World of Warcraft Lost Over 1 Million Subscribers This Year

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[citation][nom]Goldengoose[/nom]Self control perhaps?[/citation]

Yeah right, self control.
This is like having a bag full of money - there's no such thing like self control.
I had a period in my life, where i got phone calls from friends asking me to hang out, you know, eat a pizza, watch a movie, go to a club or something and i was making up stories that i was sick or got another appointment and this just to stay at home and play a shitty game. This is bad....
 
[citation][nom]clivene09[/nom]I doubt they will go free to play till the subscribers drop to at least half of what they are now. $15 a month for 10 mill subs is a large chunk of money to just drop outright, and I doubt they will make it back in microtransactions. The thing I don't think Bliz really understands is that WoW is just old. I have fond memories of the game, but the time has come to just move on.[/citation]

Well, technically they are "free to play" up to level 20. I saw "free to play" because what it really is, is the trial version sans a time limit. So, you can play up to level 20 and that's it. If you want to progress beyond that, you have to upgrade to the paid version, but for now, there is now time limit.

 
Blizzard by sales for cash on useful things you have pissed off many of your long time players. Yes you made more money this year but the money grab is eating away at your subscribers. The old WOW promise of play long and you will have the best of everything no longer stands so why would anyone play all the time? Changing one of the most important parts of the game is killing the game. Also you may want to make playing with friends easier by have free transfers to medium and low populated servers. This should be all the time and not just currently from over populated servers.

This year you lost a large number of players. Next year it starts cutting into the bottom line.
 
[citation][nom]g00ey[/nom]So let's end all this blasphemy and wickedness by banning all MMORPG and shutting down all WoW servers altogether! Whip hard all those spoiled kids' bony white a*es and put them back to school already so they start to actually _learn_ something![/citation]

Oh please, give me a break. Why punish the masses for the stupidity of the few? These people would have found some other "addiction". I've played the games and I have NO problems stopping. I don't spend 8+ hours a day, etc. It's amazing how people will jump to extreme measures like this.

[citation][nom]clivene09[/nom]I doubt they will go free to play till the subscribers drop to at least half of what they are now. $15 a month for 10 mill subs is a large chunk of money to just drop outright, and I doubt they will make it back in microtransactions. The thing I don't think Bliz really understands is that WoW is just old. I have fond memories of the game, but the time has come to just move on.[/citation]

Well, technically they are "free to play" up to level 20. I saw "free to play" because what it really is, is the trial version sans a time limit. So, you can play up to level 20 and that's it. If you want to progress beyond that, you have to upgrade to the paid version, but for now, there is now time limit.

 
[citation][nom]jn77[/nom]Seriously....WOW in. Hardware requirements:SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS386DX/40 Computer (486DX2/66 strongly recommended)2 meg of free memory (A 4 meg machine is recommended)7.1 meg of Hard Drive Space (for shareware)15.8 meg of Hard Drive Space[/citation]

You are an idiot
 
I never understood why you pay a monthly fee . . . and have to buy add-ons as well . . . I would have thought that money would go toward additional content?
 
[citation][nom]jn77[/nom]Seriously....WOW in. Hardware requirements:SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS386DX/40 Computer (486DX2/66 strongly recommended)2 meg of free memory (A 4 meg machine is recommended)7.1 meg of Hard Drive Space (for shareware)15.8 meg of Hard Drive Space (for registered)OPTIONALLY SUPPORTEDMouseJoysticksThrustmasterGravis GamepadAdlibSound BlasterSound Blaster ProSound Blaster 16Sound Blaster AWE32Wave BlasterPro Audio Spectrum 16Gravis UltraSoundRoland Sound CanvasAny General MIDI DeviceIts really time for WOW to grow up, I haven't played games that require that much hardware in like 15 years?[/citation]



I LOL'ed at this. But don't forget "A VGA graphics adapter" as a requirement. Because, ya know, those people still using EGA need to upgrade already!

 
WoW lost me at the WoTLK expansion. From that point forward, the game is being ruined with every patch. Dumber, easier, less challenge.... It was a no-brainer for me to pull my $15 a month back from Blizzard.
 
With all this bickering, it looks like the WoW forums in here. That's what turns me off about that game. 90% of the player base are idiots who whine about every little detail. Constructive criticism is apparently impossible for some clowns. You can't even read a post without a negative comment somewhere in there.

Not like Toms where negative posts hardly ever happen ( hellooo fanboys! ).
 
[citation][nom]digiex[/nom]Former older players already got a life, and World of Warcraft no longer appeal to younger generations.[/citation]

100% ... and im one of them ... im 24 years old .. i played for 4 years ...
and to be honest ... i still play it from time to time but not like i did in the past
I have many things to do ... and alot of work .. Im going to buy my Own Villa next year ... ( getting married soon )
Wow wont benefit me or the Gold in game to buy this house..
😉 ...
like now .. i downloaded the game yesterday at night after 6 months ... yes im back .. but not alot of time to play ... 10 hours weekly i guess ..
 
After playing the same game for 7 years, of course there is going to be drop off. I stopped playing regularly after TBC expansion. I hated how all of my raiding and pvp gear from Vanilla WoW became obsolete in the very first zone. Such a waste of time and $$$. I came back a few times with free time offered by blizzard, but none of the new content ever convinced me to resubscribe again. I'd rather play free 2 play mmos or mobas for my pve/pvp fix than subscribe to another mmo. Looking forward to Guild Wars 2 which requires no subscription just like the first.
 
What's in the next expansion? Tigers? By any chance is Blizzard cutting Nat Geo a check by any chance? LoL at jn77, it's true this game is so old and hardly ever had any significant graphic revisions. At least give the players with beast computers a little something to chew on.
 
I hope WoW keep losing its subscribers then just maybe Blizz will stop making half assed games such as sc2 and d3 =D!!! I have hope... fat chance not with hackitvison over its head.
 
I quit WoW after heroic Icecrown came out and my guild benched me every night for resto druids and holy paladins.

I was a good healer too... never once in all my 25-heroic Anub'arak runs did I let a Pen Cold target die. But priests were the jacks of all trade and masters of none, and the raid leader wanted to cut healers for more DPS so the low throughput had to go.

It was the best decision I've ever made.
 
Things to note here. More people have quit playing WoW then currently play WoW at this point. Roughly 25 million accounts, ~10 million active. 2 days before announcing the first asian themed expansion Blizzard signed deals to put WoW into Singapore, Malaysia, and Thailand. Blizzard knows they have hit a wall in the western world, and are now going after Asian markets with MoP.
 
Half a million subs is considered successful in the MMO market. WoW still has 10 million.. and Blizzard has another MMORPG coming out. They are fine.
 
[citation][nom]clivene09[/nom]I doubt they will go free to play till the subscribers drop to at least half of what they are now. $15 a month for 10 mill subs is a large chunk of money to just drop outright, and I doubt they will make it back in microtransactions. The thing I don't think Bliz really understands is that WoW is just old. I have fond memories of the game, but the time has come to just move on.[/citation]
I don't know why people still claim they make $15 a month per sub. WoW's subs have always been about 50% Asian where they are on a different pay scheme. They pay per hour and the total is FAR less then $15 a month. In China which has been having a full third, it's not even as good as that since Blizzard has to work with another company to run WoW over there, NetEase, and splits even that with them.

So no, they do not make $15x10 million.
 
The things that bother me most about WoW (other MMO's too) and why I haven't played in a couple years mostly stems from trying to be too fast paced. MMO's are supposed to be social, or at least they used to be, and to allow for social interaction, the pace of combat and quests most slow down a bit. Having cross server dungeon runs takes away a large social component where people had to get to know each other and network to group and and run a dungeon, which again, brought a social aspect to the game.

Not only that, the more twitchy the game gets, the more unbalanced things get when it comes to hardware. If your latency is suspect you are at a bigger disadvantage and can't compete. RPG's used to be about strategy, and while it still is to some extent, the faster paced the game becomes, the more reflex over takes the strategy.

I wish they'd just slow everything down and try not to appeal to everyone, which often results in no one being completely happy.
 
[citation][nom]clivene09[/nom]I doubt they will go free to play till the subscribers drop to at least half of what they are now. $15 a month for 10 mill subs is a large chunk of money to just drop outright, and I doubt they will make it back in microtransactions. The thing I don't think Bliz really understands is that WoW is just old. I have fond memories of the game, but the time has come to just move on.[/citation]

I agree with the first part, but I'm sure Blizzard understands the game is simply getting old, they just don't want investors to think that they've acquiesced.
 
[citation][nom]cmcghee358[/nom]He mentioned the loss of subs came from the East. Also they ARE MARTIAL ART PANDAS. Stafoo.[/citation]

The Pandas seem pretty obvious about their targeting lol.


[citation][nom]g00ey[/nom]That's why we have people such as the one who totally demolished his computer after his gf erased his account, a couple left their baby unattended a whole f*ing day because they were sitting in an internet café WoWing, a Korean guy spent a total of 60 friggin' hours non-stop without eating, drinking or sleeping - his gameplay session ended abruptly with a fatal heart failure, a mother was killed with a knife because she confiscated her son's computer after spending too much time WoWing, there was this boy who decided to end a dispute on WoW in real life by going to his friends house with a kitchen knife and stab the poor guy to death.So let's end all this blasphemy and wickedness by banning all MMORPG and shutting down all WoW servers altogether! Whip hard all those spoiled kids' bony white a*es and put them back to school already so they start to actually _learn_ something![/citation]

Those people were crazy. They played so much that they needed a reality check. I doubt they did much else or had much other interaction with the real world beyond necessity. Not even necessity for the korean guy who croaked after 3 days straight.

I can't say I hadn't grinded my butt off in an older EQ game for some quite extended sessions once in a while, but I got up and ate and walked to the corner shop a lot while it was still open to move my legs and replenish coffee/beer. I also showered and slept at some point. And that wasn't an every day thing lol. It was once in a while. I can't play a game like that any more without becomming bored or restless. Most people will grow out of it eventually.

The really bad ones would have gotten that far out there with some other game, or even drug use if they didn't have the game. In fact, some of those peoples' behaviors sound exactly like some hardcore bums & drug users' behaviors. Especially the violent ones mentioned. It's not the game that did it, it's the people who were already lost or effed up to begin with. They would have become absorbed harmfully and ridiculously into something else were the game unavailable. It's their responsibility to play responsibly, just like it is to 'drink responsibly' or 'drive responsibly' banning something a lot of people enjoy for the poor choices or restraint of a few is a pretty fascist idea.
 
[citation][nom]ikyung[/nom]Half a million subs is considered successful in the MMO market. WoW still has 10 million.. and Blizzard has another MMORPG coming out. They are fine.[/citation]
The problem is that they have lost 1.7 million immediately after the release of an expansion. People can keep saying they are fine, but that's troublie to people. It shows a definate lack of direction.

Had the subscriptions been lost next year, after the release of the Deathwing raid when no new content is being released, yes, people could say they are fine, it's merely people finished with the content. But that can't be said now. With the losses occuring during new content people have to ask "Why?".

A telling little piece of the puzzle is outside Warcraft merchandise. Comics and the magazine have been cancelled due to low sales. The first pre Cataclysm novel, The Shattering, had low sales. When associated merchandise starts failing, that's a sign that the base fans of a product may be losing interest. Considering that Warcraft has for years been incredibly popular, one has to wonder why the last 3 years have shown, first no growth and now fast decline in subscribers.

I don't buy the "the game is old" argument. WoW is an MMO. An MMO is suppose to have new, fresh content released for it. It shouldn't become stale because the story should always be advancing. However, that's the problem Blizzard faces with WoW. Starting with Wrath, they truly started failing to show the story in game. About half of the content they talked about with the expansion never occured. They never had the Outland raid, which many believed would be Deathwing's Lair which would have made perfect sense considering Deathwing was the main antagonist of Cataclysm. Baleheim and Gundrak were never finished as raids. The Tournament of Champions was made into a very subpar raid and during Wrath beta players were told it was only suppose to have the 5 man to it. It was very clear ToC was merely a "filler" raid. A lot of the storyline also just made no sense.

Then we come to Cataclysm. They talked during beta for that about how it was likely Danath would return to Arathi to confront Sylvanas, how there would be shown major conflict between The Forsaken and the Argent Dawn/Crusade. The return of Kul Tiras was said to be likely. None of these things happened. Instead content such as the Abyssal Maw raid was cancelled with the cryptic "We feel Neptulon's story was completed" when the last players saw of Neptulon was him being taken away. Hardly much of a finish.

Blizzard could shore up WoW if they wanted to. Warcraft has been popular as a franchise for over 15 years. No way it should get stale in just 3 years. But in order to do it, they need to need to start putting the story back into the game. If they don't do that than WoW will only see the bleeding of customers accelerate. It also means that a lot of die hard Blizzard fans won't be as quick to see another Blizzard release as a "mandatory buy".
 
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