Mists of Pandaria discussion

[Lissa]

And, down another 800k subscribers to 10.3 Million. You still want to try blaming this on something other than the B team Jester?

"They have lost more subscribers, therefore I am correct about why they lost subscribers." This is not a reasonable argument.

It seems to me to be a combination of factors, many of which have been mentioned already. Primary among them, as has been emphasized before, is boredom.

15% in 9 months is boredom? Come on Jester, that's a bit too large a group to say boredom, especially when the losses are accelerating.

Second, is the rise of alternative games, including Rift and Aion - no, they are not picking up subscribers at 1 to 1, but yes, they are offering alternatives to WoW, and are still both large competitors.

Your delusions are showing. Aion is losing subscriptions, it's been losing them since 2009. WoW subscribers are not going to Aion, look at the data. Rifts got a short infusion when it lauched, going to 600k subscribers, but within 3 months they had last 25% of those and they are below that mark still. No game has picked up these subs in any relevance. The data is there if you bother to look, refusing to recognize what the data says shows you're deluding yourself.

Third, is the tuning of heroic instances to be less wafflestompy, perhaps alienating casuals who liked free purples.

Again, stop deluding yourself. Initially, those instances weren't, but they have been nerfed considerably. Do you recall what Setesh was like before the first nerf? It was the ultimate in DPS races in the heroic instances, now, it's pathetically easy, and that happened within the first quarter. The instances have been nerfed down quite a bit prior to these major drops.

Fourth, if Blizzard is to be believed, there is a large decline of players in China whose causes I would have a hard time guessing at.

Except the subs fluctuated between 11.5M and 12M between start of Wrath and start of Cataclysm while China was stuck with just tBC. China hasn't played that major a role.

Fifth, times are hard economically, the recession continues to bite not just in the US but worldwide. MMO subscriptions run out, and people cut back.

The only potential here of your reasoning, but gathering the various comments from people on line, not enough to account for this large a drop.

Sixth, Blizzard has announced a highly anticipated online fantasy game directly in competition with itself.

Announcing and being available are too different things. Diablo 3 is not out and thus Blizzard should not be losing subs due to this. If Diablo 3 was out, yes, you'd have a point, but it's not.

Seventh, the toughest competitor WoW has ever faced, The Old Republic, is launching very soon, and anyone anticipating a switch could (should) let their WoW account lapse.

Again, SW:TOR is not out. Likewise, you don't sit 3 to 6 months waiting for something to come out like this unless you're dissatisified with the game.

None of those things involves a decline in quality from B Team design. One is a tactical miscalculation that actually seems to reflect good design, but leads to the depressing conclusion that people don't actually want good design, but rather, easy stomping.

I do not understand on what basis you dismiss all those potential factors.

Because only the economic one has the potential to work with the data given. Every single excuse you gave goes not jive with the data we've seen. You don't lose this kind of subs with no real competition (and they don't have any real competition as yet, we're still 6 1/2 weeks out from SW:TOR and we're several months out from D3).

1.7Million lost, 15% of their subscribers, in just 9 months since the launch of a new expansion. You don't lose 15% of your player base like that with no real competition in just 9 months unless you're doing something wrong and alienating people. Face it, the B team has screwed up and now Blizzard is paying for it.

9 months is like the sales lifespan of a normal game. Blizzard lost 500,000 subscribers in that span following the release of WotLK - expansions generate excitement, then that excitement falls off and peoples' subscriptions lapse. This one is rougher than in the past, and may get worse yet. But once again: this game is OLD. I am not playing any other games of that vintage.

You're kidding right? 9 months is not the normal lifespan for a MMO. MMOs are not like an Single Person RPG like Mass Effect or Skyrim. MMOs are all about building a longevity of character over years of play not some 40 to 60 hours. MMOs are designed to be time sinks. They are ment to last for years at a time.

WoW is still, even with these losses (not unprecedented, in ratio terms!), over three times as large as its nearest competitor, which you have already dismissed as a complete irrelevance.

-Jester

I would admit it was relevant if it was gaining subscriptions, but Aion has been losing them for longer than WoW and has only existed for 4 years. Likewise, Rifts has only been around for 8 months, yet it is at almost half the subscriptions it initially started at with its launch. WoW has lost 15% of its subscriptions in less than a year with no real competition, it's not losing these people to other games in the MMO field. You do not lose 15% of your subscribers without a seriuos competitor like this unless you are screwing up.