i won my last game from 39-40
good way to finish…
feel so liberated that im no longer in that grind
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This was my understanding too but I’m happy to be corrected if it’s not the case.
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This information was NOT given at any event.
This “information” is guesswork by a youtuber.
I think “anyone subscribed to WoW’s YouTube channel” is a pretty good indicator of both casuals and more hardcore players.
I think it fluctuates a lot depending on where the content is and how good that content is. That poll was only a few weeks after SoD released, so SoD being so big is not surprising, however at least it’s real numbers. Given what I have seen, I think Niharen is drastically overestimating the current popularity of standard Classic and undervaluing that of SoD.
I am surprised the numbers are this high in general though. Unless there’s almost no overlap between SoD and retail’s player counts, this doesn’t jive every well with what we’ve seen from data gathering websites at all.
I think Blizzard are just clever with their timing. They rarely pit Classic and Retail up against each other. They know plenty of bored Retailers will go and try Classic.
This boost participation. They also do time their content releases the same way ofc.
As for a poll of Youtube users, it’s data Blizz can actually see, so any poll on a social media platform is just marketing IMO.
Well of course it was, but so was publishing the subscriber numbers back when they did that. They stopped doing it once the game did worse, surprise-surprise.
Doesn’t mean it’s wrong. Far from it.
You are free to feel that way ofc.
All things considered, it’s not bad.
It’s less than WLK peak but not terribly, world has changed, more options, core target audience grew up… I would take that.
One earlier question involved 21m to 8m - China aside, I think the pandemic and the initial reaction to 6-12 month subscription lures were also at play. And I’m experiencing a moderate crisis now, meaning gaming is slightly less lucrative, subscriptions at least.
I also think Blizzard did a mistake with rushing WLK. Initially, we had alternating years of classic and modern. But with BC cut short, they are now in tandem. Creating a lull, which the 2019 so cleverly solved.
It makes sense in a way - while retail offers a huge world, the future of Wrath long term is unclear (should we collect things? what about the next classic cycle, will we inherit, or do we start naked again?), and so both of these editions are targeting the few devoted fans who just want to keep playing. Or just (re)start now.
The issue with Classic following the expansions is that the whole point of Classic is that it wasn’t retail - so if you just keep updating it with the expansions for retail it eventually becomes retail, undoing the whole point.
Back when they announced Classic I was genuinely hoping they’d add more content to the original following the original design philosophy, but instead I’ve been offered the following choice from hell:
- Retail with insane class design
- WotLK but we’ve fast-forwarded the worst excesses of retail and everyone in PvP has 14 years of experience
- Era which never gets updated
- Hardcore which just isn’t for me
- WoWHead: The Game (because finding those darn runes on your own is impossible)
There’s a private server out there that starts with T, and they got the right idea, but them being a private server means the quality and monetization practices can’t quite be what I’d like to see. It’s annoying that that’s a private server rather than what Blizzard offered us. That’s what the team lead of vanilla WoW Mark Kern suggested, it’s the only right move, and it’s at this point practically the only move they haven’t tried. It’s like they’re determined that he, specifically, is wrong.
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Better images in this article
Also
It’s worth noting that the shutdown in China amounted to a substantial number of lost players, particularly for Classic, though it’s unclear if that region is considered in these graphs, given that their subscriptions were run through Net Ease rather than Blizzard.
Also russian servers are mostly empty now, which is probably isn’t substantial amount but still reflects in some way on statistics that doomsayers like to use
I doubt something from classic reaches farther than 1 mil aside of SoD, sod carries hard whole classic thing
True I’d totally forgotten to consider they are facing sanctions and a lot can’t play.
It may just be the cynic in me, but I’m generally skeptical of alleged leaks that resemble press releases.
There’s a simple explanation for that
what do you mean?
Aren’t there still sanctions stopping them from paying for game time and expansions
You’re both making the same point 
When did WoW arrive in China?
Warcraft, which first released in North America in 2004 , was initially given permission to launch in the notoriously restrictive Chinese gaming market back in 2005.