1.3 million sub drop

[ringpriest]

Is there any way of finding out how many total accounts wow has had over the course of it's life?

Join Activision-Blizzard's statistics team? Other than that, probably not.

[Hamus]

Game is becoming frustrating ... with artificial slowing down of gearing .. low drop rates ... takes them a full patch to fix the charm drop rate issue -- even though they agree to the fix

why cant they get WoLK style back ... unquestionably the most successful and fun expansion ..... numbers spoke for themselves !!!!

[Deleted]

It's not it will stop at a point, WoW has one of the strongest fanbase there is, at 1 point it will reach a point where it will stable.
Casuals are leaving now, The truth fanbase will remain.

The "true" fanbase are those that keep up with everything Blizzard makes.I actually hate those more then casuals.

[Klingers]

In all honesty, a different metric I'd like to see is the subscriber retention in western countries. How's it doing in the US and Canada? Aus/NZ? Europe? I reckon the numbers would be pretty much stable.

[Osmeric]

Blizz has been told this in feedback since at least mid-Wrath, and like much other feedback, it has been routinely ignored.

They tried to move in that direction in Cataclysm. It didn't work. They tried difficult end game in MoP (in normals and heroics). It still doesn't work.

Vanilla/TBC succeeded in spite of their raid designs, not because of them.

[shise]

Peoplse seem to don't see ... if wow goes F2P, the game is over. Plain simple.

There's no way it's quality would be the same. in a F2P you have two gamer classes, those who pay (the ones you'll care about) and those who don't pay (you won't really care about them9.

If he game goes F2p you'll get more casuals who won't pay than real gamers who'll pay = lose.

Now don't be naive, it works that way because this is business, plain simple. Do you honestly think that Tera dudes (whoever they are) give a dump about me when I tryed out their game? No, simply because I don't even remember it's company, it was a f2p game I just tryed out.

If WoW goes F2p, it will be loaded by players like me with Tera, who wil ltry it out and randomly play it like another game. If it reminds P2P, even those casuals who want to play will just pay for it, or else they wouldn't.

[Tomana]

Question - Is there any other sub based mmo's left?
What is there population and how much do they charge?

MMOData is unfortunately in the toilet for quite some time now (and it was the best information site on the subject), but in a pinch, we have:
- WoW: 8+ Mil
- Aion: was at 2.5Mil end 2012 but a lot of it F2P
- SWTOR: ~1M (prolly less and a F2P component)
- Rift: ~250K (and the company is speaking about F2P so it can't be good)
- EvE: ~350K (but a lot of multi-accounts)
- TERA: No idea.
Everything else is not worth mentioning.

So yeah, WoW is the last of the Mohicans.

[metatation]

Everyone quit cause of dead realms nothing to do AH is overpriced no cross realm AH yet no one is paying $55 to race transfer to another server for each toon.

This is the exact reason I left bc of a super dead realm, ya it ain't just dead, it's super dead. For me there was no aspect of MMORPG I was paying for on my realm. I enjoyed the xpac for the most part but the mindless grinding and poor AH (if you could sell anything) just left me for little else to do and the fact that it was almost impossible to form a solid raid group and thus I left after being here since almost the begninning. I dont expect to pay the company more than buying their game and the monthly fee to enjoy the game. I will definitely not pay the transfer fee. So maybe they will get their heads out of their katushies and merge dead servers. Honestly I could care less about my name bc whats the point if no ones going to be around to see it.

[Jtbrig7390]

The truth fanbase will remain.

I'm sure you mean "true' and that is still a bullshit comment to say.

there is no true fanbase there is a fanbase and nothing more. just because people are willen to get the shit blizzard hands them dose not make them a higher fan then those who refuse to eat that pile of shit.

This apply's to any fanbase to anything if you really feel like that you have a major ego problem.

[Glorious Leader]

The game is in a far better place than it was in Cataclysm. The problem is with player feedback you have 10 million chefs in the kitchen.

A few tweaks to MoP's design and the game would be in the best place it's ever been, but you're still going to bleed the F2P hoppers. Nothing will prevent that at this point, the market and genre has changed too much to stop it.

As others have stated the MMO market itself is in decline. We need to hit a true breakthrough in the MMO design for it to resurge. I'd wager MMOs as a whole will go through a dip until we get truly impressive VR gaming.

It has absolutely NOTHING to do with the market, a market I might add which Blizzard itself more or less created with their award winning product. The market prior to world of warcraft was much smaller. Then WoW comes along and the market explodes. So now wow is still here and the market shrinks? It makes ZERO SENSE. Blizzard by and large built this market with their quality product. It's stagnated and its' not because of externalities but because of their inability to meet the demand of their customer base.

[Hoomin]

Edit: TL;DR: Let WoW die in peace, don't force sh*t ideas on to it, but don't be sad that it has to go. Look forward to the next generation with Titan.


As a player who quit after about a month in to Mists, and then came back for about two weeks during 5.2's initial hit, the questing is killing the game as some say, but many other problems are as well. The content feels different, and in a bad way. I don't feel like I'm playing the WoW that I was playing years ago (don't mistake me for a vanilla nostalgiafag, I hated vanilla.) Everything is just, *meh* now. The creative ideas aren't necessarily gone, they've just been used already. We've had many many years of dungeons, raids, quests, dailies, exploring, all of it. There's only a certain amount of "new" you can introduce while keeping the game in its original state, and they've simply surpassed that amount of content.

I've always been able to cover a wide spectrum of content within the game. In the olden days I was a hardcore player, set on trying to be the best I could, but around mid to late wrath this stopped, and I found myself falling more in to the upper-casual category. Ever since then I've been playing off and on as content has been released. I play WoW for five to six months before I get bored, and then move to other games for the same amount of time, before I return to WoW (although this time, I'm done.) It's not that I really have an issue with the content, it's just that it's tough to keep interest in so few design areas. Sure, they added scenarios, but what are those really? They're just dungeons for three people. Rated Battlegrounds? Same type of BG's we've had since vanilla, with point totals and gear attached. I will give Blizzard a big round of applause for the Brawler's guild, it was a very creative idea that panned out very well, and is really quite cool (it's also where I spent many of my final weeks / days with WoW.)

LFR was added, but that's the same raiding we've had since vanilla. Don't even get me started on the dailies content in Mists, that was a bad idea from the get-go. I can only imagine what the initial conversation at Blizzard was regarding that; "Oh so you want us to make the players quest, grind dungeons, or grind battlegrounds to get to 90? Then make them do the exact same thing to get gear once they hit 90? Yeah seems reasonable." I don't mean to sound so cynical about it, but that's essentially what we are facing. There's so much content to go through before I can experience what is now "end-game" content that I get burnt out before I have a chance to experience it, and at this rate why would I want to? As I stated it's the same thing we all do for 90 levels beforehand anyway.

I think the problem WoW is facing now is just the same old content. I'm not saying it's bad content, but we've had it all before, in one way or another. It's tough for players to start playing WoW and jump in to things. Sure, they'll enjoy it for a while, love it in fact. But then they'll realize they're doing the same thing, level after level, and it just drags on through so many expansions. Veteran players are also facing the same problem, the content just isn't there for them anymore. The game is just what it always has been, which isn't a bad thing. Everything has to die eventually, and WoW is no exception. The novelty is just starting to wear off, and that's okay with me. I'd rather WoW die in a peaceful state, resembling at least mainly what it used to be, than be changed to the point that nobody is playing the same game anymore.

I'm not trying to be that "WOWS DIENG LELS" guy, because I don't feel bad about it. People need to accept that it has very little time left as a relevant game, and they shouldn't be unhappy with that. We had our fun, played the game that we all enjoy(ed), now let it go in peace and we can, perhaps, move on to another chapter, with Titan.

Edit #2: So many feels from posting this.

[Arrashi]

Well there we go, wow is dying train starts again.
To be honest they kinda had this coming, replacing 5 mans and social aspect of game with dailies and scenario's may not be in fact the best decision.
Let's just hope that, this bucket of cold water will motivate blizzard to make better decisions for next expansion.

[Faroth]

They tried to move in that direction in Cataclysm. It didn't work. They tried difficult end game in MoP (in normals and heroics). It still doesn't work.

Vanilla/TBC succeeded in spite of their raid designs, not because of them.

What on earth are you referring to as difficult end game in MoP?

[stomination]

The issue is the F2p games out in Asia. That is a huge market in Asia that would of course slowly start to pull players from the east. That and the subscription model for Asia is quite volatile compared to a monthly pay in the US;EU market.

[Niyari]

well, the game has overachieved big time. it's just too old at this point. hopefully they will have learned from what went wrong in WoW and not ruin "Titan" with the same features.

[Faroth]

Well there we go, wow is dying train starts again.
To be honest they kinda had this coming, replacing 5 mans and social aspect of game with dailies and scenario's may not be in fact the best decision.
Let's just hope that, this bucket of cold water will motivate blizzard to make better decisions for next expansion.

Here's the problem....5 mans aren't a social aspect of the game anymore either. :/

[Jtbrig7390]

If WoW goes F2p, it will be loaded by players like me with Tera, who wil ltry it out and randomly play it like another game. If it reminds P2P, even those casuals who want to play will just pay for it, or else they wouldn't.

Like players don't already randomly play wow now and other games.

the p2p system no longer works when there is many choice's out there that are B2p/F2p and give you the same amount of content. 15$ a month for a couple patchs a year and then forcing your players to pay for a xpac no longer works.

this is a fact people need to accpt it the subs dropping prove it.

[Sidious78]

And what evidence do you have that its GC's fault? I submit that if you cant prove incontrovertibly that its his fault then it isn't, and that you are full of shit.

I agree. Ghostcrawler is like the manager of a football team. If the team fails again, again, again and again it is in everybodys interest that you find another job. He might be good, he might be awful. However, the facts are clear.

From my point of view, Ghostcrawler should be replaced. He cares not about the players. I understand that nerfs and buffs have to be done, but have you ever seen his posts? "We feel that..." "We felt that..." "We're convinced..." "We do not..."... Where is the player's point of view?

[Leslie]

Very poor choices of words, it's like comparing a banana with an apple, they are fruits yeah, nut they are totally diffrents.

Arenas are team vs. team. An FPS 5-man team is probably different, my comparison is not.

[Barrowwind]

MMOData is unfortunately in the toilet for quite some time now (and it was the best information site on the subject), but in a pinch, we have:
- WoW: 8+ Mil
- Aion: was at 2.5Mil end 2012 but a lot of it F2P
- SWTOR: ~1M (prolly less and a F2P component)
- Rift: ~250K (and the company is speaking about F2P so it can't be good)
- EvE: ~350K (but a lot of multi-accounts)
- TERA: No idea.
Everything else is not worth mentioning.

So yeah, WoW is the last of the Mohicans.

by your answer i'm quite sure we have nothing to worry about. I didn't think wow was that far ahead of the game - i guess they are the towering monstrosity after all