WoW sports >30% lifetime retention rate

[Trouble]

"I don't know what the exact number is off-hand, but the total number of subscribers we've had is easily more than double - maybe closer to triple - the current subscriber base."

http://www.warcry.com/articles/view/interviews/6773-Five-Years-of-Warcraft-Speaking-With-Blizzards-Rob-Pardo

I knew WoW had a high retention rate, but a greater than 30% lifetime retention rate is incredible. Lots of other good stuff in that article too.

One question I would have about those numbers is how China figures in. I don't think he'd "cheat" and consider the 5 million "homeless" Chinese WoW players as former players for the purposes of that calculation. The question remains though: does that mean there have been 20-30 million people wouldwide who paid for WoW at one point, or is he saying there's been 10-15m in NA/EU.

[DayDream]

Edit: Trouble is a nice guy.



that link goes to page two of the interview, fyi.

[Trouble]

Just fixed it.

[Jayce]

I'm not convinced that is what he's saying.

Example: let's say that an ALL NEW 10 million players were playing that started last week, and all older players quit as of last week.  For simplicity assume the ones that just quit have been around since launch.  Then the statement he made would still be true, but without 30% retention.

That said, I think the point he was making is still valid: there are something like 30 million (North American/European) gamers willing to pick up an MMOG, and that's not even all of them, since those are only the ones that played WoW for some period of time.  The comment goes to market size, not retention.

[Lantyssa]

Retention is not mentioned at all.  We don't know how many of those are day one players and how many are two month old accounts.  Many, like myself, could have subbed and quit several times in a five year span.

[Mrbloodworth]

I do not get the connection between this titles thread, and the article linked.