WoW Universe Expands to 12 Million Subscribers
WoW Universe Expands to 12 Million Subscribers
Posted 10/07/2010 at 12:05pm
| by Paul Lilly
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There are now more World of Warcraft subscribers than there are people living in Ireland, New Zealand, and Jamaica combined. More specifically, the most successful MMORPG of all time now claims over 12 million users, a milestone that Blizzard says was reached in the wake of the mainland Chinese launch of Wow's second expansion.
"The support and enthusiasm that gamers across the world continue to show for World of Warcraft reaffirms our belief that it offers one of the best entertainment values available today," said Mike Morhaime, CEO and cofounder of Blizzard Entertainment. "We are as committed as ever to taking the game to new heights, and we look forward to demonstrating that with Cataclysm in December."
WoW had been holding steady at 11.5 million subscribers for over a year, leading some to assume the franchise had peaked. Apparently not, and once the game's third expansion arrives in early December, we're willing to bet that number will surge even higher.
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WardTheSteak
October 08, 2010 at 8:47am
For real Murphy? WoW a quality game? Lolz this game is just like Modern Warfare 2, or what else? Pop songs... With a lot of drones going to it because they hear it is the best game on the market just because it reached a major success in numbers. Seriously? Just because something is very popular doesn't mean it has the highest quality. WoW hit a certain niche at a very oppurtune time, and had the right polish to gain these numbers. The game I will admit was awesome imo in the early stages. I played it, and was addicted. Did I know any other mmo's existed at the time? No. When I finally heard about some, I was like they're just WoW rippoffs. WoW ignorrance is bliss they say. Pun intended.. But, yeah I was ignorrant to the fact that there was other great mmo's that shaped WoW to what it was. However, this game died with Wrath of the Lich King. Burning Crusade gave it a crushing blow. It never was the same. They were willing to butcher their own lore for the sake of numbers. Yeah talk about a quality product.
SeverianSilk
October 07, 2010 at 11:41pm
So folks are still making stupid, inane comments about WoW? This is ridiculous. It's a great game. I love playing it. It's never taken over my job, my life, etc. Geeze people. This is exactly what lame folks complained about when Atari was released.. or even the TV. Please. Shut up. It's a good game. One of the best strategy/RPG games I've played in a while. This is coming from an old school, turn-based, text RPG player. I love this game. It's a good game. Those who complain are either too impatient to play for as long as it takes to level in this game, or those who are too ignorant to love strategy. Geeze! Again! Go play some Agricola and learn what it means to REALLY game. Fuckin shit.
Keith E. Whisman
October 07, 2010 at 8:23pm
"WoW Universe Expands to 12 Million Subscribers"
And I ain't one of them. Never have been one of them and never will be one of them... ;)
Glycerin
October 08, 2010 at 10:50am
I"ll never play this game, I personally think its gay and a waste of time. I would wager that MOST of the males that play that game do so because they can't get a girl haha
Jono
October 08, 2010 at 1:41am
/golfclap for jooz. mahbee maxpc can rite artical bout joo? mahbee when joo iz more specialz dan now?
crazitrain02
October 07, 2010 at 5:36pm
It's not that bad that I only pay $15 a month for it. I know I can spend $15 in certain gentlemens clubs and only enjoy that for about 5 - 10 minutes. At least with the game I can invest more time into making a toon for much less and still have fun.
JohnP
October 07, 2010 at 4:26pm
$180 million a MONTH. Round it off to $2 Billion a year minimum. More folks will renew their subscrip when Cataclysm comes out. Geez, there are countries with less GNP.
Red Ensign
October 07, 2010 at 5:05pm
Blizzard doesn't make $15/mo from the Chinese or Koreans. A separate Chinese company runs WoW and pays royalties to Blizzard/Activision. In Korea players purchase Time Credit. A quick scan of recent earnings from 2010 Jan-Mar quarter shows they earned $102 mil/mo from World of Warcraft. Keep in mind that is Net Revenues. Those numbers are actually down from the same quarter 2009. For all this supposed money they are making I find it odd that their stock is dirt cheap. Even EA is trading at a higher price.
JohnP
October 09, 2010 at 10:10am
Inever thought to actually LOOK for the true revenue numbers for WoW. I wonder what the profit margin is?...
TommM
October 07, 2010 at 2:51pm
Played Asheron's Call, Anarchy Online and EverQuest back in the day. I realized after 3 years of this what an insane time-sink these MMORPG's are. You don't log on for a 20 minute game fix. It's hours at a time. Sometimes 12-16 hours at a stretch on the weekends.
Nowadays I'm perfectly happy with stand-alone games. Plus I get a lot more pleasure out of finishing a game. Kind of like reading a book or watching a movie. There's a finish to it. But with MMORPG's, there is no end. They go on forever and ever. And the addiction is crazy. A lady where I work was terminated because she kept coming in late, calling in sick and taking extended lunches. Come to find out it was all because she was playing WoW.
12 million subscribers is crazy. BUT...it is what it is. If there's a market for it - and there obviously is - someone is going to exploit that so you have to give Blizzard props for their product.
Biceps
October 07, 2010 at 2:00pm
Wasting their life on a daily basis. Games are great, but if you have spent the last 15 years staring at WoW, well... wow....
Maybe Blizzard's next game can be called, 'SaD' or 'DuH'
Jono
October 08, 2010 at 1:55am
find me a game where you have multiplayer, single player, cooperative 5, 10, and 25 player and numerous storylines and i will gladly pay $15 a month instead of the $50-60 for each new ADD game that comes out + $300 console. See my comp is good for games as well as video/photo editing, motion graphics, etc. theres a lot of things we do that can be consider "waste" of time, but at least I enjoy this one.
Biceps
October 07, 2010 at 4:05pm
If the difference between 8 years (or whatever) and 15 years actually matters to you regarding WoW, then you probably fit into the catagory outlined in my prior comment, even if my temporal guestimates are a little off.
DuH from the future...
jcseely
October 07, 2010 at 8:50pm
"A little off."
Yeah. Only a little. As in 40% of your original statement.
Zachary K.
October 07, 2010 at 3:18pm
the is posting from the future, where wow has been out for 15 years, has 15 million people, and where IEEE has finally released the TPP, the Temporal Posting Protocol.
oihorse
October 07, 2010 at 1:52pm
Was a popular shooter that lasted for years that had a monthly fee. It had regular updates, a fantastic community, responsive Devs, expansions, etc.
Too bad its was hobbled by Sony from really exploding to complete success (that and it was a bit too ahead of its time in the hardware/broadband requirements department).
On second thought, its still managed to outlast most other MMO's out there even if only a relative tiny player base is still involved.
sammy_sam
October 07, 2010 at 1:44pm
Hmmm I can't decide who the bigger money-grubbing whore is...Blizzard or Apple?
Jono
October 08, 2010 at 2:00am
pay for the brand apple for hardware that is meh, or blizzard, other companies with half the quality and content are charging just a much a month. was that a rhetorical question? (cause this one is)
TheMurph
October 07, 2010 at 3:31pm
How dare Blizzard make popular, quality games. Any company that boasts a profit for their hard work should be ostracized by the community. That'll show them.
sammy_sam
October 07, 2010 at 7:15pm
I think the idea of a subscription service is frickin insane. You've already bought the game then you pay another $15/month on top of that? Give me a break. Glad not all games follow this model.
jcseely
October 07, 2010 at 8:52pm
You think a one-time fee of $50 would cover the ongoing IT maintenance and customer-service costs for 6 years? Really? There's also the matter of new content actively being developed and released on a regular basis.
I'm sure the employees of Blizzard love their games and all, but I seriously doubt they'd be willing to work for free.
sammy_sam
October 08, 2010 at 7:32am
One time fee? Hello they've released other WOW expansions and made money off of those too. Not too mention the other games they've released. Do they charge a monthly subscription for those too?
TheMurph
October 08, 2010 at 8:33am
I can't believe we're entertaining this argument. But let's break this down:
#1: Infrastructure to run an MMO, including the technology to support it and the people to maintain it, costs money.
#2: The simple cost of buying the first version of a game would, in theory, not allow it to exist in perpetuity -- eventually, the money runs out
#3: Hiring people to develop new features / expansions / wash feet over at Blizzard costs money as well.
#4: In a perfect world, money coming in would match a realistic expectation of money going out (e.g. it would be nice to have, say, a $7 a month charge that's a bit more in line with what Blizzard might spend).
#5: More money in the door = more resources to work on other projects like, say, Diablo, or Starcraft, or whatever. As well, international versions of WoW and all that jazz.
#6: If you don't want to pay a monthly fee, don't buy WoW. Go play Guild Wars. Or how about some Hello Kitty Online?
compro01
October 08, 2010 at 8:29am
The other games do not require nearly as much server hardware on their side. As of November 2009, WoW used over 13,000 blade servers across 10 datacentres. That's more than twice all their other games (not to mention distribution network) combined. It's probably more now with the upgrades they've been doing for cataclysm. Operating that much hardware is not cheap and wouldn't be possible on single purchases.
TheMurph
October 08, 2010 at 8:34am
HOW DARE THEYYYYY WHY ARE THEY NOT RUNNING SERVERS ON A PENTIUM 4 THAT THEY FOUND IN A DUMPSTER WHHHHYYY DO WE HAVE TO PAY MONEY FOR NICE THINGS WAHHHHHH
Cruzg10
October 07, 2010 at 5:49pm
hey! can we keep the common sense at home and out of these forums. How dare you bring that trash here!
machew100
October 07, 2010 at 1:25pm
WoW is an addiction to everyone I ever knew who played it or currently plays it. You don't just "casually" play it because it's impossible to get anywhere by playing casually, and the pressure of "i'm paying $15 a month, I better get gameplay out of it" furthers your pressure to play. Blizzard has addiction down to a science, and I'm so glad I pulled away from it after an entire summer of nothing but that damn game. What a waste of my life.
Jono
October 08, 2010 at 2:10am
and what'd ya do this summer... you know what makes this game take as long as it does? and believe me, it irritates me that it does. It's when people have that "casual" mindset and want to raid, when in reality what they really mean is lazy. They don't proactively play, so the game takes twice as long, afks. No respect for other people's time. Don't look at strats. This game is not that difficult and not that time consuming if you actually ltp. Sorry you didn't know how to manage your time. When you call something a waste of time though, you pass judgement on everyone that enjoys the game.
machew100
November 01, 2010 at 4:40pm
What I did this summer? I had a shit-ton of fun with my friends, brother, girlfriend, and parents doing anything and everything that we felt like, building legit bonds and making the most of our time we are given on this earth. Why does a game have to be proactive and a "chore" to enjoy it? Just as the husband who marries a nagging wife just so he doesn't "die alone", why does everything have to be a chore to reap some far down-the-line reward? If you want to be proactive and reap a reward, you should put that effort towards making some money or building friendships that outlast online worlds. I'm obsessed with gaming just as everyone else, but this is the one exception where I put my foot down and say "hell no, this game is a waste of life." I'm passing judgment on you, eat it up.
lunchbox73
October 07, 2010 at 1:14pm
How much does it cost a month to play that game anyway? I know nothing about WOW.
I've often wondered why there are no popular shooters based on subscriptions. People bitch about companies like EA and DICE ignoring all the online players in games like BF2 and BC2 with their lack of patches, new content etc. Well why would the company care? They already got your 50 bucks why would they care if you're bored with your maps 2 years after you bought the game?
Why not take a game like Battlefield 3 which is going to be huge and release it as a subscription based game? Charge $10 for the game, give the person 30 days free to play online and $5 a month after that. In a year you've gotten $70 from that person and if you continue to provide a steady stream of new maps, weapons, goodies, that person could likely play that game for years. EA could get almost 5 years of steady money coming in I would bet if they did it properly.
Personally I would pay $5-$10 a month for a really good shooter like I hope BF3 will be IF the experience wasn't static. Does anybody agree with me or am I nuts?
carnivorousslushee23
October 07, 2010 at 7:33pm
All I can say is that I am still not tired of Arica Harbor after many many months of playing BFBC2 - 3 out of 4 times I play on that map. For me, that map is like de_dust in CS:S. The current map set is awesome, in my opinion. I, for my part, enjoy learning all the little hidey holes and aspects of a map and then using them to my advantage so that I can dominate other players.
By the time I'm finished with BC2 (which will certainly not be any time soon, because that game is my WoW, really) some new shooter - hopefully Battlefield 3 - will be out, and I can spend more money :D The $50 I paid for BC2 has been worth every penny, and was essentially from the time I started playing it.
Biceps
October 07, 2010 at 1:58pm
EA and most other game companies are now run by DB's with MBAs and no soul, not by gamers, or by people who care the slightest whit for what you or I want as gamers... they will probably roll out your subscription model when they have run out of other ways to squeeze gamers for extra $$; but they won't do much for extra content or maps... those will still cost you 15 buck a pop.
Yes, I'm cynical, but the money-grubbing I see at most game companies (there are some glowing exceptions like Valve) have engendered that cynicism through their actions.
Jono
October 08, 2010 at 2:18am
susrciptions are not going to work for single games for too much longer. Thats just going to nickel and dime us all to death. Blizzard is probably going to switch to a $15 suscription fee for their online community as a whole to include WoW, SC II, Diablo, and their new MMO is how I imagine it. I'd assume other companies could do the same like a games for windows suscription and a steam suscription, but each game individually is a bit much. Then most of us will be forced to choose one or two games we will stick with.
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