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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 4 of 5)
DragonFireKai Feb 9th 2012 6:11PM
@Bossy, EVE hemorraged subs because of a few massively idiotic decisions on the part of the developers that completely devastated the player community. The "$60 Monocle" debacle was the most prominent, but certainly not the only one.
Cataclysm saw similar results. Cataclysm was launched in the west, and the game lost over half a million subs, six months later Cataclysm was launched in China, and lost 800k subs over there. That tells you something very prominent, when 800k subscribers who had been trapped farming ICC for almost two years quit the game rather than play Cataclysm.
Jack Mynock Feb 9th 2012 6:21PM
Ome, you're both right and wrong. A 15% decline in active subs would not kill a new MMO, but in my opinion your original post made some valid points. Cataclysm has had some problems.
Also, there are other, even better, words than 'utter(ly)'.
Omegan01 Feb 9th 2012 7:12PM
@Jack Mynock
Point. I was speaking from an overall sense: another paid-sub MMO that lost 2 million subscribers in a single year would be dead, or if not dead then teetering on its last leg and screaming bloody murder.
But you're right, percentagewise it's not such a gloomy picture and I overstated things a bit.
EdGesumaria Feb 9th 2012 5:14PM
I'm glad to see that most of the comments here are saying exactly what I feel, that it really isn't a big deal. It is still the largest MMO by a long margin. I mean wasn't Blizzard quoted when WoW was first released saying they were expecting 300-500K subscribers and they wondered if they could even keep that many? WoW is a runaway hit and even a loss of 2 million players from Wrath isn't making a dent. When the game has less subscribers than it did during it's first two years, then I will start to worry.
Raithvin Feb 9th 2012 5:21PM
Just to clarify, these numbers include up to the 31st of December 2011; however ToR was released on the 22nd of December, 3 days away from christmas and in all a pretty difficult time to get hold of any video game unless you preordered. Either way, I find it rather short sighted to judge ToR's impact on WoW subscriptions on 9 days of sale.
Bossy Feb 9th 2012 5:38PM
If you had been following the downward trend of SW TOR on Xfire , you would know that the ratio between (western) WOW players and S WTOR players have been growing since the beginning of Jan on those samples...
Meaning the retention of SW TOR is VERY weak with that sample. The ratio was 1.8 in favor of WOW at the start of JAnuary , now it is almost 3 to 1 in favor of WOW.
That sample is worth 10.000 times more than a statement like:
'We have 1.7 M subscriptions of with "MOST" already paid. "
I didn't know "MOST" was a figure btw. Viewing their servers AND XFIRE samples you ALL know they already are down to 40% drop in SW TOR...
And it will not be a pretty sight in the coming weeks either.
jfofla Feb 9th 2012 5:25PM
So SWTOR, The Great WOW Killer, passed by virtually unnoticed.
Never bet against Blizzard
Kunikenwad! Feb 9th 2012 5:40PM
Incorrect; TOR pre-released on Dec. 13th, providing only 18 days of impact for the final month of the quarter. To see TOR's impact, we'll need to wait until next quarter's call ... and even, I don't expect to see too much of a financial loss for Blizzard.
To see's TOR success, watch for EA quarterly call in three months; it'll be interesting to note how Bioware has approached the problem facing all new MMOs: player retention.
Bossy Feb 9th 2012 5:44PM
According to Xfire, SW TOR lost 65% player activity and around 40% number of players on XFire in the past 6 weeks.
XFire was ALWAYS on top to track players over longer - 2 months - periods.
Always.
Those STILL playing SW TOR are the ones who quit WOW during 2011 and a LOT already no longer try it ....... 1.7 M does that ring a bell ?
Rob Feb 9th 2012 6:44PM
Some who play TOR may go back to WoW,and that's great, however there is a population that is just going to stop altogether. TOR is kinda a last gasp of the genre for some of us, once I am done with TOR (fairly soon I imagine), i really don't see any MMO keeping my attention. People who played WoW when it first started in the ideal age bracket (mid 20s) are now mid 30s, for me I'm expecting my kid in 2 months. How much time will Sprout give me to play MMOs? Pretty much none I am guessing. That's okay, after 7 years i've had enough.
Amaxe Feb 9th 2012 8:19PM
So I really can't recall anybody seriously calling TOR the WoW killer...
maybe what you're doing is pretty much the same thing by saying it is dying.
WoW lost 15% of its players in 1 year. TOR has not been around 2 months yet. Really too soon to say what will happen with a game that is ironing out the bugs
byronius_prime Feb 10th 2012 7:23AM
@Amaxe
People did call it THE WoW killer. Apparently, it failed at that. Sure it's a great game and all, and I enjoy it, but it's nowhere near WoW killer status.
Esau Feb 9th 2012 5:38PM
The WoW forums may have slightly less QQ because Blizz released a content patch that made a bunch of folks happy, myself included. Trust me, that dip would have been much, much bigger if they had not pushed LFR out.
I still really don't think these numbers show the actual impact of SWTOR, most people I know that jumped waited till they were playing a bit before killing a WoW sub, and lauch was the last week of the quarter. I expect Q1 2012 to show a bigger loss.
Hopefully, this pushes Blizz to get MoP out in as timely a manner as possible, GW2 looks like it's right around the corner.
Aaron Feb 9th 2012 9:03PM
I'm all in favor of more content, but one of the complaints about Cata was that it didn't get the manpower it deserved. Whenever somebody complained about storylines dropping off into the Nether, or old instances being retuned instead of new instances created*, Blizz's response was "We wanted to, but we ran out of time." Do we really want them to push Pandaria out before it's ready?
* Personally, I like the idea of retuning old content to keep them relevant. Back in TBC, I couldn't pay somebody to go to Dire Maul or Sunken Temple with me.
jc Feb 9th 2012 5:48PM
This is all well and good but the reason wow feels dead even though it has 10 million players is they have enough servers for 20 million players. Need to start merging the low population server to balance shit out.
jfofla Feb 9th 2012 8:00PM
They will need that server space. MOP should boost subs over 15 million.
Dude Feb 9th 2012 5:49PM
WoW is still king. Other games can only look on in jealousy and the hard work of the dev's has paid off. May they continue to do so for years to come.
ogosh Feb 9th 2012 5:50PM
I didn't expect SW ToR to really decline WoW's sub rate that much. It seems no matter how hard I try to play a new or different game, nothing compares to WoW. So far, nothing imo is better than WoW, game wise anyway. I'm sure someday it will come to an end, but by then I hope I am good and ready to move on for sure.
Raithvin Feb 9th 2012 6:02PM
That's all well and good, but you've managed to type out alot of information with a defensive tone and miss my point entirely. ToR's a new game, remember when WoW launched? I do, we certainly didn't have an easy ride, the forums weren't glittering with praise and Everquest loyalists weren't screaming that the end was nigh.
Also as for "You ALL" I have an active WoW and ToR subscription, these two games want to compete against each other by giving players the better game that's fine by me. I'm not going to pick a side, I win either way.
Raithvin Feb 9th 2012 6:05PM
Ugh, meant this as a reply to an earlier post.
Off to the corner of shame...