WoW players coming back from the WAR

by Shawn Schuster Oct 16th 2008 at 1:00PM

Filed under: World of Warcraft, Fantasy, Culture, MMO industry, Warhammer Online

It was inevitable that a wave of World of Warcraft players would be taken away from the game for Warhammer Online. It is also inevitable that many of those players would return to WoW after trying out the new shinies. Yet, according to a recent interview with Blizzard COO Paul Sams at GamesIndustry.biz, more than half of the players that left WoW for WAR have since returned.

Sams states that this a typical trend for new MMO releases. "We've certainly had some of that happen, which is the same thing we experienced with Age of Conan and each time an MMO has come out we've seen some amount of reduction of use." He also gives his respect to Mythic and everything they're doing, stating that he thinks "Warhammer is best positioned to succeed out of the various products that have come out thus far since World of Warcraft has come out."

Tags: blizzard, gamesindustry.biz, migration, mythic, paul-sams, war, warhammer-online, world-of-warcraft, wow

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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)

Tony said on 1:14PM 10-16-2008

How do they know what they left for? I'd randomly cancel my subscription all the time.

Mr Angry said on 1:27PM 10-16-2008

I imagine what they do is take people like you who are random, then sample that over an extended period and determine seasonal averages and deviations for the figures, to allow them to generate a best guess as to how many people will cancel for 'random' reasons.

Then everyone else is directly attributed to external influencer's, such as the release of WAR, or internal ones such as expansions and patches and so they can gain approximate data as to the migratory patterns of their customers.

Venix said on 1:20PM 10-16-2008

1. Please Rename the Article to: Massively endorses Blizzard for MMO for life

2. Instead of being called Massively...change the name to Massively Bias

3. You're really going to take this guy's word for it? I mean honestly?

4. As the above poster said...how the hell does he even know they are coming back from WAR? I really doubt it's true....it smacks of spin to me.

Mr Angry said on 1:33PM 10-16-2008

1) and it has also endorsed WAR very heavily up to and after launch. You realize you can filter content according to your favourite game, from the menu at the top?

2) The name works as it is, they could change it to 'Massively whiny forum posters' if that is more descriptive?

3) They are reporting news, not confirming his findings. It's a press release, and this happens not just from Blizzard, but from all the other companies who produce MMO's too.

4) It's a news story to promote a game, you think they are going to release something negative? Using the dude at Funcom as a yardstick, this is nothing compared to the outright lies told about AoC. If you have better proof that people are not leaving WAR to go back to WoW and figures, then go ahead and share them?

In terms of random cancellations so some information as to how companies could compile statistics based random cancellation. It's actually a job for some people to run data to determine patterns and make recommendations and observations based on this research, and it's very well paid too.

Mr Angry said on 1:23PM 10-16-2008

I've witnessed this too both in WoW and WAR. The recent WoW patch pulled back a lot of players to log in to WoW at prime time at or above peak figures during weekends and holidays, and I've noticed a little dwindling of players on my WAR realm too (and that's a high pop one too).

I'm thinking with the proliferation of games like LOTRO and WAR, players are starting to invest in their hobby a lot more, than say compared to a few years ago, and having more than one MMO sub is not a bad thing. I've seen a lot of people talk about their second MMO, the difference with WoW, is that it doesn't matter if it is the second MMO to the hardcore or the fans of other genres, it is still generating income as the biggest game out there.

I think if the trend was indicative of player habits, the WOTLK will probably decimate WAR's numbers for a short period. Regardless of the quality of WAR, WoW offers something unique to the MMO world right now, a sense of great magnitude, to be part of the biggest online MMO is quite something, and certainly something many want to be part of. One of the biggest issues for Mythic is :

"How many of our subscribers are Blizzard customers?"

I don't see this as an "either/or" argument, both games add something to players, and it's rare for a poster here not to have a particular favorite. I'd like to have seen higher numbers in WAR, as they really do have a mountain to climb to get to the point they can monetize the development in such a way they can bring very high quality content updates to the product.

Angel said on 1:41PM 10-16-2008

Quoting an employee of Acti-Blizz on this topic is, in the least, questionable. Rule number one of looking at statements or statistics produced by those who have the highest stake in potential positive interpretation of said data is not to trust them.... insert reference to stats on addiction, cancer, and heart disease produced by the tobacco industry up to the 2000s.

And I endorse Mr Angry's second response to this article.

Still, I want to know how much massively is getting paid to publish this stuff.

Leshrac said on 1:40PM 10-16-2008

I'm one of those people, I canceled my 5 WoW accounts (my sons and I) to go play WAR (3 accounts). I've since canceled my 3 WAR accts and reactivated 3 WoW accts.

The king is dead, long live the king!

Leshrac said on 1:47PM 10-16-2008

Also, you must remember Acti-Blizz is a publically traded company, they must report dips or surges in their MMO to analysts and Wall Street. I'm not sure that they have hard data to back this up - but if they lost 500,000 accounts around the launch of WAR, then saw an uptick in reactivation's with the 3.0 patch what should they assume?

BreakingPoint0 said on 2:12PM 10-16-2008

You're exactly right, they are just looking at the numbers and seeing an obvious trend. This one makes sense for them to assume, however everything Blizzard reports isn't exactly accurate.

12 million subscribers? I don't think they have 12 million active subscribers. They may have had 12 million subscribers over the lifetime, but I don't think it's active. Maybe I'm wrong and there really are 12 million active subscribers. Also have to remember it's not unique people per account, some people have multiple accounts =P

Leshrac said on 2:25PM 10-16-2008

If they're claiming a subscriber number that isn't true it's called fraud, and they will get thrown in jail. They've always said that the subscriber number is active accounts. You can not falsify this information.

Also, in the interview they stated that a lof of people included in their comments as to why they were leaving "going to Warhammer", and that a lot of those people came back.

But at the end of the day who the hell really cares? Does it really affect anyone's lives either way?

Abriael said on 2:15PM 10-16-2008

Being a traded company means you can't give precise numbers unless at certain times and such, but they can fill their mouth with what they want as long as it's a sybilline statement like this "more than half of the ones that left returned" doesn't give a precise figure of the ones that left and of the ones that returned, so being a publicly traded company doesn't give it any credibility.

It's just the usual blizzspin like the idiocy that a company would need 1 billion dollars to compete with them.

Nice to see that Massively felt that they weren't hyping wow enough lately, and that Blizzard feels the need to try and bash warhammer (more on a quite idiotic interview to Kaplan on MTV Multiplayer), panic anyone? :D

Abriael said on 2:18PM 10-16-2008

In any case, i'll quote a reply about this of an user on the VNboards: "Ya, except that's not counting people who sold their accounts. I sold mine, so I am sure someone returned to play my account, just wasn't me."

LOL :D

Caeres said on 9:05PM 10-29-2008

FFS abriael. we get it. your a wow hater. i dont even read massively that much and everytime i read a story, your either saying that war is better and then saying that its a difference in opinion if someone disagrees, or outwardly bashing wow.

why does wow make you so angry?

im open to any mmorpg. ill try anything. heck some of your comments ive read have been from other mmos that ive been interested in. but i dont feel the need to bash them because they are not my favourite.

maybe i shouldnt feed the trolls...

Gnova said on 2:35PM 10-16-2008

Pretty easy for them to track these numbers with reasonable confidence since most people will spend the time filling out cancellation surveys accurately.
For a lot of people this is pretty much the only way to give their opinion on the mmo they are leaving and the reason why. If you don't spend the five minutes to give your reasons for leaving you are doing yourself a disservice imo.
If the same people that say they are leaving WoW to play WAR resub in a few weeks they are able to track it.
Also, those numbers would only account for the people that actually cancel with one account to play a different game. I would imagine that most of the WoW players trying out WAR never cancelled at all, and they would even be more likely to return once they get a bit bored with WAR or see 3.0 patch info.

With WoW, Lotro, and EQ2 expansions all coming within the next month I see server merges in WARs future rapidly approaching.

My finger is hovering on the WAR cancellation button at the moment. Empty PvE zones and PQs and endless grinding of the same scenarios over and over (where all the population seems to be) makes for a pretty dull game.

Abriael said on 2:51PM 10-16-2008

Lol @ "most people will spend time to fill cancellation surveys accurately".
Maybe you should replace it with "I spend my time filling cancellation surveys accurately, so I think most do". Most people cancel because they don't care about a game anymore. They don't waste their time that can be used more constructively actually playing something more fun for them, checking boxes for blizzard's sake.

JP said on 2:51PM 10-16-2008

A Massively Haiku:

We are Massively
Our articles are biased
Guess who our fav is?

david said on 2:52PM 10-16-2008

I am someone that likes HUGE PVP/RVR battles. WoW does not have that, they have a 40 versus 40 at Alterac Valley, but come on... That gets extremely boring....

I had a battle last night, there were about 140 Destruction and about 120 Order. We were having an all out battle in The Maw... WoW can't do that.......

If you WoW lovers want to go back, go back, don't try to ruin the fun for other people that are enjoying the game... Go back to PVP Arena crap and Battleground crap... Stop saying that WoW is better than WAR because its not...

WAR is amazing, STFU about WoW being better... WoW has been out for almost 5 years now... If you miss your baby elephant companions in WoW... GO BACK!

I know you miss your baby elephants that follow you around, but mature people like to battle and fight, not play with little pokemon creatures...

STFU about WoW, WHO CARES! THAT GAME IS 5 YEARS OLD! WTF...!