Blizzard Not Worried About Other MMOs; Still Retaining Users
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iTZKooPA on Friday, November 7, 2008 - 36 Comments Tags: age of conan, business, market analyst, mmogs, mmorpg, star wars: the old republic, warhammer, wotlk, wrath
iTZKooPA on Friday, November 7, 2008 - 36 Comments Tags: age of conan, business, market analyst, mmogs, mmorpg, star wars: the old republic, warhammer, wotlk, wrath 
Warning: The post contains business information that may not be suitable for some minds. In the event that you hate business, market analysis, facts, quotes, words and things of that nature, you may want to read some other posts. However, it is good to have these things when you try and argue with your friends about which MMO is the best. Blizzard Entertainment has certainly struck a gold mine with World of Warcraft. ProjectLore is living proof of its popularity and cultural impact. I could give you all numerous examples to the phenomenon that is World of Warcraft, but its 11 million subscribers worldwide, should be enough to convince gamers.
Since WoW's launch in 2004, it has constantly been put up against other MMORPGs. The first of which was the sequel to the previous industry leader, EverQuest 2. It took a few months, but it became readily apparent that WoW had won that first battle. The next battle was fought with some old Blizzard employees and their first title, Guild Wars, in April 2005. The trend continues, with a string of MMOs trying to dethrone World of Warcraft, but none putting more than a dent in the armor. A pair by Turbine (Dungeon and Dragons Online & Lord of the Rings Online), the terrible MMO from the Matrix universe (The Matrix Online), a MMO from the father of MMOs Richard Garriot (Tabula Rasa), and the brutal Age of Conan, all pail in comparison to World of Warcraft's influence.
With the exception of EverQuest 2, I only felt that Dungeon & Dragons Online: Stormreach had a chance to upset WoW's stride. That is until Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning was released in September. Mythic Entertainment released WAR to solid reviews and has posted impressive subscription rates since. To date, it is the closest anything has come to stealing WoW's thunder, holding over 750,000 subscribers with more than 1.5 million units shipped to retailers. Unlike AoC, it doesn't appear that the subscribers are leaving in droves after the free 30-days either.
Is Blizzard worried? It doesn't appear so, but maybe they should be. Just a little. When Age of Conan was doing so hot its first months, Blizzard sat back and watched their members return, “about 40% of those players have returned to World of Warcraft," according to CEO and co-founder Mike Morhaime. That was just two months after AoC launched, so one would imagine that the number has only grown since then.
Yesterday, as part of Activision-Blizzard's business mumbo-jumbo, Morhaime returned to update that number, and included WAR in the statistics. A whooping 68% of people who left for AoC have returned to WoW. Mythic Entertainment's title seems to have faired a bit worse than AoC. Almost two months out from WAR's launch and Morhaime reports a return rate of 46% to AoC's 40%.
In fairness to WAR versus AOC, many people are likely returning to WoW for Thursday's release of Wrath of the Lich King. In fairness to both of them, just because players have re-subscribed to World of Warcraft doesn't mean they aren't still participating in the other MMO. Yet, according to research, most MMO players only subscribe to one title.
The numbers show that WAR has been the biggest threat to World of Warcraft, but even a shiny new title with an incredibly dark universe and more mature theme, hasn't been able to retain its users when put up against an expansion. Let us pray that the competitors stay in business, and new titles make it to market for years to come. This will ensure that Blizzard has to keep the design juices and creativity flowing. Competition is a good thing.
Anyone think Blizzard should be scared of some upcoming MMOs? Aion? Star Wars: The Old Republic? LEGO Online? To be honest, I think LEGO Online just might grab some impressive numbers.
Reader Comments (36)
EVE online is still going great guns too. It might be helped along because it is a totally different genre to WoW.
I'm enjoying WAR after playing WoW since launch until early 2008. Just lost interest in WoW because of all the focus on Arenas and that e-sport rubbish.
WAR stole one of my friends from wow, although to be honest we was getting bored anyway - serves him right for only doing pvp all the time!
Anyway, I tried WAR, found it sort of fun, so decided to buy my own copy of the game, 2 days later I reached level 9 on my little High Elf, and guess what, WoW pulled me back, so suck on that WAR!!
Eve Online may just be a threat once they get the stationside and planetside avatar movement and content down. If they make it a game where a player can do both spaceship and FPS stuff it may pull a lot of people away from WoW. Eve has some GREAT features that would be cool in WoW but, even genre aside it is an INCREDIBLY different game.
The biggest threat I can think of too WoW will be when Whitewolf (who merged with the company that owns Eve Online) gets thier MMO up and running. The World of Darkness has a TON of fans, even within the WoW community. If Whitewolf does it right my guess is that it will take a BIG chunk of WoW's market share.
You stats are WRONG
Warhammer had an amazing release but has been a HUGE disappointment and the subs for it have plummeted off a cliff.
Look at the complaints on user forums not biased review sites. It seems like almost half of the initial subs for warhammer have already quit and its still going down.
By January you will see war around the same as daoc sub wise maybe a bit more, hardly a dent in the mmo fabric, It could have done so much better but is actually quite a badly designed and coded game.
Ahh, when Wotlk comes out, no one will have a chance. WoW will probably have another record of highest subs. I know a lot of people going back to WoW because of WOTLK. Imagine when it releases. Its gonna be sold out to 11 million people? They best be getting on shipping 40 million out. Why 40 million against 11 million? People with separate accounts and different computers.
Joe: His stats are easily found via some searches, and even linked to in many cases. Show me some proof of your "facts" that WAR is having such a hard time holding onto subscribers.
Kleenur: I have never heard of World of Darkness and I consider myself a gamer. Perhaps CCP/WW needs to do some more advertising, or is the game very far off.
I just wikied it, seems the property is pretty huge, but it also seems more like a niche market in comparision to how well known Warcraft was in the video gaming universe.
The World of Darkness is the world where the roleplaying games from Whitewolf Games (Vampire, Warewolf, Mage, Changeling, et al.). Though they haven't done a ton in the video game market they are easily one of the top tabletop RPG companies in the world. As such I would put a good deal of golds on the fact that once they do launch thier MMO it will be more than a blip on the radar. The main reason there hasn't been much advert on it yet is because it is a LONG way off, several years I think. All I knwo about it so far is that they have said they are going to make it, and thier RPG skill system and Eve's skill system will intermesh very well.
Is Joe talking about Age of Conan? That was a monumental flop.
It's too early to say whether WAR will pass or fail. This is because realistically you need 6 months worth of subscription data to make such a statement.
I moved from Star Wars Galaxies to WoW when SWG attempted to copy WoW. Saddest thing was SWG had an awesome idea when they had almost everything being player crafted. Why craft when the drops are better?
Oh I forgot to mention that I'm downloading City of Heroes while waiting for WoW to get their servers going again.
Players griefing low level players in the cities for several days with the scourge invasion, servers being down for an entire day. Come on Blizzard there are too many other MMOs out there to have poor performance.
At least the news updates stopped stringing us along with guesstimates of when the servers will be back up.
1 more hour for CoH to download so you best hurry Blizz!