Turbine purchased by Warner Bros. Home Entertainment

I'm more on the fence on this than ever after being firmly anti-MT. Part of me says if a bunch of chumps buying a digital horse for $25 keeps my monthly rate from going up, more power to them, and part of me says just grow a set and raise your rates and let everyone earn everything in game.

lolwut?
Look out folks - we have a genius in the comments section.

Care to explain to the rest of us exactly how having an opinion results in someone needing to 'grow up', and not be an idiot? 'Cos you've got me stumped on that one, Einstein.

(Mind you, this is from the person who openly states that "gay is not normal": http://www.massively.com/profile/1194823/ )

Actually, you're the one being defensive Lethality, perhaps because you know you're wrong and the one that needs to grow up. Why else would you reply when you're being criticized about your less than enlightened position? Non?

Making ad hominem sound bites is not evidence that you're correct. Rather it shows the lack of maturity and understanding you have on the subject.

Evidence also suggests homophobia is abnormal.

Don't be so certain of anything.

I personally suspect that WoW's subscriber base is lower than the last time they released official numbers, and we haven't seen new official numbers in some time. I suspect that we're not seeing them because Blizzard doesn't want them to be seen, and I wouldn't be surprised if they've shaved a couple million players in the past year or so. If or not these players come back to the game for Cataclysm remains to be seen. (As for Muqq, I don't think he will be coming back, if I had to guess.)

Without more recent official numbers, we don't have ANYTHING but anecdotes. Personally: Most of the players I started out with in WoW, back in 2004, have quit by now. A whole slew of players I met along the way during classic and BC quit about spring 2009 when it was clear that WoW's focus had shifted too far towards casual gaming. The players that replaced them were more casually oriented. Is this bad for business? It is hard to say. I personally think casuals are good for short term profits, but bad for long term longevity. Either way, it is safe to say that WoW's target audience in 2010 is not entirely the same audience as it was in 2004.

To top that off, WoW is now over five years old. It's age will eventually catch up to it, which is why Blizzard is working on a new MMO. I don't think WoW will "die" given that EQ1 and UO are still running in a diminished capacity, but I think within the next couple years we will see a very large drop in the player base as the next generation of games appears.

Not sure what this has to do with Turbine directly, except there is a fear that WB will make them try to copy Blizzard in every aspect without realizing that WoW is an anomaly in terms of MMO subscriber base.