What's the main reason for the dropping WoW subs?

[DeadmanWalking]

If anyone tells you that WoW’s subscription losses is because of “X” feature that they personally dislike then slap them with a rabid poodle. There is no one main reason why people unsubscribe and it is self-centered to think that everyone plays the same way you do.

There are many many reasons for sublosses, from general burnout, inability to accept change in ones environment, parents not allowing you to play anymore, getting wife/life/kids/job, growing up and growing out of video games, ect.

I would also note that the video game world of today is vastly different than it was when WoW was steaming along. When it first came out it was one of maybe 4 or 5 MMO’s and very few console games were playable on the internet. WoW came along at the right time and place to take up the majority of internet game savy players and since then the options have expanded far more than the internet game savy playerbase has.

Now there are around 2 dozen MMO’s and probably 4 dozen little mmo’s (look at any walmart pay to play MMO payment card Kiosk like second life) and 3 major consoles that have hundreds upon hundreds of games that can be played on the internet. The applestore has lots of games to download on your iphone or ipad. Hell some people are entertained by silly Facebook games for hours on end. The gamer market is only so big and each gamer only has a finite amount of time in which they can invest in online games.

Is it a surprise that a decade old game has trouble holding on to subs? No, what is surprising is that a decade old game has almost 7x’s the amount of subscribers that a majority of new games have and those games are F2P. All other MMO’s wish they had the problem of loosing 5 million players and only having 7 million players left. They would sell their mothers and grandmothers to have that problem.

[hrugner]

I'd like to see him beat all the heroic content in less than a week without getting carried.

Obviously players saying this are referring to beating the first version of pve content and not the subsequent difficulties. Deliberately misunderstanding that doesn't change that the first bar of success is so low people will trip over it and then awkwardly excuse themselves pretending they meant to trip.

Taking a fresh character through the leveling zones isn't challenging, then the first level of difficulty is equally unchallenging. If that first bit doesn't hook players, why on earth would they stick around for the next bit?

[Osmeric]

Obviously players saying this are referring to beating the first version of pve content and not the subsequent difficulties.

So, these players are complaining about any inclusion of a low difficulty mode. Properly understood, their complaints are illegitimate and absurd.

[Zavala_451]

IMO? A lack of goals

Remember in Vanilla when you stood in Org/SW for hours to ogle at that player who had Something from Naxxramas or Sunwell?

The incredibly hard nature of raiding, coupled with it's intense logistical feats made 99% of the players awe struck by those few guilds who we thought were amazing. It also made those 99% of players strive to want to be at that level, to be the best, it kept people playing and kept the game entertaining
Now days gear is something that makes bigger numbers, not something to stand out the front of the AH and /roar with pride while all and sundry whispered with "whoa nice, gratz"
That end game goal is lacking, LFR (while I do enjoy it a lot) is damaging the longevity of the game, and stopping people from feeling like they have to work to take the next step up (which in itself is a great motivator). Taking away dual lock-outs was also a nail in the coffin, 10man and 25man should never have been changed, and gear should have had different ilvls like it was in WotLK.


Secondly, a complete lack of adult themes in the game. You are more likely to get old players back in the twilight of WoWs existence, so why not grow the game with your player base? Those who started playing 10 years ago as teens who thought a swear word was funny, now find themselves as adults watching the same thing and having a hard time to relate to it. There is no true fear, despair or betrayal in the game or any violent or dark themes as you would expect of a game and an audience who are now much more mature than they were a decade ago.

These two things are why wow is declining imo, it's story telling and irrelevance when compared to almost all other AAA titles for the last few years is pretty evident

[The One Percent]

As fickle as gamers are today, it's amazing WoW lasted this long before sub drops started to happen.

[Pancha]

It is soon 10 years. A lot have happened within that timeframe. I started when I were 15 (back in 2004). From that time up till now I've been through university, lived/studied abroad and currently work as an engineer with possibilities to move back to Singapore in 6 months. As you can see, the ones who started out with this game have grown a lot since then. It would've surprised me if the game weren't seeing a decline after so many years.

The game is old, the playerbase is getting older/maturer and people tend to find other things to do in their spare time.

[Shurkuris]

Maybe it's because WoW isn't the only "MMO" anymore (Not including EQ1/2) that is on the market? Their a ton others that also don't have a subscription fee so I can jump on for a week or month, wait for 6 months and come back, and anytime I wish from now till the minute they shut down the game.

[Uvwaex]

imo, the game just looks and feels dated.

Compare it to all the more recent games, what's WoW missing? - it looks OLD .. but is it the vintage kind of old wine feel to you? or is it more like old people's home old feel?

imo, do a WoW 2, wrap up this one in the next 2-3 years and relaunch the game and this time with an engine they can upgrade.. a more long term vision.

I'm not sure if any amount of tweaking would make a difference... do you know of anything blizzard could do to attract your friends that quit?

There is no "main reason". People play wow for all sorts of different reasons and experiences, and quit for the same variety. This is why its been so difficult to reduce sub numbers dropping. There isn't a "update graphics/make it more hardcore" fix.

Although, looking through some other posts in here there is one nugget of universality: available content of different types through out the game. People need goals, things to do, activities to progress through and engage in the game with. Proliferating that content (the most difficult/costly aspect of MMO design apparently) would bring more people in and keep others. People would still quit for all sorts of reasons, however.

[hrugner]

So, these players are complaining about any inclusion of a low difficulty mode. Properly understood, their complaints are illegitimate and absurd.

The concern is a mandatory and time consuming no difficulty mode. and they aren't complaining, just leaving.

No I'm not including LFR in this either, just the leveling and initial gearing up. It also leaves max level players with the gear to do higher difficulty content who have never had their abilities tested, which probably makes that first attempt at higher difficulties seem like a brick wall by comparison.

You're welcome of course to think about it your way.

[jimlow]

Most likely the toxic player base. the huge jump in difficulty and requirements from other players. No real way to progress your character after 90 outside of raiding. Constant changes to class abilities so much so that entire rotations and dps styles can very patch to patch. Very alt-unfriendly environment. I could go on but I honestly think it has nothing to do with blizz as they are just a victim of their own success.

[Nouk]

Most likely the toxic player base. the huge jump in difficulty and requirements from other players. No real way to progress your character after 90 outside of raiding. Constant changes to class abilities so much so that entire rotations and dps styles can very patch to patch. Very alt-unfriendly environment. I could go on but I honestly think it has nothing to do with blizz as they are just a victim of their own success.

Alt-unfriendly? Wat? 90% of Endgame is about Gearing up Toons, the only "Main-Char only" Part being HC Raiding.

[Seefer]

Honestly, I just think the game isn't as exciting and charismatic as it used to be.

New teams, new management, new direction. It just isn't the same.

They tried to innovate/improve upon so many things, but what they ended up with was an unnecessary amount of bloat and a forgettable experience. Should've kept the game simple, it is what made it successful in the first place.

Don't fix what isn't broken comes to mind, and all the new developers (a lot of old devs went on to create other MMOs) tried to fix what wasn't broken and well..........broke it.

[gee]

Easy content consumed too fast
Dying realms
LFD -> lack of social interaction and friends -> without friends people quit
LFR killing raid guilds -> dying guilds -> quitting guild members -> more people quitting when their friends are gone

[Zallex]

A few days ago I posted in this thread stating that the introduction of childish pandas were the cause of wow hemorrhaging subs, and I got infracted for it.

I guess you can't state your opinion on these forums unless your a mindless fanboy

[hrugner]

A few days ago I posted in this thread stating that the introduction of childish pandas were the cause of wow hemorrhaging subs, and I got infracted for it.

I guess you can't state your opinion on these forums unless your a mindless fanboy

It's specifically stating "childish pandas", if you can find a way to describe that idea without saying "childish" which doesn't have a very concrete meaning, then post that and you won't be infracted and your opinion will be more clearly expressed. It's a win win.

[DarkTZeratul]

Because the game is almost ten years old and is stagnating in many respects.

[Schwert]

]There is no sole reason as there is no sole reason people play this game;

However I've got my ideas and the ways they can be fixed;

-PvP:
PvP isn't even balanced at the moment nor has it been all expansion. FoTM is at it's absolute worst with leveling being as easy as it is and certain classes just dominate the ladder. Not playing the 1-3 classes that are OP? Have fun pushing rating.
And that's all PvP is now; rating and arenas.
Want the mount (which outside WoTLK: Has been the only armored drakes you can get)? Better have the highest rating in US. Want the tabard? OH - You need to be in that range as well. Want anything? Better be in the 3-4% of the population who breaks 2k. Might even be lower.

The 100 wins mount was just a bandaid; but the focus on nothing but HIGH rated play and the decline of it overall is probably a good reason people aren't bothering and are leaving.

Also the whole "they haven't changed much of anything since BC" thing applies.
"Tradition" has made PvP boring. I have more fun spamming random BG's because nothing is on the line. Most "PvP"ers I know now won't touch rated play.
RBG's at least gets extra points for having a reward every step of the way and sticking to titles as the biggest rewards.

Alienation and focus on the 1% is killing PvP now that they're less fun.

-PvE:
It's essentially been the same thing with a few new moves for the past decade. Even longer if you were playing other MMORPG's before WoW.
You can only do the same thing so many times before it's just insanity.
There is also an extreme amount of "choice" to the point it's probably not that healthy. I love Flex - I've done HM raiding but do we seriously need 4 tiers of difficulty for one raid?
I'm also in the boat that LFR is burning people out and that Flex should replace it - but that's nothing more than opinion. LFR's probably saved more "casual" subs but may have hit "hardcore" ones. And one playerbase is much larger than the other.

There's not much that can be done over people quitting for PvE. They're doing as much as they can and their PvE is their strength in this game.

-Lore:
MoP did alright with this. Plenty happened in game but they've still continued to focus a lot of major changes in books and outside sources.
The world doesn't feel too terribly dynamic - and although they tried to fix this with the Vale - they need to do a hell of a lot more with this.
It seems like with the MoP interviews from last Blizzcon they're starting to notice this and they have the software to make and change the world quicker

One big issue I've had recently is that the villains this expansion are just flavor of the patch. There's little build up and we knew Garrosh was going to be the end boss before the expansion. If they give us something we have to fight against for a long period of time and we become attached to...I can see things going better.
(Lich King and Illidan being very good examples; but those were around in WC3. We need new characters and they need to be built up over expansions or patches - not just a few raid clears.)

If they decide to do more in game like they did with the Vale and do it with things the fans actually want - I can see them actually bringing folks back.
Azshara and the Burning Legion being the two most requested things right around this time.

[Azrile]

You know, WoW cartoonish game styled graphics is the reason i keep playing, it's in my opinion better then any MMORPG. (personal opinion)

Agree with this so much. Everyone went crazy over the realism of the AOC graphics.. but whenever I played it, everything just looked muddy brown.

- - - Updated - - -

People need to stop looking at subs, and instead look at revenues. WOW has not lost many western subs at all. Revenues were steady and even up in some quarters when they lost subs.

The majority of the subs that were lost were from China, and because of a f2p MMO that came out recently that was made in china and highly marketed there. WOW did not lose $15/month subscribers, instead they lost the casual, by-the-hour players from the east. Proof is in the revenues.

[Zantera]

I think the main reasons are:

1. People just don't have enough time to put into WoW, because it's an endless game. (By that I mean a game you won't finish in 24 hours and put aside)
2. The game has been around for almost 10 years, and people just want something else to play.

[Kuul]

MOBA games took over the playerbase that WoW took from the Counter-Strike or whatever the youngsters played before WoW.
And I don't consider it as a bad thing at all. Sure good people have left but most of the people were the "baddies" who really didn't fit in the game.
For example; I had like 6-7 friends of mine playing back in Wrath and now I have 2. The ones who quit were people with 5 days a week trainings, people with 8-12 hours jobs and a guy who always let everyone know how he hated fantasy and everything related (he only played because of random BGs with his girlfreind). I don't really think they could of get into the game fully. WoW takes a lot of your time and eventually it pays out.
Not everyone isn't up for that.

The amount of people on the servers is the problem though but I see they've been working on that with the Connection realms thingy, hope it works out.