World of Warcraft Loses More than 500,000 Players in Six Months - News

Kinda simple answer to this. A lot of players cancels the sub when they aren't playing: For instance when it's been a while since last real content patch. Not talking about Zandalari, but raid content. Like me, I cancel when it's been a while ago. and when the numbers was present this time around, they was at the end of a patch, which means a lot will resub when the Firelands patch hits. This always happens, and shouldn't be anything new.

So showing these numbers basicly show how many is geared up for Firelands and just sitting and waiting :p

Oh my! Where could they have put them?

I quit after 3 years. Mainly because all my friends quit and my wife & I had a child. No time to play, so it was just a waste of money. I would love to try one of the new MMO's coming out like RIFT or SW: The Old Republic, but I know I wouldn't be able to play them hardcore like I want. After my little one gets older and starts school, I might be able to play.

600,000 people ran out of money

I think this is largely just natural. At any period of time, there's bound to be fluctuations in the amount of players playing.

While it's not a perfect analogy, you could have a view at Team Fortress 2, or other Steam games. The fluctuations in amount of people playing varies by around 20% month by month, even in periods where there are no updates released (Steam actually releases these numbers). Naturally, there's a slight difference between WoW and TF2, as you pay a monthly fee or WoW, but it would be incredibly strange if WoW didn't have any fluctuations.

In other words: The moment they went out and said "We're over 12 million!" they were probably at a peak. Nearly the entire rest of the time, I'd think they'll be lying below that by quite a large number, possibly even 10%.

I doubt it is as this article portrays it, that people are abandoning WoW. A 5% drop in 6 months just seems far, far more likely to be due to temporary fluctuations than a permanent decrease.

More MMO's on the market and people getting tired of the same old same old. Possibly tons of "second" accounts closed as well? Didn't Blizzard say they would be cracking down on the gold farmers? Could be a lot of those as well.

Either way even if they dropped to say 8 or 9 million subscribers they would still be rolling in the dough.

I knew something was up when all the Starcraft 2 accounts came with a free month of WOW.

I never liked that game. Too bad that SE screwed up with FF IV...

I never liked that game. Too bad that SE screwed up with FF IV...

A lot of WoW players went to the F2P Lord of the Rings Online, and have been blown away by how much better lotro is.

i had looked forward to Cataclysm like a little child on Christmas, but sadly i grew bored of the content within 2 months and have been on hiatus since only logging on to talk to my guild, and then 3 weeks ago i cancelled my account and havent logged on since then.

After 6 years I finally quit for good back in early feb. There is just no new significant content, the last expansion was the worst so far and they have dumbed the game down so much that it is no longer a challenge, even the worst and most clueless person can succeed without much difficulty.

hopefully they are going to Rift

The game is 6 yrs old, and isn't changing much. Time to stop beating the dead horse and making the next big thing.

My gut reaction is that 5% of the player base is sick of 95% of the player base ... but since that's completely impossible (100% of WoW players are not all playing together), who knows why it's shrinking?

Boohoo, means Kotick gets to buy a few tons less of truffles this year, game still makes shitloads.

diablo 3 beta should start some where around September..

Could be a lot of users doing like my son did.
He hadn't played it for a couple of years but decided to buy the new expansion and a months subscription, then discovered it's exactly the same gameplay as before so didn't want to play it again.

With their next MMO Titan coming out in possible 2013-14, they shouldn't be too worried. Its not like they're going to cry with like 9 million or so subscribers when their next one launches lol.
I played Cata for a month after it launched and quickly got bored of it. It was probably because there was so much other good games around that i started playing those and decided it was time to leave WoW. I find it too hard to play wow in short bursts lol.
Still the best MMO in my opinion though.

THE 600,000 + USERS HAVE GONE TO THE CALL OF DUTY BANDWAGON. I would know because i joined them. WOW just got old...

You should take into consideration that a game should increase users, so I'd say its lost 800-1m potential users(I don't kno much about WoW, so this is My opinion)

It will decline, but what do you think Blizzard have been doing the last 7 years since WOW release, Working on an new WOW, as well as the updates and patches.

that's 5% in half a year. I call it a significant loss.

Ha! I knew the game would be a complete failure!

What I think they need to work on is 1. Character Customization. Make it so that players feel connected with their characters on a personal level. The artwork of the game has become boring to explore. They have to make it attractive. There are many places in the game that feels dead as well. Some of us do not get a slight level of excitement anymore while traveling. The game feels more like a time machine rather than a traveling game. Everything you do in the game has come to the point where you simply click on a portal and click to the destination. I know they are trying to cater to the casual market but eventually the veterans will get bored and quit. More often than not , the game feels more like a chore than a sense of accomplishment. I do not know why but the fun factor is not like the way it use to be like it was in Burning Crusade.

I think Blizzard should have split WoW into 2 groups / games... WoW "classic" for the more casual or inexperienced players, and WoW "pro" or whatever with all the expansions / updates for the hardcore crackheads who play it non-stop. This would lower the barrier of entry for newbies to the game and keep them separated from the crackheads, while simultaneously pleasing the crackheads with more crack, er, content.

Either way, screw WoW and just focus on Diablo III... I can't wait till it comes out so I can go back to trolling dungeons for tons of random loot again.

I stopped playing after killing the Lich King in the last expansion, I still play SC2 and other games with all my old guild mates, but even about half of them have since quit the game. They are just annoyed at the lack of new content since the expansion, and the direction the game is taking.

This isn't a big surprise. Me and most of my friends have quit this game. I would consider some of us the hardest of the hardcore and have put 1000s of hours into this game. But we just got bored with nothing new coming out and we became tired of pvp getting treated like a second class citizen.

Man that's crazy. I personally have stopped playing only cause I can't afford it. Over 1/2 million!

The entry price for new WoW players is way too f'n high. That's a big problem. WoW Classic + Burning Crusade + Lich King + Cataclysm combined is a lot of dough up front. Though a friend of mine who played WoW for many years off and on mentioned that you could probably get away with starting off with just Classic (or alternatively you can get the Battle Chest with Burning Crusade) and working your way up to the later expansions as you progress in the game and want to continue with the new content.

I probably would never get WoW because I'm only really interested in solo play. I don't like the nature of MMOs. I'm not interested in dealing with all that stupid "zomg healer/tank you got us killed" drama I hear about from this game. I tried a 10 day free trial and played up to like lv 9/10 in one or two gaming sessions solo and then never played it again.

Personally, I know of multiple people who jumped ship once Cataclysm came out, simply because they thought the game got 'dumbed down'. Still others resumed their subscriptions once Cataclysm came out, only to quit about 3-4 weeks later after beating all the new content.

I think WoW has just hit the same problem as all MMOs. It dumbed down some of its content to appeal to the greater 'casual' players and alienated its core fanbase who would spend 10-15 hours a day on the game. And some of those 'casual' players are leaving because they finished the easy content.

Still, 500,000 users leaving out of the supposed 12 million is not much. Oh but don't tell me, that whole '12 Million players' campaign was an inflated number of ALL users who have ever signed up with the game. Say it isn't so Blizzard! You hid the truth!

11.4 million isn't really dying. Yes but I agree within 10 years they're won't be many people playing this game. But 11.4 million isn't bad we are in a global recession right now anyways.

“graduating” from the game and looking for the next big MMO

Wtf is that suppose to mean ._., GEEZ! VGChartz articles are soo terrible

EQ ftw always was/will be

Should be 11.4m lower...

I play WoW everyday for 4 to 6 hours on a large US realm that was brought online at the launch of WoW in November 2004.

Here is what I have seen. From about January to the release of patch 4.1 on April 26, 2011, my census add-on (CensusPlus) showed a decline from 15k Alliance players down to around 11.5k. Once 4.1 was released the numbers since have rising to around 14.5k Alliance players.

In no way what I am saying is 100% factual as I can only track one half of the server I play on and there are dozens of servers.

So is it dying? I think it is in the beginning stages of morbidity. Here are the main problems I see with WoW:

1. Too high entry price.
   
   If you are a new player to WoW, then you have to not only pay for WoW and Cata, but for The Burning Crusade and Wrath of the Lich King as well. This could put the entry level price just for the game discs over $100.
   

2. The WoW Community
   
   The WoW community is atrocious, selfish, and tyrannical. Players will occasionally try kick players from groups for not tanking or healing like a player who does so for a high end, progression raiding guild. Raids can devolve into blamefests where after wiping on a boss, the raid leader will get on his podium and act like an inquisitor asking "Who is going to take the blame. Who messed up!"
   
   In a group endeavor, rarely is one person at fault. Almost always you have two or more members of the group messing up.
   
   Other than that WoW is fine.

Losing 500,000 for them isn't too bad considering the user base but there is a lot of great competiation that I actually think surpasses them this day and age. For more traditional games you have rift which i could to play momentarily at my girlfriends house. I have to say that was a lot better than I expected. If you want something new in the MMO field there is Vindictus which i have to say is better than any pay to play MMO i've ever seen and has better graphics as well which even give FFXIV a run for the money. With free to play ones like LOTR and Ever quest 2 as well I'm surprised more haven't switched.

Cata has been some of the most fun I've had playing WoW since launch in November of 2004. With some of the most recent patches the graphics have been updated to match many games seen on the 360, and now with Direct X11 support, it looks even more stellar. Like someone else said, when you have over 12 million users losing 500k is hardly a big deal at all. Barely even noticeable on my server which is flooded with people, all still enjoying it immensely.

Losing 500,000 isnt much when you have over 12 million to begin with. For other MMOs out that would spell disaster. I have played it on and off since 2006, i really liked the revamp in GFX they did with cata and the newest patch bringing back some classic dungeons with heroics is a good move.

Dont forget Rift coming out in that time. That game gives wow a run for its money, considering it is a game that was released in 2004, before even the xbox 360, Rift is a fresh MMO that isnt going to take a big learning curve to switch from wow to rift. at the moment im not playing any mmo, just enjoying other games for a bit.

Im keeping a keen eye for the star wars mmo, it could be promising.

It just proves, that games aren't great because of their stellar graphics. WoW has a deep robust leveling system, multiple character skill sets, multiple characters to play and an experience that makes you want to never stop playing. And when you do inevitably stop playing for the day, you can't wait to get back to it tomorrow, because there's always something uber fun to do! Impressive visuals in other games, help us gamers to overlook the poor gameplay elements or lackluster story, or low level of fun for that matter, simply because it looks hyper-realistic.

Take a tip from WoW....make games fun, that have lasting appeal first and foremost, then put the spit polish on it, and you'll sell millions.

It's about time. For the graphics it had, it lasted way too long.

Nothing lasts forever. I think the fact that they still have that many this far on is rather impressive. But no matter how many add-ons or updates they make, they will end up losing people to newer and more interesting games. Hell, Blizzard seems to understand that themselves, as they're already making a new MMO for the next couple years. 600k isn't a tonne when you're sporting those sorts of numbers, but I'd be willing to wager that the number of emigrants will grow over the next while, until they get something else cool coming in.

It's just natural entropy. Even if the whole thing came apart tomorrow, though, they've still had a pretty damned impressive run.

I think that the number probably went far past the core number when Cataclysm came out. Probably a lot of people jumped back in to check out all the new stuff and play the new quests. once those people maxed out their old characters (which I believe you can restart from where they were, even if you end your account), they probably quit again, and went back to what ever they were doing. You'll probably see 600k join back in once a new expansion comes out, then leave after 6 months again. I'm sure this happens every time.

The game is soon 7 years old. It's amazing that it's not going down faster.

I left before burning crusade... came back with a 6 month subscription and only played 5... i'm betting that this is a bit of what happends... constant grinding for better items to see them be ridiculed by green stuff a few months later is kinda disapointing.