WoW Down to 6.8 Million Subscribers

Originally Posted by IllidariCouncil

WoW is at a all time low, lowest its been since it came out. This proves its dying. Believe what you want

It's dying, yes, in the same way you and every human being on the planet is dying. WoW is dying, it will die eventually. But imminently? I don't think they'll be pulling the plug tomorrow morning or anything.

Not sure why people have to keep saying "WoW is dying!" over and over, like they have been since WotLK. Of course it is. Nobody, not even the most deluded fanboy would ever think the game can go "forever" :P

This is in no way scientific, but for me and a lot of people I know:

May 2005 - Picked up WoW, was part of the biggest wave of players in history (May-Jun 2005).
August 2010 - Killed the Lich King. I beat WoW!
September 2010 - Took a break.
January 2011 - Tried Cata. These 5 mans are impossible! WTF did they do! And who's this dragon?
February 2011 - Quit. Stopped caring.
August 2014 - Sub here and there for a month or so. Still can't bring myself to care. Guild has been dead for years.

This is just my story, but it matches the chart perfectly.

What's there to say? No content for a while, people leave.

Blizzard knows this and continues to fail to stop this year-long gap between the last patch and the next expansion from appearing.

bobby kotick can go fuck himself, he ruins everything he puts his shitty hands on.

ah, it's nice to be honest. can't say that on the official forums.

Yeah, so we haven't seen new content in a very long time. And yes, WOW is a game that's been around for a long time. But the fact remains, since it's peak, WOW has lost 5.7 million subs. No expansion will bring it back to the "Glory Days". Though there are small increases here and there, overall, the game numbers are dropping. The sub revenue is almost half of what it once was. And I know other game subs come no where close to WOW subs. However, you can't compare other games because WOW has ALWAYS stood alone. So that argument is a bit invalid. I wish it were different as I've loved the game since the beginning and would really like to see those crazy numbers again. But I have to admit, it's a definite decline. I think Blizz made a HUGE mistake with the no new content approach and other decisions they have made. I think they could have kept the numbers much higher. But even then, even if we had lots of new content, the decline would persist. Nonetheless, even though I don't play nearly as much as I once did, I still enjoy playing the game. I'm not really sure how the business end works with a game. However, I do know if I were an investor, I wouldn't look at the small increase spikes. I would CERTAINLY notice the overall declining graph as a risky investment.

Originally Posted by Immitis

dota 2 is not dota.

Well technically Dota2 is as close a copy of Dota as possible. But I think Moradim's comparison isn't very good or fair. Dota doesn't have a content replayability problem like MMO's tend to have.

Originally Posted by Littleshashi

This is in no way scientific, but for me and a lot of people I know:

Yeah, I feel like that too (and I quit the same month, although I came back in December). Cataclysm seems to have broken things and they haven't been able to put it all back together. On the other hand, maybe this is just projection of personal feelings.

Originally Posted by jangkun

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.

I'm in the Archeage beta, that game reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeally sucks. Totally not what they said it would be

Originally Posted by Littleshashi

This is in no way scientific, but for me and a lot of people I know:

May 2005 - Picked up WoW, was part of the biggest wave of players in history (May-Jun 2005).
August 2010 - Killed the Lich King. I beat WoW!
September 2010 - Took a break.
January 2011 - Tried Cata. These 5 mans are impossible! WTF did they do! And who's this dragon?
February 2011 - Quit. Stopped caring.
August 2014 - Sub here and there for a month or so. Still can't bring myself to care. Guild has been dead for years.

This is just my story, but it matches the chart perfectly.

Kind of the same here.... Started in January 2007, Raided in BC, in Wrath my guild was the first to kill rotface and festergut back when each wing was still gated, I quit in january 2009, came back about 8 months later, quit again, Cata came out, I was super excited, but there wasn't enough to do so all I did was PvP and then I quit about 3 months after cata came out and didn't come back til about August 2012....

Originally Posted by Moradim

bobby kotick can go fuck himself, he ruins everything he puts his shitty hands on.

ah, it's nice to be honest. can't say that on the official forums.

Well, unless you are an investor. Then he's doing the opposite of ruining things. He's been very good at making money for the people that matter.

I personally think the problem has been crap xpacs like cata and pandaria....cater too much to the casuals....and essentially make everything extremely easy to obtain....almost everything now is a hand-out....they need to revert to pre-cata days and they would see numbers rise again. It doesnt help also that they have bookoo bucks to spend on this game...yet you cant customize skin textures...body mass....etc. like you can in a cheap game like DnD....which is sad....not to mention them taking away the ability to actually customize your specs by giving you the new crappy talent tree....but hey i guess it could be worse...like rift lmao

I love how mists of pandaria was such a "breath of fresh air" that the subscribers for it dipped during 90% of its lifetime.

Originally Posted by Osmeric

Well, unless you are an investor. Then he's doing the opposite of ruining things. He's been very good at making money for the people that matter.

well, activision is lucky to have CoD which is the same crap released every year, and the 8 year old fanbase doesn't care.

WoW on the other hand...they aren't managing it as well as they could at all. he might be making them money overall, but it's at the cost of game quality. he's essentially doing what EA does to their games.

Thats quite the drop but no content for almost a year makes it quite unsurprising really, the subs will increase come WoD hell even the prepatch would probably bring back some players.

600k less and we'll be at BC population the best expansion ever! hurr durr! This happens every expansion, they lose ppl in the east whoopy frickin doo. In a month or month and a half numers will hike up again like they always do. Numbers don't matter until it's down to like 1-2 million.

Originally Posted by Dolus

Time to rush the beta.

more like time to rush game release lol

Originally Posted by iriecolorado

Anti-Fanboys: "This is proof that WoW is dead!"

Fanboys: "But, but, but 10 year old game! But, but, but this happens every other expansion! But, but, but it's just a content drought! But, but, but you'll be back!"

Do we have to re-hash this crap every 3 months?

It's pretty clear that, yes, yes we do

The problem isn't Blizzard: the problem is the crowd they are pandering to. Hardcore gamers are a better long-time investment since they are more likely to stick around. People in raiding guilds form friendships and stay for them. PvP people look forward to each season for another chance to come out on top. Professional gold makers want to watch the money roll in. Achievement hunters... well they want to catch them all. Which of these 4 groups of people is Blizzard targeting? Answer: none.

Raiding isn't challenging enough and can be blazed through in a month, even by a new guild. PvP balance is neglected at worst. Professions are getting zero content, making the economic portion of the game boring, achievement hunters are getting stupid stuff like "farm archaeology for a month".

Instead the so-called "casuals" are getting bazillion of content for them to "enjoy". Guess what, running SoO for the 100th time to get that LFR gear with no skill, no strategy and no communication isn't fun and won't make people form bonds. Getting boosted to top gear in 1 week won't make people get invested. Right now WoW is dominated by these faceless players who don't communicate, don't learn and don't invest: they play WoW like a single player game. And single player games don't last long.

Originally Posted by Goretex

600k less and we'll be at BC population the best expansion ever! hurr durr! This happens every expansion, they lose ppl in the east whoopy frickin doo. In a month or month and a half numers will hike up again like they always do. Numbers don't matter until it's down to like 1-2 million.

it doesnt matter if numbers go up for one quarter (launch), if they all quit a few months later. many people who quit will never come back, also. even if this 6.8 mil goes to 10 mil at launch, what good is it if the subs drop to 4 mil later on?

Well, I mean, it wasn't going to up so I'm not surprised that it would go down with being on the 11th month of the same content patch with several more to go. It'll spike in nine days though with the cinematic and some key jingling by the Blizzard panel, then again after Blizzcon when they distract the crowd with their shirts, and a big push at release.

Kind of like how it has been for each expansion and content update while shedding players who are simply tired of a ten year old game.

in before people start saying the sky is falling and claim the 800k loss as proof that the game is dying