Iirc the Warcraft movie was saved by the Chinese market, and according to the wiki there was more chinese players than from North America back in 2011.
(1. China, Asian Realms: 3.2 million players
United States and Canada, North American Realms: 3.0 million players )
Since you seem to be well informed about the subs, do you have any info about the current situation of the asian realm ?
The wiki claimed there was around 4.8m on the EU & NA realm and 4.35M on the asian one (just added the subs per country of the same realm to get these numbers) in 2011.
If the asian realm suffured from the same sub losses than the western ones (if we take your min, around -61% between 2011 and now), WoW sub count could very well be currently above the 4M.
for people saying you pay 50 pounds and get 2 year worth of content you are actualy wrong. you pay 50 pounds for the expansion then 10 pounds every month so in the 2 year you mention you play a game that costs you 290 pounds. and in these 2 years if you are not a dps meta no m+ for you. let it sink a little. lots of free nice MMORPG out there with free subs
Unfortunately, as far as reliability of data is concerned, Chinese market is a big question mark. Some time ago I remarked that I personally think that number to be between 500 000 and 2 million, but I have seen posters, who claimed that Chinese took offense at the switch to the sub based payment system and player count has crashed to below 30 000 (thirty thousand). Personally, I do not believe NetEase would have kept WoW online, if they had taken over 99% losses.
With that said, your final note is possible, but I am not able to confirm such a high value. In fact, my posts frequently see replies, which suggest that actual numbers are below my calculations. Last year there were even a few that suggested that the world wide total was below that of my calculations for US+EU only.
Something in me thinks the sub losses in China are probably going to be far greater than in the West:
Most gold sellers etc. Iâve seen advertising in game since Legion have been Russian, no longer Chinese (you can tell by the language/syntax used). This used to be dominated by Chinese, suggesting they have massively moved away from the game.
No significant presence of China in world first races/MDI/arena championships etc. that Iâve seen, could be wrong though. Would expect far more activity if they had that many people playingâŚ
the preference/popularity of mobile games in that part of the world that has exploded in the last 5 years.
Maybe that 30k figure is right (certainly hope not for Blizz, but would put more urgency behind their sudden switch to mobile games). Net ease might be tied in to contracts or they have it negotiated in a way that they still make money, despite low subs, who knowsâŚ
Blizzard did also come pretty close to losing itâs licence to release games in China last year, I believe. They were shortlisted for possible action, but were saved by the bell (a sudden decision to relax the rules slightly).
I hope they do not remove it, F2P brings in a lot of jerks and people who ruin the community and Pay to win then comes in ----I rather pay 12.99⏠a month
Ive played 14+ years and i rather they keep the sub and they did reward us at 10 year mark.
This is not directed at you Anna but so many whineing over 33 pence per day or you know they could paye with gold.
Jito is all ok with them removing portals and others things which has cost them players and is there biggest fan yet moans about cost.
Anyone who disagrees with him he then labels and calls them morons.
Anyone else would be on a ban but no not ex MvP Jito .
Compare it to other gaming deals then. Playstation Now. Xbox One Pass. Jump. OnePlay. GameFly. EA Access. Utomik. Nintendo Switch Online. And so on. Thereâs no shortage of options on the gaming market when it comes to spending your monthly âŹ10.
And 15 years ago WoWâs subscription seemed quite in-line with what was considered normal. All MMORPGs had a similar subscription cost! Today it feels different. The market has changed. You can get a lot more - both in terms of quantity and quality - than what WoW offers. Of course, fans of WoW will always see WoW as being worth the âŹ10, but itâs obvious that gamers in general donât see it that way anymore - otherwise the subscriber numbers shouldnât fall off a cliff 1-2 months after each new expansion release!
Oh please when hasnât that been an issue. The game is almost 15 years old itâs not going to captivate everyone like it used to. The gear treadmill can only keep you playing for so long. There is unlikely anything they can do to boost sub numbers to level in the past. Legion was likely the best youâll get for a long time but that only last one expansion. What could they do nextâŚ?
WoW sees a huge increase in subscribers when a new expansion is released. That indicates that a lot of people are still interested in playing WoW.
After people have played the new expansion for a month and are faced with the choice of re-subscribing for another month, a lot of people choose not to.
Why not?
If WoW was a great game worth âŹ45 + âŹ10 for the first month, why isnât the second month worth âŹ10 to a lot of people?
Either the amount of great content Blizzard adds to WoW is sufficient, but the price of the subscription is too high, or the price of the subscription is fine, but the amount of great content added to the game is insufficient.
Either way, thereâs clearly not enough value in the subscription, because most people donât re-subscribe.
So why you pay and play it then ?
You can wait until BFA ends pay little and get it discounted enjoy.
Clearly op thinks xyz and do not like it question stays why you pay and play it then ??
Curious about your reply Jito btw
Because Iâm not a general gamer, Iâm a devoted WoW fan.
If WoW appealed to the general gaming audience, then Blizzard would emphasize the value of the monthly subscription in order to maintain the broad playerbase beyond the first 1-2 months.
But thatâs not what Blizzard are doing.
What Blizzard are doing, is shifting the business model toward microtransactions. The devoted WoW fan is quite susceptible to a âŹ25 mount on the Online Store, or a WoW Token for âŹ20 in order to get some easy gold, or a âŹ60 character boost or âŹ25 race change for that new Allied Race that just came out.
WoWâs subscriber numbers are down, but the revenue is up. Blizzard are shifting the business model to cater to the whales â the devoted WoW fans who donât hesitate to spend way more than âŹ10 each month on the game.
And whilst that shift in business model is good for Blizzardâs bottom line â because theyâre earning more money â then itâs not so good for the playerbase. We donât get a better game by having fewer players and more microtransactions and paid services. But thatâs what weâre getting.
What did i lose by your definition i am whale already bought game time via gold expansions too digital legion/bfa many moutns,pets via gold or money bought firework toy for mdi support etc i do not see i lost anything not buying a thing from store and question was about someone who clearly is against it still does it.
Not sure what kind of culture is this but if i do not like and do not want to support XYZ i just do not do it simple as that.
But you are not a whale. If youâre spending gold on WoW Tokens, then youâre not a whale. The whale is the guy who bought the WoW Token for âŹ20 and sold it to you for gold! In order for people being able to buy WoW Tokens with their gold, there obviously has to be a lot of whales who buy WoW Tokens for âŹ20 each! Those are the whales.
Do not allow blizzard to go for free-to-play model otherwise you will regret it.
Want to pay for transmogs or stuff like that? Or Market flooded with stuff bot farms will put on it?
Going free to play comes with several times worse problems than WoW is actually experiencing.