Analyst: World of Warcraft to Get 1M More Subscribers

October 14, 2008 12:25 PM

Lazard Capital Markets analyst Colin Sebastian sees no end to the near-monopoly held by Blizzard's World of Warcraft (PC). Moreover, EA Mythic's Warhammer Online, while successful, won't have any measurable effect on the 800-pound-gorilla of MMOs.

"We expect a net addition of ~1 million new subscribers to World of Warcraft over the next 12 months, driven in part by the launch of the expansion pack, as well as by ongoing growth of the game in China," wrote Sebastian in an investors' note reproduced on Edge. The game currently boasts 10.9 million subscribers.

"We do not expect [Warhammer Online to have] a significant negative impact in the near-term on World of Warcraft," commented Sebasian, adding, "[we] note that preorders of the upcoming [World of Warcraft] expansion pack rank as one of the best selling games on Amazon.com and other retail websites."

Sebastian refers to Wrath of the Lich King, which launches on November 13. At the time of writing, the unreleased Wrath of the Lich King sits atop the Amazon.com sales rankings.

Sebastian, or one of his colleagues, also attended last weekend's BlizzCon 08 and unsurprisingly found more Blizzard faithful than WAR converts: "Our conversations at BlizzCon suggest limited interest in [Warhammer Online] among core WoW users."

Blake Ellison

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valcan_s

 reply
October 14, 2008 12:34 PM

Hmmm I do not like this statement --> "We do not expect [Warhammer Online to have] a significant negative impact in the near-term on World of Warcraft,"

My sir you have big balls, but still I would not of said that. Then again its Blizzard and Wow they can say what ever they want I suppose...
- kpxkrnjc
  
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  October 14, 2008 12:37 PM
  
  You can dislike/like whatever you want, but the numbers don't lie. WoW has only grown since WAR's release, not vice versa.
  - valcan_s
    
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    October 14, 2008 12:39 PM
    
    I know and your right, its still not necessary to slag a good game... what ever what can you do.
    
    Numbers alone are a reason for more sales and that is just how things go.
    - Theatrikal
      
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      October 14, 2008 12:43 PM
      
      I don't think it's a slight against WAR, I think it's just basic business talk. I don't believe it would be in anyone's best interest for the two companies to try to make gains on one another.
    - ahk-med
      
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      October 14, 2008 12:44 PM
      
      He isn't slagging a good game - he's not a cheer leading fan boy like yourself. He is a financial analyst communicating to investors, not gamers looking to boost their self esteem with praise for their choice of video game.
    - House
      
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      October 14, 2008 12:53 PM
      
      I don't think he's criticizing Warhammer as much as saying that any success it has won't be at the expense of WoW.
- critch
  
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  October 14, 2008 12:50 PM
  
  Oh Please, WAR is no different than Age of Conan or any other 'big' MMO. Nobody's leaving WoW for them. They might stop for a month, but they'll come running back as they see the similar gameplay, lack of content, and so on.
  
  There won't be a change for a long time. I have hopes for the Star Wars MMO and Star Trek Online, but I'm not going to believe for a second that WoW is going anywhere but up.
  - Wombat Woo
    
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    October 14, 2008 12:54 PM
    
    Uh...War is a lot different than AoC. There is actually a ton of content throughout the ENTIRE game along with PvP features that are actually implemented. However you are very correct that people will continue to be drawn back to WoW.
    - Lukiopimp
      
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      October 14, 2008 1:36 PM
      
      It is really different, AoC actually has skill based combat.
      - kpxkrnjc
        
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        October 14, 2008 1:56 PM
        
        Wrong. Sorry I don't know where you got this false notion, but PvP consisting entirely of certain classes one-shotting every other class is not "skill" based pvp. It's not even PvP.
        
        Lukiopimp
        
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        October 14, 2008 4:20 PM
        
        I got this "false notion" from playing the game? Haven't been one-shotted up till now. The combat is just very dynamic and fast paced, so maybe some people get the impression of getting "one-shotted".
        
        kpxkrnjc
        
         reply
        October 14, 2008 7:28 PM
        
        Sorry but you've never played the game at 80 then. If you want credentials my guild had a T3 City, Battlekeep and was the first on the server to attack another Battlekeep.
        
        One shots are prevalent.
    - jedi_27
      
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      October 14, 2008 2:13 PM
      
      tell that to the people playing T3 in WAR :)
  - kpxkrnjc
    
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    October 14, 2008 12:54 PM
    
    Age of Conan is vastly inferior to WAR both in terms of pre-release communications and post-release communications. Mark Jacobs is largely responsible for I'd say much of WAR's PR success.
    
    Age of Conan on the other hand... Was cooked up by a bunch of babbling Norwegians who couldn't properly code their own game.... Needless to say communication with their non-Nordic consumers was terrible at best.
  - veras
    
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    October 14, 2008 12:56 PM
    
    I appreciate what you're trying to say here, but I think comparing AOC to WAR isn't fair. I tried both, do not play either, and play WoW - but AOC was a total fucking joke of a game and its laughable that so many people bought into the hype and picked it up. WAR isn't a game for me, but at least it has redeeming qualities.
    - kpxkrnjc
      
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      October 14, 2008 1:02 PM
      
      Well-- Here's my deal: I got into the Open Beta of Age of Conan and it was truly fun. It had pretty much all the features for PvP that were advertised (leveling + pvp gear) and looked visually stunning as far as MMORPGs go.
      
      So I figured hey, this game might actually be great! Unfortunately upon release it was clearly evident someone at Funcom had majorly fucked up because almost all the key features that were present during beta had somehow managed to slip into a coma.
      
      These features were continuously promised but delayed for well over 3 months post-release and just in general FC failed to meet any deadlines whatsoever. Quite often they couldn't even keep their coders competent enough to meet regular bug fix schedules as per the weekly basis they highlighted as part of what they were doing to fix the game.
      
      Bottom line, Funcom took a very deceitful and secretive approach towards consumer problems and ended up losing a huge amount of subscribers for it.
  - johnny rotten
    
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    October 14, 2008 12:57 PM
    
    the truly ridiculous thing is with a subscriber base of 11 million+ even in another 5 years when 80% or more of its players have moved on (or not lol) they'll still have ~2-3 *million* subscribers. I mean thats ridiculous. Look at everquest, at its peak it had several hundred thousand subscribers and even to this day has tens of thousands of players... enough to keep the servers up and generating some revenue for sony.
    
    Now think of WoW.
    
    WoW is *never* going away....
    - Porkasaurus
      
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      October 14, 2008 6:29 PM
      
      Agreed.
      
      EQ is STILL producing new expansions. They are on #15 now and the world has almost 400 FUCKING ZONES. EQ is hugely profitable because they paid their dev cost years ago. Right now it's a service deal.
  - greydog
    
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    October 14, 2008 4:05 PM
    
    this is funny. in my opinion, AoC has been detrimental to Warhammer not because it was a superior product, but because it was a fucked up product. The crap-by-genre-association from AoC to War is keeping Blizzard laughing all the way to the bank. yeesh.
- veras
  
   reply
  October 14, 2008 12:54 PM
  
  Big balls? wtf
  
  They're doing their job and stating an opinion based on the analysis they've done
- CyCo_PL
  
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  October 14, 2008 1:04 PM
  
  Half of the WAR players are going to go back to WoW once the expansion comes out.
  - fffortune
    
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    October 14, 2008 1:28 PM
    
    That expansion is going to be a swift kick to WAR's balls, as someone on here said.
    - erebus
      
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      October 14, 2008 2:13 PM
      
      It will keep 500k subs... alot of pvp'ers jump ship from WOW and aren't going back.
      - Polish Sausage
        
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        October 14, 2008 2:40 PM
        
        People like me and my guild dusted off our gaming rigs and jumped into WAR after not playing WoW since downing Onyxia was the big news.
        
        Then again, I consider WAR to be a game competing with TF2 and not competing with WoW. If you want to wrangle up 40 cats and raid for 5 hours, that's one thing.
        
        But that one thing is not WAR.
  - sk0
    
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    October 14, 2008 5:32 PM
    
    wow is trivial to experienced gamers who have been there, done that. war's city and fortress sieges are where its at now.. the only way this will change is if mythic allows it to by sitting on their asses too long.
- yAak
  
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  October 14, 2008 1:27 PM
  
  Blizzard people didn't say that, the analyst said it.
  - Porkasaurus
    
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    October 14, 2008 2:04 PM
    
    Shhh...we love crazy around here, don't spoil the fun :(
- tlover2
  
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  October 14, 2008 6:32 PM
  
  Diablo 3 will have a significant negative impact on WOW but that's still money in blizzards pocket.
  - Dr_Cube
    
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    October 14, 2008 6:56 PM
    
    I agree with this. Blizzard started out small like every other developer. They made the right moves and now have the budget to develop whatever they want for as long as they want. Only Valve, Sony, and Microsoft can afford to compete or match their quality. Deal with it.