[citation][nom]wildkitten[/nom]That would be something I would agree with IF the decline had been gradual.Now Wrath subscriptions were stagnant, until the games release in China which added a net 500k subscribers to the 11.5 million WoW ended BC with. Cataclysm, which seemed like a half hearted attempt of an expansion, is where all the decrease comes from. they have lost nearly a million in just 6 months time. Losing subs that fast is not just a game getting old, it's players being discontent with what the devs are making and decisions Blizz is making.Keep in mind a lot of players who left are dedicated Warcraft fans, like myself, who feel like the dedicated fanbase is no longer welcome in the game.[/citation]
First of all, the game has been in china for years, shortly after BC Release. (They had to put skin on Nightbane before release due to Zombie regulation in China).
That being said, Blizzard's distribution into China was handled through licensing the game to specific gaming companies withing China to handle subscription fees and maintenance. This was mainly done so due to laws in china regarding online gaming and its pay structure. (PPM based subscriptions due to addiction.) They did not released a localized version of the game, run on blizzards servers so that arena/raid progression could be legitimized. Instead of forcing Chinese guilds to import other territorial versions, EU/Oceanic. (Paragon/DREAM being a key example of Korean/Chinese merging with EU guilds to attain progression.)
But I digress.
In the end, everyone quits for their own personal reasons. Having played the game since the day it came out, the biggest factor for why people quit is because other people quit.
I have ran raiding guilds, (Vanilla/BC/Wrath/Cataclysm, top 100 Horde world in BC through Sunwell, 88th Muru, 76th KJ) once one or two people quit from the core raid group, it spreads. It is like a virus. Regardless of the original reasons why people quit, mainly real life issues or school issues, it has a negative effect on moral and it exponentially increases the rate of attrition.
Unless you play the game on a top 20 server, you have a hard time recruiting to feel the gaps in that kind of progression. There is so much competition for cross server transfers that unless you are pushing top 100-200 in the US/EU, you are left fighting for scraps.
It is also very difficult on people who join established guilds. Its like starting a new job with a bunch of people who have been doing it for years together and are quick to point out your failures and how you are not as good as someone else.
The culture of raiding guilds destroy themselves from within, one person quitting will most always lead to 2-5 others following shortly after. if you do not replace them with competent players that most everyone likes then you might as well just fold the guild and go casual until the next expansion.
But cataclysms mass exodus was mainly due to change of mechanics when it comes to healing. Healers either quit or rolled DPS after the first week. without the glut of healing options it put a stress on the ecosystem which in turn made the game frustrating for a lot of people causing them to quit in turn.
In the end though, the game is loosing players just from the fact that it is a 7yr old product and it's ability to create interest and keep interest in its existing players will wain over time regardless of progression, expansions and mechanics.
On a side note and please don't turn this into a D3 Internet requirement hate thread, but I played WoW and continue to play WoW because of the people I play it with. That being said I am looking forward to D3 coming out because I know a lot of people who played WoW that will be playing this and continuing online relationships and experiences with the people who have quit WoW is something that I look forward to more then the game itself.