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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 5 of 13)
The Dewd Nov 8th 2011 5:20PM
Can I use the kitchen sink in a companion pet battle?
ravyncat Nov 8th 2011 5:23PM
Only if I get to use my wrench companion to battle it. :P
Grovinofdarkhour Nov 8th 2011 5:31PM
Damn skippy!
MoP is gonna kick your teeth in the gut with a foot made of steel in the FACE!
ravyncat Nov 8th 2011 5:34PM
And you will like it! :D
MOnkies Nov 8th 2011 5:39PM
I would be interested in what happens with MoP.
Personally MoP is making me quit.
Lissanna Nov 8th 2011 5:44PM
It's not just numbers from the U.S., but other regions as well. So, things like the Chinese client issues will impact the numbers they report, when it may have nothing to do with US players getting bored with content.
achileaus Nov 8th 2011 5:15PM
Doesn't rift have 1.1 million? Not saying that's where they all went but still I think rift is the next closest MMO...however Blizzard is doing just fine.
I mean when you have 10x the next highest game shedding a few is ok I think.
I also expect to see more drop until Mist comes out. Unless they introduced something like the pet battle system before then.
Pyromelter Nov 8th 2011 5:46PM
Not only does rift not have 1.1 million, they've never had even like 30% of 1.1 million.
If you ever see "Trion announces 1 million subs!" it's a lie. What they announced was that they had 1 million people sign up for a Trion account. That is basically like signing up for a battle.net account.
Imagine if blizzard announced they had 50 million battle.net sign-ups, but they announced it in a way that kind of made you think that was how many active WoW subs there were. That's what Rift/Trion did. Rift is frankly a dead game, I tried it for a while. It has some cool new ideas (5 specs, everyone is a hybrid, zillions of soul combinations, you're spells and ability are based on your specializations). Unfortunately the gameplay is ultra-repetitive, boring, it has soul-crushing grinds on the levels of Asian MMO's, and has some absolutely mega-game breaking bugs. My last night playing Rift, my guild was fighting a Worm-type boss that would go under ground. We got him down to like .2%, half the raid dead, and he went underground. When he came up, we had a tank pick him up, and we nuked that last .2%... his health hit 0. But instead of dying and getting an achievement, he completely reset. That would have been a server first and a guild first for my guild at the time.
I wouldn't be surprised if Rift was under 100k active subs at this point. However, Trion is a private company, and therefore is not obligated to release any financial information to the public (unlike ATVI, which is publicly traded and derives a lot of it's revenue from online gameing subs). Almost everyone I know playing rift was at the very least going to check out GW2 or SW:TOR, and I know more than a few that have come back to WoW.
Marius W. Nov 8th 2011 6:11PM
Aion has 3.5million and runescape has 2 million. RIFT is nowhere close to even those numbers.
Lokanaya Nov 8th 2011 5:15PM
Before anyone says this means WoW is failing, please remember that 10.3 million is still more than any other MMO out there :)
twbrienn Nov 8th 2011 5:25PM
It's not just more than any MMO out there. It's more than most of them combined.
Pyromelter Nov 8th 2011 5:57PM
Indeed, it probably is more than all of them combined, as well as at least 3x as much as any MMO has ever had at their peak in history. WoW is still a smashing success currently, but right now it's trending downward, which gives people legitimate cause for concern.
Glaras Nov 8th 2011 6:01PM
It's not the total that's important. It's the trend. You can't have a downward trend in subscriptions for most of a year and just respond with "But we got more than anyone else!"
Well, you *can*, but it doesn't go over well with investors.
mihrimages Nov 8th 2011 5:16PM
I think people will be quick to use this information to support their own critique of the game though many should realize they're reaching with these statements. The game is as fun for me now as it ever was but that isn't to say there haven't been times when I've cancelled my sub for months at a time.
Perhaps some of the people will return or other new players will take their first step in Azeroth. Regardless, with 10+ million people still playing it isn't time to turn off the lights and close the door.
matt Nov 9th 2011 8:40AM
WoW has never suffered Q over Q losses like these in its history. I am having as much fun as ever but I think it is a little disingenuous to say that these sub loses don't say ANYTHING about the quality of the content. Cata has not been as successful as Wrath, that is not a subjective judgement, it is a fact.
WoW will go on, more stuff will show up in the pet store (/cringe) and Blizz will pull out all of the stops for MoP. the Game may never have 12m subs again or maybe it will.
Eddy Nov 8th 2011 5:16PM
It makes sense. The game is getting on in years, a lot of new things are on the horizon... I think it's natural. I bet they'll see a bigger dip for a while, then people will come back to try Pandaria. Some of those people will stay, and a lot of them will play for a while and then leave again eventually.
I think that can only be good for the entire MMO market as a whole. I'm not sure it's been great for there to be an undisputed king, a sole example of how to do things. This is no "Wow is Dying!" prediction, just a thought that there will be some breathing room in the market, some innovation.
achileaus Nov 8th 2011 5:18PM
Agreed
jealouspirate Nov 8th 2011 5:18PM
''It's not uncommon to find these numbers rise and fall with the time during an expansion's life cycle.''
I understand this is true, but despite that hasn`t Blizzard always reported increased (or stable) subscriptions in these investor calls until the past three in a row? It`s not the end of the world, but it`s certainly more than the average rise and fall of players. It`s an overall downward trend in the past 9 months resulting in a net loss of over a million players.
Again, not the end times, but it`s not just business as usual.
Unless I`m wrong, and if so please correct me!
laurence.hill33 Nov 8th 2011 5:30PM
What I think you will find is the Majority of these people are the casual players and Cata has not been very Casual friendly in fact Cat is probably the worst expansion to be released. I cant wait to see the back of it however these numbers won't include the annual pass which was just announced expect the numbers to come up as we head towards MoP.
Marius W. Nov 8th 2011 5:39PM
Cata is the most casual friendly of all the xpacs.