World of Warcraft loses 1.3 million players in 3 months

[Jackolantern]

This news story just came out today, based off of Blizzard's quarterly statement. The MMO giant lost 1.3 million subscribers this quarter, making it one of their worst ever. Stuff like this is to be expected, of course, as WoW is getting on in years (if WoW was a human, it wold be nearly a 3rd grader in school), but it is apparent that some of the things Blizzard have done to stem the tide of losses have not been working (such as the Pandaria expansion, basic F2P options, etc.). Analysts have cited increased competition from the F2P sector as well as one of the least-well received expansions.

This is really the first time the game industry has seen how such a juggernaut of an MMO ages. Before WoW, the most popular MMO was Lineage 1 in South Korea which had 1 million players. However, at its first signs of age, a sequel was created and many players jumped ship to it, so that was not a good example of such a populous game aging. I believe that WoW's community will continue to shrink going forward, but will begin to stabilize at a much lower number, possibly around 1 million, where it will probably stay nearly indefinitely.

[Callan S.]

I'm not a wow fan, but a ~10% fluctuation seems normal from it's past historical record. It just does that sometimes as people take a 'vacation' from wow.

I'm more wondering if it has a fixed population pretty much, but not a particularly inclusive population - so once one generation ceases playing (due to old age or actual death), it'll suddenly plummet.

[Jackolantern]

I'm not a wow fan, but a ~10% fluctuation seems normal from it's past historical record. It just does that sometimes as people take a 'vacation' from wow.

I'm more wondering if it has a fixed population pretty much, but not a particularly inclusive population - so once one generation ceases playing (due to old age or actual death), it'll suddenly plummet.

The thing is that normally as one generation leaves, another comes in. A loss like this has never happened before in WoW history. Apparently, not even close. I think before this, the single largest population drop was when Warhammer: Age of Reckoning came out, and they lost about 300k that quarter, but then gained a lot of subscribers back the next quarter.

This definitely is not a "WoW is dying" report. They still have almost 8 million players. Most MMOs would kill for 8 million monthly paying subscribers. This is just a sign that the number is most definitely dropping, as it was inevitably going to do. Getting back over a million subscribers next quarter is just not going to happen. Honestly, it is amazing that WoW has hung onto the numbers it has for so long, but obviously that can't last forever. WoW's population has been trending upwards for an almost unheard of amount of time (trending upwards for basically about 7 years). But that has a lot to do with the fact that WoW was being introduced into new countries in Asia over the years (translations have been expensive and time consuming), but today it is likely in all countries it will ever be in, which means no new major hoses of new players getting their first shot at WoW.

[a_bertrand]

I was actually wondering how long would WoW still maintain it's growing figures. I mean, WoW starts to be really old for a game, and it's overall not a cheap game to play. I know that some players stick to old games (look at my NEaB for example), but still at some point people will leave. I would say it's the normal life cycle of a game, at some point it doesn't attract as much, and old players leave.

[hallsofvallhalla]

Agreed. We all said the giant will fall one day but who knows when that will be. I do believe WOW has grown to big to ever be around indefinitely. When it stops making the big bucks they will build a new game and focus ALL resources on it. WOW will be around for quite a long time to come but it is much like Hollywood and TV series. They cancel the best series all because it is not making as much as it did in the first season.

[Jackolantern]

I don't know. I think that WoW could go on for a long, long time if they were to re-organize the resources behind the game. EQ1 is still open, and has under 50k players. They would obviously have to change a lot to keep the game going on under 1 million players compared to how many resources are behind it now. But how long will it take for WoW to drop to 200k players? 5 years? 10 more years?

Obviously it won't go on "indefinitely" (I don't think the servers will still be running 100 years from now), but what I meant was that it will likely lose players almost asymptotically to some number that would still be considered decent for most of the classic MMO that are still open today, which means it will take a very long time for it to drop below a level where it is profitable to run with the smallest live team possible.

[Callan S.]

Possibly also dual boxers can have a big impact. Alot do it and it doubles the effect on subscriptions (or worse) for every dual boxer who leaves.

[Jackolantern]

Possibly also dual boxers can have a big impact. Alot do it and it doubles the effect on subscriptions (or worse) for every dual boxer who leaves.

Thats true, but is that really that common? When I played WoW I never knew anyone who dual-boxed, as opposed to EQ1, where it was extremely common. I think EQ1 had a more laid-back pace, slower combat, and was much more group-oriented, which I think led to more dual-boxing. But I could be wrong, and WoW may have had a pretty large amount of dual-boxers for all I know (I also haven't really played it in quite a while).

[Callan S.]

From what I've heard there's quite a few - one of wows special offers with a 'buddy' account awhile ago seemed tailored to dual boxers. But I have no concrete stats.

[Walrus]

My brother has played WoW since he was 7, and now barely ever plays it.
It is getting very old, quite frankly.
When the brand new version of Everquest comes out this year or possibly next -- Blizzard will loose so much of their prior profits, oh boy.
For all who don't know; Everquest was a pretty popular MMO from 2001-2006. It was out in the late-90's too surprisingly.