World of Warcraft Revenues Down 54 Percent

[Baldr]

No positive news from the old WoW front anymore. But about time I'd say, I can't even imagine people still playing that game.
Personally I couldn't stand that tedious, boring thing after only a week, so I find it hard to believe someone would put several years into it. Not that I complain if you do... but it's about time WoW stepped down from its outdated throne and let other into the spotlight.

No positive news??? The new patch was released yesterday, the servers were crowded once again.

 

[Abomination]

Full agreement here. This is just statistical manipulation for headlines.

How else is a marketing firm reporting trends in the digital sales realm (where much of the data is sealed off like it's radioactive) going to justify its existence? Facts?

Ha! I say ha!

The problem is these are facts BUT in context the picture they're attempting to draw isn't as extreme as what is actually going on.

 

[LordMonty]

Siege is good fun and this is probally been planned for by those big dogs of gaming. New Expansion will probally be anouced soon anyhow.

 

[Caiphus]

Full agreement here. This is just statistical manipulation for headlines.

How else is a marketing firm reporting trends in the digital sales realm (where much of the data is sealed off like it's radioactive) going to justify its existence? Facts?

Ha! I say ha!

The problem is these are facts BUT in context the picture they're attempting to draw isn't as extreme as what is actually going on.

Lies, damned lies, and statistics.

Even though Blizzard's cocaine train is eventually going to run dry, it isn't going to do so quite as quickly as the OP would suggest.

Also "over the past seven months" isn't toootally true. The most recent data is from April, which was another five months ago.
Which the second reply helpfully pointed out.

Edit: For those keeping score, the Mists of Pandaria release date was 25 Sept. 2012.

Further edit:

Even though the graph shows really not very much, dicking about in MS paint seems to give:
Roughly a 25% decline in TR from Sept to Oct.
Around 21% decline from Oct to Nov
7% decline from Nov to Dec
12% decline from Dec to Jan
And then roughly constant from there.

Multiplying those changes gives a ~52% decline from Sept. to Jan.

 

[Something Amyss]

The problem is these are facts BUT in context the picture they're attempting to draw isn't as extreme as what is actually going on.

They're facts insomuch as a company with limited information guesses something and portrays it as belief can be considered "fact."

People should be less certain about them, since they're not exactly ripe with certainty themselves.

 

[dochmbi]

Eh, the writing's been on the wall for a good long while now: WoW is FINALLY in it's autumn days. I got out right at the end of Burning Crusade and everything I've heard about it since implied that I really didn't miss much since leaving. I would have liked to have seen how Arthas' story as the Lich King ended, but due to various reasons I could no longer justify spending the money on the subscription. Cataclysm just seemed like a major ass-pull to keep the gravy train rolling, and Mists of Pandaria seemed like an even BIGGER ass-pull seeing as how it was based on what was originally an April Fools Joke.

I won't deny I had a great time for the years that I put into it, but it seems clear to me that things have been going downhill for a while now and I'd say that statement is validated judging by the loss of subscriptions/revenue.

I do gota say you really missed out on Wrath. That was the peak of WoW for me both content and actual play. But yeh after that I felt it just wasn't as good, I played both xpacs after it. Mists was a real let down once the polish is worn off. WoW's more of a grind than its ever been. I'm glad its waning to the end times.

Yeah I also enjoyed the Wrath era the most. I wish blizzard would implement servers that allowed you to play the latest versions of vanilla wow, burning crusade, wrath and cataclysm, each with maximum level characters and some decent gear. Would just be cool to be able to revisit some of that content.

 

[walrusaurus]

and lo, another object lesson in how statistics can be used to push virtually any poV imaginable. Whats that you say? An mmo at the middle/end of an expansion cycle makes significantly less money than the month that said expansion is released? LE GASP!!

Everyone knows wow is declining, but regardless its still the biggest cock on the block and Activision will stop releasing expac for it around the same time they stop making annual Call of Duty cash grabs

It declining isn't that big of a surprise, and hardly newsworthy. What makes this newsworthy is the size of the decline. I wouldn't have been surprised by even a 15-20% decline, for the reasons you mentioned. But losing more than half of its revenue in seven months? That's a huge decline, even factoring in the expansion pack revenue boost.

Except that the 60% decline is comparing it to a month in which there was a boxed product (ie the expansion) being sold for 40 box per sub. So in the month its using as a baseline a large portion of the subscriber base was paying 3.5x what they would in a normal month. A more realistic representation of wows fortunes is their subscriber numbers, which -while down- not anywhere near 60 percent. Even if you measure it over the last 4 years from its peak its only down 30%

 

[r0seyp0m]

No positive news from the old WoW front anymore. But about time I'd say, I can't even imagine people still playing that game.
Personally I couldn't stand that tedious, boring thing after only a week, so I find it hard to believe someone would put several years into it. Not that I complain if you do... but it's about time WoW stepped down from its outdated throne and let other into the spotlight.

But why would it, if it's still holding the throne? Would anyone honestly do the same in their position? I mean, I think they're really milking the game for every last drop, but in a business view, it makes sense and it would be a really bad move to just move over and let others claim the throne.

 

[Icehearted]

There's just something especially awful about a market setting wherein subscription fees aren't enough, and unscrupulous publishers/developers will further exploit and fleece even their most loyal fans, though at least the latter makes sense since the most loyal are the most likely to allow themselves to be hosed.Xbox Live got has mastered this, selling things that are absolutely useless for the "bargain price" of $5 or more in some cases. Kickstarter, people throwing money away for vaporware or worse.

I just can't make sense of any of it. It's an individual's money to spend as they see fit, but spending it with such careless frivolity only hurts the rest of us, because as long as there are people willing to be fleeced fleecing will continue to be acceptable, leaving principle out in the cold and the mentality that it's okay to be squeezed for every cent, that we should thank the developers, and wanting not to be hung by our heels and shaken free of our cash to access gated content equate entitlement. Damned if I'm ever paying a cent for DLC cheat codes or reskins when those things were standard in SNES era games.

As for WoW, I'm just glad I got out when I did. Wasn't all bad, but it was not worth the invested time and effort.

 

[MrMixelPixel]

If it goes free to play, I certainly will get back into it. If nothing else than just to do some good old pvp.

But, I'm poor and 15$ a month is far beyond what I would like to pay. Shame too! Considering how much Pandaria is .

 

[james.sponge]

I'm kinda glad WoW is losing its popularity and allows other games to expand. If this continues we may revert back to pre-WoW years where we had several big games for different audiences instead of one behemoth that dominates the market. Don't get me wrong WoW is a good game but it ruined the market for a decade.

 

[Mr F.]

No positive news from the old WoW front anymore. But about time I'd say, I can't even imagine people still playing that game.
Personally I couldn't stand that tedious, boring thing after only a week, so I find it hard to believe someone would put several years into it. Not that I complain if you do... but it's about time WoW stepped down from its outdated throne and let other into the spotlight.

Putting my hope in Elder Scrolls Online. I will admit that the latest patch notes did make me briefly tempted to boot it up again, then I read up on the raiding changes and just went "Meh."

For me and some of the more... hardcore crowd? part of the appeal was getting shit that is incredibly hard to get. Getting together with a large group of dudes at 7pm and raiding until 1, getting some shiny loot and going "Yeah, I got the glowing thingy with the big numbers, what you got?"

Its... Well, I could go into the sociology of why people like it so much. And the psychology. But honestly, I am just waiting to turn those thoughts into my thesis, or one of them (Double major, gotta write two of the bastards.).

WoW is a strange beast. The thought of it dying does sorta make me happy, maybe someone new will be able to conquer the MMO king throne, but it also worries me. Because if nothing new manages to dominate the market like WoW did we will end up with no game large enough to have a community of that scale. Stuff like Eve does have a community but it is a very niche community.

I guess I am saying I would be happy to see WoW killed but less happy to see it die. If ESO comes out and annihilates it, I will be a very happy person.

Gives me and my bro more people to toy with as Khajit. Everyone knows cats like playing with their food.

 

[rapidoud]

It takes a "Market Intelligence" firm to point out that 12 million customers dropping to 7 million is going to halve your revenue?

I thought this news was obvious; I didn't think anyone needed any kind of commerce degree to deduce this.

 

[Xenominim]

I personally find it kind of amusing how the article mentions Activision Blizzard is in no danger of dying anytime soon. They've been running WoW for a decade now making money hand over fist, but I'm sure they are aware it won't last forever and have plans for the future, I don't think WoW is going to shut down one day and Blizzard with it.