Activision Blizzard: Conference Call Q2 2012

[Mozu]

Numbers are out. Down 1.1 mill - 9.1 subscribers. 25% loss of subs during Cataclysm.

Considering the low intrest in MOP... maybe WOW will go F2P sooner than we think...

WoW isn't going f2p any time soon, and more than that, the numbers right now don't really matter. It's the report after MoP that matters.

[Serpenth]

Holy shit. That is a lot.

[Duridi]

Holy crap, that is a a ton more than I expected. I actually thought they had stagnated even though it's the end of the expansion.

[LocNess]

Numbers are out. Down 1.1 mill - 9.1 subscribers. 25% loss of subs during Cataclysm.

Considering the low intrest in MOP... maybe WOW will go F2P sooner than we think...

At 9.1 million? Hahaha hell no. They are still making bank because 9.1 million people are willing to pay monthly for it. I don't think F2P would happen until it dropped sub 2 million.

[VgerAN]

Well *I'm* still playing. Every night I get on and do my transmute! Oh and every time the Darkmoon Faire comes to town I turn in the Soothsayer's Runes quest.

That's about it.

[Nihth]

Holy hell, 1,1mill in 1 quarter?!

[ZehGeek]

Numbers are out. Down 1.1 mill - 9.1 subscribers. 25% loss of subs during Cataclysm.

Considering the 'low intrest' in MOP... maybe WOW will go F2P sooner than we think...

Can't really judge the whole scope of things via the vocal minority of internet websites. Plus Dragon Soul's been out for 9 months now I think..the same content for that long, specialy getitng progessivley easier, natural people'll wanna stop till there's new content.

WoW isn't going f2p any time soon, and more than that, the numbers right now don't really matter. It's the report after MoP that matters.

Exactly. It's pretty obvious if you were there at the start of Cata, that there was ALOT more stuff planned and alot more connectivity..then it turned into from defeating some bad guys at home, to killing Rag, to killing DW, with a small Troll problem on the side. No War of the Ancients, no Vashj raid, no smaller and quicker patches that they promised. Once we get over that hurdle, things'll be alot better.

[Tziva]

Well, that's more than I expected, but I guess maybe my expectations were not realistic with it being the end of the expansion and in particular being that the end of the expansion raid is Dragonsoul.

[Pann]

Ouch! I thought that player activity was at a low but many had remained subbed whilst waiting MOP but I never expected losses to this high.

[prankstar]

the numbers are along the lines of what i expected. but this means nothing at all i will wait till the Q3 earnings come out where i expect wow to go back to around 11 million subs possibly more

[Scummer]

It's actually kinda shocking how many subs Cata has managed to bleed off of WoW at this point.

Personally I can see MoP bounce it back up to 10.5 mill as there will always be a significant amount of people who just got tired of Cata and left and then let WoW gather dust until MoP. Anything more than that is a plus, although I believe if the content is handled correctly this time around we may see it rise back to 11 million. Wrath was always partly popular because WoW was seen as this massive and rapidly growing game and so a lot of people joined it, now that this growth has stopped and is in decline we won't see those numbers again until another expansion down the line aslong as MoP goes flawlessly.

[Crazyjoe]

I am very suprised, i thought the numbers would remain constant, everyone bitches about BC being too hard yet sub numbers just kept going up even towards the end of the xpac. I dont get it, LFR was a great thing added to the game.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/wo...1-million-mark --I mean this a month before WOTLK and it had 11 million subs.

[TJ]

Holy crap, much more than I expected, really am shocked. Can't say they don't deserve it though :P

[Duridi]

Does anyone remember how big their losses have been right before a new expansion in the past?

[Deleted]

Commence everyone pretending that subscriber levels drop at the end of every expansion, in 3, 2, 1...

Spoiler for the next 20 pages: It's not true. No previous expansion ever lost a big number of subscribers, even during the boring period of ICC or BT. At worst they stabilized or lost 100k or so.

Blizzard has some real thinking to do if they want to undo this mess. 1.1 million subscribers lost is massive especially since the annual pass is still going.

[Marston]

Oh no, people I don't know stopped playing!

Well, if I didn't have the annual pass, I would also pause till MoP, because the only thing I do at the moment is going online once or maybe twice a week and clear dragonsoul HC. Yeah, totally awesome.

Then again, I am eagerly awaiting MoP and I don't want to spoil much on te beta (only did a few quests and read through the dungeon journals).

[Finnio]

holy fuck thats a lot of subs lost

[Deadanon]

MoP looked better then cata halfway through beta, The interest will probably go up, But even if it drops at this rate, you look at a few years before #'s like star wars to actually go F2p

Thats simply not true- Intrest in MOP is incredably low. Youtube channels and TwichTV show very low intrest in watching vids compared to Cata. Im playing Beta and even tho htere are quite a few ppl - the intrest is just soo low. The game feels and looks stale and childish.

[Deleted]

Meh, I expect the Subs to rise in MoP. I'm a tad surprised by the massive decline but DS has been on the go a fair while.. so.. meh. It happens.
MoP looks to be better than Cataclysm by a mile, judging by the Beta anyway..

No matter which way you paint it, still around 9.1 Mil active subs, they are miles from F2P, it's not a small number so I don't understand where the logic is coming from that 9.1Mil people paying a monthly sub would make the game go F2P, not a hope. Maybe when they're down to 1.5 -2 mil it would be considered.

[Zaelsino]

well 8+ months of no new content isnt very fun :/

Indeed. I doubt they were expecting much else.