World of Warcraft Subscriber Trends Revealed at GDC 2024

Originally Posted by EpicPhoenix

I can't believe people wait for Cata it was soooo terrible. Personally I'm waiting for MoP classic to get back my good old MW Monk.

Cata Classic is only so big, because it means that we will get WoD Classic obviously, so Cata Classic is just the waiting room for WoD and that's why WoW is at 7.25m subs rn

Well its good to see Blizzard admitted their handling of The Jailer was ass.

"Lets set up a well known character to turn heel, only for her heel turn to be her under Domination Magic, and the E N T I R E Warcraft Lore to be this random dude that we just met pulling puppet strings to unite the Cosmos against the BIGGER BAD GUY"

Originally Posted by DemonHunter18

I'm similar in that regard. I deleted my Blizzard account. Don't want to do anything with Blizzard/Activision/Microsoft or whatever the fuck it's called these days xd

Too many retcons and inconsistencies lately with Legion, BfA, SL (biggest travesty ever written), DF.

Then delete your MMOC account as well if you don't wanna have to do anything with WoW xDDD

Still leads me to wonder where all the money really goes.

And it's not hard to put 2 and 2 together and see theres still an absurd amount even after upkeep costs.

Originally Posted by Mojo03

Still leads me to wonder where all the money really goes.

And it's not hard to put 2 and 2 together and see theres still an absurd amount even after upkeep costs.

Welcome to late stage capatilisim.
where does the money really go?
The shareholders and CEO's pockets.

Originally Posted by Mojo03

Still leads me to wonder where all the money really goes.

And it's not hard to put 2 and 2 together and see theres still an absurd amount even after upkeep costs.

It also shows just how great the greed is given the increasing amounts of cash store additions.

I don't get the war over subs in MMoC. Half of those subs are most likely individuals with multiple subs. I myself have 3 subs for classic

I don't know why people argue over sub numbers. Sub numbers don't determine if a game is successful, FFXIV is more accessible there's 0 reason to have more than 1 sub. But FFXI benefits from multiboxing so people are encouraged to have more than one account/sub.

Originally Posted by kranur

It also shows just how great the greed is given the increasing amounts of cash store additions.

Ya, it's wild

They make more between big patches than the entire LOTR trilogy costs to make and then some and we get a new raid, zone, a few cosmetics, and a handful of revamped M+ dungeons.

Doesn't add up.

Ya, ya, ya capitalism, but still just feels morally very wrong of them to get so much and give so little back.

Originally Posted by FelPlague

Welcome to late stage capatilisim.
where does the money really go?
The shareholders and CEO's pockets.

They do have to pay the 600 some-odd developers who work on WoW, too. I'm positive they're not paid enough and I'm certain some of that late stage capitalism has something to do with it but that doesn't change the fact that WoW has to foot the bill of a much larger development team than many of its contemporaries.

Originally Posted by RobertMugabe

Then delete your MMOC account as well if you don't wanna have to do anything with WoW xDDD

Good advice but I'm not paying this so to hell with it xd

Besides, can't remember the last time I had a proper discussion about WoW's story.

Originally Posted by Luthorite

Honestly after the whole scandals came out around Shadowlands time I was close to deleting mine too.

It's not too late my friend xd

Originally Posted by ryjkur

I think Cata classic announcement had bigger impact for subscription increase than DF. Vanilla, TBC and Wotlk was just cata waiting room for many.

No. Thats clearly due to SoD. The Wrath raid participation has been in steep decline since the announcement much more so than TBC or Vanillas respectively were. Cata is clearly going to be much smaller than the previous classic releases which is why doing SoD was a smart move.

Originally Posted by Mekkle

Doomers in shambles, cant wait for them to comment here like in the previous threads

I mean the retail game is in shambles, so is Classic. The evidence is right there lol. They can't maintain a consistent playerbase for retail at all because it's trash and they refuse to listen to feedback. It has the same spike up every expansion ever had at launch followed by a sharp decline. The spike up is literally all because of Season of Discovery the same way the jump in BFA was because of Classic. The Warcraft team releasing 3-4 releases per year doesn't mean the game is good, it means they found a way to milk the system of "success metrics" for investors.

Originally Posted by Zyky

It has the same spike up every expansion ever had at launch followed by a sharp decline

Are you aware that this exists for every videogame?

Or are games like Baldurs Gate 3 just dogshit because they can't retain their spikes?

7m? Hats off.

Originally Posted by Luthorite

Honestly after the whole scandals came out around Shadowlands time I was close to deleting mine too.

Instead you decided to do the exact opposite and create an account on one of the 2 biggest fansites of the game and start to permanent hatepost to embrace your obession with the game.

I gotta say it feels pretty good to be so vindicated around here against all those familiar doomsayer faces that love to frequent these forums and shove their fantasies at us about wow dying an being dead.

Today is a good day

Oh lord, now we have the lod of clickbaits and nonsense Bellular on the main page.

Originally Posted by Xilurm

He said it was calculated by pixels. If you start going down from 5.8 until you reach 0, then you can count the pixels up and figure out what the numbers above 5.8 are. Did you guys even watch the damn video?

I looked at all 3 images and counted the pixels and all three have different pixel numbers. All numbers could be +or- a pixel due there not being a hard pixel line in the photographs.

Here's some of the flaws with his data:
1. the bottom line isn't even straight and varies by a pixel. Also did he count the very first pixel with any color difference in it? Or the darkest pixel? That would also add + or - a pixel or two of inaccuracy.

2. He didn't even place his 5.8 million in the correct spot. The end of the first quarter should be farther to the right (about 27-28 pixels into the 2017 year) with the height being 1-2 pixels under the start starting point. This would place it at 153 pixels + or - 1-2 for the we expected slide, at 161 + or- 1-2 for the but instead slide, and 174 pixels + or - 1-2 pixels for the we re-established slide. This would put the shadowlands peak at then between 9,300,000 and 9,400,000 if his 5.8 mil was accurate which we have no proof for. This would be between 33,333.33333 and almost 38,000 people per pixel depending on which picture you use.

3. He could put literally sub any number in and get "double the players" between the lull and the classic boost. Lets take a look at re-established slide:
5.8 million at 174 pixels would be 33,333.333 players per pixel, the low point between BFA and classic at 135 pixels which would be 4,500,000 players. The classic peak is 281 pixels which would be 9,366,666.66 players. (note this does not include Chinese players as the loss of them does not show on the graph) Now instead of 5.8 million lets say each pixel was 10k players so 174 pixels would be 1,740,000 players, 135 pixels would be 1,350,000 players, and 281 pixels would be 2,810,000 players which is also more than double the low point. You could put a billion players at the 5.8 point then divide the pixels and still get double the players. It doesn't mean any of those numbers are accurate.

Originally Posted by Roanda

Last time we had a precise subscriber number information was in 2019 Q4 report.
Here (and it checks out with the graph, the subs did indeed more than double with classic):

Good find.

Makes the numbers even more believable.

''respect players time'' KEKW