World of Warcraft Subscriptions Decrease By 800,000

http://www.returnofreckoning.com/

I'd say it has more to do with so much competition from F2P models out there. When they were reigning the landscape with only 1 or 2 competitors out there (who also charged) they got away with bleeding customers wallets. And the best they could do to answer to that is to offer the game free... up to level 20. That still doesn't help them compete with others that don't put the larger portion of their game experience behind a pay wall.

I actually downloaded WOW and had my old account activated on a Mists of Pandoria trial last week.. it was fun for a day then I got tired of it

There are big competitors in the MMO field now, poaching their subscribers. That, and World of Warcraft is old.

It's a decade old. It's time Blizzard move onto the next chapter in the series.

With an updated engine, fresh ideas and a better foundation (maybe one with real time combat?) they can reinvigourate people's interest.

WoW 2 or Warcraft 4 incoming!!!!!!

Many MMO's struggle to get over 1million subs, Wow still got like 7million...

Because there's been no new content for months (this is one of if not the longest periods without new content since pre-expansion WoW) because they're working on the expansion. Plus there likely won't be any for another 1-2 months.

The numbers will undoubtedly creep back up past 7 million when the expansion comes out.

There Comes A Time, When We Feel A Certain Urge
To Log In, And Create An Avatar
This Ain't Just Your Average Online RPG
It's A World, A World That We Call Home
We Have A Choice, To Build A Character
In The Alliance, Or Maybe In The Horde
The Choice Is Up To You, It Doesn't Matter What You Do
And On Azeroth, You'll Never Be Alone!
We Are The World Of Warcraft
We Are The Tauren, We Are The Trolls, We Are The Orcs
So Lets Keep Living, In This Online Universe
We Are The World Of Warcraft

So Here's To The Worgen, The Druids, The Paladin
The Level 90 Pandaren Mage
The Warlocks And The Death Knights,
And Even Leeroy Jenkins
It Is Up To Us, To Kill The Lich King!
We Are The World Of Warcraft
We Are The Tauren, We Are The Trolls, We Are The Orcs
So Lets Keep Living, In This Online Universe
We Are The World Of Warcraft

They have 6.8 million "subcribers" as in people still paying them money, for a game that came out almost a decade ago.(like a few months away from it being 10 years old) There are games that came out and will come out this year that won't hit that in their lifetime or put it another won't reach that over the course of a decade. It's natural the game has drop off in players, but WoW dying is a laughable sentiment. It'll be a very active game for a long time.

Havn't played WoW since WOTLK sorry matey.

http://eu.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodestone/character/2229345/

And it would still look like ass to be able to run on each and every shitty non-gaming PC out there. PC is holding back teh PC!!1 Oh gawd!!

Who the hell wants to play a 10 year old MMO. How comes they never released a sequel to it, they are gonna want to be doing that soon.

Why would they make a sequel? MMOs don't work that way. They've had the base game and now 4 expansion that have about as much content as your average sequel.

With MMOs you don't just abandon the world and force players into a different game. With MMOs you expand the world with sequels and content patches.

People play MMOs for years, not abandon the game when the sequel comes out like it's a throwaway console shooter.

Well it's an MMO, an MMO you're going to have to spend an absolute shit ton of money on if you want it to be as current and up to date as possible. Sometimes people can't afford to keep paying the fee to play a game they already paid for.

LOL

I've heard people go on about how WoW is "dying" for at least the past 5 years. Personally, I think FF: A Realm Reborn is the superior MMO, but WoW still has about 5-6 times the subscription rate as the next closest MMO.

You're talking about a game that is 10 years old that 7+ million people still not only play, but pay a $15 a month subscription fee to play. WoW isn't going anywhere.

Even when the game eventually goes F2P a few years down the line, I'm willing to bet that the servers still stay online for another 8-10 years after that.

And as for the subscription numbers going down, I guarantee that they skyrocket as soon as Warlords of Draenor gets released later this year.

God the pvp in that game was so fun.

dat consolite mindset.

A year of no content and only 800k loss, not bad. Must be incredibly difficult for people leaving WoW since they have spend so much time and work there.

Or they could force people to upgrade by making 64-bit OS's mandatory.

Windows 7 and 8 are pretty much the norm these days (especially for new computers), and anyone who legitimately games on XP isn't of sane mind.

MMO's tend to get better as time goes on. As, it's a service and is expected. Thankfully (aside from that time the entire game had to be rebuilt) Final Fantasy: 14 is a masterpiece specifically designed for winners.

To be more precise, it is almost 7 million subscribers (6.8 million), of which some high percentage pay $15 a month (but many pay less via multi-month subs or different international rates, which also may end up being more).

Indeed. its largely due to to its endgame content being better than everyone elses.... that island in MoP .... better than daily zones in other games by a landslide.... and ofcourse the gameplay smoothness, the class rotations and the content... is varied... and the options for casual players even in raiding is great.

I am desperetly hoping that Square-Enix has a new end-game model for their expansion next year... the current one is poor... nearly as bad as Guild Wars... which is sad because everything is so high quality ... and the fights are good... just not enough of it....

And which ones are they? WOW is still the biggest MMO to date 10 years later.

Err ok?

But the game is 10 years old using a slightly updated engine still designed to run on old hardware. You need to know when to let something die, or at least do a major upgrade to put it up to par with games in 2014. I know graphics aren't everything but it does add something.

Then again I've never played WoW, I always though the subscription service was a total piss take, but that's a different story.

it does get graphical updates...

What about the most played game on all platforms? its minecraft.... who cares about graphics?

League of Legends... most played esport level game... looks like a 2004 game. again... not many outside of these casual forums care for graphics more than gameplay. graphics are just to justify upgraded systems at this point.

Tend to disagree. If this was 10 years ago, probably would be saying yea, it's a piss take.

But, when you compare something like Realm Reborn with a £8.99 sub fee to 99% free2play games, you are actually getting more value from the sub fee.

Likewise, what is a piss take imo, is attempting to put this model (free2play boosts) on top of a sub fee.

Currently, World Of Warcraft sells a level 90 boost $50, mounts for $40+ and Armour sets for $50+

That's on top of a sub fee and a digital expansion (i.e. not a full game) that costs around 200% of a full game.

Whats your game? Apparently an expensive as **** one.

Elder Scrolls Online is also (no explanation needed) guilty of this.

Partly the reason I opted for FF14, which thankfully, is also a great game.

one good thing about ARR.... you can choose a cheaper £7.49 I think it is and be limited to one character... but you only use one really anyway.

Will go up millions when the next expansion hits it always does.

Man, they could lose half of their subscription base today and still be the most popular and most profitable mmorpg. Hell, after LoL, i wouldn't be surprised if it's still the most profitable game out right now..

At this point in WoW's life it was dragging about 4-6 million zombies behind it, FF XIV is at 2 million. It's a few million subscribers short of superior to WoW. If you include the original FF XIV it's about 7-8 million subscribers inferior.

£7.69 a month + £9.99 for the game + £16.99 for the expansion + £34.99 for the unreleased expansion...

So if you wanted all the content you'd be paying... £92.28 a year for the subscription alone + £61.97 for the game with all content.

Total: £154.25... yeah no. You can buy game like Skyrim off the Steam store for £6.79 with all the expansions, or you could buy Guildwars 1 & 2 for £65.35 and play both games as long as you want.

Or is WoW really that much better?

Why are you lying lol, here in the U.S. WoW + MoP costs $40 total right now, the sub fee is $15/mo. You can buy a level 90 boost for $60 if you're that desperate to skip leveling content that takes a week to get through nowadays. You can't buy "armor sets" for $50; there are (shitty-looking) helms on the store with no stats that are intended for transmogrification (changing the appearance of an existing item to that of another's) only, and each cost $15. Mounts cost $25-$30, pets cost $10. None of this shit is unavailable to someone who pays a sub fee and plays the game, so if you don't want to waste money on overpriced crap you don't have to. You aren't at a disadvantage to anyone who buys stuff off the cash shop--even the 90 boosts, since leveling to 90 is very fast nowadays--but I do think it's wrong to put any sort of cash shop in a subscription-based game. Blizzard is getting away with it because they've got the most successful MMO in the world and lots of people actually do buy what they sell in the cash shop.

The only thing I'll call overpriced is the price of the next expansion. $50, which is disgusting considering Blizzard promised it'd offer a "free" 90 boost for one character and WoD seems to have less content than any other expansion. Pretty much the reason I don't plan on pre-ordering.