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World of Warcraft Loses Another 1.3 Million Subscribers

By - Source: Joystiq | B 56 comments

WoW is bleeding subscribers.

The MMO market is changing, and not even Blizzard's powerhouse MMO is immune. At its height, World of Warcraft boasted over 10 million subscribers. The numbers began sinking in mid-to-late 2012, and Blizzard lost over 1 million subscriptions within a matter of months. When Mists of Pandaria released in October last year, the MMO quickly regained those lost subscriptions.

With players burning through the new expansion content and annual subscriptions from the free Diablo III deal ending, Blizzard's lost yet another 1.3 million subscriptions. Now, the total number of WoW subscriptions sits at 8.3 million as of March 31, 2013. That many subscribed players is still nothing to scoff at, but seeing the enormous declines that WoW's been experiencing (it's lost the player base equivalent of two popular MMOs, after all) it won't be long before Blizzard starts feeling the effects.

The good news is that Activision-Blizzard is well aware of the shaky footing that WoW stands on. "Though the majority of our subscriber decline occurred mainly in the East, where we have more subscribers and lower revenue per subscriber, we saw declines in the West as well," Activision-Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick stated. "While we do believe further declines are likely and we expect to have fewer subscribers at year-end than we do today, World of Warcraft remains one of the most successful franchises in the history of entertainment."

Of course, Blizzard's response to combat the declining numbers is to do the only thing it can do: release more content. "It's important to note that the nature of online games has changed, and with the environment becoming far more competitive, especially with free-to-play games," said Kotick. "To address this, we're working to release new content more frequently to keep our players engaged longer and make it easier for lapsed players to come back into the game. We believe in the long-term value of this franchise and will continue to commit substantial resources to World of Warcraft."

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  • 32 Hide
    eklipz330 , May 9, 2013 9:58 PM
    "We believe in the long-term value of this franchise and will continue to commit substantial resources to World of Warcraft."
    In layman's:
    " we are going to milk this shit for all its worth!"
  • 24 Hide
    rabbit2012 , May 9, 2013 10:05 PM
    I'm sorry but if you think WoW is pay to win, you don't understand what that term means. In WoW the only thing you can pay for is pets/mounts that affect nothing. You can't buy PvP or PvE gear with a credit card.
  • 15 Hide
    tobalaz , May 9, 2013 10:43 PM
    I was in the Beta.
    Loved it.
    Played it up until the 5th skill tree revamp.
    Got sick of the constant re-spec and working my tail off in game for weapons and armor to compliment my skills then become meaningless with a re-spec or nerf.
    Something I loved to do became frustrating, and the content would get stale fast.
    There's only so many times you can start over with new characters, its still a grind and grinding gets old after a while.
Other Comments
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  • 2 Hide
    edogawa , May 9, 2013 9:12 PM
    I tried playing again just recently, it's just not what it used to be, and I used to be a huge wow player with multiple accounts. I think it's time WoW was shut down instead of continuously making it worse.
  • 32 Hide
    eklipz330 , May 9, 2013 9:58 PM
    "We believe in the long-term value of this franchise and will continue to commit substantial resources to World of Warcraft."
    In layman's:
    " we are going to milk this shit for all its worth!"
  • 3 Hide
    wildkitten , May 9, 2013 10:03 PM
    I don't believe for a moment they lost most of their subs in the East. Mists of Pandaria hasn't sold as many copies to date as Burning Crusade and Wrath of the Lich King did on their first day of release, and subscribers in the East don't buy box copies, they merely pay their monthly sub fee. Only those in the west pay for the box copies and so to believe that the west has the majority of subs you have to believe the vast majority of WoW players don't have the latest expansion, or even Cataclysm.

    Bobby Kotick has been the worse thing that has ever happened to Blizzard. WoW was at 12 million subscribers when he took over and it's only declined since. Look at the disaster Diablo 3 has been. With the major missteps with WoW and the disastrous launch of D3, way to many people will take a wait and see approach to Titan and that won't be in Blizzard's best interest.
  • 24 Hide
    rabbit2012 , May 9, 2013 10:05 PM
    I'm sorry but if you think WoW is pay to win, you don't understand what that term means. In WoW the only thing you can pay for is pets/mounts that affect nothing. You can't buy PvP or PvE gear with a credit card.
  • -1 Hide
    daswilhelm , May 9, 2013 10:33 PM
    been bad for awhile now. sad.
  • 15 Hide
    tobalaz , May 9, 2013 10:43 PM
    I was in the Beta.
    Loved it.
    Played it up until the 5th skill tree revamp.
    Got sick of the constant re-spec and working my tail off in game for weapons and armor to compliment my skills then become meaningless with a re-spec or nerf.
    Something I loved to do became frustrating, and the content would get stale fast.
    There's only so many times you can start over with new characters, its still a grind and grinding gets old after a while.
  • 14 Hide
    slomo4sho , May 9, 2013 11:04 PM
    I am surprised that 8.3 million still pay to play this game.
  • 7 Hide
    hotroderx , May 9, 2013 11:10 PM
    I started playing WOW a few weeks into release, and have played off and on. Wow's biggest downfall was how popular it became. The community has steadily gotten worse and worse over the years. Which has caused blizzard to have to dumb down content to the point of being face roll easy.
    When I play video games I want a challenged I want something stimulating. I want to feel excited when I finally do down that boss. I want to feel I accomplished something.
    Wow has almost become the Farmville of mmo's. They removed talent tree's, they destroyed raid difficulty. they added a buff to the raid finder tool (that buffs a raid up to 50% if they continue wipe on content).
    The other major strikes against World of Warcraft are the obscene amount of daily's. Who really wants to be required to run the same set of quest 100-200 times for rep to get gear? Then we have challenger dungons I think there called? There three man dungeons no one does. Blizzard continues to push them on the community. Then there are the insane wait times from the Looking for group. As a DPS your looking at 30min-1hr of sitting in front of the computer waiting for a cue to pop.
    I know a lot of people will argue dont roll DPS. That argument does not work when it comes to blizzard the company. Thats like your cell phone company telling you not to make phone calls during peak if you dont wanna have to wait to be connected.
    So no its not surprising blizzards World of Warcraft is slowly starting to fade out. I think it will be around another 10 years reasonably I think there will be another 1-2 expansions then the game will be shelved.
  • -5 Hide
    amuffin , May 9, 2013 11:45 PM
    Must be League.
  • 3 Hide
    itchyisvegeta , May 10, 2013 12:00 AM
    /yawn
    Call me when it is free to play. Until then, not worth my investment in time and money.
  • 1 Hide
    clifftam , May 10, 2013 12:25 AM
    8.3 mill player X 15 dollar a month = $124.5 million per month. Let's say you minus 20% for discounts, free 1 year when you buy D3....that's a min $112 mill per month (excluding the digital pets and mounts you can buy). Even after monthly expenses of admin, servers and IT Support, Blizzard still making a fair bit of money from this MMO.
    That's not bad for a game that's more than 10 years old. I don't know the stats for DOTA.
    I played WoW two years ago. Spent 8 months grind my character to lvl 85 and then stopped playing. It was fun with my friend. It was hard to form community. I like some of the older contents (Wraith of the Lich King expansion). After a while, it is just grinding for gears. I got bored from doing that. Starcraft 2 came out and I left the WoW scene :) 
  • -2 Hide
    _Cosmin_ , May 10, 2013 12:29 AM
    That explain why i see lots of noobs lately in world of tanks...
  • 0 Hide
    ehanger , May 10, 2013 12:57 AM
    WoW is definitely not Pay to Win, in fact its one of the few MMOs these days which isn't P2W
  • -2 Hide
    crisan_tiberiu , May 10, 2013 3:52 AM
    I stoped playing because i got bored of the imbalance of the game. Blizzarc could not release an expantion without having a class buffed or a class "dead". I loved my Shaman during BT days even Ulduar, then the decision came: "you had your fun, now suck it up, NERF, U BAD BAD SUBSRIBER"
  • 1 Hide
    smokeybravo , May 10, 2013 4:11 AM
    After playing a game like Guild Wars 2, WoW feels extremely archaic. Like a Nintendo 64 game or something. Not only are the mechanics dull, the graphics are losing their luster also.
  • -4 Hide
    smokeybravo , May 10, 2013 4:14 AM
    After playing a game like Guild Wars 2, WoW feels extremely archaic. Like a Nintendo 64 game or something. Not only are the mechanics dull, the graphics are losing their luster also.
  • 3 Hide
    dirtyferret , May 10, 2013 4:26 AM
    the game has been around for almost ten years (next year). did these idiots expect the player base to grow? especially the moron who said they should shut down with player base of eight million just because he doesn't like it anymore? of course people will get sick of it, who the plays the exact same game day after day, month after month, year after year.
  • 0 Hide
    hfitch , May 10, 2013 5:20 AM
    One of the main problems with Panda is the daily grind. You literally have to grind daily to get the valor, rep and quest done to do anything significant in this game. I used to play multiple toons in wow. That is impossible now. Your rep isnt across board like it used to be. You can't even send them a tabard to help your other toons. So you rep grind on one toon whihc takes several hours. You going to do it again for a second toon? There looting tables or whatever is horrid this time around. I been raiding since BC days. 10 man and 25 mans and loot always was even. Some weeks you wouldn't get anything some weeks you would. I play a shaman and I have not got a single piece of loot from raiding or lfr in 3 weeks. All that drops is cloth or leather gear. Its like the game is telling you be a monk or a clothy but if your anything else good luck. Heck our guild got a new priest raiding with us two weeks ago and in two weeks he is now 514 ilvl. I am still 506 and I been raiding from the start.
  • 1 Hide
    The_Trutherizer , May 10, 2013 5:28 AM
    MMO's just need to find ways to get rid of the endless farming. My advice would be to tie character progression to exploration of the world and lore. Unique items tied to achievements. WoW has enough content to keep anybody busy for years if they had to do everything to achieve everyting. But as things stand people just find ways to get top levels and farm gold to buy top items.
  • 1 Hide
    InvalidError , May 10, 2013 5:41 AM
    The main reason I quit WoW is the players - got tired of so many guilds and PUGs requiring that people have already cleared content and over-geared it.
    LFR would be my second reason: great idea since it gives everyone a chance to get in regardless of level and experience, still allows the raid to progress and kick you out if you mess up too many times or grossly under-perform but much too dumbed-down.
    The way just about everything got considerably dumbed down and chopped up into 30-60mins affairs since BC would be my third biggest reason - thought I agree with most of the stats simplification; there were way too many stats back then and gear fragmentation (ex: healing spellpower vs individual elements for dps) back then - probably the only major simplification I fully agree with. Although BRD was somewhat of a pain-in-the-butt for how long it took to clear, I still wish there was at least one of those per expansion for people who like stuff on epic scale.
    If Blizzard included 1-3 months of gameplay with expansion purchases, I would give MoP a chance. If they reduced the monthly fee to $10/month, that may help convince me too. What annoys me most with a monthly subscription is paying regardless of how little I play.
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