Mists of Pandaria Opening Sales Stumble

[Karloff]

Mists of Pandaria Opening Sales Stumble

Investment analyst group Lazard Capital Markets put Pandaria retail sales at 600-700,000 since launch.

Mists of Pandaria [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/119113-Blizzard-Reveals-Mists-of-Pandaria-Cinematic-Trailer], the World of Warcraft expansion based on an April Fool's joke, may prove to be an expensive indulgence for Blizzard according to figures released by market analysts Lazard Capital Markets. Lazard estimates that Pandaria moved only 600-700,000 retail units since launch. As a comparison, World of Warcraft: Cataclysm sold more than 3.3 million copies in the first 24 hours after launch.

There is a significant hole in the Lazard estimates, as they don't include digital sales. Things have changed considerably in the digital space since 2010, and digital is bound to be a larger proportion of overall Pandaria sales than they would have been for Cataclysm.

That said, to make up this kind of shortfall - over 2.5 million units difference between the expansions, assuming the 700,000 Pandaria figure is correct - digital would have to have become the primary means of selling product. Digital is certainly important; a 57% increase in digital sales was responsible for Blizzard's profits bump in the third quarter 2011. [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/114124-World-of-Warcraft-Slips-Further] But if, for the sake of discussion, digital sales brought Pandaria to exactly the same sales level as Cataclysm, then retail would be just a little over 21% of total sales. Even given the growth of digital since 2010, that result doesn't seem likely.

The analysis comes courtesy of Atul Bagga of Lazard, whose recent analysis [http://biz.yahoo.com/a/9/93886.html] suggesting that Blizzard's excessive reliance on World of Warcraft as a revenue generator threatens the company as a whole.

It probably doesn't help that the MMO has been losing subscribers at a rapid rate; it had less than 10 million as of August 2012 [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/118870-Earnings-Report-Hell-on-the-Rise-Azeroth-in-Decline] and, given Bagga's report, there's no reason to think Pandaria tempted a significant proportion of those missing subscribers back.

Source: VentureBeat [http://venturebeat.com/2012/09/27/world-of-warcraft-mists-of-pandaria-performance-disappointing/]


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[Fappy]

The cracks are growing larger. The beast doesn't have much longer to live by my calculations.

 

[Xeorm]

It doesn't have any digital sales, until then, it's woefully inaccurate information.

 

[NightHawk21]

The cracks are growing larger. The beast doesn't have much longer to live by my calculations.

I think I agree. I think people are just upset with Blizzard recently over the whole Diablo 3 thing not living up to the hype and for what I gather (not played) cataclysm wasn't too great.

 

[Falterfire]

It doesn't have any digital sales, until then, it's woefully inaccurate information.

I'll agree here. Although yes, this isn't necessarily bad information to have, neglecting digital sales at this point is a poor choice. Based on that metric, Torchlight II and Minecraft have each sold approximately 0 copies. (Well, there may be a retail version of Minecraft, but I haven't personally seen it. I'm reasonably certain there isn't one for T2 just yet)

 

[Xanthious]

Seeing how heavily they were promoting the digital version it wouldn't surprise me to see that digital sales were actually much much higher than people expect.

 

[AzrealMaximillion]

This is what happens when you try to use a joke to sell a game. Yeah, pandarens are in the lore, but that portion lore wasn't serious lore. This is like if that had the Hell Bovine became a new playable race.

 

[Sixcess]

Digital sales will no doubt be a significant part of the numbers, but I really don't see them making up the entire difference.

Blizzard's had a bad year. D3's been getting nothing but bad buzz for a while now, and the 9 month content drought prior to MoP's release really put a strain on player loyalty.

Blizzard have taken their players for granted for far too long. If MoP underperforms maybe it'll push them to actually make an effort the next time.

 

[excalipoor]

The digital version is cheaper too. Why would anyone not buy that instead of the physical copy? Other than to show off the box I guess.

 

[halobolola]

Seeing how i have managed to get all expansions so far without paying, i think i will wait, and get this one free too

 

[VanQ]

I actually planned to go back like I do for every expansion but ended up cancelling my preorder (the day before release to my surprise) because I just don't give a shit any more. Blizzard has declined as a company, placing mass appeal before a great gaming experience.

WoW has become excessively easier and trashier with each expansion, StarCraft 2 was nice but got boring fast and Diablo 3 shattered my heart and my memories into pieces before crapping on them and telling me I couldn't play their game.

It doesn't help them that their greatest minds and creators all left to form other studios and create better, more unique experiences than Blizzard wants to offer. See: Runic Games' Torchlight and Red5's FireFall.

If I had to sum up my opinion of Blizzard in 2012 it would go something like follows:


With all that said, I wouldn't be surprised if most players just went digital. Blizzard always pushed the "get to play first" angle with their digital releases.

 

[FallenTraveler]

It'll recover those numbers as soon as people start coming back from Guild Wars 2.

They always come back.

but what if they don't? What if they don't!

After all, former WoW Players like me (last I played was wotlk) are moving on to GW2 and I'm never going back to WoW even if I stop playing GW2

 

[Blandy Buchanan]

This is what happens when you try to use a joke to sell a game. Yeah, pandarens are in the lore, but that portion lore wasn't serious lore. This is like if that had the Hell Bovine became a new playable race.

Hell Bovine might actually get me to start playing again.

 

[Blandy Buchanan]

So did Star Wars TOR go free-to-play yet?

 

[CoL0sS]

I'm not really surprised, although we shouldn't dismiss digital sales. Every WoW player I know kinda gave up on the game and won't be buying this expansion (at least while GW2 is still hot). Blizzard has stagnated as a company for a while now and pandas aren't really something to draw players in. I enjoyed WotLK and found Cataclysm intriguing enough to buy even though I got bored of it in a week. This one just sounds....meh.

 

[Cartographer]

The big question: is digital out-selling retail four to one?

I'm not surprised Blizzard hasn't released the digital numbers yet, if it were a bigger release than Cata then you'd better believe they'd be screaming it to the high heavens.

 

[Soods]

The digital version is cheaper too. Why would anyone not buy that instead of the physical copy? Other than to show off the box I guess.

Digital version = 34,99? = 35?
I can have MoP delivered to my doorstep from a retailer for only 28,40?.

 

[jurnag12]

I'm just annoyed that all that people try to focus on seems to be that Pandaren were originally an April's Fools joke. They may have started that way, but I'll be damned if they don't make the idea a lot more sensible when you actually get there in the expansion. They take the joke and run with it like they stole it, and it f*cking WORKS.

Also, I can offer some evidence that digital sales must've been big seeing as I'm pretty much the only person in my entire guild who bought it retail.