WoW Down to 8.3 Million Subscribers

Originally Posted by Leitka

Better in some places, worse in others. Worse all-over when compared to the economy when the game was released and rising/at its peak, regardless.

It's a *huge* factor that people readily leave out of discussions like this. Even less mentioned than the sub loss being a side-effect of the games original target audience growing older and dealing with increased real-world responsibilities.

The game is also much older too, though I don't think that is an excuse for the loss. People will play this game if it's good, they will spend money for the sub if they like it and honestly that's too big of a sub loss for it to be just the economy.

I have to laugh a bit though, at the doomsayers for WoW still. The game is going on 9 years of being released and still has over 8M subs worldwide.

EQ1 was a huge hit for its day, and that still only amounted to a peak of 550k subscribers. By the 5 year mark when Omens of War expansion was releasing (And WoW of course) they were already over the hill for quite a while and sub numbers were nowhere near that peak amount. Dark Age of Camelot I would say was the 3rd most popular MMO release of those "early years" ... and that only amounted to 250k subs, and its heyday only lasted 2-3 years.

FF11 was also very successful, but I don't like to rank it with the above titles, because most of its subs were purely from Japan. It didn't have a lot of staying power in Western markets, and you know how the Japanese are about supporting home-grown stuff.

tl;dr -- It's a testament to WoW's staying power that its been able to maintain such high subs for so long. Even despite the bumps along the way and dozens or 100s of other MMO releases since then.

Originally Posted by nekobaka

The question I have is how do you make something more casual in a market with other games that are also grabbing the casual market. You gotta create a lot of content for those that want to log-in every day while making those who dont feel like they are left behind. It is one of the things WoW has been struggling with.

If I knew the exact and absolute answer to that question, I would run my own video games company.
However, with a new tech that does not run back to 2002-ish, you can have dynamic events and other stuff which can drive the content.

Although, if what is listed in this Titan post is true, it seems that they're choosing a different approach.

Originally Posted by Aang

Umm? You do realize WoW was rising in subscribers until mid WOTLK right??

Yes. But (1) subscriptions were not rising at an "exponential rate" (what does that even mean? The curve certainly wasn't well fit by an exponential function), and (2) the sub increase in Wrath was smaller than in Vanilla or BC, not larger. So your "factual points" were wrong.

There has been less engagement by casual players.

It is quite disturbing to see such in an expansion that is focusing so much on engagement from the casual playerbase compared to previous expansions. To also have such a loss from the east where they tend to be more grind happy is also interesting.

8.3 million is still enough to keep 4 mmos profitable for the forseeable future.

That being said it makes me feel so vindicated for not playing anymore and my reasons as to why I don't care for it.

Is the game getting old and tired looking...? You could make an argument for that.

I think the bigger issue is blizzard needs some new blood, upper management, lead designers have become a little indignant in their design approach. You can continue to operate under the philosophy that "its our game we do whatever the fuck we want" OR you can start actually listening to what people actually want.

it's dropping more and more. In a few days my whole guild disbands. We were 10 people and 1 person quit and in 2-3 days the gametime of most people expires and nobody will continue.

You are just so dependent on other people in WoW.

Originally Posted by nekobaka

It is quite disturbing to see such in an expansion that is focusing so much on engagement from the casual playerbase compared to previous expansions. To also have such a loss from the east where they tend to be more grind happy is also interesting.

That effectively makes the game more expensive to play in the pay-per-hour markets, so I am not surprised active accounts went down there.

Whoa that's a lot more than expected, it might actually be time to worry.

Great, another quarter report, another thread filled with 15 years olds, high school drop outs and angry housewives to wave the doomsday flag and try to justify whatever little petty grip they have with the game by using numbers they cannot even remotely comprehend that couldn't even be used as a base to come to any significant conclusions.

Originally Posted by Leitka

One of the largest factors in this is, of course, the global economy being in the shitter.

2009? 2010?

Originally Posted by Aang

The game is also much older too, though I don't think that is an excuse for the loss. People will play this game if it's good, they will spend money for the sub if they like it and honestly that's too big of a sub loss for it to be just the economy.

I didn't say 'just the economy', I said the economy is a large factor in sub-loss. Large factor does not mean only factor.

While the game is older, and the engine is indeed somewhat limited by its age, its a bit disingenuous to really *call* it old, because it's a game in a genre that, historically, has always been forced to evolve with the times. The technology of the game isn't *identical* to what it was at launch, and the spaghetti-code of it has certainly seen changes over the years.

The graphical limitations of the game do exist, but...the difference between even Wrath and MoP are startlingly apparent when the art of the two expansions are placed side-by-side.

Do not misread my posts as something they are not; I'm not blindly defending the game or something, I'm reminding people that factors other than game quality tend to influence games quite heavily. They are, in the end, games and therefore part of the first bit of spending of which one can readily lessen if their needs require it.

Totally expected this. Thought it would be more than 7.5m. WOW is getting worse with each expansion. and execting someone new to pickup the game and have the terrible leveling experience in front of them, I don't see how it can possibly get any larger.

Originally Posted by isadorr

Titan is being marketed as a E-sport and if you do any google searching you will see the comments on Titan being like BC, no nerfs, high difficulty, and a game that can be taken seriously unlike nerfed for bads wow, wow will be left behind for the casuals/bad.

Titan isn't being marketted as anything because they haven't even unveiled anything at all about it outside of what we've heard on the rumor mill.

Say what you will, but losing 13.54% of your Playerbase in just 3 months is a colossal loss. Changes are coming.

Get rid of the grind. Dumbest idea ever to force people to do things every week. Blizz is right, you should *want* to go out into the world. But what we have now is being *forced* into the world. Which is not fun.

Originally Posted by Cows For Life

2009? 2010?

Do not mistake 'global economy' for 'american economy.'

The global economy was affected by the drop in the American economy with aftershock effects felt globally *following* the American crash. Those aftershocks are still in effect, though there is improvement in certain locations. We're still in recovery-mode at the end of the day, economically.

Originally Posted by Leitka

It's a *huge* factor that people readily leave out of discussions like this. Even less mentioned than the sub loss being a side-effect of the games original target audience growing older and dealing with increased real-world responsibilities.

I think this may be a bigger factor than many people realize. For the first time since Nov 2004 I'm actually unsubbed right now. I don't have the time to devote to raiding anymore, and frankly - alting in MOP is just awful - even with the current changes. I'm devoting my gaming time elsewhere for now.

Originally Posted by Osmeric

Yes. But (1) subscriptions were not rising at an "exponential rate" (what does that even mean? The curve certainly wasn't well fit by an exponential function), and (2) the sub increase in Wrath was smaller than in Vanilla or BC, not larger. So your "factual points" were wrong.

http://medical-dictionary.thefreedic...ponential+rate For you

I never said that the the sub increase was smaller or larger, I was saying that it was increasing until mid WOTLK-ish.

doesn't matter how great the game is. it's going to decline. all of these reasons people are coming up with about how WoW is bad are just silly.

they could put out one fantastic patch after another and it's going to burn out and fade away eventually