World of Warcraft sheds another 100,000 subscriptions

Everyone is pretty certain that the next World of Warcraft expansion is going to be announced very soon. Tomorrow, probably. So it serves as an interesting counterpoint to note that the game has lost 100,000 subscribers over the past three months, dropping the game's total to 7.6 million subscribers and serving as a rather inelegant coda to the game's most recent expansion, Mists of Pandaria. Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick stated the numbers during a post-earnings call while noting that "new and exciting content" is on the way for the game.

While 7.6 million subscribers is still more than enough to make hats out of money, it's a far cry from the game's subscription height. It remains to be seen whether or not the next expansion will help launch the game back upward or not -- and whether the game is currently undergoing a slump or is simply beginning to decline.