10.3 million subscribers

[brigada]

I remember Runescape closing about 1 million botting accounts recently - that makes me wonder how many of those 800k from WoW were actual players. Can't be many

[Pepitobenito]

It's foolish to think the game is dead. It's dead to me, sure, but I'm only one person; 10 million people still play it, and that's still vastly more people than any other MMO out there. However, it's equally foolish to ignore facts; the game is on a decline that it will probably not recover from. Its age and Blizzard's constant philosophy changes are finally catching up to it, pushing out many of the players who have been around for years. On top of that, the MMO scene has never had greater competition.

It will take years, as the game can still be profitable with less than a million subs, but eventually WoW will crumble. It's just a fact. Never before have they seen subs bleed at such a massive rate. Roughly 2 million players gone in, what, 6 months? That's got to have even Blizzard in their golden, jewel-encrusted thrones worried for the future. With their complacency in having a huge and continuously growing sub base, does Blizzard even know how to handle the situation now that they've so suddenly lost almost 20% of their customers and continue to lose more each day? Factor in the largely negative response for MoP in combination with upcoming MMO juggernauts SWTOR and Guild Wars 2, and I can't see WoW maintaining its dominance for much longer, even if it continues to limp on well into this next decade.

[plosion]

I'm actually happy wow is losing subs.

The faster it reaches the 2-3 mil range, the faster the devs will start to cater to gamers again.

[ShimmerSwirl]

Okay..I should have rephrased that to "Which game has 10 million SUBS paying a monthly fee after 7 years"?

http://www.mmodata.net/ click the 1-12 m link

If WoW is dying..what about the other games there? Do they get forumposts like WoW?

'Dying' is a verb. 'Dead' is not. WoW is not dead, as clearly evidenced by the 10.3 million subscribers. It is however dying, as evidenced by 3 consecutive quarterly reports.

[ZenX]

I don't think people bad enough at math to buy a 12month wow subscription fee to get Diablo III even exist.

Actually, you lack the vision for seeing the possibilities regarding why people would commit to an annual pass, as either of them are possible:

1- Still plays the game, and will play the game for the next following months, not a bad deal
2- Likes diablo and is alternating in between WoW, wants to access beta
3- Seeing that it is viable deal, seeing how if the game(Diablo) which (s)he will purchase a collector's edition of(4 months off from the 12-month commitment), is to be released earlier than 6-8 months, while (s)he will be playing the new patch etc.

The 3 of these choices vary with what kind of a gamer the player is, the reason some of the people who had jumped the boat for Rift was due to t11 being too hard and the other game being shinier, and seeing how they don't have the WotLK raiding they simply don't want to return, as what Rift have right now is that, along with its shiny package. For hardcores it doesn't really matter as those guys are hardcore gamers committing their time mainly to games, now for the casual players who don't have the time for raids, there's no proper end-game to satisfy them as be it PvE or PvP it is time-consuming, and is not really worth the time due to how bland the content is, unless they find a nice PuG for t11 or t12 normals, else way they either level alts or quit for a while to see new games.

...and since, we are not like the Chinese(EU & NA) as we pay monthly compared to the "time-played" system they have, as in the case of many casuals, there are time where the player doesn't set foot in the game for 1-2 weeks or spend a single day of the weekend playing it, as a game, and since how the sub-fee hasn't changed over these 6 years, these guys still pay their monthly and wouldn't really care as they don't criticize the game on how hard the content is, but rather how much quality content they get and difficulty =/= quality...

In the end, the reason for the sub-loss is mainly due to players not finding the game fun as it was used to be, hence, it ends not being worthy of their time or money. 4.3 does have the possibility of changing this, as it may not be giving a 16-raid boss of epic difficulty despite the uproar of criers, yet, will be offering things still fun and casual enough for everyone to experience.

If you guys are so keen on some hardcore computer-based challenge, go sign-up to TopCoder and attain some proper challenge... oh wait, when it comes to challenges that are real, you really don't attempt them but rather bully people who participate in an event solely for the sake of enjoyment, for not giving it the effort...

[Barnabas]

I'm actually happy wow is losing subs.

The faster it reaches the 2-3 mil range, the faster the devs will start to cater to gamers again.

That's a long ways away when they reach that number. By then Titan will be released.

---------- Post added 2011-11-09 at 09:26 AM ----------

I don't think people bad enough at math to buy a 12month wow subscription fee to get Diablo III even exist.

It's actually a fantastic deal if you're aussie that plays wow and plan to pickup a copy of d3. You reap a lot of benefits. I think it was mainly aimed at those players and others in the same boat with how expensive diablo 3 alone is.

[Deleted]

Mark my words, MoP will break the 13M mark for wow!

You sir are either dreaming or smoking some serious stuff

[Deleted]

This thread sure exploded. Like I said before though, WoW is not dieing, but it's a huge loss and it will depend on Blizzard's choices from now if they lose more or not.
On one hand they need to merge servers in some places since population got too low and people don't have with whom to play anymore. Besides that, not sure what you think, but LFR in ,my opinion, will be a failure. I mean the chances for getting bad people are much higher when you need 25 people. You don't have a true leader, all are pugs so they can do what they like (speaking of which, how will vote-kick work, have 20 people vote someone? that will surely be abused if that happens), you get people who have no clue about raiding, about bosses etc. If anything it will annoy people even more.

Alas, I could write more about this, but don't have time now.

Your sir are either dreaming or smoking some serious stuff

He made an account just to post the same thing 7 times in 7 different topics, I think that answers your question.

[Deleted]

He made an account just to post the same thing 7 times in 7 different topics, I think that answers your question.

Yeah I have noticed it! I even reported him after I saw him posting that s*** on other threads

[MoanaLisa]

On one hand they need to merge servers in some places since population got too low and people don't have with whom to play anymore. Besides that, not sure what you think, but LFR in ,my opinion, will be a failure. I mean the chances for getting bad people are much higher when you need 25 people. You don't have a true leader, all are pugs so they can do what they like (speaking of which, how will vote-kick work, have 20 people vote someone? that will surely be abused if that happens), you get people who have no clue about raiding, about bosses etc. If anything it will annoy people even more.

Try this again since the other one got eaten for some reason:

1. PTR players are a bad way to judge the likely success or failure of something when it goes live.

2. LFR will be tuned so that it's very likely that 15-18 decent players can finish half a raid. That's a lot of slack.

It probably bears pointing out that at the beginning of an expansion, a lot of people don't know very much about dungeons or raids. Over time, stuff gets figured out and somehow most of us survive the process. Right now there's no reason to imagine that LFR will be any different. Yeah, it will be an unimaginable cluster-you-know-what the first month or so. When LFD was coming along and on the PTR, people said exactly the same stuff. LFD turned out relatively well.

Yes, there are LFD horror stories. Personally about 80-90% of my LFD runs go off pretty quietly and without problems. People don't rush to the forums afterwards to post "Ran ZG last night. Was OK. No problems."

I think Blizz is reasonably committed to making LFR work in whatever way it needs to work. You probably won't really see it in anything like its final form until MoP comes along and has raids that were designed with LFR as a component.

[Redcinder]

i signed up for the annual pass for the free d3. doesn't mean that i will buy mop.

This is sad I mean come on you sign to a year of wow just for a £30 game ? Ofcourse your getting MoP and will be playing wow.

[Huehuecoyotl]

there is a HUGE inertia for people leaving this game. i know this for a fact since i am still here after 9 months of basically not enjoying the game. i have 5 years invested in my guild, and the people in it. it takes a lot to push me away from that.

but the fact is, a huge number of people have left. and many of those that remain will be looking at empty friends lists and shrinking guilds and wondering what is keeping them here. and with the accelarating decline in subscriptions, the ties that keep many people to the game are weakening further.

you might look at 4.3 with hope, but if LFR becomes as bad as LFD, that could make things worse. the transmog thing sounds great in theory, but i suspect most people will be in the gear they want within a week of 4.3 dropping. after that its irrelevent. which just leaves the new raids. and people have been leaving all through Cata regardless of the quality of the raiding.

i have been saying for some time now, blindly believing Blizzard can fix this is madness. they did not have the magic formula for MMOs, to a great extent they just got lucky that their game worked and attracted people, and careful progression helped them to keep that magic. now they have broken it, and i strongly suspect that they dont really know how to fix it. there are probably a lot of very worried developers there right now, and knee-jerk attempts to fix the game may well make it worse.

and it makes me very sad to see the game i have enjoyed for so long reduced to this.

[DeyonEU]

This doesnt suprise me at all. Blizzard are now rushing true with expations and more buyable stuff in the store to drag more money from people, as they know that WoW will die in a near future, aka a few years from now. 800k subs is a lot, but they might wake up and do some changes then!

[shadowkras]

Suddenly, everybody is a market genius.

[Deleted]

Suddenly, everybody is a market genius.

If you didn't want to read a discussion about the loss in subs why did you even click this thread?

[Deleted]

Blizz sure are cracking down on them goldfarmers.

[irongar]

Perhaps I resub whenever I feel like it, but as now, I don't like to play at all. Even with all the "new content" (aka more of the same thing again). We'll see on the next Q or 2 if their sub has increased or decreased, then I'll have my opinion.

[DeyonEU]

If you didn't want to read a discussion about the loss in subs why did you even click this thread?

He wants more "Post"-counts.

[Ligier]

Why don't you all concentrate on playing your own game instead of worrying about 800,000 people you've never met? When the subs come down to under 1 million, then start to scaremonger people, till then, who the hell cares? It hasn't affected me so why is it affecting you?

[Muni]

Blizz sure are cracking down on them goldfarmers.

I believe we're all in denial about the

---

games we love. ie: the game is slowly but surely coming to an end. 1.7 million subscribers in 3/4th of a year. The downslide will only continue...it's already started to snowball.

Theres no reason to come in and act in such denial though...the games had an amazing run...time to let go.