World of Warcraft down to 5.6 million subs, lowest amount since before the launch of Burning Crusade

[Paragon Fury]

So Blizzard had their most recent quarterly meeting today, and while the direct screens and pictures aren't widely available yet, the results are in:

I just....wow.

If they needed any more proof that WoD is an utter failure, this is it. Blizzard just had their latest quarterly report today, and while the direct images aren't available yet, WoW's sub numbers have fallen 44% since the launch of Warlords of Draenor, down all the way to 5.6 million subscribers. The last time WoW subs were this low was before The Burning Crusade launched, almost a decade ago.

I came back to try the 6.2 patch because they gave everyone a free 7 days and I had enough gold to purchase a 30 day token. But other than Highmaul, Blackrock Foundry and Hellfire Citadel, there is literally nothing to do in Warlords.

PvP is absolutely trash and broken and Holinka is basically trolling the PvP community at this point.
Some classes and specs have been absolutely destroyed, like Shamans and the team refuses to do anything about it.
Legendary questline is ass, tedious and unrewarding and not nearly on the level of a Legendary.

I used to have faith in Blizzard. But with this, and how badly they've handled Heroes of the Storm making me doubt they can actually do well with Overwatch (which I had been looking forward to), I've lost faith that they can actually do better.

I need a new MMO now.

 

[The Madman]

Doesn't really surprise me. Interest had been waning for a looong time and Warlords of Draenor just wasn't what Blizzard needed to keep this beast going.

The initial leveling experience in Warlords was great, and the areas and music honestly some of Blizzards best to date. Initially the expansion looked, sounded, and played brilliantly. Even the removal of flight seemed like a good choice since it meant lots of fun world interaction and pvp, it felt kinda like a return to form for WOW. No wonder the expansion got tons and tons of sales...

But then you hit the new max level and content just came to a stop. If you weren't a raider then there was no reason to keep playing. The dungeons weren't that good nor the loot compelling enough to keep playing them, the pvp content was all sorts of bad with the new pvp zone widely considered a flop, the story absolutely fell to shambles losing what momentum it had gained while questing, and the 'daily quests' somehow managed to make Panadaria's daily quest grind look fun by comparison. There wasn't even any new content to explore either, once you're done leveling up you might as well just retreat to your little garrison and never leave, which is exactly what so many people ended up doing.

I'm not playing anymore, that's for certain. Just nothing really compelling to do.

And what's wrong with Heroes of the Storm? I like Hots. I certainly can't think of any major mistakes Blizzard have made with it to warrant it being labelled 'badly handled'.

 

[LetalisK]

I'm not so sure that this has as much to do with Blizzard as it does with a changing consumer base in gaming. I just don't think a monthly subscription model is tenable in the market anymore and WoW is simply the last big vestige of it. I think WoD could have been the finest piece of gaming ever created and we'd still see numbers slipping hard. WoW has had and still has the numbers so they don't have to change, but eventually they will have to.

Though, I do think they dropped the ball with the WoD story. They had this amazing Act 1, but Act 2 and 3 seem like they're just getting tacked on. It's like they spent so much energy and resources on the first part that the rest became an afterthought.

 

[WhiteTigerShiro]

I call it the Nostalgia Theory, and it's why WoW is never going to get its numbers back. Simply put, people were on board for the expansions that called back to the strategy games, but now that those are done their interest is waning.

When WoW launched it was successful, sure, but it wasn't until the announcement of The Burning Crusade that everyone started to really take notice. Suddenly WoW felt like it was about something. We get to go through The Dark Portal. We get to go and explore Outland first-hand. We get to go and kick Illidan's ass. This was huge for fans of Warcraft when it was a strategy game, because it scratched at a nostalgia itch from both Warcraft 2 and Warcraft 3. Then Frozen Throne was announced, and HELL YEAH! We get to go after Arthas? Yes, yes, all of everyone's yes at this expansion. Once again subscriptions went up, because now we got to resolve the biggest cliffhanger from the strategy games as a whole. We get to head back to Northrend, and we get to oust Arthas.

And then we killed him. So... now what? Cataclysm? Eh. I guess it's kinda cool, and the lore hounds probably went nuts at the mention of Deathwing, but otherwise we're kinda finished, right? Thrall's still around, and everyone likes him, but he's no longer the Horde's warchief, so... okay. And now all the Dragon Aspects are no longer immortal? That's kind of an anticlimactic ending given that one of the bigger story points was appointing a new Blue Aspect, and now it doesn't even matter that we did. Then after that was the expansion based around what everyone was content to leave as a joke, which is when we saw WoW really take a hit.

Now that we're going back in time (except we're not in our past, because reasons), it just feels like the game and story is pottering about, but I'm digressing. The point is, there's no more nostalgia factor to keep fans wanting to gun for that next raid boss, so all that's really left is the die hard fans, and the people who are playing with their friends (who are likely in the former category). There's no more appeal. No more wonder. You can only have that thrill of going through The Dark Portal once, and then we're there. With all the loose ends from Warcraft 3 wrapped up, and WoW having not done much to develop its own story, what do we really have to keep us invested in the game?

 

[008Zulu_v1legacy]

Blizzard announces; Warcraft 4!

It will be an always online (except consoles) co-op dota/rts hybrid. It will have an auction house that will be quickly exploited, and then removed.

 

[Saltyk]

That's still not dead. But if it continues to bleed subscribers it may die. But this isn't the first time we've seen WoW do that, even if this is the lowest Subscriber count in years. If there's one thing I learned about WoW, don't underestimate it.

Even if this is the beginning of the end, WoW has had a very good and exception life. It can die proud.

And if it does die, maybe some other worthy MMOs can get some recognition. FFXIV actually does deserve some love.

 

[InsanityRequiem]

Honestly, it's about time. WoW has been going on for a decade and the game has to have this drop off. There's at least 3 reasons for this drop off.

1) No new Warcraft players are being brought in. WoW is eleven years old, that's a long time for a high profile MMO to live. And it's a game franchise with no new iteration in the series besides expansion packs for the MMO, which don't count as said new iterations. Many new gamers (Gonna call those under 18 as new gamers, just for reason's sake) may have heard of WoW, but they have not played any games be drawn into the MMO. Warcraft 3 came out in 2002, and WoW came out in 2004. An entire decade of gamers have not played any sort of Warcraft game, so they aren't going to go into a random MMO that's been out for over ten years.

2) The game is over a decade old. Many of the players will have, rightfully, gotten tired of the game for a myriad of reasons. I've recently stopped my subscription for WoW because of the lack of desire to play the game. Blizzard's handling of the game, players' tired of the mechanics, you name it and a player will have quit because of it. WoW is no longer fun for people, and people will leave because of that.

3) As the player base grew older, their monetary situations have changed. No longer are the days of paying a Blizzard over $100 (US) a year for access to a single game's world financially sound. There's so many different games that are coming out now, choosing what to play costs money, and any unnecessary expenses will be cut. Why pay for WoW when I can get three games for the price of a year's subscription? That doesn't count for the fact that players have other monetary obligations to deal with as well. That $100 (US) can be used for something else, be it food, rent, maintenance, etc.

I feel it's time for Blizzard to cut WoW's cord. WoD should have been its last expansion, and use the story to push into new RTS games based in the Warcraft universe. Heck, doesn't have to be RTS either, could be other types of games as well, just not a MMO.

 

[Pseudonym]

So poor blizzard now gets 11-13 euro's a month from a mere 5,6 million people rather than the previous 10 million or whatever it was? With the meager income of 67 million a month or so, what are they to do? Or am I Whilst I get that such a swift might be interesting to some it still seems like Blizzard makes more money of WoW this way then I can fathom them spending. To my knowledge developing and advertising both destiny and GTA together costs less than the yearly income from WoW with that amount of subscribers. So I'm not too worried about blizzard or WoW.

Besides finances, maybe the game isn't as good now as it used to be and a lower amount of subscribers may indicate that. On the other hand, it's over a decade old now. That is a long runtime for a multiplayer game that requires large servers to be maintained. This doesn't seem so bad to me.

 

[Politrukk]

So Blizzard had their most recent quarterly meeting today, and while the direct screens and pictures aren't widely available yet, the results are in:

I just....wow.

If they needed any more proof that WoD is an utter failure, this is it. Blizzard just had their latest quarterly report today, and while the direct images aren't available yet, WoW's sub numbers have fallen 44% since the launch of Warlords of Draenor, down all the way to 5.6 million subscribers. The last time WoW subs were this low was before The Burning Crusade launched, almost a decade ago.

I came back to try the 6.2 patch because they gave everyone a free 7 days and I had enough gold to purchase a 30 day token. But other than Highmaul, Blackrock Foundry and Hellfire Citadel, there is literally nothing to do in Warlords.

PvP is absolutely trash and broken and Holinka is basically trolling the PvP community at this point.
Some classes and specs have been absolutely destroyed, like Shamans and the team refuses to do anything about it.
Legendary questline is ass, tedious and unrewarding and not nearly on the level of a Legendary.

I used to have faith in Blizzard. But with this, and how badly they've handled Heroes of the Storm making me doubt they can actually do well with Overwatch (which I had been looking forward to), I've lost faith that they can actually do better.

I need a new MMO now.

Have rogues been fixed yet?
I rolled a rogue with the boost I got from returning to play, biggest mistake I made, my money on WoD was an absolute waste.

 

[Politrukk]

I call it the Nostalgia Theory, and it's why WoW is never going to get its numbers back. Simply put, people were on board for the expansions that called back to the strategy games, but now that those are done their interest is waning.

When WoW launched it was successful, sure, but it wasn't until the announcement of The Burning Crusade that everyone started to really take notice. Suddenly WoW felt like it was about something. We get to go through The Dark Portal. We get to go and explore Outland first-hand. We get to go and kick Illidan's ass. This was huge for fans of Warcraft when it was a strategy game, because it scratched at a nostalgia itch from both Warcraft 2 and Warcraft 3. Then Frozen Throne was announced, and HELL YEAH! We get to go after Arthas? Yes, yes, all of everyone's yes at this expansion. Once again subscriptions went up, because now we got to resolve the biggest cliffhanger from the strategy games as a whole. We get to head back to Northrend, and we get to oust Arthas.

And then we killed him. So... now what? Cataclysm? Eh. I guess it's kinda cool, and the lore hounds probably went nuts at the mention of Deathwing, but otherwise we're kinda finished, right? Thrall's still around, and everyone likes him, but he's no longer the Horde's warchief, so... okay. And now all the Dragon Aspects are no longer immortal? That's kind of an anticlimactic ending given that one of the bigger story points was appointing a new Blue Aspect, and now it doesn't even matter that we did. Then after that was the expansion based around what everyone was content to leave as a joke, which is when we saw WoW really take a hit.

Now that we're going back in time (except we're not in our past, because reasons), it just feels like the game and story is pottering about, but I'm digressing. The point is, there's no more nostalgia factor to keep fans wanting to gun for that next raid boss, so all that's really left is the die hard fans, and the people who are playing with their friends (who are likely in the former category). There's no more appeal. No more wonder. You can only have that thrill of going through The Dark Portal once, and then we're there. With all the loose ends from Warcraft 3 wrapped up, and WoW having not done much to develop its own story, what do we really have to keep us invested in the game?

Actually a problem that originated with TBC is that the Engaging battlegrounds, Realm opening of Raids and guild play have never been quite the same after.

Back in the day Guilds used to be very solid communities that were dreaded on the BG's and supported the effort in quests that were meant to open Raids/events for the server (like Ahn Qiraj).

There just hasn't been anything that engaging ever since even though we've been getting more intense "story"/"plot" provoking missions.

The last big event that was sort of fun was amassing before the Dark Portal before the WoD changeover so that you could be the first one in and that by itself was a player created event that had no meaning outside of this. (and actually I can imagine it being very bland to run through the portal now on a new character and have to go through that quest experience).


Edit:

Aside from that fact, old content is basically neglected and ruined by the existing level cap, there's no reason for players to be engaged in the lore/quests build-up anymore because the only moment they're going to encounter those old raids again is if they're going back to solo the thing for an achievement.

I mean the most fun yet also hated experience I have in WoW is solo'ing the lich king it sort of broke the enthusiasm I had for the game.

 

[Worgen]

I need a new MMO now.

It's a good time to get into Guild Wars 2, its got an expansion about to launch and if you buy it now you get the base game and the expansion.

 

[Sarge034]

If they needed any more proof that WoD is an utter failure, this is it.


I came back to try the 6.2 patch because they gave everyone a free 7 days and I had enough gold to purchase a 30 day token. But other than Highmaul, Blackrock Foundry and Hellfire Citadel, there is literally nothing to do in Warlords.

PvP is absolutely trash and broken and Holinka is basically trolling the PvP community at this point.
Some classes and specs have been absolutely destroyed, like Shamans and the team refuses to do anything about it.
Legendary questline is ass, tedious and unrewarding and not nearly on the level of a Legendary.

I used to have faith in Blizzard. But with this, and how badly they've handled Heroes of the Storm making me doubt they can actually do well with Overwatch (which I had been looking forward to), I've lost faith that they can actually do better.

Here's the problem with your rational. Subs were on the decline waaaay before WoD, you're just attributing it to WoD because you didn't like it.

 

[MonsterCrit]

Basically Blizzard is paying for shifting their design to accomodate the casual crowd. Everything is just so trivial in WoW and honestly while it was always a skinner box, at least the skinner box was better hidden.. They focus so much on end game that they basically make the rest of the game feel unimportant Which is not really good for an RPG. The key to any RPG is that you have to feel that you're accomplishing something Saddly WoW has had a slippery grasp on this before but now it's out right lost it entirely. They had a service by which you could pay to get a pre levelled character... which I think is what... also aside from the fact that barrier to entry for new players grows steeper and steeper. Each expansion is one more expansion that a new person has to buyt to get into the game.

Buying a prelevelled character is a convenience yes but I suppose it never occured to them that when the player considers it a convenience to skip your content... you'd screwed up. That and the players that do pay spend less time in the skinner box so it's much easier to break out. their time and investment in the characters is much less. Heck ever since they dumbed down the talent system my interest waned. Sure there were only a few optimal build and the new systems basically streamline that but really...optimal is over rated. The greatest fun in RPG type games is doing something suboptimally. See the 4 white mage paradox.

 

[RJ 17]

Pretty much what Sarge034 said: there's nothing to indicate that WoD is directly responsible for the drop-off in subs. WoW has been bleeding subs for quite a long while now. Each new expansion release provides a small bump, but fails to stop the bleeding.

The simple explanation for this is that WoW is in it's twilight years. It's been around for quite a while, had it's hayday, but now it's starting to wither and die. This is part of the natural lifecycle for any MMO, as none of them last forever. Granted, WoW's lifecycle lasted a lot longer than most, but still, this really isn't any big surprise considering how The Escapist has been reporting on WoW's decline since Lich King.

 

[sonicneedslovetoo]

The garrison sounded cool at first, then I found out it was a blatant facebook game ripoff and it just ground down my patience until I finally snapped and picked up guild wars 2. I kept feeling obligated to log in only for garrison, log out, no fun was had and all it was was an empty chore and I was doing it on a couple characters that I had over 90.
Same with the professions, I was thinking "OH BOY now I can actually make high level stuff without spending a week grinding alchemy ingredients!" and then I found out that not only was there nothing interesting to make, the market was heavily saturated and everybody could already make what I was making with one garrison building.
Gathering professions went the same way, I'd be surprised if any of the high tier trade goods cost over a gold on any server that isn't practically dead.
And then savage roar, my god do I hate savage roar.
Really the only reason you have anything to do outside of raids at high levels is either PVP or transmog runs. Frankly I've been kinda down on transmog lately because there isn't a dye system and its heavily restricted so pieces of gear that MIGHT go together can't because you can't transmog leather onto chainmail.
Removing daily quests sounds like a good idea, except they replaced it with Zynga's new Garrison game. Which is worse because while you can do most of the garrison stuff anywhere they aren't as structured as dailies so none of them will be as interesting as the icecrown dailies and chances are you'll either be in the guide designated best spot for farming, or the second guide designated spot with no real practical option to hop over to storm peaks for some variety.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

WoD was an atypical success with how much it boosted subs back up before it began its rapid/inevitable drop-off. WoW is just too old to hold an audience for more than a couple of months now. This is a ten year old game! How many people are still regularly playing ten year old games day in and day out, for tens or hundreds of hours? Not very many. That is has 5.6 million people playing still is astonishing, and not because it's too low.

That said, there has been some definitive bungling on Blizzard's part, particularly in how they handled post-launch content roll-out. They shifted their team almost immediately to working on a new expansion, and WoD seemed to get more life support than inspired renovation. The game needed strong veins of challenging solo content, it needed an Ulduar/Karazhan level second raid chapter to capture imaginations, it needed to work on better integrating garrison content so it didn't feel so passive and removed, it needed to re-invigorate dungeons and PvP. Blizzard accomplished none of those things, seemingly content to tread water while waiting for the next expansion drop.

So while a huge drop-off in population was absolutely inevitable, I'd say at least 1M of those subs lost can be attributed to mismanagement.

 

[Lunar Templar]

If your looking for a new MMO and don't mind story (a LOT of it) give FF14 a look.

 

[sneakypenguin]

WoD just killed wow for me and my friends. MoP was awesome had so much fun played pretty much every day. THen we got WoD pre patch hmmm lotta changes shaman got effed really bad. Ele in pvp i'm sure is still broken. PVP sucked asharan sucked/still sucks. No one was in the world cause it was hang out in your garrison till your que popped. The story was bad, just nothing was fun anymore. Me and 4 of my friends pretty much made it to mid January and all quit haven't even looked back or even been remotely interested in coming back.

EDIT: typical moment in MoP
Theres a group of horde who wants some on timeless isle/farm/pvp venders/open world (fly there and pvp with tons of questing people around have a good old time)
WoD. "you in the que for asharan?" "Yeah been in it about 45 min" "cool me to, I would arena with you but gotta do this to cap" "Yeah me to" Then once they fixed que times it became a zerg mess of just ranged AOE spells.

 

[Rattja]

Well it makes perfect sense if you think about it. All the old players that have grown bored of the whole thing or left for whatever reason are dropping the game, and as they do their friends tend to follow. So there you have the drop off, and it's only natural as the majority of people don't play the same game forever.

But then you have the new players. If someone were to pick up WoW right now, not having played it before, what would they find? Well they would find a bunch of people that have played for years that have all this cool shit they will never ever get because you can't get it anymore. You would find a game where 90% of it is ignored, as it's all about the mad dash to end game. Even if you level normally, the exp gain is so out of wack that you will end up skipping a ton of content by default. Once you get to the end game you are left with a handful of dungeons and a raid (as in 1 single raid since nobody runs anything but the latest one). Other than that you have grinding and maybe some PvP.
All this makes it sort of a really small game actually.

On top of that it's a massive multiplayer game that has gotten to the point where you really do not have to interact with people at all anymore, which is kinda strange. You can raid, do instances or PvP without even saying hello to the people you are with. And why would you bother talking to people in your group when there is little to no chance of ever seeing them on your next run?

So if old players are bored of it, and it's not that appealing to new ones I really don't see that number going anywhere but down.

 

[Something Amyss]

I'm amazed they've kept going this long. And that's not a shot at WoW, which isn't for me. It's legitimate "hats off" sort of respect. They cçan't keep a gaming going strong after a literal decade? Shock.