World of Warcraft Loses Another 1.3 Million Subscribers

[Soda-88]

I remember the days when interrupts were on global cooldown, days when I was Merciless Gladiator. Good days.

 

[1991ATServerTower]

I used to really like WoW, but it's so bland, shallow, and boring now that it's no longer fun to play, let alone worth a subscription fee. They went completely the wrong direction with it for me. Had they made the Talent Trees more interesting, like EQ II's Alternate Advancement (which covers non-combat things to do, like crafting professions, etc.), added housing, made the profession/crafting useful and interesting at all levels, added some RTS aspect to the world itself, and made down-leveling characters possible, and shrunk (and capped) the stat numbers to BC era, then it might still be interesting. It has always upset me that Blizzard wastes tons of great content by forcing players to level beyond it just to see the new content. They should have capped the levels at 60 and simply added more content with the "expansions". As is, Blizzard just remakes the game ever couple years rather than actually expanding upon it.
I truly loathe the smug manner in which Blizzard treats its customers - Blizz knows best! They will tell you what you think is fun and if you disagree, well, you're just stupid and part of the "vocal minority". This is the reason I wouldn't buy any of their products again. The other reason is their clear desire to kill WoW for anyone who's IQ is higher than 40...

 

[cerk777]

Just wait until next quarter when all the people who were tricked into paying for a year's subscription to get a "free" copy of D3 start running out. Activision is well aware of how many of those folks haven't been logging in, and it'll be interesting to see what that number turns out to be.

 

[mavroxur]

I can't speak for everyone else, but I can tell you why I (and several of my friends) left the game for good.
They simplified the game to a point that makes it not fun for a lot of serious gamers. I personally enjoyed the challenge of the pre-BC and BC eras. As time went on (with the later expansions) the dumbed down the game to cater to young kids and casual players to keep them interested. It's no fun now. I'd bet a dollar each that the majority of the millions of players that have left are adults that have gotten bored with the game in it's current (ruined) state. Even going free-to-play for the full level cap and implementing an item mall for revenue wouldn't save it. It's the game dynamics that are killing it now. Hell, if they offered a pre-BC server or a BC server (and it was cheap enough) i'd actually pay to play. But in it's current state, no thanks.

 

[tului]

So Chinks don't have to pay for box upgrades? I guess being a poor Chinaman has it's benefits.

 

[dgingeri]

If they'd only stop making so many chores for us players, they'd stop losing us. I quit because, as soon as I hit 90, I had many weeks of dailies to run, days of a same 14 brief quests for three to four hours a day, in order to build up reputation to get ready for raids. It was simply too much of a drag to keep playing. Some of this was just to work on getting cooking up to usability. Cooking! It should not take weeks of chores to get cooking up to max level. I already had mining, smithing, and fishing up to max level. First aid wasn't far off. Yet cooking was ridiculously complex to even get 25 points into the next level.
It was all chores! No fun. No thought. No challenge. Much wasted time doing pedantic chores. That's why they're failing now.

 

[the great randini]

no wonder hostess went out of business...

 

[spartanmk2]

The only thing better, and I use that loosely, was the actual NEW zones in MoP versus the rehashed crap they did in Cata. But, Cata still had the old talent system which I know many would still prefer...and the daily quests in the beginning of MoP was retarded, but all the gear from factions is already outdated except Isle of Thunder stuff. Still, that is something I would not like to see in the next expansion.

 

[InvalidError]

Just wait until next quarter when all the people who were tricked into paying for a year's subscription to get a "free" copy of D3 start running out. Activision is well aware of how many of those folks haven't been logging in, and it'll be interesting to see what that number turns out to be.

I am sort-of looking forward to seeing those numbers too.

Considering the number of decent F2P/G2P (grind-to-play: grind in-game gold/resources to buy stuff from people who buy real-money items for quick gold), the somewhat-high-monthly-cost subscription model may be on its last leg... particularly where you need to pay up-front for the game, up-front for game time and pay some more for pets/mounts/etc.

What I like most with F2P is: if I don't play (much), it costs practically nothing so I rarely need to worry about how much progression I may (or not) manage to squeeze into any given period of time, unlike MoP where I would likely want to see just about everything in it within a 2-3 months subscription before quitting again... but I do not even feel like doing that due to having to pay for game + time so late in the expansion.

The most fun I had in Cataclysm was the first 2-3 months: hit level cap after 6-7 days from release, had lots of fun doing LFG heroics with progression-minded people before crybabies hit level cap and started complaining about how hard heroics were - already had my dungeon hero title by then, had lots of fun a few weeks later attempting to do raids while they were still new for everyone with nobody being OP and many guilds not raiding through xmass/new year holidays so plenty of decent PUGs from guilds on hiatus filling missing roles. Progress was slow and painful but still fun because we were all dedicated players learning the new dances.

Since I missed what would likely have been the most fun MoP period for me, it would take a small miracle for Blizzard to convince me to come back. With Blizzard's old model, the longer you are away, the more Blizzard and the player base penalizes you for it and the easier it becomes to give up on thoughts of giving it another chance for people who quit.

LFR is great for having a look at new content but cheapens the experience a lot.

 

[loops]

The only way I'd go back is if they:
Let me skip the lvl grind fest and set two toon to lvl cap.
Gave me raid lvl blues.
Make the rep grind for professions disappear.
No monthly fee (or less that 5 bucks).
If that were so, I am sure my old crew of drunk raiders would come back. We would clear content. Raid drunk one last time and log off never to return.
I only ever played that game as long as I did b/c of the crew I ran with made the game. The game lost its fun; my friends never did.

 

[MasterMace]

The game loses players because it has no reward system and is setup to be like Call of Duty: 30 minute affairs that are unchallenging.

 

[wildkitten]

8.3 mill player X 15 dollar a month = $124.5 million per month. Let's say you minus 20% for discounts, free 1 year when you buy D3....that's a min $112 mill per month (excluding the digital pets and mounts you can buy). Even after monthly expenses of admin, servers and IT Support, Blizzard still making a fair bit of money from this MMO.
That's not bad for a game that's more than 10 years old. I don't know the stats for DOTA.
I played WoW two years ago. Spent 8 months grind my character to lvl 85 and then stopped playing. It was fun with my friend. It was hard to form community. I like some of the older contents (Wraith of the Lich King expansion). After a while, it is just grinding for gears. I got bored from doing that. Starcraft 2 came out and I left the WoW scene

I hope you really don't believe for a moment they are making $15/mo on 8.3 million subscribers.

For one thing, at least a full third, if not more, of their subs are in China where they pay far less than $15/mo. Asian players pay based on time played and it averages far far less. And in China, Blizzard has to split the money they make with the company they are forced to run the game there, Netease.

Also, if you look at how they count subscribers, they are much looser than they used to be. They count those using Scrolls of Resurection on their accounts, many of whom use the free time and leave again without every paying more, as well as trial accounts.

When you consider Mists of Panderia has sold only about 2.7 million copies, and only those in the regions where box copies are sold pay the $15/mo, and not very many play the game without having the latest xpac, then you can see that paying subscriptions are far far less then any 8.3 million.

Now WoW is still a huge moneymaker. But considering it has been in steady decline for quite a while not having grown since burning Crusade, with an exception of adding 500,000 Wrath of the Lich king was released in China that took it too 12 million, there are issues.

 

[sliem]

I played WoW for years then quite years ago. I now play GW2. I enjoy it. I like:
-gathering (resources other player take don't disappear on me)
-events (I like how events are right there, I can jump in right away using waypoints, start doing damage and then got rewarded when we win)
-going to lower-level area means your character is adjusted to appropriate level
-auction house (it's so user friendly and shows you how much is the highest seller)
-died does not mean being a ghost and waste time to walk to your corpse
-log out immediately (if out of combat)
-ranger (hunter) can have many pets anytime anywhere (up to 1 active of course)
However, no mounts. Oh well. Also levelling feels a bit too easy. I'm already lv50 (1 week playing), may hit lv80 soon...

 

[kittle]

The original game mechanics at day 1 were where the flaws began
Most crafting skills had to be at max level to be "useful" -- Why?
Everyone went for the raid content at max level -- Again "why?"
So it turned into a "race to the end" rather than an "enjoy the journey"
it took me a long time to get my 1st char to lvl 60 so I could raid with friends. Then the first expansion came out and I had another 10 levels to work through, and all my hard earned purples were suddenly obsolete.
Then another expansion came out...
It just got worse from there.
And then I quit playing and was much happier

 

[tului]

I want a game with Skyrim or Age of Conan's graphics, with DirectX 11 upgrades, Warhammer's lore and old late Vanilla, Early BC WoW mechanics(again upgraded for a more modern audience).

Rift comes close, the gameplay is good, but the lore is sort of meh. Not that it is bad, it's quite original. It just doesn't inspire me the way Warhammer and going WAAAGH! does.

 

[HKILLER]

i think the major reason for WOW going down is that you have to pay for the game every year!i mean how long does it take to get to lvl 90 (the cap is 90 i think)and finish the quests and get some bad ass gear?most probably less than a year.in less than a year you can complete the game 100%.
So why would you keep playing?you keep playing because it's fun to play with friends!but when you have to pay for it every year you would think hey how about a normal game that has both solo and multi player and i can play it with friends for more than 1 year with paying just 1 time!
On the other hand most of this 1 year you are not playing!you gotta sleep,go to school,work,eat,toilet,family time...and i'm sure it doesn't keep record of your game play time.no it will say your account starts from 1st may 2013 ends 1st May 2014 and that's it!you better don't miss your time playing!anybody with common sense would go for another franchise!

 

[InvalidError]

i mean how long does it take to get to lvl 90 (the cap is 90 i think)and finish the quests and get some bad ass gear?most probably less than a year.in less than a year you can complete the game 100%.

With the cross-server LFG regular/heroic dungeons and LFR, it takes 2-3 months to go through the bulk of current content if you don't care about doing normal/hard-mode raids but there is a new content patch every ~8 months so you are never 100% complete for very long.

If you want to complete everything including hard-mode raid achievements, most guilds that care about this stuff but aren't particularly hardcore about it will be at it for over a year.

 

[HKILLER]

With the cross-server LFG regular/heroic dungeons and LFR, it takes 2-3 months to go through the bulk of current content if you don't care about doing normal/hard-mode raids but there is a new content patch every ~8 months so you are never 100% complete for very long.

If you want to complete everything including hard-mode raid achievements, most guilds that care about this stuff but aren't particularly hardcore about it will be at it for over a year.

well even with that i think it should keep a record of your total game play time and reduce that time from the 1 year that you have bought instead of just giving you a permission for 365 days to play now whether you play or don't!

you might end the game in first 2 months then what do you do when the next patch is 6 month away?nothing!6 month of your game play time is wasted!unless you make a new character,starting from scratch doing the same stuff with another race and different skills.but if they keep record of your total play time,yeah for sure you will keep the rest of your play time for next content patch!

I know that a huge game like this have big bills to pay for equipment,servers and network stuff such as domains,bandwidth,etc every year but when you are not in the server to fill up the buffer of server,why they make you pay for the time you are not in the server?

A good example would be Game Net accounts.Imagine you pay 10$ to charge your account for 1 hour.you play 30 minutes,you close your account and go home.now does the 30 minutes that you haven't played gets reduced from your account?NO.it stays there!you can go there next year,open your account,you would still have 30 minutes left to play!this is a system that i think World Of Warcraft needs in order to get it's players back instead of just being confident in content patches!

P.S : the Game Nets in my country work like this.i don't know about any other game nets around the world..but i think this is a pretty Fair system!

 

[Anaxamenes]

I think a subscription based game doesn't make sense for many people. Some months you have lots of time, some you don't. It's difficult to keep putting money into a game that you haven't played because you've had to work overtime or family commitments that month.
I much prefer paying $60 for a stand alone game where I can play when I have the time, and not be burning through cash.

 

[InvalidError]

you might end the game in first 2 months then what do you do when the next patch is 6 month away?nothing!6 month of your game play time is wasted!

When I was playing WoW, I subscribed for 6 months on new expansions and 3 months for new content patches so I had an active subscription about 40% of the time.

So I wasn't paying for the many months with "nothing to do" (other than grind rep/justice/valor) between content updates.

 

[nevilence]

For a game this old, it still does amazingly. I dont play anymore, the rinse and repeat style of new content was boring me so I gave up, but still, the game is very strong

 

[HikariWS]

It's impressive to me that MMOGs are still alive. I dropped wow when BC was released, and I don't regret it. Original game was damn fun, but farmers and grinders broke it.
Standalone games used to be played in 20 or 30 hours. We'd pay some money, explore its content in fully in about 100 hours, and nove on to next game, totally different from last one.
But MMOGs income comes from subscriptions. So they want us playing it for years. That's trouble for content creation investment, it's impossible to spend the same amount of money in creating content in the same way. While old fashioned content would be worth 30 hours, MMOG content must be played for more than a thousand hours! It's WAY too repetitive and must be played dozens of times to earn some item, which when dropped will likely go to somebody else!
If MMOG is profitable for softwarehouses, it's definetely not worth the time for gamers.

 

[HikariWS]

It's impressive to me that MMOGs are still alive. I dropped wow when BC was released, and I don't regret it. Original game was damn fun, but farmers and grinders broke it.
Standalone games used to be played in 20 or 30 hours. We'd pay some money, explore its content in fully in about 100 hours, and nove on to next game, totally different from last one.
But MMOGs income comes from subscriptions. So they want us playing it for years. That's trouble for content creation investment, it's impossible to spend the same amount of money in creating content in the same way. While old fashioned content would be worth 30 hours, MMOG content must be played for more than a thousand hours! It's WAY too repetitive and must be played dozens of times to earn some item, which when dropped will likely go to somebody else!
If MMOG is profitable for softwarehouses, it's definetely not worth the time for gamers.

 

[HikariWS]

It's impressive to me that MMOGs are still alive. I dropped wow when BC was released, and I don't regret it. Original game was damn fun, but farmers and grinders broke it.
Standalone games used to be played in 20 or 30 hours. We'd pay some money, explore its content in fully in about 100 hours, and nove on to next game, totally different from last one.
But MMOGs income comes from subscriptions. So they want us playing it for years. That's trouble for content creation investment, it's impossible to spend the same amount of money in creating content in the same way. While old fashioned content would be worth 30 hours, MMOG content must be played for more than a thousand hours! It's WAY too repetitive and must be played dozens of times to earn some item, which when dropped will likely go to somebody else!
If MMOG is profitable for softwarehouses, it's definetely not worth the time for gamers.

 

[jake s]

People need to realize that blizzard recently did a HUGE ban wave for wow accounts for people botting. I've been botting since early WOTLK and it wasnt til recently i was perma banned for it, i also know about 5 friends that got perma banned as well recently. Im guessing around 75% of these numbers are probably from accounts that were perma banned.