WoW Down to 9.6 Million Subscribers

[Celista]

Oh come on! So many haters here! It's only 500k subscribers down quarterly for the past year.

What side are you on? Because 1. you mention the haters which makes me think you're on the pro-wow side, but then 2. you emphasize QUARTERLY which only serves to highlight that wow lost 500k subs in 3 months rather than 12 months...

[Aevic]

I'd actually play MoP again if they had some kind of F2P option. As WoW is right now being an 8 year old game with a great amount of content. I still can't warrant paying money for it. I quit after Cata to come back now would cost me $45 bucks. 30 for MoP and 15 for one month (wait come to think of it you can only buy a card from a store in 2 months so we'll make it 60 bucks. I'm not rich but I'm not poor either. I can't warrant paying 60 bucks up front for a game that's 8 years old (occupied all of 8 of my years). I love WoW dearly but the cost is against me. Not to mention that my guild I played with moved to another server. That's another 25 bucks out of my pocket... So 85 bucks to come back and play an 8 year old game... I'll stick to GW2, SWTOR, and my XBL. (Before anyone says it XBL is 60 bucks A YEAR.) I can definitely afford that.

As soon as they do another Scroll of Resurrection like they did in Cata that allows me to XFER to a friends server and all that stuff. I'm on board. I think a lot of people are in the same place as I am with the cost. WoW is a great game. Hell it's one of the best MMO's I've ever played but it's not worth the money being asked. Many free games have shown that you can make a great game with a lot of content without a sub fee. That's not to say I want it removed, a lowered cost would be great. After 8 years, it just seems right to me. (shrug)

I fear the game will continue to decline though as many Annual passes will be up and there isn't much incentive for people to re-sub.

[Aevic]

I'd actually play MoP again if they had some kind of F2P option. As WoW is right now being an 8 year old game with a great amount of content. I still can't warrant paying money for it. I quit after Cata to come back now would cost me $45 bucks. 30 for MoP and 15 for one month (wait come to think of it you can only buy a card from a store in 2 months so we'll make it 60 bucks. I'm not rich but I'm not poor either. I can't warrant paying 60 bucks up front for a game that's 8 years old (occupied all of 8 of my years). I love WoW dearly but the cost is against me. Not to mention that my guild I played with moved to another server. That's another 25 bucks out of my pocket... So 85 bucks to come back and play an 8 year old game... I'll stick to GW2, SWTOR, and my XBL. (Before anyone says it XBL is 60 bucks A YEAR.) I can definitely afford that.

As soon as they do another Scroll of Resurrection like they did in Cata that allows me to XFER to a friends server and all that stuff. I'm on board. I think a lot of people are in the same place as I am with the cost. WoW is a great game. Hell it's one of the best MMO's I've ever played but it's not worth the money being asked. Many free games have shown that you can make a great game with a lot of content without a sub fee. That's not to say I want it removed, a lowered cost would be great. After 8 years, it just seems right to me. (shrug)

I fear the game will continue to decline though as many Annual passes will be up and there isn't much incentive for people to re-sub.

[Howdyho]

What side are you on? Because 1. you mention the haters which makes me think you're on the pro-wow side, but then 2. you emphasize QUARTERLY which only serves to highlight that wow lost 500k subs in 3 months rather than 12 months...

Makes one also wonder why they didn't use the latest figures, such as february 1st subscriber amount. I doubt it has nothing to do with a huge dive in subscriber numbers since december!

[alkyd]

Very interesting graph there. By following it, we can safely estimate that the Western subscriptions (EU + US) are now around 3-3.5 millions. Not that impressive, considering that GW2 released only on the Western market so far (EU + US) and already sold more than 3 millions copies, with active concurrent players on the servers steadily increasing after launch (there was a developer statement recently about that). This means that within the Western world WoW is still the most popular MMO, but not by a great margin. After all, we are in February and Blizzard has still to release its SECOND content patch for MoP, while during the same timeframe others MMOs FREE of subscription fee released much more content.

I get it, many people still play WoW because they are attached to it, they are expert at playing it, they have friends in it. But as a matter of fact it is an old game which asks for money every month and offers less content than free games for it: with new free MMOs on the horizon, if Blizzard doesn't change it's approach, the decline is inevitable.
Unfortunately the players who are bliding defending Blizzard ongoing approach are just contributing to that decline. You should be rather questioning them and pushing them to offer you more. But you don't. That's sad for this once wonderful and unparalled game...

As if like EU and US are all that matters for gaming industries?

Nevertheless, if that graph is correct, imagine how successfully WoW competes with Asian MMOs with 6 million player base in Asia. It's not only #1 game in EU and US, it's #1 in Asia. Has any other MMORPG achieved this result?

Anyway, if GW2 sold 3 million copies, it doesn't mean that all 3 million players continued to play. I was one of those who bought GW2 but I went back playing WoW. I am sure there are millions of players who followed my path.

And no, no game can beat WoW in the amount of content. Yes, WoW has an advantage for being older MMO game. But if some free MMO game does somehow manage to release more content, then there is a saying "Quality not quantity". Quality of the content in WoW is way better than other MMOs in the market.

In your place, I would rather appraise WoW for holding its ground for so many years despite being one of the oldest MMO games. People don't go back to WoW because they are "attached" or "have friends". No, they had come back, are and will be coming back to WoW because of the gameplay, combat, classes, spells and again content.

Once popular MMO games such as UO and Lineage have eventually "died". So if considering your logic that gamers come back to WoW simply because of "attachement" and "friends", then how come those MMOs player base eventually dropped? They also once had loyal players with friends.


So in conclusion, if WoW still manages to be #1 MMORPG in the WORLD, then Blizzard developers are doing something right and know better what they want from the game than all of us WoW players together.

[Amonthar]

I have been debating about canceling my sub when the annual pass is up. I have played a Warlock since vanilla and do not like the changes to Destro or Demo at all. I actually have come to despise my favorite class. I swapped to a tank main this expansion but leveled the Warlock anyways.
I do not like the reputation being attached to valor gear along with dailies being the sole source for some rep, just me.
Diablo 3 was a huge letdown. The worst itemization for a loot based game I have ever seen. The true story for how well that game is actually liked will be told by how well the expansion sells. I had over 50 people on my friend's list and when I finally stopped it has three active players left.

[Akka]

Early after Cata launch it was talked about in an interview to someone high up in Blizzard that WoW was no longer bringing in as many new players to offset the losses and that going forward that they would need to be focusing more on player retention.

Mike Morhaime just made a statement that the playerbase is more ready to leave and that they have made changes in MoP that are directed in keeping players engaged in the game and faster content patches to keep them occupied.

Seems like the long-term problems have finally started to overtake the short-term gains of designing the game for quick bucks.

One possibility is that Blizzard has turned off and disgusted a lot of long-term players since the WotLK-era, by dumbing down the game and removing any kind of involvement and investment. And now they are left with a much more casual fanbase, which was much easier to gain, but is much harder to keep.

just about where i was expecting the numbers to be. i honestly was expecting anything other than a 500k swing in either direction. WoW's heyday is long past and has been for awhile. people will claim that other people who claim WoWs heyday was BC are just wearing rose colored tinted glasses but i really believe its the truth. it was a time period in which i had the most fun out of just about any game ive ever played.

Same here.
As a rule, if you explained why you prefered a previous design, you can consider anyone using "it's nostalgia" counter as a complete retard.

[kazso]

Makes one also wonder why they didn't use the latest figures, such as february 1st subscriber amount.

Because this was the Q4 2012 financial report of Activision-Blizzard, which ended on December 31st (http://investor.activision.com/results.cfm).

[RockStedy]

Diablo 3 at #1 best selling PC game? A simple google check would show that that's not true at all.

I thought The Sims 2 was still the best selling PC game of all time. With over 21 million or something...could be wrong, this was a while back. Wikipedia time!

[DiGG]

I bet dailys killed those subs. It was overkill realy.

Bliz is adding a bunch more come 5.2.

[Tempeste]

Nevertheless, if that graph is correct, imagine how successfully WoW competes with Asian MMOs with 6 million player base in Asia. It's not only #1 game in EU and US, it's #1 in Asia. Has any other MMORPG achieved this result?

Most MMOs do not have an Asian market on top of a EU/US market. WoW is not the #1 MMO in Asia, and it is not the #1 MMO in the West. But combined, it makes it the #1 MMO in the world. But I don't know about you, but this doesn't really matter to me considering I can't play with Asia or EU. The NA population is only around 1.7 million, which is nothing compared to a lot of MMO populations in NA. People think WoW is successful because they only look at the combined population numbers, if other MMOs sold their game all over the world, I'm sure they'd also have inflated population numbers, as well.

[McNeil]

I don't think WoW will ever actually gain subs again, unless its a brand new expansion that gets released. Like with MoP's case.

The game is getting older and older, while a lot of new and better quality games are getting released. Eventually WoW cannot compete anymore

[Flimsy]

I don't think WoW will ever actually gain subs again, unless its a brand new expansion that gets released. Like with MoP's case.

The game is getting older and older, while a lot of new and better quality games are getting released. Eventually WoW cannot compete anymore

Yet these new and better games are in a much worst state than wow and are struggling to even hold a subscription based model forcing them to go F2P.

There's nothing on the market even close to taking the number 1 spot after seeing 2 of the biggest MMO's to be released in recent times (GW2 and Star Wars TOR) make little to no impact in the genre I cant see anything in the foreseeable future making a difference to MMO's in general.

WoW will be the best and dominant MMO until Blizzard release 'project Titan' that game already has millions of subscribers before anything is even announced because it's got the Blizzard tag.

[Osmeric]

There's nothing on the market even close to taking the number 1 spot after seeing 2 of the biggest MMO's to be released in recent times (GW2 and Star Wars TOR) make little to no impact in the genre I cant see anything in the foreseeable future making a difference to MMO's in general.

Pretty soon, people will just stop trying. That won't be a terribly positive sign for Wow, though.

[Jtbrig7390]

Yet these new and better games are in a much worst state than wow and are struggling to even hold a subscription based model forcing them to go F2P.

There's nothing on the market even close to taking the number 1 spot after seeing 2 of the biggest MMO's to be released in recent times (GW2 and Star Wars TOR) make little to no impact in the genre I cant see anything in the foreseeable future making a difference to MMO's in general.

WoW will be the best and dominant MMO until Blizzard release 'project Titan' that game already has millions of subscribers before anything is even announced because it's got the Blizzard tag.

The thing is not all of these MMO release's are trying to be number 1.

As for guild wars 2 it is doing great most servers are ether high or full in pop.

Its the same model GW1 had but will be releasing more content over time then GW1 "it already has"

Tons of mmorpg's are going F2p+Sub or outright f2p/B2p due to the fact it can make them more money.

if your MMO has 100k subs and u go f2p and it jumps up to 600k that is 500k new players who may sub or buy from the cash shop and good chance yous till got the orginal 100k paying for there sub.


A MMORPG dose not need 9 million or even 1 million subs to be a great game and to release content.

Rift may have under 1million subs and tron is pumping out more content then wow and releasing 3 other games along with a TV show.

WOW is different because it has 9.6mil subs but also that sub number will effect wow because blizzard wants the most high number it can get.

There is not a MMO that will release that will kill wow but what is hurting it is 4 things.

1.The MMO market is way more huge then it was 8 years ago and there is a lot more choice.
2.The Slow rate blizzard release's content and a few choice's they have made since MOP Like CRZ and the daily quest grind and gating raids so its "new" cotnent.
3.The amount of MMORPGS that is F2p/B2p is huge now so why pay 15$ a month when you can have a one time pay of 60$ for a MMO or just outright play one for free without ever spending a dime. some of these mmo's u can even grind the cash shop money to buy stuff in it and never spend 1 cent on the game.

4. Wow's age is taking its toll.

[Deadraline]

I knew there would be a decline in players. I myself quit last month as did my husband. We just got tired of the grind mostly and decided to move back to console gaming and maybe some other computer games we can play together that aren't as grindy. If blizzard improves it then that will be nice, but I have been playing since vanilla and in all honesty am tired of the "gear up...then a new xpac is released a few months later so you get to do it again!" What really got me this time was the leveling speed. I don't mind it so much as in the time it takes for my first and maybe even second level 90...and it did get a little faster purely because I knew the quests/less competition for kills etc. But I just feel that after a while it became too much of a grind for most of my alts that I just didn't feel like doing it. Cata leveling wasn't much better either for that matter, but they at least had the level 85 heirloom to make it a little more tolerable...no level 90 heirloom kinda sucks.

I think blizzard is taking the focus out of fun and putting too much into "things to do"...having a lot to do does not make a game fun. Just because a game can keep me busy for hours on end (I had to dedicate nearly 3-5 hours a night to do everything I could have normally done in maybe 1 and a half hours to no more than 3 back in cata). The fact I work made this a little more difficult. I like to progress, meaning I wanted to valor cap every week and get good gear and do my weekly LFR's and all that...plus I needed to get reps up so I could get the recipes for my professions...(I never did finish all the rep grinding because I just got so sick of daily quests that I felt sick when I would log on).

I am by no means hardcore, but not even really casual. I am somewhere in between where I could dedicate maybe 4-5 nights a week to the game...but then I wanted to take 2-3 nights a week doing other things. I liked being able to come home from work, play the game, but on my days off I liked going to the movies and stuff. Sadly, my guild wanted to progress through raids so I tried dedicating more time to them and well...it didn't work out so well for my nerves and I just got sick of the game I had been playing since I was 17...and that's when I realized I'm not 17 anymore. I don't have as much time as I used to to dedicate to this game. And so I quit. I doubt I will be back ever.

It makes me sad to hear they lost so many people, but I honestly feel like other people feel the same way as I do and they just don't have time anymore. I look at other MMORPG's that have better graphics, better UI's, systems, etc. that SHOULD be beating WoW (they just don't have a big enough fan base behind them) and I honestly feel like blizzard is screwing us out of a good experience. I seen a blue post earlier and it had some pics of Blizzard (like the building and what all it has)...it looks like a resort. I can't help but feel like as hard as they say they work on improving the games look etc that it could have been done but they choose to spend the money elsewhere...nothing wrong with having a nice relaxing environment at work...I mean I wish my job had a work out room, shiny cafeteria, volley ball, basketball, lake, relaxing views, a game room with pool, a theater etc. I am sure the employees there are happy. And it's great a company can provide for their employees like that, especially in our economy...

They also claim to have the capability of upgrading but they like the cartoony graphics as part of the games charm. Sometimes when I read blue posts I don't feel like they care so much anymore about the customer. Their customer service has gone downhill the past couple of years. I never used to hear anyone complain, but lately I have seen people petition for a ticket, and the issue they were asking about wasn't even addressed...instead they get some other answer that had nothing to do with their petition...which shows it's all automated or the people responding just don't bother reading and assume it's about something else. I've also had to deal with them over the phone where I get nothing resolved but can't resolve the issue online and I get put in a ring running around until someone finally talks to me that has a clue.

All of those things will lead to the game to lose subs. I am interested to see how subs will hold when The Elder Scrolls online is released...that game has a lot of fans and the company Bethesda has not been known to make bad games. The game looks beautiful and it's like a breath of fresh air for many I am sure to see it. Blizzard needs to get their heads out of the clouds that they are and will be top dogs forever...because other game companies that seem to care most about the players experience and providing the player with fun, not just time sinks, are going to start emerging. These companies watch what players say they want in a game and are willing to provide it. They see peoples biggest complaints about WoW and are going to do everything in their power to not bring the same experience in their games while taking all the good aspects they can and either making them better or keeping them the same just in a new way so players will feel familiar with the game and have something new and maybe a little easier to deal with.

If things don't change with the way blizz is running the game they will lose more people. That is just a fact. It may not happen fast and it may take time. But when new games start getting released and the buzz starts popping up people will turn their heads from WoW...people crave change even if they don't realize it right now. And it may not be The Elder Scrolls that does it, it could be a game we least expect. Blizzard needs to go back to their roots and care more about the players BEFORE they lose subs, not decide to make changes after the loss just to gain people back. That's not a smart business plan and eventually people get sick of feeling pulled back and fourth in and out of the game they'll just decide to never go back.

[Requiemcliff]

Diablo 3 at #1 best selling PC game? A simple google check would show that that's not true at all.

I thought The Sims 2 was still the best selling PC game of all time. With over 21 million or something...could be wrong, this was a while back. Wikipedia time!

Fairly sure they meant Best selling of 2012, not of all time.

Anyway, on topic, eh, I can see a number dropping after the shiny wears off, generally depends I suppose.

[Sindrasa]

The more that leave the better, so long as it's PvP and PvEr's maybe then us roleplayers will get some attention.

[Merp]

Yet these new and better games are in a much worst state than wow and are struggling to even hold a subscription based model forcing them to go F2P.

There's nothing on the market even close to taking the number 1 spot after seeing 2 of the biggest MMO's to be released in recent times (GW2 and Star Wars TOR) make little to no impact in the genre I cant see anything in the foreseeable future making a difference to MMO's in general.

WoW will be the best and dominant MMO until Blizzard release 'project Titan' that game already has millions of subscribers before anything is even announced because it's got the Blizzard tag.

Apparently you missed the part were GW2 sold more than 3 million copies just in EU and US and got its active population on the servers increasing month after month since launch. In the process, they released a new content patch every single month (in the meantime, WoW had just one). And while it requires no subscription fee, it managed to dramatically increase the NCSoft earnings in 2012.

You may like WoW and dislike GW2, of course, that's fine and up to you. But maybe you should be more connected to reality as well. WoW is nowhere near the only big MMO on the market, not in terms of numbers, not in terms of content. It's a matter of fact at this point, deal with it.

[Swag]

These threads are always interesting to read. Ive played WoW since '05 and have tried every major release and popular f2p mmo in that time. I want desperately to play something new. The fact is however it sucks to go backwards in mmo development. You immediately miss features that WoW has implemented over the years and that is IMHO the key things that brings me back. I don't want to sit in town and spam general chat in game X while the devs think about creating a LFD type system. I think that if a mmo could nail down these systems and have compelling gameplay, story, art etc then WoW would have competition. Truthfully however the only companies I see with the potential development caliber IS Blizzard, but I have high hopes for ES as well.