Is WoW 'losing' more players than normal?

[TechnoKronic]

I doubt they bothre to count the number of subs that were cancelled, but eventually returned after brief hiatuses.
Like myself, I tend to take a few months off here and there when I know im not going to be playing as often as I use too.
Just a method to save money, although I know have the annual pass.
As much as I enjoy the perks, there are times I wish i could stall my sub when I become burdened with work and school, leaving me no time to play =[

[melodramocracy]

MoP is a move towards attracting players that haven't played this game before. And rightly so, from a business point of view, because a game this old is going to eventually have turnover no matter what.... be it from other games, or folks who just don't want to play MMOs anymore, etc.

So the options are, try to hang onto the playerbase who is getting older, or broaden your appeal, and try to reel in new, younger players who'd be more likely to stick around for a while.

[Skytotem]

Just less people playing in general due to the economy and whatnot.

[WreakingHavoc]

WoW population will be mostly in decline in the coming years. People are getting tired or have other more important things to do in RL.
Still it lost only 100k last quarter which is pretty amazing.

[shewkoi]

The problem with GW2 though is that it's highly different, buy to play (people often have something against games without sub fee) and that there's tons of worry about it even before it's even out. I will be playing both (you don't need 12 hours a day to play more than 1 game, and GW2 is made for none-grind progress) and I'm sure I'm not alone thinking that way.

What I meant was, if people really love GW2 they are going to spend most of their time there. Just like any new, good mmo, you get hooked and the hours just fly by. After said hours fly by, I doubt very many people will then go; 'well, 8 hours straight on GW2, think I'll take a break and raid in wow for 3 more'.

[mvallas]

Blizzard seem pretty unfazed that their numbers are down and they seem to be gearing towards getting more new players to join instead of keeping the old[/B]

This sentence is a total contradiction...

First off:
Blizzard seem pretty unfazed that their numbers are down...

Ummm... no. They clearly ARE phased by it. Blatantly so. With an Annual Pass that gives you a mount, pet, MoP Beta Access and a free Diablo III, and with 4.3 adding Transmog (something Blizz has, until now, said was something they didn't want to do), Void Storage, Wrath-style difficulty/speed dungeons, LFR and Darkmoon faire. It's VERY obvious that they're VERY concerned about the loss as they've RADICALLY done a 180 on their entire Cataclysm philosophy...

Secondly:
they seem to be gearing towards getting more new players to join instead of keeping the old...

Again, I don't see this. I think it helps if I boil it down for you in a simpler way to understand what Blizz is thinking.

Wrath: People complained it was too easy, but apparently stayed anyways and even grew the size of the audience.
Cataclysm: People complained it was too hard, and apparently left because of it.

Blizzard is probably thinking exactly what happened with Wrath. Hardcore complained it was too easy (Uh huh... Heroic raids too easy? right..) and yet, they still stayed subscribed. Cata comes out, and BLAM - subs start massively falling. Cata comes out in China after a record subs - BLAM - subs start massively falling.

Sorry to say it, but it seems that Blizz is MORE interested in keeping their current customers happy, while trying to attract the previous people who have left prior BACK to the game by adjusting the game towards more of what they wanted.

[Idontlikeyou]

Its not losing more than normal, its just not gaining more than normal. People quit all the time. Getting people to play is a whole other story. Look at what they introduced in the last few years. Its to gain players.

[IsaacM]

The fact that it still has 10 million subscribers 7 years after release shows that it's still the strongest video game title in the world.

[Suizid]

What exactly is this "normal"? I don't think you can compare about how much WoW was losing subs at first year and this year. There's a lot of players that have played over 7 years and it's just natural that some of them quits. Some quarters just happen to have more of those than others. So no, I don't think WoW is losing more subs than normally.

[Kevyne-Shandris]

Even if it drops 5 million subs it's still the MMO that has the most subs...

Most subs, but players are used to a certain lifestyle those subs can offer -- like not waiting 3hrs to even get a dungeon at end-game.

When more leave it'll trickle down in everything that is done in the game, and the real loss of community will be felt.

Vanilla didn't have over 250 servers to divide the community. Today it does. Each realm will feel the pinch, and when that happens folks get upset and look for a popular multiplayer game that is "on demand" for them.

We live in this "on demand" world now, even catered to it.

[asharia]

the rate of change of sub loss is actually negative

in other words, they stemmed the flow over the last year


ignoring the fact that the DS patch was timed perfectly to buff sub numbers right at the end of Q4 2011

[Ianus]

When they have gave me 7 days free to play in email after 2 months not playing.. i think they lose more then they actually say...

[Necrolepsy]

There isn't the slightest chance of that happening. The majority of people leaving WoW this year will go undoubtedly to GW2.

That's what they say about every future MMO. Truth is not everyone will flock to one MMO, especially GW2- Hint, it's Asian style and business strategy will shun a large playerbase and not generate enough revenue for quick content patches with enough content.

[RAWRF]

No, lots of people always quit at the end of an expansion and they generally all return for the beginning of the next. This has been true for every expansion to date.

[melodramocracy]

Just less people playing in general due to the economy and whatnot.

Consumer spending is up, and has been for a while now. While the video game industry has seen a bit of a hit across the board, I don't think the overall economy is something to pin sub numbers on.

[m00t]

One problem I had, a few friends of mine and I'm sure many others have had, is the problem of old/crappy hardware.
I bought a laptop in 2010 and was like 'OMAGAWD i3 PROCESSOR!, THIS CAN RUN WOW ULTRA NO PROBELMS!'. But after a while it couldn't even run at all without me getting terrible framerate drops during raids, especially 25-man raids with everything at lowest settings. I tried everything to sort out this problem.
And then I found out that it was because my computer was just a load of crap... limited fan space lead to overheating, chipset GFX instead of an actual card and the fact I didn't even know that there were different types of i3 processors was the full reason for this. Now sometimes I wish I had chosen a desktop, but I'm going to have finished building my fairly well spec computer before the end of this month and I'll be able to play WoW on ultra no problem. It's all nice because now I can have my laptop next to my computer and I'll have 2 computers instead of the sub-standard desktop I would still be using had I chosen back then instead of a laptop.
So yes, people are leaving. But I think if some of it isn't due to boredom of the game, but instead (like me) due to the fact they aren't able to run it on awful hardware.

[Mammoth]

Video game sales are down 1/3 this year. WoW is doing pretty well considering.

[wg15]

We'll see in a year....

That's not a threat, that's me saying Star Wars Galaxies died at age 8, let's see what WoW is in a year and judge success based on that.

And? Swtor for example lost half of his playerbase in 1 month. That means, if WoW dies, the MMORPG market will be dead or only with minor and overall really bad games.

[Brett Skullcrack]

ignoring the fact that the DS patch was timed perfectly to buff sub numbers right at the end of Q4 2011

You can't ignore that fact. Look at activity numbers from the game, there was a large bump in December due to a content patch and holidays. That bump died away quickly and the activity returned back to its previous downward trend. The 100k loss does not reflect the real trend and we'll see the real combined hit of Q4 2011 and Q1 2012 in a few months.

[RadmaKanow]

And there is another thing that bothers me. Why do people are so bothered about WoW player base? How does it really impact you.

So now WoW has slighly over 10M people. Sure, there is competition growing that can suck off a chunk of that count. So what? Does it please someone's ego that he plays the game that have the biggest subscription rate among other MMOs? Or maybe the reason lies in the fact that WoW is 7 years old and still it cannot be beaten by modern MMOs?

Why it is so important to discuss all over again about loss/gains of subscriptions literally almost every patch? It feels like a bunch of vultures sitting and watching old-yet-alive target and waiting for its death. Is it now or we just need to wait a bit longer.

I am aware that rapid loss of subscriptions can impact heavily on server populations hence economy and enjoyment as there will be less and less people to play. Heck, we observe it even today as people sends pleas to Blizz to merge dying/unbalanced servers. With massive loss it would be rather common sight.

But as for today, WoW is present in every continent. There are 10 Million people who play the game. And I'd dare to say that even as spread fluctuations as 20% wouldn't do much damage for WoW as a game.

But every patch (and not even x-pac) people recently started to create discussions over WoW condition. Like they feel it's just right time for WoW to pass away because of old age. Meh, StarCraft 1 is even older and it still have its own loyal and active community.

So I predict that the same may be with WoW some day. It will drop to steady 2-5M subscriptions. But not today and not tomorrow. I believe that WoW has at lest 3 more years of being the top MMO.

Only time will tell.