WoW Lost 800k Subscribers, down to 10.3M
Activision Blizzard latest earning call revealed that World of Warcraft lost another 800,000 subscribers last quarter, following the loss of 300k subscribers announced last quarter and 600k loss from the quarter before that. This brings us to 1.7 million subscribers lost in the last 3 quarters. Some things they made note of on the call:


  • Most of the subscriptions were lost in China.
  • There is normally an increase in subscriptions around December.
  • The decreased profit came from all of the games in development and no launches occurring.
  • There will be at least two major releases next year.


Patch 4.3 - PTR Build 14966
A new PTR build is being deployed on test realms!
Originally Posted by MMO-Champion
Items
  • All replica armors from the Darkmoon Faire now require level 60 to be equipped.

Death Knight (Forums / Talent Calculator / Skills/Talents)
  • Raise Ally now has a 40 yards range, up from 30 yards.

Mage (Forums / Talent Calculator / Skills/Talents)

Paladin (Forums / Talent Calculator / Skills/Talents)
  • Redemption now has a 40 yards range, up from 30 yards.

Tier 13

Priest (Forums / Talent Calculator / Skills/Talents)

Shaman (Forums / Talent Calculator / Skills/Talents)



Reminder: Class Design & Balance Q&A
Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
To follow up on our first World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria developer Q&A on the CoverItLive platform, we’re gathering the entire class design team to field your questions on the past, present, and future of World of Warcraft classes. Anyone is welcome to join in the live Q&A this Wednesday, November 9, beginning at approximately 10:45 a.m. and concluding around noon PST.

You can read along via the CoverItLive client embedded below while the Q&A is live. To participate, you just use your Facebook, Twitter, Myspace, or OpenID credentials, or simply sign in as a guest. If you’re on the go while the event’s underway on Wednesday, be sure to check out the free mobile apps available on the Android Market and iTunes Store.

We’ll see you back here on Wednesday morning!

Brazilian Portuguese Language Availability
Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
With the release of the next World of Warcraft content update, Hour of Twilight (patch 4.3), players on European realms will be able to play World of Warcraft in Brazilian Portuguese. On December 7 a realm dedicated to the Portuguese community will open with optional time-limited free character transfers from specific European English realms with high Portuguese populations. Please stay tuned to these forums for additional information.

Trading Card Game Art Gallery Update
The Trading Card game art gallery has been updated with ten new pieces.



This article was originally published in forum thread: WoW Down to 10.3M Subscribers, PTR Build 14966, Class Balance Q&A, TCG Art started by Boubouille View original post
Comments 436 Comments
  1. Mogling's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by yamilonewolf View Post
    Is it just me or are druids not getting a b-res or even normal res upgrade with that build? seems odd lol. (not a druid)
    Druid rez is already at 40 yards
  1. chrisisvacant's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Tython View Post
    "There will be at least two major releases next year."

    MoP and what? Another Blizzard game or are we still talking about wow?


    "Most of the subscriptions were lost in China."

    I doubt it was just China that unsubscribed. Losing 10% of the player base is huge. Think about it. That's 10% less people to group with making queues increase.


    "There is normally an increase in subscriptions around December."

    And there's also an increase in people that sign up for gyms in January. It doesn't mean YOUR subscriptions will increase. New games are dropping in December. Star Wars TOR to name one big contender.


    "The decreased profit came from all of the games in development and no launches occurring."

    A bad expansion in Cataclysm with little content didn't help either. All in all, these four statements do very little to help the situation and only shows Blizzard is on the defensive.

    Could you have interpreted this post any more incorrectly? Talk about being on the defensive.

    1) Mists of Pandaria, Heart of the Swarm, and Diablo 3 are tentatively coming out next year. Tentatively, because sometimes shit happens. At least 2 of those are absolutely ready to go. This is not a defensive statement. It's promotion. "We have at least 2 coming, but maybe more!"
    2) You doubt it was just China? DUH. Do you know what the word "most" means? It means not all. As in, not JUST China. No point in doubting cuz they straight up admitted it. Not defensive. You misunderstood.
    3) This one speaks for itself. Normally, there's an increase in December due to holiday sales. Everyone knows that. Damn near everything sells more during holidays. So this will be no different. Not a defensive comment, a statement of fact. The trend exists.
    4) Your opinions on the expansion do not influence investors. Sorry. Nor is it even pertinent to the statement. They didn't launch anything. They have a bunch of titles in development this year. Their profit was decreased due to the fact that they DIDN'T LAUNCH ANYTHING THIS YEAR and because they are currently investing big numbers into TITLES CURRENTLY IN DEVELOPMENT (IE NOT LAUNCHED).

    Hope this helps.
  1. ponySam's Avatar
    Is there a region based chart of Blizzard's subscription base some where on the internet ?
  1. Haaz's Avatar
    agreed, massive difference to most in china and ALL in china, cause way over half this tread read it as all in china by the looks.. and yes I read it all, cause I put the washing machine on and BOOM server shutdown.. right.. so I wasnt wasting the time waiting for the washer with playing
  1. Graviteh's Avatar
    I am wondering.. what are these guys playing now?
  1. Atomisk's Avatar
    Are 12 million people supposed to play wow forever? Seriously the numbers will keep on dropping and its not because the game sucks. Im actually amazing that that they could keep so many people playing 1 video game for so long. Thats freaking crazy.
  1. Gorewolf's Avatar
    Most of the subscriptions were lost in China.... so Blizz got stricter on gold sellers? Also 10.3 million people = 10,300,000 x $14.95= $153,985,000 PER MONTH. Thats $461,955,000 a quarter. $1,847,820,000 a year (although people on long term subscriptions probably lowers this number, other types of subs as well etc this is just a rough guestimate)(although now that the American dollar is worth less than the Aussie dollar i do find myself suddenly being charged in Aus$ rather than American...so they get more out of us) I swear if i see one more person bleatng this wow is dying nonsense /pimp hand
  1. Gorthalis's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Graviteh View Post
    I am wondering.. what are these guys playing now?
    That's the interesting thing. WoW doesn't actually have a proper competitor yet. Yes, Rift is there, but it was unable to take a strong enough playerbase from Blizzard's grasp to move in on WoW's territory. Rather than shifting to a rival service, it may seem that people are simply quitting altogether. That doesn't speak particularly well for what will happen once TOR (and maybe Guild Wars 2?) reaches release.

    I really don't think it's too absurd to expect WoW to have difficult days ahead.
  1. Chozobo's Avatar
    Wow needs to be F2P right now if they don't want to lose any further subscribers. The game seems to be dying, the only thing that can save it is F2P+a cash shop where you can buy epics and legendaries.
  1. mmocf6709871f0's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Tython View Post
    "There will be at least two major releases next year."

    MoP and what? Another Blizzard game or are we still talking about wow?


    "Most of the subscriptions were lost in China."

    I doubt it was just China that unsubscribed. Losing 10% of the player base is huge. Think about it. That's 10% less people to group with making queues increase.


    "There is normally an increase in subscriptions around December."

    And there's also an increase in people that sign up for gyms in January. It doesn't mean YOUR subscriptions will increase. New games are dropping in December. Star Wars TOR to name one big contender.


    "The decreased profit came from all of the games in development and no launches occurring."

    A bad expansion in Cataclysm with little content didn't help either. All in all, these four statements do very little to help the situation and only shows Blizzard is on the defensive.
    ok i'll start at the beginning of this.
    10% loss to players will not change the queue times at all, unless there has specifically been a loss ina role instead of overall, which there is still no evidence for.

    are you going to notice the loss player base? not really, dead servers will be offered free transfers to medium servers. Free character migrations will be offered, anyone remember those? i do.

    WoW is in decline. Period. I'm a wow fan, i still play it, and i didnt find cata boring at all. It is outdated graphically for one example. Its a 7 year old game. Thats immense. but every dog has its day.

    There are now as many players as there were at the "golden age" of wow. although the problem for blizzard is not now content or themes as many ate whining, its it simply that the game is not as "flashy" as it used to be for new members.

    gears of war is being released.... there have been 7 football managers released during wow existance and somehow these are never mentioned. different genre, different game, different target audience. you might like it personally, but you arent a cross section of the public, you and your opinion doesnt really matter.

    i agree that the game needs a littel touching up here and there, but any cries of class unbalance are generally cries of people who arent topping dps/hps etc. all classes and specs are viable for the game, some are easier, some are harder.

    i personally beleive that the loss in gamers is down to the dumbing down to the gear attainment in wow atm. bring back stages of raiding, players need to play thier way up instead of investing time to skip content. not completed bastion of twilight? no entrance to firelands then. attunement please? i have high hopes for LFR and challenge modes.

    blizzard will i'm sure make content patches free, before wow dies. reducing the sub, i do not believe will happen.

    was there not a sub loss in us/eu after cata launch? game being too hard etc etc? china got cata 5 months ago, 3 quarters = 9 months, hardly suprising that there was a continued loss in sub, unless you are assuming that the entire of china, didnt find the game harder, are better, whatever than the us/eu. 4 months loss previously announced, 5 months of china cata losses now added and we see total losses due to initial cata release.

    there are subs increasing and decreasing all the time. imo blizzard should overtune 4.3 to prevent an exodus. there lies the problem, make it too hard, ppl quit. make it too easy ppl quit.

    ppl complain no matter what. but i do wonder one thing; if you hate/dislike/dont play wow, why are you posting/reading/trolling about it?

    if i could have 1 wish.... blizzard please make loot harder to get, make me appreciate each and every drop which i ACHIEVE through playing the game, and stop giving loot to clueless fuckwits who havent even made an attempt to improve.

    i really hope blizzard pull wow back to the jaws of what seems to be inevitable, as i've kinda grown to love the game. as sad as i'm sure someone will point out that is, its has become part of my life. hell i've played it for 7 years which is longer than i've known my wife.

    sad times, but many more good ones ahead.

    ---------- Post added 2011-11-09 at 03:45 AM ----------

    Quote Originally Posted by Chozobo View Post
    Wow needs to be F2P right now if they don't want to lose any further subscribers. The game seems to be dying, the only thing that can save it is F2P+a cash shop where you can buy epics and legendaries.
    no no.

    no.

    no no.

    err no.

    please, please shut up with ludacris ideas that will destroy a great creation.
  1. Gorthalis's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Gorewolf View Post
    Most of the subscriptions were lost in China.... so Blizz got stricter on gold sellers?
    If you're playing on a Chinese subscription, you can't go and sell gold to your US/EU customers, now can you?

    This isn't bots that have been banned/quit.
  1. Krystal's Avatar
    Ughh... I love you Blizz, but you need to get your act together before it's too late.
  1. mmocbeb563a6f8's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Xe4ro View Post
    In my Opinion this is a good thing for WoW. There are already to much players around so its ok to lose some weight =P
    hahahah
  1. earphonebest's Avatar
    Thank you for sharing
  1. Venteus's Avatar
    I wonder if any of the upcoming garbage games will be able to say they even had 800k subscribers.
  1. Xatu's Avatar
    So most of the subscribers that left are from China. Could it be a protest against the Mists of Panderia expansion? I always thought China was against WoW with their idea of the Panderian race.
  1. PandarianLeakage's Avatar
    I wonder how much further this titanic will sink until it hits rock bottom
  1. lilbuddhaman's Avatar
    "Most"
    Most from Blizz = 10% or less

    ---------- Post added 2011-11-09 at 04:16 AM ----------

    Quote Originally Posted by Dmitri View Post
    800,000 bitching, whining, "vanilla was best"-elitists gone. I shed a tear.
    Remember that when you follow us to the next big MMO, just for you to ruin that one too.
  1. Thetruth1400's Avatar
    I think the loss in numbers is a real telling thing. Yes, you can sit back and claim, "So what, I have fun and that's all that matters to me." If that's so, that's fine. What that massive loss represents though is customer dissatisfaction. Now it's very easy to sit back and make comments like, "Well, people just want to try new things" or "People just want to take a break", but what it represents is something much bigger. When a company can sit back and admit, "Hey, maybe these people are leaving for a reason" then do something about it, that's the sign of a truly great company.
  1. mmocbeb563a6f8's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by n0n3 View Post
    They got to 10mil subs but still it's 20 times more than any other MMO has atm, WoW it's far from dead, this game will live for many years to come, the only other mmo that will outreign wow it's gona be something made by blizz, titan maybe.
    Sorry m8 for bursting ur bubble , but even titan is bound to flat vs wow with that logic

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