World of WarCraft: 10 Million Subscribers
World of WarCraft: 10 Million Subscribers
Vivendi Games has just announced that their Massively Multiplayer Online Game World of WarCraft, created and maintained by Blizzard, has surpassed the mark of 10 million subscribers worldwide. 2,5 million of that number are North American players, 2 million hail from Europe, but the overwhelming majority is located in Asia: 5,5 million. That region, for Vivendi, seems to include China, Korea, New Zealand, Singapore, Thailand, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macao and Australia.
As many Asian (Pacific) gamers play WoW in Internet Cafés, Vivendi's definition of who counts as a subscriber is interesting: An individual who pays a subscription fee or uses an activated prepaid card to play World of WarCraft, including all gamers who use their free month after installing the game. Also, all players who have accessed WoW within the last 30 days from an "Internet Game Room" count as subscribers. Not included are trial versions (like the 10 days free trial you can use right now) and canceled subscriptions.
In addition to this staggering number (just multiply 10 millions by, let's say, 10 dollars per month...), World of WarCraft: Burning Crusade has been the best selling PC game in North America and Europe (why not in Asia? Well, they don't buy it themselves, but play it in their Internet Cafés). The Blizzard MMOG has been published in seven languages, a Russian version is in the making.
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And how many of that 5.5 Million Players are goldfarmers? :-D
scnr
10 Million is an impressive Number. I would love to know what makes this game so successful and popular, I played it myself for a few month, but then I moved on, raiding the same dungeon over and over again sounded horribly boring.
That's a good question :-) I think that the popularity of WoW, to a large part, comes from the "empty restaurant / full restaurant" syndrome: You don't eat at a place where nobody else eats, but across the street, where people are lining up just to get into the joint, THAT must be a good place for dinner!
When it started in 2004, WoW profited from Blizzard's standing and the popularity of the WarCraft series, but also from making things much easier than all other MMOGs around. As usual, Blizzard did not refrain from stealing many ideas, but they did it efficiently and improved on the original ideas. That's only my humble opinion, of course.
The restaurant angle is a good one, I like it, it's also called "herd instinct" :-)
WoW has lost it's magic for me, a long time ago, but when I think back to the time I logged into the closed beta for the first time, I was stunned. It wasn't the game with the highest texture resolution from the beginning, but it was made with so much love, beauty was bleeding out of every single pixel.
And I think you're right, it was just much easier to handle, then other MMO's at the time, thank you for reminding me that I too, once loved this game, haven't seen it in that light for a long time.
Maybe the asians admire how well Blizzard has stolen and adopted :D
scnr
I've read some article about what the basic needs for people are and that WoW covers one more need than herione ^^
I think that until you reach 60 (where the game starts getting boring), WoW has become a habit and you don't stop habits that easily. If it hasn't become a habit (because you didn't play everyday, but merely once a week or so) then that's the people who stop playing at lvl54 for example.
> and that WoW covers one more need than herione ^^
That is insane...and funny, if you should ever find that article again, please share.
well, wow is from blizzard. that´s enough to get many players for a start. and when you really get into the game you can actually get addicted. i mean, i played it for quite a while, it was okay and i still like to log in occassionally, but some guys i know neglect everything else for this game. maybe it has something that only they can see^^ another thing is the huge community, there are always guys online, unlike other mmorpg´s and they are mostly nice and help you when you´re new in the game (especially when you´re female^^).
If I understand correctly, the basis for the 4.5 million subscribers in Europe and North America and the 5.5 in Asia are different. A typical European or North American subscriber is paying the monthly subscription fee, whereas a lot of gamers in Asia are counted as subscribers if they access the game from a playcenter that licenses the game. I'd love to get more details if anyone knows the specifics.
It's right in the first paragraph of the article :-)
Sorry, Starkiller, perhaps I wasn't clear. I'd love to know more about the details of how the economic model in Asia works (not the breakdown by country).
The important point is that I don't think you can estimate revenues from World of Warcraft by multiplying $15 per month by 10 million subscribers. The real number is something like ($15 per month * 4.5 million) + (something else * 5.5 million), unless I grossly misunderstand.
Oh I see, I thought you were just pointing out that not everybody was paying the 15 bucks a month, that people from asia play from internet cafés and pay a different sum, because that was really in the first paragraph.
I once heard that people in china pay an hourly fee but I didn't know any specifics, but my friend Google found the answer here
It's in the first paragraph in this article too :-D It's called "Chinese Secret".
Interesting. Assuming that the $0.04/hour is correct, I wonder if that is the end payment to Blizzard from the customer, the payment to the facility with the computer, the payment the facility makes to Blizzard, or something else entirely?
4 cent an hour? that is ridicolous, now I know why Internet Cafes are so famous over there. Of course, 4 cent are worth more in China, still, if I would get such offers in Europe I would not have stress with maintaining my Computer, buying games and so on...
The only real gamer Internet Cafe I visited saw was in Split, and they wanted a few € per hour...
Wait a second: If you take the 15 dollars monthly fee in the US and a WoW addict who plays 10 hours every day of the month, that makes his hourly cost only 5 cents! So now take a heavy gamer, spending 5 hours a day, he will pay 10 cent per hour. That's not so far away from the mentioned hourly rate (even if only 2 of those 4 Cents actually reach Vivendi Games).
That's why I was using 10$ :-) Maybe still far too much, though.
However we count it, that's an awful lot of money.