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World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King (PC)
Analyzing WoW's growth by the numbers
Analyzing WoW's growth by the numbers
Massively - January 9, 2009
Submitted by BrotherE (82) at 7:23PM PST on January 9, 2009
When you get down to the nitty gritty numbers, World of Warcraft's growth has stayed fairly consistent over the last three years or so. This of course is after the initial boom in 2005, and thanks mostly to a continued schedule of expansions the last two years. But where will it go from here?
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1KultofCows posted on World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King (PC) at 10:38AM PST on January 12, 2009. RE: Analyzing WoW's growth by the numbers@deftangel,
I understand the net cafe argument. However, as I recall, I needed a CD-key to start a WoW account (it has been a few years since I played) so this required at least a purchase of the game to start a subscription. I recall my brother and I both had to buy the game so that we had separate CD-keys to start accounts. Is this no longer the case? Or did Blizzard structure this differently in Asia?
I do agree that I have not seen sales numbers in the Blizzard PR to confirm the levels; however, from a business perspective, pushing subscriber data is stronger than original sales data because it indicates continued revenue. So that is one reason they push subscriber data. I thought the assumption was that each subscriber was also a buyer, so subscriber numbers are inclusive of sales.[ Admin ]bids
1deftangel posted on World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King (PC) at 4:32AM PST on January 10, 2009. RE: Analyzing WoW's growth by the numbersMy opinion;-
* It will break 12m this year but not 13m
* Like the author said StarCraft & Diablo will eat into subs
* Subscribers != sales
Many players in Asia (which make up a very large segment of WoW players) do not *buy* the game. They visit their logo internet cafe and pay from there.
This is why the expansions are so over-valued. Have we ever heard of the first one hitting 10m? Nope. Will the second? Nope. Net cafe's buy as many copies as they need to service computers which turn services a lot more subscribers.
Each Blizzard PR about sub numbers confirms this.[ Oracle ] [ Level 21 ] [ Rank: 291 ]bids
14BrotherE posted on World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King (PC) at 7:23PM PST on January 9, 2009. Article: Analyzing WoW's growth by the numbersWhen you get down to the nitty gritty numbers, World of Warcraft's growth has stayed fairly consistent over the last three years or so. This of course is after the initial boom in 2005, and thanks mostly to a continued schedule of expansions the last two years. But where will it go from here?[ Speaker ] [ Level 22 ] [ Rank: 82 ]
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One other point, the net cafe explanation definitely makes sense for games like Warcraft III. When I was in Taiwan when the game came out (this was many years ago), I played it at a net cafe. The game doesn't require a unique CD-key for each Battle.net account, so players can just start up a free account and play online in the net cafe. In this case, Battle.net accounts would not reflect sales numbers at all.