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All of the latest Mists of Pandaria newsWoW subscriber numbers down to 10.3 million players
by Adam Holisky 
Nov 8th 2011 at 5:03PM
In the call, Blizzard CEO Mike Morhaime said that the majority of the subscriber loss happened in the east. There was no mention of specific subscriber numbers in the United States. Blizzard also declined to provide a subscriber forecast.
It's not uncommon to find these numbers rise and fall with the time during an expansion's life cycle. It is entirely possible that the numbers will increase with the release of Mists of Pandaria.
Reader Comments (Page 13 of 13)
Strawder Nov 9th 2011 1:51AM
I've unsubscribed myself. I still check this site and it's arch-enemy, MMO Champion, because I'm still interested in WoW, but at this time, I cannot afford it. Instead, I'm passing my time with DC Universe Online, Torchlight, and some other games I bought way back but never got a chance to rightly play due to the pull of WoW eating up what little free gaming time I had.
I will say this, though, I have had to unsubscribe in the past due to similar things, and each time I counted the days until I could fire the game back up. This time, however, my friends and I (those who hadn't quit), were finding ourselves not -quite- as enthralled with the game as we used to.... and it was definitely much easier this time to make the decision that it was time to cancel.
This time, I think I will stay unsubscribed for awhile, see what develops. Perhaps if friends return, and 4.3 really proves to be the slobber-knocker as promised, maybe in a month or two, when I'm able to, I'll restart. It's not so much my love of Azeroth that is waning, I'm just not very fond of the current state of things. Having to take an unscheduled break now for several weeks ongoing, has opened my eyes up to that.
wow Nov 9th 2011 4:12AM
10 Things to yell at the Naysayers as they announce they're cancelling their sub in Trade:
http://www.alternative-blog.net/2011/11/10-things-to-yell-at-naysayers.html
Dude Nov 9th 2011 5:27AM
Bad world financial problems may be a major contributor.
Plus WoW, while excelling in some things, has lagged in others that competing games have lured players in with, such as:
-Player housing or at least guild housing.
-More customisation in character creation, i.e body sliders.
-Dated graphics that more recent games don't have to suffer, i.e. vanilla character models.
-Changing the game from it's original form into almost a completely new game, i.e class changes and constant revamps of the talent tree system. People get used to something and then it's changed without feelings being considered on the matter. People hate change, simple as that.. sub cancelled.
I'm not trolling, the sub figures don't lie. The above and the world financial problems are taking their toll, depsite Blizzard's current increase in profits.
lilboo Nov 9th 2011 6:54AM
I think we are forgetting one thing. There are people who left, and then came back. When they came back, other people left. I'm one of those people. Earlier this year I just needed a break from this game. It was becoming frustrating to play heroics in a PUG because people's inability to listen and pay attention >_
dwbberry Nov 9th 2011 7:55AM
With the inflation in the amount of gold people have, some sitting on hundreds of thousands (not me of course :( ), I'm sure it is hurting the gold farming communities, most of which were in the east from what I've read. Although I would have loved to be able to play WoW for a living. lol
I think it is the smaller expansion. 5 levels didn't feel like much. Even if you add in the new leveling experience, at endgame it was raid or be bored for most of the expansion. Hopefully they'll pick up BC's and Wrath's models where you hit max level and are only half way through the questing.
TonyKP Nov 9th 2011 9:15AM
I actually think that Blizzard is right on the money about why they've lost so many subscriptions. They put all the end-game eggs in the raiding basket, and then made raiding less accessible for the less skilled and/or more casual raiders that the game had attracted in WotLK. I was surprised at the time that someone at Blizzard thought this was a good idea, but I'm not surprised at all that it lost them a considerable amount of business. A contributing factor is the fact that, for as awesome as the redone leveling quest lines are, they are very linear and don't have much replayability so leveling an alt is a less attractive option. Less stuff to do means less people doing them.
Cataclysm was a poorly thought out and poorly implemented product in my opinion, and it wouldn't shock me if some heads were to figuratively roll, but it seems like Blizzard has learned the lesson to some degree with Mists of Kung Fu Panda and are trying some other options to give the vast majority of players who don't raid some other options at end game.
jdryner Nov 9th 2011 9:59AM
Are those playable races? No. What's your point again?
GEZUS Nov 9th 2011 10:50AM
More people should leave, stop paying for a game that's this old, and unbalanced.
Paying for this is a waste, when in the last year so many free to play games have been better. This is a 7 yr old game with only content updates.
Oh well, When you have blinders on, you cant see too well around yourself I suppose.
Try a search on youtube for free to play, and see for yourself whats out there.
Chaos Nov 9th 2011 11:20AM
wait why are you on here ?
lornetc Nov 10th 2011 11:21AM
I liked most of the content in Cata (the first time through at least), but my big issue for being unsatisfied is that there is NOTHING I *want* to do when i'm not raiding. I hate dailies with a passion, and I'm sitting on a big enough stockpile of gold that I've bought epic flying on 4 85's, 2 of which I don't even play except to make flasks and pots for raiding and for other consumables. I got tired of the Trollics after the first couple weeks because there were only a couple pieces that were upgrades at the time on my main, and after about the same length of time on the primary alt I play as well. I dread doing a single heroic to cap on valor for the week on my non raiding toons, especially given that they've been out for MONTHS with nothing new. Any north american script numbers that were seeing dropoffs for are likely from people who aren't able to raid because of time commitments outside of the game, and as a result are BORED with having run troll heroics for the last like 5 or 6 months, and now, since I play in an australian guild on a north american realm, the change back of daylight savings time means that I can't raid. So I can't do _anything_.
IGS Nov 17th 2011 12:48AM
A lot of people are in for a rude awakening when MoP doesn't bring any players back.
IGS Nov 17th 2011 12:51AM
And I just wanted to say one more thing, Blizzard has said most of the loss has come from the East (Asia). This is where most of their subs come from, a little more than half. Which means this is where most of their bragging rights come from.
With that said, if most of the losses are coming from there, it doesn't make sense to blame it on the economy; considering theirs is booming.
LeftVentricle Nov 20th 2011 8:00PM
I hate to say it, but the reason people quit wasn't because of easymode wrath, it was because of hardmode cata. Not saying the regular raids are too hard (they're not) and not saying that the hardmode raids are too hard (they're not). But the lockout id being shared is. IT effectively killed server pugging. No one wants to do gold dkp runs, no one wants to do casual training runs - because they would have to sacrifice their guild lockout to do them. I think 4.3 might fix this a bit with the raid-finder easymode not sharing a lock out. But the lock out change is what ruined everything. People were willing to raid anything with anyone because they didn't have to sac their guild lock out for it. I used to raid on my main, and 3 alts. I got burned out fast, but I imagine most people have more endurance for that that I do.
Coming into cata I thought the raid lock out was a welcome change, I have changed my mind.
jquintel2002 Nov 20th 2011 11:59PM
Dunno if this has been mentioned, but the fact that DC Universe Online went to free play could easily have had a hand here.
peterss Nov 22nd 2011 8:43AM
I only play WoW for three very simple reasons:
1. I have a MAC, yes the other games have work arounds to provide a solution so I can play other games, but if you look at the box very few games are designed with MAC players in mind. I wonder is there a statistic that tells us how many play WoW on a MAC and how many play on a PC? (please don't use this as a point to open the MAC VS PC debate, just focus on the fact of lack of MMO's for MAC computers and how it may be a viable market to be part of for other MMO'S).
2. My friends in this game have kept me here, while my hardercore friends have either left the game or realm. My casual friends particularly one has stuck with me from BC and it really means something not to be able to log in each day and chat with one of your best friends that you have done the same thing with for nearly 4 years.
3. Finally and not least important is my characters. People may find this sappy but you spend hundreds of hours on this game on probably very few toons and the majority of the time is probably one or two of your 85's. I have a lot of effort in my toons and they have history. I can remember doing stupid things with my warrior and see how he has grown to becoming a much better tank and he was my first character. I would not only welcome the idea of a little more effort into the actual character design and life aspect of the game but I would promote it. Wanna know why people loved that damn Farmersville game? It's simple the designers gave the players a virtual area and said this is your area to personalize and expand enjoy and invite friends over to see your designs. WoW really is lacking Farmville may cause many to shudder (including me) but you can't deny that having your own place to develop and personalize gives you a feeling of happy especially when people say, man Bob that's a pretty cool X Y and Z you have there. For WoWs part it only allows use the start screen with very few options once you choose a race as to the appearance, then we get to see our own banks something no one else sees, and finally the only thing we can actually change to personalize our character is gear, which yes we are getting transmog, but we have for the past 3 expansions all been striving to look the same and gear alone is not a lot to show for in some peoples cases 1000's of hours of game play.
graber4 Nov 24th 2011 10:39AM
Not sure why people think Cata catered to Raiders...leveling a toon is easier now than it ever was. I remember when if you wanted to be a mage, you had to level frost, or you would simply die if faced with 2 or more mobs. Now? A 2nd grader could level an Arcane Mage to 85 without dying.
I've played for a long time and have cleared hardmodes in nearly every raid offered to date, but upon learning that WoW continued the trend to cater to the children by including Pandas as a playable class, they lost my 7 year subscription. That is just too far, lame, and childish. What's next? A teletubby diaper changer class?
Sith Juggernaut or a bloated cuddly panda for kids? Not a tough choice for anyone over 12.
justproud2b Nov 28th 2011 12:34AM
I know of quite a few people who had multiple accounts and recently combined them to save money. I've always wondered if they let us log into 2 under same account if they would get a more accurate number.