According to ATVI-Blizzard’s latest earnings call, WoW Classic doubled the number of WoW active subscribers at the end of quarter 2.
What does that say about quality of retail that just as many subscribers or more would rather play Classic, a 15 year old game.
that is sort of old news - not sure that is an actual statement either but who cares at this point in time
They should probably wait until they get a 2nd number a year afterwards. Doubting the numbers have stayed constant.
It doesn’t say anything about the quality of retail. It says a lot about the power of nostalgia.
It says nothing about the quality of retail.
The quality of retail would be measured by whether or not players players favor certain changes and game mechanics.
WoW Classic doubling the number of active subscribers only can tell us that Classic was extraordinarily more popular than retail.
The consistent loss of subs since WotLK indicate everything about the quality of retail for almost a decade.
This. I don’t believe for a second that those numbers stayed.
A lot of people paid their one month sub fee, installed the free game, walked around for twenty minutes, realized that it was a 15 year old dinosaur, then uninstalled the game and never renewed.
The Classic hype train was real. Was. I was on that train for a few months. Made me appreciate retail that much more 
Or the genre in general has become less popular. Wow remains the most successful mmo in history.
To expect that a 15 year old game would continue to grow its subscription base in a genre that is in decline is frankly moronic.
The fact the game has lasted 15 years and is still viable is the accomplishment not the raw number of subscriptions.
Old news, and what a hot take. A new release and a hype train from blizzard wow related increased sub numbers. I’m willing to bet real money that classic’s sub numbers have plateau’d. Go back to your classic forum and bash retail there.
Honestly, the release (or re release) of a game is unsubstantial. If we want to go strictly by the first six months, or hell even the launch, then BfA was the most successful expansion because the most expansions sold day one, regardless of what the subscriber base was prior to it.
Be careful with metrics; they can be used to help your agenda, but also go against it.
Also: is Classic still more populated? We can’t tell because the subs are for both games.
Point to me to one subscription based game that has maintained constant growth from it’s release over a fifteen (or even five) year period.
Fact is that Wrath itself saw no growth at all, and this is despite being considered as the “peak” of WoW. It isn’t feasible to expect WoW to maintain growth for it’s entire lifespan.
Classic is fine and all and there are a lot of people who will stick with it. But its content is not infinite. People will come back for the patches and than it will die down again. I just got behind and did not have a supportive guild like I did in vanilla to run dungeons with and quest with. So back to retail I came.
https://investor.activision.com/static-files/7d813a07-7768-4065-b7e8-78b65ad82858
World of Warcraft Classic sustaining strong engagement into Q4
A game launched to great hype and nostalgia-baiting. This is not surprising. In fact, this is exactly what everyone in the WoW community expected. The test of time comes next and I hope it continues to succeed.
I’m sure their sales for WC3R were great too until people played it.
It says that if you can extract nostalgia into a wafer cookie you can make a lot of money.
https://media0dk-a.akamaihd.net/55/70/6a7a2e487b516d53c987cf393e1ed2a1.jpg
Considering that Classic WoW was a ghost town when I logged on there earlier tells me the nostalgia train has choo-choo’d on by. When Asmongold quits playing Classic permanently and so quickly, you know it sucks.
It means the nostalgia is real and rose-colored-glasses are a very real thing. Because a lot of people kicked classic to the curb. Their subs are still there because you can only sub for a minimum of a month, but they are not there anymore.
Your reading that wrong.
If you have a look at a transcript of the call it’s clear they mean the total size of the World of Warcraft community doubled not just the classic community.
https://seekingalpha.com/article/4322292-activision-blizzard-inc-atvi-ceo-bobby-kotick-on-q4-2019-results-earnings-call-transcript?part=single
We doubled the size of the active World of Warcraft community in the second half of 2019 by adding Classic to the WoW subscription offering
When Blizzard sustained engagement with robust better content for both Modern and Classic world, and exited the year with an active community, more than twice the size of its Q2 ending level.