Blizzard may be "padding" the number of WoW "Subscribers"

[Schadenfroh]

Text

I think there is some confusion about World of Warcraft (WoW) subscribers vs. other MMOGs.

I keep seeing people quote stuff like "WoW has 5,000,000 million subscribers and EQ2 only has 500,000".

Well, that really isn't a fair comparison. WoW has a different pricing model in the Asian market, due to the popularity of gaming cafes. WoW can be downloaded (for 30 Yuan) and then it's a pay to play (.45 Yuan / hour). So basically, anyone who's ever tried WoW...even for like 5 minutes is considered a WoW subscriber because Blizzard doesn't know if they'll be back or not. For the EQ2 numbers, it's the current count of paying monthly subscribers.

See some of this reference information:
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/content_page.php?section_name=new&aid=9354
http://www.gamespot.com/news/6127037.html
http://www.gamingsteve.com/archives/2005/11/with_all_the_ta.php


WoW "Subscriber" = #of People that have tried WoW
EQ2 Subscriber = #of people currently signed up for a regularly billed pay plan

Since there are eleventy billion people in China, I assume a lot of people have downloaded WoW...tried it, and then never played again. Since they have an account that is pay per play, they are still listed as a subscriber. This is where the numbers skew and shouldn't be compared.

A better comparison, which we won't get from either company, would be total number of people logged in to each game over a long period of time. Or better yet, total number of unique accounts that have invested X number of hours.

Am I off on this notion?

Bottom line: There aren't 5M people paying to play WoW at this very moment. While I too would like reassurance that EQ2 is experiencing healthy growth and will be around for the long-haul, I think all the "Chicken Littles" are raising red flags over some mis-interpreted statistics.

PLEASE - I am not looking for any flame wars here, just want to make sure I understand the way these "statistics" are being put together. I'm not trying to start another WoW vs. EQ2 debate.

Interesting.... I had always thought that when Blizzard said that WoW has 5,000,000 subscribers, that they were stating that they had people subscribing to the monthly fee via CC or long term game cards.

So in Asia, you get to pay by the hour?

 

[notfred]

What difference does it make?

 

[Bateluer]

Originally posted by: notfred
What difference does it make?

Means whenever someone says that WoW has 5 million subscribers, you can say they are full of ******.

 

[Slicedbread]

How can they have 5 trillion subscribers?

 

[Bateluer]

Originally posted by: Slicedbread
How can they have 5 trillion subscribers?

No one said 5 trillion.

 

[Slicedbread]

"5,000,000 million", he wrote it though

 

[kamper]

Isn't that 5 quadrilion?

 

[d3lt4]

Does anyone seriously look at statistics. Even watts on a stereo are screwed up. Most just show you the peak watts wich has nothing to do with how loud they play. I don't even care about advertising statistics. They are usually off. ALOT!

 

[Looney]

I thought this was common knowledge. Brad McQuaid even said this before.

 

[Looney]

Originally posted by: notfred
What difference does it make?

Ironic comment from somebody who has 35000 posts.

 

[Feneant2]

Everquest 2 does not have 500k either I would say considering they are as of next week merging some servers. The population isn't that low, but the game is getting larger and larger (especially with a new expansion coming soon again) so a lot of areas are getting emptier.

 

[Jeff7181]

That explains why Blizzard isn't gold plating their headquarters and trimming it in diamonds... people using the 5 million subscriber figure to calculate how much money Blizzard is making when the actual figure is much lower.

 

[Looney]

Originally posted by: Feneant2
Everquest 2 does not have 500k either I would say considering they are as of next week merging some servers. The population isn't that low, but the game is getting larger and larger (especially with a new expansion coming soon again) so a lot of areas are getting emptier.

Yeah, there's no way EQ2 is at 500k. I can see the combine of EQ1 and EQ2, but there's no way EQ2 is at 500k.

 

[Looney]

Also, successful penetration into countries like China, while definitely something to study and revere, also yield approximately $2.00 a user, not the $15 bucks a month to which most are accustomed. Lastly, on a side note, remember that Asian subscribers are counted as someone who either plays a lot or just went into a cyber café and played only once. They?re counted the same way ? as a subscriber. This should be kept in mind when considering numbers, revenue, etc., especially in the Asian market.

http://www.gamergod.com/article.php?article_id=2933&fansite_id=118
That's the one from Brad McQuaid. Good read...and read all the follow up articles from other leaders in the MMO industry... they're VERY good read.

http://www.gamergod.com/fansite.php?category_parent_id=1&fansite_id=118

 

[Genx87]

Originally posted by: notfred
What difference does it make?

Well according to this their sub numbers would never go down as they are only counting people who have tried it.

Eventually they could have "10 million" subscribers yet only have 1 million "active" subscribers.

They are misleading.

 

[cKGunslinger]

Originally posted by: Looney
Brad McQuaid even said this before.

LOL -well that's the guy *I* want feeding me factual info about WoW.

 

[Looney]

Originally posted by: cKGunslinger

Originally posted by: Looney
Brad McQuaid even said this before.

LOL -well that's the guy *I* want feeding me factual info about WoW.

Why not? He's been one of the biggest supporter of WoW. He's played it. Most if not all of the people at Sigil has played it. He's said he's enjoyed it. He said from the very beginning, that WoW has been a huge boom to the MMO industry. It's introduced people to MMO who would never have touched a traditional MMO. It's shown the industry that there is a HUGE market for it, and you can make tons of money, so now there's an even bigger rush to make the next big MMO. These are all things he's said in the past, and usually before anybody else has.

 

[Malak]

It's true, WoW did bring many, many new MMO players into the industry. I'm sure many of those were the same people that even said they wouldn't pay to play a game too. Unfortunately, we won't actually see any of these people help the industry grow unless WoW shuts down, since those same people think WoW is the endall of MMO's even though they haven't played any others. To these people, the industry is defined by Blizzard, a company relatively new to the scene compared to several others who have had their own successes.

MMO's are great for something else too. They help spread the need for broadband.

 

[Czar]

in other news, eve online went past 100.000 subscribers few days ago

 

[Malak]

Originally posted by: Czar
in other news, eve online went past 100.000 subscribers few days ago

What's their current record for on at same time?

 

[Czar]

Originally posted by: Malak

Originally posted by: Czar
in other news, eve online went past 100.000 subscribers few days ago

What's their current record for on at same time?

"1/2/2006
EVE Players greet the New Year

At 20:44 this evening a new PCU milestone was reached when 22.020 EVE Players were logged in at the same time. CCP's hardware partners are working around the clock to deliver more power to the Tranquility cluster so that the regiment of one unsharded virtual world with no instancing can hold."

 

[Lonyo]

1.5 million "real" subscribers (those paying a fair amount on their montly fee) according to that site.
I count real people as those in Europe, NA and S.Korea who pay probably an amount ~$15/mo.
So any estimates of money should probably be based around that number to give a realistic idea of WoW/Blizzard profits I reckon.


That's still 3x as many as mother other things though, which is impressive.

 

[Velk]

Originally posted by: Schadenfroh
Text

I think there is some confusion about World of Warcraft (WoW) subscribers vs. other MMOGs.

I keep seeing people quote stuff like "WoW has 5,000,000 million subscribers and EQ2 only has 500,000".

Well, that really isn't a fair comparison. WoW has a different pricing model in the Asian market, due to the popularity of gaming cafes. WoW can be downloaded (for 30 Yuan) and then it's a pay to play (.45 Yuan / hour). So basically, anyone who's ever tried WoW...even for like 5 minutes is considered a WoW subscriber because Blizzard doesn't know if they'll be back or not. For the EQ2 numbers, it's the current count of paying monthly subscribers.

See some of this reference information:
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/content_page.php?section_name=new&aid=9354
http://www.gamespot.com/news/6127037.html
http://www.gamingsteve.com/archives/2005/11/with_all_the_ta.php


WoW "Subscriber" = #of People that have tried WoW
EQ2 Subscriber = #of people currently signed up for a regularly billed pay plan

Since there are eleventy billion people in China, I assume a lot of people have downloaded WoW...tried it, and then never played again. Since they have an account that is pay per play, they are still listed as a subscriber. This is where the numbers skew and shouldn't be compared.

A better comparison, which we won't get from either company, would be total number of people logged in to each game over a long period of time. Or better yet, total number of unique accounts that have invested X number of hours.

Am I off on this notion?

Bottom line: There aren't 5M people paying to play WoW at this very moment. While I too would like reassurance that EQ2 is experiencing healthy growth and will be around for the long-haul, I think all the "Chicken Littles" are raising red flags over some mis-interpreted statistics.

PLEASE - I am not looking for any flame wars here, just want to make sure I understand the way these "statistics" are being put together. I'm not trying to start another WoW vs. EQ2 debate.

Interesting.... I had always thought that when Blizzard said that WoW has 5,000,000 subscribers, that they were stating that they had people subscribing to the monthly fee via CC or long term game cards.

So in Asia, you get to pay by the hour?

Yes, however, the person that wrote that is either ignorant or a troll. Every subscriber message blizz announces has the following attached to it :

World of Warcraft's Customer Definition
World of Warcraft customers include individuals who have paid a subscription fee or purchased a prepaid card to play World of Warcraft, as well as those who have purchased the installation box bundled with one free month access. Internet Game Room players that have accessed the game over the last seven days are also counted as customers. The above definition excludes all players under free promotional subscriptions, expired or cancelled subscriptions, and expired pre-paid cards. Customers in licensees' territories are defined along the same rules.

It's fairly self explanatory and contrary to more or less every point raised by the person you quoted. That someone on the EQ2 boards who says "While I too would like reassurance that EQ2 is experiencing healthy growth" is an unreliable source should be intuitively obvious.

 

[Malak]

Think about how many people are running multiple accounts. How many people that have bought the game in the last month, have the free access, but aren't playing any longer. How many people in this "Internet Game Room" that are counted but don't seem to fall into the subscriber catagory. How many actual people are playing? I've known people to have as many as 6 or 7 accounts in an MMO. None of these numbers really count.

 

[hooflung]

Originally posted by: Malak

Originally posted by: Czar
in other news, eve online went past 100.000 subscribers few days ago

What's their current record for on at same time?

They are over 23000 at once. www.eve-online.com