Mists of Pandaria discussion

[Jester]

Aion has been around for longer than WoW's decline. WoW was still on a slight increase when Aion came into the picture. And if anything, Aion more likely has affected FF12 and 14 more than WoW where those two (FF12 and 14) had a primarily Asian subscriber base. Also, did you bother to note that Aion has lost over 1 million subs since it's peak in late 2009/early 2010?

We agree players are leaving the market. The overall numbers are down by about a million. But the entrance of Rift into the market is increasing, not decreasing the total picture, because it had zero players prior to 2011. It is "down" relative to its peak, but still a net gain of half a million players that had to come from somewhere. Most weren't from outside the MMO market, because the market has shrunk by a million. Hence, WoW looks to be a prime candidate.

Aion's decline from 4 to 3 million does not necessarily mean WoW players aren't moving to it. It could be (for instance) that Aion players are leaving the market entirely, but WoW players are giving Aion a try. There are plenty of permutations, and these subscription figures are just aggregates - they don't show us inter-game flows.

Regardless, this is all beside the big point, which is that WoW is not experiencing any historically unprecedented decline. Not in speed, not in scale, not even in absolute numbers. If people are leaving, that's to be expected, because the game is a full seven years old. What is remarkable is not the speed of their departure, which is not yet very impressive, but rather the length of their endurance. What other 7 year old game has remained on top of its genre? Has that ever happened? Even once?

I think you're not looking at the data in the proper light. You throw out the data points, then failed to properly analyze those data points trying to point that when various MMOs lost people, it was after their peak by more than two years.

Hunh? Show me where, because I'm starting to wonder if you're looking at the data at all... most MMOs have big declines very quickly after their peaks, because most MMOs are flash-in-the-pan games that fail to compete with WoW. Warhammer. Age of Conan. Rift. Lord of the Rings. Even Aion, although even after peaking and falling, it's still the 2nd largest ever. Even longer-running games, like EQ, Lineage, Final Fantasy XI and Ultima Online had large, single-year drops of over 20%, directly from their top "plateau" levels.

So, what you're saying fits... no games. Can you name me even a single game that bled to death, a few % at a time, over multiple years? I can't. Lineage is the closest, and we've already been over those numbers.

If all you're saying is that games do well, plateau, then people eventually get bored with them and leave, then this is not any different from what the rest of us are saying. But that wasn't the strong part of your claim. The strong part was that WoW has seen unprecedented drops that break the pattern, and suggest some unique incompetence on the part of the B team. This is the opposite of true.

There's a huge difference in losing 30% two years after you peak because another MMO has entered the market that has pulled people away with definite game play that was better at the time and losing 8% of your subscribers in 6 months after a new expansion with no real competition.

You keep saying "no real competition." This is manifestly false. The market is nearly as large as it has ever been. MMOs compete. WoW just tends to win.

Next week, we'll get to see the 3rd quarter results for Activision-Blizzard and we'll see what the subscriber loss looks like then (but looking at how Blizzard was reacting during Blizzcon, it's going to be bad).

We'll see what happens. But I'll tell you this: No matter how bad it is, it's going to still be a historically unprecedented number for a 7 year old MMO.

-Jester