I wonder if it's the Economic Crisis or the Game or a Combination of the two

[Deleted]

The game is not extremely expensive, however, 1. it is for some regions of the world and 2. it might be when one thinks of it for the budget of a kid that a parent may have allocated. Several people trim their budget lately anyway and WoW can contribute in raising savings. This trend may continue or increase due to Peak Oil, but let's not go into reasons of the global crisis right now, it's off topic.

However, I also suspect the competition has started taking hints of wow's success and it may have started copying it well or improving it in other areas.

(Concerning the top news on the front page)

[Dragonwing]

Here is what I see it as:

First of all, you have people upset with game decisions, as always. However moreso in Cataclysm, mainly because of the class changes. We saw the largest class change/revamp patch ever with 4.0, and a lot of classes were left unbalanced, meaning a lot of people were frustrated. I know a person who quit the game due to her class, and how frustrated she was with the changes (she found herself underperforming a lot). I expect these changes to have had quite significant effect on sub numbers.

Secondly, content outside of raiding. I found Cataclysm had VERY little daily content compared to other expansions, which is why Molten Front was such a good idea. In addition, there were much less 5 mans than the previous expansions. After doing so much dungeon grinding, you become sick of it much faster when there are less 5 mans. Hopefully Blizzard will release more 5 mans before the expac is over. ZA/ZG were a good idea AT FIRST (well, ZA would have been good if they remade it, it is quite tedious atm). However, the Tier 1/Tier 2 heroic split was a bad idea, IMO.

Now for the major reason, and the most obvious (however, also the most ignored on the forums): Rift. Very simple, Rift released in March 2011. Q1's end. It quickly reached 1 million subscribers. Of course, MANY people from WoW quit for Rift. This would have been the biggest benefactor for the 600k loss in Q1.

Also, like you said, the economic crisis would also have something to do with it. I have known many people who have cancelled their accounts due to financial problems.

Now, with Q2, we saw a loss, but a smaller one. That's good, it means WoW is not sharply declining as some feared. It IS declining, but the rate is slowing. Blizzard can very easily recover. If we lost 1 million subscribers this quarter, then sure, begin panic. But alas, we did not

I think the major cause of this loss was lack of content. 4.2, the major patch was released at the very end of the quarter so its effects on subscriber numbers cannot really be seen, aside from the subscriptions renewed in the first 2 days. Ive even read that 4.2 was considered a Q3 release, but I havent seen this confirmed or anything. So, from April to June, 300k quit, which I expected to be honest.

But one other big factor was ZG/ZA. NOT because "ZG/ZA RECYCLED OMG". The reason I believe this was really bad was because of the T1/T2 split. It fixed some problems, but created a host of others, and it can be quite difficult to rectify this issue. People above 346 ilvl are basically pigeonholed into the 2 same heroics, 7 times a week. It can be really exhausting, I know I am sick of them already (I miss vortex pinnacle ). Yes, you can go back and do the T1 heroics, but you are getting the undergeared groups for one, which makes it painful (all the geared people are in Z heroics), and you get half the VP. I do think this contributes considerably to the 300k loss.

What about Q3?

Well, we will likely see the 4.3 PTR come 4.3. For the PTR, you need to have an active subscription, so people will likely be resubbing due to that or the hype. You have further 4.2 resubs which were not seen in Q2 due to the short time 4.2 had in that quarter. You have WoW in Brazil, + the expansion in China. As well as the trial account changes, which are apparently already a success. Also, BC is free. It may seem small, but a lot of people don't play the game due to the cost of the expansions + original disc. Blizzcon and the hype caused by announcement is to be considered too.

So, in Q3 I do expect either a small gain, or a small loss. Nothing too major on either side. I don't expect another 300k+ loss, due to the factors listed above.

[Deleted]

I think you are very exaggerating the 5mans. Those are not spectacularly different since I first started playing more actively in TBC. Also if you do 5-6 bosses in firelands you only need a couple of them and you can do the old ones for half the valor, you're not forced to do a lot of zul aman. It's just almost the same to be honest, since I first remember wow. There are differences but I don't see anything spectacularly different. If there is a problem there may in the lack of difference.

I don't know of other games specifically but I guess the one you mentioned contributes. But to be honest almost all of the games I see make me easily think "hrm, they definitely don't have the same amount of artists working on it, look at this animation how jerky it is" and things like that. Wow has still the immense advantage of 999 billion people working to make even a little pet.

[Deleted]

If 20$ a month were nothing in my life, like if I had 5 million dollars to just spend for shits and giggles, yeah I'd probably still be subbed. I would still only log in once a week to chat or go do something random though, since I can't find anything to do every day for 8 hours like I somehow used to. 20$ is quite a lot for me though since I'm unemployed and have no income atm. I do have my savings, but I will never spend those on something like that, I keep those for important stuff.

But I'm just me. I doubt the 900k people who unsubbed like me do it because they're broke. Some doesn't like the game anymore, some don't have time, some died, I don't know. It doesn't matter though. One of my friends recently resubbed after 2 months (this has happened like 6 times now) but I am pretty sure I won't return this time, also because everyone in my guild through 4 years have stopped playing too.

[Osyrus]

i think another issue is that a lot of WoW players are growing up.

---Now, Im not saying anyone is too old or too young to play video games. ---

I mean, getting a more time consuming job, having children, or even getting that significant other.

For myself personally, I go to school almost full time (labs) and I work a job that is extremely time consuming. I dont raid anymore or even do dungeons (those sometimes are too long). I mainly do a few dailys for mounts or pets or level an alt. Althought Id like to play more between my significant other, friends, and my 'not so fun' job/ school I have little spare time for a video game that is as time consuming as WoW.

However a consul game for me is easier- ie Fable. I can save it! Nothing happens or changes and/or I dont become out dated.

[Pattydeegz]

I think the simplest way to explain it is that the game has taken too far a turn for the worse. With having released too many new spells that they've had to rebalance time and time again, they made it even harder to bring a medium between PvP and PvE. The amount of revamps between this expansion and the last, I feel, has left people still in disarray. I still feel like I'm playing a completely different game and I still haven't gotten completely settled in with the new changes (I don't know if anyone else feels the same way). The fact is that whether or not they want to admit it, content in any aspect of the game has taken a turn for the worst. With recycled content and the lack-luster release of only 7 new bosses in one major patch, the game is taking a very steady decline. The release of heroic and non-heroic modes is a lazy way to release "different" content without having to put any more work than adding an additional spell and a little more damage all around to the already existing spells and mechanics to the encounter.

The thing to keep in mind, though, is that they'll make all of these subscribers back and then some when they release Titan, I can practically guarantee that. I wouldn't think it's a stretch to assume that they've made a conscious effort to let the game slip a little in efforts to have people look to a new game (Titan again) for the experience they want.

Obviously this is just an opinion, but I don't think it can be too far off. In terms of cost, I imagine it's completely reasonable for 900,000 people to not be able to afford $15 a month for a subscription, however miniscule the price may seem. The only thing is that the economy has been horrible for way longer than the 7 or 8 months that Cataclysm has been out and we haven't seen such a ridiculously fast decline like this in all that time. You have to assume that it has way more to do with the direction they took with this expansion and not the direction in which the economy is going.

[siegemaster]

Why is it so hard to believe that this game is just not near as fun as past expansions. Once you break out from being addicted you realize that spending 90% of your time in SW/Org waiting for queues or your guild raid to start is just not entertaining to a lot of people. I haven't played since February and anytime I think of resubbing i just imagine what I would do if I was playing; nothing - and paying for it.

[Deleted]

I also think it's the game. I've never been bored that much of WoW. Granted, I've been playing it since classic. But even WotLK and BC were very entertaining despite the game's repetitive gameplay. I've resubbed one month ago when FL came out. Finished the revamped 4.2 dungeons in one day, got all the loot in two days. Cleared the 3 release raids in one week, saw 4 Firelands bosses within 2 weeks. I cleared the solo content and saw most of Firelands (which didn't really impress me, after the long wait I've been expecting something with the size of Ulduar). So I'm through most of the content, but I don't feel there's anything keeping me interested in continuing. I haven't done hardmodes in that expansion, because the boss mechanics suck already on normal compared to WotLK and BC. Haven't seen anything that comes even close to Professor Putricide HM, Sindragosa HM ,Freya HM, Algalon, Mimiron, Yogg and of course the epic Lich King fight. Those fights were already hard and required talking with each other, we didn't need huge health pools and slow casting spells to bring a strategic element to the fights.

I do like PvP normally and I do it always when I'm not PvE'ing, but the World/Tol Barad PvP is totally boring and that's just unbalanced population across (nearly) all realms. What do you need PvP items for, when you can't do world PvP with them. Blizzard just doesn't do anything to fix the game breaking issues, revamp boring class mechanics (especially healing), bring improvements to the existing world. They just barely keep the servers running and have a few people working on patches. I've played all classes to 85 at the beginning of the expansion and I didn't find any class that had the promised "fun" mechanics. The large health pools just make the game slow, the issues with mana make you concentrate on statistics instead of movement and coordination.

There isn't anything keeping me in that game. I rather play Neverwinter Nights 1+2 with my former guild mates, when I want to play a RPG, or Starcraft 2 or whatever. Whenever I'm logging into WoW it just gives me creeps how they took all the fun things out of this game. Diablo 3 looks promising though