0.0047 of Blizzard's Monthly Revenue...

[Vyndree]

In case anyone is interested in double-checking my math... I suck at math.

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=7722643153&postId=76662507868&sid=1#18

According to http://www.dual-boxing.com/forums/index.php?page=MembersList
There are 9,414 registered members on Dual-boxing.com

Let's make the generous assumption that
A) they are all active
B) they all multibox on WoW (as opposed to other games)
C) they all multibox two or more characters
D) all multiboxers are represented and registered on dual-boxing.com

According to http://www.wowinsider.com/2008/01/22/world-of-warcraft-hits-10-million-subscribers/
Blizzard has hit 10 million subscribers in 2008.

Let's also make the (untrue) assumption that
A) all players of WoW worldwide pay $15/month in subscription fees
B) there are no more than 10 million subscribers since the original article was written


10,000,000 subscribers * $15/mo = $150,000,000

9414 dual-boxing.com members * 2 accounts each * $15/mo = $282,420
9414 dual-boxing.com members * 3 accounts each * $15/mo = $423,630
9414 dual-boxing.com members * 4 accounts each * $15/mo = $564,840
9414 dual-boxing.com members * 5 accounts each * $15/mo = $706,050

Assuming the (untrue) assumption that ALL multiboxers are 5-boxers:
$706,050 multiboxer revenue / $150,000,000 total revenue = 0.004707 of total revenue

Assuming ALL multiboxers are 4-boxers: 0.0037656 of total revenue
Assuming ALL multiboxers are 3-boxers: 0.0028242 of total revenue
Assuming ALL multiboxers are 2-boxers: 0.0018828 of total revenue





Are those numbers acceptable?

[Anozireth]

I don't know what the monthly fee is in China, but it's sure not $15. And they have a LOT of players in China. So that number may be a little low. However, even if you multiply it by 100, it's still a tiny number. So I suppose it works. :)

[Syro]

It's 0.4707% not 0.004707%

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Percent

[Deshu]

You, my dear, have waaaay too much free time! lol

I think this further proves the point that boxers are a MINORITY!

[-silencer-]

I think this further proves the point that boxers are a MINORITY!
Well, that's why we take so much crap in the servers - there aren't very many on and many people haven't ever seen one before.

I think the problem is that there are a bunch of multiboxers that aren't on this site, and a lot of people on this site that aren't multiboxers. We have absolutely no idea what that ratio is, so calculating any meaningful percentage is practically impossible.

[Vyndree]

It's 0.4707% not 0.004707%

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Percent

Erg, you're right I threw % on there when I shouldn't have. Decimals, percents. Bleh. Fixing.

[Vyndree]

Let's also make the (untrue) assumption that
A) all players of WoW worldwide pay $15/month in subscription fees


I don't know what the monthly fee is in China, but it's sure not $15.

So noted. :)

[Bena]

5 boxers are a minority but there's probably a lot of people that have 1+ accounts. Killing boxing would also mean that those players are gone. If lets say 20/30% of people have more than 1 accounts that's 20% increase in profits. For all the qq on the forums.. why would Blizz ever say .. 'please we don't want that extra 5mil a month'.

everytime there's a qq on the forum a blizz employee gets a new car LOL

[FabFive]

I have a friend who moved to china....have been trying to employ him as my gold farmer......but he wont do it. He says wow is closer to 3 American Dollars a month there.

[Jorai]

blizz is expanding to russia and south america too so expect to see their subscriber rate jump once again.

when they put their WoW movie out it will have such a fan base, it's poised to be a global blockbuster of a video game movie, probably be the first game movie to pull in family franchise numbers.

[moosejaw]

when they put their WoW movie out it will have such a fan base, it's poised to be a global blockbuster of a video game movie, probably be the first game movie to pull in family franchise numbers.

I have always had trouble watching those franchise movies because it makes me feel weird I.E. LOTR, Doom etc. But I really think Blizz might do well on this one if they retain some creative control.

Blizz has always made excellent cut scenes and they have always been able to hit the sweet spot for action and entertainment rolled into one. I am actually looking forward to the movie, lets hope it doesn't get downgraded by being compared to LOTR too much. Darn critics.

[Diamndzngunz]

lol wow, I got so lost reading that, but awesome stuff you have figured out

[Tasty]

Critics are useless to me, I'll be the judge of things tyvm :P (Pathology, I really enjoyed so there)
edit: Something to make my post relevant hmm, well done on taking the time to come up with those stats :)

[Tdog]

While I hadn't done the math myself and knowing that you greatly overestimated the number of current accounts that are owned by active MB'ers (on purpose of course) this just goes to show that the whole "Blizzard just let multiboxing exist for the money" rhetoric that qq'ers spout off is just pure BS.

[Nixi]

World of Warcraft in Mainland China costs around $4.3725 (as of July 4, 2008 -> 6.8610RMB / 1USD) per 4000 minutes.

60 minutes per hour, 24 hours a day, 30 days a month = 43200 potential play minutes in a month.

43200 / 4000 * $4.3 = ~$47.22 per month assuming the person in a Chinese server plays all month, just like a US/EU gamer has the potential to do. Now of course there is server downtime, but the point I'm trying to make is Wow can be more expensive for an addict on Chinese servers that it is for an addict on US or EU servers. I think during my unemployed days (over 2 years ago) when I first started playing Wow I was spending more than 15 bucks a month.


Regardless, Blizzard probably does allow multiboxing for money because it extends the game's lifespan for gamers. Many members of this forum have posted time and time again that if it wasn't for multiboxing they would have quit Wow a long time ago. Multiboxing is going to continue to grow and the revenue decline experienced as the game ages will see a shallower slope. A half a percent on number that big isn't anything to sneeze at either.

[Djarid]

I have a friend who moved to china....have been trying to employ him as my gold farmer......but he wont do it. He says wow is closer to 3 American Dollars a month there.I think the Big Mac is the only valid unit of comparison ;) how many Big Macs can you get for one WOW subscription in your country?

Here in Switzerland it is about 2.5

[Xuthus]

Aren't numbers Great!

So the gist of what your saying is; multi-boxers are minuscule in the 'big picture',and money will play little part in decision making for blizz.

[Wilbur]

Precisely, this is just another awesome way for us to piss on the parade of the haters.

[noir]

From what I remember reading on Terra Nova (academic MMORPG blog), China accounts for I think around 6 million "subscribers" -- they pay per hour with prepay cards -- averaging US$5 per month. And, US multiboxers will more than likely be paying the discounted 6-month subscription rate.

[Tonuss]

Well, that's why we take so much crap in the servers - there aren't very many on and many people haven't ever seen one before.
I bet that most of the persistent trolls on the WoW forums have not seen a multiboxer at all, or only once. Almost all of the complainers are concerned with PvP. Not every multiboxer PvPs, many people dual-box specifically to powerlevel alts through instances. Others are looking to level up different classes as a group and will never multibox that group in PvP (myself being one example).

So not only are multiboxers a small percentage of the player population and revenue stream, a percentage of that percentage will have zero effect on the PvP experience of their fellow players. And of course, Blizzard has all of the data that they need to determine what effects we're having on the game for better or worse. And the only statements they've made to that effect are that our money doesn't buy us any special treatment, and our effect on BG/arena balance is nil.

[Vyndree]

I joined a premade BG group last weekend and when I hopped on vent, a girl prompty shouted at me that I was the reason her healer in arenas gamequit.

She said that they had apparently hit me in an arena and I had kicked their butts, and her healer was pissed. The healer wanted to report me, but she explained it wasn't against the rules and the healer got so angry about the "unfair" rules that they decided to gamequit.

The funny thing is, I told her I had never gotten past 1650 rating (typically hovering in the 1500's) and I only play the bare minimum 10 games a week, so if they were unlucky enough to hit me during my 10 games that there was nothing I could do.

She found it humorous, but I was rather shocked someone would gamequit over me. Heh. Especially considering that I only BG on av weekends (because I have to respec my main from enh->resto each time), and I only do 10 games a week of arena for points. I'm not exactly a hardcore PvPer.

In essence, people with complain no matter how rare the circumstance. I am most definitely beatable, but they didn't take the time to exploit my weaknesses -- as proofed by my arena ratings. I probably only hit their team once -- ever -- but they were so upset they had to gamequit? I don't gank or BG often, and yet I'm ruining their gaming experience so badly? Just odd.

[Tonuss]

I find those stories hard to believe. No one quits because a game frustrated them one particular evening, especially if they've stuck through it for 70 levels and countless hours of grouping, raiding, and/or PvPing. If you had just gotten the game and had a hard time, I can see a person deciding to quit and not looking back. But quitting the game, or an arena team, because a particular group beat you one night? Doesn't happen.

Well, I guess it could happen, but that is not a person I'd want to play with, that can go completely to pieces over something like that.

[Vyndree]

I have a feeling it was more likely the "straw that broke the camel's back".

The people who complain about arenas being unfair in general are the types who will typically croak when they see multiboxing is acceptable.

Of course, half the people who complain about arenas either a) grossly undergear the average arena player, b) grossly underskilled compared to the average arena player, or c) have the unfortunate luck to have chosen a non-PvP viable class/spec for the arena they want to play.

[fpanko]

Much easier math.

ASSUMING:
If blizz has 10,000,000 members.
And 5,000 boxers

Then we just need to move the decimal to make 10 million 100%.

100% of total member and 100% of revenue.
.005% of members are boxers then .005% of their revenue comes from boxers.

[Vyndree]

ASSUMING:
If blizz has 10,000,000 members.
And 5,000 boxers


The point of using numbers isn't to make them up or guess.

The point was to use irrefutable facts -- even for non-boxers. They can't argue with the number of registered users on our site, nor wowinsider data that was gathered directly from a blizzard site.

[fpanko]

The point of using numbers isn't to make them up or guess.

The point was to use irrefutable facts -- even for non-boxers. They can't argue with the number of registered users on our site, nor wowinsider data that was gathered directly from a blizzard site.


I totally agree. ( Even though all the numbers in this post are based on "generous assumptions". In other words guesses. )

Just saying the math is easier for most people to understand this way.

All you need to do is figure out what percent of the total population is multiboxers.
That percentage will match the percentage of income that blizz makes from boxers.

example: IF 50% of the population were MB accounts, then 50% of their revenue would be from MB accounts.

I think the only Fact that we can actually get from all this is:
To the best of our knowledge; multi-boxers make up far less than 0.01% of the total population.
Making all arguments about blizz allowing it for financial gain mute.

[Vyndree]

Even though all the numbers in this post are based on "generous assumptions". In other words guesses

The only time I make assumptions it is always negatively benefitial to the multiboxing community.

For example, by claiming that there are 9k multiboxers (registered on site), but being "generous" that only 2k are potentially 70 and playing arenas, I am actually making the percentage of lvl70 multiboxers with gladiator titles DECREASE. If I were "padding the numbers in our favor", if you will, I would've used the 9k number as per our memberlist. (as per this post ('http://dual-boxing.com/forums/index.php?page=Thread&postID=83849#post83849'))

By "generously assuming" that all multiboxers are playing 5 accounts at once, as opposed to say 2 or 3 accounts, I am actually adding weight to the negative side of the argument for us -- increasing the amount of revenue Blizzard would get from us. If I were padding the numbers, I would've taken the minimum and assumed everyone was a 2-boxer.

So the fact that these numbers come out to 0.0047% multiboxing revenue, or 0.04% multiboxers have arena titles, even WHEN I am rounding my numbers towards the anti-multiboxer's advantage, says something.

As you can see, none of these assumptions are in the favor of multiboxers. If I am skewing the percentages, I am skewing them towards an upper limit rather than a lower limit (spare for item D):

Let's make the generous assumption that
A) they are all active
B) they all multibox on WoW (as opposed to other games)
C) they all multibox two or more characters
D) all multiboxers are represented and registered on dual-boxing.com

...

Let's also make the (untrue) assumption that
A) all players of WoW worldwide pay $15/month in subscription fees
B) there are no more than 10 million subscribers since the original article was written

Anything from us is a guess, really, because Blizzard doesn't release the actual number of active 2+ account multiboxers. We also don't have a more recent count of how many accounts are active at this exact date either. But the difference between rounding the numbers off to make things "clear", and using the facts that we DO happen to have available to us, is that one is an educated guess based on as many facts as we can get -- and the other is not.


All you need to do is figure out what percent of the total population is multiboxers.
That percentage will match the percentage of income that blizz makes from boxers.

This assumption is also incorrect if multiboxers follow a different country-distribution than the rest of the WoW players. If we primarily come from, for example, America... who pays between $12.99-$15.99 per month... while the distribution of "single boxers" veers more towards Chinese WoW which is pay-per-hour, then there will be a disjunct dispite the percentage.

Both of our arguments hinge on the fact that we are assuming that both multiboxers and solo-boxers are statistically spread in the same geographical market areas.

Hence my caveat:

Let's also make the (untrue) assumption that
A) all players of WoW worldwide pay $15/month in subscription fees

[Tonuss]

All you need to do is figure out what percent of the total population is multiboxers.
That percentage will match the percentage of income that blizz makes from boxers.
Well, we know that we'll never figure those numbers out. But the only quote we have regarding the number of multiboxers is Malkorix's statement that multiboxing was "very rare" and practiced by a "literal[ly] vanishingly small" number of players. And as a pure guess on my part, he is not exaggerating. How many people do more than dual-box in this game? Out of 10 million accounts?

If you notice the posts in the forums, most people consider it an epidemic when they have seen a multiboxer (often the same one) two or three times. Two or three times! These are people who are trying to make multiboxing seem as if it's taking over the game, and all that they can recall is two or three occasions when they've seen a multiboxer.

We'll never have the numbers, but common sense tells us that "vanishingly small" seems pretty accurate.