Official burning crusade release date announced, WoW now has 7.5 million players

[Jeff Kelly]

Blizzard today announced the official the burning crusade release date 01/16/07

from the press release:

"PARIS, France. – 9 November, 2006 – Blizzard Entertainment® announced today that World of Warcraft®: The Burning Crusade™, the highly anticipated expansion to the world’s leading subscription-based massively multiplayer online role-playing game, World of Warcraft, will be in stores on January 16th in North America and Europe. The expansion will be available in a similar time frame in Korea, Australia, New Zealand, and Singapore as well, and availability for mainland China and the regions of Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau will be announced in the near future. In addition, Blizzard today announced that the subscriber base for World of Warcraft has reached a new milestone, with 7.5 million players worldwide."

So, even bigger money hats for them.

[Righ]

[Fabricated]

Yeah, this game is just sooo a flash in the pan kind of thing. Vanguard is totally gonna rule!

Blizz had better be hiring a shitload of good people to work on adding content and fixing this or that, and lease out Deep Blue to handle the server loads. That's around $110,000,000 per month just from subscriptions. Sure, Uncle Sam/paychecks/etc eat that up but good god.

[Dren]

I love bringing this thread up whenever we talk about current WoW numbers.

http://forums.f13.net/index.php?topic=1577.0


Um yeah, we were all waaaay off.  I do have to claim I saw a much bigger success than most of you.

Can I have my cookie now?

[Fabricated]

I love bringing this thread up whenever we talk about current WoW numbers.

http://forums.f13.net/index.php?topic=1577.0


Um yeah, we were all waaaay off.  I do have to claim I saw a much bigger success than most of you.

Can I have my cookie now?

lol @ armchair industry analysts

I think WoW exploded a lot more than even the most fanboyish of us thought however, so looking back results in a lot of head slapping.

[Furiously]

Hmmm - baby's due date is the 14th....Anyone want to bet which happens first?

[WindupAtheist]

If they happen the same day, you have to name your baby Blizzard.

[Sky]

I love bringing this thread up whenever we talk about current WoW numbers.

http://forums.f13.net/index.php?topic=1577.0


Um yeah, we were all waaaay off.  I do have to claim I saw a much bigger success than most of you.

Can I have my cookie now?

Hey, I have a happy fun quote in that thread:

marijuana will eat your children and fart dead kittens.

[KutNPastie]

Who can know... Ziggy Stardust was huge too.

[Threash]

I know a shit load of people who have quit recently, 90% of whom are likely to be right back for the expansion, if their subs are still going up they must be selling like hot cakes still.

[caladein]

Oh, nice birthday present. Thanks Blizzard.

[Morfiend]

Hmmm - baby's due date is the 14th....Anyone want to bet which happens first?

Thats my birthday.

[Ironwood]

I then think it will grow to 600k at its peak within 6 months.  Further peaks may occur when they release into other continents

That thread is all luv.  God, we were daft.

[Venkman]

As of last month, I have spent more cumulative time in WoW than any other MMO. Even the eight times I returned to EQ. As a result, I love checking back on my E3 2004 Report (sorry for link, it's just too big to copy/paste). I called it "decidedly meh" and something not for me. Heh.

The one thing I did get right:

I actually feel Blizzard is going to bring more gamers to MMORPGs than Star Wars did last year. They've got a strong following of gamers who have fun in Blizzard games. They're not being sold on the promise of reliving a decades-old story line. They're being sold on the idea that they can play the same sort of Blizzard game they always have, with a monthly fee.

But whatever feeling or right I get from that is tempered by:

I am being a little harsh on WoW I think. It's just that with EQ2 doing EQlive right, the SWG Space Expansion actually integrating a completely a fundamentally different play style into an existing MMORPG, and NC Soft basically crushing every "rule" that governs contemporary MMOG development (like launching on time, on budget, being stable and being fun right out of the box), WoW is continuing to pale ever more blandly against the competition.

Particularly embarassing statement based on what has become of EQ2, SWG and NC Soft... 

Gotta love the pundits.

[UnSub]

As a dumb question, how does Blizzard measure its 7.5 million players? By active accounts? By billing addresses? Some other way?

Anyone know?

[Trouble]

That thread was funny.

[Trippy]

As a dumb question, how does Blizzard measure its 7.5 million players? By active accounts? By billing addresses? Some other way?

Anyone know?

They tell you in their press releases everytime they announce a subscriber milestone:

World of Warcraft's Customer Definition
World of Warcraft customers include individuals who have paid a subscription fee or purchased a prepaid card to play World of Warcraft, as well as those who have purchased the installation box bundled with one free month access. Internet Game Room players who have accessed the game over the last thirty days are also counted as customers. The above definition excludes all players under free promotional subscriptions, expired or cancelled subscriptions, and expired prepaid cards. Customers in licensees' territories are defined along the same rules.

[Margalis]

It is a bit odd really because game room users (which are of very high number in Asia) don't pay individual subs. # players != # subs. But either way they have a lot of players, a lot of money and a lot of subs.

Given the popularity of MMORPGs up to that point, I think a 3x or so improvement was a reasonable guess by some people. Sure it did 10 times that but who knows...some things catch fire.

[Trippy]

It is a bit odd really because game room users (which are of very high number in Asia) don't pay individual subs. # players != # subs.

No for WoW, and many other of the major Asian MMORPGs, they do. We've covered this many times in the past.

[Jayce]

At least Haemish capped the thread for us with a prophetic note:

I think WoW just might blow my modest expectations out of the water, provided even half these people stay past the free month.

Oh yeah... blow away expectations, it did.

[Venkman]

As a turncoat, I'll say what I've been saying since March: Shortly after the release of BC, they hit 10mil subscribers. Doubt they can sustain that for long, but it'd still be an important achievement.

On those 7.5mil though, they sub-license WoW to The9 in China (where the way-largest percentage of their accounts are held). I don't know for sure what the arrangement is, but I think they collect a royalty paid to Blizzard (or VUG) monthly. So there's still "accounts" per se, they just don't contribute $14.99/mo to Blizzard's bottom line.

[Xanthippe]

Speaking of failed prognostications, I recall posting, shortly after I started playing alliance, that more women play alliance than horde.

I was wrong.  There are just a lot more manginas playing female alliance than horde.  Or were, rather, when I played horde (shortly after launch).  That may have changed by now. I predict the mangina population to go way up hordeside with TBC.

[Trippy]

As a turncoat, I'll say what I've been saying since March: Shortly after the release of BC, they hit 10mil subscribers. Doubt they can sustain that for long, but it'd still be an important achievement.

Not going to happen unless BC releases at or around the same time they launch in another major region. BC will bring back some former subscribers but 2 - 2.5 million of them?

On those 7.5mil though, they sub-license WoW to The9 in China (where the way-largest percentage of their accounts are held). I don't know for sure what the arrangement is, but I think they collect a royalty paid to Blizzard (or VUG) monthly. So there's still "accounts" per se, they just don't contribute $14.99/mo to Blizzard's bottom line.

WoW has operators in all the Chinese-language territories -- The9 in Mainland China as you said and Game First International in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau. Also iGames Asia is the operator Singapore and some other parts of SE Asia. The rumor going around about 3 months ago was that Blizzard was trying to negotiate a better deal with The9 with the BC release since I guess they are/were unhappy with the deal they made for the original WoW release.

[jpark]

As a turncoat, I'll say what I've been saying since March: Shortly after the release of BC, they hit 10mil subscribers. Doubt they can sustain that for long, but it'd still be an important achievement.

If the numbers do not surpass your forecast, I am predicting a huge comeback by Shadowbane  :-D

[Nebu]

I love bringing this thread up whenever we talk about current WoW numbers.

http://forums.f13.net/index.php?topic=1577.0


Um yeah, we were all waaaay off.  I do have to claim I saw a much bigger success than most of you.

Can I have my cookie now?

Well, I expected the gaming populous to demand more than just a Diku_made_better with a brand name slapped on it.  I was quite underwhelmed in the WoW beta and considered my 400k estimate to be generous.  Again, I've underestimated just how low a bar the masses will accept.  WoW is a decently polished Diku experience... for most of us, that's nothing to expect 7 million subs from.  Then again... if someone asked me how many copies the "Deer Hunter" franchise would have sold, I never would have come close to that number either.

[Furiously]

I still wonder how many people logged in once said, "meh" and then never realized their credit card was still getting charged.

[Azazel]

probably quite a few, but probably not, you know, a million people or more. 

[Furiously]

probably quite a few, but probably not, you know, a million people or more. 

I dunno...

[WindupAtheist]

The most entertaining thing about the rise of WoW has been hearing the MMO pseudo-intellectuals and bumblefuck developers wail and gnash their teeth as the latest iteration of dinggratzlewtz renders everything else in the genre completely irrelevant.

[Ironwood]

Um.  I'm not sure that there's much wailing and gnashing going on, seeing as it's a good thing for them.

[schild]

I love Blizzard for taking 7.5 Million people and keeping them the fuck away from me.

[Simond]

Um.  I'm not sure that there's much wailing and gnashing going on, seeing as it's a good thing for them.

I'd imagine that WUA was referring to the Ivory Tower TerraNova-types who tend to view Diku-derivatives as an irrelevance to their grand vision of making 3D MUSHes, rather than the various devs and publishers who are hoping to pick up some of WoW's crumbs.

Anyway (and vaguely related to the thread) the final pre-expansion patch is going up on WoW's test servers Soon(tm) and there's a leaked patch message floating about.
Edit: Curses, foiled again!

[Ironwood]

Well, even to those types, WoW is good news.  If they're too fucking elitist to see it, they can go fuck themselves.

Sorted.

[WindupAtheist]

I'm still waiting for Raph to run in and tell us again how Habbo Hotel is more important than WoW.  Because it isn't.  It really isn't.

[El Gallo]

.Again, I've underestimated just how low a bar the masses will accept.  WoW is a decently polished Diku experience... for most of us, that's nothing to expect 7 million subs from.  .

If the fact that I'd rather spend an hour pretending to beat monsters with a big stick in WoW than pretending to fill out tax forms or pay rent in "Player Driven Economy Simulator Online" or reading some shitty internet chain story put together by a group of mouth-breathing illiterates in "Player Generated Content Online" makes me an unwashed mass, sign me up!