WoW Lost 300k Subscribers, Patch 4.3 this year, Blizzcon 2011 Tickets, Blue Posts

[Winfernal]

So, people are getting to their senses, good. This number will do nothing else but rising...

[johnnyo032003]

Now we'll just have to wait Trion to announce "we're happy to hear about the loss blaablaablaa we know exactly where those 300k players went."

Actually I highly doubt Trion is the beneficiary of lost wow subs, its probably more likely STO and SWTOR that are getting all the old wow subs.

[Xilurm]

People will always continue to hate on things that are new and there will be others to defend those things. There is no point in this at all.

[Winfernal]

If you think Rift's subscriptions are increasing, you are mistaken. They were literally merging servers because they were/are so deserted.

Wrong. They increased the numbers of "servers".
And it IS increasing

[therayeffect]

So, people are getting to their senses, good. This number will do nothing else but rising...

It's actually gone down... lol fail logic. They are just shedding a lot of those who cba to put a little effort into their toon and learning how to play. One thing I hope is that blizz doesn't panic and makes shit chain pull easy. I'm going to be really disappointed if the Old God raid is not as epic as the other ones have been in the past.

[medi01]

I don't know about you guys, but I get annoyed with the increasing levels of greediness at Blizzard.And it's not only about WoW.Starcraft 1 not only had LAN but you could OFICIALLY play with up to 3 of your games, buying a single copy of the game.Oh, and you could sell your game too.Of course both is a "lost profit" so now they do neither LAN thing (no, it won't affect "pirates" much) and second market (game binds to your acc, very hard to sell it afterwards).In WoW it's not enough that you pay 15$ per month, they want you to pay 3 times that for expansions. (they have only about 300$ million of expenses, compared to about 1.2+billion $ revenue from subscriptions on WoW)Want to play with your friends from other servers? Oh, please give us more money.Want to change your char? Moar, moar moaaaar money.You want to bid on auction house? That's bloody expensive. Our CPU gets tired, you know. GIEF MOAR $$$!What else, oh, "cool mounts" and pets for $$. This isn't "free to play" game, dear Blizzard. Now DIII will have "sell for real money" "feature". (let's imagine what are the chances of Blizzard NOT making money on such sales).Very impressive.

[therayeffect]

Wrong. They increased the numbers of "servers".
And it IS increasing

Want to give a source for that there Mr. s1ppr?

[blade5o]

Seems to me the player base is a little spoiled, but last time I saw only 8 guilds downed Heroic rag. So how are 45% of these comments throughout 18 pages done with raiding? lol

[Creptius]

They lost almost 1 million subscribers in the first year of Cataclysm. Based on all the warcraft realms reports, we know that the big dropoff in player participation is actually in year 2 after the content is finally milked dry. Blizzard is stalling a bit with their raid release cycle, but typically we'd see the end-raid (Black Temple, ICC) in the november/dec period....probably this time they'll launch a new raid in the october timeframe, and the deathwing raid sometime next year. By then it might be too late -- GW2, SW:TOR, and a ton of other games... and Rift is getting more solid each and every day too (the dark horse in the mmo market). WoW isn't going anywhere, but the sun is setting on the dominance of WoW ... and probably the better of the whole MMO industry. "Peak WoW" was mid-Wrath.

It's blizzard own fault for letting their game go to shit. I've always said that the only thing that would kill wow is itself and It's happening right infront of our eyes. According to that chart wow only has 2 expansions left anyway, one apparently coming in less than a year. I quit wow in January because i felt like i was straight up lied to when they said the content would be more challenging. I don't plan on playing wow again but if the new expansion or a new patch that comes out that peaks my interest I'll resubscribe. The fact is though, that they took several months to get out 4.1, which was a half assed patch just rehashing old shit that nobody asked for, and then they take a few more months to come out with another half assed patch, with horrible dailies and people getting into the heroic modes on the first day; because the content was way to easy. It just seems to me like blizzard is done with wow and has all the people that worked on vanilla and bc on titan to make it the next big thing. I mean, they did say it was going to 'eclipse' wow and with wows dropping subscriber numbers, that might be too hard.

[Exauras]

Because the feeling of thinking about having "wasted" years on a game was kinda keeping me attached to it, while hoping it would have got better again.
Kinda common feeling that's keeping lots of people if you didn't know.

So you're going to play til the end? I'd be more concerned about the person who wasted 20 years of their life on the game if it got that long. I never expect to play a game forever. If you're worried about wasted time, then you really shouldn't play any video games, because the moment you stop playing, then you wasted all those hours.

People really shouldn't be upset that WoW lost 900k subs so far. The game's been out for a long time. I'd say it's pretty reasonable that 7.5% of the player base had other things to do. People get new jobs, start families and relocate. I've been playing for 6 years myself,and while I wouldn't mind raiding more if I had the time, the truth is I'm rapidly prioritizing other things above the game. It doesn't mean I don't like it. I'd argue that half of the loss has been from situations like this. Long time players who weren't babies when the game started are gonna find their priorities changing once they move out of their parent's houses.

[Granyala]

WoWs core problem always was and always will be, that if you don't raid, you are VERY SOON at a point where you can't advance any further.

And if peeps can't advance, they get bored. -> bored people leave.

More "0mg awezum dailies" won't help here because dailies feel like this REALLY FAST:




Every casual who quits the game has my sympathies, I'm in a lucky position of being able to raid and to have tons of fun (sometimes frustration but mostly fun) with it.

[caervek]

Anyone else fine it funny that the system aimed at WoW fans uses SLI when WoW doesn't support SLI? :P

[Fakup]

300.001!

This message is being sent to confirm that all credit card information has been removed from the World of Warcraft account WoW1, effectively cancelling its recurring subscription as of 8/4/2011 13:20:30. The account will not bill or renew any further unless new payment information (credit card or game card) is manually entered in.

The account will remain playable for the remaining time it has already paid for. This account's current prepaid time will expire on 8/24/2011 11:14:29.

Please Note: Cancelling one World of Warcraft subscription that has been merged to a Battle.net Account will not cancel all World of Warcraft Accounts which have been similarly merged. If you wish to cancel more than one subscription, you must cancel each individually

[banksytroll]

I'll go ahead and throw in one last reply to all the people telling me to "suck it up and raid if you want your tier gear" No. I'd rather unsub than be forced to do things I don't enjoy. That sub money can go to another game like League of Legends or something else. I'll say it again, clearer this time: I will not be forced by a GAME that required a MONTHLY FEE to do something I DO NOT FIND FUN to enjoy said game. Its a waste of money. And its funny, because you can argue your "tier should be raiders only derp derp" point on the forums all you want. I've spoken with my wallet. So have nearly a million others. Guess what blizzard is going to listen to? I'll give you a hint: It isn't the people on the forums, its the people who stopped paying. "YOU SHOULD HAVE TO WORK FOR IT YOU ENTITLED BLAH BLAH BLAH RAGE" Yes. I should. I had to work for my tier 9/10 in WotLK. It took me three months of grinding heroics to finish my sets. That's work. Sorry if you don't agree, but it is. That system worked, that system kept me playing. I do not give two fucks if you think I'm acting entitled. I'm a paying customer. Blizzard can either cater to me, and get my subscription fee, or they can ignore me, and i'll spend my money elsewhere. And no, this HAS worked in the past, it was called WotLK. I subbed through most of WotLK from the end of ulduar on. The system for tier worked from ToC onward - I had a gear set to obtain. I had a goal I could reach. This continued through ICC. If you wanted your vanity gear, you got it doing 25m raids, getting tokens, and what not.

You could have done the easiest raid know to man in wrath not to say BH isn't a joke either. they are essentially throwing gear and points at you saving you time, and we all know time is money well used or wasted.

No if you wanted vanity gear go to a RP server be a druid whos character story line says they need a drop that is irrelevant to their class like a fucking sword. Thats Vanity. Heroic Teir and drops are not for Vanity its for Progression. And no you did not work you hit probably 2 buttons wallowing in 5mans for something you could have gotten much faster. getting t9 in badges was a joke. I got 4/5 norm t9 in a day it was joke to say you had to work for it. Yes frostys took awhile but yeah it would if you only did your daily.

Raiding is a core mechanic of this Game, yes you can get around it for somethings. But if you had a couple really shitty raids and that turned you off you didn't try. There is always going to be some asshole trolling or grieving the raid unless you have a guild group who aren't fucktards.

[styopa]

"...despite the loss of players, Mike Morhaime pointed out that the new trial system resulted in an increase in new account creations..."
Nice spin, but that's bad.

"We have more people using our systems for free, so we hope they become subscribers."

Color me unsurprised at the result (it is going stale, after all) but there's no way you can say that losing 1m subscribers (~8%) in SIX MONTHS after a huge new expansion is a good thing.

Nevertheless, they're probably a viable business at anything north of 1m subscribers so they're still doing just fine.

[Exauras]

Now DIII will have "sell for real money" "feature". (let's imagine what are the chances of Blizzard NOT making money on such sales).Very impressive.

You do know that every auction-based website charges for transactions? This is nothing new. Its the same connect behind paying a posting fee on the WoW AH and then having the game take a 5% cut on whatever you make. Other places make you pay a service fee to be able to post in addition to paying the posting fee and them getting their cut. I'm sure you'd like to have your sub raised to cover that. They offer a way for normal everyday people to make money from playing a game. It's no different from those who make money selling stuff on eBay. Ebay profits from sellers. Why not Bliz?

[Deleted]

2 am GMT + 0 for anyone living in England for the Live Raid thing.

[Nebthet]

So you're going to play til the end? I'd be more concerned about the person who wasted 20 years of their life on the game if it got that long. I never expect to play a game forever. If you're worried about wasted time, then you really shouldn't play any video games, because the moment you stop playing, then you wasted all those hours.

I clearly stated that I've already stopped playing and never planned to play it forever. Here:

In fact, it took me more than 6 months for me to quit since when I was really, really hating the game.

Other than that, I didn't mention earlier that there were some other reasons that were keeping me there, such as my friends (the minority that had not quit yet), and the feeling of a community I was in (which was slowly fading away anyway, too).

[Tidycat]

Has anybody ever thought that the people that are leaving isnt because the game is bad? 300,000 people. Can we assume that some of those people have since died (im not too sure how they canceled if they died, but whatever), or the economy has taken a toll (I know its only $15 per month, but maybe they had to sell their PC for rent money?). I have been playing the game since Vanilla off and on. Am I a little bored with the game right now, sure, but its also the only video game I have ever played for more than a month. When I beat Elder Scrolls I never picked the game back up again, but with wow I sit with a few 85's and some 80's and continue to play (cool story I know). I dont get a chance to raid anymore and feel Blizzard maybe can try a little harder for end game casuals, make some dungeons end game that can be soloed but are still difficult and require me to think about what im doing. Its hard to say Blizz doesnt care about wow anymore, without wow they would be just another gaming company that releases sub par games every once in awhile

[Exauras]

I clearly stated that I've already stopped playing and never planned to play it forever.

I must've missed where you said you had quit. there was a lot to skim and i wasn't to interested in reading all these pages anyways. The 20 years part was more for anyone in general. I believe games are meant to go out and people should move on. My other part still stands, any game you play and quit is going to lead to wasted time. Playing a 2nd game when you could be playing WoW can also mean you wasted your time. When you look at it like that, it makes everything that you don't see as productive useless. If that's the case you should play D3 and spend your time farming for stuff to sell on the AH and make profits!