This is what happens when you casualise the game
WoW is "dying" in about the same way that a healthy 40 year old man is "dying."
the game was never going to live forever. and its finally reaching a point where its starting to get "old" (in both gameplay and tech, 8 years is a long time to be playing ANY game with regularity). it will probably lose numbers bit by bit from here on out. but ill start worrying about a lack of support on blizzards end when the game actually reaches numbers that aren't still largely unprecedented. in other words. lets save this inevitable "doomsday" conversation for another 3-4 years.
Please, dont be hating. I don't think you'll find any people on this board, who haven't done long grinds before. BUT having daylies as the ONLY option, that is where it went wrong.
PS; Exalted Argent Dawn inn classic wow, early 40 exalted title inn wotlk way before most people. What have you done inn wow? Again dont be hating.
Youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/djuntas ARPG - RTS - MMO
Expected. WoW is in a decline, and I'm saying that as someone that likes the game and has an active sub. It will never hit peak numbers again, and that's okay. It's not going anywhere.
This thread is hilarious. What does it matter I am still having fun on wow. Oh yer and 9.6 MILLION people are also having fun! It's coming towards the end of a patch and it will go back up in 5.2. 9.6 mil still puts it millions of people in front of any other mmo ever made.
Last edited by Airwaves; 2013-02-07 at 09:45 PM.
Aye mate
I don't argue that this is a downturn in the size of the player base but did all 500k leave from US & Europe? They didn't lose 1/4 of their market in either of those regions. Those 500k came from the 10,000,000 players around the globe. They lost 1/20th of their player base, not 1/4. Is it declining? I don't think so personally but everyone is welcome to their own opinion.
Oh no, only 9.6 million subs now... the game is doomed! Doomed!
I think its kinda equal parts sad, equal parts pathetic that some of you guys all but celebrate WoW (or some other game that's 'cool' to hate on) losing subs. Maybe you're bitter players of failed competitors like TOR, or maybe you're just the kind of selfish people who love hearing about a successful person losing some of their money on the stock market.
I mean, imagine being in college and having family or friends all just hawking you and waiting for the moment you fail, making forum posts about how terrible they expect your grades to be/etc. That's some of you guys.
But yeah, clearly WoW is dying /eyeroll. Just like it was dying in Cata, just like it was dying at the end of Wrath, blah blah blah. Man I wish I was at the helm of a 'dying' game with 9.6 million players.
I do not believe WoW will ever get down to 3 million players -- the folks running the business expect it to perform better than that, and my expectation is that if it ever got below, say, 6 million players, they'd begin the process of shutting it down. "If we can't be completely stinking rich, what's the point of doing anything at all?"
(The exception I see would be if Blizzard could do what Harmonix did and re-privatize, undoing various acquisitions. But I'm not so sure they're in a position to do that. I think they're being treated more like "Guitar Hero" and less like "Rock Band", if you follow my thinking.)
The 'magic' and 'soul' of WoW died a while ago in my opinion, and the game is has been in decline for a while. Everything that gave World of Warcraft that special 'online world' feel and that really harnessed the potential of closely formed online communities has been brushed aside in the name consumerism and convenience. A realm community used to be an awesome social group, you knew a load of people and a load of people knew and recognised you. You'd log on not for the daily grind but just to play with your online buddies. Now people barely know each other unless they go out of their way, and you just get randomly assigned to a random group with random people and that is supposed to simulate the enjoyment and comradeship of yesteryear. Well I'm sorry Blizzard - but it doesn't even come close. I for one see no reason to pay a subscription when I can just buy an offline RPG which is just as good and doesn't try to pretend to be massively multiplayer.
9.6 million is a complete scam and a lie.
They should not count the chinese who do not have subscription models like everyone else. If a chinese plays 1 hour in a year, and pays $0.01 to do so to blizzard, that hardly counts as a subscription.
I wish they would stop trying to mislead the market and tell us how many europe and north american subscriptions they have, because that is what should be compared to other MMOs. Dont get me wrong, I love WoW, but it does not need more credit then it deserves, it already hogs the spot light almost entirely.
How many of those accounts are 2nd accounts and 3rd? I know just from promotions / RAF / SoR I have 4 to my name, 2 active. Many people in my guild are the same. How many of these are unique players? How many in North America and Europe.
The NA region has ~230 servers. It could easily be reduced to 90, and should. A lot of people should play WoW, but they're spread out to when the game was at its peak of its popularity in Wrath and they needed to spread players to lighten server load in ICC. It's three years later. WoW is far smaller.