they can to add together the special deals and such to improve the numbers far beyond what they actually are like adding annual passes n such.
The only accurate data out there is the estimated 700k sold on launch day. Not really impressive considering Cata sold 3.3 mil within the first 24hrs.
I even tried to look up GW numbers for how the original sold as oppose to the expansions and no one is bothering to seperate the numbers. They are all lumped together as one big number at 6.5 million. And if you divide that number by the number of expansions then you get roughly 1.6 million per release. Now compare that to WoW's numbers at 4.7 million per release with the exception to the last expansion at 2.7 million. And if you lump together Blizzard's game + expansions like GW's, you get a whopping 21.5 million copies of WoW roughly sold.
ive only mentioned Blizzard compared to Blizzard in this thread
but since ANET has been mentioned - they too have a site for press releases
QTR / Accounts Sep 2006 / 2,447,000 Dec 2006 / 3,122,000 Mar 2007 / 3,555,000 Jun 2007 / 3,917,000 Sep 2007 / 4,500,000 Dec 2007 / 4,878,000 Mar 2008 / 5,159,000 Jun 2008 / 5,377,000 Sep 2008 / 5,589,000 Dec 2008 / 5,803,000
Those numbers INCLUDE campaigns sold as well since you cannot have a expansion without the original. I thought I explained that. They never released the sales figures of each campaigns sold seperately. I'm sure if Blizzard released a 2 year spread of how many WoW accounts were added since it's original release date til Dec 2006 you'd see number dwarfing those of GW.
You can hold any of the 2 campagins without the original, and you can hold the expansion with any of the 3 campaigns, you're wrong again.
I even tried to look up GW numbers for how the original sold as oppose to the expansions and no one is bothering to seperate the numbers. They are all lumped together as one big number at 6.5 million. And if you divide that number by the number of expansions then you get roughly 1.6 million per release. Now compare that to WoW's numbers at 4.7 million per release with the exception to the last expansion at 2.7 million. And if you lump together Blizzard's game + expansions like GW's, you get a whopping 21.5 million copies of WoW roughly sold.
ive only mentioned Blizzard compared to Blizzard in this thread
but since ANET has been mentioned - they too have a site for press releases
QTR / Accounts Sep 2006 / 2,447,000 Dec 2006 / 3,122,000 Mar 2007 / 3,555,000 Jun 2007 / 3,917,000 Sep 2007 / 4,500,000 Dec 2007 / 4,878,000 Mar 2008 / 5,159,000 Jun 2008 / 5,377,000 Sep 2008 / 5,589,000 Dec 2008 / 5,803,000
Those numbers INCLUDE campaigns sold as well since you cannot have a expansion without the original. I thought I explained that. They never released the sales figures of each campaigns sold seperately. I'm sure if Blizzard released a 2 year spread of how many WoW accounts were added since it's original release date til Dec 2006 you'd see number dwarfing those of GW.
At least as far as I understand, the key word is "accounts activated" (from the actual report linked in the gwguru thread). For example, I have prophecies, if I buy factions, then I wouldn't be counted as a new account since the new campaign is applied to my already existing account (unless I actually create a new account which I'm sure some people did). You have to take into account that GW1 had only one expansion (Eye of the North) with Factions and Nightfall being campaigns, not expansions. The difference is that they were basically standalone games, you could buy any of the three campaigns and play it completely without ever needing to have the other two, and even play the expansion with only one campaign.
I do agree that WoW sold a LOT more than GW1, nothing to contend there, just clearing up some things on the GW1 front.
Lol ok so you basically have 3 versions of GW1 + an expansion. Still doesn't take away from the fact that 3 boxes were released and sold seperately plus a expansion. Also all 4 are counted as GW1 sale data as none of them are tracked as individual releases.
But I don't understand how this turned into types of boxes sold rather that how you cannot compare sale data from other companies release to release sales (whether they are 3 versions of the same game or a not) so you can critique diminishing returning sales of that IP.
"Small minds talk about people, average minds talk about events, great minds talk about ideas."
Here is what I find interesting, supposidly according to Gamasutra Mop sold 2.3 million copues and WoW is back to 10 million. Does that meant that over 7 1/2 million decided not to go Panda ? Says a lot of 2 out of every 3 players did not buy the expansion.
I have a lifetime sub but have not played LoTRO for 5 hours in the last year or so but I still am considering purchasing the Rohan expansion just in case GW2 gets old to me
Here is what I find interesting, supposidly according to Gamasutra Mop sold 2.3 million copues and WoW is back to 10 million. Does that meant that over 7 1/2 million decided not to go Panda ? Says a lot of 2 out of every 3 players did not buy the expansion.
I have a lifetime sub but have not played LoTRO for 5 hours in the last year or so but I still am considering purchasing the Rohan expansion just in case GW2 gets old to me
From what I remember reading, about half (maybe a bit more) of the WoW players are in China, so if there are 10 million active players now, that makes it about 2.3 million of copies sold out of a total of 5 million (since MoP isn't yet available in China). All we can get from that so far is that about 1 out of every 2 WoW players hasn't bought MoP yet.. but that doesn't mean they won't buy it, or that they will either.
Also you have to take into account that there are several players that bought 1 year of WoW time after October 2011 (so they still count as active players) to take advantage of the offer to get Diablo 3 for free and might not be interested in MoP, but we can't say how many are there or how big of an impact will be once it ends (it could be big, it could be nothing).
That really shouldn't be surprising. WoW was at its peak when WOTLK came out, and had just come off arguably one of the best expansions any MMO has ever had in The Burning Crusade. So there's no doubt that WOTLK was going to be huge. Once WOTLK hit, the raiding game opened up to more players than ever before, and although it had mixed reviews from veterans of the game due to the simplification of content, it was generally thought of as a solid expansion, and made the endgame raids and dungeons even more accessible than previously.
Cata carried a lot of promise with it due to the restructuring of the old world content, which explained its great sales figures, but was a disappointment to many people. It just wasn't a very good expansion. Then Blizzard announced...pandas.
So honestly, nobody should have expected this expansion to outsell Cata or any of the previous ones. But I will say this: I've been pleasantly surprised at how good the expansion is. Blizzard did a solid job with this one, and the general feeling in the community is that this expansion was a step up from Cataclysm. And for all the hype that GW2 got, it took MoP only a week to surpass GW2's total sales.
I've been pleasantly surprised at how good the expansion is. Blizzard did a solid job with this one, and the general feeling in the community is that this expansion was a step up from Cataclysm.
agree - ive heard people are very happy w MOP content
Here is what I find interesting, supposidly according to Gamasutra Mop sold 2.3 million copues and WoW is back to 10 million. Does that meant that over 7 1/2 million decided not to go Panda ? Says a lot of 2 out of every 3 players did not buy the expansion.
I have a lifetime sub but have not played LoTRO for 5 hours in the last year or so but I still am considering purchasing the Rohan expansion just in case GW2 gets old to me
From what I remember reading, about half (maybe a bit more) of the WoW players are in China, so if there are 10 million active players now, that makes it about 2.3 million of copies sold out of a total of 5 million (since MoP isn't yet available in China). All we can get from that so far is that about 1 out of every 2 WoW players hasn't bought MoP yet.. but that doesn't mean they won't buy it, or that they will either.
Also you have to take into account that there are several players that bought 1 year of WoW time after October 2011 (so they still count as active players) to take advantage of the offer to get Diablo 3 for free and might not be interested in MoP, but we can't say how many are there or how big of an impact will be once it ends (it could be big, it could be nothing).
World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria will be released globally on September 25.
In addition to the English version, Mists of Pandaria will be localised into Latin American Spanish, Brazilian Portuguese, French, German, European Spanish, Russian, Korean, traditional Chinese, and Italian.
but the according to yahoo news the release was 2 days ago
whatever I was expecting the initial sales to be a lot higher. Less than a year ago WoW was consistently breaking 100K XFire hours even on weekdays. I was in Vent this morning with my old LoTRO/SWToR buddies and this one girl who still has one of those one year subs said she had not bought MoM so as you say it will be interesting to watch it's numbers for a couple of months. Their stock had a nice bump this morning but it still has a way to go to get back to it's average
WoW certainly is not dead but it is showing it''s age and does not look like this expansion will get the numbers back where they were a couple of years ago
It's down a lot compared ot Cata, but it isn't shocking. Cata recieved far more hate during the expansion than the previous and saw the first major declines for wow. Now if the number is about 3.7-4million in a month I will view MoP as an overall success, not a great success, but for a declining game following a hated expansion, it will be ok. If it goes higher then that I will honesty be surprised.
It should be noted, you don't need the expansion to play pandas or pet battles, I'm wondering if that would reduce the number of purchasers a lot? I personally haven't bought it yet, waiting to get my panda to 85 then if I still enjoy it I'll get mop and try out a monk.
"Great minds talk about ideas, average minds talk about events, and small minds talk about people." - Eleanor Roosevelt "Americans used to roar like lions for liberty; now we bleat like sheep for security." -Norman Vincent Peale
It was not a global release. China got MOP on Oct. 2nd and the press release specifically states those numbers are for the first week (AKA before Oct. 2nd).
That's 2.7 million NONCHINESE people, since so many of you don't like to count the Chinese as people. Jesus.
I'm guessing you'll have to wait for the monthly figures as MoP isn't breaking any records so far. If they were better than Cataclysm we'd have heard it by now. If the monthly numbers aren't there then you can expect any number that doesn't make it sound like a disaster. Remember the TOR-numbers? They might go for active subscriptions and other vague wording like that.
They already talk about "subscriber base" being back to 10M, you could read that as active subscriptions but with the way they work in China, there is no way that's even remotely accurate. And there could be a big difference between a base number of people that could pay the sub and the number that actually pay the sub (or part of it since then can pay as they play).
Spin doctors will be spin doctors. They'll come up with something.
Aside from the discussion about profits and paid subscriptions. The current MMORPGs have F2P,B2P, freemium like LotRO where you can sub or use points the bottom line is whether people are playing your game. If WoW manages as an eight year old game to attract that many to buy it it is still doing pretty darn well. I am not a shareholder just a gamer and as long as the game I am playing currently which is GW 2 and WoW is doing well enough I am content.
Seriously as long as someone somewhere is paying either hourly or buying and subbing they are still minting which is to them a revenue. It is us the pundits on the tin can that are discussing whether the Chinese should be counted. Looks like that date does not include them so I guess more numbers will come.
I'm guessing you'll have to wait for the monthly figures as MoP isn't breaking any records so far. If they were better than Cataclysm we'd have heard it by now. If the monthly numbers aren't there then you can expect any number that doesn't make it sound like a disaster. Remember the TOR-numbers? They might go for active subscriptions and other vague wording like that.
They already talk about "subscriber base" being back to 10M, you could read that as active subscriptions but with the way they work in China, there is no way that's even remotely accurate. And there could be a big difference between a base number of people that could pay the sub and the number that actually pay the sub (or part of it since then can pay as they play).
Spin doctors will be spin doctors. They'll come up with something.
Why do you care if they're playing off of a sub, or a game room account in China? A person playing is still a person playing. And besides, Blizzard goes into great detail describing what constitutes a "subscriber" included in those 10 million - I suggest you read their press release. They disclose everything, there's no deception or "spinning".
I don't get this obsession with China. Even Blizzard seems to have gone out of their way to exclude China for the first week (they got MoP on October 2nd), just so you wouldn't be crying over inflated sales numbers in the first week. Still, every post seems to mention China...
Well, 2.7 million isn't bad for an MMORPG at all, but it's certainly the lowest for WoW. I think it's the first time that they didn't announce the 1st day sales, and the 1st week sales barely equal the 1st day sales of tBC and WotLK. You also have to wonder, 'so only 2.7 mln people of a 10 mln subscriber base purchased the new expansion?'
Usually you have a lot of people returning with an expansion and a boost. But let's say that half of WoW players is Chines, that's still only half of all other WoW players that bought the expansion. If you take into account that a number of returnees, ex-WoW players, came back for it, what the jump from 9.1 to 10 mln seems to suggest, then it's even less than half of the current non-Chinese WoW playerbase that bought MoP.
So, objectively speaking, MoP did worse in sales than all former expansions. Is WoW doing badly though? Of course not, it's still the most played MMORPG, even if it does seem to be in decline. That's a nice achievement too, I'd say, after 8 years.
Blizzard is the best selling mmo but MOP seems to be the weakest selling expansion for Blizzard in the last 4 years
What it means is that Cataclysm really sucked and some people aren't coming back to see if MOP is better.
I wonder if it's better now than Cataclysm, but I won't go back when I only get one choice on how to "build" my character every 15 levels. Can you imagine being a new player with no heirlooms? How boring.
*Yawns* , People that claim not to play nor care about wow constantly posting about WoW, people that claim not to play nor care about wow constantly posting about WoW everywhere.
Blizzard "Hey we only counted the first week when MOP was not released in China!!!!"
Fooled fanbois " OMG SEE NO CHINA IN THE NUMBERS!!!! ONLY WEST!!! WoW STRONG!!"
Reality: Blizzard always reported sales numbers before the Chinese release. They never released any other "sales" reports including China in first place. Its the same conditions as always, the same global Asian (inc. Russian), Oceanic, South-American, European and US release conditions as always
Except for subscriber. Which where likely already slightly inflated due to the fact the "first week" ended just two days before the rushed Chinese expansion release and user got active again shortly before, (as it happens with any games expansions or content pdates) which are counted as full "subscriber" by Blizzard even if they leave the 25 cent MOP trial run after just a day of boredom.
I tend to agree that it is a spin . The reason I thnk this is the figures given were an approximation . I know Blizzard cant give the exact figures but when they were describing every other expansion packs figures they used the word over ( as in over 3.3 million for MoP ) . Approximations give a lot of room for maneuvre .
It also suggests Blizzard may not be using thier own numbers but those of industry analysts that offer a more favourable view of them . Having said that I was expecting around 2- 2.5 million to be sold in the first month this slighly exceeds that .
But if a million people have come back to WoW that means of the roughly 5 million players outside of China only 30 percent brought the expansion in the first week . That also doesn't add up to me because the majority of WoW players will have at least one level 85 character . I would have thought more existing players would have brought the expansion in the first week .
Something is amiss here . If Blizzard are trying to pull the wool over peoples eyes with their approximation it will be noticed when the companys financial figures come out .
Have they exagerated or not ? Only time will tell .
Remember this figure is first week up to Oct 2nd, sure not as good as the previous expansion but mop is being reviewed well by critics, ignoring the zero scores on metacritic ofc. Mop is still likely to sell over 3 million in the first month, chances are it already has.
I think these figures are good, when an expansion sells better than the last there is little reason to push the boat out, blizzard have already talked about what coming in the next content patch and that ptr will soon be up, this might have been the kick in butt blizz needed.
Comments
how so? if i bought Factions - i dont need Prophecies (the original game)
Factions has nothing from original game beyond the same core classes and same game engine
Prophecies, Factions, Nightfall -- are each "stand alone" games, independent of each other
if you bought one campaign, you would never see the other campaigns
-- i met GW1 players that never had interest in buying other campaigns
in a game like WOW, most players are at the upper levels
if you dont buy the latest expansion, you cannot play with the majority of the playerbase
EQ2 fan sites
Pandas have definitely been a polarizing part of the game. Either the player is insanely happy with them being added, and thinks it's the greatest thing in the world, or they think they were better left as an April fools joke and only make an already silly expansion even sillier.
The real complaint is the Cross Realm Zones (CRZ). Finding nodes and rare mobs are annoyingly difficult now. Granted, you could argue that rare mobs should be rare, but they've moved beyond simply rare, and into impossible territory. Resource nodes, however, have no such justification. Trying to level up a profession now is aggrivating, to say the least.
You make me like charity
You're wrong, its not 6.5 per expansion, its not per box either, its 6.5 million accounts which can me from 1 box sale to all 4 box sales, ...
completely agree. so far i've seen the press online do everything they can to add together the special deals and such to improve the numbers far beyond what they actually are like adding annual passes n such.
The only accurate data out there is the estimated 700k sold on launch day. Not really impressive considering Cata sold 3.3 mil within the first 24hrs.
You can hold any of the 2 campagins without the original, and you can hold the expansion with any of the 3 campaigns, you're wrong again.
At least as far as I understand, the key word is "accounts activated" (from the actual report linked in the gwguru thread). For example, I have prophecies, if I buy factions, then I wouldn't be counted as a new account since the new campaign is applied to my already existing account (unless I actually create a new account which I'm sure some people did). You have to take into account that GW1 had only one expansion (Eye of the North) with Factions and Nightfall being campaigns, not expansions. The difference is that they were basically standalone games, you could buy any of the three campaigns and play it completely without ever needing to have the other two, and even play the expansion with only one campaign.
I do agree that WoW sold a LOT more than GW1, nothing to contend there, just clearing up some things on the GW1 front.
What can men do against such reckless hate?
i agree - no contest
EQ2 fan sites
But I don't understand how this turned into types of boxes sold rather that how you cannot compare sale data from other companies release to release sales (whether they are 3 versions of the same game or a not) so you can critique diminishing returning sales of that IP.
"Small minds talk about people, average minds talk about events, great minds talk about ideas."
Here is what I find interesting, supposidly according to Gamasutra Mop sold 2.3 million copues and WoW is back to 10 million. Does that meant that over 7 1/2 million decided not to go Panda ? Says a lot of 2 out of every 3 players did not buy the expansion.
I have a lifetime sub but have not played LoTRO for 5 hours in the last year or so but I still am considering purchasing the Rohan expansion just in case GW2 gets old to me
I miss DAoC
From what I remember reading, about half (maybe a bit more) of the WoW players are in China, so if there are 10 million active players now, that makes it about 2.3 million of copies sold out of a total of 5 million (since MoP isn't yet available in China). All we can get from that so far is that about 1 out of every 2 WoW players hasn't bought MoP yet.. but that doesn't mean they won't buy it, or that they will either.
Also you have to take into account that there are several players that bought 1 year of WoW time after October 2011 (so they still count as active players) to take advantage of the offer to get Diablo 3 for free and might not be interested in MoP, but we can't say how many are there or how big of an impact will be once it ends (it could be big, it could be nothing).
What can men do against such reckless hate?
That really shouldn't be surprising. WoW was at its peak when WOTLK came out, and had just come off arguably one of the best expansions any MMO has ever had in The Burning Crusade. So there's no doubt that WOTLK was going to be huge. Once WOTLK hit, the raiding game opened up to more players than ever before, and although it had mixed reviews from veterans of the game due to the simplification of content, it was generally thought of as a solid expansion, and made the endgame raids and dungeons even more accessible than previously.
Cata carried a lot of promise with it due to the restructuring of the old world content, which explained its great sales figures, but was a disappointment to many people. It just wasn't a very good expansion. Then Blizzard announced...pandas.
So honestly, nobody should have expected this expansion to outsell Cata or any of the previous ones. But I will say this: I've been pleasantly surprised at how good the expansion is. Blizzard did a solid job with this one, and the general feeling in the community is that this expansion was a step up from Cataclysm. And for all the hype that GW2 got, it took MoP only a week to surpass GW2's total sales.
agree - ive heard people are very happy w MOP content
EQ2 fan sites
according to Gamespot it wa a global release
http://www.gamespot.com/news/mists-of-pandaria-approved-for-china-6394709
World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria will be released globally on September 25.
In addition to the English version, Mists of Pandaria will be localised into Latin American Spanish, Brazilian Portuguese, French, German, European Spanish, Russian, Korean, traditional Chinese, and Italian.
but the according to yahoo news the release was 2 days ago
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/world-warcraft-r-mists-pandaria-010000417.html
whatever I was expecting the initial sales to be a lot higher. Less than a year ago WoW was consistently breaking 100K XFire hours even on weekdays. I was in Vent this morning with my old LoTRO/SWToR buddies and this one girl who still has one of those one year subs said she had not bought MoM so as you say it will be interesting to watch it's numbers for a couple of months. Their stock had a nice bump this morning but it still has a way to go to get back to it's average
WoW certainly is not dead but it is showing it''s age and does not look like this expansion will get the numbers back where they were a couple of years ago
I miss DAoC
It's down a lot compared ot Cata, but it isn't shocking. Cata recieved far more hate during the expansion than the previous and saw the first major declines for wow. Now if the number is about 3.7-4million in a month I will view MoP as an overall success, not a great success, but for a declining game following a hated expansion, it will be ok. If it goes higher then that I will honesty be surprised.
It should be noted, you don't need the expansion to play pandas or pet battles, I'm wondering if that would reduce the number of purchasers a lot? I personally haven't bought it yet, waiting to get my panda to 85 then if I still enjoy it I'll get mop and try out a monk.
"Great minds talk about ideas, average minds talk about events, and small minds talk about people." - Eleanor Roosevelt
"Americans used to roar like lions for liberty; now we bleat like sheep for security." -Norman Vincent Peale
That's 2.7 million people who decided to play MoP instead of a competing game.
That's the bottom line here.
It was not a global release. China got MOP on Oct. 2nd and the press release specifically states those numbers are for the first week (AKA before Oct. 2nd).
That's 2.7 million NONCHINESE people, since so many of you don't like to count the Chinese as people. Jesus.
I'm guessing you'll have to wait for the monthly figures as MoP isn't breaking any records so far. If they were better than Cataclysm we'd have heard it by now. If the monthly numbers aren't there then you can expect any number that doesn't make it sound like a disaster. Remember the TOR-numbers? They might go for active subscriptions and other vague wording like that.
They already talk about "subscriber base" being back to 10M, you could read that as active subscriptions but with the way they work in China, there is no way that's even remotely accurate. And there could be a big difference between a base number of people that could pay the sub and the number that actually pay the sub (or part of it since then can pay as they play).
Spin doctors will be spin doctors. They'll come up with something.
Aside from the discussion about profits and paid subscriptions. The current MMORPGs have F2P,B2P, freemium like LotRO where you can sub or use points the bottom line is whether people are playing your game. If WoW manages as an eight year old game to attract that many to buy it it is still doing pretty darn well. I am not a shareholder just a gamer and as long as the game I am playing currently which is GW 2 and WoW is doing well enough I am content.
Seriously as long as someone somewhere is paying either hourly or buying and subbing they are still minting which is to them a revenue. It is us the pundits on the tin can that are discussing whether the Chinese should be counted. Looks like that date does not include them so I guess more numbers will come.
Why do you care if they're playing off of a sub, or a game room account in China? A person playing is still a person playing. And besides, Blizzard goes into great detail describing what constitutes a "subscriber" included in those 10 million - I suggest you read their press release. They disclose everything, there's no deception or "spinning".
I don't get this obsession with China. Even Blizzard seems to have gone out of their way to exclude China for the first week (they got MoP on October 2nd), just so you wouldn't be crying over inflated sales numbers in the first week. Still, every post seems to mention China...
Usually you have a lot of people returning with an expansion and a boost. But let's say that half of WoW players is Chines, that's still only half of all other WoW players that bought the expansion. If you take into account that a number of returnees, ex-WoW players, came back for it, what the jump from 9.1 to 10 mln seems to suggest, then it's even less than half of the current non-Chinese WoW playerbase that bought MoP.So, objectively speaking, MoP did worse in sales than all former expansions. Is WoW doing badly though? Of course not, it's still the most played MMORPG, even if it does seem to be in decline. That's a nice achievement too, I'd say, after 8 years.
What it means is that Cataclysm really sucked and some people aren't coming back to see if MOP is better.
I wonder if it's better now than Cataclysm, but I won't go back when I only get one choice on how to "build" my character every 15 levels. Can you imagine being a new player with no heirlooms? How boring.
Take the Magic: The Gathering 'What Color Are You?' Quiz.
*Yawns* , People that claim not to play nor care about wow constantly posting about WoW, people that claim not to play nor care about wow constantly posting about WoW everywhere.
I tend to agree that it is a spin . The reason I thnk this is the figures given were an approximation . I know Blizzard cant give the exact figures but when they were describing every other expansion packs figures they used the word over ( as in over 3.3 million for MoP ) . Approximations give a lot of room for maneuvre .
It also suggests Blizzard may not be using thier own numbers but those of industry analysts that offer a more favourable view of them . Having said that I was expecting around 2- 2.5 million to be sold in the first month this slighly exceeds that .
But if a million people have come back to WoW that means of the roughly 5 million players outside of China only 30 percent brought the expansion in the first week . That also doesn't add up to me because the majority of WoW players will have at least one level 85 character . I would have thought more existing players would have brought the expansion in the first week .
Something is amiss here . If Blizzard are trying to pull the wool over peoples eyes with their approximation it will be noticed when the companys financial figures come out .
Have they exagerated or not ? Only time will tell .
Remember this figure is first week up to Oct 2nd, sure not as good as the previous expansion but mop is being reviewed well by critics, ignoring the zero scores on metacritic ofc. Mop is still likely to sell over 3 million in the first month, chances are it already has.
I think these figures are good, when an expansion sells better than the last there is little reason to push the boat out, blizzard have already talked about what coming in the next content patch and that ptr will soon be up, this might have been the kick in butt blizz needed.