What's the main reason for the dropping WoW subs?

[oplawlz]

Good, glad to see you left, I see you are just another one of those jerks that would shoot people off of their mounts. And if you had a brain in your little screwed up, serial killer mind "so many people to kill! *jacking off while drooling*." The sunwell was an event not to pvp but to work together to fight a greater enemy. I liken your kind to the barbarians that ran sacked towns and villages after the plague "black death" had past.

You are worthless and we are better off you are gone, bye.

None of this post makes any sense. I can totally understand people who want to eliminate low lvl ganking on pvp servers, but you seem to froth at the mouth from the very idea of pvp in two situations where the people were garunteed to be the same lvl in BC- flying mounts and the Isle. If you don't want to pvp when you're out in the world, you really should not be on a PvP realm. And if you're not on a PvP realm, then you should probably not attack people who are.

[Darmalus]

WoW arrived at the right time in the right place with the right strategy. They scooped up a huge, untapped market and grew to immense size. They have always been bleeding subs, the difference was the new subs arriving exceeded those leaving. The pool has been exhausted, and WoW will stabilize when it shrinks to the point where subs arrive at the same rate they leave.

There is no one reason why people leave. They get tired of the game, they don't like an expansion, how combat/healing/tanking was changed, whatever.

I'm generally satisfied with the gameplay (with some glaring exceptions), but I find Timeless Isle as engaging as watching paint dry. Since TI is their plan for future end game, I'm probably not going to be a year-round subscriber anymore. I'll probably only sub long enough to hit level cap, unsub then sub for a month at the end to catch up on what happened.

[dragnipur]

There are a few reasons why me and my brother stopped playing it.
1st there are more F2P and B2P MMOs these days which are of the same quality as WoW.For example Tera and GW
2nd WoW gets old and i don't like it's graphics as much as i used to be.
3rd many of my friends don't play anymore.

[Deleted]

Aside from the obvious that every game has it's peak, and WoW is old, I think the entire genre of MMO is on a downhill trajectory, and in fact, I think PC gaming as a whole is. This is just a hunch though, but even though games are selling well, it is hard to ignore the long term trend where the traditional PC/Desktop computer is retreating in favour of mobile units (tiny laptops, tablets and smartphones). While gaming used to be PC for the big complex stuff and console for the kiddie stuff, it seems to me to be moving towards simplistic stuff on tablets, increasingly advanced on consoles, and middle-aged old-school gamers on the PCs, an ever shrinking niche demographic.

Since WoW (and Blizzard) never really dared venture outside the PC zone, they seem to be fighting against the demographic tide, and will eventually become a niche brand for dented veterans from the Golden Age of PC and MMO gaming. We will still be there as a loyal core for Blizzard for a long time, but tomorrow's (to some extent today's) kids will laugh at these games the same way we used to laugh at the stuff that was cool a generation before us.

Of course, I am sure Blizzard wants to connect with the next generation with Titan, but I am unsure if they are able to (and based on the fact they went back to the drawing board for Titan, Blizzard seem to have doubts too).

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WoW arrived at the right time in the right place with the right strategy. They scooped up a huge, untapped market and grew to immense size. They have always been bleeding subs, the difference was the new subs arriving exceeded those leaving. The pool has been exhausted, and WoW will stabilize when it shrinks to the point where subs arrive at the same rate they leave.

I agree with this. The loss, in my view, is more a consequence of the game not picking up the next generation of new players, because it isn't cool and hot anymore, like it was when (literally!) everyone and their grandmother felt they had to try out this new thing that was sweeping up 14-year olds in a frenzy and housewives and fathers too.

Longtime players stay to a remarkable extent. Sure, they may unsub for a while during the late expansion lull, but they (we) always seem to come back for the next expansion or a particularly tasty patch. I think this is in fact the unique feature. But no game can live on old loyalists alone. They need the new kids to come to the block at a constant flow of replenishment.

But, you know... no king rules forever.

[Cosmic Janitor]

None of this post makes any sense. I can totally understand people who want to eliminate low lvl ganking on pvp servers, but you seem to froth at the mouth from the very idea of pvp in two situations where the people were garunteed to be the same lvl in BC- flying mounts and the Isle. If you don't want to pvp when you're out in the world, you really should not be on a PvP realm. And if you're not on a PvP realm, then you should probably not attack people who are.

Not that I agree with the guy you quoted or the way he put it, but to be honest, if you acknowledge that low level ganking sucks, you might understand how the same can even be applied to people of your own level. The gear difference is so vast these days, that a somewhat fresh 90 is more like a level 80~85 char compared to a fully geared level 90. There is nothing fair or even remotly honorable about that.

[Molestron]

Oh please, there is a much simpler explanation than the LFR and all that: THE GAME IS FUCKING OLD AND BORING. Wait, "old" is a weak word, the game is ANCIENT. Seriously, if you are vet who has been playing since vanilla and you don't even consider quitting wow as soon as some decent MMO comes out, then you may be a huge fanboy.

[Charge me Doctor]

Stop kicking a horse corpse. It's because game exists for more than 10 years and it's hard to keep interested in it for old players, and it's hard to build up hype for new players. Imagine you playing fucking Zorak for 10 years, or Mario. I bet that you won't take even 3 hours of playing this before you bore yourself

[vindicatorx]

Apparently according to some on these forums they feel character models are what is causing everyone to quit, or rather it would make them resub if they added them.
I personally feel the game play, story, and game in general has become stale. The game needs more than a new coat of paint it could definitely use some serious bodywork to get it back on the road.

[ablib]

They've steered away from casual easy mode, and made the game the most un-casual game ever.

[m777]

Stop kicking a horse corpse. It's because game exists for more than 10 years and it's hard to keep interested in it for old players, and it's hard to build up hype for new players. Imagine you playing fucking Zorak for 10 years, or Mario. I bet that you won't take even 3 hours of playing this before you bore yourself

nothing to do with it i didn't quit wow to play other games i quit because of pandas and asian culture i still think its best game but i dont like LFR LFG and many more things like that

judging game by its age and not content is the most stupid thing u can do

[NeverStop]

WoW is bleeding subs because the game is way too casual now. When before in the history of the game could you get a current-tier legendary by pressing the queue button and doing content that has guaranteed success?

[Cosmic Janitor]

nothing to do with it i didn't quit wow to play other games i quit because of pandas and asian culture i still think its best game but i dont like LFR LFG and many more things like that

judging game by its age and not content is the most stupid thing u can do

The problem is that your reason is one of a million or more. We simply don't know why people quit and can only speculate. Even blizzard can't be 100% sure why people quit, because not everyone does the survey, and I'd even go as far that most people think they quit because of something, but in reality are not able to reflect on themself to a degree that lets them realize the real reason why they quit, besides maybe something as trivial as "they got bored".

[Greyarea]

They've steered away from casual easy mode, and made the game the most un-casual game ever.

I wouldn't go that far, Rift is still much more grindy, even though you can buy boosts. Compared to Rift, WoW isn't really that much of a grind (I have heard that Trion made the rep grinds easier and such in the latest patch but it's still a very very long grind to both max level and to get your reputations to the levels to getthe stuff you 'need' for raiding...however Rift raiding is horrible so I don't know why people bother...)

Granted WoW isn't casual friendly, however it never really was when you boil it down. You always had to do reputation grinds (tabards or otherwise), leveling to max level was always a chore until the end of the current xpac or near to it, gearing up/random dungeons for currency was a grind (even when they had you able ot do all 7 daily random dungeons in 1 day if you chose to, worse now with it having to be done each day, granted VP is pretty easy to get now you still may want to run them).

I never saw WoW as casual friendly, it got more casual, but it was still more of a chore than actually friendly to casual gamers and the hardcore players just got fed up with the grind and left, the numbers prove that, well maybe not the hardcore oplayers, but it could be as it's just numbers and notshown if those that quit/unsubbed played for XYZ hours per week or whatever.

[chumbawumba]

A couple of guesses

4 expansions into a rpg game might not attract too many people, compared to 0-2 expansions. Its just to old for new people to start (I would imagin)

People who started back in Vanilla/BC is starting to get older or burned out. So the teens back from Vanilla/BC (maybe wotlk) are done with their education now and have fulltime jobs, maybe a family, and already played the amount of wow they wanted to. So with a reduction in young guns in the game, its only natural subbs would drop

With the digital age we are in, with everything at our fingetips, people might not be as interested in the grind that a rpg requires. The attention span just isnt... meh i dont care anymore

[ManOluck]

What's the main reason for the dropping WoW subs?

Ghostcrawler

completely serious.

[Tarx]

Cataclysm destroyed wow because is realy bad to fly everywhere. They destroyed the big world and the feeling of exlporing.

[Klingers]

Honestly? It's just an old game. There's newer and shiner things to attract the people that even a few years ago would have been working to counter natural player churn and attrition.

Beyond that, who subs 365 days a year anymore? Community's almost non-existant. I keep in sorta-touch with some old aquaintances in my mega-guild via a "'sup?" once every five months when I drop a month's game time on for the new content, then I take a break for a while. There's not enough there to justify sticking around all the time.

That said though, I actually think the quality and breadth of the content has never been better. It's just... An old game. Only so much you can do to reinvigorate it.

[Derajal]

Someone clearly got ganked a lot on that isle. Did you mistake PvP for PvE when you picked server types?

was never "ganked" ever on the isle of quel'thalas, nor did I ever say that I was, I was letting him know what the reason of it being added to WoW was in the first place, it was not meant to be a pvp zone, if it was it wouldn't have guards now would it? you retard.

And no you moron, I know what the type of realms there are, before you started playing and will long after you die in a ditch.

Infracted.

[Ferocity]

Game is old, it isn't hard to see. Any company, especially at this point of product's age, should value their old and current customers. In case of video games, there will be less and less new customers (players) over time, because video game as product is a subject to moral aging. Meanwhile old and current customers can help bring new players in the game (by word of mouth/forums).

There is nothing in the game which supports that.

Subscribed for over 2 years? How about free character/faction transfers?
Subscribed for over 3 years? How about having some significant stat boosts?
Subscribed for over 4 years? How about getting any but 1 item of your dream in the game?
Subscribed for over 5 years? 10 bonus character slots.

And so on. Examples are just examples, but there should be loyalty program, which would yield significant rewards, so that even newcomer would feel compelled to play the game for longer.

Why should older customers keep playing, if the game constantly resets itself? 5.4 came and all previous raid gear became worse than crap, making you as good as someone who just dinged lv90. For 10-11th time it just becomes completely demotivating. Why older customers are expected to pay to change server, if it is just so happened that their former server died from age (was Medium/High and after years became Low)?

Game is too much raid-focused with huge emphasis on "game balance" at max-level raiding, everything else is in pathetic state and completely ignored by current developers, and it won't hold for long unless developers will change current game paradigm.

[Jyggalag]

All this "It's an old game" stuff is rubbish. People don't just quit because they want something new and I know because I've quit several times hoping to find something better and no matter what new game comes out it doesn't come close to what wow 'was'.
I keep coming back though. Every time hoping that the game will some day be like TBC again, where you actually had to play the game to see end content. Where there was an incentive to put hours and hours of time in. Where socializing with players was the only way to find groups, and where learning to play your class efficiently was the only way to overcome tightly tuned mechanics.

I recently did come back and decided I wanted to try raiding again. Here's what the progression path used to be like -
Level to 70 > Complete group quest chains in outland for pre normal dungeon BiS blues > Normal Dungeons > Heroic Dungeons > Entry Raiding > End Game Raiding
All the while socializing with other players, forming bonds and friendships.

At level 70, regardless of whether or not Sunwell was on farm on your realm, there were newly forming guilds trying to clear karazhan and Gruul. Guilds that you could join based on your class uniqueness and dedication to put hours into the game.

Current end game progression looks like this -
Level to 90 > Get carried in HC Dungeon / Get Carried in BGs until enough iLvl > LFR > LFR > LFR > LFR > LFR > LFR > LFR until you've got about 530 iLvl > Flex > Normal > Heroics

Unless you've been in a guild with steady progression through normal and heroic content from the beginning of the expansion, you're doomed to running LFR until you've got enough iLvl to join a pug flex group. At this point you've already defeated the end game content about 50 times. Where's the incentive to do it over and over again in a harder difficulty where you wipe and wipe until everyone learns the fight?
With some experience of current content and some decent gear you can now start looking for a guild that runs normals. Keep in mind that most guilds won't need you as there's next to 0 class uniqueness any more.

For someone like me who's invested years and years of work into my character to log in to find my friend list empty and my options very very linear and repetitive, there's just no incentive to keep playing wow in the state it's in. THAT's why people quit wow and new subs aren't happening.