WoW Down to 8.3 Million Subscribers
Activision Blizzard's press release states that World of Warcraft is down to 8.3 million subscribers. This is a loss of 1.3 million, down from 9.6 million last quarter. Most of the loss came from the East once again.

  • Blizzard expects to have less subscribers at the end of the year than they do today.
  • Most of the decline in subscribers came from China.
  • There has been less engagement by casual players.
  • Blizzard is going to work on improving the experience for returning players.
  • Blizzard All Stars and Titan will not be released in 2013 according to the slide below.
  • Heart of the Swarm was the #1 PC game of the quarter, selling 1.1 million copies in two days.
  • There has been increased competition with F2P games in Asia.
  • Players consume content faster and subscribe and unsubscribe as new content is added.

This article was originally published in forum thread: WoW Down to 8.3 Million Subscribers started by chaud View original post
Comments 904 Comments
  1. MasterHamster's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Redblade View Post
    Because there was an overall goal to work towards, not one that could be reached in a week or two. Another example is LFD, while convenient it removed the content that was "find a group" might not have been the best or most interesting content but in a roundabout way it was content. What Blizzard has done is add convenience after convenience and as such diminished the longevity of the content they had.
    And that's a funny thing, isn't it. So older contents longevity was being prolonged by inherent inconvenience, not quality.
    Back when it could take hours to clear one dungeon due to having to look for members, running there, someone has to leave, back to cities, and eventually ending up getting absolutely nothing because you were unlucky with drops (nothing surprising, many bosses dropped shit that was good for maybe 1 spec). No currency that off-set that risk (Badges, Justice, Valor)

    Do I miss getting to dungeons instead of being teleported there? To some extent yes, but I'd rather doing some solo content while in a queue, instead of spamming "LF1M TANK BRD LF1M TANK BRD LF1M TANK BRD LF1M TANK BRD LF1M TANK BRD LF1M TANK BRD"

    Back in the day you could raid and then raid some more and so on, the problem now days is that Blizzard uses the "difficulties" as content, herding players through it at set intervals. Makes it kinda pointless to raid and gear up to be able to tackle the next raid when all you really have to do is unsubscribe for a couple of months and then come back and clear it all in a few days after it's been nerfed to shit. The sense of pride and accomplishment that came from raiding and downing bosses got watered down with nerfs, LFR, devaluing of 25man and so on.
    And people aren't put off that content is never made more lenient, they are stuck. Or join in so late that they can't catch up.
    This magical "journey" is nothing but a cockblock to irregular, casual, returning or new players.
    But hey, it's their fault for not being there at the start of a new expansion, clearly

    Your point was "Old games that don't change will stagnate and start to decay". This hasn't happened with Call of Duty which hasn't changed significantly over the last 7 years. This means your point is wrong.
    AGAIN, what will be the reason then when it stops breaking records?
    What will the excuse be
  1. ashblond's Avatar
    Not surprised AT ALL. There is just too much competition in Chinese game market. Players have too much choice, and much less loyalty. They switch games as soon as they feel bored.

    ---------- Post added 2013-05-09 at 10:01 AM ----------

    Quote Originally Posted by mimee View Post
    Of course they are losing subs..

    1 hour long queues for LFR.
    1 hour wasted killing bosses and all you get is bag of gold. *rinse - repeat next week same results*
    Everything having a horrible drop rate... SPecially mounts.

    And to fix the subs.. Maybe create Vanilla/BC servers? That would bring people back.
    The reason people quit is that wow is old and staggering. And chinese players always prefer to play MOBA (multiplayer online battle arena) games like LoL, Dota which is F2P, less time consuming, and more entertaining for them, instead of playing MMORPG. It is 100% sure that Blizzard All-Star (F2P MOBA) will have more players than wow as soon as it is released in China.

    And always remember, even during wow's peak, they have only 6-7 million subscribers in china, which is a tiny tiny tiny proportion of whole player base. It was never a popular game in China as it is in EU/US.

    Creating Vanilla/BC servers will NEVER bring people back. It just won't work. And i can assure those lost Chinese players will never come back. The best thing blizzard can do is to get new players.

    ---------- Post added 2013-05-09 at 10:16 AM ----------

    Quote Originally Posted by Tygor View Post
    5.3 in May according to the call. Honestly, who cares how many people from China/Korea quit the game?
    I don't, but Blizzard does.
  1. billtimbob's Avatar
    There has been less engagement by casual players.
    Hahahahah... everything they have done to appease the casuals at the expense of the core players and they still are fleeing.
  1. mmoca9a2d58f1f's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Bloodfire View Post
    Just tell me how many times you've posted about Death to WoW. Simply.
    And how many times people kept whabbering about it in past 8 years.
    Wow right mnow droped more subs then wow ever droped at the end of expansion. And only reson why is that is becous Blizzard made this game too casual. LFR/LFD epic items for valors/honors nerfing old content. Vanilla and TBC didnt had harder encounters but you have to raid every single raid if you wanted visit BT or sunwell there wanst any skiping like right now. There is just no reason to go play older content becous of stupid LFR. Back in my days there was one amazing raid. There wasnt any stupid HC or LFR just one raid and when i killed Illidan i killed Illidan no just his stupid low LFR version.
  1. Redblade's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by MasterHamster View Post
    Do I miss getting to dungeons instead of being teleported there? To some extent yes, but I'd rather doing some solo content while in a queue, instead of spamming "LF1M TANK BRD LF1M TANK BRD LF1M TANK BRD LF1M TANK BRD LF1M TANK BRD LF1M TANK BRD"
    What you prefer has very little to do with things, the effect is till that there is less content to spend time on due to ever increasing conveniences. As humans are convenient by nature it's something that should and has to be restricted by the developer to keep a reasonable balance, Blizzard lost that balance in their attempt to appeal to a broader audience.

    Quote Originally Posted by MasterHamster View Post
    And people aren't put off that content is never made more lenient, they are stuck. Or join in so late that they can't catch up.
    This magical "journey" is nothing but a cockblock to irregular, casual, returning or new players.
    But hey, it's their fault for not being there at the start of a new expansion, clearly
    There are better ways to solve those issues, sweeping nerfs while the content is still current is probably one of the worst ways to go about it, not only does it piss off the people wanting the challenge but also propels players that can't wait to unsub when they are done beating normal and it makes the people in the middle reach the end faster for no real reason.
  1. mmoc0bf86c05d8's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by rogas View Post
    3. Once you've geared up a main, levelled up some alts, maxed you professions, explored the world, did arena's, did bg's, joined a decent raiding guild, raided serveral raid instances, .... what else is there left to do??? At some point you have done it all, and it's time to move on...
    So basically, you just listed everything the game could possibly offer a player. That is why it's called creating new content, your point doesn't make any sense. Please re-read you sentence and come back when you've thought through it all.

    Dunno if...no I'm just gonna stop here.
  1. mmoc785ca38ad1's Avatar
    Well, in my experience a lot of friends quitted and my guild died.
    I'm still playing, luckily now the game is very solo-friendly, but I think that there's way too much grind and RNG for a casual player.
    Dailies and having so much stuff tied to reputations, plus harder normal raids basically killed the motivation for raiders in my guild (I already stopped raiding after DS). You have to remember though that WoW is starting to become really old and there's no turnover anymore between old players quitting and new ones joining.
  1. mmoc3fe040ec5f's Avatar
    Players consume content faster and subscribe and unsubscribe as new content is added.
    First off, I find the use of "consume" by Blizzard disgusting. How lowly do they think of their work?

    Now my actual point, what do they expect? They make content that is easy and fast to get through, has little to no replay value, and everyone can skip to it in an instant. Their content is MADE to be used and then THROWN AWAY in the trash bin. Just think of the content of the previous expansion, hell even the content of the previous patch... almost worthless when it comes to gameplay.

    Trash design.
  1. Menphis's Avatar
    What I thought was,
    this expansion felt like it was mostly about dailies. Without doing dailies you won't get rep, and most importantly, you won't get lesser charms for bonus rolls.
    I'm sure bonus rolls are crucial for core raiders, and also the casuals too. I personally feel without Mogu Runes, its a waste of time for that long LFR queue time for a single roll per boss.(Although bonus rolls give only gold most of the time too :P )
    So in this expansion I didn't really feel like leveling alts.

    So maybe the people quit were burned out with dailies, or did all the content thats available but thinking of all the grinding they have to do if they want to play on their alts,
    they decided to just quit.

    Good thing is that they recently reduced the Mogu Runes to 50 lesser charms and they're also planning to reduce the amount of exp require from 85-90.
  1. Outofmana's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by ashblond View Post


    Creating Vanilla/BC servers will NEVER bring people back. It just won't work. And i can assure those lost Chinese players will never come back. The best thing blizzard can do is to get new players.
    This is why there are private realms atm with 5k pop and 10 40man raiding guilds ? Me and ~6 of my friends would instantly return if they added vanilla realms and I'm sure that there are a lot more people that would.
  1. Firebert's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Cybran View Post
    The game was successful when it didn't cater to casuals.
    WoW's hit 12m subs twice. Once at the beginning of WotLK. Once at the end of WotLK.

    LFD was introduced in 3.3 and catered to the casuals and the subs went up.
    LFR was introduced in 4.3 and catered to the casuals and stopped the subs from going down.

    I think your conclusion's built on false premises.
  1. Bloodfire's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Outofmana View Post
    This is why there are private realms atm with 5k pop and 10 40man raiding guilds ? Me and ~6 of my friends would instantly return if they added vanilla realms and I'm sure that there are a lot more people that would.
    This.
    Myth. I doubt that people who grew as the game progressed would have free time or a wish to do it all over again and again and again.
    About private realms, only some of them draw attention, I dislike those because admins of such servers will mostly do anything if you pay them up in $$$$. Sad but true.

    P.S.: The situation would've been resolved if the Blizzard would've stopped making big deal of money from server transfers and instead merging some of the low pop servers into big one.
  1. Redblade's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Firebert View Post
    WoW's hit 12m subs twice. Once at the beginning of WotLK. Once at the end of WotLK.

    LFD was introduced in 3.3 and catered to the casuals and the subs went up.
    LFR was introduced in 4.3 and catered to the casuals and stopped the subs from going down.

    I think your conclusion's built on false premises.
    Same as you conclusions, patch makes sub go up regardless, also without knowing the average length of subscription between casuals and more dedicated players any conclusion is basically void.
  1. hiragana's Avatar
    I think if they merged servers and added a lot more dungeons, with gear to work towards like WOTLK had where i could get full tiers from dungeons, id have been able to stay subbed a lot longer. My server was dead though and after transferring a couple of characters it just wasnt the same. WOTLK was definately my favourite expansion.
  1. LeginNoslen's Avatar
    Thats nice, now where is the real news article for today?
  1. Nitrax's Avatar
    This is good! WoW finally has competition, and Blizzard acknowledges it... I hope they realize they have to take the game in another direction, when they get rid of LFR I will resub!
  1. Terahertz's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by rogas View Post
    1. introduction of LFR - made practically everybody a casual ...
    2. Blizz greedy refusal to do something about low populated servers ... i can imagine pp rather quit that paying a fortune on server transfers...

    3. Once you've geared up a main, levelled up some alts, maxed you professions, explored the world, did arena's, did bg's, joined a decent raiding guild, raided serveral raid instances, .... what else is there left to do??? At some point you have done it all, and it's time to move on...
    1. Before LFR I was motivated to start raiding for the first time, which was during Firelands when I first raided. After it came out I lost all drive to continue.
    2. I've seen a steady decline on my realm, even though it's the most populated realm on EU (Outland), as Horde player on Outland, I still see a steady drop in players.
    3. I've leveled up 4 90s from scratch (Even while having 9 lvl 85s), maxed Engineering 2 times, leatherworking once and enchanting once and seen all of the world already due to all the chars I've leveled. But trying to find a decent raiding guild is actually really hard on Outland-EU as Horde. Or at least to find players who are interested in raiding.

    What I'd like to see is some long lasting content that doesn't get outdated after one expansion/patch. Idk what, perhaps more challenge mode-type of stuff.
  1. Firebert's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Redblade View Post
    Same as you conclusions...
    Not really, as LFD and LFR were basically the only big technological additions to the game for those patches, and hence had the biggest effect on subs.
  1. Redblade's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Firebert View Post
    Not really, as LFD and LFR were basically the only big technological additions to the game for those patches, and hence had the biggest effect on subs.
    Got any source to back that up, there was content added with those patches as well, something that as far as I'm aware of always increased subs in the short term.

    Even if LFR did stop subs from going down as you say, and it had nothing to do with the content, how many of those casuals stayed longer than 2 months, how many core player where lost over it's addition, how do those numbers relate to each other, and so on, without that knowledge your conclusions are just sa flawed.
  1. Greyvax's Avatar
    I blame all the wasted resources on pet battles.

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