Blizzard: Yes, some players left for AoC

Say whatever you will about Age of Conan, but it's been one of the only games to actually put a tangible dent in Blizzard's ten million ton monster truck of an MMO, World of Warcraft. The news came from Blizzard president Mike Morhaime who recently said on an Activision Blizzard earnings call, "Age of Conan released with some initial success a couple of months ago, and we did see some of our players leave to try the game. However, we've seen about 40 percent of those players return to World of Warcraft." We know that Age of Conan saw about 700,000 players jumping into the game during its first month on the market. What we don't know is how many of those players were World of Warcraft vets. It must have been fairly substantial though for Morhaime to have even mentioned it at all.

With Warhammer Online purportedly coming out sometime this September we're wondering how many players will go and stay gone this time around, especially with Wrath of the Lich King hot on its heels. It's certainly going to be an interesting holiday season this year.