WoW Down to 8.3 Million Subscribers

[KCguy]

Lets look at this expansion:
1) Daily Grinds
2) LFR Grinds
3) Heroic 5 Mans Dead
4) Scenarios pushed down our throat
5) Major Content Patch (5.1) with no new tier
6) Upgradeable Items - no one wanted this grind

It's not that the game is getting old, it's that their direction is terrible. They're lazy and they're trying to drag out content. It's Ghostcrawler fault! (I'm half joking when I say that)

What do you propose they do then?

[Todd Duval]

Yes the tone of Bliz posts really pissed me off over the last year or so. the arrogance and ego in them is just silly. They cant take criticism, and think they can dictate how the players play. They cant, if you try to force players into crap content, then they will leave.

That whole "make players do dailies to bolster dev ego as they are having a hisssy fit because people are not running dailies they made" was just lol-tastic

The worst part is you thought they would have learned from the Firelands Dailies. lol nope.

[wowsucks]

Players consume content faster and subscribe and unsubscribe as new content is added.

Wow, who would have thunk really? the more accessible the content, the faster players consume it, what a coincidence..

There has been less engagement by casual players.

Too bad the game is not casual-friendly enough.. oh, wait

[Hyrican]

Where did they get their 8.3m subscriber base # at? looking at their page 1 of the ccso page shows a net of 7,420,000 subscribers if they have total subscriptions revenue of $334m. Do they have 1m accounts that are counted that dont have any income to the company? or am i looking in the wrong place.

acounts of different regions have different subscription prices or even models.

[Osmeric]

Where did they get their 8.3m subscriber base # at? looking at their page 1 of the ccso page shows a net of 7,420,000 subscribers if they have total subscriptions revenue of $334m. Do they have 1m accounts that are counted that dont have any income to the company? or am i looking in the wrong place.

Are you looking at GAAP or non-GAAP numbers? GAAP numbers will still have a substantial defered contribution from expansion sales in 2012.

Also, some of those "subs" are from China and earn Blizzard much less than $15/month.

[Mascotte]

Where did they get their 8.3m subscriber base # at? looking at their page 1 of the ccso page shows a net of 7,420,000 subscribers if they have total subscriptions revenue of $334m. Do they have 1m accounts that are counted that dont have any income to the company? or am i looking in the wrong place.

Its from stats at 31/3 so basically a month old.
Might be some more drops in that period, trial accounts or accounts that didnt renew during that period etc.
Pretty heavy drop eventho they keep pushing out content alot faster then they used to.
Without a new xpac i doubt we'll finish the fiscal year alot higher then 6mil.
And still no news about Titan, which is kinda the reason i was waiting for this announcement.
Guess you can pump out all the content in the world but people will still quit playing a 7-8year old game regardless.

[DrMosh]

There are a myriad of reasons as to why players quit. Some become dissatisfied with the game, there are social and economic factors, increased competition from a growing F2P micro-transactional market. The only people that know the complete metrics is Blizzard, anything beyond that is just guess work from an passionate (and sometimes over-zealous) community.

The bottom line is that although subs are down but 8.3 million paying subscribers, that's still nothing to sneeze at. While some people may feel slighted by Blizzard and thrive on news such as this, Blizzard and World of Warcraft are in no danger of shutting down or going out of business. Eventually the attrition rates will level out and the core player base will remain; however, how many subscribers - that is the question.

This thread should really be titled, "Wow is down to 8.3 million subscribers - so why did you or are you thinking quiting?" Because that's what this thread degrades too every time subscriber numbers are posted.

[Deleted]

wow such a big drop, didn't really expect that.

[starkey]

Daily quests made me quit! I played since Vanilla and raided hardcore the entire time, but the amount of dailies required at the start of mop atleast outside of raids was absolutely ridiculous. When they added the gear upgrade, which further required you to farm dungeons or do dailies, that was the breaking point for me.

Vanilla / hardcore nah im going with semi casual, hardcore raiders dont quit for such a pitiful excuse as dailies

[Triggered Fridgekin]

Being a publicly traded company, it makes shareholders nervous when things like this happen. While it's still a phenomenal amount of players for a game, shareholders have Blizzard by the balls to either get those numbers back or to jump ship which can cause a cascading effect.

Blizzard should have never become a publicly traded company.

[Xjev]

Its time to push Titan!

[Deleted]

Yes the tone of Bliz posts really pissed me off over the last year or so. the arrogance and ego in them is just silly. They cant take criticism, and think they can dictate how the players play. They cant, if you try to force players into crap content, then they will leave.

That whole "make players do dailies to bolster dev ego as they are having a hisssy fit because people are not running dailies they made" was just lol-tastic

I totally agree with you on this one. Blizzard really turned their back against their playerbase the last few years. They don´t listen like you say and are arrogant! That´s also one thing that pissed me of and made me quit this game. But I guess that´s what happens when you change into a moneymachine instead of a game developer.

[Todd Duval]

What do you propose they do then?

Next expansion, go back to the wotlk/cata gear model. Bring back heroic 5 mans, not crappy Heroic Scenarios. Put a greater emphasis on VP/JP so when nothing drops it doesn't feel like you're wasting your time. Don't lock VP gear behind dailies (you can only earn it so fast, why the hell lock it behind rep?).

It's fine to have dailies, but it's bullpoo to have them required for VP gear, and tokens were a terrible invention to be locked behind even more dailies.

The expansion was purposely dragged out, but it had the reverse effect since people were tired of their poo.

[Conscious]

Well, wasn't expecting that.

[greg098]

I am not surprised by this news. My server is dead and its very hard to even get a raid group going for the world bosses. I don't mind cross realm zones because it makes leveling seem less isolated but when you get to the higher levels like WOTLK where people enjoy hunting rares, it becomes a challenge (even more then it was before) because there is so many players hunting them as well.

I think this game died when cataclysm hit because the original game was never coming back. I miss the old Orgimmar very much and knowing that it willl never return is something I do not like. I enjoyed the challenge of the old world quests. They weren't perfect but it felt like a journey surrounded in mystery. Now the quests are so linar that its boring. There is no adventure.

Back in vanilla, I can remember taking months to hit level 60. Even hitting level 60, it took ages to get one epic. They tried to repeat this in Cataclysm but failed. The game has changed too much and the playerbase did not like it after having epics given to them on a plate back in WOTLK.

I think adding LFR was a bit mistake. Yes it added content for everyone to see but it also took away the suspense and excitement of joining a guild and battling your way to the end boss. Can you remember the feeling of killing Illidan or the Lich king at the level cap? It was a great feeling! I did not have this feeling with Deathwing. After a while, it felt like a chore.

I don't see the logic of adding so many daily quests as they did in MOP. They didn't want to give gear out easily (which I totally understand) but forcing players to do dailies to get any gear was a massive mistake. I would of preferred long questlines similar to the black prince questline.

Isle of the thunder king was a great idea. However it soon died after everyone hit exalted with the faction there. That area had a lot of potential but failed.

This game is getting too big and it must be very daunting for older players. Not just leveling but everything in the game from achievements to pets. I think eventually they should move away from the original games and focus more on high level content. This is what I want from the next expansion:

New world. Level 90 to 100. Not only has high level content but has content from level 1 to 90 so players can be in new content with everyone else and not in a place so far away from everyone else. They can also start the game by buying the new expansion. They wont need the older expansions to run the game. New character models and updated environment. Professions need a massive buff too. Level 1 to 700 should be less daunting. Make having a profession mean something. Tailorers can craft cloth. Herbers can grow herbs etc.

[Xilurm]

Its time to push Titan!

Oh no! They better not fuck this up.

[protohamster]

The decrease is earned, this game is now just a big grind fest and the classes have been homogenized to 2% milk status.

[Celista]

What do you propose they do then?

I don't know but I have noticed that every time GC posts a blog I scratch my head and wonder wtf he is thinking...Blizzard needs a new development/creative team with fresh ideas.

Not all of the stuff Blizzard has changed is bad. I like scenarios for the most part, running 5 mans over and over again was painful. Upgradeable items weren't too bad but added another level of grind...not a fan of the pvp changes this expansion though. The base resilience change/craftable pvp gear was enough to get new level capped players in the door, not sure why they implemented/are implementing a boatload of other stuff that feels awkward in an mmo that focuses on player progression/power increases.

[Deleted]

Wow, that's a lot!
Personally I am enjoying the game more than ever right now, so not sure why the drop is that huge

[kirit0]

Merge the Servers enough of playing in ghost Towns!