WoW Down to 9.6 Million Subscribers

500K in the world.. i bet those 500k are from U.S and Europe.

Originally Posted by Beefhamer

Dailies are not the only option. As stated above there are many ways. Dailies are only needed to get your rep up to revered(two weeks or lees of work), after that dailies are no longer needed unless you want bonus rolls which are not needed.

The basis of progression is based on those bonus rolls. PPL are not stupid.

Originally Posted by Malkazam

500K in the world.. i bet those 500k are from U.S and Europe.

they said they were mostly from china

Yeah, large part of it is that WoW insists on continuing with the subscription fees where as Diablo is free to play after purchase. That has a big part in how many people bought the games I can tell ya.
Regardless, people who love the game will continue to play it. The people that don't will quit. And the undedicated noobs will pass on through and leave no impression at all.

Originally Posted by dfjdejulio

I do not believe WoW will ever get down to 3 million players -- the folks running the business expect it to perform better than that, and my expectation is that if it ever got below, say, 6 million players, they'd begin the process of shutting it down. "If we can't be completely stinking rich, what's the point of doing anything at all?"

(The exception I see would be if Blizzard could do what Harmonix did and re-privatize, undoing various acquisitions. But I'm not so sure they're in a position to do that. I think they're being treated more like "Guitar Hero" and less like "Rock Band", if you follow my thinking.)

That is contrary to what Blizzard has said about the life of WoW in the past. Not to mention that doesn't make sense. They are technically losing money by running the old game servers because no one is buying those games and they still get support. As long as WoW makes money it will be alive.

Originally Posted by Kuel

so what, a few million left, i'm still enjoying playing the game, and love what Mists of Pandaria is offering. In fact., i'd prefer it if more people left because it would give Blizzard to build even better expansions.

That a few million left isn't a problem. The problem is that there is a critical level in every guild. If one out of 10 leave he will likely be replaced and all will go on like they used too...if three leave and they will not find a quick replacement then another 4 of that group will leave too. Many of the "old" players stay cause of other players...since the content ist repeating itself all over again anyway.
That what happened to dead servers(some of them went down from average populated to "dead" in less than a year) can actually happen to all of WoW. Go below the critical limit and people will jump off like crazy.
Add into it that wow in US and Europe is currently not really attracting many new players and you'll see that the current situation is actually rather scary.

I know that I'm going to be gone pretty soon if Blizz is not doing anything about dead servers. Their performance there is not acceptable in my eyes...and 5.2. is not so "special" that it would keep me paying(especially giving that there are many free2play MMOs out there that I didn't even try yet. Even if their endgamce should suck I will still be entertained for quite some months...).

Usual posts get about 100 comments. This one already got close to 500. Gratz.

I wouldnt have guessed it had that many subs still. 9.6 mill is a lot.

Also, ppl claiming the game is dying; such is life, surely nothing lasts forever, and while it is dying slowly, its pretty pointless to point it out this early. Sure you're right, but i could have said it was dying during vanilla and i would still be right.

And even if, at some point it does completely die, it will most likely never have a successor. I doubt anywhere in the near future, that a game will pass or even come close to wows sub numbers, titan might, if u ask me, because i can imagine a lot of wow subs switching over, but other than that, wow will probably be the undying king of all MMOs.

And dont quote me saying "well in 100 years something will surely have had more subs" because that will just start a pointless discussion. MMOs are a dying breed, they arent a good game genre, and even though some will claim MMOs to be a successful design model, they aren't. The only successful MMO ever has been wow. (and dont quote me with your charts of how some other MMO has been successful by your standards, because that too will start a pointless discussion about relativity and whatnot)

ofcourse these are my thoughts, and you are welcome to disagree.

Originally Posted by Munashe the Cheetah

9.6 million is a complete scam and a lie.

They should not count the chinese who do not have subscription models like everyone else. If a chinese plays 1 hour in a year, and pays $0.01 to do so to blizzard, that hardly counts as a subscription.

I wish they would stop trying to mislead the market and tell us how many europe and north american subscriptions they have, because that is what should be compared to other MMOs. Dont get me wrong, I love WoW, but it does not need more credit then it deserves, it already hogs the spot light almost entirely.

Then become the CEO of Blizzard and make that decision. It hogs the spot light because other games are crap. Most are released with short term gimmicks or have problems that WoW solved 8+ years ago. If a game was truly better, people would leave. According to these forums WoW sucks pretty hard, and yet its still alive and kicking and doing better than all the others combined.

Another thing, with the Cata losses, they kinda lined up well with an over decline in MMOs and games in general. I wonder if this lines up with industry trends as well? If that is they case is oW really in bad shape if others are seeing declines as well? When is the last time Trion said anything about its subs? GW2? I know they don't have subs, but they were loud about 2M sold and lots of activity and no one I know plays any more and unless you are in a big city with overflow there is like no one in a lot of areas.

---------- Post added 2013-02-08 at 12:16 AM ----------

Originally Posted by Lazy Gecko

The game is closing in on its 10th anniversary. I don't think there's much that could realistically be done to sustain the unprecedented momentum. You can't expect that many players to keep playing the same game for that many years, no matter what you may think of its quality or lack thereof.

EQ going on 15+ years.

---------- Post added 2013-02-08 at 12:19 AM ----------

Originally Posted by dfjdejulio

I'm not so sure. If it were another company, yes, but I don't think they want "Titan" (or whatever their next MMO ends up being called) to exist in a context in which they have admitted "F2P" is a business model they're willing to consider.

But I suppose in a few years we'll see! I do not expect them to drop that low much sooner than that.

Titan=not what you think it will be.

---------- Post added 2013-02-08 at 12:20 AM ----------

Originally Posted by Coleslaw

NO other game has managed to do what Blizzard has done, and continues to do. Retain a significant amount of their playerbase after so long. Look at any other MMO at the 8 year mark in their history....and I will guarantee you that they will be nowhere near as close as WoW.

You would be lucky if you could name many that make it to 8, hell even 5 years.

Uhm? Can someone explain me who and why he deleted my posting? I needed a half hour for it <.<
I really won't like to write it again >.<

PS: Yes,- sure World of Warcraft can't die, it is fantays and Fantasy is living in your mind. I can understand the People which say " Oh my god wow is dieing" but the truth is,- they love this game and are scared. I can only say to this.. "Boys and Girls, this sort of Panic is not helpful", the new World of Warcraft Film will bring so much subscribers that you won't remember the day when we talked about 400-500k lost.

Originally Posted by Zokten

Currently I'm guessing?

Ever I think unless you count Maple Story which boasts 92M users in its history, not a traditional MMO and free. EQ was the biggest traditional MMO and it maxed out at 350k. Not too many have gotten over 500k. A few reached 750k, SWTOR and Rift claimed 2M. GW2 sold 2M.

9.6 million subs...which may include people who don't play anymore in the last 3 months. It's the biggest possible spin number that Blizzaro could come up with without outright lying. How many D3 games were selling at the high price of 15$?

Let's go back to the 2 or 3 million from way back in 2005. It doesn't change the way I play or who I play with.

Originally Posted by Assumi

God you fanboys never quit.

But hes right....

A 500k sub loss is nothing for WoW to cry over.

Originally Posted by Chry

Again, the "rose-tinted goggles" syndrome is completely invalid due to the numbers. Blizzard should easily be able to sustain consistent subscription gains, despite the age of the game, based on the quality of the game. It's just no longer at the quality of WotLK, I'm afraid.

Ok, if you want to cling the your "its numbers" fallacy, can you explain how the game grew by 6 millions in vanilla, then by 4 millions in TBC and only to grew by 2 millions in WolTK only to stagnate there until its started degrading in Cataclysm?

If WolTK was so great, it would had grown more than during Vanilla and TBC no?

Definitely not the worst xpack. Cat easily wins that award. But that shift to the daily grind and alt unfriendly aspects this time around reaaally are burning me out. For me, alts were always an important anti-burnout mechanism. Now keeping my main up to speed is a full time job, which I think is the design but the problem is... burnout. The answer to that is easy, don't work on my main. I find myself trying to decide if should I work on my main, or screw around on my alts, and I end up just not feeling like logging on. So I think I'm going to be taking a break soon so make that 9,599,999 subscribers.

EQ going on 15+ years.

With a tiny fraction of WoW's subs.

Originally Posted by Duster505

What will really raise eyebrows is that this includes MOP launch in China. WOW has been carried by China (over 60% of playerbase). So this is really more of a shock for me since I was sure we would be seeing an Asian look WOW increase the player numbers. I think the dmg in EU and US is much bigger than what BLizz makes it look like.

Sadly this report will not push BLizz to fix the big issues of the game. That is low population servers. Game has gone from 12 mills down to 9.6 now and Many servers feel empty - even with CRZ. And Blizzard is forcing players to pay 25$ per character for transfers. Thats probably how they are making most of their money in WOW now. Sad.

Most of Catas losses were from Asian markets, especially when D3 launched. An earlier post said Mike Morhaime attributed the losses mostly to China. That is why you see profits go up as subs go down. The full paying customers are not the ones leaving.

5.2 Gains 500k and more back.

5.3 People drop out for awhile again.

5.4 Brings them all back.


This has been what has happened for several years now.

There is nothing wrong here.

Originally Posted by Pugnasty007

I remember World of Warcraft as it used to be, not the casual abomination it has become.

Always been casual my friend. That's why it got so big. Remember most accounts do not and have never gotten a toon to max level. Its all about the casuals while offering stuff for the hardcore players as well.

Originally Posted by Zergal

Ok, if you want to cling the your "its numbers" fallacy, can you explain how the game grew by 6 millions in vanilla, then by 4 millions in TBC and only to grew by 2 millions in WolTK and stagnate there until its started degrading in Cataclysm?

If WolTK was so great, it would had grown more than during Vanilla and TBC no?

No, not necessarily.

TBC and Wrath was when WoW was at the height of its popularity, however by the time TBC was ending most people who were interested in WoW had joined it. Which is why you didn't see such a huge growth with WotLK (still, 2 million is nothing to sneeze at).

It doesn't really have much to do with the quality of the expansion (unless you can read the future and know beforehand if its bad or not, in which case I have to ask you why did you keep quiet on Cata! ) but more to do with the hype and popularity surrounding the game at the time. It certainly doesn't have anything to do with the difficulty level of heroics or raids at the time either.