Okay… let’s break this down.
- Your numbers for players are wrong.
- They’re talking about JUST Wings of Liberty.
- You linked numbers from 2017.
- Your price of the mount is wrong.
So speaking of this phrase…
Glass houses and all that.
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Exactly, develeopment for star wars was expensive, while development for one mount was not expensive. What was the gross revenue of each??
The problem with this number is you’re saying only 12 million people have ever played WoW, which isn’t true. Last I heard there was something in the 9 figure range for accounts created over the past 19 years.
Now multiply even half that (50m? 100m?) by $25.
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The bottom line is the store keeps the lights on so all you 
need to quit crying about it and embrace it.
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At the time, a lot of people were upset that the campaigns were broken up into three different purchases. You ended up paying three times as much for the game.
this doesn’t mean anything… just shows that microtransactions have more purchasing power and easier to get people to buy than full fledged games… also that “horse” is only vs the first part of the sc2 where you have 2 full expansions and several packs, commanders, skins… its a terrible comparison to begin with.
Idk the specifics so take with salt, but…just because something (like SC2) “made more money in gross” than the celestial steed, doesn’t mean it made more money.
Let’s say the celestial steed took 1 million dollars to design and implement and bring to fruition. It makes 71 million dollars. So how much money did it make? 70 million.
Now, you say SC2 “generated” over 1 billion of “revenue”. But how much did it cost to produce? How much did it cost to upkeep? And etc. So in the end, how much did SC2 really make in actual terms? Certainly not 1 billion.
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The same reason Costco sells their hotdog combo at a loss. To get people to engage with their business in the first place.
Joe blow isn’t going to decide to buy WoW and then decide to buy a celestial steed all out of the blue, but Joe blow might buy Starcraft and after playing it for a while decide he wants to try some other Blizzard games on the app, eventually leading into the mount sales.
This is something Blizzard is missing at the moment. There is nothing to get new blood into their IP. Straight up profit isn’t the only thing to look at, unless you model your business on quarterly profits and ignore long term health… nudge nudge wink wink.
A quick google review shows this guy just made something up or repeated a made up fact.
Starcraft as a franchise has estimated to have earned 4.8 Billion over the years (gtfo with that horse) and SC2 Wings of Liberty sold over 6 Million copies…now do the math.
Wow people just wow…
What I think is more “wow” is the interview said “Wings of Liberty” not the entire IP 
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and its an almost copy of invincible and johnny awesome helped out a bit to
Welcome to the Machine is the greatest questline in WoW.
i agree and i am glad they brought it back as a daily chance in dragon flight
When I do buy a store mount, make mine the Fey Dragon or Sylverian Dreamer. Steamscale Incinerator? I never bought the horse, because, well, horse.
Math is not your calling.
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Taking a look around seems to confirm what the guy was saying though no?
They must have seen something special in that mount, because they are still making bank off them.
Sadly, SC3 remains a dream…
I think you missed the mark here. Jason was comparing the horse to WoL only.
His argument was never that it outsold all of Starcraft.
It was the first mount put in the store and I hadn’t been playing for long and didn’t have any fancy mounts at all, so I bought it. I remember taking it to Goldshire, and people who didn’t know about it wondered how a character of my level had that fancy a mount.
But the whole idea of buying a mount back then was so new that it obviously did very well. Nowadays I’m a lot less likely to pay for a store mount, as much due to financial restraints as anything.
It was also the first account wide mount as that feature wasn’t added until either the very end of cata or early MoP. I knew plenty of people including myself that bought it for that QoL alone.
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I’d take a SC MMO.
some need to realize rts is not the healthiest/strongest bet out there these days.
The audience best suited to play them can’t play them anymore.
30+ in age, steady job…best suited to throw disposable income at it lol.
Not younger than 24, yeah you know you are losing that off APM alone. I watch sc2 clips and wonder things.
Like am I watching a game clip…or a clip of people pretending they are running mavis beacon advanced touch typing on speed…with the clip at fast forward.
throw in dated story mechanics and RTS goes to the watch YouTube montages for a few.
I’ve made 200 extra units’ game, may I take some to the next match?
Nope. your hero char, 1 platoon, and gatherer builder. again. and again. and again.
May I carry over tech tree research?
Hahahahaha…yeah, no. Do that all over again too.
One clarification is important: SC2: WoL was not a DLC. It was effectively the base game, so it would likely include the bulk of the full platform development effort. (Of course this only matters if we’re considering net profit, not just raw sales.)
Regardless, even if what Jason said is hyperbole in the end, his point about microtransactions is on point.