Q2/2014 Sub prediction and discussion thread (5th August, 2014)

[Conscious]

I thought it would lose players but not that many.

Still got a quarter before release, we're nowhere near done yet.

[Thetruth1400]

Still got a quarter before release, we're nowhere near done yet.

Amen to that. The only thing that's going to keep Q3 from being a horror show is if WoD is released before September 30th. Sure, 6.0 might help a little, but without WoD I'm betting we're going to see another huge loss akin to this one.

It's sad really though. WoW numbers haven't been this low since June 2006. You know what was happening at that point in time? Vanilla. The subs we currently have are equal to those when this game still had potential to grow. WoW's time in the sun is over. Sure, it's still one of the most played subscription based MMOs out there, but with nearly half of it's subs at peak, not to mention Blizzard has said there have been over 100 million unique players, the retention and life that's left just isn't there. This game will never be what it once was again.

[ihyln]

7.5? More like 9...

There's no way WoD has the power to attract 9million subs. The expansion as it is now is extremely underwhelming and a borderline copypasta job. You know the only feature that excites me? Toy box. There's nothing new or fresh about this expansion unlike TBC, WoTLK, Cata, and even MoP. You will see this reflected in the quarterly report after the expac is launched.

[Deleted]

Still got a quarter before release, we're nowhere near done yet.

I expect the numbers to continue to fall, although not as drastically as the last 3 years. There'll be a spike of about a million after WoD release but then the downward trend will continue. I'm not one to say WoW is dying but it's definitely in its twilight years.

[Deleted]

This is an excellent question, and one I've thought about. I don't know for sure, but two things strike me as problems with early MoP:

(1) They put large grinds in to be able to spend VP. The VP vendors were locked behind multiple rep grinds, and you could only grind those reps via daily quests. It got old.

Compounding this was that you had to grind 1000 VP every week or you would irreversibly fall behind on item upgrades.

(2) Raiding was either normal/heroic, which were overtuned for most players, or LFR, which started showing its toxicity. Casual guilds? They had pretty much no function except providing guild perks and a chat room.

Another relevant point worth mentioning is the very simple fact that some players would quit early in an expansion simply because they didnt enjoy it, it wasnt for them. There will always be players who quit at the start because of this but it looks like maybe more quit for this reason than any other expansion?

[Deadite]

Everyone saying it's because of the content drought is so wrong. If that was the case then why didn't subs drop as rapidly between ICC and Cata? Look at the front page graph, numbers stayed the same, if not grew!

I'd say it's simply because the game is old and not enough new players are coming into the game. So as such, more people are growing tired of playing the same game than people are joining for the first time.

You don't think playing the same content for so long will make people grow tired of the game quicker? I think the no content for a year is a big factor in the sub loss. If you don't keep the game fresh then people will look elsewhere.

[Conscious]

You don't think playing the same content for so long will make people grow tired of the game quicker? I think the no content for a year is a big factor in the sub loss. If you don't keep the game fresh then people will look elsewhere.

Big factor yes, but not the sole contributor here. This trend has been happening since Cataclysm, no surprise here.

The content drought has and will only exacerbate the effect.