World of Warcraft up to 4 million subscribers now.

[blurredvision]

http://www.gamespot.com/news/2005/08/29/news_6132187.html

Jesus christ, that's insane. Assuming the average numbers, Blizzard has gotten around $200 million in game sales, and is raking in another $60 million a month. Obviously these numbers aren't accurate, since not everyone paid $50 for the game, or if at all, and I'm sure quite a few get a few dollars discounted on their subs by paying in advance. But those numbers are gigantic. :shocked:

 

[spaceghost21]

VU not Blizzard, has gotten most of the cash.

I mean, at least that's what I'd assume.

Crazy none the less!

 

[VIAN]

Crap, with all the money they make, they should never..... ever sell a game like that for 50 bucks. With all that money they make off of the game a month - they are living the high life.

 

[thawolfman]

Now if only they channeled some of that money back into support

 

[Stangs55]

2 x level 60's here and cancelled my subscription last week....ready for something new besides mc farming

 

[Hacp]

DIE WOW. If WoW doesn't die Diablo3=Doomed.

 

[DaveSimmons]

VU gets nothing like $50 a copy, since they sell to distributors for 40-60% off and have to manufacture the game.

$60 million a month (before expenses) is a huge reward but they also took a huge risk -- look at all the other MMORPGs that came out and fizzled after spending tens of millions in development costs.

 

[Noema]

Originally posted by: Hacp
DIE WOW. If WoW doesn't die Diablo3=Doomed.

No!!

Viva el WoW!!

 

[Yanagi]

Originally posted by: Hacp
DIE WOW. If WoW doesn't die Diablo3=Doomed.

How dare you disrespect the allmighty WoW? I will smite you with my mighty e-penis of wood!

 

[Bateluer]

I wonder what % of that figure is in China/Korea/Other Asian countries?

 

[Sunner]

Originally posted by: Hacp
DIE WOW. If WoW doesn't die Diablo3=Doomed.

If anything revenues from WoW could help pay for Diablo III development.

 

[Czar]

http://www.mmogchart.com/

 

[blurredvision]

Originally posted by: DaveSimmons
VU gets nothing like $50 a copy, since they sell to distributors for 40-60% off and have to manufacture the game.

This I know. I was just trying to make a shock statement by adding up the numbers.

 

[HardcoreRobot]

LOLOLOLOLOL

4 million fanboys!!!

Blizzard's sales show how many fanboys are out there. The total subscription is still below EQ1 and about equal to EQ2, and there are other more popular MMO's than that. So even the fanboys couldn't push it into #1, and never will.

go wow!

 

[Sunner]

Originally posted by: HardcoreRobot
LOLOLOLOLOL

4 million fanboys!!!

Blizzard's sales show how many fanboys are out there. The total subscription is still below EQ1 and about equal to EQ2, and there are other more popular MMO's than that. So even the fanboys couldn't push it into #1, and never will.

go wow!

Aside from the fact that I don't quite understand the point of this post(if any), unless I'm mistaken the number of WoW subscribers easily eclipses EQ and EQ2 together.

 

[HardcoreRobot]

Originally posted by: Sunner

Originally posted by: HardcoreRobot
LOLOLOLOLOL

4 million fanboys!!!

Blizzard's sales show how many fanboys are out there. The total subscription is still below EQ1 and about equal to EQ2, and there are other more popular MMO's than that. So even the fanboys couldn't push it into #1, and never will.

go wow!

Aside from the fact that I don't quite understand the point of this post(if any), unless I'm mistaken the number of WoW subscribers easily eclipses EQ and EQ2 together.

im just taking another stab at wow haters (thats not my quote - was said by a fellow ater in february)

 

[Sunner]

Originally posted by: HardcoreRobot
im just taking another stab at wow haters (thats not my quote - was said by a fellow ater in february)

Gotcha.

 

[Hadsus]

Originally posted by: Sunner

Originally posted by: HardcoreRobot
LOLOLOLOLOL

4 million fanboys!!!

Blizzard's sales show how many fanboys are out there. The total subscription is still below EQ1 and about equal to EQ2, and there are other more popular MMO's than that. So even the fanboys couldn't push it into #1, and never will.

go wow!

Aside from the fact that I don't quite understand the point of this post(if any), unless I'm mistaken the number of WoW subscribers easily eclipses EQ and EQ2 together.

That's not saying much. Game developers allied with hard core clan fanbois developed EQ2 into a steaming pile of sh*t. Forced grouping, PITA trading, supersprawling cities, lack of zones=failure.

 

[jdport]

I'm not a WoW hater, but I have to take some excpetion to this reporting.
WoW's numbers are so overbloated, and fake. Even in the article look what it says:

But just what are "paying customers"? Blizzard defines the term as being someone who has "paid a subscription fee or purchased a pre-paid card to play World of Warcraft" or someone who has "has purchased the installation box bundled with one free month access." The company also counted "Internet Game Room players [who have] accessed the game over the last seven days" as paying customers.

If they are counting anybody who has gone into an internet cafe and accessed the game in the last 7 days as a paying customer... or every person who has bought hte box and gotten their free month as paying customers then sure.. maybe they've pushed that mark. I'm willing to bet though that EQII has very close to the same numbers in North America as Blizzard has... but SOE has not gone into the asian market as Blizzard has. I'd love to see a real report of how many people bought the game and never installed it... how many installed it and played their free month and quit... how many played it for 6 months and quit, and how many now are actually actively playing.

I do not dispute that WoW is very successful.. it's a great game, I've played it myself since release... however I recently cancelled my subscription. So since my account is active until October, I'm still a paying customer even though I haven't really played in weeks. I just don't think they need to inflate their numbers the way they do to show that they are successful. I think they could report true numbers and still be very successful without lying to the public and trying to make themselves into some super phenomina that they aren't.

If anything, I'd argue that server instability, lack of CS (by far worse than SOE's ever was), and the fact that the game just gets boring after a while because it's so damn easy that their numbers are declining and they have hit their peak. I could be wrong about that, I don't have numbers at my disposal but I can't help but wonder if that isn't the reason they are going out now and pushing all these bloated figures... to counter the fact that they are starting to lose some of the momentum they had going for them.

-jd

 

[HeroOfPellinor]

There's 1.7 million preorders for Kanye West's new album too.

 

[HardcoreRobot]

Originally posted by: HeroOfPellinor
There's 1.7 million preorders for Kanye West's new album too.

many people enjoy a variety of different music and purchase dozens if not hunderds of CDs from all different genres. the ratio of people that will buy the kanye west album to people that listen to music is quite small.

generally speaking, most people only dedicate themselves to one mmorpg at a time, and the ratio of people that play wow compared to all mmorpg players is quite high. im not really sure your comparison holds any water.

 

[erikistired]

Originally posted by: HeroOfPellinor
There's 1.7 million preorders for Kanye West's new album too.

HATE HATE HATE.

c'mon you can do better than that!

 

[skace]

Originally posted by: jdport
But just what are "paying customers"? Blizzard defines the term as being someone who has "paid a subscription fee or purchased a pre-paid card to play World of Warcraft" or someone who has "has purchased the installation box bundled with one free month access." The company also counted "Internet Game Room players [who have] accessed the game over the last seven days" as paying customers.

Umm... someone who goes to an internet cafe and logs on with their account IS a paying customer. Otherwise it would say "I'm sorry asskicker69, your account is inactive". Look at the gaming chart that was posted for more accurate numbers, you will be humbled.

 

[jdport]

how does that humble me? I looked at it, and it doesn't mean anything since it isn't comparing apples to apples. WoW and lineage both run in the Asian market, EQ/EQII run only in North America and Europe. Show me a chart of North America only and I'd be willing to bet the numbers would be much closer. Further more, these are just using the numbers that blizzard is spewing which I still believe are inflated. As for the comment about the internet cafe, if that is the case then why don't they ONLY report the number of accounts that have actually been played on in the last 7 days... what difference does it make if they log on from an internet cafe, or from their homes, businesses, or schools? And what difference does it make if they pay by credit card or game card? The fact that they put all of that in their definition makes it sound to me like a lot of double counting and bloat to inflate their numbers.

%marketshare is kind of a screwed up thing to show anyway... since many people play more than one game how do you define "marketshare" .. there is no finite size... so how do you get a % of infinity? Looking at that pie chart, they show EQ, EQII, planetside, Star Wars Galaxies... but a large number of those players are paying with the Sony All Access pass which allows them to play ANY of those games for one subscription fee, so each of those games could be lumped into one, or could all have higher numbers ... it's just a meaningless chart altogether the more I think about it. There isn't any way to make it mean anything as it is set up.


-jd

 

[fishbits]

why don't they ONLY report the number of accounts that have actually been played on in the last 7 days

Uh, because that's a less meaningful statistic. What does it matter if a person doesn't log in in the last 7 days if they still find WoW to be of enough value that they're paying to play? If we're going to go that route, can Blizzard count as subscribers people who want to play but haven't paid up, if we're going to count people who did pay but haven't played as non-subscribers? Do we go back and repossess gold and platinum albums from recording artists if the people who paid for them haven't actually listened to them in the last 7 days, or do those sales still count?

There's all kinds of metrics that can be used. Counting people who plunk down their dollars is certainly a fair one, there's far more artificial ones that can be used, kudos to Blizzard for sticking to objective data on this. You seem to have an emotional investment in saying that WoW isn't as popular/successful as it is. Blizzard put out a product good enough to get people to pay them for it, that's success right there. I'm sure Evian wouldn't mind it at all if you bought a case of their bottled water and took it straight home to water your grass with... they did their job in making something you wanted to buy. You're introducing the apples-to-oranges comparison by claiming that Bliz can't count subscribers as... subscribers... unless they can prove that that subscriber played what, every day for how many hours per day?

Now personally I think WoW has jumped the shark and will experience decreased subs over the coming months. Only too late will Bliz recognize/ admit/ work on things it should have for a long while now. But I've got no reason to pretend their immense success didn't happen, and isn't happening to this very day.