WoW Stable at 10.2 Million Subscribers

[Lilscrappy]

WoW is dead! Jk.

But seriously, I can't play that game anymore I quit a year ago. After 5 years with one MMO and watching it stray further away from its roots, I just don't want to play it.

I've tried multiple MMO's sinse then and they all feel like WoW and weren't fun enough to continue. Until Guild Wars 2, I'll be playing this game for a long time, I simply love it.

[Felaful]

A few months ago it was "GW2 will destroy WoW."

A few days ago every new hater thread was "XYZ is why Tera will kill WoW."

Now today it's shifted to "6 days to the end of WoW" and "May 15, 12:01 AM. WoW shut down for good."


Once again they can't chose this year's killer because this year's crop of MMOs (and Diablo 3 for some reason) just aren't good enough.


As I said earlier, nothing will kill WoW except Blizzard. But an MMO that can beat (have more subscribers at one moment than WoW at that same moment) WoW will have to revolutionize the industry.

First off, Guild Wars 2 has not released yet, they've only just begin their weekend beta attempts. Second, their first event alone drew in over 6 million people.

Third, even if one or two games pulled ahead of Warcraft, it's not going to die unless literally nobody plays it anymore.

Fourth, I don't think any of these gaming companies care if they beat Warcraft. They are creating next-gen mmos. That's all that matters to them. Warcraft isn't a threat, And Blizzard is currently a poor example to be followed by other gaming companies.

Warcraft is mainly sitting on top because of the length of time it's been out, and also the endless advertisements they throw wherever they can. I'm sure if companies like ArenaNet paid to advertise their games all over the boards, they would have even more people purchasing their products. They don't though.

Just because they haven't pulled ahead in the first few months after release, does not mean they aren't "good enough," especially since the quality of this game has really gone down the toilet, compared to some of the things found in other games. Warcraft had several years to get to the top of the list. And just because it's still got the most subscribers, doesn't mean every other gaming company should try to do what their currently doing. Subs are currently falling or stabilizing, they aren't rising. Even if they just dropped everything they were doing, and tossed out literal crap, the idea that they still have TE most subs for the time being doesn't make it the best by far; it just means they haven't lost everyone yet. The quality of a game is judged by what it is currently, not what it was before or what it might become. If its crap now, it's crap.

I will be very clear when I say that passionate professional artisans created WoW. Greedy tightwads came in and decided to shred that quality, and show that they cared about money more than their players. People play Warcraft because of those original creators and what they built the game up to be, not because of what the game is now or is about to become.

[Slowpoke is a Gamer]

First off, Guild Wars 2 has not released yet, they've only just begin their weekend beta attempts. Second, their feat event alone drew in over 6 million people.

Third, even if one or two games pulled ahead of Warcraft, it's not going to die unless literally nobody plays it anymore.

Fourth, I don't think any of these gaming companies care if they beat Warcraft. They are creating next-gen mmos.

Warcraft is mainly sitting on top because of the length of time it's been out, and also the endless advertisements they throw wherever they can. I'm sure if companies like ArenaNet paid to advertise their games all over the boards, they would have even more people purchasing their products. They don't though.

Just because they haven't pulled ahead in the first few months of release, does not mean they aren't "good enough," especially since the quality of this game has really gone down the toilet, compared to some of the things found in other games.

I will be very clear when I say that passionate professional artisans created WoW. Greedy tightwads came in and decided to shred that quality, and show that they cared about money more than their players. People play Warcraft because of those original creators and what they built the game up to be, not because of what the game is now or is about to become.

When the true next-gen MMO comes, it will beat WoW for sure at that point. We're still stuck in the era of WoW clones.

[nomad1206]

well first of all i've been playing wow since tbc and at that time i think wow was around 7-8 mil players. and all the media and even blizzard was extremely happy with those numbers. considering they made this game without being sure it will be good at all also the monthly payment was a rather new thing when wow started and many people bashed it . i think that blizzard is extremely happy with todays numbers, seeing how the game is 8 years old, the graphics are from 2002-2003 as seen in the alpha. but its awful to see the new generation focusing so much on high end graphics etc, i always thought that the feel of a game , it's story and all other things were more important. i think that this will be one of the factors in wow fall, if it ever happens and we old guyz won't be able to support it. also don't know exactly where but im sure that blizzard stated that they will never let this game die as long as its lore is unfinished , as long as they have enough subscribers to afford making new content and expac's

[Tsplodey]

Amazing how this post gets ~650 odd replies in a day when some of the more interesting MoP posts barely scrape 200.

Also amazing is how I just find out today that Skylanders is an ActiBlizz product, hah.

[nynaeve]

This post sucks. There's not enough fodder for the trolls.

Meh, they'll prolly feed anyway. Those guys can sip shit through a straw.

[Deleted]

People play Warcraft because of those original creators and what they built the game up to be, not because of what the game is now or is about to become.

You are wrong by default since you are making a claim - to such a degree - that it's stated fact - Regarding a number that you cannot even fathom. WoW is not, never was - and never will be a static thing. In fact - looking at what you said - People played the original , for what it is, and not for what it is now - Ironically - the progress of growth playing WoW, went the reversed way - so that also nullifies your statement - because it's plain wrong. Saying that 2 mil people played because of X (We cannot assure this, reinforce this not claim it) - And then try and go to say that 8 mil more surely play for the same reason and not to actually play - Is simply also dead wrong.

Dear WoW Hater - I would strongly urge you to spend the vital moments of your life better then sitting on a forum - Making inane claims - having a trivial pursuit as of trying to get a "i am right". Personally i sit on this forum due to my profound will to inspire people to realize things - Take heed of my words.

[Felaful]

The only people who care about the "haters" who claim "WoW is dead" are those who can't ignore such ignorant comments in the first place.

Most WoW players know WoW isn't dead, we know WoW isn't dying, and we know it won't be dead or dying for years to come. Anyone who says otherwise is either completely delusional or a fanboy of some other MMO that claims to be "different to WoW" and fails miserably at that goal.

Has WoW's subscribers been declining in recent years? Sure, so what? That could be any number of reason, least of all some other fantastic MMO, which there are none of. Even if nearly 1m players has left WoW for some other MMO that's still barely a decent on the entire populace of the game. It's nothing. And half of those people are likely to return after they realise the game they left for isn't any better, really.

It happened during Vanilla. It happened during Burning Crusade, and we all know it happened during Wrath. It'll happen during Mists of Pandaria, too.

It didn't happen during wrath. Wrath finished by handing WoW a new record of subs. Everyone knows that CATACLYSM saw subs drop. Subs will always fluctuate, but at the end of the expansion, if subs are stable or have increased, it's a success. If they fell, that's fail.

Other mmos that try to copy WoW will fail, but just because it's an mmo, doesn't automatically mean its copying WoW, meaning it's going to fail. Other games are currently changing the way people look at (and play) them. People aren't delusional, or fanboys for thinking or stating otherwise. It seems like the fanboys are the ones saying that WoW will never get beat, and will always be #1, despite their clear lack of decent customer service recently, their attitude toward their player base, their lack of quality in their most recent expansion, and the works.

If Blizzard incorporated just a few of the ideas of the other mmos into their own game, subs would rise even more. WoW simply has the age factor on its side. That is why it's number 1. It been out long enough to get itself around and test out tons of different things.

As far as "fantastic mmos" there are plenty. One actually just released, and one is yet to be released, already having over 6 million+ people jump into the beta, and already having stolen nearly 20 awards from Blizzard with World of Warcraft.

[Slowpoke is a Gamer]

It didn't happen during wrath. Wrath finished by handing WoW a new record of subs. Everyone knows that CATACLYSM saw subs drop. Subs will always fluctuate, but at the end of the expansion, if subs are stable or have increased, it's a success. If they fell, that's fail.

Other mmos that try to copy WoW will fail, but just because it's an mmo, doesn't automatically mean its copying WoW, meaning it's going to fail. Other games are currently changing the way people look at (and play) them. People aren't delusional, or fanboys for thinking or stating otherwise. It seems like the fanboys are the ones saying that WoW will never get beat, and will always be #1, despite their clear lack of decent customer service recently, their attitude toward their player base, their lack of quality in their most recent expansion, and the works.

If Blizzard incorporated just a few of the ideas of the other mmos into their own game, subs would rise even more. WoW simply has the age factor on its side. That is why it's number 1. It been out long enough to get itself around and test out tons of different things.

I think the reason I followed the doomsayers so much was because I saw the correlation. We'd always seen "WoW is dead" topics (Jesse Cox and WoWCrendor made a video about it) but for the first time we'd actually seen outright desire to watch WoW burn. And it was at the same time we'd seen a massive upheaval due to the nerf of Firelands. It was the start of a Casual VS Hardcore open war.

And today we finally saw the result. Cataclysm, an expansion tailored to the hardcore, saw dropoffs in players. While MoP, made for casuals, saw a stabalization of subscribers.

[runeb1980@hotmail.com]

Nonsensical propaganda from the Activi$ion Bli$$ard marketing department.

WoW has never had 10 million subscribers. From Blizzard's own financial briefs we know that two years ago, more than 60% of WoW players were chinese. Chinese players cannot subscribe. They pay Blizzard around 1 US cent per hour, and are limited by the government to a maximum of three hours per day. In total Blizzard makes less money on the chinese market than they do on 100-200k US & EU subscribers. The proportion of Chinese is growing. The proportion of US & EU players is declining. Yeah, 1.2 million bought the annual pass. And most of the people in my guild seem to be regretting it.

By Blizzard's logic, if WoW has 10 million subscribers, then CityVille, FarmVille etc. are also MMO's that have like 30-40 million each and are by far the biggest subscription based MMOs in the world, making WoW only like number 20 on the list.

[Clevername]

For fucks sake people why do you care so much, WoW stabilizing / gaining subs in no way is a victory for you just as WoW losing subs is in no way a loss for you. I will never get why people feel so close to this company, it's not like I fist pump when Toyota puts out quarterly reports.

[ragnarokvr1]

They can get 20 million subscribing zombies who bash each other over ratings and epics, they've lost the loyalty of most of their old Warcraft customers, and that's what we call a tragedy.

If WoW died tomorrow no one would really care.

If the Warcraft franchise had died with Warcraft 3 there would have been moments of silence across the world to mourn its death.

I couldn't care less whatever happened to this...abomination.

[Pascal]

Actually, 10.2 million is a loss, if you consider all the accounts that took advantage of the free 80. Let's see the number next quarter, when they didn't pull a gimmick, and I'll be convinced.

That's not how math works.

I have 10 apples. I lose two of them, so I go get two more. I have 10 apples. I lost two apples, but I gained two apples, so I both lost and gained, equaling out to the same number of apples I had before.

You're saying WoW "technically lost" subscriptions because the only reason it gained them was because of the scroll of resurrection. But you managed to ignore the fact that the gained subscriptions, uh, count. I actually feel like I can't be any more clear about this.

I get what you think you're trying to say, but the next "gimmick" is going to be the release of Mists. WoW always loses subs right before an expansion, it's always happened. The fact that they thought to have a promotional to get back subs isn't "cheating" or whatever you're trying to imply. I've had four people on my friends list get scroll of res'd, one by me. They were just going to do it to get the mount for their friends. Even the friend I res'd said "I'm going to use my free 80 to level a warrior because I've always wanted one. If I like it, I'll buy a month and keep playing - if not, find someone else to get you a mount."

He bought a month. He didn't keep playing his warrior. He's playing his old main, which means that, sure, the SoR got him to start playing again, but somehow, somewhere, he wanted to be playing. He's since bought another month and is still playing. Two of my other friends said they bought the month to give the person who res'd them the mount, then they, oddly enough bought yet another month. They are still playing. The other took the res for the perks and knew he was going to play again just because he wanted to, but just needed some motivation.

If you're trying to say it's a 'loss' because the SoR'd accounts are 'temporary' because you think, surely, those people will stop playing soon, you could possibly be wrong. My four person sample group obviously is not statistically significant, but to ignore the fact that four out of four people I know of who got res'd are still playing would be you simply trying to dismiss evidence so you can believe what you want to believe.

[Felaful]

You are wrong by default since you are making a claim - to such a degree - that it's stated fact - Regarding a number that you cannot even fathom. WoW is not, never was - and never will be a static thing. In fact - looking at what you said - People played the original , for what it is, and not for what it is now - Ironically - the progress of growth playing WoW, went the reversed way - so that also nullifies your statement - because it's plain wrong. Saying that 2 mil people played because of X (We cannot assure this, reinforce this not claim it) - And then try and go to say that 8 mil more surely play for the same reason and not to actually play - Is simply also dead wrong.

Dear WoW Hater - I would strongly urge you to spend the vital moments of your life better then sitting on a forum - Making inane claims - having a trivial pursuit as of trying to get a "i am right". Personally i sit on this forum due to my profound will to inspire people to realize things - Take heed of my words.

Everyone here on this entire thread is making claims. The only fact is that WoW seems to have stabilized at what it currently is at, and that doesn't even matter because for all we know, many of the people locked In thanks to AP, could not be touching the game, but their still paying, so it counts for Blizzard.

It's a fact that people left the game, be it for good or a temporary thing, fact is, they found something else to do.

I never stated that any of my previous statements were fact, and these definitely aren't numbers I can't fathom.

I also happen to know for a "fact" that several of the designers for Warcrafts original systems left the company, while companies like Activision jumped in and decided to play budget manager for all the games, not just their own "separate" department.

I've done enough work with the company myself to understand that, so please, don't try to
1) assume im claiming anything to be factual
2) assume that I have no clue what I'm even talking about

You're biggest error in all of this was assuming.

As far as the quality of the game goes, by the way: I know Blizzard tried to state that it ended on a high note, that they got praised for this latest expansion, and that it only showed that Warcraft is as good as it ever was... Don't listen to that BS. Go to sites that are actually selling the game and look at all the customer reviews. Thats all the evidence you need.

[Callax]

This thread has been amusing, haters really are grasping at straws this time. My biggest laugh was when this guy claimed that the 10.2 million people playing this game must have incredibly low IQ, and also that the fact that people still enjoy a game that they like made him lose faith in humanity. That was gold.

[Felaful]

I think the reason I followed the doomsayers so much was because I saw the correlation. We'd always seen "WoW is dead" topics (Jesse Cox and WoWCrendor made a video about it) but for the first time we'd actually seen outright desire to watch WoW burn. And it was at the same time we'd seen a massive upheaval due to the nerf of Firelands. It was the start of a Casual VS Hardcore open war.

And today we finally saw the result. Cataclysm, an expansion tailored to the hardcore, saw dropoffs in players. While MoP, made for casuals, saw a stabalization of subscribers.

Cataclysm wasn't tailored to hardcore players. It was at first, but then it went all casual crazy, then face roll mode.

Me personally: I say it was tailored for Katy Perry. Hot/cold, yes/no, in/out, up down. Blizz changed their mind like a girl changes clothes, PMS'd...

Bi-polar, roller coaster. It was one fucked up ride...

[ragnarokvr1]

This thread has been amusing, haters really are grasping at straws this time. My biggest laugh was when this guy claimed that the 10.2 million people playing this game must have incredibly low IQ, and also that the fact that people still enjoy a game that they like made him lose faith in humanity. That was gold.

Cigarettes taste great, so let's not criticize them because there's millions of people smoking them.

[runeb1980@hotmail.com]

Everyone here on this entire thread is making claims. The only fact is that WoW seems to have stabilized at what it currently is at, and that doesn't even matter because for all we know, many of the people locked In thanks to AP, could not be touching the game, but their still paying, so it counts for Blizzard.

The only two things we know for sure is that several years back, 60% of WoW players were chinese, and in China you can't subscribe. It's almost F2P. We also know that since that time, millions of US & EU players have quit the game leaving a LOT of servers desolate and ripe for merges. So the math here doesn't add up, unless the game now consists of a growing proportion of chinese players - who are players - not subscribers. So the actual number of WoW subscribers is anyone's guess, but definitely between 1.2M -4M. I'd hazard a guess at up to 3 million.

[Felaful]

If i had a graph showing how good it was from start to finish it would like a skiing trip, went up on the skii lift, then down a green circle, then down a double diamond.

If that was a ski slope that I wound up on, I'd probably have the wost case of whiplash ever...

[Nerraw]

Oh, I thought WoW was dying.

This is great news.