WoW hits 3.5 Million.

[Shockeye]

WORLD OF WARCRAFT® REACHES 1.5 MILLION PAYING CUSTOMERS IN CHINA

Worldwide customer base for Blizzard Entertainment®'s popular MMORPG now more than 3.5 million players

IRVINE, Calif. - July 20, 2005 - Blizzard Entertainment®, Inc. today announced that World of Warcraft®, its subscription-based massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG), has surpassed 1.5 million paying customers in China - just a month following the game's commercial launch on June 7, 2005. The critically acclaimed World of Warcraft has now achieved another significant milestone as the largest MMORPG in the world, with more than 3.5 million global customers.

I think what we're seeing here is a building obsession on the part of the Chinese over WoW that's quite similar to how the Germans feel about David Hasslehoff.

On a worldwide note, it seems that no matter how much Blizzard drops the ball on the PVP or technical side of things, people are continuing to buy and subscribe to this game. I made a chart to help explain things.

[Daydreamer]

You know, I think we all expected WoW to do well, because Blizzard's games always do, but this is just obscene.  They broke EQ's old record of most subscribers by what, a factor of 4 now?

Lets just hope they put some of that money into adding new development teams for other projects instead of lumping them all together into just two.  I want a Diablo 3 Damn it!

[tazelbain]

It looks like a grim future indeed for non-EQ clones.

[Margalis]

If I were rich I would buy 3 million subs to some random MMORPG just to fuck with everybody.

[Rodent]

I want a Diablo 3 Damn it!

Hellgate London not doing it for you?


And holy shit, that's alot of money landing in someones lap every month.

[HaemishM]

I want a Diablo 3 Damn it!

Hellgate London not doing it for you?


And holy shit, that's alot of money landing in someones lap every month.

I'm sure the money goes out for lap dances just as quickly.

[El Gallo]

*TOSS A FEW MORE MILLION AT MAKING MORE CONTENT, MOTHERFUCKERS*

[HaemishM]

Long as you're tossing around dolla bills, y0, how 'bout fixing dupe bugs, quicker patching, and more instances for battlegrounds to remove queues. Those could use some luv, too.

[Strazos]

I am continually told that the shortage of Horde players is the reason for the queue.

[Rasix]

I am continually told that the shortage of Horde players is the reason for the queue.

What you're told is correct.  On some servers it's still pretty much 3:1, 2.5:1 or god-forbid, even worse.  Very few servers are balanced population wise.  There's no helping the queues when the battlegrounds are working correctly, unless they can design/modify it so elves can fight elves. 

[Evangolis]

Attention Blizzard: 
Will play Horde
for Food.

[Krakrok]

On a worldwide note, it seems that no matter how much Blizzard drops the ball on the PVP or technical side of things, people are continuing to buy and subscribe to this game.

To the average WoW player those gripes are irrelevant. Downtime only makes people want to play the game more. The gold goes to whoever can build the best slot machine.

[schild]

I guarantee they won't be spending cash money on new programmers and artists. That would be too easy.

[NiX]

If not for that graph I wouldn't of been able to grasp exactly what was going on. Shockeye 4 teh win.

[Margalis]

If I were a paid analyst I would remark that the slope of the graph is increasing, and therefore predict that in the year 2010 every human on earth will be subscribed to WoW.

[schild]

This is just fuzzy math:



The red line is innovation. Now I just need phat analysis funding to prove it. I promise I won't spend it on (cheap) hookers.

[sinij]

At least its not SimsOL that did it, we have yet hope of disent mmorpgs coming out in a distant future.

[Pococurante]

Wow.

That's a lot of gold farmers.

[Murgos]

If I were a paid analyst I would remark that the slope of the graph is increasing, and therefore predict that in the year 2010 every human on earth will be subscribed to WoW.

Heh, I was going to make this same comment myself.  Three data points over four months is kind of stretching the analytical stuff, but it certainly looks like it's increasing at an increasing rate.

[Pococurante]

Hey, just wait until India reports in.  I hear the Tauren are really going over well there.

[Soln]

those are scarry and impressive numbers.  Still haven't subbed, or played since Beta.  No complaints, just not my cuppa 'o tea.  Prolly will try at some point since it's still the cat's ass. ;)

In other news, I resubbed to EQ2 (quit in Dec.).  I've played for 2 nights with the same poke-around-look-at-the-artwork kind of casual play you might have working in your garden at home.  I like it.  Low levels are fun.  Few players, low stress :D  However, in resubbing I noticed The Smed made an announcement I missed while I was screaming in SWG (since abandoned). Here's his take on WoW.  Sorry for the repeat if already posted:

Sony Online Entertainment President, John Smedley, discusses EverQuest II and the future of MMOs

Now what's been interesting from our perspective is what really serious competition is doing to the online gaming space. World of Warcraft has come on the scene and is doing awesome. Kudos to Blizzard on what I think is a spectacular game. I've played the heck out of it, and I love it (as have many people here at SOE). To a game developer, having another game developer play your game is the ultimate compliment… so to the folks at Blizzard we say "Nicely done".

But don't think for a second that we don't see WoW as both a great game AND Blizzard as serious competition.

Personally… I'm glad they are out there. They keep us honest. They keep us focused and they force us to play with our 'A' game. They've certainly opened some eyes in our company to styles of gameplay that are different than we would have come up with inside SOE. I hope they're also opening up the eyes of other MMO developers that the 'old school' probably won't cut it any more. I'm glad that we went in the direction we did with EQ II because had we stuck with making an even "harder core" game, I think bad things would have happened. We need to be about larger scale mass-entertainment… because that's what online gaming is slowly becoming. Our games just need to be fun… and easy to get into.

In the United States there are around 2 Million paying online gamers (this is after WoW btw). That's up from 250,000 back before EverQuest was released... and I'm only counting the MMO's.. if you start to add in the Pogo's of the world we're probably talking about 3-4 Million online gamers... and I have no idea what scary numbers some of these online poker places are bringing in.

What this means is that making future online games is a big business that is going to be increasingly competitive. I think that's good for you, and good for us. It's going to insure great games get made… and I can tell you we're in this for the long haul.

To me SOE is shaking in their boots, huddled in the corner rocking gently, rolling their eyes.... because
1) they have been totally pwnt by Blizzard over direct revenue (abandoners) and lost opportunity revenue (new subs);
2) they see some hope, however marginal, that the new peeps WoW is bringing in might make some coin fall their way; but
3) they really have no ideas of how to catch up other than building another pyramid (essentially, another gigantic MMO to compete since the world at large is sick of EQ#). 

All in all, they are falling away fast since the new metric for success will be not units sold (as Raph recently mentioned) but active billing regs.  The whole business is about recurring revenue and He-Who-Has-the-Biggest-Subscription-Base-Wins.  Wins now and will continue to win.  Units sold is a console model, where EA etc. have to sell over their limited "weekend" period like movies (cf. Haemish article).  But MMO's with their long-term operating costs (datacenters, Indian CSRs, etc.) have to have a continuing stream.  Blizzard seems to be not only finding new springs of players but seems to be the only person at the pump.  Smed's mention on online poker and wireless are interesting, and maybe with The Exchange SOE will do something devious with online gambling.  But so far as the MMO market goes, I really wonder how big their nestegg is and how they are going to try to catch up.

[El Gallo]

Hey, just wait until India reports in.  I hear the Tauren are really going over well there.

ZING!

I have a pretty strong feeling that almost all this money is being thrown down the abyss that is Vivendi's massive debt.

[Fargull]

Hey, just wait until India reports in.  I hear the Tauren are really going over well there.

Damn that was funny.

Blizzard is certainly fucking SOE into the ground without lube or protection.

[Bunk]

I am continually told that the shortage of Horde players is the reason for the queue.

We all know the reson for this - Horde needs better boobies.

Seriously.

[Mesozoic]

Blood Elf Bikini-zon 4tw.

[AOFanboi]

Given that the loot bug remains UN-FUCKING-FIXED this many patches in, and that the last patch introduced a client/server synch bug (that monster you are running from keeps hitting you because the server doesn't know you are moving), they really ought to spend that money and give the current devs some good severance packages and hire someone with abilities.

[Daydreamer]

I cringe thinking of the bugs and exploits that their first XP will introduce, when it comes out in ... 2012

[MrHat]

I was going to wait and resub when the xp came out.

But I am a weak weak man.

And I do love the hot gnomer action.

[Mesozoic]

Obligatory WoW General Forums refutation, complete with fuzzy logic and numbers fresh from the ass.

[Bunk]

Best response in that thread:

omfg i quit

[HaemishM]

Obligatory WoW General Forums refutation, complete with fuzzy logic and numbers fresh from the ass.

Even better:

I heard a lot of them were upset at all the American farmers gold sellers ruining the economy.

[Evangolis]

Inquirer UK article link: http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=24790

In summary, there are 3.5 million paying players globally, 1.5 million or 44% of WoW player base is in China, but that is primarily limited to the larger metro areas where tech is much more common. Many of the citizens don't have a computer, if they have even seen one at all.

And, that's 1.5 million paying customers since the June 7 launch.

I think this guy, and the article he sited, got the real point.  1.5 mil subscribers in one month.  America and Japan are now niche markets.

[MrHat]

Inquirer UK article link: http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=24790

In summary, there are 3.5 million paying players globally, 1.5 million or 44% of WoW player base is in China, but that is primarily limited to the larger metro areas where tech is much more common. Many of the citizens don't have a computer, if they have even seen one at all.

And, that's 1.5 million paying customers since the June 7 launch.

I think this guy, and the article he sited, got the real point.  1.5 mil subscribers in one month.  America and Japan are now niche markets.

Those numbers might be a bit of an estimate too.

Blizzard is certainly fucking SOE into the ground without lube or protection.

The thought of a lovechild makes me shudder.

[Evangolis]

Inquirer UK article link: http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=24790

In summary, there are 3.5 million paying players globally, 1.5 million or 44% of WoW player base is in China, but that is primarily limited to the larger metro areas where tech is much more common. Many of the citizens don't have a computer, if they have even seen one at all.

And, that's 1.5 million paying customers since the June 7 launch.

I think this guy, and the article he sited, got the real point.  1.5 mil subscribers in one month.  America and Japan are now niche markets.

Those numbers might be a bit of an estimate too.

And if they are double the actual numbers then they only have 15X the commonly agreed minimum break-even point for an MMO.  If any of us were working on an MMO that was pulling 750K subs, we'd be shopping for upgrades for our Porsche.

Mind you, China is a complex market.  I can recall translating English between Chinese students when I was in grad school because they couldn't understand each other's native speech.

[Ironwood]

Given that the loot bug remains UN-FUCKING-FIXED this many patches in, and that the last patch introduced a client/server synch bug (that monster you are running from keeps hitting you because the server doesn't know you are moving), they really ought to spend that money and give the current devs some good severance packages and hire someone with abilities.

So that's what killed me.  It was a pain in the fucking ass.