Predicting a ten million subscriber year for WoW
by Mike Schramm 
Jan 9th 2007 at 12:00PM
Relmstein has a short piece up about Blizzard and their little online game in the coming year, and in the process, he arrives at the exact same subscriber number that I did in my predictions: Ten million subscribers worldwide.The latest figures we have say they're current at eight million, but of course every bit of thinking we do on this issue is clouded by the expansion next week. Personally, I think the expansion will live up to the hype-- when hasn't Blizzard ever done that? Relmstein agrees with me, and says it'll bring a lot of players back. I'm thinking that means even players who don't expect to come back. Once the items start getting out there, and the new instances carve out their place in the culture, I think the Burning Crusade will bring this game back for a lot of people. Heck one indicator is the new PVP system-- if all the new content can revive the PVE game at least as much, it's a good thing Blizz is unwrapping all those new servers.
But of course the drawback to an expansion is this: you don't earn a new audience with addon content. I'd hazard a guess that the expansion will sell five to six million copies after all is said and done, but almost every one of those copies will go to someone who's already got an identity in Azeroth: I'd doubt anyone is sitting on the sidelines, just waiting for a Blood Elf or Draenei to come along and pick up the game. Of course, that doesn't mean Blizzard won't make money-- they'll rake it in, and hopefully spend it on even more servers and content. But I'm thinking that while Burning Crusade will bring a renaissance to Azeroth, total subscribers will top out at 10 million. And then, we can talk about another issue: will WoW's base peak in 2007?
Filed under: Realm News, Analysis / Opinion, Blizzard, Expansions, The Burning Crusade
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Jeff Taylor Jan 9th 2007 12:22PM
Lovely, how long will queues get to now?
DÖT Jan 9th 2007 12:31PM
will WoW's base peak in 2007?
Not if they live up to the new content patch every year promise. I would like some new classes and even more races and maybe alittle NPC co-op.
Tug Jan 9th 2007 12:55PM
The expansion will keep and/or get back established player, but it will actually be a barrier to getting new players. People's mindset will either be, "Now I have to buy the Original WOW game AND the Expansion AND pay $15.00 a month - it's too much money, or it will be, "The players in this game now, are so advanced, they are already into the expansion, what are my chances of being competitive in this environment." So it will be a trade off. Blizz would have been better off financially and still be attracting more new subscribers if they had raised rates instead of making the expansion content a separate purchase. The new content still could have been introduced with the same type of giant marketing campaign.
Rayze Jan 9th 2007 1:01PM
@ #3: Pay more monthly over a one-time sum for the expansion pack? No thanks.
Ado Jan 9th 2007 1:24PM
I'd rather pay an extra $3.50 a month ($42 yearly) for new content that I don't physically have to go out, find, and buy. Since they can update everything online, I'd rather they put some money into their rolling patch process (no downtime) instead of the cost of putting out all new materials for an expansion...
If you get sick of the game 3 months after a new content roll out, you're out $10.50, not $40+. It'd also remove some of that sense of inferiority #3 mentioned.
Rayze Jan 9th 2007 1:43PM
Ok yeah that makes sense, but I'm sure the marketing, money hungry bastards at Blizz would initiate some sort of minimum obligation to those increased monthly charges - because of the idea that someone could quit anytime. So how about the extra $3.50/mo for a minimum of 6 mos? If you don't like the game the first month, you're still out $21. I guess that's better than the $40 for the expansion pack, but either way it's money wasted. Just stick it out is my advice - that way you get your money's worth no matter which avenue Blizz decides to stick it to ya =P
jreffy Jan 9th 2007 2:11PM
I don't think the expansion is as big a deterrent for attracting new players as people think. The expansion is going to get a lot of current or "retired" players excited about the game again. This will draw the attention of non-players.
I didn't pick up a copy of WoW until well after a year that it had been out. All my friends had level 60's, but that didn't stop me. I messed around with different classes, and then rolled on a new server when it came up. Everyone's gotta start somewhere, I don't think the "everyone is farther advanced than me" comment is well founded.
Thomas Jan 9th 2007 6:29PM
If you look over the past couple of months WoW has had some awesome marketing going for them. South Park's season premiere episode (which had one of the highest numbers for downloaded SP episodes ever) featured WoW, there's been the marketing campaign using Office Space modified to show WoW, huge press releases about how much more popular this release will be over PS3 and Wii, and related articles in paper print. I think people are starting to get the buzz and many new people will pick up WoW (currently going for $19.99 at Best Buy) and the expansion (ditto for $39.99). If you consider how much PS3 games go for, $59.98 for this awesome online game (first 30 days are free!) is the best deal. Yeah, I expect to see 10 million customers by March, though I'm willing to concede that it could be sooner.
I don't think this will be the peak - there's past customers sitting on the sidelines waiting to see what TBC is all about and if it's worth their time to return. I predict Blizz will hit 15 million by December.
Bear in mind too, Blizz has added nearly a dozen servers all over (Europe and NA) in the past 30 days, they're talking about server splitting, and it sounds like they have more new servers planned in the upcoming weeks. I think they're on a better path based on lessons learned from their launch 2 years ago.
boneyard Jan 10th 2007 9:31AM
indeed, no doubts they will reach 10 mil. many people have left and certainly enough will check the expansion out, the question is how many will stay before quiting again. we will see, we will see.