Blizzard hemorrhages more subscribers

Post by Lewis
Blizzard subscribers to WoW are now the lowest they've been since 1.x. I
don't have the number handy, but they are about 50% of what they were at
the end of 2014.

5.6 millions according to mmo.

--
Peter T.

r***@gmail.com

2015-08-06 00:43:44 UTC

On Wed, 5 Aug 2015 21:18:08 +0000 (UTC), Lewis

Post by Lewis
Blizzard subscribers to WoW are now the lowest they've been since 1.x. I
don't have the number handy, but they are about 50% of what they were at
the end of 2014.

What are your metrics to make such a claim..?

I can't say I'm surprised, but I'ld like to know how you came by your
numbers. I rarely see lower level players too

vetred, on the Steamwheedle server

Peter T.

2015-08-06 01:01:18 UTC

Post by r***@gmail.com
On Wed, 5 Aug 2015 21:18:08 +0000 (UTC), Lewis

Post by Lewis
Blizzard subscribers to WoW are now the lowest they've been since 1.x. I
don't have the number handy, but they are about 50% of what they were at
the end of 2014.

What are your metrics to make such a claim..?
I can't say I'm surprised, but I'ld like to know how you came by your
numbers. I rarely see lower level players too

<http://www.mmo-champion.com/content/5063-WoW-Down-to-5-6-Million-Subscribers>

--
Peter T.

Catriona R

2015-08-06 01:06:45 UTC

Post by r***@gmail.com
On Wed, 5 Aug 2015 21:18:08 +0000 (UTC), Lewis

Post by Lewis
Blizzard subscribers to WoW are now the lowest they've been since 1.x. I
don't have the number handy, but they are about 50% of what they were at
the end of 2014.

What are your metrics to make such a claim..?
I can't say I'm surprised, but I'ld like to know how you came by your
numbers. I rarely see lower level players too

http://www.mmo-champion.com/content/5063-WoW-Down-to-5-6-Million-Subscribers

Surprised the drop was so much; I'd thought the release of 6.2 and the
WoW token would've slowed the drop a bit more than that, this is
actually worse than it was during the year plus of SoO, which is
really not at all good for Blizz, when even the core who stuck with
the game for over a year of the same patch are now unsubbing. Sadly
with the state of the game as it's been this expansion, a drop is
inevitable, I only hope it doesn't have a knock-on effect of making
them put less dev time into WoW and putting us into a spiral of ever
declining subs/ever declining quality.

IYM

2015-08-06 16:01:11 UTC

Post by r***@gmail.com
On Wed, 5 Aug 2015 21:18:08 +0000 (UTC), Lewis

Post by Lewis
Blizzard subscribers to WoW are now the lowest they've been since 1.x. I
don't have the number handy, but they are about 50% of what they were at
the end of 2014.

What are your metrics to make such a claim..?
I can't say I'm surprised, but I'ld like to know how you came by your
numbers. I rarely see lower level players too

http://www.mmo-champion.com/content/5063-WoW-Down-to-5-6-Million-Subscribers
Surprised the drop was so much; I'd thought the release of 6.2 and the
WoW token would've slowed the drop a bit more than that, this is
actually worse than it was during the year plus of SoO, which is
really not at all good for Blizz, when even the core who stuck with
the game for over a year of the same patch are now unsubbing. Sadly
with the state of the game as it's been this expansion, a drop is
inevitable, I only hope it doesn't have a knock-on effect of making
them put less dev time into WoW and putting us into a spiral of ever
declining subs/ever declining quality.

Hey all - The thread looked interesting so I popped back in....

That chart on the mmo-champion link was very telling indeed. The rise
and fall of the subs alone is not the most interesting aspect for me
personally, but the payable timeline across the bottom. WoD has lost
the most amount of subscribers in the shorted amount of time. Blizzard
spinning it as 'expected rise and drop as is usual with a release'
(non-quote) seems to be untrue. That chart shows a continuous rise of
subs from Vanilla right through Wrath. The first drop was shortly after
Cata was released. According to those numbers, there have only been two
bumps (Mop & Wod) followed by the 'expected drop off', not the 'every
expansion" spin by Blizz. That indicates to me that there are people
out there who really want to play but that the quality of play the last
three releases has been suffering.

Times are also different than they were 5-10 years ago, in that there
are so many other ways of holding peoples attention now (smart phones,
tablets mobile apps, etc) that holding the interest of a player to sit
in front of a pc every day for 3-4 hours and still maintain a 10-12 mil
sub base is unrealistic. If you think back to 2005-2006, everybody was
so into their PC's... (getting it faster, better ram, better graphics
card, etc) and the ability to play a game with millions from all around
the globe due to a lot of people finally having access to high speed
internet. (I was still using dial-up in 2002 in my area).

Towards my last days of playing (mid MoP), I was doing something in game
with a friend of mine flying over one of the old vanilla areas, talking
about the 'old days' when he said "Remember when we had to huff this out
on foot?" The "brown horse" you could buy at the stables near stormwind
was my most prized possession for a very long time. Gold was hard to
get (without cheating) and the mount seemed so damn expensive.
Everything required hard/long work to get and it was very satisfying
when you accomplished it.... I can't imagine people nowadays being
willing to spend 30 real minutes to run to the next town on foot....

Ah well - Good to see some of you are still around. This probably my 1
post for the year! lol....

Catriona R

2015-08-06 17:45:37 UTC

Post by IYM
Hey all - The thread looked interesting so I popped back in....

Good to hear from you! :-)

Post by IYM
That chart on the mmo-champion link was very telling indeed. The rise
and fall of the subs alone is not the most interesting aspect for me
personally, but the payable timeline across the bottom. WoD has lost
the most amount of subscribers in the shorted amount of time. Blizzard
spinning it as 'expected rise and drop as is usual with a release'
(non-quote) seems to be untrue. That chart shows a continuous rise of
subs from Vanilla right through Wrath. The first drop was shortly after
Cata was released. According to those numbers, there have only been two
bumps (Mop & Wod) followed by the 'expected drop off', not the 'every
expansion" spin by Blizz. That indicates to me that there are people
out there who really want to play but that the quality of play the last
three releases has been suffering.

Yep. I personally found MoP great, by contrast, WoD, well, I probably
shouldn't still be paying for my 2nd account at present, I use it so
rarely. This drop is not "expected" at all based on past experience,
the big drops should happn at the end of an expansion, not while
content is still being actively released for it: that 5.6 million was
one week after a major content patch, how low would it've been had the
patch been a couple of weeks later...? I don't really want to know
tbh.

Post by IYM
Towards my last days of playing (mid MoP), I was doing something in game
with a friend of mine flying over one of the old vanilla areas, talking
about the 'old days' when he said "Remember when we had to huff this out
on foot?" The "brown horse" you could buy at the stables near stormwind
was my most prized possession for a very long time. Gold was hard to
get (without cheating) and the mount seemed so damn expensive.
Everything required hard/long work to get and it was very satisfying
when you accomplished it.... I can't imagine people nowadays being
willing to spend 30 real minutes to run to the next town on foot....

True indeed. I've been having a look at vanilla again recently and my
goodness i forgot how many quests involved walking to the far side of
humungous zones to talk to someone (of course the only flightpath is
flippin' miles away!), and theng etting sent back where you came from,
or else to somewhere even further away. Now I actually love it for the
exploration side of things, but my goodness it's slow, and I do find
it kinda tedious at times. I suspect that nostalgia is more the reason
for me sticking with it than it actually being that compelling after
several years of knowing much better ;-)

Post by IYM
Ah well - Good to see some of you are still around. This probably my 1
post for the year! lol....

Hehe, well I hope you continue to drop in - it's always good to hear
from you and Urbin, and anyone else who visits, there's not many of us
left here these days (Usenet is even more unfashionable than
subscription MMOs it seems!) so good to bring back old days hearing
from you guys :-)

Urbin

2015-08-07 06:27:32 UTC

Post by IYM
Hey all - The thread looked interesting so I popped back in....

/wave

Post by IYM
That chart on the mmo-champion link was very telling indeed. The rise
and fall of the subs alone is not the most interesting aspect for me
personally, but the payable timeline across the bottom. The first drop
was shortly after Cata was released. According to those numbers, there
have only been two bumps (Mop & Wod) followed by the 'expected drop off',
not the 'every expansion" spin by Blizz.

I belong to those contributing to that first drop during Cata and the two
bumps for Mop and Wod.

Post by IYM
That indicates to me that there are people out there who really want to
play but that the quality of play the last three releases has been
suffering

I am sure that is true. On the other hand everyone seems to be forgetting
that the game has been out for more than ten years. Sure, there have been
expansions every once in a while. But in principle it's still the same world
(with new bits tacked on), the same base lore (with new lines added), the
same concept (with various adjustments). How many other games can claim to
still be played 10 years after release by a very significant number of
players (and I consider >5 million to be significant).

Post by IYM
Times are also different than they were 5-10 years ago, in that there
are so many other ways of holding peoples attention now (smart phones,
tablets mobile apps, etc) that holding the interest of a player to sit
in front of a pc every day for 3-4 hours and still maintain a 10-12 mil
sub base is unrealistic.

Exactly. Some might realise that spending 180 days in a game in just under 6
years is not healthy (my total /played when I stopped; I'm sure others
racked up much more), some might be told the same by their spouses (as was
the case with me), others might get bored after a while (I hadn't) and
others stop playing because the quality is no longer what they are used to.
And of course I'm sure there are combinations of all of the above.

Right. At the time it felt epic and right (and often annoying :-). Many of
the changes made and being complained about now are actually improvements
compared to vanilla (though probably not all). And probably part of the
balance act Blizz has to take. On the one hand, to many of us old hands the
game feels like having been "dumbed down", made too easy. On the other hand,
it probably is the only way of even having a remote chance of getting even a
small number of new players to try out the game.

Think what it would be like with the whole population at 100 starting out at
level 1 in a vanilla starting zone, making your way up at the original
levelling speed, faltering at the group quests because noone else is around
etc...

Of course the numbers are telling. On the one hand they tell us that the
last two expansions weren't as well received as those before. But they also
tell us that WoW has probably run its time (or is getting closer to it)
purely due to its age. It's also telling us that adding an expansion to an
existing game is not the same as a totally new game.

It is something I had expected to happen sooner, to be honest. I am amazed
they managed to pull it off this long (and actually are still pulling it off
with a subscriber base that is much larger than that of many other games).

Post by IYM
Ah well - Good to see some of you are still around.

Same here. I'm still lurking for the good old times' sake, even though I'm
not playing (and likely won't come back for the next expansion, though I
said that about WoD, too :-)

Cheers
Urbin

Ashen Shugar

2015-08-07 10:37:39 UTC

I think it was Urbin <***@invalid.invalid> that wrote something
like...

Post by Urbin
Of course the numbers are telling. On the one hand they tell us that the
last two expansions weren't as well received as those before. But they also
tell us that WoW has probably run its time (or is getting closer to it)
purely due to its age. It's also telling us that adding an expansion to an
existing game is not the same as a totally new game.
It is something I had expected to happen sooner, to be honest. I am amazed
they managed to pull it off this long (and actually are still pulling it off
with a subscriber base that is much larger than that of many other games).

I didn't make it to the endgame content for MoP and have only heard
about WoD in here so I can't be sure, but I personally suspect that a
lot of the drop off is less that expansions aren't as good as previous
ones and more that as you say, they are just expansions and not
totally new games. If WoD came out instead of WotLK say, I imagine
subscribers would still be on the rise because the game as a whole was
still relatively "fresh" and not dropping because WoD "isn't that
good". Of course, that's only a guess at a hypothetical situation.
Maybe WoD really does actually suck. ; )

Ashen Shugar

--
The lions sing and the hills take flight.
The moon by day, and the sun by night.
Blind woman, deaf man, jackdaw fool.
Let the Lord of Chaos rule!

Catriona R

2015-08-07 13:36:21 UTC

Post by Ashen Shugar
like...

My take is WoD is the weakest expansion there's ever been, and I am
still a big fan of the game. But, I'm probably comparing it to MoP
which is the best one there's ever been (for my playstyle, and really
I never saw anything much wrong with it for others either, the bits
most whined about were entirely avoidable), and memories of older
expansions are fainter, so I'm quite probably not able to judge
perfectly fairly.

Plus vanilla through to Wrath I had people to group with most the time
which meant the emphasis on group content was less annoying. WoD just
forgot about soloable content and completely forgot to give any story
outside of group content at max lvl, so for me, who likes seeing
storylines and soloing stuff, it's boring as heck. Oh yeah, I'm still
subbed... but playing old content more than new - patch 6.2 actually
got me back into Draenor for about a month, but I'm about done there
now.

Good to see you again though! :-)

Urbin

2015-08-07 14:47:49 UTC

Post by Ashen Shugar
Ashen Shugar

Hey, it's good to see you are still hanging round, too!
/wave

Cheers
Urbin

Ashen Shugar

2015-08-08 07:30:25 UTC

I think it was Urbin <***@invalid.invalid> that wrote something
like...

Post by Ashen Shugar
Ashen Shugar

Hey, it's good to see you are still hanging round, too!
/wave
Cheers
Urbin

: )

There's been a lot of marking all read, but I've kept an eye on here.
I'm almost getting tempted enough to get WoD. A week ago I used up
some gold to get back into the game and finished getting my main up to
90, though still haven't gotten to the MoP end-game area's or
anything.
Diablo3 has been a bit more distracting when I actually play a game
but more often I'm reading web-novels in my spare time.
I really should be spending more of my spare time writing my own
computer games though.

Ashen Shugar

--
The lions sing and the hills take flight.
The moon by day, and the sun by night.
Blind woman, deaf man, jackdaw fool.
Let the Lord of Chaos rule!

Catriona R

2015-08-07 13:31:06 UTC

My answer to that one is: how much time do most non-gamers spend
sitting in front of the television? Probably comparable, if not
higher, just the tv doesn't have a /played feature! 180 days in 6
years means 30 days a year; 720 hours into 365 days isn't even 2 hours
a day. Many many people spend a LOT more time than that staring at a
square box in their living room, so no, I'd say you spent the time
much more contrustively, by exercising your brain and interacting with
other human beings rather than being a vegetable :-)

I've found it fascinating seeing vanilla again and the quality of life
improvements made since then. Back then, most of us knew no different
so just accepted everything but now, a lot of things feel very clunky:
running back and forth across huge maps for quests, no autoloot (which
I suspect partially contributed to me getting really sore
writsts/fingers back in vanilla, which never did fully recover -
pickpocketing without autoloot just sucks...), not enough quests in
any one zone to level you up for long, so a lot of jumping between
zones, no group finder, so hours watching chat for the one place you
need to come up...

On the flipside, I still don't understand why skilling lockpicking got
removed; that was a nice flavour deal that had no impact on gameplay
outside of opening boxes, so I'm glad to just have that back! And I
actually like oldstyle gear that had varying stats of every type on,
rather than modern gear which aways has a set amount of stamina for
the ilvl, always has a set amount of your mainstat for the ilvl.. it's
boring. Old gear looked nicer too; sure, lower res, but it had
personality, and looked distinctive - you can see at a glance what
people are wearing, and usually identify the class at a glance too
(usually; I do keep mistaking feral druids for rogues :-D); nowadays
that only works on people who are transmogged to older sets.

Post by Urbin
Think what it would be like with the whole population at 100 starting out at
level 1 in a vanilla starting zone, making your way up at the original
levelling speed, faltering at the group quests because noone else is around
etc...

Hah, very few modern day players would last long; I'm only sticking
with it for nostalgia, I suspect :-)

True, 10 years is very impressive, it's just sad to see it dropping so
much now, having held relatively steady for ages before WoD. MoP was a
steady decline, this is a freefall...

Urbin

2015-08-07 14:47:12 UTC

Post by Catriona R

True for many, I guess. I've never been a big watcher of telly and my former
wow time is now spent with the kids, the wife or out in the fresh air, so it
was definitely a turn for the "socially more acceptable" :-)

Cheers
Urbin

Catriona R

2015-08-07 15:07:48 UTC

Hehe fair enough in your case then :-) I think the majority of people
quite easily watch more tv than you played WoW though, so comments
about gaming being unhealthy (from non-gamers who really don't
understand gaming) are a bit frustrating to read, as I know it's done
me a lot of good, reducing my social isolation and making me think
more, improving hand/eye coordination and the like :-)

Ashen Shugar

2015-08-08 07:38:17 UTC

I think it was Catriona R <***@totalise.co.uk> that wrote
something like...

Most people are probably viewing it as sitting down with the family to
watch television versus sitting down by yourself to play a computer
game while the family does something completely different. Which in
that actual case, is fair enough. There's likely interaction during
the commercial breaks and such. But of course, that's not the only
way it happens. Some people might be completely ignoring their family
while watching tv, or even yelling at em to shut up, etc while the
person playing the computer game might be playing it with their spouse
and children like one of guildies did all the time. As you say, when
people only consider that first case and assume everyone's like that,
it could well be quite frustrating.

Ashen Shugar

--
The lions sing and the hills take flight.
The moon by day, and the sun by night.
Blind woman, deaf man, jackdaw fool.
Let the Lord of Chaos rule!

Peter T.

2015-08-07 13:48:35 UTC

Have you considered Elder Scrolls Online? It should very WoW
vanilla'ish. I've only heard good about the game from other WoW
players. The player pool should also be quite mature.

Post by IYM
Ah well - Good to see some of you are still around. This probably my 1
post for the year! lol....

--
Peter T.

Lewis

2015-08-06 05:16:22 UTC

Post by r***@gmail.com
On Wed, 5 Aug 2015 21:18:08 +0000 (UTC), Lewis

Post by Lewis
Blizzard subscribers to WoW are now the lowest they've been since 1.x. I
don't have the number handy, but they are about 50% of what they were at
the end of 2014.

What are your metrics to make such a claim..?

10 million subs at the end of 2014. 5 million something now. (5.6
million). The last time numbers were that low was Jan 2006.

Post by r***@gmail.com
I can't say I'm surprised, but I'ld like to know how you came by your
numbers. I rarely see lower level players too

I didn't come by the numbers, Blizzard/Activision announced the
plummet in subscribers in their quarterly figures.

--
Quis custodiet opsos custodes

Peter T.

2015-08-06 12:59:28 UTC

Post by Lewis
10 million subs at the end of 2014. 5 million something now. (5.6
million). The last time numbers were that low was Jan 2006.

From 10 million in november/december til 5.6 million subs in 7-8 months...!

--
Peter T.

Catriona R

2015-08-06 13:05:02 UTC

Post by Lewis
10 million subs at the end of 2014. 5 million something now. (5.6
million). The last time numbers were that low was Jan 2006.

From 10 million in november/december til 5.6 million subs in 7-8 months...!

Horrendous drop, yep, even if you allow for some of it being people
who were unsubbed before WD (which did have a spike of +3 million),
came back for a month or two and left again, it's still lost a lot
over the end of MoP... and 14 months of the same patch was a pretty
valid reason for people to unsub; we're only 8 months into this whole
expansion...

Really hope whatever Blizz announce today will be much better, and
actually have decent max lvl gameplay to get the game out of this
slide. Not that the announcement itself will make a difference; so
many have lost trust in Blizz that not much will change till it's
actually out and people are playing it.

Lewis

2015-08-06 14:47:03 UTC

Post by Lewis
10 million subs at the end of 2014. 5 million something now. (5.6
million). The last time numbers were that low was Jan 2006.

From 10 million in november/december til 5.6 million subs in 7-8 months...!

6 months. These are quarterly announcements.

--
"One of the great tragedies of life is the murder of a beautiful theory
by a gang of brutal facts." - Benjamin Franklin

Peter T.

2015-08-06 15:43:08 UTC

Post by Lewis