World of Warcraft loses 1.3 million players in three months

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Twystyd
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World of Warcraft loses 1.3 million players in three months

Postby Twystyd » Thu May 09, 2013 3:30 pm

http://games.yahoo.com/blogs/plugged-in/world-warcraft-loses-1-3-million-players-three-233637952.html

All is not well in Azeroth.
Approximately 1.3 million subscribers have left World of Warcraft’s fantasy universe in the past three months, Activision-Blizzard reported in an earnings call Wednesday.
According to the company, most of those departures were players in the East, though a significant number of Western players left as well. All told, the game now has about 8.3 million paying customers -- down from 9.6 million in February -- and Activision CEO Bobby Kotick admits that number is bound to drop even further.


Say what you want about the game those subscription numbers are impressive. WoW still has over 8 million subs and it's 9 years old. With all that being said it's safe to say Blizzard has seen their peak for WoW and it's on the decline.
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Postby Tingtong » Sat Jul 20, 2013 4:21 pm

It's inevitable I just hope Blizz doesn't cave to investors clamoring for a better return that forces a unfinished release for instant boxed sales. I hope they learn from Bioware's mistake, but left in the hands of executives, the boundaries of stupidity always seem to get broken. I can only hope they do it right and push the genre in another direction for 10+ years.

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Postby Twystyd » Sat Jul 20, 2013 11:24 pm

Any word on their new MMO title Mike? The only thing I ever hear is "rumors."
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Postby Tingtong » Mon Jul 22, 2013 1:32 am

same I've been out of the loop for over a year now, fucking people change jobs in that industry faster than I replace my socks. Last word I heard was about Jay Wilson.

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Postby Twystyd » Tue Jul 23, 2013 1:17 am

To anyone thinking WoW was only in a temporary down cycle I give you this -

http://beta.fool.com/studyearnenjoy/201 ... lnk0000001
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Postby Twystyd » Mon Jul 29, 2013 8:47 pm

Although detractors decry (MMA) as a brutal, bloody form of human cockfighting, aficionados know it is a brutal, bloody, totally fucking awesome form of human cockfighting. -The Onion



I don't know the question, but sex is definitely the answer. -Woody Allen

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Postby Sirion » Tue Jul 30, 2013 2:20 pm

That's good, they are just going to have to continually reevaluate their strategy. I don't know how they are doing financially, but at the end of Cata (or maybe WoTLK - I can't really remember right now), when they lost something like 1.5 or 3 million players, they still produced record profits from WoW because they made their pet store more robust. So they may be collecting less money from subscriptions, but more money from the pet store (especially now that they introduced pet based combat) which might be keeping them higher than it seems they should be considering the loss in subs.

Furthermore, I don't know which section of their population they are turning over the most, but it seems to me that if they want to continue their historic high levels of retention that they are going to need to start catering more to the players that continually resub - that might mean less daily quests and more thoughtful raids, or it could mean exactly the opposite (though I think it's going to be hard to maintain casual subs when so many games are going f2p or are being developed for the f2p market).

In the end I think the only thing that can dethrone WoW is that their developers are really in a stint and they systematically program every expansion to be identical to the last with different loot hallways, grinding spots, and item grabs. (MoP probably =) Cata = WoTLK = BC insofar as the basic premise behind the gameplay is designed, which is basically Blizzard saying "Forget everything you did before, because this shit is waaaay better." It's also noteworthy that there are typically substantial drops in subs in the midst of long content patches (especially content patches with very little content). We saw tons of people quit in WoTLK for ToTGC before ICC and we saw the same towards the end of t11 and t12 in Cata.

As far as new games that might take some of the population? I can only think of W* and the next WoW expansion pack. The former I say only because it seems to be pretty much a copy/paste of WoW (with a different lore) in terms of content development and art design, but it overlays that with GW2/TERA-esque action based combat. Some people who play WoW may want to move to action combat after forays into either GW2 or TERA (or MO or DF:UW or DCUO, etc.). That said, I think the biggest threat to WoW numbers is their next expansion. People quit early towards the end of their current expansion once they kill the final boss because all of their efforts of obtaining more and better gear beyond that point are invalidated within 1-2 levels (less in Cata and MoP because of 5 levels instead of 10) of the next expansion (which are balanced on the guys in blues and greens, not the guys in the shiniest epics, which means the gear doesn't even matter because you would have blown through the content anyways), and they know there will be little to no content produced for the rest of the expansion they are in.

In fact, one of the reasons why I'm considering resubbing WoW now is because I will log into the game and literally have 3 tiers of raiding to go through with if I don't skip content via RF (which I inexorably will, of course, and which makes me second guess going back in the first place).
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Postby Hall » Fri Aug 23, 2013 11:11 am

I just got back into WoW, on the one hand Kung Fu panda has a lot of detractors myself included but it made WoW more focused on your main character. This meant countless hours banging out dailies of all sorts for that one char.

They made it easier to gear alts. That being said im in super casual mode just trying to catch up with the story from 5.0 to now 5.4. I did a metric ass ton of Arena before I bowed out since the PvP in WoW has been incredibly awful.

I am hoping, that the next Xpac will bring some better changes. I know a guy Blizzard isn't phased by the loses they are actually still doing quite well with the subs they do have. Although they included some items in a manner that GW2 has done for Aesthetic armor. That alone is reaping in quite a bit of coin.
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Postby Sirion » Fri Aug 23, 2013 1:30 pm

My fiance and I just started playing WoW again about 3 weeks ago. We've already done all the raid content though certainly not competitively (t14 with some heroics and t15 in raid finder) and I think that the overall dynamics of the expansion were good, I just don't find the PvE endgame to be compelling. We've been dicking around with old content (like Black Temple and SSC and WoTLK dungeons) and it really feels like the level design team at Blizzard has backseated map design. None of the new raids are as immersive as something like Black Temple or even BRD, though the boss fights are, for the most part, interesting enough.

The exact opposite is true of the actual environment, which I assume is because they had to make it a cohesive landscape in some form contextually, since it's a landmass all it's own. I think some areas feel a lot like areas of WoTLK (in particular the southern portion of Kun Lai Summit feels like Borean Tundra mixed with Howling Fjord with a bit of Storm Peaks in the mountainous regions) but overall I think that the impact was well received by both of us.

Overall I think that the expansion was much better than cata from the limited experience I've had in it both in terms of content delivered and cohesiveness and I think I would have enjoyed it a lot more if I had played from the start. I do hate feeling compelled to do so many dailies though (especially the ones on the Thunder King's island, since they half of them are exactly the same day in and day out). But even with FFXIV coming out and a lot of us going to check it out, I will be in WoW for 5.4 just because I fucking hate Garrosh and I can't wait to kick his face in.
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Postby Maven » Fri Aug 30, 2013 12:08 pm

I just ended a spree of full time raiding with a group of guys. Great group, great guild who is still going and just about finished with the heroic t15 raids. From my experience as the MT into heroics of the end game raid I think WoW still hits the nail on the head with these damn boss mechanics.

The problem is, I am an oldschooler and will always be one. I raid these 25 man raids and every raid I still wish it was 40 man Rag or Princess HuHu. I still stick to my vote of original WoW being the best but I support the changes they made. They kept their game going and made tons of money from doing it.

It is time to move on though, we are going on a decade of the same old game that needs to end now and bring in a new era for the casual lovers who play WoW.

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Postby Twystyd » Fri Aug 30, 2013 7:34 pm

Without a doubt one of the greatest MMO's ever. It's just time to move on after you start understanding how the xpac routines pop.
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I don't know the question, but sex is definitely the answer. -Woody Allen

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Postby Maven » Tue Sep 03, 2013 11:42 am

I stopped paying any attention to them when I stopped playing a few months back.

Is the next thing from blizzard a new WOW EXP? or is it the new game?


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