MMO Fallout

World of Warcraft Has “More Than 9.6 Million Subscribers”

You all know what February means, and I’m not talking about TERA going free to play. It’s quarterly report month! Activision has released their fourth quarter reports for 2012, and things are looking…toward the future. Net revenues for 2012 were up $500 million to $4.99 billion, with CEO Bobby Kotick describing the year as “the best performance in [Activision’s] history.” Skylanders, Activision’s toy-based game, has officially made its way into the billionaire’s club, selling over 100 million toys to the tune of $1 billion worldwide. Diablo III became the #1 best selling PC game with more than 12 million sales, while Mists of Pandaria took its place at #3.

World of Warcraft still retains its throne as #1 subscription MMO, dropping from the 10 million reported in Q3 2012, while still not dipping as low as the 9.1 million the quarter before.

As of December 31, 2012, Blizzard Entertainment’s World of Warcraft remains the #1 subscription-based MMORPG, with more than 9.6 million subscribers

Back in 2011, Blizzard announced a commitment to release more content at a faster pace, in order to combat the issue of players chewing through an expansion’s content and then unsubscribing out of lack of things to do.

(Source: Quarterly report)

World of Warcraft Has "More Than 9.6 Million Subscribers"

World of Warcraft still retains its throne as #1 subscription MMO, dropping from the 10 million reported in Q3 2012, while still not dipping as low as the 9.1 million the quarter before.

As of December 31, 2012, Blizzard Entertainment’s World of Warcraft remains the #1 subscription-based MMORPG, with more than 9.6 million subscribers

(Source: Quarterly report)

MMOrning Shots:

Fun fact: That is not my hand. Blizzard is still adamant that World of Warcraft may one day come to handheld iOS.

MMOrning Shots is a (mostly) daily article displaying random screenshots hidden in the MMO Fallout archives. If you would like your own screenshot featured in this article, send it to us via email at (mmofallout at gmail dot com)

MMOrning Shots: Everquest Online Adventures

Everquest Online Adventures probably should have been shut down years ago, but Sony Online Entertainment has a habit of refusing to let their games die until the very last minute.

I had a Playstation 2 last year when I was covering Everquest Online Adventures shortly before it shut down. I have no idea what happened to it, but it disappeared.

NCSoft Q4 2012 Records Historical High Quarterly Revenue

ncsoftq412 — Click me for a bigger picture.

Talk about springing back. Strong sales in Lineage, Guild Wars 2, Blade & Soul, as well as mobile games, NCSoft has recorded historical high quarterly revenues for the fourth quarter of 2012. In the latest report, NCSoft marked a 56% increase in quarterly sales, a 208% increase in quarterly operating profit, 110% increase in pre-tax income, as well as a 116% quarterly increase in net income. The fourth quarter saw moderate to high increases in sales for Lineage, Lineage II, with the sales from Guild Wars 2 nearly tripling during the same period. Aion, as well as NCsoft’s latest title, Blade & Soul, saw marginal decreases over the same time period. Lineage II managed to reverse, at least for this quarter, a downward trend in sales that began in Q4 2011 while the original Lineage continues on an unpredictable, yet averaging upward, trend in sales despite its age.

Guild Wars 2 has already proven itself as NCSoft’s most successful product to date, breaking the record set by Aion during its peak sales by a long shot. NCsoft’s parent-company reports are, sadly, not as inspiring. While sales went up 15% quarterly, quarterly operating profit went down 1% with pre-tax income and net income both falling hard and ending up in the red for Q4.

And to wrap this up, we’ll look at everyone’s favorite part of NCSoft’s quarterly reports: Demographics. As expected from the launch of Guild Wars 2 and Blade & Soul, sales in Korea shot up with North America and Europe also taking a dramatic shift upward. Sales in Japan and Taiwan mostly remained the same while sales from royalties were boosted slightly.

Mark Jacobs Announces Camelot Unchained

It feels like ages since we last spoke of Mark Jacobs and City State Entertainment, the end of September in 2011 if you’re keeping track. Since then, the team has been hard at work on what many of us have hoped would be the spiritual sequel to Dark Age of Camelot. Today, Jacobs has graced us with the announcement of Camelot Unchained, an upcoming MMORPG. Why don’t I let Mark Jacobs tell you more about it?

The core concept for the new MMORPG focuses tightly on three key elements, RvR, housing and a true player-owned economy. The central conflict encompasses a trio of diverse, competing realms – Arthurian, Tuatha Dé Danann and Viking – each seeking to assert its dominance over an open and persistent world reflecting the universally familiar but greatly re-imagined Camelot and European mythos. All aspects of this RvR-focused MMORPG are tied into and support the three realms’ ongoing battle for superiority and control. The player housing and crafting systems will also be very significant components and both key closely into the RvR theme.

Three faction, RvR focused, with housing and a player-driven economy? Someone cancel my happy pills, I shan’t be needing them anymore. For more details, Massively.com has a fantastic interview with Mark Jacobs about the concepts and ideas behind Camelot Unchained. City State Entertainment will be launching a Kickstarter campaign soon to raise funding for the MMO.

(Source: City State Entertainment)

MMOrning Shots: Don’t Be An MMO-Fo

Remember this guy? Bas Rutten played the spokesman for TERA Online, also known as Bas Rutten Online, with the “MMO-FO” line of trailers. You may have also noticed him in the role of Niko in the recent film Here Comes The Boom.

MMOrning Shots: Don't Be An MMO-Fo

Wizardry Online Pulled From Steam To Address Issues

Wizardry Online has officially launched, and the problems appear to be stacking against Sony Online Entertainment. Players are reporting issues including being unable to create characters, rampant server instability, a mass of gold farmer spam in chat, disconnections and other bugs resulting in item loss and permanent death, and more. While Sony runs around performing maintenance on the servers and releasing patch after patch in an attempt to fix the issues, several keen players on the forums noted that Wizardry Online has been removed from Steam.

SOE Community Manager Piestro posted to confirm that Wizardry has been removed, but that the removal was voluntary and performed by Sony itself, not Valve.

It wasn’t steam, we’ve removed the download for the time being as we resolve the current issues.

Wizardry Online will presumably be added back to the Steam library once the issues are ironed out.

(Source: Wizardry Forums)

Grab TERA For $10 On Amazon (50% Off)

TERA goes free to play on February 5th, and you can still pick up a copy of the game on Amazon for $10. Why buy a copy of a game that will be free to play by this time tomorrow? If you haven’t been paying attention (and if you have to ask, you haven’t), TERA’s free to play model segregates players into free, subscriber, and founder. Founder status players are those who have a serial code attached to their account, through purchasing a boxed or digital copy of the game. As I pointed out, founder status players have a number of advantages granted to them that a new account will never have access to, even if they subscribe, including a monumentally increased bank storage.

Now here’s the catch: Starting February 5th (tomorrow), En Masse Entertainment will be discontinuing the sale of digital copies of TERA, making founder’s status impossible to obtain unless you happen to come across one of the remaining out-of-print box copies. So if you’re going to be playing TERA, you live in the United States (important), and don’t mind dropping $10, having founder status is ultimately a better deal than running with a standard free account.

And founder status is just an alternative to the free account. You don’t pay a subscription to keep it.

(Source: Amazon)

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