World of Warcraft is doing quite well in China, thank you very much

@mmogaddict

I think it is harsh to say they lied... perhaps they were just being economical with the truth ;)

@mmogaddict Way too many factors to actually know. Cash shop revenues, different payment model that doesn't guarantee steady revenue etc.. Btw, Blizzard also had increased revenue something that was announced recently. So you can't really know.

@mmogaddict

not even the most rabid WoW fanbois actually believed that the million subs was NOT in west...

more or less everybody is well aware that WoW era is coming to an end

@Fabius Bile IDK ... but my server is always full ... so, if a tree falls in the woods and nobody notices it? ....

@mmogaddict

No it doesn't. It means that, despite losing subscribers in China, they're making more money off of those that remain. Don't MMOs in China charge by the hour instead of by month? Not to mention any cash shop purchases.

@mmogaddict

No, they didn't lie like a self entitled 14 year old. They aren't their fan base.

@Ehra

Shh... Massively is not the place to use logic.

@Ehra

This, pretty much.

@Fabius Bile

Wow, you really thrive in predicting doom for all games.
You sound like those crazy homeless persons that predict that the end is near while everyone around them just ignores them and goes on with their lives.

@Nai72

...I see what you did there. O.O

@Mikkhail
so as long as there are some high pop servers worldwide everything is ok? regardless the low pop servers outnumber the high ones 5 to 1 or more?
and more low pop servers appear monthly?

everything points at a sharp and continued decline.

@Gaugamela
i look at hard facts, and call a spade a spade. Two things that the majority of people here seem to have some kind of psychological aversion to.

I admit I find slightly amusing seeing all the rabid fanbois (whatever the game) frantically looking for sand to bury their heads when someone mentions some naked truth they dislike.

@Ehra

their business already was "pay by hour" and had RMT items before, absolutly nothing have changed for the chinese players in a long time...then why would the profits suddenly show a substantial increase after alledgelly losing 1 million players?

let me see if I got i right
so apparently, out of nowhere, the chinese playerbase, 20-25% members short, have all decided at once to spend a lot more than in the previous years, for no reason at all.

is that what you want us to buy? hmmmmmmmmm?


spin, spin spin, spin....they lost western playerbase, everybody knows that. its just that WoW fanbois dont want to admit they know it.

@Fabius Bile

"so apparently, out of nowhere, the chinese playerbase, 20-25% members short, have all decided at once to spend a lot more than in the previous years, for no reason at all."

The existence of the Guardian Cub which allows officially sanctioned RMT without having to worry about account deletion/loss sounds like a pretty good reason for an increase in revenues from a region that's known for its RMT practices.

Since you like to go on about how you use "facts" to back up your comments, how about you actually provide some that show a direct contradiction with Blizzard's statements about their player loss. Until then, you're still nothing more than a terrible troll.

@Fabius Bile

Couldn't have anything to do with Wrath and Cataclysm both finally being released in China within the last year, could it? Nah, people definitely don't play more after a long content drought. "Blizzard are lying bastards" is definitely the more believable theory.

Y'know, you're just as much subject to confirmation bias as anyone else here. You could just be honest and say "Sure, none of us have a sweet clue what's really going on but here's what I think is happening," but instead you present your opinions as fact and call anyone who thinks you might be wrong a blind fanboy.

@Ehra
really? thats all you can think? lol, thats a new low for a raging fanboi desperate for finding excuses...the guardian cub LMAO, Im totally sure that chinese players were waiting for that to start RMTing like mad looooooool

@Eamil
considering that whatever expansion Blizzard releases in china will be fully free for chinese players, I cant see a direct correlation between releasing an expac and earning more revenue.

I could see a direct correlation between releasing expacs and gaining new players, THEN increasing revenue as by-product of the new customers.

hey, this fits with the Scientific method. we can observe that all phenomena points at this being the correct explanation.


but then, Blizzard are telling us that they havent gained new players, that "actually" they lost a quarter of their total chinese playerbase...yet still they are increasing their profits...?

the glove doesnt fit, your honor.

Blizzard has lost players, yes. But not in China, thats beyond obvious.
in west, my friend. in west.....

@Fabius Bile

"considering that whatever expansion Blizzard releases in china will be fully free for chinese players, I cant see a direct correlation between releasing an expac and earning more revenue"

They pay based on how much time they spend actually logged in. WoW may have had more people actually playing last year in Asia, but those people weren't actually logging in very much. If they have fewer Asian players total, but those people are spending much more time logged in, then revenue goes up.

I'm not saying for sure this is what happened (because obviously I don't know), but the way they pay for the game in China makes it much less straightforward than you're assuming.

@Fabius Bile

Just to elaborate, since you clearly couldn't understand the point I was making; I wasn't talking about the RMT providers themselves, I was talking about the people who use them.

Think of all of the people that use RMT services currently; now a large number of them are going to be using Blizzard's service instead of third party services due to the fact that it's officially sanctioned and secure (meaning there's no risk of getting your account stolen or banned). Further, think of all of the people who otherwise WOULD have used RMT services but didn't because they didn't want to risk getting their account stolen or banned. Those people are now going to be giving Blizzard more money. That's a huge amount of money that use to go to third party RMT services that's now going right back to Blizzard.

But, no, keep thinking that your idea that a publicly traded company is lying about the state of their playerbase (and, thus, future profits) in order to save face with a bunch of nobodies on blogs makes more sense.