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All of the latest Mists of Pandaria newsWorld of Warcraft subscriber numbers dip 100,000 to 10.2 million
by Adam Holisky 
Feb 9th 2012 at 4:33PM
World of Warcraft's subscriber numbers peaked around 12 million back in late 2010 and early 2011 and have been in decline since. The game slipped to 11.4 million subscribers in May 2011, then down to 10.3 million in September of 2011. While subscriber numbers continue to fall, the rate of lost subscriptions has slowed significantly.
In further clarification of the game's subscriber numbers, Blizzard President and Cofounder Mike Morhaime said that Blizzard has seen no significant change and that "December was a good month for us." This past quarter was, according to Morhaime, the "most competitive quarter ever." World of Warcraft's competition primarily came from Star Wars: The Old Republic.
Blizzard believes that the success of patch 4.3, community engagement, and the Annual Pass contributed to the subscriber retention it's seen.
Filed under: Blizzard, News items
Reader Comments (Page 2 of 5)
emberdione Feb 9th 2012 5:10PM
It's really really great considering SWTOR launched during that time. I mean, Rift bled about 500k-600k subs from WoW, and SWTOR is generally accepted as a better game, with a bigger audience.
vocenoctum Feb 9th 2012 7:48PM
In truth, it's as uninformative as the previous drops have been. The other drops were mostly in Asia, as an example. TOR hasn't released outside of Europe/USA (though plenty of others bought copies from there) and the subs for WoW in Europe/USA hadn't really taken a drop over the last year from what I recall. In addition, the Europe/USA market is subscription based and a lot more of the profit than the Asian market.
Comparing TOR's 2 mil to WoW's 6mil (IIRC) euro players is a bit different, but all those numbers are just up in the air really.
Pyromelter Feb 9th 2012 9:23PM
100k is almost statistical noise at that level, but the significance is in the trend (down), so it's bad, but not really bad.
omedon666 Feb 9th 2012 4:45PM
The sky. It is falling.
omedon666 Feb 9th 2012 4:45PM
It also beckons.
Al Feb 9th 2012 5:11PM
The sky beckons? /cue Dragon Age dwarves panicking about falling upwards.
Stza Feb 9th 2012 4:45PM
ZOMG!! the sky is falling!!!!
Nyold Feb 9th 2012 4:53PM
The sky is falling!!
JK, I hope those are the elitists rage-quitting over how easy LFR is.
Sturmovic Feb 10th 2012 3:09AM
I'm one of the many players who quit-around 4 months after cata launch my guild faded away (and the two after that), grinding the dungeon blues in order to start raiding was a huge pain in the backside and things that were fun in wotlk didn't seem worth doing anymore. So I quit.
Why? I can't have grown up THAT much in four months, and Skyrim didn't come out until much later so it must be that blizz screwed up in such a subtle way that I didn't notice it, but the game still became less fun to play. I wonder how Titan is coming along.
P.S-Why do I still read wowinsider if I've quit the game? Games are temporary, but Sunday Morning Funnies are forever!
Lipstick Feb 14th 2012 2:06PM
This saddens me somehow. People who started playing in Wrath have no clue how -easy- they had it at the beginning of Cata compared to the grinding needed back in the BC days. The differences was back in BC few people considered the work impossible, and a PIA... people just did it because it was part of the game. These days it seems if blizzard doesn't hand you epics immediately upon max level then it's a PIA. I just don't get it personally.
Sure, getting geared at the beginning of Cata wasn't what I would describe as "fun" in a direct sense, the way pizza parties, or roller skating is fun ... but it was fun, because it was new content, you couldn't simply bypass. And more content is always good ..it was also fun to get a small bit of that "climb" feeling back.
When you start at the base of a mountain and climb to the top, the closer you get to the top, the more excited you are to reach the top. The same is true for gear, following gear resets. Sure you start off lower, but by the end you end up so far ahead that you get to look back and think to yourself "look how far you've come baby..."
They've added LFR, valor gear which is easily obtained (both boots and bracers are BOE so can be bought for gold from someone with the valor) and the first few bosses in normal mode DS which were already quite easy, are now even easier with a 5% buff. If you've ever wanted to come back for free gear, now is probably the time.
Homeschool Feb 9th 2012 4:50PM
Isn't that about where they were 4 years ago?
Jack Mynock Feb 9th 2012 4:52PM
So basically SWTOR didn't make much of an impact.
Raithvin Feb 9th 2012 5:03PM
then down to 10.3 million in November of 2011
ToR wasn't released until December.
RogueJedi86 Feb 9th 2012 5:08PM
It had an impact, it was just more gradual, with some people quitting WoW before TOR's release(I quit 2 1/2 years before TOR's release, yeah I'm a fanboy), plus I imagine several people are subbed to both currently since they have friends/raid schedules in WoW. Both games share an audience, then if people love TOR they'll slowly pull the WoW tubes from the back of their heads, leaving the WoW Matrix for TOR's Zion. Or something. You know what I mean! Point is, people didn't all have to quit WoW the month of TOR's release. Some quit before, others are co-existing in both for now.
Al Feb 9th 2012 5:10PM
Why would it? It was only out for 10 days of that month, and the first month was free for most people.
QM Feb 9th 2012 4:55PM
One word: PANDAS.
jfofla Feb 9th 2012 5:30PM
I agree with you! Everybody wants Pandas, and Pandas will boost Subs to new record highs!
Revanel Feb 10th 2012 2:48AM
He's not wrong in saying that pandas have something to do with subscriptions being lost. A lot of people are not cool with it at all. I know it's a touchy thing for the comment section of WoWInsider, since people here are crazy about their pandas. But, honestly, it really has turned off quite a few people.
I'll hand it to Blizzard that it was a ballsy move that I'm sure they knew would be controversial (setting the expansion in Pandaria), though.
But, I know there have to be at least a few people like myself: that are turned off by the idea but have faith in Blizzard and are sticking around to actually see the game for themselves.
Zapwidget Feb 10th 2012 5:18AM
Actually he's very wrong. MoP, from all indications, is shaping up to address what went wrong in Cata. Cat was, very much, the game that the vocal yakkers said they wanted. They said they wanted harder content, that they wanted less accessible endgame, and a hundred other things that Cata delivered, and when we got it, they pissed and moaned that it wasn't what they wanted and they left.
WoW, and Blizzard for that matter, has always been at its best when Blizzard does what Blizzard wants. That's why they're hugely successful game developers and we're not. Sure, they should seek our feedback, find out what we like, but they are the developers, and need to develop the game they want to develop, not the game we say we want to play.
So bring on the pandas and pet battles, and a thousand other features we didn't ask for but we all know will be undeniably cool.
Corin Prendiville Mar 8th 2012 2:39AM
I would disagree with you Zap. I think one segment of the community was complaining for harder content, and then they granted it early on - and then another segment of the community cried because the content was to hard. Then they made it easy, and now they are hemmorraging players from both sections of the community who think the game is both too hard and too easy. The trick they need to come up with is finding a way to create content for both of these players in a way that they don't feel like they are being cheated. They had that balance pretty well worked out in WoTLK and also in TBC, the trick is now that the cat is out of the bag it'll be hard or impossible to put it back in.
But, Blizzard is quite good at fixing issues. So we will have to wait and see how they pull off reviving WoW from its downfall.
I would also argue that the pandas, pet battles, challenge modes, etc is all stuff that they collected from Blizzcon questionarres over the years. IMO it isn't the best place to go for questions because that represents the uber-hardcore Warcraft nerds and not the average WoW player who doesn't even know that Pandas are part of the WoW lore, or who isn't a 20-something who still plays Pokemon on their Gameboy and thinks WoW-Pokemon would be cool. lol. Mostly though I think the Pandas are an aim at the Chinese/Asian market, which corresponds to their largest player base and also the player base with the most growth potential to allow Blizzard the honor of saying something ridiculous like "15-20 million subscribers," which is an entirely feasible number what with the asian theme they have going for the next expac.