World of Warcraft: Subscriptions Plummet to 5.6 Million

SBFord

World of Warcraft subscriptions have plummeted to 5.6 million in Quarter 2, down from 7.1 million in Quarter 1. This reflects a loss of nearly half the subscribers from the launch of Warlords of Draenor in November 2014 when numbers soared over the 10 million mark, and over 1.5 million subscriptions lost since the last financial report was released earlier this year. Even the WoW token could not stave off subscriber loss after being introduced in Spring 2015.

Blizzard Entertainment had the largest online player community in its history, with Q2 MAUs^B up 50% year-over-year. Though World of Warcraft^® ended the quarter at 5.6 million subscribers^C, Blizzard revenues are up year-over-year based on strong performance across the expanding Blizzard portfolio. On June 23, 2015, Blizzard Entertainment released, Fury of Hellfire, one of the largest non-expansion content updates to date for World of Warcraft.Thisnew content helped stabilize the subscriber number towards the end of the quarter. World of Warcraft remains the No. 1 subscription?based MMORPG in the world.

Meanwhile, Hearthstone, Heroes of the Storm and Destiny have combined to generate over 1.25 billion in revenue "life-to-date".

Read the full press release here.

vadio123

Skys is falling?

No .... actual mmorpg players are splited in so many games

dont forget also with increased migration from mmo players to moba its going happen soon or later 

and finaly how many years wow have?

 

Not surprise at all

FrodoFragins

I wonder how many subs were saved by the token system.

 

Anyway, they'd better have something major planned for the next expansion and it hopefully isn't based on Azshara, Trolls or anything else on Azeroth.  Go big or go home.

Loke666

Originally posted by vadio123

Skys is falling?

No .... actual mmorpg players are splited in so many games

dont forget also with increased migration from mmo players to moba its going happen soon or later 

and finaly how many years wow have?

Not surprise at all

Well, it is actually pretty surprising that they lost almost half the players in 3 quarters.

Over 5 million subs is still incredible but if this trend continues things look pretty bleak.

Grailer

I didn't even really finish the last expansion that came out ,  It got really dull and old fast .

 

Would take a miracle expansion to get me back  .  If everyone thinks similar to me then apart from the Hard Core raiders which is a small percent , one might consider WOW's days are coming to an end within the next 10 years

NoxiousBass

Hum, no wonder Blizzard is going to announce the next expansion so early. Panic mode? 

RPGMASTERGAMER

if they would just release back 10% of the money they earn into contents and updates they would have better numbers.

they kinda deserve it imo and im happy, you need put back some money back into improve the game and do some real update contents for free.

hikaru77

Originally posted by Loke666

Originally posted by vadio123

Skys is falling?

No .... actual mmorpg players are splited in so many games

dont forget also with increased migration from mmo players to moba its going happen soon or later 

and finaly how many years wow have?

Not surprise at all

Well, it is actually pretty surprising that they lost almost half the players in 3 quarters.

Over 5 million subs is still incredible but if this trend continues things look pretty bleak.

The 5 mill of subs includes the asian market, and we know that the asian subs are a bit tricky.

 

strawhat0981

Originally posted by NoxiousBass
Hum, no wonder Blizzard is going to announce the next expansion so early. Panic mode? 

gervaise1

Originally posted by Loke666

 

Well, it is actually pretty surprising that they lost almost half the players in 3 quarters.

Over 5 million subs is still incredible but if this trend continues things look pretty bleak.

10M to 5.6M in 2 quarters.

killion81

Only 5.6 million...

klash2def

really tired of people bringing up pointless shit like this about wow every year. game is 10+ years old what do you expect?

its still towering over all the other games as its a beast we will never see happen again. instead of looking for its downfall that prob wont happen until they shut it down, Celebrate that you are witnessing video gaming history. No media product has been this successful for this long. I mean you have a few like harry potter, Pokemon etc.. but this is an mmo. AN MMO. Its become part of pop culture it's so iconic. Again an MMO. This prob wont happen again. Think about it

We have the Creators, fans, community and staff to thank for that. I dont even play wow anymore but i used to play constantly before wotlk came out and i must say i have yet to have a mmo game give me the "wow feeling" of being part of something that has turned into something much larger than just a niche game.  There are always going to be Earnings and Losses its called running a billion dollar company. It takes nothing away from what it really is. I dont see the point of every single year pointing out when wow has losses or gains for that manner. We have been around it long enough..played it long enough to know the cycle. Wow drops new content = subs go up. Wow patches new content = people get annoyed, some leave. Wow does final patch for new content = people complain more people leave.  People leave Wow =  let's report the earnings and subs numbers. Wow drops new content = subs go up... ETC

get over it. 

Instead of trying to point out every single thing you can about it.. why not Celebrate it, because when it's gone, you same people will be saying "things arent like when WOW was here, they were constantly trying to innovate mmos blah blah blah" 

Internet culture got excited but needs to calm down. 

 

Edit: posted here cause 2 threads going on about this.. 

bcbully

Other mmorpgs are gaining, especially in the west. What's that leave western WoW with a couple million people tops? A couple million subs of which a % don't even pay cash?

Ecoces

5.6 million for a 10 year old game when most other MMOs can barely scratch the .6 million. eh not bad

WhySoSerious

Looks like I'm not the only one who thought WoD was terrible. When you try to shoehorn shitty features like the facebook-y Garrisons into an MMO, people leave in droves. Good, now maybe Blizz will wake up and start making quality content for WoW. 

waynejr2

Originally posted by NoxiousBass

Hum, no wonder Blizzard is going to announce the next expansion so early. Panic mode? 

 

Haven't they traditionally announced a new expac a year or more before it releases?

Haven't they also said for a long time that they would like to have releases on a yearly basis?

I can understand you are so happy about this news.

Manestream

I have to agree with clash2death. WoW is what 12yrs old (i think). It's still ontop of the #1 spot where it has been since its launch, has never come close to losing that position either. Even now i think it still holds double the ammount of subscribers to its nearest rival (whichever that is).

I myself also stopped playing, i think i have played 2mths in the past year or so. Everything does come to an end eventually, its fact. It will still be around 10yrs from now, but i think most servers would be gone and the EU/US would have merged together (like all the others have done).

 

waynejr2

Originally posted by Ecoces

5.6 million for a 10 year old game when most other MMOs can barely scratch the .6 million. eh not bad

 

It seems around here that the .6 million game is a massive success but 5.6 million is a bust now days.

Nanfoodle

I really think the grind of WoW is something people just dont enjoy any more. When I get to the wall of daily quests my body starts to feel ill and I start to retaste my lunch. WoW is going to need to make it so people can get in and make a team and finish a dungeon you feel rewarded in, in under 30 min. I mean from finding a team to finish 30 min. There also needs to be that 1-3hrs content as well but being able to get my moneys worth when all I have is 30 min needs to be there. 

Also things like Crafting needs to mean something or remove it. To much of WoW is about getting something done that means nothing later. Everything needs to have meaning and WoW has lost touch with that. 

Also coming back to WoW for WoD to find little things drove me nuts. Like the amount of time I need to spend on bad and item maintenance is crazy. When playing for an evening, having to spend 20-30 min cleaning up my bags, WHO HAS TIME FOR THAT?

WoW was ground breaking 10 years ago, now its falling behind in every area of game play but IMO questing. This makes it fun to get an expansion, see the story and get out kinda game. Time to change what matters.

Volgore

My guess is that about 1/3 of those 5.6mio are western and legit subs, which is all that is relevant.

No US or EU player cares for their tweaked asian numbers that include every 5 days internetcafe-ticket as an "active sub".

 

Yaevindusk

 

Not even the offer of playing for free, nor the poor 6.2 patch (with the quarter ending a week after the patch, thus any who came back would've been there for at least three weeks thereafter) could prevent the total from rising up to nearly 5,000,000 subscriptions lost in just under six months.

 

WoD isn't worth the subscription, much less the gold it takes to buy game time.  So many people just don't care anymore, as the support of this expansion has been abysmal.  Though I'd also say that games such as FFXIV, ESO and SWTOR and their recent, frequent updates have finally managed to lure quite a bit of people away.  Granted, FFXIV had always given very meaty updates every 3 months, and SWTOR is kicking butt with their new announcements of storyline.  Even Wildstar will soon get a surge of players soon enough when it goes free.

 

The current -- unreliable -- estimate of east vs west subscription is about 80% east at the moment -- as it's easy to count such as a sub so long as they log in for one minute, as they don't purchases 30 days and can log in at any time for an hourly cost.  Though that's just from what I'm hearing from various people -- only one of whom I hold any really trust in as a source.  Prior to the nearly 5,000,000 lost, there were around 3,500,000 estimated western subs -- with 1.7 being from U.S. and 1.6 being from Europe (this may have been the figure prior to the 10 million announcement that WoD brought, as I'm having trouble finding my notes from around that time.  Typically it has been fairly even with east vs. west subs until the last year).

 

I really need to get more organized and find most of these notes and their sources.

observer

Well, most of us knew this would happen.  It will finally stabilize at a couple million, like how most MMOs out there stabilize.  It just took WoW 10 years. 

SBFord

Originally posted by klash2def

really tired of people bringing up pointless shit like this about wow every year. game is 10+ years old what do you expect?

its still towering over all the other games as its a beast we will never see happen again. instead of looking for its downfall that prob wont happen until they shut it down, Celebrate that you are witnessing video gaming history. No media product has been this successful for this long. I mean you have a few like harry potter, Pokemon etc.. but this is an mmo. AN MMO. Its become part of pop culture it's so iconic. Again an MMO. This prob wont happen again. Think about it

We have the Creators, fans, community and staff to thank for that. I dont even play wow anymore but i used to play constantly before wotlk came out and i must say i have yet to have a mmo game give me the "wow feeling" of being part of something that has turned into something much larger than just a niche game.  There are always going to be Earnings and Losses its called running a billion dollar company. It takes nothing away from what it really is. I dont see the point of every single year pointing out when wow has losses or gains for that manner. We have been around it long enough..played it long enough to know the cycle. Wow drops new content = subs go up. Wow patches new content = people get annoyed, some leave. Wow does final patch for new content = people complain more people leave.  People leave Wow =  let's report the earnings and subs numbers. Wow drops new content = subs go up... ETC

get over it. 

Instead of trying to point out every single thing you can about it.. why not Celebrate it, because when it's gone, you same people will be saying "things arent like when WOW was here, they were constantly trying to innovate mmos blah blah blah" 

Internet culture got excited but needs to calm down. 

 

Edit: posted here cause 2 threads going on about this.. 

The point of the news is the drastic drop in subs in only 10 months since WoD's launch. We're talking half a million subscriptions lost in just 10 months. This is a much more dramatic decline that has been reflected in the past during the cycle you mention.

Loke666

Originally posted by Manestream

I have to agree with clash2death. WoW is what 12yrs old (i think). It's still ontop of the #1 spot where it has been since its launch, has never come close to losing that position either. Even now i think it still holds double the ammount of subscribers to its nearest rival (whichever that is).

I myself also stopped playing, i think i have played 2mths in the past year or so. Everything does come to an end eventually, its fact. It will still be around 10yrs from now, but i think most servers would be gone and the EU/US would have merged together (like all the others have done).

10 1/2. But no-one is saying that 5.6M is a bad number, just that it is surprising they lost so many players so suddenly.

That either means that players have very suddenly lost interest in Wow or that the last expansion stunk.

And it is not good for us MMOers no matter what people think about Wow. Already are few willing to fund a MMO and this makes it even harder.

I have no doubt that the numbers will go up 25% or so again when the next expansion hits but that is a while before and it is likely that they will have lost even more players by that time.

That next expansion really needs to be awesome, if it fails Wow will be F2P, Activision wont have any other choice then.

Nanfoodle

Originally posted by Loke666

Originally posted by Manestream

I have to agree with clash2death. WoW is what 12yrs old (i think). It's still ontop of the #1 spot where it has been since its launch, has never come close to losing that position either. Even now i think it still holds double the ammount of subscribers to its nearest rival (whichever that is).

I myself also stopped playing, i think i have played 2mths in the past year or so. Everything does come to an end eventually, its fact. It will still be around 10yrs from now, but i think most servers would be gone and the EU/US would have merged together (like all the others have done).

10 1/2. But no-one is saying that 5.6M is a bad number, just that it is surprising they lost so many players so suddenly.

That either means that players have very suddenly lost interest in Wow or that the last expansion stunk.

And it is not good for us MMOers no matter what people think about Wow. Already are few willing to fund a MMO and this makes it even harder.

I have no doubt that the numbers will go up 25% or so again when the next expansion hits but that is a while before and it is likely that they will have lost even more players by that time.

That next expansion really needs to be awesome, if it fails Wow will be F2P, Activision wont have any other choice then.

 

Also its worse then it seems. Walking around servers where 1/2 the population is gone... well thats something that impacts people even with cross server play. Heck trying to sell something on the AH to get the gold you need to do things can make you cry. This is not small news. 

klash2def

Originally posted by Yaevindusk

 

Not even the offer of playing for free, nor the poor 6.2 patch (with the quarter ending a week after the patch, thus any who came back would've been there for at least three weeks thereafter) could prevent the total from rising up to nearly 5,000,000 subscriptions lost in just under six months.

 

WoD isn't worth the subscription, much less the gold it takes to buy game time.  So many people just don't care anymore, as the support of this expansion has been abysmal.  Though I'd also say that games such as FFXIV, ESO and SWTOR and their recent, frequent updates have finally managed to lure quite a bit of people away.  Granted, FFXIV had always given very meaty updates every 3 months, and SWTOR is kicking butt with their new announcements of storyline.  Even Wildstar will soon get a surge of players soon enough when it goes free.

 

The current -- unreliable -- estimate of east vs west subscription is about 80% east at the moment -- as it's easy to count such as a sub so long as they log in for one minute, as they don't purchases 30 days and can log in at any time for an hourly cost.  Though that's just from what I'm hearing from various people -- only one of whom I hold any really trust in as a source.  Prior to the nearly 5,000,000 lost, there were around 3,500,000 estimated western subs -- with 1.7 being from U.S. and 1.6 being from Europe (this may have been the figure prior to the 10 million announcement that WoD brought, as I'm having trouble finding my notes from around that time.  Typically it has been fairly even with east vs. west subs until the last year).

 

I really need to get more organized and find most of these notes and their sources.

Yo for real.. why do all these numbers matter so much to you? Where are you getting your numbers from? the CEO? Stop making reports on estimates. Nobody knows the exact numbers of what they are gaining or losing be it subs or $$.

Again why do the numbers matter. Either you play or you dont play their games. Blizzard Activision isnt hurting they are still leading the race in the mmo genre by far so whats the point of talking numbers? Lets do all this bring up numbers shit when WOW goes under 1 Million and Other MMOs start to take over their postion.. until that happens its like saying The Chicago Bulls kept winning the championship because they had MJ.. nobody cares. We know who MJ is. Lets talk about what they did when MJ left and they started losing. To discuss numbers while they are winning is futile.. they are still winning. 

Blizzard Activision's MJ is WOW. They arent losing nothing anytime soon as far as mmo's are concerned. They are making way too much money off wow to close it down anytime soon so keep coming up with all these magical numbers and "estimates" out of thin air like you people tend to do around this time of the year. Again.. Internet Culture.