WOW descending in the U.S. Sales Charts

[nobbie]

The German "GameStar" magazine just reported that - after its huge first success - WOW is now constantly descending in the U.S. sales charts.

This is the latest chart:

http://www.gamestar.de/news/pc-spiele/22695/

1. The Sims 2
2. Half-Life 2
3. Roller Coaster Tycoon 3
4. Zoo Tycoon 2
5. Lord of the Rings: Battle For Middle Earth
6. The Sims 2 Special Edition
7. World Of Warcraft
8. The Sims Deluxe
9. Zoo Tycoon: Complete Collection
10. Rome: Total War

WOW players can only hope that the game can attract enough (long-term) subscribers because otherwise, the quality of the support will inevtably suffer. And there's still the competition like EQ2, DAoC, and of course the free Guild Wars, which looks very promising, by the way.

[Occhidiangela]

:P Point first: You can't be number one forever, your MMORPG just needs to grab enough of a subscriber base to begin the montly fee cash cow process. I think Blizz hit a good sized audience. Continued subscriptions over the next year or two will gradually build theer base.

:wacko: Point Second. Guild Wars is not free. One must pay for it. I pre ordered it. That costs money. What is not included is a monthly subscription fee. It is not free, nor will its expansion packs be, if my guess is even remotely close.

My tough choice will be WoW versus GW, I think. May see you on this week's event. Hope so. Reprobate Rogue and Power Gerbil are my scum entries.

Occhi

[Mirajj]

That's interesting info. I have to wonder, though.

I wonder if that's because of the games availability. I live in a large city (Over 1 million, which for Canada, is large), and the game is sold out of every store here. Seriously, you can't find it anywhere. Nor are you likely to for a couple more weeks.

So I wonder if this sales "slump" is due to wanting to buy it, and not being to get your hands on a copy?

[Sir_Die_alot]

I think Mirajj is right. It's sold out everywhere that I live too. By contrast all those other games listed I see lined up on the shelves. In one store they filled the WoW display with doom 3 so it wouldn't sit there empty. :P

[nobbie]

Guild Wars is not free.  One must pay for it.  I pre ordered it.  That costs money.  What is not included is a monthly subscription fee.  It is not free, nor will its expansion packs be, if my guess is even remotely close.

Of course GW is not freeware, but I think you know what I meant ;) It doesn't cost monthly fees, it's perfectly playable over 56K dial-up modems from anywhere in the world (according to Arena.net), and - due to the mission-based design with small parties in "instances" (similar to Diablo II) - it's much better suited for the occasional player. GW may have some "hidden" costs through frequent expansion packs to ensure constant cash flow, but one will see.

[nobbie]

That's interesting info. I have to wonder, though.

I wonder if that's because of the games availability. I live in a large city (Over 1 million, which for Canada, is large), and the game is sold out of every store here. Seriously, you can't find it anywhere. Nor are you likely to for a couple more weeks.

Popular online shops like Amazon still have WOW in stock, so that can not be it.

[Bob]

Popular online shops like Amazon still have WOW in stock, so that can not be it.
[right][snapback]64648[/snapback][/right]

It could be that Amazon get priority when new copies become available - giving them to a centralised retailer that sends them out to those who want them will shift them faster than trying to spread enough out between stores that there's always one for someone to buy wherever they are.

-Bob

[Treesh]

Popular online shops like Amazon still have WOW in stock, so that can not be it.
[right][snapback]64648[/snapback][/right]

From Caydiem herself on the WoW forums:

We are limiting restocks until we can be sure that those who purchase the game will have an enjoyable experience. I'm sorry if this means your friend has a harder time finding the game. :/

[--Pete]

Hi,

Popular online shops like Amazon still have WOW in stock, so that can not be it.
[right][snapback]64648[/snapback][/right]

I just checked amazon and instead of its usual "Usually ships within 24 hours" they have "Usually ships within 1 to 2 weeks" which is Amazon-speak for 'temporarily out of stock'. Using their 'find a store' with every zip code in the South Seattle area got me a series of "We're sorry. This item does not appear to be in stock at a store in your area. Please try another ZIP Code for other store locations".

A couple of random searches on the net resulted in a lot of backorder notes.

So, did you check your statement out or are you just blowing smoke?

--Pete

[ehertlein]

I ordered the game for my father on New Years eve from Amazon and it just finally shipped out today. They were definately have supply issues keeping it in stock.

[nobbie]

So, did you check your statement out or are you just blowing smoke?

Afaik, all orders and pre-orders go into the sales charts as well, so it really doesn't matter if they deliver in 2 days or 2 weeks.

[Treesh]

Afaik, all orders and pre-orders go into the sales charts as well, so it really doesn't matter if they deliver in 2 days or 2 weeks.
[right][snapback]64669[/snapback][/right]

Yes, but the lack of sales from the brick-and-mortar stores will negatively affect sales charts. If you had been reading the US WoW boards from day one, you see that a lot of people had trouble getting the game and that the stores had trouble restocking. The last minute Christmas shoppers also had a heck of a time trying to get the game if they didn't plan ahead and pre-order from online stores. The fact that Blizzard is limiting their restocking has negatively affected the sales chart.

Just keep in mind that statistics really don't show the whole truth and can be construed umpteen different ways. I really don't think it's necessary to start ringing the alarms about WoW fizzling out yet. It still sold more in the first few days than any other first few days sales of other MMORPGs and a lot of those other MMORPGs are still doing fine in terms of active subscriptions.

[Raziel]

Bah, we just need a big wave of duping so that a ton of keys get banned and they all have to go buy the game again...

.. this is the Diablo 2 forum, right?

[TheDragoon]

I can vouch for the game being hard to find. My girlfriend finally has her computer upgraded to the point that she can play World of Warcraft (and wants to) so I spent a couple hours today going around trying to find a copy. I tried about 10 different stores in my area as well as checked online in several places but I couldn't find a single copy anywhere! I might just order one online to make sure it gets here eventually, but so far it doesn't look so good as there are no copies available anywhere nearby! :)

[Artega]

Just keep in mind that statistics really don't show the whole truth and can be construed umpteen different ways.
[right][snapback]64679[/snapback][/right]

87.3% of all statistics are made up on the spot.

[bernard shakey]

I can't read German so I'm not sure what they'r counting. My guess would be sales this week or month, which would be a poor barometer for how popular a game is. Think about "dark side of the moon" It's not even in the top 500 any more but that dosn't stop it from being one of the most popular albums of all time, nor does it stop it from getting the vip treatment with every new format that comes down the pike.

thats my 2 cents

[Thawwing Light]

I can vouch for the game being hard to find.  My girlfriend finally has her computer upgraded to the point that she can play World of Warcraft (and wants to) so I spent a couple hours today going around trying to find a copy.  I tried about 10 different stores in my area as well as checked online in several places but I couldn't find a single copy anywhere!  I might just order one online to make sure it gets here eventually, but so far it doesn't look so good as there are no copies available anywhere nearby!  :)
[right][snapback]64811[/snapback][/right]

I can vouch myself. I went to seven stores to find the game, and as far as the sellers were concerned, the game didn't exist. No displays, and exactly one store had gift cards.

I ended up ordering off Amazon and using the '2 Business Days' shipping, which worked well enough.

[LochnarITB]

Press release from Blizzard today. It sounds like they're doing OK.

[Johnny-Z]

The German "GameStar" magazine just reported that - after its huge first success - WOW is now constantly descending in the U.S. sales charts.

This is the latest chart:

http://www.gamestar.de/news/pc-spiele/22695/
WOW players can only hope that the game can attract enough (long-term) subscribers because otherwise, the quality of the support will inevtably suffer. And there's still the competition like EQ2, DAoC, and of course the free Guild Wars, which looks very promising, by the way.
[right][snapback]64628[/snapback][/right]

I wanna play them all.

[Arnath]

I too can vouch for the difficulty of finding a copy. I've spent the past 2 days phoning and going to basically every retailer within 30 mins of my house and have been unable to find a copy. However, something interesting did come up. When I called one of the Media Play locations by my house, the guy in electronics said several copies of the game had cd-keys that showed up as invalid when you tried to activate them, and that Blizzard had sent them a letter around Christmas and recalled all of the copies they had. Has anyone heard anything about this?

Arnath