[Mindlog]

Good lord that real money auction house is blood in the water.

25m for Blops.
11.1 million WoW subscribers.

[subversus]

I remember people were arguing that SMB can outsell MW and BLOPS. lol

[perfectnight]

This.

I'm just glad that they are losing people, at all. Maybe it will make them finally show us something about that new MMO :P

[Nirolak]

I'm just glad that they are losing people, at all. Maybe it will make them finally show us something about that new MMO :P

They intend to show it at the Blizzcon after this one.

[Yoshichan]

I'm just glad that they are losing people, at all. Maybe it will make them finally show us something about that new MMO :P

Blizzcon this year.

[Home]

Pretty awesome to hear that the vanity pet charity drive made 1.9 million for Japan relief.

[Kalnos]

This BlizzCon Blizzard is going to announce the Panda expansion that will signify WoW jumping the shark.

[Painraze]

Blizzcon this year.

They aren't going to show Titan this year. This year will be all about Diablo 3, Heart of the Swarm and a new WoW expansion.

[Lothars]

D3 is 2012 for sure, IMO.

I think it will be out in December 2011

[Yoshichan]

They aren't going to show Titan this year. This year will be all about Diablo 3, Heart of the Swarm and a new WoW expansion.

Already? They haven't even talked about 4.3 (Deathwing) yet... not happening bro.

[HBroward]

Blizzcon this year.

If they did move it up, I could see that taking some wind out of SWTOR, although it would still be years before release.

[flyinpiranha]

Congratulations Bobby Kotick!

[Mr. Serious Business]

World of Warcraft is likely losing users to League of Legends. Even still, it has a ridiculous number of subscribers. I just wish it never existed so we could have gotten a proper Warcraft 4.

[Randomizer]

Interesting, so the worst COD to date is the best selling and people were starting to think franchise fatigue was setting in lol.

[perfectnight]

I remember people were arguing that SMB can outsell MW and BLOPS. lol

Seriously! Almost 50 million between 2 games released a year apart. God damn, activision have really hit the lottery with this franchise.

World of Warcraft is likely losing users to League of Legends. Even still, it has a ridiculous number of subscribers. I just wish it never existed so we could have gotten a proper Warcraft 4.

I think that's a fair guess. The market is heavily moving towards the F2P model and WoW is an archaic MMO in more ways than one. They can only polish something so old, so much.

[Old Gimlet Eyes]

Interesting, so the worst COD to date is the best selling and people were starting to think franchise fatigue was setting in lol.

COD 3 is Black Ops now?

[strafer]

How many players does Rift have?

[Alex]

Nothing in the Cata beta would have shown off the issues with the expansion, the beta was mostly great. The primary concern with Cataclysm is that the huge revamp of Azeroth, which had very limited use for a seven year old MMO, took gigantic swaths of development time away from more meaningful types of content.

New Azeroth is really nice and all, but it was so much work and so much content just to redo the initial levels of an older game. So much of the landscape redone, like 6 or 7 hours of music, probably well over a thousand quests. All of that, and most of it was probably not touched by a towering majority of the playerbase.

They're still struggling to keep up even now, it's a problem with their consume and dispose-of type game model, they need significantly more in the way of addons and patches than most competitors.

I think they'll pick themselves back up a bit with the next expansion, but I also think they could really stand to look into content models that are a little more player-sustained and reusable. It'd save them a lot of grey hairs.

[Nirolak]

I remember people were arguing that SMB can outsell MW and BLOPS. lol

As of April 26th, NSMB Wii was at 22 Million: http://www.nintendo.co.jp/ir/pdf/2011/110426e.pdf

Not sure how many copies it sold in the quarter afterwards, so while it's probably above Modern Warfare 2, it's definitely still behind Black Ops.

[bill0527]

Holy fucking shit, I just got banned from the WoW forums for posting the following (and I only posted it once).

Origination: Forums / Comments Ban type: Spamming / Trolling Expires: Saturday, August 6, 2011 2:20:58 PM PDT (in 2 days, 23 hours) Ban Reason: 24 hour suspension from the World of Warcraft forums for spamming the forums. By: Hartdor, L85 Troll Hunter, <Asoraya>, Area 52 Forum > General Discussion Thread Title: 900,000 subs lost ActiBlizz conf. call Reply #1 Timestamp: Aug 3, 2011 2:10:38 PM Down to 11.1 million, lol.I just saw their financial chart for their fiscal year that just ended.Total subscription revenue has skyrocketed, but its based on increases in PS3 and Xbox 360 subscription revenue.PC game revenue has pretty much flatlined only posting a 1% increase over the previous year. The kicker though is that WoW released an expansion this fiscal year. One would assume that PC subscription revenue would have a healthy increase over the previous fiscal year, yet that was not the case. There was very little, if any, Cataclysm bump.

[Syphon Filter]

Mario Kart still sold more.

[Yoshichan]

Holy fucking shit, I just got banned from the WoW forums for posting the following (and I only posted it once).

That's embarrassing.

[Evlar]

Yep, I'd say WoW is definitely entering the caretaking phase of its lifecycle now.

What a run.

[Painraze]

Already? They haven't even talked about 4.3 (Deathwing) yet... not happening bro.

Disagree. There will be concept art, info and possibly a name revealed at Blizzcon.

[TacticalFox88]

Deserved sales for BO. After the trainwreck that was MW2 it's nice that the game has few problems in MP outside of lag and netcode.

[MechDX]

Holy fucking shit, I just got banned from the WoW forums for posting the following (and I only posted it once).

Dont mess with The Kotick.

[PsychoRaven]

So WOW continues to lose subscribers. Can't say that's surprising. We've without a doubt entered the decline phase it seems.

[Home]

World of Warcraft is likely losing users to League of Legends. Even still, it has a ridiculous number of subscribers. I just wish it never existed so we could have gotten a proper Warcraft 4.

I'm not so sure about that. Many of my friends who play LoL still play WoW quite often. When I quit WoW my go to game became LoL, but I quit because of poor content release dates, not a competing game.

[Yoshichan]

Disagree. There will be concept art, info and possibly a name revealed at Blizzcon.

It'll be interesting nonetheless.

[Disguises]

MW3 for Wii is no surprise

The lack of information and assets begin now. I won't double dip this year and will only get the Wii version.
Previous (awesome OP) thread here: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=410718. I think the first screenshots we got from Black Ops Wii was blurry shots from the back of the box days before release.

[Lothars]

So WOW continues to lose subscribers. Can't say that's surprising. We've without a doubt entered the decline phase it seems.

Until the next expansion.

[Kalnos]

WoW is losing users because of its age and lack of content updates I'd say (though I personally have disliked the direction of the game post-TBC).

[Old Gimlet Eyes]

Mario Kart still sold more.

Which one made more money though? Mario Kart with its higher sales or Black Ops with its sales + DLC? Surely it has to be Black Ops right?

[bill0527]

Haha, sorry, here's actual photo evidence.

[Randomizer]

COD 3 is Black Ops now?

I was referring to the games after COD 4's change of direction for the series. I have never played COD 3 but have heard bad things about it, if its worse than Black Ops then it must be really terrible.

[Mr. Serious Business]

I'm not so sure about that. Many of my friends who play LoL still play WoW quite often. When I quit WoW my go to game became LoL, but I quit because of poor content release dates, not a competing game.

DOTA was insanely popular among the WC3 community, and the fact that LoL is free is likely making it an attractive option to many people (especially with the continuing economic difficulties). The ridiculous numbers of LoL players means there's plenty of overlap between the two userbases, so it's probable that a good portion of people are just making the switch.

[Syphon Filter]

Deserved sales for BO. After the trainwreck that was MW2 it's nice that the game has few problems in MP outside of lag and netcode.

Black ops is garbage compared to MW2. Unfinished crap and they just copy what iw does all the time.

[Shalashaska161]

WoW is losing users because it's 6 years old and has had poor PVP balance and end game raid content since the Cata launch. I'd also argue that they have streamlined the game too much to the point where it's no longer interesting, but that's just a personal issue with the game.

LoL probably is stealing customers away from WoW, along with other F2P games. It's a very different world out there nowadays.

[Tallshortman]

I was referring to the games after COD 4's change of direction for the series. I have never played COD 3 but have heard bad things about it, if its worse than Black Ops then it must be really terrible.

TBH CoD3 is in the same vein as the terrible PS2/xbox spinoffs. Absolutely the worst entry in the main CoD series.

[Acerac]

Until the next expansion.

I was one of those waiting rabidly for cata to hit. I won't touch WoW again.

Blizzard's excessive milking of the franchise is more damaging than you assume.

[StevieP]

Black ops is garbage compared to MW2. Unfinished crap and they just copy what iw does all the time.

Both games are garbage. Modern Warfare and even WaW were both better.

Which one made more money though? Mario Kart with its higher sales or Black Ops with its sales + DLC? Surely it has to be Black Ops right?

Extra Wii wheels? Not to mention the large disparity between development costs of the two.

[perfectnight]

WoW is losing users because it's 6 years old and has had poor PVP balance and end game raid content since the Cata launch. I'd also argue that they have streamlined the game too much to the point where it's no longer interesting, but that's just a personal issue with the game. LoL probably is stealing customers away from WoW, along with other F2P games. It's a very different world out there nowadays.

Yep. They aren't even in the same genre but you have to remember that LoL is a free, unique and extremely accessible game with CONSTANT content updates and a huge community. Those are some very nice qualities that you don't find in many online games.

[Yoshichan]

I was one of those waiting rabidly for cata to hit. I won't touch WoW again. Blizzard's excessive milking of the franchise is more damaging than you assume.

Continuing on with the (lol) lore and entertaining 10 million people with expansion packs is milking?

[Lothars]

I was one of those waiting rabidly for cata to hit. I won't touch WoW again. Blizzard's excessive milking of the franchise is more damaging than you assume.

It depends on what you classify as milking, releasing an expansion every two years is not milking.

[19 & 21]

Blizzard's excessive milking of the franchise is more damaging than you assume.

Until WoW 2.

[Evlar]

Yeah... we used to criticize Blizzard for pushing out content far too slowly.

[Lothars]

Black ops is garbage compared to MW2. Unfinished crap and they just copy what iw does all the time.

I agree but both games are not very good at all especially compared to MW.

[TacticalFox88]

Black ops is garbage compared to MW2. Unfinished crap and they just copy what iw does all the time.

Holy shit. Where to begin.
Black Ops Removed Stopping Power
Removed One Man Army
No Riot Shield
Nerfed Noob Toobing
Removed Danger Close
Balanced the Perks (Pain in the ass to get the Pros, but Whatevs)
Removed Commando
Removed the dumbass nuke
Killstreaks don't stack
Killstreaks aren't extremely overpowered
Airstreaks aren't CONSTANTLY in the air
There's a counter and a weakness to EVERYTHING
Shotguns are now primary instead of secondary
No tactical knife

The list goes on and on. The only thing MW2 does better than Black Ops is that the Single Player is far better. Not the story mind you, but the missions themselves.

[Deadbeat]

Do DS sales of Black Ops count towards the total even though its a completely different game? Because if so, and you consider the wii release as well, it might appear that COD sales might have been lower than MW2 if it werent for those two platforms.

The only thing MW2 does better than Black Ops is that the Single Player is far better.

MW2 looks and runs much better on all three platforms.

[bill0527]

It depends on what you classify as milking, releasing an expansion every two years is not milking.

Milking is when you decide to add new features to the game, but make everyone pay for them on top of the subscription fee. Blizzard is full-on in that mode right now.

As for new free content, they are giving the absolute bare minimum right now. More fetch/kill quests, but you have to do them all for 30 days before you can access the new stuff, plus the incessant recycling/re-tuning of old content instead of coming up with something new.