WoW Down to 7.7 Million Subscribers, Activision Blizzard Purchases Vivendi's Shares

[lazzy]

The decline began right after 3.2 and the massive design philosophy shift towards "make it easier, more convenient, cater to people who don't care to try". It's funny how people who weren't there try to pontificate how the past was such a bad game... well, then why did that bad game have nothing but growth?

We've gone from a model where the serious raiders had one mode, 25s, and the more casual, busy, or family/friends types had their mode, 10s, to 5.4's upcoming SEVEN modes (LFR, 10F, 10N, 10H, 25F, 25N, 25H). Unless you think Blizzard doesn't occupy the physical universe, you have to realize that to deliver more modes in the same amount of time means quality has to be cut somewhere. This also, as many have commented before me, completely removed the ability for people to raid with guild and then help friends on the off nights.

We've gone from a model where being at least polite if not social was encouraged and required at the high end to one in which there's little accountability and the rule is trolling, jerkish behavior. Polite, friendly people are the exception now. This causes a vicious cycle where LFG/LFR have made themselves necessary.

We've gone from a model where people said "Next time, we'll get a little further. We have something to shoot for. Look at those guys, I want to be like them" to one in which if you don't do absolutely all available in a lockout (be it dailies, valor cap, arena points, whatever content), you're treated with contempt. The very people who used to complain that raiders and grand marshals were "elitists" are now far worse than any of their old accusations. Side note, the "elitists" used to be the trainers for the rest of the population. Believe it or not, most recruitment in vanilla through Ulduar said "Gear is not a problem".

Frankly, unless Blizzard swallows their traditional pride and actually admits the design philosophy shift has failed, you're going to continue to see subscription drops, especially during the current economic climate where people are seriously evaluating where their entertainment dollars go.

I agree with everything you said.

Honestly, should of stayed at 10 and 25 only. They had a AMAZING design for Ulduar. If you was good enough you could engage in a hard mode within normal this is how it should still be. I have absolutely no clue why they scrapped this concept.

[ngc2440]

That'sthejoke

Rather piss poor joke.

[Hypasonic]

Ah well atleast I won't feel the affect of this loss, what with being on the most populated realm in EU.......

[Buu]

Honestly Doomsayers, check EVERY OTHER GAME and you will see it's Real Life that is beating ALL the options in MMO. This loss of subscribers isn't a WoW-exclusive loss of players. The world today is demanding too much from people. WoW might consider, and it seems for the moment that they are, to slow down the pace to not scare people for being "too time demanding". But that's all.

[Hagu]

I'm still playing.

Perhaps, but I don't think that is the main reason they have lost nearly five million subs.

[Shudder]

I've been reading the battlenet forums and it just amazes me how much the fanboys are in denial over there. Probably here too, not going to read 14 pages. They honestly don't see this as alarming and it's adorable. At the rate it's dropping they'll be down to 100k in two years. The game is old, it's dead. They put all their eggs in titan, it sucked apparently. So now what? They better make a wow2 and make it fast.

[Grevie]

when i read posts like this i feel like people really, really think wow is going to be in good shape for how 10-20 more years?
well it feels like that... i mean some people thinking in that way, Honestly we need to see if even Blizzard will survive their
own monster when Titan comes out, around 2016-2017, as i said before this cow is plenty of milk still, and it seems
there is alot of people willing to pay.

WoW is not dying anytime soon, losing subscribers is a fact numbers pretty much talk. still is getting alot of money from
the cow of course. but when you see that they re bringing more content to the game more often, and the cow is still
bleeding well.. well you can slow it for sure.

[slackjawsix]

the numbers will stop dropping as fast as it becomes the more devoted players who are still playing, the game will still be alive for a long time. 7.7million is a lot of money to hold on to

[hulkgor]

I'd love to know the numbers of subscribers in EU\USA.

[ngc2440]

I've been reading the battlenet forums and it just amazes me how much the fanboys are in denial over there. Probably here too, not going to read 14 pages. They honestly don't see this as alarming and it's adorable. At the rate it's dropping they'll be down to 100k in two years. The game is old, it's dead. They put all their eggs in titan, it sucked apparently. So now what? They better make a wow2 and make it fast.

Ok Chicken Little, whatever you say.

[Khalkaroth]

I've been reading the battlenet forums and it just amazes me how much the fanboys are in denial over there. Probably here too, not going to read 14 pages. They honestly don't see this as alarming and it's adorable. At the rate it's dropping they'll be down to 100k in two years. The game is old, it's dead. They put all their eggs in titan, it sucked apparently. So now what? They better make a wow2 and make it fast.

I find this game fun and this is why I play it.

Oh yeah I know! Hard to believe at first but when you simply think about it it really does make sense.

On a less sarcastic note: 7,700,000 x 30 = facts$

[MrHappy]

i dunno i enjoyed Mists of Pandaria and I am excited to see 5.4. To each his own but for me Mists gave me pet battles personal progression via brawler's guild and upcoming proving grounds, a hell of a better talent system than we ever had, new lore. I get that some people want "iconic" villains of WoW...but you can only keep telling the same story over and over before it gets old and boring. If there were expansions centered around same theme you would see posts like "OH look another legion/classical villain/etc expansion when will Blizz put their shit together and come up with something original!"

I enjoyed the lore of Klaxxi and the Pandaren. I think the artwork was spectacular. However this is my opinion because I love anything Asian themed really and I read the books and read the quests texts. For people that don't care with either reading quests texts or be interested in new lore/story for them nothing is familiar and worth caring about.

The story needs to keep moving forward. If you don't like where it is headed that does not mean bad design...just your taste/ideas/visions are different from the creators of blizzard. There are people that this thread calls "fan boys/girls" that enjoy the direction and agree on design philosophy. There are people that don't . Those that don't decided not to play WoW. That is perfectly fine. For those that left they defeated "iconic" bosses of WoW and untill something familiar comes along that they can relate to they probably won't be back.

Personally I will keep playing because I love different stories and different angles to WoW that were not repeated ad nauseum in Warcraft I-III. I don't care if they envision new lore/characters/plants/villains/titans/old gods/ or anything else because to me something new is better than arthas/argus/sargaras/burning legion/merely a set back/ lore over and over

[Teelie]

It surprises me more how so many people try to pin one thing on the losses. As if it was just the casual or just the hardcore players. It's a combination of things that make most people quit and there is no single fix to it either.

I quit back in November of 2012 after having played for several years. Not permanantly quit but until I felt like it was time to come back and that I had the free time to do so. Depending on how August looks, I'll be coming back to play again then.

There are several reasons I quit playing and lack of time was only one. I was also burned out, tired of dailies grinding. The guilds on my two primary servers were dead (as were the servers for the most part) and I did not want to pay $25 a character to move elsewhere nor did I want to start from level 1 and grind it out to 90 on a new server. It began to feel like a chore logging in every day to do anything. On top of that I felt the raids were disappointing and the content failed to interest me after I had done everything to that point so leveling alts wasn't fun. In short, I got bored of the content and the game play. The new patch introduced new dailies to grind new rep, the last thing I was interested in.

Pet battles were a fun distraction initially but then it became Pokemon, "gotta get 'em all" and I wore out on that. Running old raids was fine, especially when they had a new pet drop added to spice things up but that quickly grew old too.

So what was left to do? PVP? I had no interest in playing against veteran PVPer's in my PVE gear and the veterans already had superior PVP gear to what PVP gear I could get or craft by that point. The lack of teamwork, coordination, and friendliness in the PVP community weren't incentives either when I did try.

That is truly why there is a decline in WOW subs. The reasons aren't always the same or as numerous between players who stopped but they all had the same problem: It stopped being enjoyable for multiple reasons. Not many players are so simply catagorized as quitting because they didn't like Pandarens or that raids were too easy/hard or they didn't like dailies or outdated models. They found their end point and stopped.

There are a lot of ways to refresh this game but only one truly effective thing will work: To reinvigorate those players who left or never played in the first place. And it will take more effort than what we've been shown. You have to go outside of the community, you have to reach those former players or those who never played to begin with. Show them why now is a good time to come back and how it is more interesting, more entertaining this time around. If all that's ever done is shown to the existing playerbase, not to the ones who stopped and don't visit the websites, don't know what's been going on with the game, how can you expect to regain lost players?

There is a solution that I don't think I've ever seen mentioned.

[Zaqwert]

as soon as the next patch most will be back, just like each patch or expansion

Why do people say this when it hasn't ever been true?

Since WoW's decline began the decline is consistent. New patches make it slower and expansions produce a temporary bump reclaiming a small % of those that quit.

WoW was at 12 million and dipped down to 9, then MOP came out and it went back to 10. So 3 million net players quit and only 1 million of them came back for the expansion.

WoW is currently losing 7-8% of it's player base every quarter.

9.6 to 8.3 is about 8.5%
8.3 to 7.7 is about 7.3%

By time the next expansion comes out it will be around somewhere in the 6 to 7 million range and will probably bump back up to 8 after the expansion.

Expansions lure back a chunk of people who have quit, but certainly not all, not even half, looks like the last one got 1/3rd.

[Al Gorefiend]

I quit back in late February, but I won't plan on staying unsubscribed. I logged back in for a day of dailies on Isle of Thunder while my sub was still up, found it just.. boring, and buggy for me. Never looked back. WoW needs an alternate progression style that doesn't involve quest > daily > dungeon > raid > raid > raid > raid > raid > next patch dailies > raid > raid > raid > raid I find raiding to be boring, monotonous, repetitive, unrewarding and poorly made (.."Now, FEEL MY WRATH!" every 10 seconds like the bosses audio is on a loop)

[bendak]

All the more reason to fast track the next expansion. The sub loss if they draw out 5.4 for a full year will be phenomenal.

[Arbs]

Isn't everyone just waiting for ESO?

You mean the next over hyped MMO that will prbly flop after not living up to expectation just like GW2?, I'm personally waiting for FF 14 & Wildstar there more my type of MMO I enjoy. Where they are move PvE centered with PvP side game.

- - - Updated - - -

Well, this is natural, Wow is on decline, it doesn't mean the game is going to die anytime soon, but all that you can see now is less people is playing
the game every quarter, so, probably with a new expansion will gain some subs but, will decline more over time, the game is old, but blizzard know
this cow has alot of milk, so in my thoughts game industry will have to deal with WoW for at least 3-4 more years, enough for 2 more expansions.

But Blizzard will have to show their quality soon enough with good games, Titan as wow successor, will need to be a amazing game, but honestly
even blizzard will get the hit on another games because wow is and eventually was so succesful.

EQ & UO are still alive they all have had decline aswell

[Al Gorefiend]

You mean the next over hyped MMO that will prbly flop after not living up to expectation just like GW2?, I'm personally waiting for FF 14 & Wildstar there more my type of MMO I enjoy. Where they are move PvE centered with PvP side game.

You mean the next over hyped MMO that will prbly flop

FF 14

Hard to say if an MMO will flop before its even released.

[Narelle]

The expansion release bumped up subs some, but ever since, its been dropping at its fastest pace all the while the patch cycles have also been at the fastest pace. The game is now 3 million subs down from MoP release, and over 2 million down from the end of Cata, and we haven't even hit the end of MoP yet. One can only speculate, but I highly doubt 5.4 will do all that much for subs, most people already know the story before it's release so there won't be much discovery lore wise. Also, we have already seen that the final raid is going to take place in mostly familiar recycled settings much like Dragon Soul, again there won't be much discovery.

I would like to see good things for the game, but the numbers do not show a positive direction. I hope they start focusing on lasting quality over quick quantity. The replay value on much of the content in MoP has been rather non existent for me personally, that sentiment is shared by some other veteran players I have spoken with.

From what I have seen when patches are coming out or data mined, is such a large focus on creating mounts and pets, it sometimes dominates the datamined item lists, but really, how exciting is that? Everyone can go collect a pet, and after that will that keep you playing longer? Not really, there will be that small moment of joy that you got a new mount or pet, only for it to be socked away in your mount/pet collection, hardly looked at ever again.

The large focus on scenarios, dailies, rep grinds, pets, and mounts along with the drastic changes on some classes goes to show that they are struggling to create innovative quality content, while sub numbers consistently take a dive for the duration of the expansion. Some say "wait till next patch" to see sub numbers go up, but that clearly hasn't been the case, if subs dropped with Thunder King, it would be hard to think Garrosh/Orgrimmar will bring everyone back in droves. An entire expansion couldn't do it, let alone new patch cycles.

The game was the best at what it did, and I am sure brought us all good memories with our friends, but we have long since turned the corner. I will continue to have what fun I can for now, but I know it's no where near the same as it was.

[Arbs]

guild wars 2 have 2-3 million logging in every day to play, yeah it's not subscriptions but it is quite abit, and sub based MMO's are far and few between now really.

I always ask myself this question, How many of that 3 Mill actually got refunds, I recently logged back into GW2 for this past week so a buddy of mine who wanted to try out the game could before spending the money & the server pop was much lower than I remember, There were more Medium & Low pop than High pop servers. Not the Full that people claim they have & what I remember from a year ago.