Vault_News
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World of Warcraft Subscriber Base Currently At 11.4 Million
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Curse.com posted:
During today's Activision Blizzard earnings call, World of Warcraft and its expansion Cataclysm were two very hot topics. Listeners asked a number of questions related to the game, more than any other title or franchise in the publisher's stable.
Of note, World of Warcraft's subscriber base has reached pre-Cataclysm levels, according to Mike Morhaime, CEO of Blizzard Entertainment. He then later stated an actual number, with subscriptions at the end of March clocking in at right around 11.4 million.
That's down by about 5% from the announced 12 million mark late last year. Interestingly enough, that was right before Cataclysm released. In fact, it's actually lower than the milestone reached in 2008 with the release of Wrath of the Lich King.
But one important thing to point out, and Mr. Morhaime touched on this as well, is that World of Warcraft's subscriber base does not change linearly. It fluctuates based on content consumption, which players seem to be doing a whole lot of -- at a more rapid pace -- with Cataclysm. "Subscriber levels have decreased faster than previous expansions," he said.
Surprising? Not really. We have to remember that when these numbers were pulled, Cataclysm was in a bit of a lull. The expansion had been out for close to four months, and most of its content had been consumed by a large percentage of the player base -- aside from heroic raids.
Plus the strongest competitor to the game so far -- RIFT -- launched at the beginning of March. This no doubt pulled many away from Azeroth, even if only temporarily, to explore a new world.
It will be interesting to see what kind of lasting impact this faster content consumption, along with RIFT, have on the game's subscriber base. We'll probably hear more about this during the next earnings call.
Check out the discussion going on about this news on the forums!
Posted from WoW Vault
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Spookysheep
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World of Warcraft Subscriber Base Currently At 11.4 Million
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Has any other company ever tried to pass off 5 levels and 90% recycled "content" as an expansion?
I thought about this yesterday. It seems like SOE and other companies have always done at least 10 levels per xpac and new zones etc.
There really was so very little in Cataclysm I don't see how it can be called an "expansion" with a truly straight face.
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vn_cuch
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World of Warcraft Subscriber Base Currently At 11.4 Million
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What is the betting that that little "free return for 10 days" was a way to "inflate" numbers for this report....
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Boone-Eldar
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World of Warcraft Subscriber Base Currently At 11.4 Million
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vn_cuch posted:
What is the betting that that little "free return for 10 days" was a way to "inflate" numbers for this report....
World of Warcraft subscribers are defined to include: (1) individuals who have paid a subscription fee or have an active prepaid card to play World of Warcraft , (2) those who have purchased the game and are within their free month of access, and (3) Internet Game Room players who have accessed the game over the last thirty days. The definition of subscribers does not include any players under free promotional subscriptions, expired or cancelled subscriptions, or expired prepaid cards.
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siujoey
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World of Warcraft Subscriber Base Currently At 11.4 Million
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They STILL blame the subscription decline on "content consumption". Amazing.
I quit after I got my mage to 85. I have three others at 82 and couldn't bring myself to level them any further. My mage never even made it to heroics because it was just so boring, so fast. (Not to mention I don't have time to sit in the Q for 45 minutes to get into an instance that takes twice as long as the older ones.)
Blame it on whatever you want, Blizz- you're killing it. Now the CEO even acknowledges that the subs are down, but attributes the sub loss to something completely wrong. THAT'S how you know the game will decline. When you don't fully understand what is broken and go around fixing the wrong aspects of the game- you get the current state of WoW.
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Fedup23
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World of Warcraft Subscriber Base Currently At 11.4 Million
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vn_cuch posted:
What is the betting that that little "free return for 10 days" was a way to "inflate" numbers for this report....
I hope you weren't serious. 
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Turumbar-HG
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World of Warcraft Subscriber Base Currently At 11.4 Million
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Spookysheep posted:
I thought about this yesterday. It seems like SOE and other companies have always done at least 10 levels per xpac and new zones etc.
And just because SOE and others do it, Blizzard must as well?
What's the track record for all the other companies with keeping subscribers after 6 yrs?
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jojo263
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World of Warcraft Subscriber Base Currently At 11.4 Million
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WoW and eq2 have pretty much been out for the same amount of time look at how much content eq2 has come out with vs WoW.
eq 2 has had like 7 xpacs full of massive content also like 3 or 4 adventure packs.
I quit WoW when rift came out and just tried my free 7 days I was shocked to see the amount of content that came out since I been gone lol ZG.
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Spookysheep
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World of Warcraft Subscriber Base Currently At 11.4 Million
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Turumbar-HG posted:
Spookysheep posted:
I thought about this yesterday. It seems like SOE and other companies have always done at least 10 levels per xpac and new zones etc.
And just because SOE and others do it, Blizzard must as well?
What's the track record for all the other companies with keeping subscribers after 6 yrs?
Considering how badly it has back fired on blizzard, are you seriously asking that question?
As far as subscribers, UO, EQ, and others kept steady numbers for well over 10 years, so you really asking that question too?
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kyrv
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World of Warcraft Subscriber Base Currently At 11.4 Million
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Okay millions of those subs are game room players, but still, they have a ton of subs, but I'm glad customers are voting with their wallet instead of just complaining.
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Trigeminal
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World of Warcraft Subscriber Base Currently At 11.4 Million
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11.4 million is still pretty good... at least compared to DAoC
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Turumbar-HG
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World of Warcraft Subscriber Base Currently At 11.4 Million
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What exactly is are your definitions for 'backfire' and 'steady' Spooky?
I wouldn't categorize the loss of %5 of a subscriber base as being a backfire or putting WoW into having an unsteady population.
Back up your comments with some numbers. How many subscribers did EQ or UO or even DAoC have at their peak, and how many did they have after 6 yrs?
Go ahead and just use the North American and European numbers to make the comparison more accurate as well.
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Boone-Eldar
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World of Warcraft Subscriber Base Currently At 11.4 Million
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Turumbar-HG posted:
What exactly is are your definitions for 'backfire' and 'steady' Spooky?
I wouldn't categorize the loss of %5 of a subscriber base as being a backfire or putting WoW into having an unsteady population.
Back up your comments with some numbers. How many subscribers did EQ or UO or even DAoC have at their peak, and how many did they have after 6 yrs?
Go ahead and just use the North American and European numbers to make the comparison more accurate as well.
EQ had 450k at it's peak. I am not sure where EQ was after 6 years, but if I recall correctly it was about 200k.
DAoC had 250k at it's peak I believe and after 6 years it was at like 75k.
Also as noted in other threads, the loss was more like 10% since Asia does not have Cataclysm.
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Turumbar-HG
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World of Warcraft Subscriber Base Currently At 11.4 Million
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I have no idea how accurate the numbers are, but I was just looking at MMOData and found the following:
EQ Subscription Peak; 550,000. Lost 100,000 after 6 yrs and had gone down to approx 100,000 after 10 yrs.
UO Subscription Peak; 250,000. Lost 100,000 after 6 yrs and had gone down to approx 100,000 after 10 yrs.
DAoC Subscription Peak; 250,000. Lost 100,000 after 4 yrs and had gone down to approx 50,000 after 8 yrs.
So obviously the way they did things worked better than the Blizzard way of doing things, right?
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siujoey
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I don't think anyone is arguing that WoW's subscription numbers aren't dominant and unprecedented. (Especially for the genre.) But the fact remains that they have had a substantial hit to their subscriber base and one can look through the threads here and see that they have a real problem. Blizzard seems to either have misdiagnosed or is currently ignoring. If they don't change that quickly, this 10% dip is only the beginning.
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Boone-Eldar
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World of Warcraft Subscriber Base Currently At 11.4 Million
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Turumbar-HG posted:
I have no idea how accurate the numbers are, but I was just looking at MMOData and found the following:
EQ Subscription Peak; 550,000. Lost 100,000 after 6 yrs and had gone down to approx 100,000 after 10 yrs.
UO Subscription Peak; 250,000. Lost 100,000 after 6 yrs and had gone down to approx 100,000 after 10 yrs.
DAoC Subscription Peak; 250,000. Lost 100,000 after 4 yrs and had gone down to approx 50,000 after 8 yrs.
So obviously the way they did things worked better than the Blizzard way of doing things, right?
*shrug* I happen to like the way Blizzard does things for the most part. I do think they have been slacking in the content department the last year and a half though.
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Turumbar-HG
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World of Warcraft Subscriber Base Currently At 11.4 Million
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I'm not trying to argue about who has the larger subscription numbers; I'm trying to find out Spooky's definition of 'BAckfire' and 'Steady' in regards to the other MMO's he referenced.
I think the subscription numbers that WoW has is Blizzard's greatest blessing and its greatest curse. Blessing because they can lose more subscribers than any other game has had and still be making money, curse because they just can't keep that many people happy.
I would also argue that time is a factor here as well, 6 yrs seems to be a point at where subscription numbers start to drop. Add in the fact that due to Blizzard's financial success with WoW, there is more competition now than there was in the past. It's only going to get harder for WoW to hold on to their subscriber base.
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Turumbar-HG
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World of Warcraft Subscriber Base Currently At 11.4 Million
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Boone-Eldar posted:
*shrug* I happen to like the way Blizzard does things for the most part. I do think they have been slacking in the content department the last year and a half though.
I'm pretty happy myself. Still playing, still raiding, would love to see more content faster, but it is what it is.
The amount of entertainment I get from WoW is still worth the $13/month that I pay.
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TruthyID
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World of Warcraft Subscriber Base Currently At 11.4 Million
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The loss of 600k subs is actually a bigger deal than just a slight 5% fluctuation in sub numbers imo. If memory serves they reportedly sold 4.7 million copies of Cataclysm in the first month. 600k is ~12.8% of 4.7 million. When 1 in every 8 players who buys your expansion quits almost immediately you've got a problem that goes beyond the normal ebb and flow.
The rationale that the CEO gave was absolutely ridiculous too. First they told us that they were going to delay releasing Firelands with 4.1 because "We feel like the player base isn't really ready for the next raid yet." Now they're saying that we're unhappy because we're progressing too quickly? Which is it?
His explanation is even more ridiculous in light of the countless threads detailing all the things that are making the game less fun. In fact, the only mention I've seen anywhere about a lack of content is concerning 4.2 itself and that's not even out yet. Maybe when they add 7 raid bosses and they're still losing subs they'll revisit their theory.
Source of the quote regarding slow progression: http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2011-03-04-firelands-raid-will-not-be-in-wow-patch-4-1
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