The Old Republic taking players from World of Warcraft - Blizzard

Activision reported last month that the World of Warcraft subscriber base fell to 10.2 million. What accounted for that dip? According to Blizzard, the drop was due in part to rival massively multiplayer online role-playing game Star Wars: The Old Republic.

WOW senior producer John Lagrave told Eurogamer at an event recently that the dip in WOW subscriptions is not a surprise. He also noted that some gamers are waiting until the Mists of Pandaria expansion arrives to return to Azeroth.

"We've seen a dip in subs," he said. "It certainly has to at least be attributable to The Old Republic, but it's also attributable to people who want to wait and get Mists of Pandaria, so it's not surprising."

Star Wars: The Old Republic shipped in December 2011 and quickly recorded sales of 2 million and tallied an active subscriber base of 1.7 million.

Next up for WOW is the Mists of Pandaria expansion. The add-on is set on the new continent of Pandaria and focuses on the Pandaren as well as the monk player class. The expansion pack, which does not have a release date, will also increase the player level cap to 90.