WoW revenue down 54% in seven months

[Veliko]

This may be true *to a certain extent* but, IMO, is not the problem. A "virtual world" such as the WoW world is STILL interesting. For example, the WoW world is huge enough that even after many years of playing there is still things to see and to explore.

The PROBLEM is that the game companies actively discourage people to actually explore those worlds. It starts with giving out flying mounts, quick-travel etc..etc.. LFR systems and in general turning the game into a DUTY where people do chores at certain times where the EXPLORATION ASPECT is not even part of the game anymore.

For me, the thing that stopped me exploring in WoW was the sheer amount of respawning mobs.

I came into WoW and decided to try and apply the mindset I had developed whilst playing Baldurs Gate 2 - explore everywhere, do every quest, look in every nook and cranny in case there's something there.

I quickly learned that there's no time to do exploring due to the respawning mobs, and that there was really nothing to gain from exploring anyway - there was nothing there when got to wherever you were going.

If anything, the flying mounts encouraged me to explore.

I find Guild Wars 2 to be a very exploration-friendly game and that has teleport locations all over the place.

 

[Sheep221]

This! If you were a serious raider, the only items you fretted over were those super, ultra rare things like Ashes of Ala'r. Even if you had TK on farm, the chances of you getting that were so low.

I was talking about equipment gear, not the mounts directly, but yes the Alar was really rare drop at the time, I don't even remember it ever dropped when we were in. There were always only like 2-3 players on entire server who had the phoenix, and probably another 2 with warglazives of azzinoth.

 

[justoh]

For me, the thing that stopped me exploring in WoW was the sheer amount of respawning mobs.

I came into WoW and decided to try and apply the mindset I had developed whilst playing Baldurs Gate 2 - explore everywhere, do every quest, look in every nook and cranny in case there's something there.

I quickly learned that there's no time to do exploring due to the respawning mobs, and that there was really nothing to gain from exploring anyway - there was nothing there when got to wherever you were going.

If anything, the flying mounts encouraged me to explore.

I find Guild Wars 2 to be a very exploration-friendly game and that has teleport locations all over the place.

Hmm, have you considered killing them? I don't mean to be sarcastic but it takes like 5 seconds or less if you're level appropriate for the area, and unlike in everquest, for example, they return to their spawn areas if they get too far away from them, so most of the time you can just run through them/ignore them. This complaint seems rather bizarre. Mobs respawn too fast, discouraging exploration? I've read a lot of complaints on various wow forums, but this one i've never come across, hehe.

 

[smackababy]

Hmm, have you considered killing them? I don't mean to be sarcastic but it takes like 5 seconds or less if you're level appropriate for the area, and unlike in everquest, for example, they return to their spawn areas if they get too far away from them, so most of the time you can just run through them/ignore them. This complaint seems rather bizarre. Mobs respawn too fast, discouraging exploration? I've read a lot of complaints on various wow forums, but this one i've never come across, hehe.

I would think the biggest complaint about exploration in WoW is that there just isn't anything interesting hidden out there. The areas / quests are pretty streamlined and generally lead you from area to area. There is little incentive spending resources developing some hidden area you have to explore to find.

 

[Veliko]

Hmm, have you considered killing them? I don't mean to be sarcastic but it takes like 5 seconds or less if you're level appropriate for the area, and unlike in everquest, for example, they return to their spawn areas if they get too far away from them, so most of the time you can just run through them/ignore them. This complaint seems rather bizarre. Mobs respawn too fast, discouraging exploration? I've read a lot of complaints on various wow forums, but this one i've never come across, hehe.

It'll take 5 seconds to kill each one of them and then when you get to that place you see that there's nothing there, and then you've got to kill those respawned enemies again.

If you just run through an area, well, that's not really exploring is it? If I want to see what's in that cave or in all the rooms of that house, I've got to kill everything each time.

 

[ewdotson]

No, because as the new raids are released less and less people are geared for them so less people do them.

Naxx40 is pretty much the canonical example, in my opinion. There simply weren't very many people who ever had the opportunity to run it.

 

[Aikouka]

I would think the biggest complaint about exploration in WoW is that there just isn't anything interesting hidden out there. The areas / quests are pretty streamlined and generally lead you from area to area. There is little incentive spending resources developing some hidden area you have to explore to find.

You'd think that Archaeology would be the mechanism to help solve that, but it's pretty much limited to specific areas.

 

[justoh]

It'll take 5 seconds to kill each one of them and then when you get to that place you see that there's nothing there, and then you've got to kill those respawned enemies again.

If you just run through an area, well, that's not really exploring is it? If I want to see what's in that cave or in all the rooms of that house, I've got to kill everything each time.

Hmm yeah, you have a point. All the houses/buildings are the same, with the same layout and design. Nothing unique. Should be the main complaint and I guess it is. The respawning mobs thing just threw me off a bit. I have noticed how everything is the same but it never occurred to me to want to explore things really. I've always focused on gear and raiding and race through to max level as quickly as I can with each new character, usually using zygor guides to automate the process as much as possible. I've read very few quests. I despise doing them but it's the fastest way to level a lot of the time, especially after level 68 or so. Dungeons can be faster for the first 70 levels if you're tank or healer or can queue with one.

But yeah, wow isn't the right game for that sort of thing. It's not really even a proper MMORPG, so people are quite right in shortening it to MMO.

 

[Chiropteran]

It's astonishing how quickly you so-called hardcore raiders contradict yourselves.

Seriously? Are you really this bad at following a thread? I literally just posted this 45 minutes before your post, how can you forget so quickly?

Nope. By any measure, when I played last I was a casual. As a casual, I was annoyed by the idea that my gear would be forever obsolete, because anything I collected would be replaced a few months later when the next content patch was released. Like I said, I preferred the older days of WoW, when you could work hard to obtain a nice item but that nice item would remain useful for a very long time.

No, because as the new raids are released less and less people are geared for them so less people do them.

Wait a second here. A new raid is released, and now less people are geared for the prior raid than before? What happened to their gear?

You have 200 players raiding Molten Core. BWL is released. Now there are 100 players raiding Blackwing Lair, because the other 100 don't have good enough gear. But they are still raiding Molten Core! There aren't less raiders, that is simply a falsehood, and eventually when they finish gearing up in Molten Core they will move on to Blackwing Lair.

I know what you are trying to imply, is that somehow only the most recent raid "counts" and all prior content is meaningless. Well, I say that is BS. Why should content be disposable? A two year old raid should still be viable content to run.

First of all you're saying that the current system means people do less raids, and yet now you're claiming that people are moving onto the newer ones all the time.

Never claimed that. Quit making stuff up. Raiding old raids is raiding. I said people would raid. Try to put 1 and 1 together and realize I meant that people would actually raid where they were geared to raid, not necessarily the latest and greatest raid in every case.

If we're going to discuss stupid and pointless strategies, I think it's safe to say that putting considerable effort into creating content that 90% of your player base isn't ever going to see is right up there at the top of the list.

Why, because you say so? It seems that the reality of the market disagrees, the "everyone can see all the content" strategy is largely killing the game, while WoW had incredible success and massive player growth back when it actually had some hard content that wasn't just handing out free epics to everyone.

Also, you love throwing out numbers. Consider WoW has 10 classes, each with 3 (4 for druids) potential specs. There are a few players that actually max out every single class and spec, but I'd be willing to bet that a lot of players NEVER touch a tank spec of any kind at max level, and many never touch a healer spec. Is it a waste of resources to develop healing classes, since many players will never play them? Is it a waste of resources to develop tanking classes, since 80% of the players will never play a tank?

You need to make your mind up here - it either matters to you or it doesn't.

Read the subject of the thread, it may enlighten you as to why I am posting. It doesn't matter to me as a player. I am speculating as to why WoW numbers are plummeting.

This opinion piece contradicts itself:

There is no contradiction, you just failed at reading. The resets put the casual behind the curve. The "elite" and the "curve" are two different things. Even a casual wants to be average, and it's frustrating every gear reset when you start over at the bottom again.

 

[railven]

There is no contradiction, you just failed at reading. The resets put the casual behind the curve. The "elite" and the "curve" are two different things. Even a casual wants to be average, and it's frustrating every gear reset when you start over at the bottom again.

Then answer the question I asked - what's the curve?

If 90% of people are running around in LFR gear or worse, that sort of dictates the "average." So what are they constantly playing catch up with?

Is it content? (Nope clear it in LFR.)
Is it iLVL? (what dictates "average" or at that "normal" if it's normal raiding, the casuals were always behind, since vanilla.)

So what is the magical number that this author (and it seems yourself) were chasing?

 

[Chiropteran]

Then answer the question I asked - what's the curve?

So what are they constantly playing catch up with?

Is it content? (Nope clear it in LFR.)
Is it iLVL? (what dictates "average" or at that "normal" if it's normal raiding, the casuals were always behind, since vanilla.)

So what is the magical number that this author (and it seems yourself) were chasing?

In the absence of gear resets, a casual can slowly collect gear, hit "average" after playing a few months, and from then even if the casual takes a month or two off he will still be at least "average" or close to it.

With gear resets, a casual again slowly collects gear, up until the next "reset" is around average, but immediately following the reset the casual is suddenly far behind, until he spends months farming up the easy LFR gear.

Do you understand the difference?

Without gear resets, a casual can slowly acquire gear, and play at his/her own pace once that gear is acquired. With them, he/she must raid regularly in LFR or other "welfare epic" collection mini-games (farming rep and tokens, or PvP farming honor, or whatever).

Being forced to constantly farm or else you fall behind the average is casual unfriendly.

If 90% of people are running around in LFR gear or worse, that sort of dictates the "average."

Obviously. LFR is a joke and essentially free epics, but it isn't without a cost- it requires a massive time investment. In order to remain merely "average", you have to spend hours and hours in LFR collecting this gear. That is where you are forced to constantly "catch up" if you want to remain on curve.

Time is pretty much the most important thing in WoW, so I'm not sure why you think that wasting time collecting LFR gear is something everyone should be overjoyed about doing.

 

[Veliko]

Wait a second here. A new raid is released, and now less people are geared for the prior raid than before? What happened to their gear?

You have 200 players raiding Molten Core. BWL is released. Now there are 100 players raiding Blackwing Lair, because the other 100 don't have good enough gear. But they are still raiding Molten Core! There aren't less raiders, that is simply a falsehood, and eventually when they finish gearing up in Molten Core they will move on to Blackwing Lair.

I know what you are trying to imply, is that somehow only the most recent raid "counts" and all prior content is meaningless. Well, I say that is BS. Why should content be disposable? A two year old raid should still be viable content to run.

This is getting absurd. Those people who can't through Molten Core will simply get bored and stop playing, rather than continually bash their heads against a wall for two years.

Never claimed that. Quit making stuff up. Raiding old raids is raiding. I said people would raid. Try to put 1 and 1 together and realize I meant that people would actually raid where they were geared to raid, not necessarily the latest and greatest raid in every case.

So would the top guilds be satisfied with continually raiding Naxx 40 for the rest of their WoW days, or would they begin demanding new content?

As I said above, those players who can't get past those earlier raids will eventually get bored and go elsewhere.

Why, because you say so? It seems that the reality of the market disagrees, the "everyone can see all the content" strategy is largely killing the game, while WoW had incredible success and massive player growth back when it actually had some hard content that wasn't just handing out free epics to everyone.

No, the market agrees with me. WoW was, from the very start of its life, the most casual and easy MMO. It was very popular as a result.

Any game or product experiences the most growth in the beginning as it is starting from zero.

WoW is still an incredible success.

Also, you love throwing out numbers. Consider WoW has 10 classes, each with 3 (4 for druids) potential specs. There are a few players that actually max out every single class and spec, but I'd be willing to bet that a lot of players NEVER touch a tank spec of any kind at max level, and many never touch a healer spec. Is it a waste of resources to develop healing classes, since many players will never play them? Is it a waste of resources to develop tanking classes, since 80% of the players will never play a tank?

Worst. Analogy. Ever.

Read the subject of the thread, it may enlighten you as to why I am posting. It doesn't matter to me as a player. I am speculating as to why WoW numbers are plummeting.

It clearly does matter to you as a player.

 

[AViking]

This is getting absurd. Those people who can't through Molten Core will simply get bored and stop playing, rather than continually bash their heads against a wall for two years.

No they didn't just stop playing.

In Vanilla this is how it worked. On patch days now you have the entire server abandoning whatever raid content they were working on and immediately going to the new content. Because they can. This is probably a reason for all the lag and server problems we were experiencing. Now in Vanilla in BC you had people in every raid progressing. Just because new content was released didn't mean you just dropped everything and started that. You would get there when you were ready. So you would have people raiding 5 mans, heroics, getting attuned, Karazhan, Gruul, Mag, getting attuned, SSC, TK, getting attuned, Hyjal, BT, and then ultimately Sunwell for a few. You had friends in all different parts of the expansion pack. People helped each other on alts and showed other guilds how content was done.

Look at subscription numbers. Is it coincidence that once they made these changes their numbers dropped? Was it just time for WOW to start declining? It seems to me that there was an incredible spike in subscriptions after the South Park episode and the BC release but what changed in Wrath that caused such a huge exodus?

 

[Veliko]

No they didn't just stop playing.

In Vanilla this is how it worked. On patch days now you have the entire server abandoning whatever raid content they were working on and immediately going to the new content. Because they can. This is probably a reason for all the lag and server problems we were experiencing. Now in Vanilla in BC you had people in every raid progressing. Just because new content was released didn't mean you just dropped everything and started that. You would get there when you were ready. So you would have people raiding 5 mans, heroics, getting attuned, Karazhan, Gruul, Mag, getting attuned, SSC, TK, getting attuned, Hyjal, BT, and then ultimately Sunwell for a few. You had friends in all different parts of the expansion pack. People helped each other on alts and showed other guilds how content was done.

A small percentage of people did those things, yes.

More people are doing more of the raids in current WoW than they did in vanilla WoW. How many players in vanilla saw Naxx 40? And how many players in WotLK saw the ICC raid?

You contradict yourself here anyway. If the actual numbers of people doing raids was always constant, the release of a new tier wouldn't be responsible for server lag because the number of raids taking place wouldn't change - merely which raids were being run.

Look at subscription numbers. Is it coincidence that once they made these changes their numbers dropped? Was it just time for WOW to start declining? It seems to me that there was an incredible spike in subscriptions after the South Park episode and the BC release but what changed in Wrath that caused such a huge exodus?

If I look at the subscription numbers, they show that WoW is still very healthy. According the WoLK and Pandaria articles on Wikipedia, subscribers were around the 10 million mark in October 2012.

 

[AViking]

You seem to have misunderstood me. If EVERYONE is in the same raid instance then that could have led to the server instability and disconnects. Every raid is not running on the same server.

In addition, subscription numbers are now 7.7 million as of the end of July. That was a 600,000 subscriber loss in 3 months. So you have a 54% drop in revenue in 7 months and around a 23% drop in subscriptions over a 10 month period if your numbers are correct.

 

[Veliko]

You seem to have misunderstood me. If EVERYONE is in the same raid instance then that could have led to the server instability and disconnects. Every raid is not running on the same server.

That's not how it works. A raid instance is a raid instance.

In addition, subscription numbers are now 7.7 million as of the end of July. That was a 600,000 subscriber loss in 3 months. So you have a 54% drop in revenue in 7 months and around a 23% drop in subscriptions over a 10 month period if your numbers are correct.

So that's a recent drop rather than a post-Wrath drop then.

And there's always a drop in players over the summer months, along with the dubiousness of the claim of a 54% fall in revenue.

 

[styrafoam]

My recollection of vanilla seems to be much different than many discussing it here. Most servers, if they were busy, could support 3 or 4 successful raiding guilds per faction. In saying successful, i mean that they would have the current content on farm with their core group fully geared when the new content was introduced. If you weren't in one of these guilds, you were extremely lucky to get in a successful raid. You were also extremely lucky to have the stars align in such a way that you won a drop. Some of the craziest convoluted loot rules you can imagine were in play in 40 man raiding guilds in vanilla, it made it extremely frustrating for more than a few people.

Anyone still farming up their tier 1 set when the top guilds were farming AQ40 was pretty much guaranteed to NEVER see anything but what their low end guild was working on. They weren't geared, they were a liability. They were also a "scrub" or a "noob". It was a giant drag to go months without an upgrade, and it was just sad to run up against a better geared group in any sort of PVP. It was a position that nobody enjoyed being in. No one watched a someone walk by in full T3 and thought "well, i sure do love my T1 chest." These are the people that are supposed to happily pay for a year of end game raiding the previous 2 patches of content, basically as a 2nd class player. Its wasn't impossible to break out, but it wasn't a friendly situation either. Once you passed BWL you almost required a successful guild to advance. The mish mash of items to get your AQ set was a drag, and the Naxx attune was a fortune in gold and mats.

In short, if you had a drop that you won a year ago and you loved it you weren't paying attention. Everyone on top who saw you running around in outdated gear thought you were a kook. If you were on top, you didn't look back. You had to concentrate on your next raid, there was no point in running raids or attunement runs that you stood to gain nothing from.

 

[AViking]

That's not how it works. A raid instance is a raid instance.

When a raid instance goes down all of them do not go down. It's the same with zones.

So that's a recent drop rather than a post-Wrath drop then.

And there's always a drop in players over the summer months, along with the dubiousness of the claim of a 54% fall in revenue.

I posted a graph earlier of subscription numbers.

 

[Veliko]

When a raid instance goes down all of them do not go down. It's the same with zones.

It would depend what the issue is. I used to get the 'too many instances in use' error for all raids and dungeons when ICC was first released.

Either way, a lack of capacity isn't a valid argument against allowing catch up of the tier.

I posted a graph earlier of subscription numbers.

Which didn't really prove anything other than that WoW is still healthy in terms of subscriber numers.

 

[AViking]

You realize that this whole thread is revolving around a 54% drop in revenue right?

 

[Veliko]

You realize that this whole thread is revolving around a 54% drop in revenue right?

It's a somewhat dubious claim and one that many people aren't willing to look at in any kind of context.

 

[AViking]

Well what context would that be?

I didn't really think there was that much discuss regarding subscription and revenue drops beyond why they're happening and what we have as opinions on how to make things better.

Did you want to discuss their accounting practices?

 

[Veliko]

Well what context would that be?

It's nearly ten years old and nothing lasts forever.
There's always a drop in subs over summer.
There's other MMOs on the market.
The rise of other microtransaction games might be taking some revenue away.

Are some examples.

I didn't really think there was that much discuss regarding subscription and revenue drops beyond why they're happening and what we have as opinions on how to make things better.

Did you want to discuss their accounting practices?

As has been asked before... do you even read the replies to your posts....?

 

[Chiropteran]

This is getting absurd. Those people who can't through Molten Core will simply get bored and stop playing, rather than continually bash their heads against a wall for two years.

Ah, that explains why WoW was a failure, and people quit in droves during vanilla. Oh wait, that didn't happen. Reality completely contradicts your theory.

What people actually did, if they were having problems in Molten Core:

ZG, or AQ20, or Dire Maul even (as far as 5 man dungeons it was very hard at release, and offered some very strong blue gear), or ran regular 5 man dungeons to collect some of the remaining upgrades they might need, or worked the tier "1.5" quest line, which was arguably a harder than molten core, but didn't require more than 10 players for any part of it. Or they focused on crafting, or class quests.

The difference between now and then, you see, is that now LFR, or PvP, or collecting badge gear trumps everything else.

So would the top guilds be satisfied with continually raiding Naxx 40 for the rest of their WoW days, or would they begin demanding new content?

Please follow the thread. For one thing, I've said an occasional gear reset during an expansion is okay, every 2-4 years, not nearly as bad as a reset every 5 months. For another, you can always add new content without making it easier than the previous tier.

As I said above, those players who can't get past those earlier raids will eventually get bored and go elsewhere.

In reality, this didn't happen. In reality, players are getting bored and going elsewhere today, with easy mode LFR raids released each patch.

Your theory is wrong, and you should feel bad.

No, the market agrees with me. WoW was, from the very start of its life, the most casual and easy MMO. It was very popular as a result.

WoW, at the start of it's life, didn't have your precious LFR. Your theory that lack of it would kill the player base has been proven wrong. Only in a reality distortion field does the market agree with you.

Any game or product experiences the most growth in the beginning as it is starting from zero.

WoW is still an incredible success.

http://massively.joystiq.com/2012/02/29/blizzard-announces-layoffs-of-600-employees-worldwide/

Why don't you ask those 600 employees how successful they feel right now?

Worst. Analogy. Ever.

It isn't an analogy. Look up the word, you really should know things like this if you are a professional writer.

An analogy is when you take an outside example, like if I was using a car example. I am giving you a counter example of something else inside the same game, and asking if your logic applies there as well. Obviously it doesn't, your logic is flawed. In a broad game such as WoW, even if something only applies to 10% of the player base it can still be a worthy thing.

 

[railven]

In the absence of gear resets, a casual can slowly collect gear, hit "average" after playing a few months, and from then even if the casual takes a month or two off he will still be at least "average" or close to it.

With gear resets, a casual again slowly collects gear, up until the next "reset" is around average, but immediately following the reset the casual is suddenly far behind, until he spends months farming up the easy LFR gear.

Do you understand the difference?

This is where you keep making it seem like the "casual" is further behind than he really is. It seems you've openly admitted the casual is aiming for LFR gear. So they are only behind the current LFR content. Which doesn't take months to clear. By saying "after playing a few months" you are now arguing RNG mechanics. Which affects even the elites.

With both of us drawing a clear line in the sand separating casuals and elites (ie they are not competing with each other) you do notice that the elite has to climb the same ladder, once again, with a new tier set. They are equally far behind because they still have to investment x-amount of time to return to their tier.

If a guild is a normal raiding gear, then aim is to clear normal, and depending on the guild that could take "months and months." The same for a heroic guild.

Without gear resets, a casual can slowly acquire gear, and play at his/her own pace once that gear is acquired. With them, he/she must raid regularly in LFR or other "welfare epic" collection mini-games (farming rep and tokens, or PvP farming honor, or whatever).

Isn't that exactly what LFR does for them? New tier content doesn't come out every other month. A casual doesn't have to farm rep, or do dailies, or collection coins, they can easily get the into the first tier of LFR and then (well you claimed they'd bypass all content) gear up through LFR.

Being forced to constantly farm or else you fall behind the average is casual unfriendly.

I don't even know your argument anymore. Grinding in an MMORPG is unfriendly to EVERYONE. All tiers have to grind. No one is exempted.

Obviously. LFR is a joke and essentially free epics, but it isn't without a cost- it requires a massive time investment. In order to remain merely "average", you have to spend hours and hours in LFR collecting this gear. That is where you are forced to constantly "catch up" if you want to remain on curve.

"Massive time investment?" Really? One hour a day, 4 days a week, LFR is done. Factor in any coins you acquire during your other 3 hours for the week (again assuming casuals are <7 hours per week) and you have a chance at 17+ rolls for loot. Factoring in RNG you can gear up in a weeks time or never (again I've had an i476 shield for 10 months.)

Basically you are describing the raiding mentally. The casuals are now positioning themselves to the raiders ideology "I NEED to have the best gear, at all times!"

Time is pretty much the most important thing in WoW, so I'm not sure why you think that wasting time collecting LFR gear is something everyone should be overjoyed about doing.

I never said should enjoy it. I never said they had to do it. And as someone who's gone from raiding 14 times a week (my addiction was at it's peak) to 3 times a week, I don't agree with your interpretation of the time required to maintain decent gear.

RNG ultimately decides your fate in LFR and it can turn your gear acquisition into divine intervention (had a guild win loot off each kill his first time in ToT LFR, we all hated him) to outright sadism (I ended up giving up on ever trying to get a shield and stop doing my extra LFR runs in hopes the WoW gods would give me a break.)

Where I come from, time is yours to manage. If you use it wisely (doing something you enjoy) it is never wasted. But that's a personal issue if you feel you have to trudge through LFR to maintain some form of relevance (you sound more like a raider with these arguments than a casual.)