WoW Down to 7.6 Million Subscribers

Hooo... WoW is now officially less popular than DoTA 2. Intriguing...

Originally Posted by Bignasty

so the game 2 quarters ago had 7.6, last Q went 7.8 and then back to 7.6mill again... I predicted this would happen to some extent and its due to the RAF system, pet chasers went and purchased up to 4 more accounts, mount chasers at least 1 more and achive chasers up to 7 accs for all the bits and pieces... the 200k that re subbed were actually old subbers getting new accs to get in game goodies...

Or like, a million different reasons.

Originally Posted by Verain

This is a rather small sub loss for so deep into an expac- I honestly would have thought more. This is definitely good news.

Agree. This is definitely surprisingly good news. I'd expect a bigger loss due to the long wait for WoD.

Originally Posted by Khiva

Hooo... WoW is now officially less popular than DoTA 2. Intriguing...

Turns out something that's free to play has more players than something that costs US$180 a year for the sub alone. Who knew?

Or to put it another way: WoW has 7.6 million subs, DoTA 2 has zero.

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Originally Posted by Getreuer

Agree. This is definitely surprisingly good news. I'd expect a bigger loss due to the long wait for WoD.

I keep saying, it didn't happen in ICC or Sunwell either. Subs actually went up slightly in ICC.

Q1 is too early for major sub losses. Most people weren't even done with normals by the start of January. I'm betting most of those losses are from the later months, seeing more and more people/posts/threads around various sites that people are getting bored of SoO and unsubbing until the expansion. The real losses will be in Q2 and Q3 especially if we hear no word of an announcement until after Q3. People need a reason to stay subbed. Waiting a year without an announcement even would be insane.

On another note "alpha test coming soon" is interesting. A more "beta-ish" alpha? WoD has been in what seems to be very testable state since Blizzcon. Hopefully it won't last too long.

WoW is not dying because of content or graphics it it dying because new players are not welcomed to a fun experience instead we are welcomed to people calling us NOObs, or yelling and swearing at us then kicking us from dungeons and raids, and even making it hard for us to get into a raid group to get better gear. The so called Elitist Jerks give new players so much of a bad experience that they dont want to come back. i have been playing since 2011 and believe me people in this game really are so immature and rude it really pisses me off and makes my experience not worth the $15 dollars a month plus the money for expac's.

And then there are people like me and my gf.. we have 3 accounts running, none of us played one second this year.... so 7.6m, sure, active players tho.. half maybe?..

Anyhow, as long as it's >500k, it's worth keeping alive and releasing content for. Good on ya Blizzard, hats off!

Originally Posted by Khiva

Hooo... WoW is now officially less popular than DoTA 2. Intriguing...

Unless you pay a subscription to play DotA, no it is not.
7.6 million people actively paying to play the game is -huge-.

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Originally Posted by Dawon

And then there are people like me and my gf.. we have 3 accounts running, none of us played one second this year.... so 7.6m, sure, active players tho.. half maybe?..

Anyhow, as long as it's >500k, it's worth keeping alive and releasing content for. Good on ya Blizzard, hats off!

If *half* of all players waste money as blatantly as this, I have little hope for mankind.

Still going strong, good on you blizzard.

Also, like many others have pointed out, I'm still having fun with the game.

I might assume there is fraud in their statistics. I am also quite sure that there are more subscription lost than 200K, however, we are just at the start of a slope while a compound acceleration of diving can be anticipated. The actual subscription at this time will be 6.5M-7M.

Originally Posted by Jaxi

At 15 dollars a month, that is 3 million dollars worth of revenue per month they are not receiving anymore. Fixed costs don't move, and variable costs are slightly sticky. So if Revenue - Costs = Profits, then for an investor seeing 3 million dollars of revenue going away, that means less profit. It's not as bad as it could be, but people need to stop deluding themselves into thinking a loss of subscriptions is a good thing, or nothing. Especially since this loss has been fairly consistent over the past several years.

Someone earlier said you are counted in the quarter if you were subscribed at any point. I'm not sure if that is true or not, but it could explain why there aren't quite as many as others would predict.

Thats only if all 200K were from EU/US. If there were Asia sub losses, then that does not impact the same way as they pay by the hour not by the month.

Originally Posted by Fummockelchen

...perhaps if you dont count the 0,5mill ppl that refunded....

Mind giving proof that .5mill ppl refunded before pulling numbers out of your arse?

EDIT: For the record, the people that responded to my previous comment, that woosh you're hearing is the sound of the point of 'no flying will kill this game being wrong' that the comment was making sailing over your heads...

Originally Posted by maulgryve

Who gives a crap if subs are down. As long as there is one PVP server that is full - I'll be playing.

^This and x 100000000000 THIS!

Maulgryve for President of the Interwebs!

Originally Posted by Jaxi

At 15 dollars a month, that is 3 million dollars worth of revenue per month they are not receiving anymore. Fixed costs don't move, and variable costs are slightly sticky. So if Revenue - Costs = Profits, then for an investor seeing 3 million dollars of revenue going away, that means less profit.

look at who took Freshman Accounting!

Originally Posted by panzerdan

Normal People
"OH its normal drop off after the last patch of the expac"

Fan BOI's
" NOTHING YOU SEE NOTHING"

DoomDay sayer
"The world is over for warcraft Bring backz vinallia. 7 million why even play anymore

Lol ! Best Quote of this news thread. XD

I'd bet my house it will be over a million subs lost before the next expac comes out ...it's a long long ways off and a lot of people are going to be calling it quits over the summer and have nothing to resub for until the next expac.

Originally Posted by mistahwilshire

Entirely negligible loss. Nothing to see here.

This. I had feared worse and I'm guessing we'll see some further losses next time around (albeit by that time hopefully WoD will be tangibly close) but 200k is only what they gained last time around. It was relatively insignificant then and is relatively insignificant now. If anything it's a sign of health that the game can keep as steady a base still. Amusing to see all the doomsayers though.

would be interesting to know how many players are new to the game and how many left the game.

Most of the subs lost are from the burn out that is this tier. Many of those that have cleared all the content aren't subbed right now because, in their eyes, they've beat the game up to this point. There isn't much to do right now because there is no new content on the horizon. Those 200k subs will be back and more when the last patch and xpac get closer. Hell, a lot of raiding guilds just stop when alpha/beta goes live so they can get attuned to the class changes and what not. I wouldn't be surprised to see another drop of 200k or so before beta launches.
If you look at the graph, every patch sees a bump than a drop off. It's just how things work, even in the real world. When there is stuff to do, there are more people. When there is less to do, there is less people. It's a cycle that will not end until content does.

Well just wait for the next quarter when it will be lower by another 1000 who went to play the wonderful ESO!