Declines in user hours can spell trouble for sharded MMOs
WoW
user hours (for USA users) have declined from August to September - by 18%, according to Xfire. No big dig at World of Warcraft, though. After all, they still have more USA subscribers than the USA has farmers [language warning], and most everyone slid a bit in the same period as school terms picked up again, so WoW is holding its own.
MMO blogger Tobold observes that declining server populations/user hours have some issues quite distinct from overpopulation.
Already sparsely occupied zones (ie: The ones below the level cap) get sparser. It's harder to find people to group with; You spend more time going solo; The server doesn't get any cheaper to run whether it's running one character or one thousand; The player economy gets all out of whack; And, my god, simply the number of staff Blizzard has behind the curtain.
The first M in MMO is for Massively - and declining populations can lead to a loss of one of the key factors that keeps people coming back. It need not actually even be a real loss of subscribers. Even if the number of actual subscribers is growing, if you can't find anyone in your area/level range to play with when you want to, you're just not having a Massive experience now, are you?
