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World of Warcraft subscriptions continue a downward trend
"No king rules forever, my son." Those words were a big part of the capstone event for World of Warcraft's last expansion, but they may be equally appropriate for the game itself. According to reports from the company, WoW's subscription numbers have continued to drop in the quarter ending June 30th, with the game now holding approximately 11 million subscribers worldwide. It's a slower rate than the game had been bleeding players, but it's still a definite decrease. According to president Mike Morhaime, the reason for the drop can be traced back to the time since the last expansion release, but even Morhaime admits that this is the fastest drop the game has seen during its run. There are obviously rumors that the next expansion is not so far away, but as it stands, WoW's longstanding grip on the MMO market is no longer quite as strong as it once was.
RIFT approaching the one million sell-through mark
For some, success is measured in how fun a game is and how much it accomplishes that which it promised. For others, success is all about the cold, hard numbers -- subscribers, units sold, accounts created, concurrent players. Today, Trion Worlds considers RIFT a success on the latter front as well as the former, as it announced that the company is nearing the million sell-through mark for the game. A unit sold-through means that a copy of RIFT -- physical or digital -- has been sold to a customer, not merely shipped to retail. In an interview with Gamasutra, Trion's David Reid says that the company's $50 million title is doing well with direct competition against established fantasy MMOs like World of Warcraft. "We're really pleased with what we're seeing. And beyond that, it was a pleasure to see in the latest Activision Blizzard earnings call that RIFT was inquired about when Blizzard announced their subscriber numbers went from 12 million to 11.4 million," Reid said. "You can do some math... we know very well where those 600,000 people are." Trion is becoming well-known for its aggressive marketing push behind RIFT, which Reid thinks is paying off handsomely: "We know we have a very stick game, we know we are getting a lot of success right now... If in fact the 600,000 players [Blizzard] lost came to RIFT, I don't think they'll be getting those 600,000 people back as quick as they did from Aion, Conan, Warhammer and the like."
The Lawbringer: Mailbag 3.0
Pop law abounds in The Lawbringer, your weekly dose of WoW, the law, video games and the MMO genre. Running parallel to the games we love and enjoy is a world full of rules, regulations, pitfalls and traps. How about you hang out with us as we discuss some of the more esoteric aspects of the games we love to play? Since last weekend was my stepsister's bat mitzvah, I was incommunicado down in Florida celebrating with family, eating a ton of delicious food, and getting sunburned within 30 seconds of stepping into the punishing Florida sun. The emails to Lawbringer never stopped, however, and I picked my favorites to answer while lounging next to the pool, happily oblivious. A lot of people sent me emails about the Blizzard earnings call that has been making the rounds in the gaming news cycle this week, for a few specific reasons. First, Diablo III's beta is coming between August and September, which is super exciting to me because of how much I want to be playing that game again. BlizzCon was not enough. Friends at Blizzard, send all beta invites to mat@wowinsider.com. Second, Mike Morhaime revealed that World of Warcraft is currently boasting subscriber numbers mirroring pre-Cataclysm subscriptions. Subsequently, the internet went crazy and collectively, shall we say, made a mess in its pants about the state of WoW's prominence. Let's mailbag.
The Soapbox: Don't hate the game, hate the copy
Disclaimer: This editorial column is 100% the opinion of the writer and does not necessarily reflect that of Massively as a whole. If you're afraid of opinions other than your own, you might want to skip this column. If you ask a remarkably high number of players, World of Warcraft is a negative influence on the face of MMOs. Not necessarily for the reasons that many players, current and former, will claim; the complaints of this group have nothing to do with content or overarching design philosophy. No, World of Warcraft has ruined things just by virtue of its very existence. It's WoW's fault that we've seen a flood of games that are, essentially, the same game with a slight twist (WoW in space, WoW with more PvP, WoW in the mind of Derek Smart, and so forth). It's WoW's fault that these games have failed, and it's even more WoW's fault when other games fail. And despite everything, these claims aren't seen as ridiculous. They're often taken very seriously. But really, WoW isn't to blame for its clones or the failures of other games. The fault for those lies exactly where logic would imply.
Blizzard's Frank Pearce predicts renewed subscriber growth with Cataclysm, China
If you've been following World of Warcraft's published subscriber numbers for a while now, you know that we haven't seen a rise in WoW subscribers since late 2008. Blizzard's been holding steady on a figure of 11.5 million subscribers. But, according to Frank Pearce, Blizzard's Executive Vice President of Product Development, that's going to change. When asked if by VG247's Adam Hartley if he thought WoW's subscribers had permanently peaked, Pearce had this to say: "I mean, you can look at that number and if you look at some of the details around it ... In China, for example, we haven't even launched Wrath of the Lich King yet, and that expansion is already 18-plus months old. They're still playing The Burning Crusade there, because we're waiting for approval for Wrath from the appropriate agencies. And once we get that approval and launch Wrath in China then I think we will see growth." Pearce also noted that "win-back" of subscribers who had left the game after previous expansions is particularly high for WoW, and that subscriber counts should grow when Cataclysm is released. "Hopefully we will get some people back from Cataclysm as well. I don't think 11.5 million is a peak, necessarily, but there are certain things that we need to do and need to do well in order to see it go further." Like refining the 1-60 game, an area many players have never gotten past, no doubt. You can read the full interview with Frank Pearce at VG247. [via Massively]
THQ says Warhammer 40K MMO doesn't need a million subscribers
We all know game developers love to announce big numbers. A million of this, ten million of that, forty million of the other. No thanks, says THQ -- our Warhammer 40K MMO will be just fine without all that. The Warhammer 40k team is small and very experienced, so they have the advantage of skipping a lot of expensive trial-and-error, moving straight to building the game right. In a recent conference call, THQ's CEO Brian Farrell pointed to the relatively low investment cost of the Warhammer 40k MMO as the reason that they don't need to aim for huge numbers: "We don't need the kind of subscriber levels that people throw around, like a million subscribers, to make a lot of money on this title. If we get anywhere near that level, we'll be making a lot of money." Given the enthusiasm shown by fans of the title, they just might hit those numbers anyway.
Star Trek Online reaches one million accounts
If it's not too dated, you can feel free to do the Dr. Evil voice as you read the announcement in your head. Star Trek Online has reached one million registered accounts, an impressive milestone for any game. The announcement follows in the vein of Cryptic's announcement that players had created over one million characters in Champions Online, which was also an impressive milestone... well, until you started to do the math and ask why they were counting the number of characters created rather than players. There are similar questions to be asked about the latest Star Trek Online announcement, if you're the suspicious type. In short, we don't know the criteria that is being used to get the figure being thrown around. One million accounts could refer to open beta and head start accounts, or it could refer to everyone registered on the forums, even if they've long since stopped posting. It's an odd metric to use. Still, it's a sign of how strong the IP of Star Trek still is after all these years, and as one of the few major launches planned for the year it's bound to attract quite a bit of attention. Congratulations to Cryptic, and here's hoping that those million accounts stick with the game after a few months. Enter the Star Trek universe with Cryptic Studios' Star Trek Online. From hands on reviews of the early levels and space combat, through noob questions and developer interviews, we've got everything you need to know about the game trekkies are dying for. Check out Massively's Star Trek Online page for the latest!
WoW Insider Show live this afternoon on Ustream
Your Saturday seem kind of boring? Could you maybe use a little cheering up with a side of Warcraft insight to go along with that? Then we've got just the thing: our podcast is live this afternoon, April 11, 2009 3:30 PM EDT var date_span = document.getElementById("date"); var date = new Date(date_span.innerHTML); var monthname=new Array("Jan","Feb","Mar","Apr","May","Jun","Jul","Aug", "Sep","Oct","Nov","Dec"); var weekday=new Array("Sunday","Monday","Tuesday","Wednesday","Thursday", "Friday","Saturday"); var year = date.getFullYear(); var day_of_month = date.getDate(); var month = monthname[date.getMonth()]; var day = weekday[date.getDay()]; var hour = date.getHours(); if (hour > 11) { if (hour > 12) {hour -= 12} am_pm = "PM"; } else { am_pm = "AM"; } var minute = date.getMinutes(); if (minute < 10) { minute = "0"+minute; } date_string = day + ", " + month + " " + day_of_month; date_string += " at " + hour + ":" + minute + " " + am_pm; offset = -date.getTimezoneOffset()/60; if (offset >= 0) { offset = "+"+offset; } date_string += " in your time zone (GMT"+offset+")"; date_span.innerHTML = (date_string); over on our Ustream page, and as usual, right here after the break on this post. Today we'll have our good friend Turpster along for the ride, as well as WoW Insider writers Michael Gray and Chase Christian, so it'll be a nice full house.Topics of discussion will include what's been going on with all of the expansion speculation lately, the fact that WoW subscriber numbers are still on the rise, Wintergrasp and what's happening in its future, and PETA's little foray into Azeroth. Plus, we'll answer your emails as always, and since Chase is on, we'll probably talk about what life will be like for Rogues in 3.1 as well.Should be fun. We'll see you this afternoon!
