tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3249541406364691686.post6421886018053853394..comments2023-09-15T05:54:48.691-07:00Comments on SERIAL GANKER: How much market share can Mythic steal from Blizzard?sid67http://www.blogger.com/profile/16656756657483499337noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3249541406364691686.post-6500783579253288792008-09-24T07:23:00.000-07:002008-09-24T07:23:00.000-07:00Well, this is all interesting but I think a couple...Well, this is all interesting but I think a couple of factors need to be added to your analysis.<BR/><BR/>Firstly, War is RvR and pvp focused and poses a greater threat to Blizzards disenchanted pvpers than any other game so far. As such, a breakdown of pvp popularity is Blizzard would allow you to fine-tune your predictions.<BR/><BR/>Second, as wow demonstrated, "break-away" commercial success hinges upon becoming a "cultural phenomenon" if you will. The South Park episode and clever marketing did more to grow their numbers than pulling people from other MMOs. If War manages to generate enough momentum through such means and grow a "new" subscriber base, the resulting buzz would have a spin-off effect and more wow players would be attracted to it. This is kind of an economic multiplier effect.<BR/><BR/>In any case, I realize that the above points are hard to measure and thus makes your analysis even more challenging.<BR/><BR/>I see wow becoming more and more of a game for youth and other alternatives such as war and aoc as appealing to older palates.<BR/><BR/>Expect wow to be strong for a long time, but don't be surprised if War is the next MMO to break the 1 Million subscriber mark!Shawnohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12703386340376056510noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3249541406364691686.post-73473868009755496682008-08-29T06:58:00.000-07:002008-08-29T06:58:00.000-07:00Hehe, this is the kind of theoretical number crunc...Hehe, this is the kind of theoretical number crunching I can get behind, since I love to do it myself! :)<BR/><BR/>I think you've broken everything down quite nicely with the assumptions and publicly available numbers.<BR/><BR/>In terms of AoC, I believe they mentioned selling up to 800,000 boxes and shipping 1M. At the time, 800k would have been pretty close to the maximum opportunity based on your hypothesis (if you subcract AoC's numbers from the mix).<BR/><BR/>The trouble with AoC is that they've only managed to retain ~50% and are now sitting at around 400k.Snafzghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03633391147530896664noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3249541406364691686.post-91299473704252931652008-08-28T11:32:00.000-07:002008-08-28T11:32:00.000-07:00Doesn't matter for your analysis, but, according t...Doesn't matter for your analysis, but, according to their last release of figures, WoW is now pushing 11 Million subscribers world-wide. <BR/><BR/>Of course, the vast majority of those are in Asia. And strangely enough, WoW isn't even the most popular MMO in Asia.teflaimehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12858992182120624497noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3249541406364691686.post-30023219080793667432008-08-28T10:11:00.000-07:002008-08-28T10:11:00.000-07:00Thanks for the heads-up on the WoW figures. It ma...Thanks for the heads-up on the WoW figures. It makes a big difference in the overall size of the potential market, but not in the methodology of the analysis. The important take away from this exercise is that 22% of an MMO’s peak subscription may never unsubscribe, 34% are at moderate risk of leaving, and 44% represents the most serious flight risk. It’s that 44% that represents the best market opportunity for a competing MMO. <BR/><BR/>There are a number of potential pitfalls in assessing the actual size of the opportunity. For one thing, we don’t exactly have full disclosure into private figures, so some of the data is old or a bit inflated. Another pitfall, as you point out, is in assuming that people didn’t already leave WoW and are playing something else. Yet another is that some people will have multiple subscriptions across several games. Still – even with those pitfalls we can glean a few helpful facts by measuring the decline in other MMOs.<BR/><BR/>Applied to your 4.5 million number for North America & EU subscriptions, there are 990,000 WoW subscribers who may never unsubscribe within the next decade. Put in perspective, that’s still almost twice as many accounts as EverQuest at it’s peak. As I mentioned in the article, any notion that WoW will ever die with that many subscribers is ludicrous. WoW can’t be killed. Diminished perhaps, but not killed. Honestly, I even find it hard to consider 1 million subscribers in any context as “diminished”.<BR/><BR/>However, the main question I was trying to answer in this article is what is the maximum amount of market share that Mythic (or any MMO) can expect to steal away from Blizzard? I think a reasonable expectation is that 44% is the <I>most</I> share that any game could hope to steal from them.<BR/><BR/>Your point about Guild Wars is well taken. Any analysis that doesn’t include it will understate the overall opportunity because Guild Wars is <I>seemingly</I> the second most popular MMO. I say seemingly because it’s model makes it impossible to know exactly how many people are playing. <A HREF="http://westkarana.com/index.php/2008/08/27/how-popular-is-your-mmo/" REL="nofollow">Tipa</A> did an interesting little analysis with XFire data that estimates GW at around 300,000 players. My bet is that is a close estimate. Someone also had an interesting point about Guild Wars (I wish I could recall who) that described it like a gateway drug. The basic thought being that people who wouldn’t subscribe to a monthly MMO would buy GW and get ‘hooked’ into it and then transition to a “real” MMO like WoW.sid67https://www.blogger.com/profile/16656756657483499337noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3249541406364691686.post-69609467130763020982008-08-28T05:37:00.000-07:002008-08-28T05:37:00.000-07:00Not that this makes a huge difference in your anal...Not that this makes a huge difference in your analysis, but MMOGchart claims that the WoW regional breakdown <A HREF="http://www.mmogchart.com/Chart11.html" REL="nofollow">as of January '08</A> was 2.5 million NA, 2 million EU, and the rest Asia. I haven't seen anything more current with the breakdown (which matters a lot to Blizzard's bottom line, since the Asians don't pay much). <BR/><BR/>Guild Wars claims to have sold over 5 million boxes, but that number is misleading because of the way their expansions work; I represent four of those boxes. It's also a bit more complicated to figure out who is actually playing the game. Do I still count even though I'm not playing at the moment? On the other hand, the reason why I bought the game in the first place is because it has no monthly fee so I don't feel guilty having it onhand so I CAN play it whenever I'm feeling bored but not looking to cancel a current game. <BR/><BR/>The other thing that makes life more complicated is that current subscriptions does not represent the total number of players, as it excludes people who aren't playing anymore. If, for the sake of argument, you presume that there are an additional 1.5 million former WoW players in NA/EU, that matters at lot to WoW's ceiling, because a larger proportion of them might be in the market for a new MMO compared to the ones who are still playing WoW.Green Armadillohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15564045048380177626noreply@blogger.com