WOW: PA gets some ANSWERS

Wow...so is Lineage the proverbial ""big in Japan"" game? I thought it sucked.

Korea actually, that is if I am right.

WoW failure in Korea.

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Not that it matters to those of us playing in America. But world of warcraft is not that big of a success in the kingdom of MMORPGs (as well as the place where majority of starcraft, diablo and warcraft series were purchased). In Korea, World of warcraft launched on January 18th, without much fanfare. Unlike the stateside where the game sold 600,000 copies and boasted 200,000 co current users, at this point Blizzard has failed miserably in launching their ambitious game in the market that is probably the most profitable.
Majority of Korean mmorpgs are downloaded not purchased, but in exchange for not having to purchase a hard copy of the game, Korean users must cough up 27 us dollars per month(!) to play the game. This pricing alienated many casual gamers and caused an uproar among Korean gamers with plenty of comments around the web like ""Blizzard thinks that just because we have pretty much helped make their games succeed in the past that they can push us around by making us pay more than any other countries that has access to WoW.""
Despite a huge anti-WoW community that built up to the date of the launch, Blizzard Korea reported 100,000 co current users within a week of launch...which of course was a fabrication of the truth. In reality, there was around 20,000 co current users at peak times and currently it is decreasing rapidly due to the anti-WoW sweeping the Korean nation. Many PC cafes are refusing to have WoW installed in their computers because of the high price.
Here is hoping that Blizzard Korea comes to their senses and realize that just because a game is made by blizzard, people wont play it if it suffers from horrendous service and payment problems.

link to articles- http://news.naver.com/news/read.php....

http://news.naver.com/news/read.php....

So much for Korea.

Links dont work

"TheGameguru" wrote:

Links dont work

Ah, well not that you''ll be able to read it anyways, but it''s:

http://news.naver.com/news/read.php?...

I read about it on the rpg forums, so I''m assuming it''s a correct translation.

http://www.rpgforums.net/showthread....

uh so...they dont have to pay for a box but they do have to pay $27 US per month to play?

I''m curious to why Blizzard felt they should charge almost twice the monthly rate over the US rate..

I wonder what Lineage 2 costs per month?

Interesting. I really think the Korea model will eventually be adopted here. You download the game for free and then pay the monthly fee. It just makes sense from a business standpoint, to me at least. I know I would try more games if I didn''t have to shell out $50 just to install the damn thing. I don''t know what kind of profit you make on a retail package. I suspect that after distribution, materials, etc. it can''t be so much that you wouldn''t make it up with the extra subscribers you will get when you offer the game for free. Maybe jack the monthly fee up a few dollars.

$27/month is too steep. I can''t imagine what Blizzard was thinking.

"Copingsaw" wrote:

Interesting. I really think the Korea model will eventually be adopted here. You download the game for free and then pay the monthly fee. It just makes sense from a business standpoint, to me at least. I know I would try more games if I didn''t have to shell out $50 just to install the damn thing. I don''t know what kind of profit you make on a retail package. I suspect that after distribution, materials, etc. it can''t be so much that you wouldn''t make it up with the extra subscribers you will get when you offer the game for free. Maybe jack the monthly fee up a few dollars.

$27/month is too steep. I can''t imagine what Blizzard was thinking.

My understanding on how this worked in a simplistic sort of way was:

Retail box sales - covered development and getting prodct to market.

Monthly fees - covered server, monthly updates, and general CSR stuff (including admin/billing what have you).

Now I know at a certain point in box sales they start making a profit but I thought above was the basic breakout.

I actually like our price plan better. I played MMORPGs 3 years+ some times and paying $50 up front with a 15$ a month fee is better than no up front fee but 20$ a month in the long term for me.

Not to mention the monthly plan does not give them a small infusion of cash at release time like our current plan does and gaurntee some amount of revnue per customer (always getting $50 as oppsoe to maybe only $27 or what have you).

$27 does seem a bit high but if you figure how long does the average player play one of these games for? 12 months? If so then that is basically 4-5$ a month. So easy to see a $20 a month fee and depending on few other things like taxes or if my estimate above is off $27 does not seem to out of the question actually.

Ironic that WoW being such a ""failure"" in Korea..

Leads to the fact that Koreans where the first to take down Onyxia

http://www.pristontale.de/45452_1106...

Yeah, but they were able to carry thier guys over from beta. huge difference.

"Dr.Ghastly" wrote:

Yeah, but they were able to carry thier guys over from beta. huge difference.

that explains a great deal then...

I was struggling to come to grips with a group (30-40) all getting to level 60 in approx 10 real days

They would have probably been playing non stop

"Dr.Ghastly" wrote:

Yeah, but they were able to carry thier guys over from beta. huge difference.

This may be what is expected from a MMO there since Lineage II also let people caryy over from beta.

Thought that was odd but now that I hear WoW also did that makes me think it is normal for Korean market.