WoW Subscribers Drop Only 100,000 to 10.2 MillionFeb 9th, 2012 at 4:00 PM by Krelumian

The quarterly earnings call is coming to a close but the major news is out for all things Activision Blizzard.

In the recent quarterly earnings call from Blizzard, we learned that the "Chuck Norris spot was super effective!" for the MMO king World of Warcraft, and they are now only down to 10.2 million subscribers. This is great news for Blizzard, as WoW's biggest competitor, Star Wars: The Old Republic, was launched during this earnings report. To top it all off, the annual subscription service climbed to over one million, possibly in part due to the free digital copy of Diablo 3. To round off the call, Blizzard added that Diablo 3 is being pushed to Q2 of this year and Blizzard DOTA being free-to-play. 

Things are definetly looking up, as WoW's decline in subscriptions is starting to level off. Speculation can only hold that as the excitement builds for Mists of Pandaria, if Blizzard can hold onto its title as king of MMORPG subscriptions for some time to come.

Tags: News, WorldofWarcraft

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LOL
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# Feb 12 2012 at 2:30 PM Rating: Default
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Why do people think that 10 million players is a bad thing?! I mean blizzard is still making apx 150 Million a month off this ONE game that has lasted so long. Not many companies can boast that.
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LOL
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# Feb 12 2012 at 3:43 PM Rating: Default
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DarkPoet2011 wrote:
Why do people think that 10 million players is a bad thing?! I mean blizzard is still making apx 150 Million a month off this ONE game that has lasted so long. Not many companies can boast that.


The amount of revenue is much less than what you are saying. The flat monthly fee was abnormal in China last time I heard, its all time cards. If I understood Rhodekylle correctly in another thread way back they average much less time in game than we do here in the states. At 1 card per month they are spending at a rate that's about 30% of our $15/mo. So that's 4 million of your 10 gone. I don't how many of the remaining 6 million are also primarily on cards but its probably more than you would think. Even if acct's using non Chinese cards have higher profit margins they still won't bring in $15/mo. My swagometer would put the number of full price subs at between 4 and 5 million. YMMV.




Edited, Feb 13th 2012 7:18pm by JDLKY
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LOL
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# Feb 15 2012 at 4:14 PM Rating: Good
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But also keep in mind that just about every aspect of operating in China is significantly cheaper. So although they may not be making as much in a 1:1 currency exchange, it doesn't mean they are making less for the cost of operations in China.
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LOL
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# Feb 15 2012 at 5:29 PM Rating: Default
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ekaterinodar wrote:
But also keep in mind that just about every aspect of operating in China is significantly cheaper. So although they may not be making as much in a 1:1 currency exchange, it doesn't mean they are making less for the cost of operations in China.


The costs of operation are not important relative to the revenues. They are negligible both in China and in the US. The major part of the costs are in the development and that's a very different issue. In any case this is getting away from the original point which is that comparing Chinese and non Chinese subscriptions is problematic at best.


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Helping Blizzard
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# Feb 12 2012 at 1:34 AM Rating: Decent
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I guess I'm doing everything I can to help...lol

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ms9lNCT1d0
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Not a surprise
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# Feb 10 2012 at 4:25 PM Rating: Excellent
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This really isn't a surprise. A lot of us have been saying that as long as blizzard started taking some decent steps in the right direction the hemorrhaging would stop.

I'm sure that a few hundred thousand more will be loss before MoP's release date is announced. Then I'm sure we'll see a spike. Maybe not to previous numbers, but 10 million people is still a huge city full of people.

SWTOR and Rift are good games. I'm particularly enjoying SWTOR. But I don't think anything will be a WoW-killer except for another WoW.

Competition will take away players. That's a good thing. In a vacuum Blizzard is lazy and does stupid things. With actual competition they'll be pushed to return to great game making.
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Not a surprise
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# Feb 12 2012 at 10:27 PM Rating: Decent
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ekaterinodar wrote:
SWTOR and Rift are good games. I'm particularly enjoying SWTOR. But I don't think anything will be a WoW-killer except for another WoW.


I've always maintanted that the only thing that will kill wow is wow itself. I.e. if the game itself deteriorates. For me the game began gradually declining during cata and culminated with patch 4 when I quit. The game largely caters to a different type of player to when it began and changed too much from the game I enjoyed.
If people still like the game and play it then of course that's good for blizzard and doesn't bother me. For me though, it made sense to quit when it reached the point where the game just wasn't as much fun for me anymore. SWTOR so far has made MMO play fun for me again. I miss wow the way it used to be but I don't miss the game it turned in to. A huge number of players I've encountered in swtor are former wow players who feel much the same way.
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Not a surprise
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# Feb 15 2012 at 4:17 PM Rating: Good
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That's a valid reason opinion. Just keep in mind that those who use to play WoW and are playing a different game will likely have similar reasons. Just like the car insurance commercials who claim "On average customers save X amount by switching to us." Obviously, people who would lose money switching to that insurance company aren't going to switch. The only people who will switch will be those who will be saving. Same applies to WoW and other MMOs. If they are content with their current MMO they aren't going to switch to another.
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DOTA Free to play?
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# Feb 10 2012 at 10:05 AM Rating: Good
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What's this DOTA Free to play you speak of? Maybe someone can explain this to me!?

Thanks!
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DOTA Free to play?
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# Feb 10 2012 at 11:33 AM Rating: Good
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Mindpurge wrote:
What's this DOTA Free to play you speak of? Maybe someone can explain this to me!?

Thanks!


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dota
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