WoW Down to 9.6 Million Subscribers

WoW wont be killed buy another 900 lb gorilla. Its will get eaten up by a bunch of piranha that all tear off a little chunk. But by then Titan will be out and it might not matter anyways.

Originally Posted by Summerdrake

New skins on player races will change things.

This would probably be the only thing to bring me back.

Or separating PvP and PvE.

Originally Posted by Moshrag

Subs going up again with new content in 5.2 like it allways was....

It won't. It wasn't the lack of content that drove players away from MoP.

Originally Posted by Moshrag

9.6 million subs...theres not one game out there who had ever this amount of subs.....

Ofcourse not, because most games are B2P or F2P

merge some servers and its back up to 12 mill. np

Originally Posted by FluFF

How the hell does that boring hole of Golden Lotus dailies actually tell a story lol , only thing remotely worth doing is Shieldwall.

It definitely does tell a story. You have to defend and secure your home base which is the Vale before you can go out and help in other areas like with the Shado-Pan, Celestials, and Shieldwall. It all made perfect sense and was part of the overall story.

---------- Post added 2013-02-08 at 08:20 PM ----------

Originally Posted by Moshrag

Subs going up again with new content in 5.2 like it allways was....9.6 million subs...theres not one game out there who had ever this amount of subs.....

I agree that there will be an increase when 5.2 goes live. It's looking like it's going to be the most awesome patch ever.

Originally Posted by Aquamonkey

As you can clearly see, they count WoW East in their total. Unless somehow after they stopped releasing the subdivision, WoW West doubled instantly.

Very interesting graph there. By following it, we can safely estimate that the Western subscriptions (EU + US) are now around 3-3.5 millions. Not that impressive, considering that GW2 released only on the Western market so far (EU + US) and already sold more than 3 millions copies, with active concurrent players on the servers steadily increasing after launch (there was a developer statement recently about that). This means that within the Western world WoW is still the most popular MMO, but not by a great margin. After all, we are in February and Blizzard has still to release its SECOND content patch for MoP, while during the same timeframe others MMOs FREE of subscription fee released much more content.

I get it, many people still play WoW because they are attached to it, they are expert at playing it, they have friends in it. But as a matter of fact it is an old game which asks for money every month and offers less content than free games for it: with new free MMOs on the horizon, if Blizzard doesn't change it's approach, the decline is inevitable.
Unfortunately the players who are bliding defending Blizzard ongoing approach are just contributing to that decline. You should be rather questioning them and pushing them to offer you more. But you don't. That's sad for this once wonderful and unparalled game...

I dont think theres anything blizz can do at this point if subs drop after 5.2. Mop is amazing, and if subs drop during it ,then i fear its not the xpac, but rather wows age killing it. I still think it will be around for another 10 years though.

---------- Post added 2013-02-09 at 04:15 AM ----------

Originally Posted by Merp

Very interesting graph there. By following it, we can safely estimate that the Western subscriptions (EU + US) are now around 3-3.5 millions. Not that impressive, considering that GW2 released only on the Western market so far (EU + US) and already sold more than 3 millions copies, with active concurrent players on the servers steadily increasing after launch (there was a developer statement recently about that). This means that within the Western world WoW is still the most popular MMO, but not by a great margin. After all, we are in February and Blizzard has still to release its SECOND content patch for MoP, while during the same timeframe others MMOs FREE of subscription fee released much more content.

I get it, many people still play WoW because they are attached to it, they are expert at playing it, they have friends in it. But as a matter of fact it is an old game which asks for money every month and offers less content than free games for it: with new free MMOs on the horizon, if Blizzard doesn't change it's approach, the decline is inevitable.
Unfortunately the players who are bliding defending Blizzard ongoing approach are just contributing to that decline. You should be rather questioning them and pushing them to offer you more. But you don't. That's sad for this once wonderful and unparalled game...

MoP has more content at launch then nearly all of cata not counting the 1-60 revamp. I think the speed of content is fine.

Oh come on! So many haters here! It's only 500k subscribers down quarterly for the past year.

Originally Posted by Howdyho

Oh come on! So many haters here! It's only 500k subscribers down quarterly for the past year.

What side are you on? Because 1. you mention the haters which makes me think you're on the pro-wow side, but then 2. you emphasize QUARTERLY which only serves to highlight that wow lost 500k subs in 3 months rather than 12 months...

I'd actually play MoP again if they had some kind of F2P option. As WoW is right now being an 8 year old game with a great amount of content. I still can't warrant paying money for it. I quit after Cata to come back now would cost me $45 bucks. 30 for MoP and 15 for one month (wait come to think of it you can only buy a card from a store in 2 months so we'll make it 60 bucks. I'm not rich but I'm not poor either. I can't warrant paying 60 bucks up front for a game that's 8 years old (occupied all of 8 of my years). I love WoW dearly but the cost is against me. Not to mention that my guild I played with moved to another server. That's another 25 bucks out of my pocket... So 85 bucks to come back and play an 8 year old game... I'll stick to GW2, SWTOR, and my XBL. (Before anyone says it XBL is 60 bucks A YEAR.) I can definitely afford that.

As soon as they do another Scroll of Resurrection like they did in Cata that allows me to XFER to a friends server and all that stuff. I'm on board. I think a lot of people are in the same place as I am with the cost. WoW is a great game. Hell it's one of the best MMO's I've ever played but it's not worth the money being asked. Many free games have shown that you can make a great game with a lot of content without a sub fee. That's not to say I want it removed, a lowered cost would be great. After 8 years, it just seems right to me. (shrug)

I fear the game will continue to decline though as many Annual passes will be up and there isn't much incentive for people to re-sub.

I'd actually play MoP again if they had some kind of F2P option. As WoW is right now being an 8 year old game with a great amount of content. I still can't warrant paying money for it. I quit after Cata to come back now would cost me $45 bucks. 30 for MoP and 15 for one month (wait come to think of it you can only buy a card from a store in 2 months so we'll make it 60 bucks. I'm not rich but I'm not poor either. I can't warrant paying 60 bucks up front for a game that's 8 years old (occupied all of 8 of my years). I love WoW dearly but the cost is against me. Not to mention that my guild I played with moved to another server. That's another 25 bucks out of my pocket... So 85 bucks to come back and play an 8 year old game... I'll stick to GW2, SWTOR, and my XBL. (Before anyone says it XBL is 60 bucks A YEAR.) I can definitely afford that.

As soon as they do another Scroll of Resurrection like they did in Cata that allows me to XFER to a friends server and all that stuff. I'm on board. I think a lot of people are in the same place as I am with the cost. WoW is a great game. Hell it's one of the best MMO's I've ever played but it's not worth the money being asked. Many free games have shown that you can make a great game with a lot of content without a sub fee. That's not to say I want it removed, a lowered cost would be great. After 8 years, it just seems right to me. (shrug)

I fear the game will continue to decline though as many Annual passes will be up and there isn't much incentive for people to re-sub.

Originally Posted by Celista

What side are you on? Because 1. you mention the haters which makes me think you're on the pro-wow side, but then 2. you emphasize QUARTERLY which only serves to highlight that wow lost 500k subs in 3 months rather than 12 months...

Makes one also wonder why they didn't use the latest figures, such as february 1st subscriber amount. I doubt it has nothing to do with a huge dive in subscriber numbers since december!

Originally Posted by Merp

Very interesting graph there. By following it, we can safely estimate that the Western subscriptions (EU + US) are now around 3-3.5 millions. Not that impressive, considering that GW2 released only on the Western market so far (EU + US) and already sold more than 3 millions copies, with active concurrent players on the servers steadily increasing after launch (there was a developer statement recently about that). This means that within the Western world WoW is still the most popular MMO, but not by a great margin. After all, we are in February and Blizzard has still to release its SECOND content patch for MoP, while during the same timeframe others MMOs FREE of subscription fee released much more content.

I get it, many people still play WoW because they are attached to it, they are expert at playing it, they have friends in it. But as a matter of fact it is an old game which asks for money every month and offers less content than free games for it: with new free MMOs on the horizon, if Blizzard doesn't change it's approach, the decline is inevitable.
Unfortunately the players who are bliding defending Blizzard ongoing approach are just contributing to that decline. You should be rather questioning them and pushing them to offer you more. But you don't. That's sad for this once wonderful and unparalled game...

As if like EU and US are all that matters for gaming industries?

Nevertheless, if that graph is correct, imagine how successfully WoW competes with Asian MMOs with 6 million player base in Asia. It's not only #1 game in EU and US, it's #1 in Asia. Has any other MMORPG achieved this result?

Anyway, if GW2 sold 3 million copies, it doesn't mean that all 3 million players continued to play. I was one of those who bought GW2 but I went back playing WoW. I am sure there are millions of players who followed my path.

And no, no game can beat WoW in the amount of content. Yes, WoW has an advantage for being older MMO game. But if some free MMO game does somehow manage to release more content, then there is a saying "Quality not quantity". Quality of the content in WoW is way better than other MMOs in the market.

In your place, I would rather appraise WoW for holding its ground for so many years despite being one of the oldest MMO games. People don't go back to WoW because they are "attached" or "have friends". No, they had come back, are and will be coming back to WoW because of the gameplay, combat, classes, spells and again content.

Once popular MMO games such as UO and Lineage have eventually "died". So if considering your logic that gamers come back to WoW simply because of "attachement" and "friends", then how come those MMOs player base eventually dropped? They also once had loyal players with friends.


So in conclusion, if WoW still manages to be #1 MMORPG in the WORLD, then Blizzard developers are doing something right and know better what they want from the game than all of us WoW players together.

I have been debating about canceling my sub when the annual pass is up. I have played a Warlock since vanilla and do not like the changes to Destro or Demo at all. I actually have come to despise my favorite class. I swapped to a tank main this expansion but leveled the Warlock anyways.
I do not like the reputation being attached to valor gear along with dailies being the sole source for some rep, just me.
Diablo 3 was a huge letdown. The worst itemization for a loot based game I have ever seen. The true story for how well that game is actually liked will be told by how well the expansion sells. I had over 50 people on my friend's list and when I finally stopped it has three active players left.

Originally Posted by nekobaka

Early after Cata launch it was talked about in an interview to someone high up in Blizzard that WoW was no longer bringing in as many new players to offset the losses and that going forward that they would need to be focusing more on player retention.

Mike Morhaime just made a statement that the playerbase is more ready to leave and that they have made changes in MoP that are directed in keeping players engaged in the game and faster content patches to keep them occupied.

Seems like the long-term problems have finally started to overtake the short-term gains of designing the game for quick bucks.

One possibility is that Blizzard has turned off and disgusted a lot of long-term players since the WotLK-era, by dumbing down the game and removing any kind of involvement and investment. And now they are left with a much more casual fanbase, which was much easier to gain, but is much harder to keep.

Originally Posted by dokilar

just about where i was expecting the numbers to be. i honestly was expecting anything other than a 500k swing in either direction. WoW's heyday is long past and has been for awhile. people will claim that other people who claim WoWs heyday was BC are just wearing rose colored tinted glasses but i really believe its the truth. it was a time period in which i had the most fun out of just about any game ive ever played.

Same here.
As a rule, if you explained why you prefered a previous design, you can consider anyone using "it's nostalgia" counter as a complete retard.

Originally Posted by Howdyho

Makes one also wonder why they didn't use the latest figures, such as february 1st subscriber amount.

Because this was the Q4 2012 financial report of Activision-Blizzard, which ended on December 31st (http://investor.activision.com/results.cfm).

Diablo 3 at #1 best selling PC game? A simple google check would show that that's not true at all.

I thought The Sims 2 was still the best selling PC game of all time. With over 21 million or something...could be wrong, this was a while back. Wikipedia time!

Originally Posted by Descense

I bet dailys killed those subs. It was overkill realy.

Bliz is adding a bunch more come 5.2.

Originally Posted by alkyd

Nevertheless, if that graph is correct, imagine how successfully WoW competes with Asian MMOs with 6 million player base in Asia. It's not only #1 game in EU and US, it's #1 in Asia. Has any other MMORPG achieved this result?

Most MMOs do not have an Asian market on top of a EU/US market. WoW is not the #1 MMO in Asia, and it is not the #1 MMO in the West. But combined, it makes it the #1 MMO in the world. But I don't know about you, but this doesn't really matter to me considering I can't play with Asia or EU. The NA population is only around 1.7 million, which is nothing compared to a lot of MMO populations in NA. People think WoW is successful because they only look at the combined population numbers, if other MMOs sold their game all over the world, I'm sure they'd also have inflated population numbers, as well.

I don't think WoW will ever actually gain subs again, unless its a brand new expansion that gets released. Like with MoP's case.

The game is getting older and older, while a lot of new and better quality games are getting released. Eventually WoW cannot compete anymore