Latest MMO pop report shows a WoW growth spurt
by V'Ming Chew 
Apr 9th 2008 at 11:00AM
This is old news really: we all know that there are 10 million of us playing Blizzard's MMORPG juggernaut. In MMOGChart's latest report however, there appears to be a little growth spurt in the early part of this year.
This is surprising when we consider the fact that WoW is three years old. In the video and computer game business, three years is considered "old", even for a game that is constantly updated. Other games would usually see a tapering off in terms of population growth at this stage. Not only is market-dominating WoW bucking the trend, it's actually enjoying a surge in its population!
Is this growth spike the result of anticipation for Wrath of the Lich King? Probably so, according to MMOGChart: "There appears to be a slight acceleration of growth a month or two before the release of an expansion, which then continues for approximately 3-6 months afterwards." With the unprecedented size of WoW's playerbase, we can probably expect the hype to be built up a lot sooner than "a month or two".
The report has gone on to break down WoW's existing 10 million subscribers by territory:
- North America: 2.5 million
- Europe: 2 million
- Asia: 5.5 million (primarily China)
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Odds and ends, Blizzard, Expansions
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Sorano Apr 9th 2008 11:09AM
...Runescape? /facepalm
I'm surprised they did not included Maple Story in this chart. From I read it had a pretty substantial number of active accounts.
Elaus Apr 9th 2008 11:24AM
Runescape currently has more subscribers than any game on there, except WoW.
Lulz
enronias Apr 9th 2008 11:09AM
Well I just canceled my account after playing since launch the other day, what a coincidence. . .
RogueJedi86 Apr 9th 2008 11:12AM
I wonder how many of the 5.5 million in Asia/China are in the illegal businesses of powerleveling and goldfarming and the like.
imxiaozhu Apr 9th 2008 11:41AM
Unfortunately, we don't enjoy as many such services on Chinese servers. And apparently, there are greater needs and people are richer to use them in the US or Europe.
Bootsanator Apr 9th 2008 5:31PM
Yeah buddy, it's much more likely that the 5.5 million players in china are all legitimate,and about 500k of the 2.5 million US accounts are/were goldfarmers/powerlevelers.
Well, maybe not that big of a number, but, still.
imxiaozhu Apr 10th 2008 6:40AM
You simply missed the point.
BillDoor Apr 9th 2008 11:12AM
Perhaps there is also a spike when the weather turns colder, and people look for things to do indoors.
I know a few people that maintain Netflix subscriptions during the winter, but cancel them in the summer.
RogueJedi86 Apr 9th 2008 11:14AM
I'm also surprised how low they have LotRO. I can't even really see it on there. A lot of people tired of raiding and the immature community of WoW(plus general Lord of the Rings fans) tend to flock to it, so I'd think it'd have at least 500,000.
chris b Apr 9th 2008 11:26AM
LOTR is a good MMO but I think that it hews so closely to the lore that it really appeals to the LOTR fans more than anything else. Having seen the movies isn't really enough to go into the games with and understanding of what to expect. Because it hews so close to the lore it's a lot quirkier than other fantasy MMOs. A pedestrian MMO player would wonder where the wizards were not really understanding that wizards in LOTR are a very particular race of people who only numbered, what 5?, in the books. That sort of thing. If you're a LOTR geek, the game hits the nail on the head. If you're just looking for a good MMO to replace WOW it would be a rough transition.
Tony Apr 9th 2008 11:51AM
LotRO is kind of buried under other things on there, but it looks to be hovering around 200,000 or so... which is a shame. It really deserves to do better and Turbine have done, I think, the best job outside of Blizzard to realize something this complex.
I enjoy Lord of the Rings, but I've never finished the books OR the movies. I just have a general familiarity with them. The lore stuff has its ups and downs. It's not going to make you feel like you don't know what's going on and pretty much everything is self contained and well explained. Frodo's quest is just part of what's going on in all of the world, obviously. I don't feel any more confused than I do in WoW's lore.
However, the quests are enjoyable (the "epic" ones especially, as they make you feel like you're really affecting the story... something I never personally feel in WoW), people are friendly, there's a lot of customization and the world is well realized.
Perhaps some of the classes things would take time to get used to, but largely for those who want a WoW clone... and in that sense, just stick with WoW. LotRO isn't it. Hunters don't act like Hunters in WoW, for example. The pet class is actually the Lore Master. There's no obvious magic users either, as mentioned, but the game's character creation page informs you who is the crowd controller, who is the tank, who is the nuker, who is the healer, etc.
It's got some ways to go, but for a game that's been out a year they've made some incredible strides. Even WoW had a lot of missteps back in its first formative years.
I think they're both great games. You could do a lot worse if you want a companion game for WoW or want to do something different for a while.
chris b Apr 9th 2008 11:14AM
The game may be three years old but with Christmas and the television commercials they were (are? haven't seen one recently) running it's not too surprising that there was a growth spike. Despite all the doom saying about how WoW is dying on their official forums, you don't have to look too hard to see evidence to the contrary. It's been universally acknowledged that WOW is a phenomenon. Analysts say the churn rate for subscriptions is remarkably low, especially so for a game this old with as large a population as it has. You would think that with that many people playing there would be a pretty large number of fickle players. Blizzard really struck gold.
MechChef Apr 9th 2008 11:44AM
World of Warcrack. The first hit (10 day trial) is free. After that, you're hooked.
Milktub Apr 9th 2008 11:55AM
It's the 3-year old thing that stuns me the most. In the world of video games, 3 years is a long, long time.
KateJaneway Apr 9th 2008 12:01PM
I'd like to see Maple Story, City of Heroes and GuildWars on there as well.
Sorano Apr 9th 2008 12:04PM
Guild Wars as more than a million customers. It should be there.
Slayblaze Apr 9th 2008 12:22PM
Guild Wars always gets left off these charts because they don't consider it an MMO. It's just an online game in a fantasy setting, but it's not Massive. They entire world is individually instanced for each player so you will never run into any live players out in the world, only in the few hub centers (towns) and even then they are split up into separate zones.
Personally I think it should still be considered as competition to the other MMOs - which it is - and be factored into any comparitive numbers, but I have little say in the matter...
Gungehammer Apr 9th 2008 12:10PM
Perhaps it's becuase I work in marketing ... but I'm thinking correlation between the growth and the increased Television ads (shatner et al) ... hey maybe advertising works?
Verit Apr 9th 2008 12:31PM
You know what I find annoying about those charts? It really honestly doesn't seem like there's 10 million people playing wow. Back when EQ was in full swing it did seem like there were more people actually online.
Ever try to find a group in whatever zone your in to do an elite quest?
Also I heard from someone at Blizzard (at Blizzcon) that the servers start queuing people at 4500 users. If there's a 100+ servers that means that really only 450000 people could be online at any one time.
Also - what growth spike? WoW just goes up and up...
matt Apr 9th 2008 12:48PM
There are over 200 North American servers, with 2.5 million players from North America. That's a server for every 12,500 people, meaning you're looking at a third of the server's population on at any given time before queueing starts. (Or, 900,000 people on from North America alone, which contains only 2.5 million of the listed 10,000,000 WoW player base.)
Obviously, player distribution isn't that even, so while some realms will almost always have a couple thousand players on, others will dip much lower.
On Medivh, it does feel like WoW has that many people. Quel'Danas, for example, is packed. There are people LFG for lots of instance runs when I log off at 2am Pacific. It's a fairly high pop server, I guess. That's mostly good, although mining sucks. :)