Only 100k drops!

[Slowpoke is a Gamer]

Blizzard apologists will attempt to put a positive spin on anything.

According to them, subscriber growth is good.

According to them, subscriber loss is also good.

Bigger question is what happens next quarter. If subs are still relatively stable or even up, I think we could be looking at a plateauing of subs finally. Especially since there'll be a new expansion revealed.

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It'll never hit 12 million due to a fraction of that 12+ million player base loves the Free-To-Play method and others don't want the grind again and are just done with MMOs.

Just my opinion.

I think a lot of it is they just have gotten hooked on the "yearly release cycles" and "HD remakes" that the gaming industry is using these days.

Clear content in a month, have to wait 5 more months for more new content. Obviously they'll just play a month, quit for 5, month, 5, repeat.

[Deleted]

It'll never hit 12 million due to a fraction of that 12+ million player base loves the Free-To-Play method and others don't want the grind again and are just done with MMOs.

Just my opinion.

True, the competition has significantly increased since WotLK

[Skippy88]

The way I look at it is 5.4 was their best chance outside of 5.0 to gain subscribers and they still lost. It will be interesting to see what they have up their sleeve on Friday and see what they have to turn the tide.

[Zatetic]

If I was at bliz, I'd count 100k sub loss as a good thing considering how long the game has been out and how dated it is becoming. There is only so much you can do with pve content before it starts to feel like a rehash.

Also, while it says they only lost 100k subs, I wonder how many current players unsubbed and old players resubbed for 5.4. I'm sure raiding orgrimmar attracted quite a few older retired players.

[Funky Kong]

Bigger question is what happens next quarter. If subs are still relatively stable or even up, I think we could be looking at a plateauing of subs finally. Especially since there'll be a new expansion revealed.

I reckon they'll announce another Annual Pass, rewarding the Faerie Dragon mount for those who do it.

And many people will buy into it just for the mount. Subscriptions will increase, but a lot of people won't be using the time they paid for. At least that's my prediction.

Anyways, I'm excited for the next expansion but I won't be jumping into an annual pass type of deal. I feel like I dodged a bullet by not getting on board for the first annual pass. As for beta access, I don't want to ruin the expansion for myself (never have participated in beta or PTR).

[BenBos]

The number of continuously subscribed people is at an all-time low.

Wrong, WoW has still more subscriptions than mid 2006.

Incredible really: who would have thought back in FULL WoW swing and WoW cult that 7 years later the game would still have all these paying subscriptions around.

Take ANY other single video game, compare its age and then come up with 7.6 million people paying money ... just to be able to keep playing.

In fact most video games last 2 years at best, let alone multii millions would pay 180 dollars per year to ... just log in (our western world)...

Crazy if you want to disdain the most unique thing we all could experience.

Gratitude.

[KungFuFanta]

You sound like a bitter ex

News flash, 7 million enjoy MoP. Ergo, it's a success

I enjoy PVP and some of the true Warcraft quests in pandaland, which is why I'm still here and probably many others too, that doesn't mean I can't remain critical about their choice of actions. By your logic if 50% of USA residents vote for Obama none of them can criticize him later for his actions because they voted for him.

[Slowpoke is a Gamer]

I reckon they'll announce another Annual Pass, rewarding the Faerie Dragon mount for those who do it.

And many people will buy into it just for the mount. Subscriptions will increase, but a lot of people won't be using the time they paid for. At least that's my prediction.

Anyways, I'm excited for the next expansion but I won't be jumping into an annual pass type of deal. I feel like I dodged a bullet by not getting on board for the first annual pass. As for beta access, I don't want to ruin the expansion for myself (never have participated in beta or PTR).

I think the AP was overhyped in terms of numbers in the first place. The second one will have less because the offerings won't be as good, and people are probably not as keen to sign up for a whole year of WoW at once.

[Deleted]

They didnt start mass banning bots yet. That would probaly be another 500k subs.

As for the game you will see a huge decrease pretty soon. My guild went from active 30 players to 10 in just 20 days.

My guild is busier than ever. Where we used to have 4 on there are now 24. All our old friends have come back to try the new features and they're all excited to see what comes out at Blizzcon.

Your guild =/= every guild.

[tratra]

I do have an open sub, but i dont play at all, does that count? Also there are a lot of alt accounts out there and new accounts that have been opened since they reduced the price of wow. I don't rly believe that the fall is only 100k in papers it is but in reality is prolly more than that.

[Deleted]

WoW didn't hit 7 million until a few years in

[Sharuko]

Back in 2006 the majority of the subscribers were continuous subscribers...

Today in 2013 however a big part of the subscribers are very irregular subscribers who might only subscribe for 1 month every quarter

Do you have anything to back that statement up? Or are you just assuming?

[notorious98]

Bigger question is what happens next quarter. If subs are still relatively stable or even up, I think we could be looking at a plateauing of subs finally. Especially since there'll be a new expansion revealed.

If you mean the quarter after this current quarter we're in, I agree. But Blizzard was already in the swing of MoP beta when they dropped 1.1 million subs last time.

[Abstieg]

My own subscription behaviour and that of my RL friends, as well as the comments you can read on the forums here. (I've seen several of the moderators even on this forum now saying they're only subscribed but don't play, or only subscribe briefly to check out new content).

It's a stark contrast with how things used to be during TBC...

Remember it's not just about the quantity of subscribers, quality has been decreasing rapidly every quarter too.

So no, you don't have anything to back that up with. Personal anecdotes mean nothing to describe a broad picture.

[Cintrik]

My own subscription behaviour and that of my RL friends, as well as the comments you can read on the forums here. (I've seen several of the moderators even on this forum now saying they're only subscribed but don't play, or only subscribe briefly to check out new content).

It's a stark contrast with how things used to be during TBC...

Remember it's not just about the quantity of subscribers, quality has been decreasing rapidly every quarter too.

So you are taking a small sample of one person's friends and a few forum threads as a consensus for 7.6 Million people? Brilliant and true!

[Sharuko]

My own subscription behaviour and that of my RL friends, as well as the comments you can read on the forums here. (I've seen several of the moderators even on this forum now saying they're only subscribed but don't play, or only subscribe briefly to check out new content).

It's a stark contrast with how things used to be during TBC...

Remember it's not just about the quantity of subscribers, quality has been decreasing rapidly every quarter too.

So you are just assuming. Because back in BC I used to sub for a couple of months, quit and come back again and so did many of my friends.

[Bepples]

They didnt start mass banning bots yet. That would probaly be another 500k subs.

As for the game you will see a huge decrease pretty soon. My guild went from active 30 players to 10 in just 20 days.

Anecdotal evidence is anecdotal.

[Deleted]

It'll never hit 12 million due to a fraction of that 12+ million player base loves the Free-To-Play method and others don't want the grind again and are just done with MMOs.

Just my opinion.

The biggest thing stopping it hitting 12mil again is the finite number of people interested in an MMO, especially a subscription based one and WoW's age.

Most people that are willing to play an MMO with a sub will have already played wow, and either are still playing and enjoying it or have quit, for whatever reason.
Most people will have quit because they're not interested in the game, RL stuff that often doesn't ease up or free time gets filled with other things, or because they've simply eaten their fill of WoW.

Some people will be perfectly happy to play WoW for years on end because they love the game, I'm one of them, but here are plenty of other people who, after 8 or more years of doing the same thing, understandably want to move onto something fresh. Expansions improve WoW, but they don't reinvent the wheel, nor should they.

Some people have simply had enough and want to move on, as with any other game - being as old as it is I think it's pretty decent to have as many players as it does, not many other games that manage that.

My own subscription behaviour and that of my RL friends, as well as the comments you can read on the forums here. (I've seen several of the moderators even on this forum now saying they're only subscribed but don't play, or only subscribe briefly to check out new content).

It's a stark contrast with how things used to be during TBC...

Remember it's not just about the quantity of subscribers, quality has been decreasing rapidly every quarter too.

My entire guild subscribes throughout the years and most of us have done so since classic, we've only ever lost people to RL stuff.

I don't think you can apply anecdotal evidence so easily on such a large game, especially one that promotes playing in cliques that probably reflect your own player mentality.

[Trakanonn]

Wait 'till we're 8 months into SoO. That's going to be another huge drop.

this.

Admittedly I thought we'd see a 500k drop.


But lets think about it, this last quarter had content, the next 1-3 will NOT have meaningful content, and won't be pretty.

[BenBos]

My own subscription behaviour and that of my RL friends, as well as the comments you can read on the forums here. (I've seen several of the moderators even on this forum now saying they're only subscribed but don't play, or only subscribe briefly to check out new content).

It's a stark contrast with how things used to be during TBC...

Remember it's not just about the quantity of subscribers, quality has been decreasing rapidly every quarter too.

First that's personal perception and not a general fact.

Secondly, that's irrelevant as it shows some people can't put an end to it.

It is called being emotionally attached.

It is even better as it is clearly a market for other Blizzard products to promote like HS, Dota etc ...

It is called: the CLUB.

Blizzard knows this feeling very well (hence BlizzCon) and we saw the results with D3 and its incredible 10 million sales on PC alone in its first weeks.

Expect HS to reach that number without ANY problem and ... these products reinforce each other.

How many (ex) WoW players will try the first free to play game of Blizzard ?

too many...