Will WoW Ever See 13 Million Subs Again?

[AlmightyGerkin]

The game is still fun in certain ways, but I don't for see WoW subscription numbers hitting Wotlk peak any time soon. During that time period their was plenty of stuff to do and people did not get burnt out as fast as people do now.

[Bathory]

Na MMOs as a genre just arent strong as they used to be. Im sure WoW still maintains a sizeable population, but 13mill is not really something one holds forever.

[Misuteri]

WoW was lightning in a gaming bottle.

Right game, right time, right genre, right franchise. It was at the start of widespread dedicated graphics cards, broadband connections were new with no true killer app other than faster download speeds, Blizzard games were hotter than hot and always on, multiplayer games and raiding had never been so accessable.

Over the years they've nicked away at segments of what people paid to play the game for. They killed every twink bracket for years and those people were the ones paying for server transfers to buy rare items, get on top servers/battlegroups and faction changes. They damaged PVP a whole lot as well with people doing the same thing going to stronger/weaker battlegroups to get Gladiator titles. They alienated a more people with the Cataclsym and them revamping/removing content.

At the time all these changes were met with "I don't twink.", "I don't PVP." "I don't farm old content." etc but there were a lot of nicks and cuts over the years that alienated many of their would be "whales".

F2P, MOAB's and so many nicks and cuts have whittled away at WoW. Yet every MMO that launched since BC that was "The WoW Killer!" failed. Star Wars, War Hammer, LOTR, Wildstar were all suppose to make WoW looked dated, inferior and take market share. None did.

WoW is a gaming icon and always will be. It's made billions of dollars. It's changed lives for better and worse. I've known families that came into existence because husbands and wives met and had kids after meeting on it. I've seen people so addicted they were homeless yet were taking their laptop to locations every day and sucking up free Wi-Fi.

You can debate the business/management lessons learned from leading 10, 25 and 40 man raids or RBG groups and 100+ man guilds that ran those raids. For anyone that's GM'd a successful raiding guild I can tell you that managing a raiding guild is more challenging than a 10 person sales staff.

WoW is on a downward spiral but it's going to be slow, profitable and new money making options will be pumped into the game. The BMAH will go away in favor of online cash purchases eventually and removed content/items will be buyable as well. There are enough people that want T3 or Benediction/Anathema that would think nothing of dropping $25-50 for them.

They'll never have 13 million subs again but they'll make nearly as much money as when they did have 13 million subs.

[Relapses]

Yes. If they brought back the vanilla style in-game community it would probably go way past 20 million subs.

Every time I see this:

[Alvito]

Im sure a 'WoW 2' could get 13 million subberinos

The excitement some might have by that would be crushed by how pissed off people were that they just lost their 14 year old characters.

[Nuba]

everyone please stop trying to excuse wows superior failureness and massive population drop by saying "people just dont want to play mmorpgs anymore" because that is utter bullcrap.

Wow is too bad for today's standards, the developers are horrible at making the game and the story is literally just a recycled pile of trash. losing more than 1 million subs every 5-6 months is something that despite the low numbers wow has right now (less than 4m if we follow the drop curve) still happens and won't change because BLIZZARD can't make an MMO anymore.

Excusing wow's failure is just too naive, I'm sorry.

[Alvito]

Short of going f2p no way there are 13 million active accounts and if it went free to play and kept say a SWTOR f2p with subscription model the subs would plummet and the game would atrophy.

- - - Updated - - -

everyone please stop trying to excuse wows superior failureness and massive population drop by saying "people just dont want to play mmorpgs anymore" because that is utter bullcrap.

Wow is too bad now today's standards, the developers are horrible at making the game and the story is literally just a recycled pile of trash. losing more than 1 million subs every 5-6 months is something that despite the low numbers wow has right now (less than 4m if we follow the drop curve) still happens and won't change because BLIZZARD can't make an MMO anymore.

Excusing wow's failure is just too naive, I'm sorry.

You are off your rocker if you think the game is at or below 4 million players. Is it at it's apex no, things are far too busy for that low of a number and there are still growth markets like South America.

[Volitar]

0 chance. Even if the next expansion becomes the best expansion beloved by all devoid of all problems still no.

[Kathranis]

Im sure a 'WoW 2' could get 13 million subberinos

Even the cream of the crop in modern MMOs have had trouble breaking 2 million subs. It's not the viable genre it once was, with competition coming from Steam and countless F2P games spanning many different genres, all of which cost way less to develop than a huge themepark MMO. Blizzard has nothing to gain from siphoning all of their resources into one giant project like WoW 2, which would essentially be doomed to fail (or at least would never live up to the expectations heaped upon it) when they could just keep releasing smaller titles like Hearthstone and Overwatch.


So, no, WoW will never see 13 million subscribers again. Even if they managed to release an expansion that was universally praised and appealed to every single player, there are too many people who have left for other games, and other types of games.

It also doesn't need to have 13 million subscribers. WoW's playerbase is going to shrink and level out to a strong centeral core that plays consistently, with other players who come and go as new content gets released. It should be able to continue being profitable and healthy for so long as Blizzard keeps supporting it with new content.

And, if WoW someday goes F2P, I'm sure the playerbase will skyrocket, and likely exceed 13 million players easily.

[Nuba]

You are off your rocker if you think the game is at or below 4 million players. Is it at it's apex no, things are far too busy for that low of a number and there are still growth markets like South America.

it was at 5 6 months ago, if you follow the curve it was when they were still announcing numbers its at about 3.9m right now.
They stop showing numbers during the same period stuff like "number of players doing pvp dropped 30% in horde and 50% in alliance" happens is just too rich, deny all you want: people are quitting the game by the millions at this point, and they'll just keep quitting because it sucks.

[Kathranis]

everyone please stop trying to excuse wows superior failureness and massive population drop by saying "people just dont want to play mmorpgs anymore" because that is utter bullcrap.

Name another P2P MMO on the market that currently has more than 2 million active subscribers.

[mickybrighteyes]

Nope. I don't think there are even that many people willing to play an MMO for any length of time. Or I should say not enough people wanting to play the way WoW is set up.

Yeah we could see a game match or surpass 13 million players... but it sure as hell won't be like WoW's 13mil time and definitely won't be a game looking or playing like wow does.

[Relapses]

everyone please stop trying to excuse wows superior failureness and massive population drop by saying "people just dont want to play mmorpgs anymore" because that is utter bullcrap.

Wow is too bad now today's standards, the developers are horrible at making the game and the story is literally just a recycled pile of trash. losing more than 1 million subs every 5-6 months is something that despite the low numbers wow has right now (less than 4m if we follow the drop curve) still happens and won't change because BLIZZARD can't make an MMO anymore.

Excusing wow's failure is just too naive, I'm sorry.

It's not "excusing WoW's failure." It's constructive reasoning. In fact, the only people who have warped ideology are the ones who continuously complain about how "Blizzard can't make a good MMO anymore," while simultaneously purporting the only "good MMO design" is one which coincidentally aligns itself with whatever arbitrary set a parameters you personally view as best.

Sorry, that's just not how this works. The very definition of hopeless naivety is somebody who believes a company with the kind of market representation and resources which Blizzard has is somehow so out of touch with its consumers that they intentionally design against them. The game changed over time. Deal with it. Don't wax nostalgic and pretend it was "better" in the past simply because you enjoyed it more then. That's an empty, vacuous argument which leads nowhere productive.

[mickybrighteyes]

Name another P2P MMO on the market that currently has more than 2 million active subscribers.

Why pay for them when there are numerous b2p or hell free to play alternatives that are just as good.

[Nuba]

Blizzard has is somehow so out of touch with its consumers that they intentionally design against them.

Yes, this is exactly what happens, I couldn't put it better myself.
You can't trust devs as blizzard devs are doing the shit they are doing to please their customers, they just do that because theyre lazy and because there are a few (not many nowadays, thankfully) that will still play due to raw addiction rather than enjoyment

[Barnabas]

Simple question, will WoW ever see 13 million subs again like it had in WoTLK?

Is there anything that Blizzard could do to get 13 million subs again?

Blizzard would have to start a new mmo on a new engine to see that again.

[Aigilas]

nope

/10char

[Relapses]

Yes, this is exactly what happens, I couldn't put it better myself.
You can't trust devs as blizzard devs are doing the shit they are doing to please their customers, they just do that because theyre lazy and because there are a few (not many nowadays, thankfully) that will still play due to raw addiction rather than enjoyment

You're clinically insane if you actually believe that's the case. This simplistic view of Blizzard's development team is exactly the reason they barely talk to the community. You're so incredibly biased the very concept of critical thinking is foreign to you.

On behalf of anybody able to form a rational, well-thought out opinion of this subject, I'm sorry people like you exist.

[derpkitteh]

if they'd bring back a lot of what made wotlk so good, they potentially could.

[Kathranis]

Dota 2 had 12.7m active players last month, how mad must Blizzard be right now. The shitty mod that poor people played who could not afford WoW, about to shit on their game.

WoW and Hearthstone are both still more profitable than Dota 2 by quite a bit. League of Legends is the most profitable online game in the world, though, followed by Crossfire and Dungeon & Fighter.

WoW is only the fourth most profitable online game in the world.