WoW stabilizes over 10M subscribers, down 100k in Q4 2011

[Pancaspe]

Well you were all correct. Blizzard is bleeding subs. At the current rate of 100,000 per quarter WOW subs will equal TOR's in a little over 20 YEARS.

[Hunterpower]

only 100k? now will the ****ing people who quit because they got bored and went to a new mmo stop saying wow is gonna die? that was driving me nuts.Good to see wow is stabilizing, and will probably grow back up to a good 11 mil, (maybe) when mop comes out with new stuff.

[Descense]

Add a milion of anual passes .

[Faldric]

Annual Pass and an overhyped patch....and they still lost subscriptions....I would hardly call that "stabilize"

[Autofollow]

So blizzard lost 1.8 million bad players that didnt like the changes and couldnt handle them in cata? Good!

Why do people always have to label it "bad players" and leave it at that? Is it possible that they just didn't enjoy the content? Is it possible that they moved on to other games? What is it that makes them "bad" because they decided to quit?

[Into]

And this is the final nail in the coffin for the hardcores who wanted Burning Crusade 2.0. Granted the Xmas season helped but LFR has been a massive success despite how controversial it has been amongst the raiders. Making heroics take 15 min again with fast queues for casuals and adding a super easy raiding mode has softened the blow for Blizzard. We can argue all day what WoW should be, but these numbers and this last year show that WotLK is really where this game should have gone toward to show growth, not go back to a ancient Everquest type model. All that bruhaha talk, all that "lets make epics matter again", all that elitism during Cataclysm beta has been showned to appeal to a minor audience Its 2012, the days of telling people to "raid or die" is over, LFR was just what this game needed whether we like it or not, numbers do not lie.

[peggleftw]

4.3 comes out, nice easy content for casuals, subscribers stay! who would have guessed?MoP better be nice and casual friendly unless blizzards wants to "stabilize" at 8.2m subs next year

even 8million is a very impressive number of subs, not as good as it once was, but far more than any other mmo i think.

[lyxx]

Yeah patch 4.3 and annual pass - now let's wait for Q1 2012 it will be slaughter especially after D3 delayed to Q2 2012 - nice to know that "early 2012" means middle 2012r.

[schippie]

Yay! The shit did not hit the wall! Seriously im quite happy it shows how much you try wow is still going strong and will have a longer breath then all the doomsayers would like. Sorry but i cant resist this:In your face Haters!

[WoWFlame]

Well to me this is good news. 100k subscriptions compared to the past three quarters. Hopefully those are players that whine about change and complain about things they don't get. Hopefully in the next couple of months till Mist of Pandaria, we get some more players that will actually have fun with the things they receive instead of complain about it.

[Herecius]

Fabricated information.

Considering that would be a felony, I'd hope there's something to back up that sort of accusation...

[Chipper]

FINANCIAL HIGHLIGHTS
- CY 2011 EPS Grows by More than 17% Establishing New Company Record
- Company Achieves Record GAAP and Non-GAAP Operating Margins of 28% and 30%
- Company Generates Nearly $1 Billion in Operating Cash Flow
- Company Announces new $1 Billion Stock Repurchase Program
- Company Announces 9% Increase in Cash Dividend to $0.18 per Common Share
- Company Expects 2012 GAAP EPS of $0.63 and Non-GAAP EPS of $0.94
BUSINESS HIGHLIGHTS
- #1 Third-Party Interactive Entertainment Digital Publisher in U.S. and Europe in 2011
- Digital Revenues of $1.6 Billion Accounted for More than 34% of Total Revenues in 2011
- Call of Duty®: Modern Warfare® 3 was #1 Best-Selling Game for 2011
- Skylanders Spyro's Adventure™ was #1 Kids Video Game for 2011 with 20+ Million Toys Sold
- Call of Duty Elite Has 7+ Million Registered Users Including 1.5+ Million Annual Premium Members as of 1/31/12
- Blizzard Entertainment's World of Warcraft® Remains #1 Subscription-based MMORPG with Approximately 10.2 Million Subscribers as of 12/31/11


Basically, MW3 set record profits for the company while WoW slumped lower. But the company as a whole is in fantastic shape and WoW continues with it's fat 'n healthy 10mil subscription base. The status quo continues. Carry on.

[bigjohnburger]

The only reason these numbers are so low is because they tricked the dumb player base of wow into buying that year round plan which includes diablo 111. I love watching how stupid most people are on the forums .

In other words, wow would probably be down another million subscribers.

[Vayshan]

Considering that would be a felony, I'd hope there's something to back up that sort of accusation...

I'm off to make popcorn, I can't wait to see his proof.

[Into]

Making content available for the majority, giving the entire playerbase options and not forcing a ancient Everquest/Classic WoW type MMO on them has SHOCKINGLY shown to be a great way to stabilize subs, what a shocker..? I am not sure how raiders that were yelling that LFR would kill this game will handle this news, as it simply stomps all over their arguments. Their desire for a more hardcore MMO died the day Cataclysm failed. There can be no arguments or doubt how Mists of Pandaria should be now

[matters]

Not really going to affect me in the least, when my chat box is not in a constant state of spam while in trade chat on Illidan then i will begin to worry.

Although i guess this is good news.

[citrique]

The annual pass is hardly a "trick", they are just gambling that D3's real money AH will be where the profit for them is, with the game itself as a loss leader.

[Auguine]

Moon Guard is still extremely populated, hundreds in trade at all times of the day.

[Artravus]

The thing is, the release of 4.3 supplemented the numbers. People are going to get tired of WoW between now and MoP, so there is NO WAY that the subscriber numbers will be stable in the coming months. Also I don't know why people think that losing 100k subscribers is a good thing. Key word: losing.

[dokilar]

this is not the quarter i would really be worried about. in all actuality i wouldnt be worried period, if im playing a game, having fun and enjoying it, i dont care how many other people are playing it so long as that number doesnt affect my gaming. that being said the game got old for me over a year ago and ive moved on and am enjoying playing other games. however like i said, there are always going to be doomsday people screaming that the sky is falling and this is not the quarter i would be worried about. 1st quarter and 2nd quarter of this year will be the ones to watch for. id predict 1st quarter will see some more declines (unless mop is released) due to 4.3 being out for quite some time and people unsubbing to save some cash. however the 2nd quarter (dependent on mop release of course) will be the one to watch for to see if any subs are gained. again let me emphasize however that none of this should matter to normal people. if youre enjoying playing a game then things like this shouldnt and probably wont bother you. the game will most likely stay profitable with only a sub number of 500k so barring any major catastrophes the game is going to be around for awhile