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We can all agree that people are leaving WoW, but....
bcbully
Member EpicPosts: 11,843
where did they go? Since The Wrath of The Lich King, WoW has lost somewhere between 4-5 million players.
Where did these players go? Why did they go? What's keeping them where they are?
Let's discuss.
(attention: this is not about WoW, but more about the mmorpg community in general)
Comments
All games get old and boring. I played WOW for a few years, and quit in 2012.
Where do they go? Some other games?
LoL is big.
WoT is big.
online FPSes are big.
D3 is big (there are lots of overlap WOW & D3 players, they sold 1.2M annual pass which is a lower bound).
I wasn't even a gamer when I started playing WoW. My entertainment was writing web applications in PHP. It turns out that video games are more fun than programming. In case you're wondering.
I think most of the people leaving WoW were already playing other games, so other games won't really see a sudden uptick the their player numbers, just the number of played hours. As for the rest of them, I bet they didn't put nearly as much thought into the next game they played as we're putting into it here. :-)
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69% of the people who submit their taxes as "Head of Household" play video games in America. 40% of American adults play video games. There are a lot of people in the U.S. alone who play video games. All of the people who left WoW are not going to make much of a noticeable impact in the gaming market whether they went to other games or whether they just left and never came back.
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A new study puts the number of U.S. gamers at 83% of the population, or over 290 million people.
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70% of the planet play video games. That's like five and a quarter billion people. At that scale, WoW's impact isn't even noticeable.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
when you take into account the age of the game, its quite likely that the majority of the ones leaving, probably are also outgrowing MMO's so its not exactly all that surprising if they didnt turn up in other games.
Only thing that can kill WoW.. is WoW itself.
If they dont step up with some new technology and update the game mechanics then people will move on to a game that will.
EQNext is what I think will hurt WoW the most.
Lets see your Battle Stations /r/battlestations
Battle Station
I think they spread out amongst all the hundreds of other games out there. Particularly with the free to play revolution. I think they make up the bulk of my fellow tourists
No matter how cynical you become, its never enough to keep up - Lily Tomlin
Other games, no games at all. I know some who still play Starcraft and Diablo, as well as other single player games. A couple play no games whatsoever anymore, really. I know a few who are playing other mmos such as Neverwinter, Planetside 2, Warhammer Online, and a few others.
I'm only using examples of people who I know personally.
I agree, and Titan info will soon follow EQNext release.
5.4 supposed to have some big game changing "thing" added.
Titan = Starcraft Ghost
Don't be terrorized! You're more likely to die of a car accident, drowning, fire, or murder! More people die every year from prescription drugs than terrorism LOL!
The candle that burns twice as bright burns half as long.
Viral growth is not endless. Practically everyone on the planet has seen hundreds of WoW advertisements over the years. Everyone who might play, has played, and is moving on. Blizzard's coffers are overflowing, well done.
Luckily, i don't need you to like me to enjoy video games. -nariusseldon.
In F2P I think it's more a case of the game's trying to play the player's. -laserit
Not sure about this post. As I left wow a lot of times, to try other games. But have since gone back for a few reasons.
1. free to play is not a true statement. I really don't care how you take that, its true imo.
2.Most of the games out there Just copy the basic elements that wow uses.
3.And until a game comes out that changes or at least does those basics better. I'll stay with wow.
but when 14% is a couple of million then that is another story. How badly do you have to fuck up to lose a couple million players in 1 year.
I don't have enough data to have a strong opinion on this.
I'm very curious how the annual pass + copy of Diablo3 worked out (covering a year-long span with no new patches if I remember correctly). Did most people who bought that stay on after or did it just delay their departure? Did many switch to playing Diablo?
Last stats I saw suggested the profit margin on a WoW account is very high. Even while revenue is falling, they still have plenty of room to actually increase expenses if they feel they can spend money to get customers back (but that's a big "if")
I have to agree with this ^^^^^ mostly.
I knew alot of WoW players who had 0 interest in gaming outside of WoW.
WoW somehow managed to cross the boundaries into the mainstream and take root, grabbing millions of peoples attention who otherwise, would only look at their computer as a tool.
Now that the roots are dying and people are shaking free.
Also there is no current replacement and like all other trends isn't in style anymore.
Now while I do believe some of them have moved on and discovered they enjoy this genre, most of them have simply just stopped playing and are doing other things. I honestly believe we will never see the numbers WoW had for a very LONG time. MMORPGs will return back to being a genre enjoyed by the few.
Of course that's all in my humble opinion. Perhaps wishful thinking.
MMORPG Gamers/Developers need a reality check!
you could look at it like that and I'm sure blizzard would of preferred not to have lost so many but the number they retained is still much larger.When you have the install base of WoW all shifts postive and negative are bigger.I have no doubt they made some design errors lately that have made the shift bigger than what would be considered normal,I wouldn't know I haven't palyed since 2008 and don't pay attention to updates it gets anymore, but still Losing 14% almost a decade later....most games would be happy only losing 14% in their first month...
Is this a signal that WoW is finally reaching the end of it's life cycle?Probably but between now and it closing down completely is still gonna be longer than a lot of games that have been released since's life cycle.
I Believe there will be a new King of the sand box. I think SOE has a great chance with eq next... That being said there is a good chance SOE can shoot themselves in the foot before the race even starts .... DONT BE A PAY TO WIN GAME. I cringe when a game has three different forms of currency.
I got into WoW when it was in vanilla through a friend that talked me into it. Before WoW I was a committed FPS gamer and was never interested in MMORPGs.
I finally left WoW a year ago and am not playing any games apart from a little chess here and there. I'll get back into MMOs when I find another game that appeals to me but am in no rush.
Sure, but there are also many who've tried tons of different MMORPGs and never found one where the core gameplay was as crisp, polished, and enjoyable.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Where did they go? Some other game, some other genre, or just stopped gaming.
With F2P making strong market penetration, it's easy (and cheap) to jump games.
That Guild Wars 2 login screen knocked up my wife. Must be the second coming!