World of Warcraft: Current Year

Miele · Nov 6, 2015

Vandyn_sl said:
When all is said and done, the fact that an 11 year old game is still pulling 5+ million in active paying subs is something. That's not even covering the amount of money they make on mounts and services which I'm sure isn't pocket change. The success of Hearthstone and even Diablo III means they are not completely reliant on WoW anymore to pull insane sub numbers. That more than anything is what will keep WoW from abandoning the monthly sub model for awhile. Now, if Legion completely shits the bed the way WoD did and they tank another 1.5 mil subs they may not go F2P but continue to see more 'fluff' in the store to make up for it.

Even using random numbers, WoD cashed in 10 million copies sold, plus at least 1 month subscription for each of these copies. We're talking at a rough estimate of over 500 million dollars, which is the money required to make 5 top quality fully featured triple-A quality MMOs, not a single, feature amputated, mediocre facebook-game imitation, expansion pack. If you add a couple million subscribers that are still playing (or at least paying for the priviledge to login whenever they want) over the last year, you are looking at almost 1.5 billion dollars revenue.

How in the fucking fuck this screams "F2P soon" to anybody, I don't even...
It's true that WoD sucks and MoP was a lot better for several reasons, but the truth is that WoW still makes so much cash to be left alone for another decade.
WoD is a compilation of one bad decision after the other, up to and including Tanaan, that was the main reason for people to leave. That's it.
Legion will last a bit longer if it doesn't suck, but I bet they will cut off a few features before launch, worry not.

Xequecal · Nov 6, 2015

Miele_sl said:
Even using random numbers, WoD cashed in 10 million copies sold, plus at least 1 month subscription for each of these copies. We're talking at a rough estimate of over 500 million dollars, which is the money required to make 5 top quality fully featured triple-A quality MMOs, not a single, feature amputated, mediocre facebook-game imitation, expansion pack. If you add a couple million subscribers that are still playing (or at least paying for the priviledge to login whenever they want) over the last year, you are looking at almost 1.5 billion dollars revenue.

How in the fucking fuck this screams "F2P soon" to anybody, I don't even...
It's true that WoD sucks and MoP was a lot better for several reasons, but the truth is that WoW still makes so much cash to be left alone for another decade.
WoD is a compilation of one bad decision after the other, up to and including Tanaan, that was the main reason for people to leave. That's it.
Legion will last a bit longer if it doesn't suck, but I bet they will cut off a few features before launch, worry not.

I really don't know how many times I need to point this out, but Blizzard is a corporate subsidiary. They get handed down a budget and have to make do with that. The amount of revenue their products bring in is not relevant. This is like people claiming that, say, MTG should hire five times as many R&D people because they easily sell enough cards to pay their salaries. Just like Blizzard and WoW, MTG revenues go to Hasbro and then WOTC gets delegated a budget to make do with from their board of directors.

Foggy · Nov 6, 2015

Xequecal_sl said:
I really don't know how many times I need to point this out, but Blizzard is a corporate subsidiary. They get handed down a budget and have to make do with that. The amount of revenue their products bring in is not relevant. This is like people claiming that, say, MTG should hire five times as many R&D people because they easily sell enough cards to pay their salaries. Just like Blizzard and WoW, MTG revenues go to Hasbro and then WOTC gets delegated a budget to make do with from their board of directors.

Don't pretend like you know the Activision Blizzard corporate structure.

Bruman · Nov 6, 2015

Sutekh_sl said:
No I don't think they will. They know the game is dying and almost dead. It's at vanilla level subs and they've said they're not longer reporting it because of how pathetically low it is compared to what it was.

Lol, the most popular and successful MMO out there is not "dying". The market has shifted a ton though, they definitely need to adjust. But it's not reasonable to expect as many people to play MMOs in the same way we did 10 years ago. What other notable MMOs are sub only? FFXIV? (comedy option: Pantheon). But still - dying? Lololololol. Dying on their fucking mountains of cash that it still rakes in.

Vinyard_sl said:
They may have came back for WoD, but they left pretty quick. Game went from what, 10 million to 5 in less than a year? And WoW won't be getting any content until Legion. ~3 Million subs by the time Legion launches is my guess

Yeah, but seriously here - 10 million * $50 box = WoW is doing fine. D3 keeps trucking along with content and other updates with no sub fee.

Rogosh · Nov 6, 2015

Lol at Sept 2016, if they don't at least announce another tier today at Blizzcon they may not even be at 1 million subs in 3 months.

Gorehack · Nov 6, 2015

If you want a hilarious dose of stupid while at work today:QuakeNet Web IRC (qwebirc)

MMO-Champ IRC

bixxby · Nov 6, 2015

Slaythe · Nov 6, 2015

Everyone that unsubs now will sign back up when the expansion drops. The same thing happened with WOD. WOW is definitely on the decline but even a long release date isn't going to do long term harm until they have real competition in the market.

Vinyard_sl · Nov 6, 2015

I know for a fact I will get the physical CE for Legion, even if I don't play it much. Blizzard just makes damn good looking CE's.

Rogosh · Nov 6, 2015

Trying to bait the people on their gore, they must have already heard enough bitching about the release date.

kitsune · Nov 6, 2015

Vinyard_sl said:
I know for a fact I will get the physical CE for Legion, even if I don't play it much. Blizzard just makes damn good looking CE's.

My current expectations are to buy the CE, level up a demonhunter and play for a month or two and then unsub. I've gotten every CE prior to this one so might as well keep up the trend. If they get me to play more than that, cool, but I'm not holding my breath.

kaid · Nov 6, 2015

Bruman_sl said:
Lol, the most popular and successful MMO out there is not "dying". The market has shifted a ton though, they definitely need to adjust. But it's not reasonable to expect as many people to play MMOs in the same way we did 10 years ago. What other notable MMOs are sub only? FFXIV? (comedy option: Pantheon). But still - dying? Lololololol. Dying on their fucking mountains of cash that it still rakes in.

Yeah, but seriously here - 10 million * $50 box = WoW is doing fine. D3 keeps trucking along with content and other updates with no sub fee.

The fact that after 10 years wow is still pulling in as much revenue as it is should be pretty amazing not ermagerd wow is dying. Admittedly the long waits between expansion is frustrating but wow could coast on no expansions at all for years and likely still maintain itself as one of the biggest MMO players. I don't think we are going to see one totally dominant MMO like wow again for the forseeable future simply because there are simply to many choices now. Back when wow came out there were a handful of MMO all had sub costs and most were not nearly as well rounded and complete as wow was.

kaid · Nov 6, 2015

Slaythe_sl said:
Everyone that unsubs now will sign back up when the expansion drops. The same thing happened with WOD. WOW is definitely on the decline but even a long release date isn't going to do long term harm until they have real competition in the market.

And given the 50-70 dollar price tags on the expansion times 7-8 million on the low end is likely enough right there to coast them till their next expansion regardless of subs.

kaid · Nov 6, 2015

Vinyard_sl said:
I know for a fact I will get the physical CE for Legion, even if I don't play it much. Blizzard just makes damn good looking CE's.

And the collectors mount for this expansion looks fantastic I really want that for my warlock damn blizzard for making stuff I want grrr. They really do need to hurry this expansion up though.

Gorehack · Nov 6, 2015

kaid · Nov 6, 2015

Qhue_sl said:
I actually don't think they have anything up their sleeve. Siege of Orgrimmar was a full calendar year and yet a good number of people kept their subs up AND came back when WoD went live. In between now and Sept 2016 they have Starcraft 2, ongoing Hearthstone and Heroes of the Storm content and then Overwatch. To the extent that all the Blizzard properties share a similar fan base Blizzard probably feels they have enough going on to keep their core audience pleased even if it isn't with WoW.

They will have some sort of thing coinciding with the movie release and then drop 7.0 a month later and call it a roaring success.

I also would not be surprised if they do one of those sub for a year and get overwatch free like they did for diablo 3 deals. They have enough other stuff coming out to coast all the way to next september if they had to but hopefully they can finish things up sooner than that.

Ukerric · Nov 6, 2015

Caeden_sl said:
So what is the impetus to pre-order and get the DH a week early when the xpac after legion isn't coming out until late 2018 anyway?

Plus, of course, your DH is level capped to 100, so you basically play the intro, ding a few levels during it, and get dropped with half an xp bar to fill for the next 6 days...

Foggy · Nov 6, 2015

Ukerric_sl said:
Plus, of course, your DH is level capped to 100, so you basically play the intro, ding a few levels during it, and get dropped with half an xp bar to fill for the next 6 days...

There will also be the opening event that is suppose to be something significant and not just, hey here are three quests.

Dandai · Nov 6, 2015

Hope springs eternal, eh Foggy?

xzi · Nov 6, 2015

That's apparently what they plan to do, but depending on the release date it better be one hell of an event to tide people over lmao.

World of Warcraft: Current Year

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