Comments on: Only Paying Bodies Count

By: flosch

flosch — Fri, 25 Jul 2014 06:02:01 +0000

That is a good point and it might have been a good rule of thumb, but I don’t think the Chinese market is as strong any more. They seem to have lost lots of players in 2013. (See the answer above to Rohan).

By: flosch

flosch — Fri, 25 Jul 2014 05:59:50 +0000

The point about the Chinese players is very good. I completely forgot about them. It’s also a much better reason than the annual pass, which won’t make much of a difference, because I completely missed that I was off by one year with that. It would’ve influenced the 2012 revenue numbers, but nut so much the 2013 ones.

About regional breakdown: I think you’re underestimating the NA/EU market. As carson points out, it might have used to be a 50/50 split, but most subscriber losses, especially in 2013, actually came from China, as pointed out, for example, here: http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2013/07/13/world-of-warcraft-loses-ground-to-league-of-legends-in-china/

By: carson63000

carson63000 — Fri, 25 Jul 2014 00:19:13 +0000

A rule of thumb which seemed to work with WoW, back when they announced more detail about regional breakdown, was that 50% of the players were in the west, contributing 90% of the revenue, and the other 50% were in China, contributing 10% of the revenue.

The regional breakdown could have changed quite a bit since then, though.

By: Rohan

Rohan — Thu, 24 Jul 2014 15:52:22 +0000

The 7.6 million WoW players mentioned includes players in China, who pay significantly less than the NA/EU players. That is the element which is more likely to be throwing off your calculations, rather than the D3 annual subscription.

Estimates are probably around 3 million EU/NA players.

By: What Does It Mean to be a “Subscription MMO?” | The Ancient Gaming Noob

Thu, 24 Jul 2014 13:44:18 +0000

[…] Addendum 2: And Flosch takes the numbers and extrapolates a bit. […]