Diablo 3 - Activision Blizzard Q4 Conference Call - Diablo III Planned for Q2 2012

WoW stabilizes over 10M subscribers, down 100k in Q4 2011
Activision Blizzard latest earning call revealed that World of Warcraft lost 100,000 subscribers last quarter, following the loss of 800k subscribers announced last quarter and 300k loss from the quarter before that. The game lost 1.8M Subscribers over the year but the number seems to stabilize over 10M and it wouldn't be surprising to see it go back up with the release of Mists of Pandaria this year.

World of Warcraft now has 10.2M active subscribers.


  • World of Warcraft lost 100,000 subscribers, down to 10.2 million. This was a total lost of 1.8 million for the year.
  • Diablo III should launch in Q2
  • More than one million Annual Passes have been sold in the West.
  • Blizzard is happy with how the subscription numbers held up during the most competitive quarter ever.
  • When asked about churn since the competitor's launch, "December was a good month for us."
  • There are ~50 million active Battle.net, Call of Duty multiplayer, Call of Duty Elite, and Skylanders WebWorld users.

This article was originally published in forum thread: WoW stabilizes over 10M subscribers, down 100k in Q4 2011 started by Boubouille View original post
Comments 579 Comments
  1. Pancaspe's Avatar
    I love how the haters are now rallying around "The Next Quarter"Guess what? More of the same next Quarter, Total WOW Domination.One MMO to Rule Them All!
  1. Vehemence's Avatar
    Dat Annual pass
  1. mmoc96e249ad29's Avatar
    OHMAHGAAAWD wow has only 10mio subscribers left, clearly the game is dieing...
  1. Ghul's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Moinaldo View Post
    10.2M > 1.7M. Enough said.
    pure win right there
  1. Harmzuay's Avatar
    I think all the Annual Pass did was give free crap to people who were going to continue paying the monthly fee anyway. If you signed up for the annual pass just for a free Diablo 3, you're an idiot. By this time you could have been putting that 14.99 a month in a cookie jar and have enough to buy Diablo 3 when it was released AND not be locked into a game you only paid for to get another game for free. That logic doesn't make sense to me.
  1. Waylander's Avatar
    Q1 2012 will be a lot more interesting than Q4 2011.

    So far it's still a loss and keep in mind:

    + christmas time
    + 4.3
    + annual pass
    + mop announcement

    and they are still losing subs.
  1. MangoSpirit's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Moinaldo View Post
    10.2M > 1.7M. Enough said.
    7 years> 2 months
  1. Vayshan's Avatar
    All those haters who like to see WoW die... if WoW loses millions more they will do something to bring those ppl back Just saying. They're not gonne let their huge cashcow bleed to death.
  1. dokilar's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Windry View Post
    The q4 reports aren't an actual indication of current WoW subscriptions, nor will they reflect the bulk of the people who've left WoW for SWTOR.

    Remember q4 reports close on Dec 31st. SWTOR came out on Dec 20th, and a lot of people who left for SWTOR had an active subscription in WoW till let's say Jan 5th for example. These people are still counted on their reports as an active subscription.

    By the same note, SWTOR's 1.7 million "active subscriptions" is also not a true indicator.

    The Q1 reports will be a better indicator.
    yea it seems that a lot of people are either mis-informed or just unsure of how quarters work. this is not the quarter i would be mindful about and i had predicted to myself that this quarter would most likely be either a gain or loss of less than 200k.

    i am in agreement with you, 1st quarter and the first full quarter after mop launches are the ones people should be curious about
  1. Ghul's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Harmzuay View Post
    I think all the Annual Pass did was give free crap to people who were going to continue paying the monthly fee anyway. If you signed up for the annual pass just for a free Diablo 3, you're an idiot. By this time you could have been putting that 14.99 a month in a cookie jar and have enough to buy Diablo 3 when it was released AND not be locked into a game you only paid for to get another game for free. That logic doesn't make sense to me.
    yup totally agree on that! i think sw:tor's negative influence must have been much bigger than the positive one of the annual pass.
  1. Jedek's Avatar
    Boub that is pretty reckless to come to the assumption that things have stabilized. Q4 which included holiday sales and the last major content release of an expansion is enough to temporarily stop the bleeding... but it is still occurring and 100k is nothing to scoff at. If you see another quarter or 2 like this then maybe start throwing around terms like stabilized, but anyone who is an analyst worth there salt wouldn't come to that conclusion off of 1 quarter of minor losses. Q1 and Q2 of this year will probably be bad for blizzard. From personal experience most of my friends that weren't locked into year passes have been unsubbing. My guess is you'll see 500k + or more for the next 2 quarters. When Diablo comes out that is not going to help at all. That will most likely pull from the WoW player base and result in another spike in sub losses. Swtors recent numbers are not good. 1.7 million subs and they continue content releases at a quick clip. Guild Wars 2 will also debut this year and that will force a major hit in subs with the lack of a sub fee to play. Things have certainly not stabilized and this year looks to be a bad one for the WoW franchise. The best possible hope for blizzard, is a smooth quick beta with an early fall release with a major content patch at Christmas, or you are looking at another year of solid losses in wow.
  1. Eleveneleven's Avatar
    It's going to drop dramatically in Q1 because there's no new patch and no MoP. So stabilizing my ass. They release NEW content in Q4 (4.3) and STILL lost subscribers.
  1. mmoc08bbbf072a's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Harmzuay View Post
    I think all the Annual Pass did was give free crap to people who were going to continue paying the monthly fee anyway. If you signed up for the annual pass just for a free Diablo 3, you're an idiot. By this time you could have been putting that 14.99 a month in a cookie jar and have enough to buy Diablo 3 when it was released AND not be locked into a game you only paid for to get another game for free. That logic doesn't make sense to me.
    Well. You get a mount and free beta access. I wonder how many beta servers they might open now? if it's like two server like before they would have quite of ques
  1. Kosic's Avatar
    The only reason these numbers are so low is because they tricked the dumb player base of wow into buying that year round plan which includes diablo 111. I love watching how stupid most people are on the forums .

    In other words, wow would probably be down another million subscribers.
    I'm sorry, but why are people dumb for buying a year long subscription to a game they enjoy?
    If I had recently joined WoW, and I was enjoying my time on it. I would of thought getting a year subscription and a free game, plus mounts and beta access would be a nice addtion to a normal monthly fee was fine. There is nothing dumb about that choice.

    Considering I played WoW for around 7 years on and off now (quit for good a while back), I have spent more than a years sub in the game and got no free bonus' ontop.

    So your view of it being a "trick" is stupid, because it's a decent investment to people who actually like the game still.

    I love watching how stupid most people are on the forums .
    Same here, I love seeing people who post their opinion and expect everyone to follow it. And if not, they are stupid. /facepalm

    Quote Originally Posted by troll View Post
    Yeah, someone enjoys a game that you don't like anymore. He must be so dumb. I remember seeing that kind of attitude in kindergarten, no wonder you don't like WoW, it's rated 12+ after all. No worries, you'll understand that people have different opinions when you grow up.
    Oh, he said in another thread he is coming back to WoW for MoP to give it one last try. Thought I'd check on his other posts to see if he was a troll or just had a childish attitude...


    Anyways, it's good to know WoW hasn't taken that massive hit last quater. Since so many people were throwing out wild numbers. I was thinking it to be in the 500k area.
  1. Blimm's Avatar
    Cant wait for D3!
  1. dercaderca's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by faldric View Post
    annual pass and an overhyped patch....and they still lost subscriptions....i would hardly call that "stabilize"
    quoted for truth!!!
  1. dokilar's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Harmzuay View Post
    I think all the Annual Pass did was give free crap to people who were going to continue paying the monthly fee anyway. If you signed up for the annual pass just for a free Diablo 3, you're an idiot. By this time you could have been putting that 14.99 a month in a cookie jar and have enough to buy Diablo 3 when it was released AND not be locked into a game you only paid for to get another game for free. That logic doesn't make sense to me.
    your logic doesnt make sense

    /sarcasm off =)
  1. Moinaldo's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by bitterbrew View Post
    7 years> 2 months
    I know... I mean I understand people got bored after 7 years... in the other hand, people getting bored just after 2 months
  1. Zequill's Avatar
    Oh poor little doomsayer, the game you hate so much is not a dead is you think. I'm so sad for you. Because thinking people got trick to sub for a bad game make so more sense then just sub for a good game. Keep on making your excuse for your other flashy MMO to not have perform as your ego would wish it did and keep on making conspiracy theories why WoW still got so many sub. Also, remember, player are content so yes, Sub amount his important.
  1. schippie's Avatar
    Uhm question 50 million active battle.net users.. how many users does battle.net have in total then?!

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