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World of Warcraft Hits 9.3 Million Players
Gamasutra is reporting that, along with Vivendi's ever-increasing earnings, recent information has been released updating the current player stats for World of Warcraft. Despite suspicions of falling numbers due to the long wait between now and Rise of the Lich King, Blizzard's Massive title is larger than ever, with some 9.3 million players. "Vivendi has chalked up the increase not only to its WoW subscriber base, but the release of its The Burning Crusade expansion, which saw release in China in the latter part of the third quarter ... The company also noted that its subscriber base has continued to grow from the 9 million mark it celebrated in July to more than 9.3 million, which it says is up more than one million subscribers since December 31 of last year."
If you take this news and add it that one
It's the biggest botnet in the world.
Ceci n'est pas une Signature !
You never forget your first 9.3 million subscribers.
9.3 million current subscriptions? 9.3 million people logging in every week? 9.3 million accounts in total?
These figures don't mean a whole heap unless explained.
I like muppets.
Except even if Blizzard is horribly invading the privacy of their users, that doesn't make it a botnet. I assure you we won't be seeing anything like a DDoS attack from WoW subscribers any time soon.
"16MB (fuck off, MiB fascists)" - The Mighty Buzzard
I made it a point to play only those games which run natively on linux. It's nice. This stays out.
Sent from my desktop computer
5.9907 billion people STILL don't give a fuck.
someone has this craptacular comment ready every time they put out these figures. they always mean the same thing: the number of people who give them money every month.
Who are these people.
Everyone I know is quitting the game.
Even I haven't played since this summer.
I just don't have the time to devote to something like this and still lead a meaningful life.
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
Now I know why my shares in Coppertone tanked.
For those of you keeping track at home, that's approximately one account for every mile between the Earth and the Sun...
*ahem...*
--RIAmAses! Let my MP3ople go!
Considering that new content was known to be coming with the release of the 2.3 patch (which happened two days ago), I seriously doubt that WoW has been suffering any major 'waiting for the next expansion' subscriber losses yet. If the pre-BC timeframe is any indicator, that should happen in the final months before the WotLK release when the bulk of Blizzard's software engineering staff is concentrating on finishing the polish on it.
Why not just alert us when it hits 10 million? Am I missing some significance to 9.3 million, other than the Earth-Sol distance? .1 million? Should this number impress me especially? I much prefer to hear when they hit 9.475 million. Wake me up when they hit that.
Are we just getting updates every
"People are stupid; given proper motivation, almost anyone will believe almost anything."
Disclaimer, I have multiple WOW accounts, one LOTRO account, and have tried about every damn MMORPG to come down the pike.
Frankly, the majority of these companies other than Blizzard just don't get it. There was an article linked here from a MMORPG developer of high standing who did a talk about what gamers want, who they are, and the games they play. He then went into a point by point discussion about what makes a good game.
The real problem, the game designers who are failing are designing games for people like them. They are not designing for the market, let alone new markets. A great example is Turbine. They had Asheron's Call and then followed it up with a sequel which failed miserably and was shut down. The primary reason was, it wasn't what the players wanted. It was more of a tribute to the developers (cities that if nothing else where monuments to Turbine). It had lots of great ideas but horrible execution. It forced player cooperation in areas where people never expect nor will cooperate (like crafting). Then comes D&D Online. A group centric game which for some reason people put huge unrealistic expected subscriber numbers on. Why didn't it generate the numbers? Simple, group mechanics require coordination out of game to experience properly in game. With your gaming population spread across time zones and such that coordination breaks down over time; usually not a long time. This title probably would have excelled with a Guild Wars model where the players could take NPCs along. Then comes along LOTRO, another game of great expectations hit by implementation and perceived need to group to trudge through higher levels (mostly unfounded but still it was a very pretty game that just felt empty - turbine's problem with having buildings you have to zone in breaks immersion and combined with walking dead human npcs doesn't help)
WOW's churn numbers are probably greater than most of the top twenty game's current playing population. But why? Simple, you can log in and accomplish something in a short time without ever having to wait for others. Friends can pop in for brief periods and play along, you can pick up with others as you go, but for the most part you don't have to rely on others to enjoy the bulk of the content.
There is also the major fact that none of the wow-killers has lived up to their hype or haven't released. Every time one of these games comes along and fails the blame game starts but always ignores the fact. The game isn't polished, the game is bug laden, the game requires a lot of grouping, or the game's hardware requirements are too high for the real MMORPG desiring player base.
WOW is only going to lose a large number of people to the next Blizzard game. Blizzard set a very high standard and continues to keep their own game at that level. This provides enough satisfaction and enjoyment for many people. Why should the majority of them even care what else comes out?
Too me it seems too many developers are actively relying on dissatisfied WOW players to swell their subscription numbers. If your looking for people who don't like such a successful and executed game just what in the hell are you aiming for?
Oh well, WOW will persist for years because Blizzard has learned that you cater to the needs of the individual player and build up from there. You keep the individual happy and then provide then avenues for more fun with opportunities that reward grouping and playing with others. You never require that as the price of just playing.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
Who are these people?
None of my friends play any more.
I've not played since summer.
Hell yeah. Their simultaneous releases go back to around 2001 or 2002 or so, with the release of Warcraft 3, which for me brought a feeling of "it's about time". I still remember how much I hated waiting forever and ever for the Mac release of Warcraft 2 (Dec 1995 for DOS/Win, Sept 1996 for Mac OS). By the time the game came out for Mac OS, most of my friends were already long since onto other games. So much for modem multiplayer games with my friends!
;)
Either way though, I'm really glad that Blizzard has, since WC3, maintained consistent simultaneous Mac/Win releases. Actually, it seems kind of funny to say, but being able to say "WoW runs on OS X" is a strong positive aspect when explaining to friends some of the advantages of using a Mac.
Not Rise
Just think of it, 9.3 million possible guild members to deposit gold for my Squirrelly Wrath guild bank!
But, the big question is, if I need 1000 gold to buy 96 slots for the guild bank, how many of those 9.3 million accounts are on my server and aren't gold farmers who will try to join so they can siphon gold out of the guild?
And how many will be online when I am?
And will they all help me in my mythical quest for coffee, nuts, and Foamy the Squirrel?
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
But from the top of the mountain there is no longer anywhere to go but down. And the air may be so thin at that altitude that it makes thinking clearly about the future difficult.
I've been playing WoW since beta (blah, blah), but I predict that in a few years we'll look back on the announcement of the forthcoming expansion as the peak in the life of WoW.
Note that in the past they announced subscriber numbers in even millions but now we have this 9.3 number. What's gone wrong that they didn't hit 10 million? After all, they've been continuously releasing the game into new markets over the last few years, so there has been a constant source of new players to help inflate the subscriber numbers.
WoW in the U.S. has been in decline for several months now. While there are many die-hard players who have been there for three years or more and will likely be playing WoW five years from now, there are also many many player who have gotten bored and have either moved on, or are now ready for a "next big thing" to come along at which point they'll jump so fast it will make Blizzards' heads spin.
There is an enormous potential opening in the market resulting from Blizzard's stumble. The window will likely last a year or two until Blizzard realizes they're in trouble and does something about it. It will be interesting to see if any of next year's big challengers is able to capitalize on this. Games like Age of Conan or Warhammer have a big opportunity, but will they be able to take advantage of it?
One of the biggest problems with new games (Lord of the Rings Online is a perfect example) is that in many cases they copy so much from WoW as to be almost indistinguishable from it. Someone who has gotten tired of WoW is unlikely to be inspired by a poor clone of it.
Blizzard has all the talent required to get back on track, but I think a significant shakeup in their design group will be needed. They can't just keep pushing another identical 10-level grind + new endgame raiding content on people every 18 months and expect them not to notice that it's just the same thing all over again.
The announcement of the new forthcoming expansion turned a lot of people off as simply being more level and gear inflation that will invalidate everything they've accomplished so far and make them go through the whole process again. Especially those people who were brought into gaming for the first time by WoW.
More of the same is no longer a recipe for success, and the new subscriber numbers suggest that the engines on the high-flying Blizzard ship have flamed out. Whether they can recognize this and get themselves restarted by coming up with something NEW will have to be seen.
If there's one thing that WoW suffers from it's the word "static". Everything is fixed, very little is dynamic. Dungeons are exactly the same every time you run them, and you need a fixed number of people and skills to beat them. Imagine if the dungeon layouts were randomly generated each time and the monsters and rewards automatically scaled to the number of people in the party and their abilities? In my opinion, it's only through major changes like this that Blizzard has any hope of returning to a growing subscriber base.
G.
That's a lot of virgins. It makes you wonder if WOW has more virgins than Slashdot, but I'm sure there's some overlap.
Steve's Computer Service, Hobbs, NM
I believe that when Wrath release,the number of wow players will hit 10 Million. Thus i put the forecast in my blog: http://www.igolg.com
Guys I actively play WoW (on my Ubuntu 7.10) and I can say that there are a lot of players that use Linux to play. With OpenGL the game looks great as Direct3D counterpart and you don't have any decrease in frame rate.
One thing is sure. As seen as many payers play only that game if this game runs good on Linux they are willing to switch to Linux. Basically WoW is helping to grow the Linux users.
Not only. Even considering that you need good drivers to play, both nVidia and ATi are forced to release some good pieces of software.
When I had some game issues (about the game policies not the program) and a Game Master contacted me I told him I was using wine. His reaction? He was prepared to that.
Do you know that thanks to wine Blizzard fixed a huge bug before releasing 2.2?
And most of all when I post screenshots on my guild's forum or WoW eu official forum, there's always at least one guy surprised that asks me if that is Linux (or Ubuntu) and how the game runs and how to start using Linux+WoW.
It's strange to state, I would never thought these things like 1 year ago, but WoW is beneficial for Linux.
As seen as stated before, WoW is the best agme at the moment, so no need to play other games, and considering that it runs perfectly in Linux many guys are trying the jump.
And once they feel the power of Linux they'll start actively using it.
Maybe they'll keep dual boot, but still is a good start.
Cheers,
E.
That's a little bit bigger than the population of Sweden (see Wikipedia). I found this fact rather amusing.
Of the 9.3 million how many subscribers are actually profitable?
Thanks to eating disorders most chicks are reasonably good looking these days.
Considereing they spent 100 Million $ building it I don't think there's much of a reason being suprised. Blizzards is the only software company that I recall forcefully resisting the urge of releasing to early. Starcraft is to date the most popular RTS and they playtested it for *two years* before releasing it. It has a resolution that was considers low even back then. WoW runs fine with my Geforce 4.
Resist pushy releasing, playtest, build for mid-range machines, playtest, see that the game is fun after 30 seconds the latest, playtest, build it so that a total newbie can understand the game in 5 minutes flat, build top-notch art for the low end tech-specs, playtest, playtest and don't forget to playtest. If all publisheres followed these simple rules we'd have much more games that would be as much fun as WoW or other Blizzard stuff.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
I completely agree with the reasons you've listed and it's too bad more companies don't copy their design philosophies instead of just trying to copy their designs. I just wanted to chime in to say that their budget in the neighborhood of $65 million. I'm not trying to be a fact nazi, but I just wanted to mention it because in the world of MMOs $35m is a huge difference. $65m is just over double the second highest budgeted MMO that has been released to date which speaks volumes about the kind of quality Blizzard was willing to put into their game. Unfortunately a sad fact of the industry is everyone's funding has to come from somewhere. The people responsible for that funding are often the ones making the decision whether or not a game gets pushed out early. Even after a game company becomes self-sufficient, the people who originally gave them achieve that success retain a stake in the company.
The developers can say they need more time, but whether they get it is not necessarily up to them. Blizzard has been extremely lucky in that the company which owned them up until Vivendi bought them allowed them the necessary time to polish their games and I'm sure it was apparent that doing so was well worth it.