NPD Reveals World of Warcraft's Lifetime Sales in the US

[SirSchmoopy]

Woooooooot I am one of the subscribers to WoW ! I enjoy every second of the game, excellent but I got to say a bit pricey !

How is 15 a month pricey? Average gamer buying a game per month spends 60.

The real question here is do you buy one game every month? You just feel the price because you're continuously dipping in your wallet for payments, as opposed to getting a new game (which would be a one-time purchase). Plus, you can sell your game if you're finished with it. Sure, items in WoW fetch quite a price, but if I remember correctly, Real Money Trading (RMT) will get you banned (or at least looked down upon).

Do you buy a new game every FOUR months as thats what it takes. So if you buy 3 games a year your paying your WoW subscription for a year and if you or your mummies and daddies are buying less then 3 games a year then you can hardly call yourself a gamer.

And even if your one who buys, plays and sells (which I am strongly against). You still only end up being able to get a game every other month at BEST. Worst of all do you goto the movies? 15 bucks easy if you get a drink/popcorn for 2 hours of entertainment. The cost vs value of an MMORPG is hard to beat since most mainstream games without a form of multiplayer are 20 hours of playtime MAYBE and if it does have multiplayer well now your adding Xbox live to the mix.


Not to mention 15 dollars a month is IF you buy it monthly. I believe you can nock is down to 12 dollars a month if you feel it's worth the investment.

 

[Jenkins]

So,$258 million, plus millions of subscribers paying $15 a month? If I were Blizzard, I'd take bathes in my money. That's how rich people bathe.

the Blizzard CEO probably wipes his ass with 100 bills, and uses 50 dollar bills as napkins.

 

[Dogstile]

Something doesn't seem right. I don't know why, but that number seems kinda low.

Like, how are there 10 million + players, and yet they haven't even sold 8 million copies of the game?

yeah, thats only us sales, no UK sales, chinese, korean, french, german, russian

i want to be a shareholder in blizzard

 

[Woem]

Something doesn't seem right. I don't know why, but that number seems kinda low.

Like, how are there 10 million + players, and yet they haven't even sold 8 million copies of the game?

yeah, thats only us sales, no UK sales, chinese, korean, french, german, russian

i want to be a shareholder in blizzard

They're actually not doing all too good: http://investor.activision.com/stockquote.cfm

 

[Flying-Emu]

Blizzard has to pay for each and every server they put up, they must also pay for that server hardware and they most likely have bandwith fees as well. Take into account that they have everyone right down to Game Masters and support teams on their payroll and you start to get an idea of how much it costs to host an MMORPG of such scale.

Game Masters are a lie. If I put in a ticket and wait for four fucking hours without a response, they are a goddamn lie.

 

[headshotcatcher]

8.6 Million copies in the US, which accounts for approximately 3-4 million active accounts last time I checked (Europe is something like 2.5 to 3 with the Asian market making up the rest.)

If you count the numbers up, there might be something like 20 million copies worldwide, if not more.

More interested in the worldwide numbers personally, but this was still pretty cool to note nonetheless.

Oh, and anyone who says that $15/month is expensive? That's just under 50 cents per hour if you play it for a single hour every day over your month.

If you play it for 2 hours per day, it obviously drops down to 25 cents/hour.

Expensive entertainment indeed, especially considering some games these days come with a $60 price tag and offer you 10-15 hours of entertainment, which being generous offers $4 dollars/hour.

That said...as someone who's been playing since EU release, I've spent just under £480 if my napkin maths is correct on subscriptions alone, with an extra ~£60-80 on the actual game plus expansions.

So about £540-560 for four years of entertainment. That's a pretty damn good investment if I do say so myself.

Edit: Actually it's less because I pay for my subscription in three month blocks which is slightly cheaper than paying monthly. £25 for 3 months rather than £27 (9x3). Comes out to £450 with some time left over in my current payment, bring the total down to £510-530.

The game Deus Ex, I bought it for 10 euros and ever since I have played it through with all the secrets three times and once halfway, that comes down to about 70-100 hours of gameplay.
14 - 10 cents per hour? Marvelous.

Keep in mind you don't always have to buy the newest games, and more importantly, some games offer more gameplay than others. Ask certain people here about games like Morrowind and they'll come down to buying it for 10 bucks and playing it 300 hours..

 

[Kyoufuu]

Its 11million subscribers or so i believe.
Although i think Aion will soon remove WoW from the market...

Dream On. No name IP that is just a Guild Wars clone won't do anything to the WoW market but make it bigger. MMORPGs don't get killed off by other ones, I'm not sure why people think thats how it works these days.

It's the same as why America doesn't use the Metric system. It's more efficient, far easier, but they stick with imperial. Why? Because everyone else is doing it. That's why no mumorpeger will ever beat WoW. Because sure, you might play this game that is far better, but if you want to play with your friends, you have to go back to WoW, where they are.

Plus, Blizz has an absolutely insane amount of money that they could spend on marketing if (but it would never happen) some other mumorpeger started making a significant dent in WoW's player base.

 

[maddawg IAJI]

Why do I have a strange feeling that Blizzard will buy a country in the near future.

 

[Robert632]

so the npd just wasted there time telling us info a retarded hamster must know?

 

[Amnestic]

8.6 Million copies in the US, which accounts for approximately 3-4 million active accounts last time I checked (Europe is something like 2.5 to 3 with the Asian market making up the rest.)

If you count the numbers up, there might be something like 20 million copies worldwide, if not more.

More interested in the worldwide numbers personally, but this was still pretty cool to note nonetheless.

Oh, and anyone who says that $15/month is expensive? That's just under 50 cents per hour if you play it for a single hour every day over your month.

If you play it for 2 hours per day, it obviously drops down to 25 cents/hour.

Expensive entertainment indeed, especially considering some games these days come with a $60 price tag and offer you 10-15 hours of entertainment, which being generous offers $4 dollars/hour.

That said...as someone who's been playing since EU release, I've spent just under £480 if my napkin maths is correct on subscriptions alone, with an extra ~£60-80 on the actual game plus expansions.

So about £540-560 for four years of entertainment. That's a pretty damn good investment if I do say so myself.

Edit: Actually it's less because I pay for my subscription in three month blocks which is slightly cheaper than paying monthly. £25 for 3 months rather than £27 (9x3). Comes out to £450 with some time left over in my current payment, bring the total down to £510-530.

The game Deus Ex, I bought it for 10 euros and ever since I have played it through with all the secrets three times and once halfway, that comes down to about 70-100 hours of gameplay.
14 - 10 cents per hour? Marvelous.

Keep in mind you don't always have to buy the newest games, and more importantly, some games offer more gameplay than others. Ask certain people here about games like Morrowind and they'll come down to buying it for 10 bucks and playing it 300 hours..

I said some, not all. RPGs typically give you more hours/moneys, and older games which are obviously cheaper will be even better value, but I just though I'd point out that WoW really isn't that expensive if you look at the time investment.

Blizzard has to pay for each and every server they put up, they must also pay for that server hardware and they most likely have bandwith fees as well. Take into account that they have everyone right down to Game Masters and support teams on their payroll and you start to get an idea of how much it costs to host an MMORPG of such scale.

Game Masters are a lie. If I put in a ticket and wait for four fucking hours without a response, they are a goddamn lie.

If you get your ticket answered in four hours, that's bloody quick.

Takes me about a day and a half to get mine answered.

 

[Zeldadudes]

Its 11million subscribers or so i believe.
Although i think Aion will soon remove WoW from the market...

Dream On. No name IP that is just a Guild Wars clone won't do anything to the WoW market but make it bigger. MMORPGs don't get killed off by other ones, I'm not sure why people think thats how it works these days.

The only game that could kill World of Warcraft is World of Warcraft 2.

Its 11million subscribers or so i believe.
Although i think Aion will soon remove WoW from the market...

Yeah, devs have only been trying to do that since 2004. I doubt an MMO with so little hype as Aion will ever come close to toppling the fat social-stealing money giant that is WoW.

Blizzard had already made three Warcraft RTSs, one starcraft RTS, and two Diablo RPGs. This doesnt include expansions. Unless the devs of Aion have a shining trophy wall of huge successes, Aion will only make people wish they stayed an extra month on WoW.

I'm merely looking at Statistics gentlemen.
I've looked at how many Korean people are currently PLAYING Aion, its a total of 3 and a half million +. Whereas WoW has 11 million subscribers, not players. Aion hasn't even been released in Europe yet.
Yes i am dreaming but i Aion will make a dent in WoWs community base, i've already convinced half of my ex-WoW guild
I'm not saying you guys are not right though, pessimistic.

 

[Dogstile]

Something doesn't seem right. I don't know why, but that number seems kinda low.

Like, how are there 10 million + players, and yet they haven't even sold 8 million copies of the game?

yeah, thats only us sales, no UK sales, chinese, korean, french, german, russian

i want to be a shareholder in blizzard

They're actually not doing all too good: http://investor.activision.com/stockquote.cfm

that's now

you wait until diablo 3 and starcraft 2 come out

 

[Woem]

Something doesn't seem right. I don't know why, but that number seems kinda low.

Like, how are there 10 million + players, and yet they haven't even sold 8 million copies of the game?

yeah, thats only us sales, no UK sales, chinese, korean, french, german, russian

i want to be a shareholder in blizzard

They're actually not doing all too good: http://investor.activision.com/stockquote.cfm

that's now

you wait until diablo 3 and starcraft 2 come out

Let's hope that they don't get delayed. We know what happens then [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/93481-Activision-Shareholders-Get-Jittery-Over-Starcraft-2].

 

[ayailla]

The problem with Blizzard is that they actually do own the gamers. WoW players can gripe all they want about how their favourite class is being screwed over in the newest patch but that doesn't stop them from playing it. WoW players seem to do nothing but complain about the game they hold so dear. They complain when another class is better than theirs, they complain when their own class gets nerfed, they complain when any other class gets nerfed. They they complain when Death Knights came out with WotLK because they were so overpowered and then they complained when said Death Knights were nerfed. Blizzard can't keep the players happy... but they don't have to. WoW players will continue to play regardless.

 

[Abedeus]

You are all forgetting that there are only 5mlns of players left after Chinese servers were turned off.

So it was never more than 5000000x$15, as the Chinese company hosting WoW in Asia was taking about 80% or more of the cash, giving only a small amount of profits to Blizzard.

 

[Eri]

It's not 11 million, It is 12 million. Secondly, only the Non Asian players pay 15$ a month subscription. The Asian players, 6 million of them, pay by the hour.

 

[John Funk]

You are all forgetting that there are only 5mlns of players left after Chinese servers were turned off.

So it was never more than 5000000x$15, as the Chinese company hosting WoW in Asia was taking about 80% or more of the cash, giving only a small amount of profits to Blizzard.

I have yet to see a single reputable source on the matter. Just some guy pulling numbers out of his ass on a blog, as far as I can tell.

I'm merely looking at Statistics gentlemen.
I've looked at how many Korean people are currently PLAYING Aion, its a total of 3 and a half million +. Whereas WoW has 11 million subscribers, not players. Aion hasn't even been released in Europe yet.
Yes i am dreaming but i Aion will make a dent in WoWs community base, i've already convinced half of my ex-WoW guild
I'm not saying you guys are not right though, pessimistic.

Subscribers = players. There's no difference.

Also, keep in mind that Aion is a NCSoft RPG, and that Korean gamers have much different tastes than Western ones. Lineage and Lineage II were huge in Asia, not so much in the West.

 

[Takoto]

I wonder how much each Blizzard employee is payed.

 

[Zeldadudes]

You are all forgetting that there are only 5mlns of players left after Chinese servers were turned off.

So it was never more than 5000000x$15, as the Chinese company hosting WoW in Asia was taking about 80% or more of the cash, giving only a small amount of profits to Blizzard.

I have yet to see a single reputable source on the matter. Just some guy pulling numbers out of his ass on a blog, as far as I can tell.

I'm merely looking at Statistics gentlemen.
I've looked at how many Korean people are currently PLAYING Aion, its a total of 3 and a half million +. Whereas WoW has 11 million subscribers, not players. Aion hasn't even been released in Europe yet.
Yes i am dreaming but i Aion will make a dent in WoWs community base, i've already convinced half of my ex-WoW guild
I'm not saying you guys are not right though, pessimistic.

Subscribers = players. There's no difference.

Also, keep in mind that Aion is a NCSoft RPG, and that Korean gamers have much different tastes than Western ones. Lineage and Lineage II were huge in Asia, not so much in the West.

Yes but many people have more than one account, how can they be certain that every account is one person?
Regardless i understand, if the western society cannot embrace the Eastern design then there will be chaos.
All i know is that Aion looks decent and the PvP is waaaay more balanced than WoW's current PvP situation.

 

[John Funk]

You are all forgetting that there are only 5mlns of players left after Chinese servers were turned off.

So it was never more than 5000000x$15, as the Chinese company hosting WoW in Asia was taking about 80% or more of the cash, giving only a small amount of profits to Blizzard.

I have yet to see a single reputable source on the matter. Just some guy pulling numbers out of his ass on a blog, as far as I can tell.

I'm merely looking at Statistics gentlemen.
I've looked at how many Korean people are currently PLAYING Aion, its a total of 3 and a half million +. Whereas WoW has 11 million subscribers, not players. Aion hasn't even been released in Europe yet.
Yes i am dreaming but i Aion will make a dent in WoWs community base, i've already convinced half of my ex-WoW guild
I'm not saying you guys are not right though, pessimistic.

Subscribers = players. There's no difference.

Also, keep in mind that Aion is a NCSoft RPG, and that Korean gamers have much different tastes than Western ones. Lineage and Lineage II were huge in Asia, not so much in the West.

Yes but many people have more than one account, how can they be certain that every account is one person?
Regardless i understand, if the western society cannot embrace the Eastern design then there will be chaos.
All i know is that Aion looks decent and the PvP is waaaay more balanced than WoW's current PvP situation.

Because the name and credit card data would be the same? And the percentage of players with more than one account is actually pretty small.

PvP only appears balanced because gamers haven't had time to break it yet