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

[Seefer]

Just think about it...most people who played are in their early-late 20s and 30s

By now they have things like families, more time demanding jobs, just less free time overall and real life responsibilities , economy is more tight ever since like mid 08

I tell you this I used to hate the "casual" guys who didn't really give a $hit how they played/how sucky they were, who just played for fun...well once you step into their shoes I am with them 200% and always will be

plus the amount of good games on the market...they are pumping out call of duties and halos every year,just family-friendly games. In wow I have to buy another copy,install it bla bla bla but here I can just jump in splitscreen or xboxlive mode without any installations.

And as people said...just major nerfs, devs who trapped themselves with awful lore and plotholes and just less and less want to do things like raiding

Using peoples age is a bad thing seeing as most MMORPG players back in the day were roughtly 20-30 years old as I have stated many times, the console game argument I can maybe give you and 100% give you your last statement about the devs.

[Repefe]

You know the feeling when something exciting happens in a game, you either destroy something in an amazing style or get epically destroyed ... strong emotions both good and bad. Ppl don't get that in WoW anymore. Partially it's because the game is old, but other issue is that with dark legion and Arthas gone, Blizz has nothing interesting to tell to players.

Also the boss fights, ppl expect more nowdays from games. Bosses confined in tiny rooms with abilities that cover tiny portions of the tiny rooms ... yeah.

[Sugarpixie]

I don't know, but I un-subed for some reasons:

1-No RPG direction (MMORPG without RPG feels like a world with some minigames with a standard direction, so you burn the content and feel bored really fast).

2-Other free games with better experience for players in the same wow's endgame content: PvPs (moba games, fp shooters, fighting games, RTT games, etc..), PvE (MmoRPGs, PvE battles online, multiplayer games, rpgs with multiplayer options, etc...).

3-Less options to feel different from other players: stats, skills, armor/transmogs, 0 jerarchy, etc...from my point of view, we are "numbers" and not something done with our effort.

4-It feels that the endgame is the only thing important in this game. All other things that you do or try to accomplish are just minigames that nobody care but we are doing them because we can't raid at that moment...

5-From a lore point, the constant "smash the villain" thing that wow has become. Maybe we can't play like a villain, but we are killing every villain that becomes a threat (ergo, appear ingame),and that's a bit boring. With the improvement of quest explaining the story, we should have nice plots and not a focus-story that always ends with the same thing: us looting the corpse/body of the big baddie. Maybe we need something a bit different like Moira vanilla plot.

I'm a Blizzard funboy since Lost Vikings, but this is not a good reason to maintain my subscription.

P.D: Sorry for my english or grammar errors.

This pretty much sums up most of the reasons why I unsubbed not too long ago. Wow just doesn't feel interesting anymore, I found myself logging in, clicking around aimlessly, logging out again. Gearing up doesn't feel like an accomplishment anymore. I saw someone describe it earlier in the thread as LFR-LFR-LFR-LFR-LFR, and it does feel that way. I remember when I started playing back in TBC gearing up felt like a real achievement, it took way longer, ofcourse, but it gave you something to work for. Other than that, I just miss the RPG aspects, great storylines, the class specific quests, the attunements, just.. stuff that made you feel like you were really working towards something with yóur character.

[Synstir]

I hope they have something exiting to tell us at Blizzcon and not just the same stuff, like 3 raids at release and 4 dungeons, level cap raised by 5/10 levels, new continent....
that will be the exact same thing just with higher numbers.

This game is running a long long time and players who where doing leveling, dungeons, raids went into the next xpac and... did the same thing, then the next came and they did.... well... the same thing... then cata came and agian the same thing.... mop: same.
So it is not strange there are players who unsub because they did all of this over and over again.

Pet battles came, the farm came and kept some of us busy.. but these are side games which engage players for some time.

We need some new stuff, new direction to keep us busy and exited.

I am 100% sure (my hunch) that when we get a Burning legion xpac.... the same people now getting hyped about it, will complain also. Because the reality is always different than our expectations. If we get a bl xapc and still nothing new in there.... we will complain.

[ravenmoon]

..Yet it's still better than most of 'all the other recent games'. But that's because they're boring, stale, undynamic, and so is this game still.

And, ain't no wrap going on here until 7-10 expansions total and ain't no WoW2 released till 2024++ buddy. At 7+ mil subs the cash is still being raked in, they can downsize maintenance/upkeep costs & requirements & keep things profitable a long time.



So true. Not that GFX matter really (are you gonna be watching the game or you're gonna be playing it..??), but I sure always found these cartoony 'vintage' pixels & the overall Blizz artstyle to be endearing & pleasing to the eye.

but wow keeps getting better, there expansions are really good.

many of these new games are really good, and better than wow. I think for example SWtOR is better than wow point for point in almost every department.. yet, WoW does so much every expansion, they make such huge strides, whiles games like SWtOR, go static by comparisons, 1 or 2 expansions you're playing wow agian, becasue although they're many dated things, there is so much improvement and change around, you get more of an offering.

Sure SWtOR was a better game than WoW cataclysm by some distant, was slightly better than WoW MoP and I'm nearly convinced would be an altogether worse game than the new WoW expansion.. look at how they've improved themselves? SWtOR had such a lol expansion, what did they change or spice up? hardly anything, and their new content was tiny.. admittedly they are doing something very creative with their space pvp combat thing, that is tempting me to give it a serious go... but how woudl that pan out?


would ti be left dead in the water, 1year down the line? if they sat down and made the sort of changes WoW did for an expansion they may have a chance, but none of these new games do.. still one cannot ignore though, that they have far better Free to play options than wow, and while wow may have the fuller experience, it's not necessarily the better experience and it does cost you compared to GW2, RIFt, SWTOR and others.

maybe that's why it's dropping so fast. People just not willing to pay to play as much , and the subsstitutes, are actually a lot of fun, and have enough improvements over wow to stay away.

[ringpriest]

Ghostcrawler

completely serious.

I don't know if it's exactly his fault, but the game did start to take a turn away from the playstyle that had brought in 10 million+ customers almost as soon as he came on board. Even if he was doing an amazing job, they should have switched Lead Systems Designer every 2 expacs or so, just to keep things fresh.

[Planetarism]

This pretty much sums up most of the reasons why I unsubbed not too long ago. Wow just doesn't feel interesting anymore, I found myself logging in, clicking around aimlessly, logging out again. Gearing up doesn't feel like an accomplishment anymore. I saw someone describe it earlier in the thread as LFR-LFR-LFR-LFR-LFR, and it does feel that way. I remember when I started playing back in TBC gearing up felt like a real achievment, it took way longer, ofcourse, but it gave you something to work for. Other than that, I just miss the RPG aspects, great storylines, the class specific quests, the attunements, just.. stuff that made you feel like you were really working towards something with yóur character.

Absolutely. Unengaging, static, leads to crushing, repetitive gameplay boredom.

But wow keeps getting better, there expansions are really good.

Many of these new games are really good, and better than wow. I think for example SWtOR is better than wow point for point in almost every department.. yet, WoW does so much every expansion, they make such huge strides, whiles games like SWtOR, go static by comparisons, 1 or 2 expansions you're playing wow agian, becasue although they're many dated things, there is so much improvement and change around, you get more of an offering.

Sure SWtOR was a better game than WoW cataclysm by some distant, was slightly better than WoW MoP and I'm nearly convinced would be an altogether worse game than the new WoW expansion.. look at how they've improved themselves? SWtOR had such a lol expansion, what did they change or spice up? hardly anything, and their new content was tiny.. admittedly they are doing something very creative with their space pvp combat thing, that is tempting me to give it a serious go... but how woudl that pan out?

Would it be left dead in the water, 1year down the line? If they sat down and made the sort of changes WoW did for an expansion they may have a chance, but none of these new games do.. still one cannot ignore though, that they have far better Free to play options than wow, and while wow may have the fuller experience, it's not necessarily the better experience and it does cost you compared to GW2, RIFt, SWTOR and others.

Maybe that's why it's dropping so fast. People just not willing to pay to play as much, and the substitutes, are actually a lot of fun, and have enough improvements over wow to stay away.

I can't believe you're bringing TOR into this discussion - it's one of the very worst examples of boring stale meaningless themepark gameplay you can find.

Head-shakingly stunning =/

[ravenmoon]

Absolutely. Unengaging, static, leads to crushing, repetitive gameplay boredom.



I can't believe you're bringing TOR into this discussion - it's one of the very worst examples of boring stale meaningless themepark gameplay you can find.

Head-shakingly stunning =/

given that it's a wow clone, like Rift, if ToR's gamplay is themepark, so is wow's... anyway, you seem to forget the part where I mentioned it was stale, or rather static and slow, but i recenlty schecked, they do more frequent updates than wow, so part of me is thinking you're still characterized by your experience of it 2 years ago, when most of the fanboys brought it, played all it's content, then quit it in frustration because at that time they didn't have much of an end game. but I don't know if you were one of them so maybe it doesn't apply.

still my opinion remains unchanged, I meant what I said about WoW. Blizzard are hardworking and committed to this, I can't say the same for Bioware and SWtOR

[Glorious Leader]

still my opinion remains unchanged, I meant what I said about WoW. Blizzard are hardworking and committed to this, I can't say the same for Bioware and SWtOR

I fail to see the difference. Actually it's worse than that. Bioware is at least adding something significant and new to the game that isn't just an extension of already existing content. Blizzard hasn't done anything like that in years. All the additions to the game are basically just extensions rather then whole new systems. Bioware on the other hand went out and built space combat from the ground up. Blizzard gave us lfr.

Now it's your turn to give me an anti swtor polemic while blowing Acti Blizz in the process. On and on it goes.

[Anteries]

Can you name a game that you have played 7 days a week for 5 - 10 years and still enjoy? I can't think of one. And that is the reason for dropping subscriptions. Players are bored with the game, and are going on to different things. Eventually you hit your wow limit and you find something else to do.

The dropping subs isnt the problem, people are going to leave an mmo. The problem is the lack of gaining subs. Why is wow not gaining new members faster than it is losing old ones? Now that is a problem to tackle.

Wow's major problem is how it is viewed from the outside. People who have heard of it but never played have a very negative outlook towards the game. They view players as people with no lives, pathetic losers who can only live in a video game. Now players know that is not the case (though there are some) anyone can play, but they need to get past the negative connotations of playing to do so.

I have known several people over the years that looked down upon WoW, mocked people for playing, etc, but one day they were convinced to try it, and they are now raiders. Blizzard needs to market more to new players to recover from the Sub drop, old players will keep playing until they are done, but new players wont start unless they are drawn in.

[Osmeric]

Wow's major problem is how it is viewed from the outside. People who have heard of it but never played have a very negative outlook towards the game. They view players as people with no lives, pathetic losers who can only live in a video game. Now players know that is not the case (though there are some) anyone can play, but they need to get past the negative connotations of playing to do so.

I wouldn't discount all the possibly negative, or at least tepid, word of mouth from former players. Those ex-players have accumulated over the years, making their collective voice increasingly loud.

[MoanaLisa]

I wouldn't discount all the possibly negative, or at least tepid, word of mouth from former players. Those ex-players have accumulated over the years, making their collective voice increasingly loud.

This is overblown in my opinion. It's more that people don't really talk about WoW at all these days. The only conversation going on is on forums and that's largely something that people come to after signing up with....any game really. It's simply an aging game whose time in the glare of public sun has past. There's little in the way of TV advertising for it and probably wouldn't be very useful if there was.

Cultural phenomena burn bright and fade. It's not a mystery. Just about anyone over the age of 15 who wants to try it probably already has.
Anyone under that age won't stay long because of reasons that are too obvious to state.

[Tyrgannus]

Old players getting tired
New players not being drawn into 9 year old game vs. newer games.

Essentially time.

[Issalice]

It is fairly late into the expansion pack at this point. People are bored. Subscriptions fluctuate due to the content. If people are bored they aren't likely to pay/play. The subs will go back up the closer to the next xpac, I am certain.

[KCguy]

Old players getting tired
New players not being drawn into 9 year old game vs. newer games.

Essentially time.

Another reason is that the Cataclysm put a really bad taste in many people's mouths and, well, word of mouth has probably turned people off on the game. The "cutey wootsy" trailer of Mists of Pandaria sure didn't help as well. I truly do think that if they go back to a familiar theme (darker and more bad ass) with the next expansion and say it is the Burning Legion (well known characters and lore), that will really open up a lot of eyes. JMO. Or the damage has been done and combined with the age of the game, that's it. lol

[Madwolf]

Has a lot to do with the game being old honestly. It's hard to attract new players at this point, and I've been playing for 10 years! It's hard for them to keep the game fresh and interesting for me. I really don't like the daily system of this expansion either. It went from something you could do quickly, and was almost optional, to part of my "job" after I get home.

I personally think the graphics on this game look great. Blizz was genius in keeping the graphics with the Warcraft III feel. It really let the game last a long time graphically. I still don't feel like the game is dated when I play it, I feel like it follows the art style, and that's something that's hard to do.

I think what they really need to do is stop WoW expansions soon and do another WC game. Build up the universe a bit. The one problem with WoW right now is that we don't have as many characters that we've been attached to for long enough for to be truly invested in. One of the things that helped launch WoW into the hit it is was being able to interact with all of the AWESOME characters from WCIII like Thrall, Jiana, Cairne, etc. It really made the game early on.

[Deleted]

Childish Pandaland game with no new ideas and bad graphics made by arrogant developers who don't innovate

See GW2 for a MMO done correctly

I feel pity for people still playing this dinosaur of a game, it's like the people still playing Everquest 1 in 2011

[Dorknight]

Too much time grinding

[Demonidze]

the game is old, the concept is old, the game engine is old ... its time for WoW 2, or other MMO from Blizzard because WoW is just old game at this point.



edit: also servers are complete mess! most of the servers either horde or alliance dominated, so rare to see 50/50 balance. way too many ghost servers with barely any population in them. VR may help but will not fix anything, tl;dr back to the point its time for WoW 2.

[Deleted]

there is no one main reason /thread