World of Warcraft lost another 300,000 Subscribers last quarter, Patch 4.3 this year
Activision Blizzard latest earning call revealed that World of Warcraft lost another 300,000 subscribers last quarter, following the loss of 600k subscribers announced last quarter.

In this conference call we also learned that:


  • The next patch will include "major raid and dungeon content", we can most likely expect a raid and a 5-man from Patch 4.3
  • Patch 4.3 will be the "largest content update since Cataclysm"
  • It will be released later this year, which means that we can probably expect a PTR soon.

It's also worth noting that despite the loss of players, Mike Morhaime pointed out that the new trial system resulted in an increase in new account creations. For more details on the earning call, go check the coverage on sites such as Venturebeat or Gamasutra.


BlizzCon 2011 Virtual Ticket Now On Sale
The Blizzcon virtual ticket is now available, it seems that some people already got their Murkablo Companion Pet by buying the ticket early. (See this forum thread. However, this is most likely a bug and pets might be removed very soon.



Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
Want to experience the panel discussions, tournaments, game-related announcements, and all the excitement of BlizzCon 2011 from the comfort of your own home? Then be sure to check out the BlizzCon Virtual Ticket!

The BlizzCon 2011 Virtual Ticket is now available for purchase around the world for $39.99 USD (pricing may vary by region). Virtual Ticket coverage will be available as a multi-channel Internet stream and also via Pay Per View on DIRECTV in the United States, granting viewers a front-row seat to all of the action on the show floor including exclusive interviews, demos, and more!

New DIRECTV subscribers in the United States who sign up for DIRECTV service between now and September 25 through www.directv.com/blizzcon will receive this year's BlizzCon Virtual Ticket coverage for free. Existing DIRECTV customers will be able to purchase the event on DIRECTV Pay Per View for $39.99 beginning Monday, October 10. Visit www.directv.com/blizzcon for more info.

DIRECTV customers who order the Pay Per View event through DIRECTV will receive the multi-channel Internet stream at no extra charge, and those who order the BlizzCon Virtual Ticket will also receive this year’s to-be-announced BlizzCon-exclusive World of Warcraft and StarCraft II in-game items.

Don't miss out! To learn more about the BlizzCon Virtual Ticket, head on over to our official BlizzCon 2011 Live Stream page or read the FAQ.

Cenarion Hatchling Raises More Than $1.9 Million for Japan Earthquake Relief
Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
Thanks to the overwhelming generosity of World of Warcraft players around the world who purchased the Cenarion Hatchling pet, we’ve raised a total of more than $1.9 million USD to support the ongoing earthquake and tsunami relief efforts in Japan. In May, we announced that for every Cenarion Hatchling purchased by July 31, 2011, 100% of the $10 USD adoption fee would be going to assist victims of this disaster -- and the community responded by opening up their hearts and wallets wide. Thanks again for your support and for helping to make an impact on the lives of those affected by these events.

To learn more about the Pet Store, please visit the Pet Store FAQ.

Diablo III Beta Profile Update
Originally Posted by Zarhym (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
The beta test approaches! We’ve just updated our System Check program and would like everyone to update their Battle.net Beta Profile information by running the new one. You should do this regardless of whether there have been hardware changes made to your system.

You can run the new System Check by visiting the Beta Profile settings of your Battle.net account:

https://www.battle.net/account/manag...a-profile.html

I don’t have a Beta Profile
If you haven’t yet created a Beta Profile on your Battle.net account you’ll be presented with two download options, PC and Mac, for our System Check program. Running the program will present you with the Beta Test Opt-In Agreement, and once you agree to that it will immediately query basic computer specification information such as your type of video card, processor, and RAM. Clicking the Send button will then upload the shown information to your account.

On your Beta Profile page, you’ll want to ensure you at least have “Diablo Universe” checked for future testing, if not StarCraft and Warcraft as well. That’s it! You’re now eligible for future beta test opportunities.

I have a Beta Profile
If you’ve previously uploaded your system info you should use the links to download the new System Check program for PC or Mac and update your system info. Run the program, read through the Beta Test Opt-In Agreement that appears, and once you agree to that the program will immediately query your basic computer specification information. Click Send and the program will automatically update your profile with your system specifications. You’ll remain opted in for whichever beta tests you’ve previously selected, and you can change these selections on your Beta Profile page at any time.

Having current system specifications and checking the franchise boxes to express interest in beta testing our future products does not guarantee your entry into the beta test. We will grant a very limited number of people entry from the entire pool of those interested, based on their system specifications and other factors. While having an official Battle.net Beta Profile is one way to potentially get in, we’ll have information on other ways to increase your chances as we draw closer to the beta test.

Blue Posts
Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment
Lack of Blue Posts / "Where are the Blues?"
The whole team is here today. We're actively reading the forums whenever we can while working on other tasks. :)(Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Repair costs too expensive?
Repair costs have always scaled with item level. If anything, I'd say this game has a burden of too much gold out in the economy, rather than too little. 4 deaths in 1 5-player Heroic dungeon run is well above what you should expect as an average, and 100 gold is pretty easy to come by at level 85. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

New Warcraft Fan Art
The Blizzard Fan Art Section has been updated with five new pieces of fan artwork set within the Warcraft universe.




"The Raid" Livestream on August 6th @ 6:00PM PST
Blue Loon Films, the studio behind the upcoming World of Warcraft documentary, The Raid, has announced that the live stream of their film will take place on August 6th.

The Raid follows a guild over the course of a few months and features a host of content including in-game and at-home interviews with the players.

To celebrate the release of the film, TypeFrag will be giving away:


  • 1 desktop PC by Doghouse Systems
  • 5 high-end gaming headsets
  • 25, 25-person Ventrilo servers

The PC features an Intel i5 Quad-Core CPU, Windows 7 64-bit, 1TB HDD, 4GB RAM, 2 NVIDIA GTX 460 PCI-E video cards and more!

The live stream of The Raid will take place on August 6th at 6:00PM (PST) and is brought to you in part by TypeFrag, Gamebreaker.tv and Curse!

This article was originally published in forum thread: WoW Lost 300k Subscribers, Patch 4.3 this year, Blizzcon 2011 Tickets, Blue Posts started by Boubouille View original post
Comments 597 Comments
  1. haydude's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Rensyk View Post
    Biggest content patch ever aye? I expect 2+ Raids from that personally.
    Not biggest ever, biggest since Cataclysm, basically a 4.1 and 4.2 combined, I would assume.
  1. mmoc32fbbf5879's Avatar
    eL oU eL

    WoW is fine, l2p

    /sarcasm off

    4.3 Will bring you new epic raid, with 5 bosses and 2 dungeons, 2 bosses each! Since WoW fans cried for old sets, we decided to bring them back with buffed stats! In Addition new questing hub shall be created, with 10 daily quests in total. Rewards are amazing! A snake pet, a tabard, food, and recipes! As a sneak peak of what waits for you, we can say one thing... "... it was only a setback!".
  1. Ranikotar's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Beyond2 View Post
    It makes me happy to see more people leaving the game. As sick and twisted as that sounds, maybe blizzard will wake the fuck up and make tier accessible to non-raiders like it was in WotLK. Or at least give casuals something to do with rewards that aren't recolored rehashed shit, while raiders get all the new shinies. The new quest zone was a joke; I saw the rewards, I saw how little they value their casual players. "Just give em recolored rares, they'll eat it up. toss in a recolored mount too for kicks" No thank you blizzard, my money will go elsewhere. Make your game casual friendly like it was in WotLK and we'll talk about me re-subbing. If it takes another 1,100,000 people to leave to make a round two million, I hope blizzard it will get blizzard to fix their shit. I want to play WoW, but not in an environment where I have no hope for obtaining an armor set unless I'm a hardcore raider.
    Then what's the point of raiding? It's nice to have stuff not every other person on the server has. T11 is easily accessible right now you know right? After the nerfs you have to actual try hard to wipe the raid on MOST bosses.

    Oh and me having a near full heroic t11 set makes me a hardcore raider? Not really. Oh and why the need for the best raid gear obtainable if all it's used for is doing 5 mans?
  1. savvasp's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Imhullu View Post
    Eh a loss in subscribers is still a loss.

    Thats almost a million in less than a year.
    Isn't the 600k in the exams period (Schools , university ) and the 300k in the summer period ? Plus 4.2 and Cata in China wasn't released yet in Q2 .
  1. atrixx's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Oogzy View Post
    Or Ranikotar it was people that are just bored of the content/pace of the game. That and the high initial cost to start playing and be able to do everything right now is over $100 so new subscribers are very wary of joining. All things die in time and it's not like WoW's really all that dead. 300k/12mil = 2%. Not much of a real loss. Other MMO's would kill to have half the subscribers that WoW has.
    In May, ActiBlizz reported WOW's membership numbers at 11.4M after losing 600K. So this would take them down to 11.1M, not the original 12M before the lose of 900K over the last two quarters. So if we want to take a number from 12M...they've lost 7.5% of the player base so far.

    I don't think WOW is dead...it is just getting old for those of us that have been with it since the start. Things get repetitive and boring. Still love Blizzard, but interest has faded and time to try something else until the next XPac - if it is even worth coming back for. I would expect WOW's numbers to continue to go down until the next Xpac, especially with TOR launching at the end of the year. They'll probably see a loss of 300-600k from that, combined with other factors. I would not be shocked to see the player base fall below 10M unless there is a massive bump from Brasil. Not a bad thing though...it can serve as a good kick in the pants to the higher ups that they messed up with Cata and do better going forward.
  1. Kwickslash's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Ranikotar View Post
    inb4 WoW is dieing...


    It's most likely 300k whiny people who can't get exactly what they want the way they want it.
    I'm one of those 300k and I'm not one of the "whiney people that didn't get what I want" that you speak of... As someone above me said, I've been playing this for 6+ years and the game is becoming stale. I'd rather leave and be thankful for the fond memories the game has given me.

    Please don't resort to generalisations.
  1. Finchel's Avatar
    hubby thinks the new raid content is deathwing....i am on the fence with it but idk....i will continue to push through Firelands like I have been in hopes the next patch doesnt bring too many changes to classes and new raid/dungeon content that will give a little bit more of a challenge
  1. atrixx's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by savvasp View Post
    Isn't the 600k in the exams period (Schools , university ) and the 300k in the summer period ? Plus 4.2 and Cata in China wasn't released yet in Q2 .
    I am willing to bet, historically, WOW hasn't seen a massive subscriber shift during the conclusion of the school year. Some, but not 600K worth. I would expect a dip in the summer however, but it is going to be tough for them to get people back in the fall with competition ramping up from TOR. It is probably going to be flat to negative growth for the next 12 months until the Xpac rolls out.
  1. Fuzzbutt's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by The Moonkin View Post
    Forget two. They're going 3 or 4. Plus atleast 2 dungeons.

    Seriously though, I think that Blizzard will pull their weight in this patch, and for the 300k sub lost, in Q3, we have - WoW Brazil, Chinese Cata, 4.2 Resubs, so I think they game will stalemate there.
    Don't forget that the 4.2 resubs were included in the q2 report. They're down around 1 million subs since Cata launched. Spinning it as "Well, there's at least 10 mill still playing!" only goes so far.

    Blizzard's problem is that it cannot put out high quality content in a limited amount of time. Blizz promised more frequent updates so that content could be released as it's finished. It split 4.1 into two patches (five mans and half-size raid), but hasn't even bothered to announced 4.3 yet. Blizzard's updates are getting slower, which does not help when the content in these updates is barely compelling to begin with.

    The gamer paradigm is changing, too. Why spend $15 to play a game that's played out when you can spend $15 to play 5 games that give you multiple hours of play on mobile os or Steam?

    Don't get me wrong, I love WoW and love Blizzard games. WoW just has some fundamental development problems that have to be solved in order to stop bleeding subs. I don't care what anyone says to the contrary, losing 8% of your customer base in 6 months is terrible.
  1. Ave07's Avatar
    Please Blizzard no more daily zones! Add a new raid, heroic, BG map or something unexpected! But no more dailies!!!
  1. Xanyr's Avatar
    I'm glad to see how declining as it may mean more variety in the MMO market. WoW's been on top for years now and it's time for a change
  1. sicness's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Fuzzbutt View Post
    Don't forget that the 4.2 resubs were included in the q2 report. They're down around 1 million subs since Cata launched. Spinning it as "Well, there's at least 10 mill still playing!" only goes so far.

    Blizzard's problem is that it cannot put out high quality content in a limited amount of time. Blizz promised more frequent updates so that content could be released as it's finished. It split 4.1 into two patches (five mans and half-size raid), but hasn't even bothered to announced 4.3 yet. Blizzard's updates are getting slower, which does not help when the content in these updates is barely compelling to begin with.

    The gamer paradigm is changing, too. Why spend $15 to play a game that's played out when you can spend $15 to play 5 games that give you multiple hours of play on mobile os or Steam?

    Don't get me wrong, I love WoW and love Blizzard games. WoW just has some fundamental development problems that have to be solved in order to stop bleeding subs. I don't care what anyone says to the contrary, losing 8% of your customer base in 6 months is terrible.
    How can the 4.2 resubs be included in the Q2 report if 4.2 was released in Q3?

    Keep in mind they also announced releasing content patches more frequently just before releasing 4.1, so we really have nothing yet to seriously judge them on for this announcement as we have yet to see the next major patch after 4.2. So far they're keeping their word, by releasing a 5 man and then a raid shortly afterward while typically having only done that every 6 months before.

    4.2 has been out for 5 weeks now and you expect a 4.3 announcement already? Some of you have seriously flawed expectations of what they should be able to accomplish.
  1. conversekitty's Avatar
    working as intended. D3 is merely a setback
  1. TheEaterofSouls's Avatar
    Yay 4.3 info. Cant wait for more on it!
  1. Melilithia's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Ave07 View Post
    Please Blizzard no more daily zones! Add a new raid, heroic, BG map or something unexpected! But no more dailies!!!
    Especially try to avoid ones that lag my laptop Blizz. Nothing else in the game does, but for some reason Molten Front... ugh.
  1. conversekitty's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by SadWarrior View Post
    eL oU eL

    WoW is fine, l2p

    /sarcasm off

    .
    That's the problem. No one IS learning to play. they're all still facerolling.
  1. Sinfonia's Avatar
    the 300k subscribers were shaman.
  1. Deladeu's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Beyond2 View Post
    It makes me happy to see more people leaving the game. As sick and twisted as that sounds, maybe blizzard will wake the fuck up and make tier accessible to non-raiders like it was in WotLK. Or at least give casuals something to do with rewards that aren't recolored rehashed shit, while raiders get all the new shinies. The new quest zone was a joke; I saw the rewards, I saw how little they value their casual players. "Just give em recolored rares, they'll eat it up. toss in a recolored mount too for kicks" No thank you blizzard, my money will go elsewhere. Make your game casual friendly like it was in WotLK and we'll talk about me re-subbing. If it takes another 1,100,000 people to leave to make a round two million, I hope blizzard it will get blizzard to fix their shit. I want to play WoW, but not in an environment where I have no hope for obtaining an armor set unless I'm a hardcore raider.
    You are exactly what is wrong with this game and why it has become increasingly bad since the middle of BC.
  1. McFrotton's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by sicness View Post
    How can the 4.2 resubs be included in the Q2 report if 4.2 was released in Q3?

    Keep in mind they also announced releasing content patches more frequently just before releasing 4.1, so we really have nothing yet to seriously judge them on for this announcement as we have yet to see the next major patch after 4.2. So far they're keeping their word, by releasing a 5 man and then a raid shortly afterward while typically having only done that every 6 months before.

    4.2 has been out for 5 weeks now and you expect a 4.3 announcement already? Some of you have seriously flawed expectations of what they should be able to accomplish.
    Q2 end on june 30th fireland came up june 21
  1. Fuzzbutt's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by sicness View Post
    How can the 4.2 resubs be included in the Q2 report if 4.2 was released in Q3?

    Keep in mind they also announced releasing content patches more frequently just before releasing 4.1, so we really have nothing yet to seriously judge them on for this announcement as we have yet to see the next major patch after 4.2. So far they're keeping their word, by releasing a 5 man and then a raid shortly afterward while typically having only done that every 6 months before.

    4.2 has been out for 5 weeks now and you expect a 4.3 announcement already? Some of you have seriously flawed expectations of what they should be able to accomplish.
    I swore 4.2 was released in June. You do realize that people said that the next earnings report (the one that was released) would show that people came back after 4.1, right? So now it's 4.2 that'll get a boost and next it'll be 4.3 that'll get a boost. There's no guarantee. 4.2 was an extremely lackluster patch.

    Content patches from now on are supposed to be more frequent and smaller. 4.1 was a half patch. 4.2 was a half patch. Based on what we've been told to expect, 4.3 should be a half patch. The only content that 4.2 introduced was a half-raid and the most tedious daily hub to date. Now they're promising 4.3 will be the biggest content patch since Cata launch. So now they're waffling on faster releases. That's a big problem if they expect

    4.2 was announced the week after 4.1 to prove that they would be releasing content faster. We're 4 weeks overdue for a 4.3 announcement. We'd have to have an announcement in the next couple of weeks for 4.3 to even be out before Blizzcon.

    Edit: 4.2 was release before the end of the fiscal quarter. June 28, according to Wowpedia.

Site Navigation