SuperData’s January 2020 games industry revenue rankings are up, with only mild shakeups since December 2019. On the PC side, Red Dead Redemption 2 dropped from the list, as did Call of Duty Modern Warfare, allowing the entry of Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot and the uptick by one place of both World of Warcraft (West only, again) and CSGO. Halo is also gone again, as Dota 2 and World of Tanks return to cap off the top 10.
On the console side, FIFA and Call of Duty continue to duke it out for supremacy, and Fortnite’s dropped another spot; SuperData specifically calls out the “gradual decline” for Fortnite and weakening revenue of Apex Legends in contrast with PUBG, where PC spending was up 512% month-over-month. Pokemon Go has fallen from the top list on the mobile side, but Roblox apparently had a really good month.
Of most interest to MMORPG players, the analytics firm also sheds some new light on how World of Warcraft is doing, especially since Blizzard stopped releasing sub numbers and the recent earnings call made multiple explicit claims from Bobby Kotick and other Activision-Blizzard reps about how the addition of WoW Classic “doubled the size of the active World of Warcraft community in the second half of 2019.” Kotick did not, as we noted at the time, claim that Classic had actually held those numbers through the end of the year. And now we know it definitely didn’t – and that he knew that as he talked it up anyway during the call. Here’s SuperData’s statement:
“The new World of Warcraft update Visions of N’Zoth successfully turned around declining user numbers. Subscriber numbers grew 17% from December to January (not including China). However, they were still down substantially (64%) from August 2019, the month World of Warcraft Classic was released.”
If we’re reading that right, WoW’s sub base spiked way up in August, then plummeted over the course of the fall, then perked back up a bit in January – but Blizzard still lost the majority of subs it had picked up with Classic over the quarter.
It sounds bad, but before you run off to dunk on Blizz in the comments, let us point out that SuperData’s display of WoW as separate East and West divisions (unlike nearly all of the other games in the rankings) has been ambiguous for the last few years, apparently because the firm lacks access to some or all of WoW’s China’s data. We note this because J. Allen Brack said specifically during the conference call that Eastern WoW player engagement with Classic had been particularly strong; therefore, we think it’s possible China may not be reflected in SuperData’s figures. (The eternal problem with reporting on an opaque for-profit analysis firm, unfortunately.)
Either way, it’ll make for interesting discussion on whether you thought you wanted it, but you didn’t.
Take a peek at everything from SuperData in 2019:
In July WoW West was #7, now also #7. Dota 2 was #8, now #10. World of Tanks was #6, just above WoW, now #8, just below WoW. Fortnite was #5, hasn’t made it to top 10 this time. So WoW is actually doing quite fine compared to many other games… doing fine for more than 16 years in a row.
Clearly you’re “not paying attention!”
Right, that’s the whole point, we cover this every month to make this point. SuperData’s revenue rankings are comparative. When one game isn’t drawing in as much revenue, others rise in the rankings. In this case, though, we also know that PC and console revenue overall continues to fall, so being #1 on the top 10 this year isn’t necessarily as good as being #1 in past years.
The new data point here is WoW’s sub performance relative to itself; prior to SuperData’s numbers on that devastating subscription plummet, all we had was the knowledge that Blizz had lost 4M MAUs in that same year-span. That’s where it’s struggling to keep up, and post-Classic, it really, really should not be in that position. People held WoW Classic up as the second coming, and beyond a brief spike, it turned out to not be, which puts far more pressure on Shadowlands and then BC/Wrath for Classic.
I think WoW: Classic would do much better if they(ONCE AGAIN) stopped time gating content. And did monthly, massive patches of content they already have. (Just time gating it of course)
Classic just followed the pattern of any other game launch: a spike at the start, quite a quick drop soon afterwards and then a steady and slow decline till some big update. If you’d ask a data scientist to make a prediction without mentioning WoW’s name and any other specifics he’d predict just that looking at how other games performed. Dota 2 dropped quicker than WoW… is there some special reason for that? Probably, but again – quite predictable.
And honestly I didn’t expect Classic to perform very well in the long run – and it didn’t. It was still a rework of quite an old game and you can’t be really nostalgic about something you still have. Almost everyone I know of those who tried Classic didn’t renew the subscription after the 1st month. Why would they?
You’d have to ask them? I imagine it’s wishful thinking. My point was that now we have data backing up our more realistic predictions from last summer.
You think you do, but 64% (so far) dont
surprisding nobody, most of the people wanting Classic didnt stay.
Statement like that is conjecture at best.
I mean. so is the people further down the topic utterly convinced classic is ascendant and nobody is playing retail
Absolutely. I don’t really understand why people want either Retail or Classic to fail. People are too preoccupied with proving others wrong in my opinion.
I wanted it. And I’m still here. I stayed, and I still love it.
That was to be expected. People put away their rose-tinted nostalgia classes and moved on.
I think with WoW classic the main problem is there is only raiding to do at top level. So the more casual players are leaving. Leaving altoholics and raiders. I’m sure that the idea is for everyone to go to retail at that point.
This site loves to report wow sub declines.
The readers love to claim that there is some sort of competition between live and classic.
Wow is doing fine. Classic has only added to wow’s profitability. Wow will continue to do what it’s been doing for years.
Getting worse ?
“This site” likes to report what’s true. For example, we also love to report sub booms. Like these.
* SuperData August 2019: WoW Classic drives a massive subscription surge
* World of Warcraft made more money than League of Legends last month, SuperData reports
If you think WoW is fine, or you think nothing has changed, you’re not paying attention.
No you’re absolutely right wow is in huge trouble unlike gw2 and all the kickstarters that are still mia…
Every cycle these reports come out about declining sub numbers just before the wildly successful sales reports of the next expansion. Until blizzard says they’re turning the servers off these reports are simply water is wet.
Don’t put words in my mouth. We’re not talking about GW2 or Kickstarters, but you can read our articles on their many issues too, if you’re not too busy stanning WoW in a comment section under a post you didn’t read.
Nobody reasonable is saying WoW doesn’t always go through boom and bust cycles every two years, and nobody is saying it’s close to death. The difference is Blizzard gambled this time on an artificial boom cycle off pattern, and while it paid off in short-term cash (apparently heavily from Asia), it didn’t translate into even medium-term MAUs or subs, and it’s led to the widespread perception of neglect for Retail, on which the next boom cycle depends, in an era when each spike is shorter than the last. And not just for WoW; for Blizzard as a whole, as it’ll be heavily dependent on WoW for the next few years to sustain its pipeline.
To someone who wants MMOs In General to do well and knows the perception of WoW’s health helps drives the genre, this is anxiety-inducing.
Well said ! Wow is doing fine, still the most profitable and succesful mmo on the market. When shadowlands hit subs will skyrocket.
At the moment WoW is the last mmo I would worry about. Especially when some of the “top 5” mmorpgs are not doing well
WoW Classic is WoW BFA’s biggest rival. Ironic. And that trend looks set to continue with Shadowlands.
I’m still in Classic, love it, have no plans of leaving.
Stormwind and Ironforge are still packed with tons of people whenever I pass through. Those towns are packed.
The game is all about Mythic dungeons & raids and the casual players/Pvper’s have been neglected, it’s starting to show.
Starting to show? This game has been wildly successful for 16 years. If anything is starting to show its the desperation behind the tired claims that the game is dying.
2007 = 13 years
Reading’s hard: Subscriber numbers grew 17% from December to January (not including China). However, they were still down substantially (64%) from August 2019, the month World of Warcraft Classic was released
So what do we do now Blizzard? BfA was an anti-climatic flop from Legion. Classic didn’t have the stickiness you where hoping for. Sch’Noz with it’s griefer gear was only able to gain a marginal player attention. Shadowlands has little to show for it outside of the cosmetics and the pretty. Warcraft III Reforged was Re’fudged. You needlessly fired a crap ton of staff last year that you’re not seeing the returns on. And you are still bleeding players…
…you know, the good graces that have kept you guys comfortable inside that hubris is being eroded away one by one. At some point something is going to give. Then those who predicted your doom for tenure of WoW may end up being right after all. Do you guys really want that to happen? /le sigh
Can you explain what the griefer gear is? I haven’t played since the first month of BfA and although I’ve been kinda following it, enough to not want to come back, this is new to me
Corruption gear. Or to be more accurate, high iLevel gear you get after 8.3 that comes with a new stat called: Corruption. And it starts to do nasty things to you the higher it’s stacked. Here’s are the examples:
1) Grasping Tendrils (1 Corruption) — Taking damage has a chance to reduce your movement speed by 5 sec. The magnitude of the snare increases with further Corruption.
2) Eye of Corruption (20 Corruption) — Your spells and abilities have a chance to summon an Eye of Corruption for 8 sec. The Eye inflicts increasing Shadow damage to you every 2 sec while you remain in range.
3) Grand Delusions (40 Corruption) — Taking damage has a chance to summon a Thing from Beyond, which pursues you for 8 sec. Its speed increases with further Corruption.
4) Cascading Disaster (60 Corruption) — If you are struck by the Thing from Beyond, you will be immediately afflicted by Grasping Tendrils and Eye of Corruption.
5) Inevitable Doom (80+ Corruption) — All damage taken is magnified and healing received is reduced, increasing with further Corruption.
Source: https://www.icy-veins.com/wow/corrupted-items-guide-in-patch-8-3-vision-of-n-zoth
…as you can see, these effects are set at very low threshold as to when they take place. And the average drops with Corruption, it’s between 15 and 35. And what you get and the chance to get are entirely RNG. A friend of mine had an item that drop for her with 65 Corruption on it, for an example.
But in the end, if you are wearing and if you haven’t jumped through all the grind hoops to get the minimal of 15 resistance against it or to cleanse each item, your character becomes a liability to you and your party, to put it mildly. To which the effects tend to kick in the more difficult the content you are doing. Hence, the apt term of “griefer gear”. /bleh
You’re not the only one who thinks corruption gear is absolute trash. Mike Bell over at BellularGaming weighs in:
While that covers the many issues with mini/maxers to which this system was supposedly designed for, lol…it does not cover the issues for “dedicated” players such as myself who just simply want to get by. So in addition to what Mr. Bell was saying, I can’t help feel Blizz’s other unstated goal is: “You want to have welfare epics scrubs? Then fine! But there has to be consequences for wearing it.” Which is, high level items you can’t wear because it will kill you outright, unless you the player puts a hardcore level effort into containing or eliminating the gear’s potent effects before wearing it. And the low threshold of those effects taking place, is demonstrative of that raid or die mentality that has existed since Vanilla. But instead, has evolved into all other aspects of the game. /bleh
Gotcha, thanks. I thought you meant gear people use to grief other players not gear that griefs you. I remember reading a little about it and thinking it looked great on paper but would probably just further divide players between “raids/m+ constantly with full active guild” and “worthless pleb”. Sounds like they really bungled the implementation at any rate.
Naysayers being predicting its doom for 14 years now. And WoW is still alive and kicking, staying the most popular sub based MMO with millions of players. So, I guess, Blizzard is doing something right.
Troll away all you like, as I’ve already counted the 14 years knowing of high probability you would show up to spew out your counter-nonsense. The warning here, if you care to have listened , is that they’re blowing through all their merits as I’ve outlined. That’s not something they’ve really done until more recently.
And sure they could survive through all this, the way EA seems to have survived through all their years of shenanigans…but the WoW may not be the same quality of game that many of us have come to recognize. That’s something you can’t dismiss on a whim or a disingenuous apologetic. /shrug
But he’s not wrong
But I am not wrong either. So pick your poison I guess.
What merits? They are seeking for ways to entertain players like they always did. Some ideas worked, some didnt. And they listen to their players.
Also “WoW may not be the same quality of game that many of us have come to recognize” is the same old “grass was greener” bullshit argument. Quality of modern WoW is miles better than vanilla. The only thing where vanilla shined was sense of community.
And Ive played vanilla probably more than anyone on MOP
In my opinion, retail WoW is a superior video game overall than what vanilla was or Classic is. However, i believe that vanilla/classic are superior MMORPGs.
Fair enough. Vanilla undoubtly felt more like traditional MMO. But MMOs in general changed alot now. Many of them turn into “service” type games instead of “community” type games. Meaning MMOs try to appeal to everyone and offer averything for every taste. With short doses of entertainment. Many modern MMOs are like that, Lost Ark being good example.
That’s your personal opinion though. Others would very much beg to differ. So at best their opinions are no better than yours, lol.
…as to answer your question, the merits I already outlined in the OP. Which also included your position on Classic. So at least, we’re arguing about the same thing.
As for anything else, I’ll let you think whatever you want to think about it and move on. I have better things to do. So thanks for your time.