I hate to say it, but Blizzard has become "The Man"

[Acanthus]

Id be a lot happier with blizzard if they could patch the game more than once every 3 months.

"Look at all this new crap coming!!" "Look at all this new crap coming!!" "Look at all this new crap coming!!" "Look at all this new crap coming!!"

And none of it has materialized, all ive seen is tons of L33t Speaking tards to ruin my entertainment.

 

[Acanthus]

Their staffing costs are much higher, the dev team is over 60 people, some well over $100,000/yr.

 

[CVSiN]

Originally posted by: DaveSimmons

Originally posted by: EpsiIon
1.5 Million WoW subscribers * minimum fee of $12/month = at least $18 million of revenue per month.

Although they have every right to charge $12/month, there's no need for them to do so (especially since they charge for the game client itself). I hate to say it, but this is a clear case of Blizzard milking consumers instead of making good games to make good games. They could easily charge $3 or $5 per month, make a tidy profit, and please their customers.

According to the n00ble thread they only have 750K subscribers.

We don't know the upfront development cost before the paid launch, and how much of that was or was not covered by their share of revenue from the software box sales.

We don't know ongoing development costs for fixing bugs, adjusting play balance, and adding new content and features.

We don't know the monthly maintenance costs for servers, bandwidth, and staff.

We don't know how much profit they're making and whether it's "reasonable" or "excessive." Also keep in mind they need to put some of the profit into development of new projects.

Provide numbers for the above and maybe I'll join you in calling them "the man."

750k US/NA subscribers.... read www.worldofwarcraft.com front page... they surpassed 1.5 million world wide...
thats insane for an MMO.... that eats EQ2 like 3 times over...

 

[Acanthus]

Its actually approaching Lineage 1 levels.

Ive cancelled my account until they patch the frigging game, im sick of waiting for the pvp system.

So -1 subscription

 

[Sunner]

Originally posted by: Acanthus
Its actually approaching Lineage 1 levels.

Ive cancelled my account until they patch the frigging game, im sick of waiting for the pvp system.

So -1 subscription

And meanwhile I have three friends who are pissed that it's sold out in every store

Seems like you guys in the US are getting the brunt of the technical problems, aside from the first week of playing, I haven't really had any technical problems at all, aside from the ever annoying "stuck when looting" bug.

 

[asm0deus]

dude they are charging me $15 a month wtf?

 

[erikistired]

Originally posted by: Sunner

Originally posted by: Acanthus
Its actually approaching Lineage 1 levels.

Ive cancelled my account until they patch the frigging game, im sick of waiting for the pvp system.

So -1 subscription

And meanwhile I have three friends who are pissed that it's sold out in every store

Seems like you guys in the US are getting the brunt of the technical problems, aside from the first week of playing, I haven't really had any technical problems at all, aside from the ever annoying "stuck when looting" bug.

hehe, my server (bloodhoof) was up all east coast primetime for the first time in 3 weeks last night. it did however crash during the day. the game has problems, whether it's hardware or software (and considering it's been so long without a fix i'm guessing software) and blizzard doesn't say anything but "have patience" everytime the server goes down for emergency repair (which is pretty much every night, including tuesday after 4 hours of maintenance downtime). my account is cancelled at the moment, but hey if things improve i'll happily change that. i love the game, but the frustration isn't worth it.

 

[ArmchairAthlete]

Besides, they're prolly too busy counting all their money and rolling around naked in the cash piles to be the slightest bit concerned about your complaints.

PROOF: http://warbucket.com/site/encyc/view_entry.php?id=107

 

[Insomniak]

Originally posted by: EpsiIon
1.5 Million WoW subscribers * minimum fee of $12/month = at least $18 million of revenue per month.

Although they have every right to charge $12/month, there's no need for them to do so (especially since they charge for the game client itself). I hate to say it, but this is a clear case of Blizzard milking consumers instead of making good games to make good games. They could easily charge $3 or $5 per month, make a tidy profit, and please their customers.

What the hell do you think Blizzard and Vivendi are in this business to do? Give out little chocolates?

Of course they want to make money you fool! Every business has one objective - to get dollars! If they do ANYTHING, it's because they think you will return to give them...more dollars!

How can you be surprised about something like this? I am amazed that people are so ignorant as to think that businesses will lose money because they like their job. No go, skeezix. If you aren't making profit, you are GONE.

 

[AMDZen]

Although I agree with the OP, I also agree with what the others are saying. Which is why I would never, ever pick up an MMORPG and play it. They are raping gamers in the a$$ if you ask me.

I'd rather play CS:S which was a freebie for hours

 

[apoppin]

Originally posted by: asm0deus
dude they are charging me $15 a month wtf?

It's $180 a year plus the costs of the game and any expansion packs.

They charge it because the market will bear it . . . and yes, they are looking to making a "killing" because it's captalism . .. sure, in that respect Blizzard has become "The Man" - something 99% of successful companies would likely do.

Now you couldn't PAY me $15 a month to play a MMORPG however, i do understand that many gamers love this game . . . if it's what you "love", $15 a month is "cheap".

 

[Sunner]

Originally posted by: fisher

Originally posted by: Sunner

Originally posted by: Acanthus
Its actually approaching Lineage 1 levels.

Ive cancelled my account until they patch the frigging game, im sick of waiting for the pvp system.

So -1 subscription

And meanwhile I have three friends who are pissed that it's sold out in every store

Seems like you guys in the US are getting the brunt of the technical problems, aside from the first week of playing, I haven't really had any technical problems at all, aside from the ever annoying "stuck when looting" bug.

hehe, my server (bloodhoof) was up all east coast primetime for the first time in 3 weeks last night. it did however crash during the day. the game has problems, whether it's hardware or software (and considering it's been so long without a fix i'm guessing software) and blizzard doesn't say anything but "have patience" everytime the server goes down for emergency repair (which is pretty much every night, including tuesday after 4 hours of maintenance downtime). my account is cancelled at the moment, but hey if things improve i'll happily change that. i love the game, but the frustration isn't worth it.

Well, sure sounds like you guys got shafted when it comes to technical problems
Again, the first week aside, I haven't been kicked out once, no emergency maintenence has hit me, and I haven't had a single logon failure.
Heck I haven't even had a login queue since week 2 or so.

Yay, I rule

 

[mryellow2]

Originally posted by: ShotgunSteven

Originally posted by: nsafreak
Well being in the IT world (as I'm sure some other posters are) I have a few ideas as to how much Blizzard is probably paying on a monthly basis for their ongoing costs and some ideas for initial development. So I'm going to give a breakdown of my estimates and see what you guys think (frankly I think they've earned every penny they've collected from me):

Initial development costs: $12.5 Million dollars
Ongoing development costs (bug fixes, additional content, etc.): $2.5 million per year
Staffing costs: $3.5 million per year
Bandwidth costs. I'm basing this on an estimate of having 2 OC-192 backbone hookups. Believe me with all of the data that is transmitted and the number of people connected at one time they need that kind of bandwidth. General cost for these is in the neighborhood of $50,000 per month. So multiply that by two and then by twelve and you get: $1.2 million per year (this is probably on the low side)
Server maintenance costs: $750,000 per year

You add all this together and you get $20.45 million dollars on the initial year. Yearly cost of $7.95 million it will take them about a year at the current possible profit to make their initial investment back. Which is always good and how they probably planned it to work out.

That sounds fairly reasonable, but I am far from an expert in such things. I know enough to realize that there are massive ongoing costs beyond just the initial development.

Tell me if I'm wrong but:

$20.45 million initial dev/year costs

$7.95 ongoing yearly
--------

Let's just round up to 28 million to recoup their costs

--------

1.5 million subscribers @ $12/month = $18,000,000 month

1.5 million boxes sold ~ $50 box = $75,000,000 initial sales. Let's say they only took in a 5% profit on the box sales = $3,750,000

--------

I know the numbers are a little goofy but I don't see how they couldn't have recouped all of their costs within the first 2-3 months. Now I have no problem at all with them making gobs and gobs of money but they really need to up the patching/content schedule and fix their fvcking servers.

 

[NeoV]

I can't stand people that complain about companies making money...your statement of "I will never pay for cable" tells me you are probably one of the direct-TV pirates, or you only pay for a cable modem connection but use it to watch TV anyway....you are also likely a software pirate by your stance.

Blizzard worked on this game for nearly 4 years - how much did they make in profit from this game during the development cycle?

How much did they pay for the servers - hardware, bandwidth, maintenance? Electric bill for all that hardware?

Advertising costs? Ongoing programming costs, since they are clearly still working on adding content and fixes?

If Blizzard was charging amounts per month more than other MMO's were charging, then you could at least complain about that and have some valid point....but your complaint is just wining - they are a company - they are entitled to not only recoup their costs but make a profit as well.

 

[Quixfire]

Originally posted by: EpsiIon
1.5 Million WoW subscribers * minimum fee of $12/month = at least $18 million of revenue per month.

Although they have every right to charge $12/month, there's no need for them to do so (especially since they charge for the game client itself). I hate to say it, but this is a clear case of Blizzard milking consumers instead of making good games to make good games. They could easily charge $3 or $5 per month, make a tidy profit, and please their customers.

Why are you complaining about SOE or any other company that charges a fee to play online. Why is Blizzard the target of your frustration?

 

[Megatomic]

Maybe because Blizzard games used to be free to play online. Battle.net never required a subscription fee.

 

[Gurck]

Originally posted by: AMDZen
Although I agree with the OP, I also agree with what the others are saying. Which is why I would never, ever pick up an MMORPG and play it. They are raping gamers in the a$$ if you ask me.

I'd rather play CS:S which was a freebie for hours

Ignorance, bliss... yep.

 

[Schadenfroh]

Originally posted by: Quixfire

Originally posted by: EpsiIon
1.5 Million WoW subscribers * minimum fee of $12/month = at least $18 million of revenue per month.

Although they have every right to charge $12/month, there's no need for them to do so (especially since they charge for the game client itself). I hate to say it, but this is a clear case of Blizzard milking consumers instead of making good games to make good games. They could easily charge $3 or $5 per month, make a tidy profit, and please their customers.

Why are you complaining about SOE or any other company that charges a fee to play online. Why is Blizzard the target of your frustration?

Because that is the game he wants to play. If he wanted to play EQ he would be bitching about sony.

 

[Megatomic]

I just love watching the MMORPG addicts get spun up over this stuff. It's like watching the atheists go rabid over deist threads in ATOT.

 

[Schadenfroh]

Originally posted by: Gurck

Originally posted by: AMDZen
Although I agree with the OP, I also agree with what the others are saying. Which is why I would never, ever pick up an MMORPG and play it. They are raping gamers in the a$$ if you ask me.

I'd rather play CS:S which was a freebie for hours

Ignorance, bliss... yep.

:thumbsup:

 

[Gurck]

Originally posted by: Megatomic
I just love watching the MMORPG addicts get spun up over this stuff. It's like watching the atheists go rabid over deist threads in ATOT.

That's odd, what I find so amazing is the interest those who profess not to be interested take in mmorpg threads. Most people simply don't click on threads which don't interest them, but the minds of trolls and CS 'k1dd13z' seem to work differently..

 

[Megatomic]

I click on lots of threads, it helps me to diversify my knowledge and interests. You can continue to live with your blinders on though, it's all a matter of choice.

 

[Gurck]

Trolling & putting down what you haven't tried and those who enjoy it = diversifying your knowledge & interests?

 

[SagaLore]

Originally posted by: EpsiIon
Think about what $18 million a month will buy and how much they're paying employess PER YEAR. Servers are a one-time cost.

Servers are not a one-time cost. Hardware upgrades, software and hardware maintenance contracts, the people to support them. New servers every few years, new servers every # of new customers. Switches and routers, the cisco support contracts. The UPS Array, the kerosene powered emergency backup generators. The fire suppression system in the data centers. The physical access security systems.

If the datacenter used a fractional OC12, that's maybe $10,000 per month. Then you need redundant Internet pipes from different vendors. So maybe $30,000 per month. Firewall, IDS, DMZ.

Then you need the departments - software development, graphics, HR, administration, sales, customer relations, management, marketing, shipping&receiving. Those departments will probably rely on a Windows 2k network and an Exchange server. So add some more IT staff, cost of Windows software and licensing. Then let's not forget all the taxes paid.

You guys think a gross profit of a few million per month is a lot? Try working in a large enterprise environment. The overhead is enormous.

 

[Sunner]

Originally posted by: Megatomic
I just love watching the MMORPG addicts get spun up over this stuff. It's like watching the atheists go rabid over deist threads in ATOT.

I play maybe 1 hour a day on average, so I hardly classify as an addict, however stupidity on the level in this thread is worth wasting a post or two on if you're bored.

And did you ever think that there's just a tiny little difference between Battle.net and WoW?
I've seen the servers that make up one of Battle.net's regional spots, it's two racks worth of 1U servers IIRC, quite old models too, ProLiant DL360 G1's IIRC.
Not a whole lot, peanuts to Blizzard, and AFAIK TeliaSonera sponsors Battle.net, so the pricetag on that probably isn't very high.