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WoW Down to 9.6 Million Subscribers
Activision Blizzard's press release states that World of Warcraft is down to 9.6 million subscribers as of December 31, 2012. This is lower than the amount of subscribers from the "over 10 million" announced for Q3 2012. A few other interesting points:

  • Mists of Pandaria was the #3 best-selling PC game at retail.
  • Diablo III was the #1 best-selling PC game at retail, breaking PC-game sales records with more than 12 million copies sold worldwide through December 31, 2012.
This article was originally published in forum thread: WoW Down to 9.6 Million Subscribers started by chaud View original post
Comments 954 Comments
  1. crsh1976's Avatar
    I don't understand why it's a surprise, WoW is still hugely popular but it's old and that's why population is slowly declining. They've already made so much money off WoW, it still has a huge player base, there is no disaster here.

    We can't possibly expect WoW to keep climbing the charts after almost 8 years, it's just never going to happen with a video game, especially not after the traumatic Cataclysm experience.
  1. Tharkkun's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Ijanaak View Post
    Oh and "10 mans are what everyone wants to do" ... don't forget that lie.
    I never said that but 10's being more popular than 25 is proven by the playerbase itself. While 25man raiders will refuse to accept this, the data is there. Who wants to waste time over and over recruiting players when you can set things up faster with 10.
  1. Slummish's Avatar
    9.6 million subscribers is still well over a billion dollars per year in subscription fees alone. If you think this dip heralds the end of WoW, you might need to see a doctor.
  1. McNeil's Avatar
    I feel the damage will be tripled at the next quarter, if patch 5.2 will turn out to be a dissapointment. This quarter had the luck that MoP is still fresh, it was the same thing as with Cataclysm.
  1. kleinlax21's Avatar
    As long as there are 120k players on my server with content coming out regularly, then I'm okay with whatever else happens. However, I want sub numbers to decline in order to allow for more competition into the MMO marketplace and force WoW to compete with the next few up-and-coming MMO's. I likely wouldn't leave WoW for another game, but I'd still like to see an incentive to make their game better. And release more PvP content during the middle of an expansion
  1. Burks's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by thevoicefromwithin View Post
    Yay. An end of the market stranglehold is on the horizon. Good news.
    I don't get it. People can claim all day that they can't wait to see the collapse of Blizzard and see the end to their monopoly of the MMO industry, yet clearly the spell hasn't been broken when these same people continue to frequent websites such as MMO-Champion or WoWHead, and Curse reading news about what is in the works with Blizzard.

    If any of these kinds of posters were actually genuine, we'd never see any of their posts, because they'd have severed their ties with the game they so claim to dislike. If your excuse is that you love these communities, then why would you rant and rave for the fall of the company that makes these websites viable? Without WoW, I highly doubt that many WoW fansites would have the user traffic to generate enough money to keep these communities up and running.

    The WoW user base has always been extremely paradoxical but it's beginning to get to the point of ridiculousness. Either play the game or don't, but don't contradict yourself by playing the game that you bad mouth.
  1. mmoc128e560295's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Courierrawr View Post
    So what? A decline is a decline, WoW's "golden age" is long over, the game is going to keep losing players, will you still be using that defense when it's down to 3 million players?

    True, but whats the point you take out of this?
    Nothing really, it's ignorant to assume that a reduce of 500k subs on a total of 10 million, which is like 10 to 20 times more than any other MMO out there, is a decline as much as doomthinkers/sayers suppose it is.
    If wow's golden age is 'long over' as you state it, it's pretty impressive to still have a 9,5 million sub playerbase.

    And yes, it's valid to still use that argument when subs go down to 3 mill. It remains a valid argument as long as there are not any mainstream MMO's out there that have more subs.

    Haters will always hate
    Pessimists will always be negative
    Lemmings are to stupid to think for themself and just run of the cliff because another did so too.

    Every of the 3 mentioned above will use this opportunity to spam and rage their inconvenience about a game they should have quit when they got full of it, but kept playing because they have no life to fall back too.


    But yeah, obviously WoW is going to die now, as much as it did when SWTOR/RIFT/random MMO here came out........
  1. Gimlix's Avatar
    World of Warcraft is doing better then it did a year ago in cata.
    That for me is enough for me to say that is going great.
    Allthough i do fear it will go downhill again due the long bad reputation of cata and people hating on pet battles and pandas.

    But this isnt just WoW, the MMORPG is dying, WoW got people to intrest in them but now WoW is dying i dont see any other MMORPG repalcing him, i think when WoW falls over the years, i think the whole MMORPG thing will go down aswell, just look at SWTOR nobody cared even to play for over 2 months.

    GW2 isnt doing bad but not near a WoW killer, and probably will stop getting subs.

    lets hope next xpac is really badass like sargeras and people will be excited and join and wow gets to 12mill subs again :3 Depends on how much pandaria will lead to, if it stays around 9M then its possible, if it goes to below 8M then it wont ever be back at 12M ever..
  1. ScottsdaleHokie's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Slummish View Post
    9.6 million subscribers is still well over a billion dollars per year in subscription fees alone. If you think this dip heralds the end of WoW, you might need to see a doctor.
    How can anyone still not know that all 9.6 million do not pay $15 a month?
  1. mmocb1848b600a's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Sersel View Post
    Haters will always hate
    Pessimists will always be negative
    Lemmings are to stupid to think for themself and just run of the cliff because another did so too.
    You forgot "investors". The ones getting a heart-attack by looking at a graph shaped like this: http://users.telenet.be/mmodata/Charts/Subs-1.png

    WoW is on a steady decline since the release of Cataclysm and everything Blizzard has done so far to stop or revert the trend has failed.

    By the way, that's just stating the facts. I couldn't care less about the petty squabbles of fanboys and haters.

    Edit: Well I lied, I do care. I find reading those squabbles highly amusing.
  1. Gray_Matter's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Burks View Post
    I don't get it. People can claim all day that they can't wait to see the collapse of Blizzard and see the end to their monopoly of the MMO industry, yet clearly the spell hasn't been broken when these same people continue to frequent websites such as MMO-Champion or WoWHead, and Curse reading news about what is in the works with Blizzard.

    If any of these kinds of posters were actually genuine, we'd never see any of their posts, because they'd have severed their ties with the game they so claim to dislike. If your excuse is that you love these communities, then why would you rant and rave for the fall of the company that makes these websites viable? Without WoW, I highly doubt that many WoW fansites would have the user traffic to generate enough money to keep these communities up and running.

    The WoW user base has always been extremely paradoxical but it's beginning to get to the point of ridiculousness. Either play the game or don't, but don't contradict yourself by playing the game that you bad mouth.
    You do know that there is a GW2 (and others) subforum on mmo-champion, don't you? I spend more time on guildwars2guru.com but do pop into the GW2 section here too. News for all games (more often WOW) appears on the front page here so it's difficult to miss.
  1. mmoc128e560295's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by ScottsdaleHokie View Post
    How can anyone still not know that all 9.6 million do not pay $15 a month?
    True, but the average worldwide seems to be 9 dollars a month. Thats still a 85 million a month just for subs. No Vanity or extra commercial products included.
  1. konway's Avatar
    I've noticed a pretty extreme dropoff in the number of active players on my server. Major cities are ghost towns even at peak hours, quest hubs are empty, arena queue times have gone from instant to 2 min+, there's hardly any competition on the AH or for gathering nodes except from bots/gold farmers, Sha is up for days at a time rather than minutes, etc. If people are still playing, they're doing a damn good job of hiding.

    I still have a subscription, but my account is canceled (3 month sub) -- wonder if they count myself and other people like that in their 9.6 million number.
  1. ElvenArcher's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Anjerith View Post
    Since you have no way of knowing who is or isn't playing on your server, your view of "maybe a few hundred players" could very easily be 1,000 players.

    I mean, do I really need to go further than your pugging a Sha group? Get a Guild and watch your problems disappear.
    So even if it is 1000 players, how do you get from that to 9, 600, 000, even when adding all the other servers.

    And what the hell is "do I really need to go futher than your pugging a sha group" supposed to mean? You're saying sha is hard or something?

    I used to form 25 man pugs raids in WOTLK in 20 minutes or less and clear up to Sindragosa before nerf and up to Mimiron before nerf.

    Don't you understand that even guilds are dead on my server? Once upon a time we were the first to open AQ gates, now people struggle to get someone with epic paterns to craft them gear.

    "Watch my problem dissapear"...are you that conceited?
  1. Tharkkun's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by quras View Post
    Bingo! ^

    It's a bigger deal than most would think so shortly after the expansion release.

    They still have a money maker, the game is still doing well but I doubt it is as on track as they hoped it would be at this point.
    Or you both could read the thread and liten to the conf call and realize you're dead wrong.
  1. Caliph's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Mondroc View Post
    Yup, because it's true. You say that 9.6 million is a game dying.. What does that say for every other mmo out there? Already dead? Or is it purely on how fast you're going down not total numbers? Or are you just scewing things so you have an arguement? Hmm?
    To be fair those other games are just as good or better. We're all just stuck on wow because it's been around so long and provides the same type of entertainment. sometimes better sometimes worse.

    Imo rift is better, pvp gw2 blows wow away, potential TOR has a lot. but there's a lot of history, nostalgia, friends, etc on wow that keeps us going. i've quit several times and played all of the other games. i just don't stay with them because i can always do wow. If wow dies i think it'll be a boon or a swoon for the entire mmo industry. either we'll all migrate to the other games or quit mmos altogether.

    Those other games are alive, and wow is alive. sub numbers don't mean much unless america and europe see the majority of the drop off. China and korea don't count for us because they're different and difficult to communicate or enjoy the game with.
  1. Lora's Avatar
    It's a decline, not dying. Games can't die because they don't live. The day people stop playing it completely is the day they shut down the servers. Or the individual dies. Either or.
  1. Tharkkun's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Caliph View Post
    To be fair those other games are just as good or better. We're all just stuck on wow because it's been around so long and provides the same type of entertainment. sometimes better sometimes worse.

    Imo rift is better, pvp gw2 blows wow away, potential TOR has a lot. but there's a lot of history, nostalgia, friends, etc on wow that keeps us going. i've quit several times and played all of the other games. i just don't stay with them because i can always do wow. If wow dies i think it'll be a boon or a swoon for the entire mmo industry. either we'll all migrate to the other games or quit mmos altogether.

    Those other games are alive, and wow is alive. sub numbers don't mean much unless america and europe see the majority of the drop off. China and korea don't count for us because they're different and difficult to communicate or enjoy the game with.
    Rift is very repetitive, pvp is horribly broken and the grind is an extreme waste of time to keep people subbed longer. Plus their CEO quit and they fired a bunch of lead developers a few weeks ago. No other competitor has more than a million subs right now.
  1. Syran's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by ElvenArcher View Post
    I have characters on Medivh (my 7 year server) and it's a ghost town. Horde side has like 100 active players and Alliance has maybe a few hundred considering the difficulty of getting a simple sha group together or an every day raid for old/new raids.

    9.6 million active players? I seriously doubt it.
    Can relate to that, tried MOP trial and visited my old server (alliance) which had top world guild progress during TBC and WOTLK, numerous 25 guilds, Ironforge was packed at any hour.

    Today? Not one (1) alliance guild is ranked at wowprogress, which lists 289 guilds who have killed at least 1 raid boss in this expansion. It's not just dead in a sense of small population. It literally is dead, with only CRZ people occupating old cities.
  1. mmoc514be02116's Avatar
    Well, okay

    What effect does this have on me? oh, none at all? okay

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