Blizzard and World of Warcraft lost 300k subscribers in the second quarter of 2011, continuing its downward thread when it lost 600k in the first quarter, bringing its worldwide subscriptions number to 11.1 million. Blizzard president Michael Morhaime told Gamasutra that this is expected as it is the usual trend after the release of a major expansion, in this case Cataclysm.
“what we have seen is that subscribership tends to be seasonal and driven by content updates. So as we’re heading further away from an expansion launch, it’s normal to see some declines,”
Morhaime also stated that Blizzard is working on new content which will include a “major new raid and dungeon content” and that since the new free trial system has been released, they’ve seen a “significant increase” in WoW account creations. Although it’s too early to determine the percentage of these new accounts be become paying subscribers.
With WoW expanding further into the international markets, Morhaime see more growth ahead.
The game is just old. Its really that simple. People are moving on. 1 million is really a small loss to WoW let alone 300k.
August 4th, 2011 at 2:46 pmQuote
Excuses, excuses… WoW had been run by the ‘B’ Team for years now. The same ‘B’ Team made Cataclysm. People are starting to leave because they add new content that is the EXACT same as the old content but with different textures. Blizzard themselves have stopped caring about WoW. As soon as another descent MMO comes out WoW will lose more people, and the new expansion will not pull in as many people as before.
While I’m rooting for GW2, I can see SWTOR doing some damage as well. Though it will be a long time before anyone surpasses WoW, the process has started…
August 4th, 2011 at 10:15 pmQuote
SWTOR will, if it delivers on something like 75-80 % of the promises BW has made, easily half the number of WoW players in EU and NA – and I think that a lot of people will play both, which will be the saving grace for Blizzard. SWTOR will probably out-sell Cataclysm, if you believe EA claims about pre-orders. 2-3 million pre-order attempts already, when they sell just 500 000. GW2 might take a bite too, but because of it’s different take on payment model, it’s more easily a second game.
Blizzard should probably take WoW to consoles to keep the money flowing in.
August 5th, 2011 at 10:51 amQuote