Wow sub numbers now below Burning Crusade

[Solitare-sp]

what really would be useful is the split between US/EU subs and Asian subs. But I expect Blizz would never give that information out. It's possible theres only a few million 'western' subcribers now.

[Sharuko]

what really would be useful is the split between US/EU subs and Asian subs. But I expect Blizz would never give that information out. It's possible theres only a few million 'western' subcribers now.

It is probably closer to 3.5 to 4 million Western subscribers. About half of their "subscribers" are in the West. And they have stated they are losing more in the East than in the West.

[Butler to Baby Sloths]

That a 9 year old game has the same amount of active subscribers as it did when it was 2 years old is nothing short of miraculous. At 9 years old, WoW still has more active subscribers in the West than EVERY OTHER MMORPG ADDED TOGETHER.

Stop looking at absolute numbers, and look at the numbers relative to the competition. Now take into account the age of WoW, and the age of its competition, and how many subs WoW had when it was that old.

[Sharuko]

That a 9 year old game has the same amount of active subscribers as it did when it was 2 years old is nothing short of miraculous.

This is an extremely valid point. Most MMOs don't have the same amount of players 1 month after launch compared to launch. Most start strong during the first month and decline from there. WoW has held strong for almost 10 years. If it is 6 million subscribers end of next year I would be shocked.

[Solitare-sp]

That a 9 year old game has the same amount of active subscribers as it did when it was 2 years old is nothing short of miraculous. At 9 years old, WoW still has more active subscribers in the West than EVERY OTHER MMORPG ADDED TOGETHER.

Stop looking at absolute numbers, and look at the numbers relative to the competition. Now take into account the age of WoW, and the age of its competition, and how many subs WoW had when it was that old.

It's my personal opinion that the genre of MMO's is now pretty played out, at least in terms of the old subscription model with servers etc..

WoW survives still because its the biggest and best, and so many players have invested time in it.

[championknight]

Stop looking at absolute numbers, and look at the numbers relative to the competition. Now take into account the age of WoW, and the age of its competition, and how many subs WoW had when it was that old.

Heres something better to do for every player questioning this:

1) Stop comparing meaningless 'sub numbers' with other games
2) Look at your own server general activity and online players at prime time
3) Ask yourself is this the type of server you want to play WoW on (with relation to the number of active people on it)
4) If your server is suffering from a pop deficiency, hope for a solution soon from Blizzard (Connected realms) or pay up and attempt to transfer to a new server with better player activity

[MoanaLisa]

Considering Blizzard as a business and World of Warcraft as a product they sell, it looks very much like a normal graph of a product lifetime. The only thing not normal about it is the timespan involved given the product. Books, music, video games, all of them launch have their day and then fade down to a long tail for sales. I mean I understand that people will latch on to anything to make a point but this one doesn't really prove anything except how remarkable it is that they're doing this well after this long. Other game studios must be envious.

[Deleted]

To the OP. Did you create this cute little graph yourself? If yes, your text of "THIS IS NOT NORMAL" is totally accurate. This game has never been normal, it's the biggest MMO on PC ever created and run. That's not normal. If the subs would drop to 100k, then we could start talking "normal". Get a life and stop posting shit.

[Zelerena]

To the Op:

In any marketing situation there is always going to be loss of retention. The reason why they are constantly trying to bring out new expansions is because of the simple point of retaining said Subscribers. Some lose interest and quit all together. A lot of MMO's lose subscribers. Let me point out some rather not very known MMO's:

Final Fantasy 11: Still running, but the subscription model they have its lost a lot of it's subscribers over the years because lets just put this simply. The Gil Farmers killed the economy for everyone. Its now a game that has died, but Square Enix has pumped in a lot of work to this dying game because it was their money maker. It is infact older than World of Warcraft.
Everquest: Still running, but its not as popular as World of Warcraft. It's Free counterpart, Everquest 2 is a Free to Play game and uses the Pay to Win Function and it works for them
Star Wars the Free Republic: Started out as a subscription Based model game, ended up free to play because WoW squished them in subscribers numbers. Which is kind of funny because even now WoW's a giant in its time. It was really THE MMO to play back in Wrath of the Litch king, which lets face it was the time where the Numbers of subscribers they had Peaked at 14 million if I'm not correct let me know. But honestly lets say that SWOTOR Tried their HARDEST to steal WoW's thunder and FAILED.
Final Fantasy 14: AAR: Another of Square Enix's games that will be kind of like their 11 which is taking maybe a lot of WoW's subscribers. Alot of people have been waiting for this game to come out because its a re-do of Final Fantasy 14 which bombed hardcore. I think they did good.

In otherwords in a rather logical way of saying that Most games will Peak at a certain number, and then lose subscribers based on its content. WoW started to lose subscribers around Cataclysm. Lets face it....It wasn't the new races, or any of that it was the quality of the storyline that came out and it was utterly Rubbish. (that's putting it politely) In American terms. It was a piece of shit. Now honestly they introduced Pandaria as a JOKE CONCEPT and then it actually came out as a expansion. Which I find is hilarious that it blew Cataclysm out of the water to be honest.

I think, that we're at the same number as vanilla before The Burning Crusade is a good thing. Maybe Warlords of Draenor will bring back some of the TBC Subscribers, and some of the Wrath of the litch king subscribers as well. With the Item Squish and the rich Lore of Draenor..It might make everyone happy.

Logic wise: Simple Marketing, Businesses will lose customers, Will try to retain them, will fail every now and then. Will make the casual customer happy, if that's what they can do. Cant always make the hardcore fan boys happy, loses hardcore fan boy. Pfft you get my point. I took some marketing classes in college its pretty simple if you ask me.

Its one of those TOO LONG DON'T READ Posts about my opinion. lol. But I share a lot of good points.

[Tekkommo]

The age of the game and amount of competition around, it is no surprise and they are probably above expectations.

[Daedelus]

Just google "Product Lifecycle" and you will see this graph everywhere.

[Sharuko]

If yes, your text of "THIS IS NOT NORMAL" is totally accurate.

The editorializing was pretty hilarious. Not normal compared to what? Compared to itself?

- - - Updated - - -

Just google "Product Lifecycle" and you will see this graph everywhere.

They can always pull an extension with the WoW movie.

[Butler to Baby Sloths]

The age of the game and amount of competition around, it is no surprise and they are probably above expectations.

I think that if you had a time machine and went back to 2002 and told Mike Morhaime and Chris Metzen that WoW would have over 7 million subscribers at the end of 2013, they would not believe you.

[BenBos]

Come on.

If anyone THEN would have predicted that WoW would have more subscriptions 7 years later, he would be called insane.

Certainly when you would have told EVERYTHING thrown at it would be gone OR scrapped as a subscription based game...

WoW 7.6 million subs ---- the rest at ZERO subs (well under 500k for Eve and zero for all the rest)...

[But I Hate You All]

To the OP. Did you create this cute little graph yourself? If yes, your text of "THIS IS NOT NORMAL" is totally accurate. This game has never been normal, it's the biggest MMO on PC ever created and run. That's not normal. If the subs would drop to 100k, then we could start talking "normal". Get a life and stop posting shit.

Nope seen it online

[Sharuko]

If anyone THEN would have predicted that WoW would have more subscriptions 7 years later, he would be called insane.

9 years, small correction.

- - - Updated - - -

Nope seen it online

Where? I looked and couldn't find it?

[Chaosturn]

I'd say it will probably stabilize at, say 5-7 mil subs. We heard at blizzcon that they got a few expansions already planned after WoD

[But I Hate You All]

Where? I looked and couldn't find it?

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/10672987418

[Deleted]

No game rules forever my son.

Seriously, the game is 9 years old. Old game with an old engine, more and more competitors out there. It doesn't have to do with game design. The game is old, it's going to lose subscribers. Deal with it.

[championknight]

Just google "Product Lifecycle" and you will see this graph everywhere.

The editorializing was pretty hilarious. Not normal compared to what? Compared to itself?

- - - Updated - - -



They can always pull an extension with the WoW movie.

Posts that show the 'Product Lifecycle' theory without fully understanding it, please read it up more carefully

1) Sales and time are NOT clearly defined by this theory
2) May not apply to all products
3) Any constant change to the original product may render the theory moot (in WoW's case expansions)