WoW Down to 6.8 Million Subscribers
Blizzard had their Q2 2014 earnings call today, announcing that WoW is down to 6.8 million subscribers. This is down 800k from the Q1 2014 call that listed WoW at 7.6 million subscribers.

  • There are now over 1.5 million preorders for Warlords of Draenor.
  • Hearthstone on the iPad has added millions of new users to Battle.Net.
  • There have been over 20 million copies of Diablo III sold, counting both the base game and Reaper of Souls.
  • There was a decline in subscribers quarter over quarter, which was disproportionately concentrated in the East and was similar to the seasonal decline experienced during the second quarter of 2012, prior to the launch of the most recent expansion later that year.

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This article was originally published in forum thread: WoW Down to 6.8 Million Subscribers started by chaud View original post
Comments 689 Comments
  1. tehdef's Avatar
    I think the biggest problem is the cost of entry. Right now, just to prep for Warlords of Draenor if you're brand new, you pay 20 for standard, 20 for MoP, and 50 for WoD. 90$ for 1 month of game time, and a free 90. If you wait until WoD launches, you'll get everything for free up to WoD, and you're still looking at 10$ more than the average game for 1 month.

    I think the biggest problem is simply cost. I think if they lowered it to 10$ a month, and added some more cool visual shit for 3-5$ to the store, while also making it to where you get Classic to WoD for 40 to 50$, it would be great.

    Only brand new accounts with no tied in battle.net account will get a free 90. I dunno, just seems like they are having some problems getting new players in, and older players don't want to return for 70$. It's just not a good deal if you're a returning player. You are level 60, 70, have to pay to get MoP, then you don't want to level the 30 levels, so you pay another 50 for the 90. The value just isn't there and I think Blizzard needs to take a cold hard look at the actual numbers of the game. People will pay for subscriptions if they feel like they are getting value out of it. 10$ a month is a good value, and could be considered a movie ticket.
  1. Immitis's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Moradim View Post
    I knew pandaland was a terrible idea for an expansion ever since I saw the blizzcon trailer. It feels good to be vindicated.

    Yes, I wanted an emerald dream xpac, or something with actual lore/interesting material.
    pandaria had more lore than the emerald dream did.
  1. Yunru's Avatar
    The investors wont be happy.
  1. skrump's Avatar
    Doesnt mean much, I've been un-subbed since nearly 4 months after the release of pandaria and I plan on coming back to check out the new expansion and I am sure I am not the only one.

    Pandaria was great because it was a bullshit expansion with a distant storyline nobody cared about thus allowing many longtime veterans of the warcraft franchise a breather to pursue other games.

    and its not like the game is going to still seem old and stale, with the character skins and probably some heavy modifications to just about everything implemented in the prior expansion (will admit ive read nothing about the expansion as I dont want to know anything about it before i experience it.)
  1. Osmeric's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Zenotetsuken View Post
    They say the exact same thing every single time they announce a huge sub loss.
    No, actually they don't.
  1. Immitis's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Moradim View Post
    Even dota is an old game, it started in WC3. And they just had the biggest prize money tournament of all time, for dota2. All i'm saying is Blizzard needs to learn from their mistakes. Try to innovate, don't just do more of the same. IMO the biggest problem with the game right now is the time between new content patches. Give people more reasons to log in, don't just make something new every 8-12 months.
    dota 2 is not dota.
  1. mmoc7e31dcdb97's Avatar
    takes them so long to release any content, no wonder people leave...
  1. Chisato's Avatar
    Maybe they'll learn that content is stale when there are no updates for over a year and won't repeat the same mistake again.

    Yeah right.
  1. ringpriest's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Azrile View Post
    Because they are not losing the $15/month subscribers, they are losing the guys in china that were paying $1 per month who are now playing f2p games.

    There is no panic because anyone with half a brain can read the numbers and what Blizzard is saying. Just like back when WOW had 12M subscribers but 505 were from china, everyone knew that WOW only really had 6M ´profitable´ subscribers.
    Ah, the never ending "All the losses are in China!" claim. If subscribers (really, time-buyers) in China are less valuable to investors and stockholders, yet make up a majority of the subscription losses, why does Blizzard merge subscription numbers for East and West? Surely, they'd want to point out how many of those "valuable" Western subscribers they still have?
  1. Osmeric's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Descense View Post
    The investors wont be happy.
    ATVI stock is up 2.86% in after hours trading.
  1. IllidariCouncil's Avatar
    WoW is at a all time low, lowest its been since it came out. This proves its dying. Believe what you want
  1. thunderdragon2's Avatar
    not surprised about the drop, im now intrested to see how much they get back wiht the next quater report due to the log in requirements of the horde chopper
  1. Bubblykiss's Avatar
    A year with no new content and they loss a few hundred thousand accounts....odd....mighty....odd......
  1. mmocba8e435f3b's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Osmeric View Post
    ATVI stock is up 2.86% in after hours trading.
    That's because the stock is based on company strength. With the addition of all the "buy me for $$$" stuff they are likely making more money than they were
  1. Mouri Kogorou's Avatar
    Product lifecycle.

    they can no longer let the genre/industry be shaped around them, instead they need to shape the game around the industry.

    let us face it, it is a fact that it is going to be very very hard to gain subs in short period (1-2 quarters), they will have to do drastic changes to shape their game around the industry (fast content, cheaper/f2p model etc..)
  1. Lora's Avatar
    pre expansion lull. nothing new here other than being as low as 2 years into WoW.
  1. Pete's Avatar
    Alot higher than I thought it would be

    We're talking about a 10 year old product with a subscription model as well as shop
    Without even scratching the surface of all the various franchise which have spawned through the games popularity (TCG, books etc)

    They are pretty much laughing all the way to the bank financially since the get go
  1. Orby's Avatar
    To be expected since there hasn't been no new content for such a long time.

    When WoD comes up they'll be a slight rise in subs again. Not sure by how much but it happens every expansion!
  1. mmoc8f2d9db51e's Avatar
    To all the doomsayers isn't this still like, more subs than most MMOs out there? And please don't compare WoW to stuff like EvE and Dota as I've seen done here ;p Not the same
  1. jangkun's Avatar
    It will drop for Q3 and go up with 6.0/WoD release. But I don't expect it to go really high. Many people don't seem excited about WoD. 6.8 millions is still really high (x15$/month).

    There is so much MMO releasing every year that it's not surprising WoW keep losing subscriptions. Most known as SW:ToR, ESO, Wildstar, Guild Wars 2 are around 1 million each. There's also Tera, Aion, Rift, The Secret World, Lineage, Final Fantasy XIV,etc that also have a good player base. There is Archage, Everquest Next, and some other incoming MMO.
    We can't pass on MMOFPS also like Destiny, The Division that are coming soon or the actual PlanetSide, DayZ that are some survival online games.

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