Most MMO subs and users in chart

[Kaeleena]

Many subscription MMOs are losing players to F2P games. It's not as though people have quit playing MMORPGs, they're just poorer now than they were a few years ago. And, to be fair, there's never been a better time to play F2P games--there are alot of really good ones out there now.

I doubt we'll ever see a subscription game plateau as high as WoW did for as long as WoW did ever again.

[Dariela]

regardless of the accuracy of the figures, the graph does one thing excedingly well. It shows what the "oh so tragic exodus" really looks like. WoW could lose the same amount of subs every year for a decade and still be one of the most popular MMO's. Yeah, the sky is falling, it's the end of WoW...

[SergeantStogie]

WoW wont die till blizzard kills it for another MMO they create

[Blznsmri]

regardless of the accuracy of the figures, the graph does one thing excedingly well. It shows what the "oh so tragic exodus" really looks like. WoW could lose the same amount of subs every year for a decade and still be one of the most popular MMO's. Yeah, the sky is falling, it's the end of WoW...

Half of the subs are in China though, still in Wrath and a descent number of them are convicts that sit there and gold farm all day.

[Fendre]

Half of the subs are in China though, still in Wrath and a descent number of them are convicts that sit there and gold farm all day.

Did you read that article that Yahoo! had on Chinese convict gold farming a couple of weeks ago?

[Viradiance]

Man, this reminds me of that time Rift killed World of Warcraft.

[Blznsmri]

Did you read that article that Yahoo! had on Chinese convict gold farming a couple of weeks ago?

Wasn't on yahoo that I read about it, but I guess?

[matters]

Very interesting.

[Hobb]

Half of the subs are in China though, still in Wrath and a descent number of them are convicts that sit there and gold farm all day.

I doubt all of China's subs are gold farms, but I do remember back when WotLK was released Blizzard had a contract issue with their provider in China. That was back when WoW was at 10mil subs and the contract was said to affect over 4mil of them. So roughly half of WoW's subs are in China which most of the other MMOs are not released in.

[Blznsmri]

I doubt all of China's subs are gold farms, but I do remember back when WotLK was released Blizzard had a contract issue with their provider in China. That was back when WoW was at 10mil subs and the contract was said to affect over 4mil of them. So roughly half of WoW's subs are in China which most of the other MMOs are not released in.

Yeah, which makes the dip in subs a bigger deal than people say. Now I'm not in the same group as the "WoW is dying" doomsayers, but I'm also not in the same groups as the "All is well" people...

[Lefuu]

Man, this reminds me of that time Rift killed World of Warcraft.

Riveting Tale, Chap

[Borzo]

GW has over 7 million accounts but only 2 million of them are active.

Much like WoW has over 40 million accounts but only 11.1 of them are active.

For the record, GW1 sold about 7 million boxes since it's first release. But that number includes "expansions", so many of those boxes belong to the same person/account.

[McFrotton]

Am I the only one that sees runescape as the true wow killer always going up bu tnever down, this game will beat wow slowly but suerly like in 2111 lol

---------- Post added 2011-09-18 at 11:36 PM ----------

Man, this reminds me of that time Rift killed World of Warcraft.

It totally did we lost 600k subs, they got 600k subs lol

---------- Post added 2011-09-18 at 11:42 PM ----------

Yeah, which makes the dip in subs a bigger deal than people say. Now I'm not in the same group as the "WoW is dying" doomsayers, but I'm also not in the same groups as the "All is well" people...

Chinese player play on chinese server that never see the day of light anywhere else, the majority of wow in china is played on chinese server so gold sellign isnt as profitable. Do not forget that Aion and lineage are Korean MMO really powerfull in asia, they only got westernized for us (less grindy for chubby chubby north american), so they have a lot of gold farmer, And anyone that asnt played Aion hsould give it a small shto its fun, (like playing wow but different setting its fun really), Still I prefer wow. Oh will swtor be released in china ??? if not they will get maybe 2-3 million subs (the first free month lol) And they could call it a fuckin mega succes.

[Blznsmri]

Chinese player play on chinese server that never see the day of light anywhere else, the majority of wow in china is played on chinese server so gold sellign isnt as profitable.

Except that it's a billion dollar industry...

[chrisnumbers]

This kept me occupied for a good half hour with people on vent. Very interesting.
So, it's pretty likely that WoW will still be strong for at least the next few years. I realize that's not necessarily true though, since mmo's take huge nose dives all the time (most of them in the bottom 2 graphs). Warhammer was one of the bigger ones that went splat really hard, but that's probably for different reasons than it would be for WoW if WoW does happen to splat like that. I bet it won't. It'll probably be a gradual decline, much like Lineage.

I noticed WoW didn't suffer a single decline in its entire life until, what looks to be, mid-Wrath. It took about 4 years for WoW to noticeably lose subs. That's quite impressive considering how many there are. Everquest and Lineage both did just as well as WoW, or better, but with a much smaller number of subs.

[Maconi]

I would say Aion and Lineage have such high numbers due to the Asian market

You do realize that applies to WoW as well right? Asia accounts for more than half of WoW's current subscriptions (if the numbers available to us are correct). There are only about 4 million people playing WoW in the US/EU combined (if the numbers available to us are correct).

Did I mention if the numbers available to us are correct?

[TheYufa]

Interesting find. Looks like Warhammer died off really fast.

[Eorayn]

Aion does surprisingly good

[Ravenblade]

WoW's subs will continously drop over the next few months that is unless they find a way to reverse the player churn which is unlikely. In general subscription-based MMOs including MMOs have to settle with lower numbers these days while combining them with micro-transaction-based models. Even so in some cases just sticking to micro transactions is the better decision. SW:ToR is supposed to operate with 300k subscriptions only, that's how companies have to calculate these days. Going higher even into two-digit million zones is just not possible with the fracturized MMO market these days which hasn't been there when WoW was launched.

WoW hit the shelves during the pioneer era with being the one of the pioneers itself (there was DAoC and EQ2 out already), the land was free for grabs and WoW took what was laying idle which competitors couldn't reach.
As time went eventually social engineering became a great part of every MMO companies' design process which enabled them to reach out farther - even Blizzard was a bit late here - and get people play MMOs who'd normally never do that not even WoW which even cost money to play. With more and more alternatives showing up people who played WoW because of its social factor or because there was no alternative are finding themselves with better options now. That in addition to that the old WoW generation has moved on and with it some old mindsets it's only a matter of time until the land which has been taken away becomes stabilized and moreover compartmentalized again.

It's hard to say how the MMO market will look like in 5 years but I am taking a guess that whatever Blizzard is working with Project Titan on is aimed at the similar kind of fringe mindset which made people play WoW in the first place and spread its word - plus I am taking a bet that Blizzard is secretly seeing Diablo3 as some sort of predecessor of a MMO model they could implement in their upcoming project. So in short subscriptions have to be seen within the context of the time or era, a 500k subscriber struggle may have meant a cancellation some years ago but nowadays it may still be a comfortable zone. People have become more realistic with numbers and don't wildly announce WoW-killers anymore.

[ptwonline]

regardless of the accuracy of the figures, the graph does one thing excedingly well. It shows what the "oh so tragic exodus" really looks like. WoW could lose the same amount of subs every year for a decade and still be one of the most popular MMO's. Yeah, the sky is falling, it's the end of WoW...

I think Blizzard needs to be careful. A lot of people seem to still be subscribed to WoW but playing less and less. That's usually the big step before quitting entirely. Cata simply came up short.

Also, they've been working pretty hard to get new subscribers to make up for the people quitting, but that's a well you can only go to for so long before it dries up too.

WoW is not dying, but I think it is ripe for a potentially hard and fast fall once another very good MMO comes out. SWTOR will undoubtedly make a sizable dent in subs, and if GW2 lives up to any of its promise I wouldn't be surprised if WoW loses 1/3 to 1/2 of it's subs/active players by this time next year. The next expansion will boost numbers again, but unless there are some big and compelling changes to the game I think that boost will only be temporary again.

Even in my worst case scenario WoW will still have 5-6 million players this time next year so again it's not dying. However, losing half the population will definitely be noticeable. People have already noticed the effects of the population dip with relatively minor losses.