Posts with tag wow-subscribers

This past May, Blizzard announced its World of Warcraft playerbase had declined to 11.4 million, a 5% drop from its post-Cataclysm high of 12 million. Predictably, the game's detractors pounced on the news, citing it as evidence of WoW's impending demise.

The company isn't worried that it's all downhill from here, however, according to The Market for Computer & Video Games interview with Blizzard Entertainment's VP and executive MD of internal operations Michael Ryder. Citing the game's impending launch in Brazil, growth in China, and the new free-to-play aspect of WoW (at least, free-to-play up to level 20), Ryder insists that the world's most successful MMORPG has room to become even more successful.

Spin? Perhaps. But still, even if subscriber numbers continue a slow decline, there's no question that WoW will be profitable -- and thus, still around -- for a long time to come.

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Brace yourselves for what could be some of most exciting updates to the game recently with patch 4.3. Look at what's ahead: new item storage options, cross-realm raiding, cosmetic armor skinning and your chance to battle the mighty Deathwing -- from astride his back!

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The latest Activision Blizzard earnings call took place earlier this afternoon, and it presented some interesting information about the current state of Blizzard and World of Warcraft. You can read the press release for yourself, but it doesn't include details of the call itself.

During the call, CEO of Blizzard Entertainment Mike Morhaime pointed out that World of Warcraft had fallen again to pre-Cataclysm subscriber levels -- 11.4 million subscribers at the end of March, down from its peak of 12 million. Subscriber levels do not decline linearly, he pointed out, stating that they fluctuate based on how quickly players consume and complete content. Players are consuming Cataclysm's content faster than any expansion before it, so subscriber levels started to drop off more quickly than they have previously.

There has been a long thread about WoW and the philosophical changes and approaches over the past four years, and in particular to some of the larger design decisions made recently (dual specs). In it Ghostcrawler makes an offhand remark about WoW's subscriber numbers:

"Wrath of the Lich King is still selling very well and our subscribers are increasing."

Now I want to be clear that this was made off-hand and is not from an official earnings statement. But that doesn't discount it from being full of truthiness; and nonetheless, this is rather significant in that it's been a while since we last heard any indication of current subscriber numbers. To some this news won't be very surprising, given that Wrath of the Lich King has been a huge hit. But others might raise an eyebrow that after five months of Wrath things are still up-ticking.

He also mentions the ever hot topic of multi-boxers:

According to Joel Bylos, a developer for the upcoming MMO Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures, we may soon be seeing a decline in the popularity of WoW. Bylos claims that the "feeling on the internet", including that gleaned from "online communities", seems to be that WoW is "losing its lustre".

Of course, if that were really true, developers of upcoming MMOs that will be in competition with WoW would probably not feel the need to claim it. Especially considering the latest push from Blizzard to add to its already massive 9.3 million active subscriber base using celebrity-hosted dynamic commercials, combined with the buzz for the upcoming expansion Wrath of the Lich King, it is doubtful that WoW will be going into decline any time soon.

In fact, Blizzard's parent company, Vivendi, has continued to show significant increased revenue that is attributed to the success of WoW. Its recent merger with Activision suggests that indeed, professional predictions by investors remain positive.

So why say it at all? Honestly, it's not all wishful thinking. If you head over to these "online communities" such as the official forums, unofficial forums, and even our own comment boxes here at WoW Insider, you will find no shortage of complainants.