Blizzard Stats!

[Matthew Bramblet]

An interesting story went around yesterday about how Blizzard has spent $200 million on WoW so far. That includes the total cost of development, servers, and customer service.

The data comes from the Activision Blizzard's Analyst Day recording, which had a lot of other financial stats. Some of the Blizzard info and promotion:


-- WoW has over 11 million subscribers today, generating over $500 million of operating profits. [I believe this is the first time they've mentioned 11 million subscribers; most numbers so far have referred to the 10.9 million mentioned below, which was accurate as of the end of Q2.]
-- Cost per hour of entertainment: movies $3/hour, books $1/hour; Call of Duty offline is $.52/hour, online is $.15/hour; WoW is close to that online level of cost per hour.

Mike Morhaime, Blizzard CEO:
-- Blizzard has 5 of the top 10 PC games of all time, more than 60 million units in total. Blizzard has 4 of the top best-selling 11 PC games so far this year.
-- Blizzard on track to achieve operating margins of more than 45% this year.
-- Revenue growth over the past few years; current estimate for calendar 2008 is tracking at 3 times the revenue for 2005, and double the amount brought in during 2006.
-- $1 billion in revenue this year, for the second year in a row.
-- Operating income four times higher in 2008 than 2005.
-- Thousands of servers, over 100 developers, making and localizing WoW.
-- Customer service is by far the largest department of the company.
-- More "value added services" coming, like the paid server transfers and name changes, "following the launch of Wrath of the Lich King". More will be developed, "a number of other ideas" based on "ongoing content development and future expansions" for both WoW and Battle.net, related to the playerbase needs in the games.

Paul Sams, Blizzard COO:
-- 19 million copies sold overall of just Warcraft (not WoW).
-- As of the end of the first half of 2008, WoW has 10.9 million subscribers.
-- $200 million spent on WoW so far: hardware, support staff, etc.
-- WoW population is roughly 55%/45% East (Asia) to West (EU, NA).
-- WoW on release would have been a "great success" if it reached 1 million subscribers in one year; it did double that in 2 quarters.
-- In Europe, the MMORPG market was thought to be maybe 100-150k before WoW release; WoW got 200k in first 24 hours after launch in Europe.
-- WoW retail was the bestselling PC game in 2005 and 2006; second place in 2007, only to Burning Crusade.
-- Blizzard fully owns and runs WoW in most local markets, including support (including Korean and Taiwan).
-- The9 runs WoW in China; similar levels of quality there, even through the local company.
-- Will be expanding into new regions as broadband expands into other regions.
-- Gained 200k subscribers during Q2 2008; more than many other games entirely. Still regularly outsells other standard PC retail games.
-- Games released today are competing with 9 years of development in WoW; new content all the time.
-- Prior to WoW, Diablo was their most successful franchise; has sold more than 18.5 million copies worldwide.

Q&A:
-- WoW expanded into Russia and Latin America this summer. Russia is more marketplace developed than Latin America, so far. Focusing mainly on free trial for pushing growth, and "invite a friend" system.


Some interesting numbers there. They talked up the "value added services" on a few different occasions, pushing the idea of getting more money from online services. It was said it would only be as needed in the games; Battle.net was mentioned as an area where they want to monetize more, as well as expanding what is done in WoW.

Breaking 11 million subscribers is a new high for them; it will be interesting to see if WotLK pushes it even further, in 2009.

[Fugitive]

For such a large game, I never actually hear much about its customer support, outside of "you got hacked? oh, contact a GM" anecdotes. Contrary to expectations, hearing so little about it probably actually means that they spend a *lot* on it, to maintain the kind of large-scale professional staff that actually resolves things quickly and doesn't generate the kinds of attention and controversy that we've seen so much in the past.

[Telefrog]

Yup. It's good to be the King.

[Royal Fool]

Originally Posted by Fugitive

For such a large game, I never actually hear much about its customer support, outside of "you got hacked? oh, contact a GM" anecdotes. Contrary to expectations, hearing so little about it probably actually means that they spend a *lot* on it, to maintain the kind of large-scale professional staff that actually resolves things quickly and doesn't generate the kinds of attention and controversy that we've seen so much in the past.

I've sometimes heard people talk about the long time it could take to redeem stolen/hacked items and characters, but otherwise it's all good.

[Athryn]

Originally Posted by Fugitive

For such a large game, I never actually hear much about its customer support, outside of "you got hacked? oh, contact a GM" anecdotes. Contrary to expectations, hearing so little about it probably actually means that they spend a *lot* on it, to maintain the kind of large-scale professional staff that actually resolves things quickly and doesn't generate the kinds of attention and controversy that we've seen so much in the past.

From my experience working in customer service, people tend to be more vocal when CS is bad, as opposed to when it's good. The relative quiet about Wow's CSR's is generally a good thing.

[wusoldjr]

Very interesting numbers there. Especially the $200M spent to date. That's quite a nice ROI they have going for them and it doesn't appear to be stopping anytime soon.

[JZigish]

Originally Posted by Royal Fool

I've sometimes heard people talk about the long time it could take to redeem stolen/hacked items and characters, but otherwise it's all good.

Dealing with stolen/hacked stuff often involves checking logs, and depending on the mood of the people in charge it can be more or less paranoid. Sometimes it may get escalated all the way to someone on the dev team, so I can see why it could take a long time.

Yeah, I've never had problem with WoW's low and mid-tier CS. They do seem to do a good job.

[wusoldjr]

Originally Posted by Athryn

From my experience working in customer service, people tend to be more vocal when CS is bad, as opposed to when it's good. The relative quiet about Wow's CSR's is generally a good thing.

Definitely, people don't usually share the positive customer service stories because their expectations were met. But when it doesn't work out, most people will usually tell about 10 others.

[Joe M.]

I've had to contact Blizzard on a couple occasions. Both times the CS was quick, friendly and flawless. In fact, the one time my account was hacked I think they returned more gold to me than I'd lost (this isn't uncommon from what I've heard from friends). Unfortunately, all you really hear about are the sob stories or examples of GMs being clueless about X Y or Z.

[Ridah]

None of those stats are very interesting, seems like stuff we've known for the most part but with updated numbers.

[DarkHorsePlague]

I've contacted GMs in WoW with questions from "is this quest bugged?", and "does recruit-a-friend teleport work in instances," to "help I've fallen through the floor".

Responce time has always been <5 minutes, and the responces have been helpful all around.

Feels like I'm actually receiving the service I pay for!

[Tom McNamara]

I think another good barometer is how many times a month/year you feel compelled to contact customer service in the first place. I've only wanted to do it once, to swap one quest item for another. They were very professional, and the process was easy. I mailed them the quest item I had, and they mailed me the one I wanted.

[DTG]

I've always thought that Blizzard delivered great customer service for WoW...as they should, given their insane profit margins. One always expects crappy service, regardless of what you've paid, because you get that from every software company. But Blizz surprised me when they made me more-than-whole after a server transfer went bad. It took them weeks, but I was impressed with their diligence on it, their periodic email updates, their willingness to bump it up to management, and ultimately the fact that they made it all right. I understood that they had to verify stuff, and that I was one grain of sand in a 10 million person ocean. I was surprised they dealt with my problem at all. I had actually quit the game because I had just assumed that I was hosed and that such a large company wouldn't care about the problems of one player. But then they kept sending emails describing what they were trying to do to fix my problem (customer service wasn't aware I had quit). So I re-subbed.

It was by far the best "sustained" customer service I've ever received from a software or hardware company. No company's ever stuck with my problem for 1+ weeks on their own. Usually you call once, and you can tell within 5 minutes if they're going to solve your problem. And if they don't solve it on that call, you're on your own. With Blizz, I talked to them for 20 minutes, then THEY kept in touch with ME as they investigated the issue for several days. I was stunned.


They've also responded within 15 minutes the 4 or 5 times when I fell into the void over the years. Even dropped me off where I wanted to go.

[roguefrog]

Who cares how many copies they sell, they're still lame!

[Soma]

Originally Posted by Matthew Bramblet

An interesting story went around yesterday about how Blizzard has spent $200 million on WoW so far.

-- Cost per hour of entertainment: movies $3/hour, books $1/hour; Call of Duty offline is $.52/hour, online is $.15/hour; WoW is close to that online level of cost per hour.

Just pointing out one thing: that $.52 per hour most definitely DOES NOT include the price of console/PC needed to play the game. Add that (or amortise it over 2-3 years, a typical life cycle of PC or console) the figure will be very different. And then you can properly compare it with movies or books.

[Desslock]

Originally Posted by Soma

Just pointing out one thing: that $.52 per hour most definitely DOES NOT include the price of console/PC needed to play the game..

Even ignoring the hardware cost, Call of Duty cost about $15.00/hour for players not interested in multiplayer, which is still most of the market.

[Igor Muravyev]

What's with those Call of Duty numbers? Are they talking about the bargain bin Call of Duty 1 experience?

[foogla]

Originally Posted by Desslock

Even ignoring the hardware cost, Call of Duty cost about $15.00/hour for players not interested in multiplayer, which is still most of the market.

obviously the Blizzard guys replay CoD4 thirty times

[Juste]

Originally Posted by Igor Muravyev

What's with those Call of Duty numbers? Are they talking about the bargain bin Call of Duty 1 experience?

Well i paid $120 for COD4 (regular price here in Norway) and last time I checked I have played it for 9D12H online. That's $0,53/Hour. Cheap entertainment if you ask me.

[intruder]

Another vote for kickass customer service of Blizzard GMs
I interacted 3 times with them in the course of the whole lifetime of WoW so far:

1. I couldn't rez my char for some odd reason even at a cementary or with logging out and restarting my computer. I sent a mail from another char and they fixed it for me in a few min (rezzed my char). -> US server

2. We were at Headmaster in Scholo when suddenly the tank couldn't move his char anymore without crashing his game. He finally logged on another char and asked a GM to help.
Back then Scholo 5 man was hard and we had spent a lot of hours to go to Headmaster. Would really blow to have to stop so close before finishing Scholo.
GM came and saw that the problem needs some complicated fixing to allow the player to play his char again. Then he took the char and HELPED us defeat Headmaster by tanking although he said he never played a druid before.
We killed Headmaster, thanked the GM and he left porting the char back to IF. -> US server

3. My account got hacked by some gold seller. He emptied all my banks and stripped my chars of most items / mats. He left my rogue alone since he used him for playing some BGs (full epic equipped) when Blizzard froze the account.
Blizzard investigated and told me that they will be able to restore some of my items + gold.
Once I had my account back I contacted a GM that told me that he has to contact someone higher up that would be able to restore my items.
20 min later I was contacted and the person did begin to restore my items. I got all my unique items back + gold but no mats and the enchants were gone as well.
The GM then asked me if I needed any other help and as I said "No I'm fine. Thank you for your fast help" left. They never did blame me for being so stupid to get hacked which I appreciated (I knew I was stupid...).
-> EU server

[Robert Sharp]

If you're going to be arguing the per hour numbers, why not point out that the WoW numbers are probably based on the heavy use players. There's no WAY I would get that kind of value out of my $15/month because I wouldn't be playing 100 hours a month or whatever the hell.

[Sebmojo]

I've interacted with them ... twice, the first time telling me off when I made a necrophilia joke in /1 (deserved) and the second time when I said "I can't see my PANTS". As it turned out, the pants were just, uh, hot. Gay Belf pallies ftw!

[Erik Andersson]

Originally Posted by Robert Sharp

If you're going to be arguing the per hour numbers, why not point out that the WoW numbers are probably based on the heavy use players. There's no WAY I would get that kind of value out of my $15/month because I wouldn't be playing 100 hours a month or whatever the hell.

Didn't they say that the average player played 20h/week? In that case it's pretty close, especially if many pay for six months at a time.

[Mark Asher]

My WoW account got hacked too, and I got my stuff back. I was very happy with their CS.

[Ezdaar]

Originally Posted by Mark Asher

My WoW account got hacked too, and I got my stuff back. I was very happy with their CS.

Second this. Well, my wife's account but they re-enabled it after banning and put everything back.

[Matthew Bramblet]

The whole "cost per hour of entertainment" section was at the start, in part of the spiel made by the Activision guys, not the Blizzard ones. They were trying to make the case that even in an economic downturn, people will want to buy games because they're a good bang for the buck. It's an interesting concept, but nothing too substantial; it was all tied to the supposed $2 trillion that is spent every year worldwide on "entertainment", as they defined it.

Perhaps they figured it would have extra resonance Monday in a room full of Wall Street guys...

[zabuni]

Going along with that, I have heard from several people, even on this board, that WoW is an incredible money saver, being that it swallows the time used for other games.

[Fozzle]

Originally Posted by zabuni

Going along with that, I have heard from several people, even on this board, that WoW is an incredible money saver, being that it swallows the time used for other games.

Man, I can attest to that. Any MMO really fills this bill. Once I stopped playing WoW, my weekly gaming expenses have climbed considerably. I hadn't earned the evil eye from my wife in quite along time until recently... It really is a very cheap mode of entertainment for us, and a mega money maker for them. Thats a win-win right?

[JonSaunders]

More "value added services" coming, like the paid server transfers and name changes, "following the launch of Wrath of the Lich King". More will be developed, "a number of other ideas" based on "ongoing content development and future expansions" for both WoW and Battle.net, related to the playerbase needs in the games.

Hope this means I can 'buy' level 55 characters instead of have to go through mindless leveling (or buying another account for so-called-friend-3x-bonus).

[bloo]

Going from memory, Morhaime said at the 2007 Austin Game Conference that for North America and Europe, they had 1600 CSRs.