Interest in WoW declining over time - Google Trends

[PhantasmagoriaX]

Even WoW 2 won't save it.

MMOs in general are a dying breed. There hasn't been any new innovations in a long time - People try, but they just don't catch anyone's attention anymore.

WoW gets it's sub boost every time a new expansion comes out, because people hope that it'll be better this time, but it's just the same old grind. It will eventually die, but it will die simply out of age moreso than any changes made to the game.

Everquest would like to have a word with you.

[Nnyco]

who searched wow tho when they already play it?

[Deleted]

@foofoocuddlypoopz @OreoLover @Daemos daemonium

Ok maybe after seeing the results for "facebook" i agree that the decline is bound to happen

https://trends.google.co.uk/trends/e...all&q=Facebook

[Varvara Spiros Gelashvili]

@foofoocuddlypoopz @OreoLover @Daemos daemonium

Ok maybe after seeing the results for "facebook" i agree that the decline is bound to happen

https://trends.google.co.uk/trends/e...all&q=Facebook

I agree with the idea of decline but the data you tried to pass off as legit is bullshit. It doesn't control for anything.

[Deleted]

I agree with the idea of decline but the data you tried to pass off as legit is bullshit. It doesn't control for anything.

Hum but maybe is a bit strange, no?

Because "facebook" holds 30% of the popularity of it's peak

And "world of warcraft holds...3%.

Like...wtf?

[Lorgar Aurelian]

People who deny that WoW is hemorrhaging subs like crazy right now probably aren't even subscribed. A few hours spent doing group content reveal the extent to which the subscription have dropped. Dungeon, BG queues are going up. Takes hours to find partners for arena. Barely anyone doing anything outside of M+ and normal / heroic Antorus farming. Recruiting on most realms is plain impossible. But of course there will always be people that think there's still 12 mil subs.

This is a real cause for concern because the game is still being designed like it has a lot of subs. It doesn't.

so got any thing to back up the increase in que times? seems about the same as always to me.

- - - Updated - - -

Hum but maybe is a bit strange, no?

Because "facebook" holds 30% of the popularity of it's peak

And "world of warcraft holds...3%.

Like...wtf?

id guess less tech savy people use facebook (old people and the like) so they google it more instead of saving it. i know i have mmoc saved to both my phone and comp and i never google wow or wowhead.

[Nurasu]

WoW has become more and more accessible and "guided" within the game itself; additionally, resources for it like wowhead have their own very powerful search tools that I typically utilize over Google nowdays.

[Varvara Spiros Gelashvili]

Hum but maybe is a bit strange, no?

Because "facebook" holds 30% of the popularity of it's peak

And "world of warcraft holds...3%.

Like...wtf?

I can never answer that question in good faith because without controls most facebook related sides mention it. Wowhead, arena junkies, and mmo champion don't use wow and don't need it during a google search.

[Justpassing]

Why would anyone google something about WoW? MMO-C and wowhead are there.

[Deleted]

If I were to guess, it sounds like you're trolling or you are legitimately clueless. But, I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you're legitimately clueless for the purpose of this reply.

Causation does not equal correlation. In layman's terms, the data analysis done does not translate to the conclusion reached. It means there is false assumptions made in the premise which then yields equally faulty conclusions.

One could have rationally argued that Blizzard's own numbers, when they were released, did indeed show a declining population in general. This, by their own admission, was offset at the beginning of each expansion where they saw a larger number of subscribers - only to see the same declination in each expansion as has been their history year over year. They did, it would seem, reach their zenith some time ago.

All that said, this is not the first thread to declare gloom and doom for the game. But, it has yet to happen. That said, like a broken clock is right twice a day, the doomsayers may eventually be right if only because all things come to an end eventually. That doesn't make them right so much as predicting the inevitable with a completely inaccurate timeframe and source reference. If Blizzard cannot predict with any certainty when the end of their game is approaching, with far more data than the average person outside the company has, I think it is the pique of hubris and ignorance to think that anyone else with far less data could do better than that.

I'm not saying I love Blizzard, but I am also not saying I hate it either. I am, however, saying that you should utilize the critical thinking skills I am certain were taught in school as it is clear you are not doing so now.

I agree the conclusion and correlation between "subs" and this "data" is...not the best.

But it surely means something in terms of fame of the game and popularity.

I mean...3% of popularity compared to its peak.

[Magistrate]

I think the OP's point might not be so good for indicating current playerbase, but it *is* good for indicating player growth. Obviously, long-term players don't search for this stuff anymore because it's all pinned or known by memory. But any influx of *new* players (not returning players) would show a bump in searching for many simple things--game terms, lore, mechanics, news, etc.

Other good point: stability of taxonomy search does not indicate whether these players stayed or left, as they would be folded over time into the "knowing" group of players that don't need to search for these things using a common web search tool.

[Deleted]

So what? What is the actual problem? Yeah, Coca Cola is 100 years old and regains the popularity. WoW isn't Coca Cola. It is a video game and like 99.99% of video games lose popularity and die out. Some can stay popular because they can re-invent themselves or throw out sequels. A handful survive in their original shape by adding x-pacs (I guess Everquests falls in there? And WoW? And....? What else?)

Yes. WoW loses popularity after 14 years. I am gobsmacked. Does anyone really dispute that? Now..if there were like 3-10 MMORPG franchises who are showing Blizzard how it is done to keep and increase popularity and subs, I'd be all upvoting you guys....but there really aren't

So this is the most normal thing. People eventually lose interest. If you have the solution on how to stop that and make WoW great again.....I am sure Blizzard would pay you a nice fat sum. So..take it away and apply to them with your creative ideas

I agree with everything you said and thats the only conclusion i take from this.
That wow is old and losing popularity.

Not a big deal, i know.

But the data has to mean something. Even if its just what you said and not sub numbers.
I just found funny people saying the "bookmark" excuse xD

[Boostab]

Even WoW 2 won't save it.

MMOs in general are a dying breed. There hasn't been any new innovations in a long time - People try, but they just don't catch anyone's attention anymore.

WoW gets it's sub boost every time a new expansion comes out, because people hope that it'll be better this time, but it's just the same old grind. It will eventually die, but it will die simply out of age moreso than any changes made to the game.

Same old song and Dance, we read this every Year.

[Servasus]

OP, you're right, and even though I do still play the game myself and love it, you're going to get a lot of people in here yelling, "Google searches =/= subs!"

The truth is, though, searches on google DO correlate to the amount of people playing/having interest in the game. If those searches are indeed declining, it's an educated guess to say the interest in the game and therefor the player retention and subs are also declining. When a new expansion launches, that number (the google search number) will also rise, and then fall again until the release of the expansion after.

It's always been this way and it will always continue to be this way until Blizzard reboots the game engine and starts from scratch on updated systems in both a technical and gameplay sense. The traditional mmo genre is, in fact dying out in popularity (Though I, myself, love it still) to First Person Shooters. Look at the success Overwatch is having. Look at Fortnite. Even Hearthstone, a card game, has more active players. It's insane. WoW has never had the commercial success those types of games have had, and it's simply because the "average" gamer wants to log in, play for little bit, and log off. MMOs require so much more effort and time that the average person will not have. You also can't really dissect an mmo into a "I can specifically complete this one thing from start to finish in 15 minutes" unless you're talking about dungeons, I guess.

A person can give themselves 30 minutes to play Hearthstone, log in, play like 3-4 matches, and log off. That same person might be able to complete 1-2 dungeons in WoW but that's about it. The reward feels less in WoW, as well, because unless you're running mythic+, which takes significantly longer to organize and then to complete (not to mention gear for in the first place.) the rewards you're getting from heroic randoms are pathetic.

I love WoW, but I GET why it's not as popular as other genres of games, and that's okay. WoW isn't "dying," persay. I still think it has many years ahead of it, but don't lie to yourself and try to make it sound like it's the most popular game in the world anymore, because it's not.

[InfiniteCharger]

Part of the problem with WOW is that there is TOO MUCH news and info about the game online.
You got youtubers, you got forums like this one, you got media sites like wowhead.
And not only that most of the content of an expansion is known and published before hand.

Used to be that part of the fun was the mystery of not knowing what was around every corner.
MUDS were fun because they were easy to create and the MUD designer could reset the map and redo it any time they wanted.
Similarly DnD is fun because Dungeon Masters have a lot of control over designing encounters.

MMOs while far beyond where they were 25 years ago, they haven't really moved much.
WOW is popular because of the story and the lore. This is what got people excited in the beginning.
Plus the game at the launch of WOW was big and new and a lot of it was mysterious and unknown.
Now it is pretty EZ to get in and get to a decent level in a short amount of time as a returning player.
Some of the QOL features do have downsides. It promotes this rush mentality which means content last longer.
Having to run to dungeons has a place. It gives a sense of place. Having popups for World Quests show while riding kind of destroys it.
Hence they need to come up with other "filler" stuff to do that would otherwise have been taken up by QOL enhancements.
Giving rise to MAUs and checking command tables type stuff, WQ popups all over the map and so forth.

[Deleted]

Just because you want the data to mean something does not lend any credence or validation to it. Desire does not translate to data. Nor does incomplete data translate to a conclusion beyond, "More data and research is required."

But the bookmark excuse is still funny no? I dont know why i laughed.
If you search for Facebook which is a page everyone and their mothers have bookmarked, it still holds 30% of popularity.

World of Warcraft holds 3% which is strange non the less.

WoW has 14% which seems good compared to facebook. Very good.

[MrFiddleswitch]

Now this is not a very accurate indicator of how many subscribers there are in game but since Blizzard has stopped providing us data, we have to make do with what we have.

https://trends.google.co.uk/trends/e...date=all&q=WoW
https://trends.google.co.uk/trends/e...all&q=Warcraft
https://trends.google.co.uk/trends/e...0of%20Warcraft

Each of these charts shows a steep downwards slope. Right now there's less interest in "WoW" than there was during the lowest point of WoD, despite Legion being a (mostly) better expansion. Why do expansions lately have such horrible player retention to compared to classics like Vanilla, TBC and WotLK? It looks like interest in WoW had peaked in 2008-2009 and now it's just waning slowly over time and there's nothing that can be done about it. Even if the next expansion is as good as WotLK was, it's doubtful that it would reignite the same excitement people had for WoW a decade ago.

Do you think Blizzard keep making WoW for the remaining playerbase or focus on a WoW 2 project to get to those crazy high sub numbers again?

Just to clarify - this does not show a decline in interest for World of Warcraft for existing players or people who already know about it (most of them have the sites bookmarked and have had for a good long time). It does, however, suggest that interest is declining for potential "new players", which really shouldn't come as a surprise with a 12 year old video game.

Just for perspective, here are some other MMOs you can look at to give you a bit more of a comparison for how well wow is still doing:

https://trends.google.co.uk/trends/e...ll&q=everquest
https://trends.google.co.uk/trends/e...ssert%20online
https://trends.google.co.uk/trends/e...ild%20wars%202
https://trends.google.co.uk/trends/e...20fantasy%2014
https://trends.google.co.uk/trends/e...rolls%20Online
https://trends.google.co.uk/trends/e...q=eve%20online
https://trends.google.co.uk/trends/e...old%20republic
https://trends.google.co.uk/trends/e...&q=destiny%202

I'm sure I've missed some of the more popular ones out there - but you can quickly see (in this list anyways) that only BDO is sitting higher than WoW in interest and I imagine that is because of the recent SEA server launches in Jan, which for many countries, was the 'THE' launch of the game due to ips being blocked from certain countries on the NA/JP/TW servers. Eve Online is also quite close, but you can see a similar decline there as well. Destiny 2 probably shouldn't be there - but I included it to show what a true game decline looks like.

Overall, the data is interesting, but I think it points to more of an overall decline in interest for the MMORPG genre when it comes to players that have not already joined one, rather than a decline of players actively playing those games. The genre is simply stagnant and ageing considering there really haven't been any new (successful) innovative MMO games in a good long time - just some new (and somewhat innovative) ideas from existing ones.

I would be curious to see if the number of "hits" on WoW's main site, forums, MMO champ, WoWhead, and Icey Veins over an extended period of time to see if we would see a similar decline there (and to clarify I don't mean google searches, I mean actual web site hits).

As for WoW 2, I don't think there's really a point. One of the main things that keeps WoW at it's popularity is how accessible it is with lower end computers. You release a fully updated WoW 2, even if we can bring our WoW1 characters over in all their glory, you will still be dividing your community drastically simply due to the higher system requirements. In some ways, they are already doing WoW 2 by adding all the new cut scenes, higher fidelity models, spells, etc.

[Logwyn]

This be UK trends.... Also people have established where they get the info. Like here..... I have a bookmark to this site or I just type the web address and it auto populates.

[Doctor Funkenstein]

Even WoW 2 won't save it.

MMOs in general are a dying breed. There hasn't been any new innovations in a long time - People try, but they just don't catch anyone's attention anymore.

No, that's because game designers are retarded and keep trying to mimic WoW as it is now (or when they were working on it), rather than its original incarnation that caught everyone's attention. This whole "cater for the hardcore raiding and only focus on gearing up and make everything else super tedious or unnecessarily difficult to the extreme, that's the most important thing in the world, holy shit, nothing else matters!" mindset is why the "MMO genre is dying" (even though it's not). People's interest in that bullshit is what's dying, and why WoW itself is dying a slow, agonizing death.

For fuck's sake, the current host of developers for the game don't even understand the "holy trinity," and it's been forgotten pretty much since TBC came out.

[Argorwal]

Looks like a product lifecycle graph.