Warlords has lost 3m subs in 3 months... WoW
Wow.
Not the game, just pure unadulterated astonishment. Wow.
3 Million subscribers in 3 months since the last subs call. Thats....amazing, and not in a good way. If you want the full details straight from the horse's mouth, you can get the press release here (pdf), (update: with the more easily digestible slideshow info here).
For the rest of you, the figures quoted at Warlords' launch (and the latest subs call) was "over" 10 million subscribers (if you remember as I do, they did say over 10 million), and the figures just released this evening confirm that the game now has 7.1 million active subscribers. And yes, players in the East (IE China/Korea etc) get the blame for the majority of the losses. Again. If that was actually always the case when they stated it then surely the East must be into negative subscriber numbers by now?
Anyhoo, sad as it is, I'm never big enough to resist saying I told you so, but.... yeah.
In a few months we are likely to be below 6 million subs again. People are leaving/quitting/stopping playing in droves at the moment, and as mentioned earlier, guilds are collapsing as a result and the game feels barren of content and players. Blizzard’s lack of commentary on this is also telling, because you know when they’re not talking about something that’s of concern to a lot of the players still left, then that’s concerning.
I know I said in a few months (from then) we'd be below 6 million, and if we continue losing 1 million subscribers a month, because that's the leaving rate at the moment, by the time 6.2 crawls its way out of Blizzards festering underbelly, then that's exactly the situation we will be finding ourselves in.
On the bright side...
WoW Tokens may help to shore up the exodus, hence their speedy introduction, but their introduction won't have had the slightest bit of impact on these figures, as they were introduced after the end of March 2015 when these figures are including up to.
Speaking of WoW Tokens, they've been a handy introduction, both for sellers and buyers. I've bought 4 from Blizzard and made 170k gold selling them so far. I've got the spare cash atm so why the hell not. I've been able to buy myself some fun stuff, like an Ethereal Soul Trader, which I've wanted for ages, along with some mounts and other pets, mainly from TCG origins.
But gold making in general has been pretty easy this expansion, which has been fun. Making over 2000 gold per day on 2 characters just from garrison follower missions means it's just flowing in, and getting to the point where it's starting to become meaningless. No, I'm nowhere near the gold cap atm (I have about 350k atm, and had about 400k this morning before buying the above mentioned pets & mount), but I imagine that players with a server full of 100's with level 3 garrisons and full suites of Treasure Hunters are just...
So will 6.2 be enough to shore up the game in the longer term?
Well it's definitely starting to look as though it's going to be the final patch of the expansion. With the legendary ring quest chain reaching its conclusion, and Archimonde appearing as the final Hellfire Citadel boss, all the signs are certainly pointing that way.
If 6.2 comes out in June, as it must if we're still to have a subscriber base left, then that gives us a potential for an Xmas expansion launch of whatever comes next, announced of course some time before at the next Blizzcon.
Put your money on it Scrooge McDuck.
Let's just hope the next expansion follows the Star Trek film production philosophy, as WoW expansion packs have done thus far, alternating between good and bad since Wrath.
Wrath: Good
Cata: Bad
Mists: Great
WoD: God awful
Next? Fucking amazing? Please Blizz?
Anyway, that's the current state of the game, and I don't think anyone that's been playing in WoD has been greatly shocked by the announcement today. Nope, not at all.
(Update: Edited the article slightly, as I had the quarter in mind when writing this, and of course it launched 6 months ago)
(Update 2: @matthewwrossi was wrong on twitter, I was right, the last subs call stated that WoW had retained the 10 million subs, 3m of which it lost since)