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NY Times: WoW has 1.5 million subscribers

U

UbiSoftologist

Member
NY Times discusses the MMORPG market (link ) :

...Retail sales of massively multiplayer games grew significantly in 2003 and 2004, according to the NPD Group, which tracks video game sales. And while the most popular multiplayer game released in the United States, the fantasy-oriented World of Warcraft from Blizzard Entertainment, has 1.5 million subscribers, that has proved to be an outlier. The industry usually regards 100,000 subscribers as the point at which a title breaks even. Not many games have hit that point and maintained it.

"This can be a profitable business - it just isn't usually," said Robert Garriot, chief executive of NCSoft North America, which publishes City of Heroes and is developing other titles. "There are a handful of people making money. Instead of being in the Top 10 you have to be in the Top 5."

And the cost of attracting subscribers is growing. The more elaborate massively multiplayer games can cost more than $20 million to develop, according to several executives in the business. That is about double what it costs to make a game for a console like Xbox. It took four years to develop World of Warcraft, according to Paul Sams, chief operating officer of Blizzard Entertainment, a division of Vivendi Universal Games. "It's substantially more expensive, substantially more risky and substantially more rewarding..."

...The other major massively multiplayer game based on a film franchise, Star Wars Galaxies, did not prove to be the breakthrough some had hoped. It has around 250,000 subscribers and is profitable, according to Sony Online Entertainment, but was criticized because it lacked the characters from the movie.

"There was certainly a lot of disappointment in Star Wars Galaxies that the characters weren't in the game," said Ross Rubin, director of industry analysis at the NPD Group...

...Participating in massively multiplayer games often requires a substantial investment of time: EverQuest users play for an average of about 20 hours a week. "It requires - my word - a 'special' kind of person," said Michael Pachter, a gaming analyst at Wedbush Morgan. "I think because people like video games, which is a casual experience, they may have misjudged the size of the market."
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Azih said:
alright alright

22.5 million a fucking month?

I thought WoW was the most expensive MMO out there?
Click to expand...

And still, they rely on a cheap torrent way to provide patches. It baffles me why they persist on going the cheap route. The last patch was around 35MB and it took me about 6 hours to download (and yes, I had sharing enabled.) Ridiculous.

As for the game itself, I'm sorta burnt on it. I need to get back to it to try more partying, but I just don't enjoy the game's group dynamics.
 
Its one of the most expensive, 15 isnt a far jump from 13 that Daoc charges for example, but if it went up another 2-3 dollars id cancel in a heartbeat.

I did a reformat 2 days ago, dled the entire patch in 15 minutes, so I dunno whats going on with ijoel ;)
 
IJoel said:
And still, they rely on a cheap torrent way to provide patches. It baffles me why they persist on going the cheap route. The last patch was around 35MB and it took me about 6 hours to download (and yes, I had sharing enabled.) Ridiculous.

As for the game itself, I'm sorta burnt on it. I need to get back to it to try more partying, but I just don't enjoy the game's group dynamics.
Click to expand...

Really? I turned off sharing and i went from 1kb/s to about 80kb/s. Didn't take obnoxiously long at all. (Then again, I waited all of 12 hours to get it).
 
IJoel said:
And still, they rely on a cheap torrent way to provide patches. It baffles me why they persist on going the cheap route. The last patch was around 35MB and it took me about 6 hours to download (and yes, I had sharing enabled.) Ridiculous.
Click to expand...

I had to put myself in the DMZ in order for it to even download the patch. That's bullshit.
 
Make sure you open up the ports the Blizzard Downloader uses on your router/firewall. DMZ basically takes you out from behind the firewall so it basically does the same thing (except it allows everything in which defeats the purpose of a firewall).
 
Why not just download the patches from some other source? I always get my WoW patches from gamershell.com or some other mirror, usually have the patch in a few minutes.
 
Mashing said:
Make sure you open up the ports the Blizzard Downloader uses on your router/firewall. DMZ basically takes you out from behind the firewall so it basically does the same thing (except it allows everything in which defeats the purpose of a firewall).
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I actually have the proper ports forwarded, so it should be fine. I've gotten the previous patches much faster, still the point I'm making is that Blizzard has no excuse for such a shoddy delivery method for something we're paying for. AFAIK they're the only mmorpg developer to do this, and obviously the least expected to do so considering how incredibly successful they are.

Why not just download the patches from some other source? I always get my WoW patches from gamershell.com or some other mirror, usually have the patch in a few minutes.
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Oh, I did not know this. I shall do this the next time. Thanks.
 
they're hiring about 50 new people :lol
expect blizzard to be BIG after WoW, undoubtedly it's their biggest success to date.
 
<Unison> WTF
<Unison> it got to 99 %
<Unison> now it's all CANNOT CONNECT TO TRACKER
<Lunar_Aura> good
<CootHATESGAMES> ?
<CootHATESGAMES> hahaha
<CootHATESGAMES> thats what you get
<CootHATESGAMES> for being happy!
<GaimeGuy> owned
<Unison> and it's using all my bandwith for uploading
<CootHATESGAMES> hahahahah
<CootHATESGAMES> "WE NEED SEEDS!"
<CootHATESGAMES> "STOP THEM AT 99!"
<Unison> haha Blizzowned
<Unison> haha
<CootHATESGAMES> thats probably it
<Takuan> ahaha
<CootHATESGAMES> thats classic
<Takuan> blizzard's BT client is fuckin gay
<Takuan> THROTTLE UPLOAD yAY
<CootHATESGAMES> man
<CootHATESGAMES> gotta poop but hemmoroids
 
Mashing said:
Make sure you open up the ports the Blizzard Downloader uses on your router/firewall. DMZ basically takes you out from behind the firewall so it basically does the same thing (except it allows everything in which defeats the purpose of a firewall).
Click to expand...

Momentarily putting myself in the DMZ was just easier than forwarding the ports.

Bittorrent works just fine behind my router, so why can't the stupid fucking Blizzard patcher?
 
Borys said:
Close to it.

Imagine the money MS is preparing for 360 exclusivity on World of Starcraft.
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LOL even if they did try something like this, there is no way significant amounts of people would pay Live and WoS MMORPG fees.
 
IJoel said:
And still, they rely on a cheap torrent way to provide patches. It baffles me why they persist on going the cheap route. The last patch was around 35MB and it took me about 6 hours to download (and yes, I had sharing enabled.) Ridiculous.
Click to expand...

Not much of a real option, but they put the patches up on fileplanet too.
 
acidviper said:
LOL even if they did try something like this, there is no way significant amounts of people would pay Live and WoS MMORPG fees.
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Halo. 2. Map. Pack.

Remember, baby steps.
 
B000663RU8.01.PT09._SCLZZZZZZZ_.jpg
 
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