WoW Up to 7.8 Million Subscribers
Blizzard has their Q4 2013 earnings call today, announcing that WoW is up to 7.8 million subscribers. This is up 200k from the Q3 2013 call that listed WoW at 7.6 million subscribers.


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This article was originally published in forum thread: WoW Up to 7.8 Million Subscribers started by chaud View original post
Comments 841 Comments
  1. Paulosio's Avatar
    I'm certainly not 1 of these people who come on doom mongering every time the subs are announced and there's a drop in numbers but I honestly expected there to be a pretty big drop in subs here just because SoO has been out a while and I expected people would get bored at this point in an expansions time line...

    Some people must be gutted that they aren't going to be able to make their quarterly post about how WOW is dying.

    - - - Updated - - -

    Quote Originally Posted by RAWRF View Post
    They went from 9.6 million subs in the beginning of 2013 to 7.8 million subs in the beginning of 2014. Please, someone explain to me how anyone could be stupid enough to consider this a rise in subs? Yes, it rose from last quarter, but that is only a spin PR people use to fool the sheople into thinking things are okay. Internally Blizzard is worried. They lost 1.8 million paying customers in only a year. Things are not good, things are not looking up, things are bad. Anyone with a brain can see this.

    As incontrovertible proof that I am right you can simply look at the in game store. This is a typical panic button feature preying on the hardcore and hopelessly addicted.
    You will have a point if 3 or 4 months into WOD the sub numbers are signigantly lower than 9.6 million (this would be about the same point MOP was at at the beginning of 2013). I'm fairly sure that the last few months of Cata had far less subs than were playing at the beginning of Cata and probably even less than the 9.6 million playing MOP a few months into that xpac at the beginning of 2013...

    A lot of players only return when there is new content to play such as a new raid patch or a new xpac. You are comparing the point in the expansion when all these types of players are playing (beginning of 2013) vs the end of an xpac when there's been no new contentfor months and these types of players aren't really around.

    It's always going to go in the following cycle:

    New xpac comes out and subs peak. A few months later subs gradually begin to drop but rise slightly whenever a major patch comes out.. Towards the end of an xpac numbers are generally at their lowest. Then it repeats with the release of a new xpac.

    The store is proof of nothing other than that Blizzard is aiming to maximise its revenue... Sort of like every single company on the planet.
  1. InfernalDark's Avatar
    MoP, worst expansion ever made. Fuck pandas and whole Asia theme.
  1. Karnige's Avatar
    subs up. wheres the haters at? especially since nothing has been released or any handouts by blizz........ long live wow
  1. TidesOfBlood's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Karnige View Post
    subs up. wheres the haters at? especially since nothing has been released or any handouts by blizz........ long live wow
    Subs for Blizzard don't mean anything anymore imho. Like the Romans, Blizzard already made their mark on history by producing a successful MMO.
  1. nekobaka's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Karnige View Post
    subs up. wheres the haters at? especially since nothing has been released or any handouts by blizz........ long live wow
    You mean besides the major patch that was released before the quarter and there being RAF?
  1. dusselldorf's Avatar
    A few causes. SoO has been a good raid. With the implementation of and difficulty level of flex, raiding and cross realm pugs have become *much* more accessible. Timeless isle has shifted away from the dailies that drove so many people away. Connecting realms has helped the dead realm problem. I think all of this has had an appreciable difference in subscription numbers.
  1. Gray_Matter's Avatar
    If you look at WOW's history, Dec has always been a good month. In 2011 in the middle of their biggest decline, they only marginally lost subscribers (100k). the following 2 quarters they lost over a million subscribers. In 2012, they lost 400k subscribers, the following quarter it was 1.3 million. Personally I thought they would lose about 100k odd. the next quarter is where things will get interesting. A lot of people either subbed because of WoD news or bought new accounts on the special ($15 for WOW and MoP is a steal). The previous year it was $35 for the same deal so it wasn't as attractive. I have a feeling that they will lose a lot of subs in the next quarter.
  1. Zervek's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by nekobaka View Post
    You mean besides the major patch that was released before the quarter and there being RAF?
    Lol

    Gain subs: Lol probably just bots and people with multiple accounts.

    Lose subs: WOW is dying! They need to learn from WotLk AKA the perfect expac!!! All these fanboys think it's gonna survive but wildstar is gonna kill it!
  1. Karnige's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by nekobaka View Post
    You mean besides the major patch that was released before the quarter and there being RAF?
    seeing how in the past subs still were going down i can't see how this isn't a win for blizzard
  1. Shudder's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Karnige View Post
    seeing how in the past subs still were going down i can't see how this isn't a win for blizzard
    1.8 million subs lost last year is not a win.
  1. Guruftw's Avatar
    Not exacly news. Subs always go up when a new Expack is or soon to be released.

    People is preparing for the expack, spread your buttcheaks!
  1. MerinPally's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Shudder View Post
    1.8 million subs lost last year is not a win.
    Last year isn't relevant any more. Otherwise, every product in the history of mankind that isn't a household essential that was never redesigned or revamped is a failure according to your logic. Basically, I could rewrite that as "your logic there is awful". At a time where there's a lot of uproar about the state of the game, getting a sub increase is a colossal win.
  1. May90's Avatar
    He-he, no wonder. Games for kids will always be popular.
  1. Shudder's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by MerinPally View Post
    Last year isn't relevant any more. Otherwise, every product in the history of mankind that isn't a household essential that was never redesigned or revamped is a failure according to your logic. Basically, I could rewrite that as "your logic there is awful". At a time where there's a lot of uproar about the state of the game, getting a sub increase is a colossal win.
    These numbers are from last year. Therefore it is relevant...
  1. ShaZaM ShaBa's Avatar
    Meh back to Hearthstone
  1. lawow74's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by RAWRF View Post
    It makes me wonder if Blizzard developers even look at this data. Dec 2008, 11.5 million subs which is fairly steady to the beginning of Cata which is 12 million subs. This is a time period with 25 man raiding and 10 man raiding having split loot tables and split lockouts. As soon as they removed that system the sub numbers nosedived. Funny that they don't realize how terribly they fucked up their own game with that one change.
    Ah, the old logical fallacy 'A happened before B, therefore A caused B'. Pick your favorite thing to hate that they changed and blame all sub losses on that thing. AMG LFD WAS INTRODUCED THAT'S WHY WOW DIED, or EFFING BLIZZ THEY LET CASUALS RAID WOW IS DYING COS RAIDERS ARE NOT THE ONLY ONES WHO CAN RAID ANYMORE and so on and so forth.

    I can just as easily say it was them revamping Hunters to use Focus and not Mana that was the cause, by this logic. Back when they had 12M subs Hunters used Mana. So obviously since they made that change it's responsible for all the sub losses!
  1. yinyatto's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Buxton McGraff View Post
    But I guess the players like myself are dying off in WOW while the casuals and new generation take over.
    I disagree i feel both are thriving, hardcore raiding content has been the best its been since the Ulduar days and with the addition of flex and these amazing raids were getting every tier in MoP, i certainly think there's enough room to suggest that both the hardcore and casual sides of the game are doing well.

    PS: woo sub increase i have a feeling Q1, 14 may surprise us again.
  1. j46ebucemag's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by RAWRF View Post
    It makes me wonder if Blizzard developers even look at this data. Dec 2008, 11.5 million subs which is fairly steady to the beginning of Cata which is 12 million subs. This is a time period with 25 man raiding and 10 man raiding having split loot tables and split lockouts. As soon as they removed that system the sub numbers nosedived. Funny that they don't realize how terribly they fucked up their own game with that one change.
    This is some seriously messed up logic. You picked two things that just so happen to occur at the same time and then conclude that one caused the other. I mean, if you thought about that for literally 10 seconds (or less) you would realize you have absolutely no basis in reason. I'm not saying that Blizzard didn't do things that messed up their game. What I am saying is that you need to evaluate your logic before posting radical claims that are stupid and and completely misrepresent Blizzard.
  1. yinyatto's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by RAWRF View Post

    It makes me wonder if Blizzard developers even look at this data. Dec 2008, 11.5 million subs which is fairly steady to the beginning of Cata which is 12 million subs. This is a time period with 25 man raiding and 10 man raiding having split loot tables and split lockouts. As soon as they removed that system the sub numbers nosedived. Funny that they don't realize how terribly they fucked up their own game with that one change.
    This is sooooooo highly speculative its not even funny, your correlating things that MIGHT NOT even correlate together I highly doubt this is the reason behind the sub drop after the first tier of cataclysm.
    Quote Originally Posted by RAWRF View Post
    Currently 7.6 million subs, upon release of the next expac subs WILL spike, but they WILL NOT peak over 10 million.
    Again you say this with such certainty, I'm guessing you have a time machine and have seen the sub increase from the release of WoD to pass on this valuable insight as to what the sub increase will or will not be over, at least state somewhere that this is an opinion as opposed to making it sound like fact in your sentence structure.
  1. Kickbuttmario's Avatar
    Blizzard is still gonna use the Blizzard store to maximize revenue as that is the current trend where the gaming market is right now, and Blizzard is already expecting losses.

    Nothing has changed, Blizzard is still expecting losses. Only idiot fanboys are saying grats and haters are getting mad. The winners on these threads are guys who don't give a fuck and are just doing their own thing.

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