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World of Warcraft passes 10 million subscribers
In a press release today, Blizzard Entertainment announced that WoW's total subscribers are now up over 10 million players. This comes on the wave of selling 3.3 million copies of Warlords of Draenor. This confirms vague statements issued by community managers and other Blizzard people over the last week -- that things have gotten quite busy around Azeroth.
Activision earnings call offers more insight on WoW subscriber losses
In addition to the news that Titan may not be subscription-based, today's Activision investor call also shed some light on WoW's most recent round of subscriber losses. Blizzard says that the subscriber loss was more or less evenly split between Eastern and Western markets, which is to say that they've lost subscribers in North America, Europe, and Asia. However, patch 5.2 and 5.3 both had a positive impact on subscriber numbers and Blizzard is working on making returning to the game easier for players who have left. While there's been a lot of panic over the subscriber losses, Blizzard isn't throwing in the towel yet: in this call they assured everyone that they're committed to the World of Warcraft playerbase (that's us!) in spite of the subscriber downturn and other projects like Titan on the horizon.
World of Warcraft down to 9.6 million subscribers
Today's investor call for the fourth quarter of 2012 reported that World of Warcraft's subscription numbers are now at 9.6 million subscribers, down from the reported over 10 million at Mists of Pandaria's launch. This still makes World of Warcraft the largest subscription-based MMO out there on the market by a long shot, but the numbers have seen a dip. However, it doesn't mean that Blizzard isn't breaking records. Diablo III remains the #1 best-selling PC game at retail, and Mists of Pandaria came in at #3. Although subscriber numbers seem to have dropped, they have yet to reach the Cataclysm low of 9.1 million prior to the release of Mists. Keep in mind that these numbers are for the final quarter of 2012, ending on December 31, 2012 -- so they may not count players that received the game over the holidays and subscribed after the new year. For more information, the official press release from the investor call is available online.
World of Warcraft subscriber numbers remain over 10 million
During today's Activision Blizzard investor call, it was announced that during third quarter of calendar 2012, World of Warcraft claims over 10 million subscribers. The given number is not as precise as we've grown accustomed to during these calls, but even the general number of 10 million gives us a good idea of the game's current climate. World of Warcraft subscriber numbers saw a dip to 9.1 million subscribers prior to the release of Mists of Pandaria, shedding 1.1 million subscribers in the pre-expansion lull. Mists of Pandaria is still a fresh release as far as these investor calls are concerned, so its overall effect on World of Warcraft's playerbase will not become clear until 2013. Edit: Correction made to account for the 1.1 million dip earlier this year.
World of Warcraft population swells over 10 million, Mists of Pandaria sells 2.7 million
Blizzard has seen overall subscription numbers increase to 10 million with the successful launch of Mists of Pandaria last week, which itself has sold 2.7 million copies already. It is important to note that these numbers do not include the impact from the China release of the game, which just happened on October 2. The partial (and important part) of Blizzard's press release is as follows: Blizzard Entertainment ALLIANCE AND HORDE ARMIES GROW WITH LAUNCH OF MISTS OF PANDARIA™ New World of Warcraft® expansion sells 2.7 million copies in first week -- global subscriber base passes 10 million PARIS, France -- October 4, 2012 -- Following the September 25 global rollout of World of Warcraft®: Mists of Pandaria™, the new expansion to the world's #1 subscription-based massively multiplayer online role-playing game, Blizzard Entertainment, Inc. today announced that millions of players have already joined the fight for Pandaria. During the first week of launch, prior to the release in China on October 2, the expansion had already sold through approximately 2.7 million copies and the game's global player base passed 10 million subscribers, with growth across all major regions.* "With Mists of Pandaria, we set out to expand on the sense of fun and discovery that's always been at the heart of World of Warcraft -- in addition to adding a huge variety of new content and features to the game," said Mike Morhaime, CEO and cofounder of Blizzard Entertainment. "It's been gratifying to see the results of all of the work we put into this expansion and to hear all of the positive feedback from players so far." The World of Warcraft development team is already hard at work on the first major post-launch content update. Further details, including features and release timing, will be provided in the weeks ahead. source
World of Warcraft subscriber numbers dip 100,000 to 10.2 million
During this afternoon's Activision Blizzard investor call, it was announced that WoW's subscribers numbers dropped another 100,000 players from September 2011 to 10.2 million at the end of December 2011. World of Warcraft's subscriber numbers peaked around 12 million back in late 2010 and early 2011 and have been in decline since. The game slipped to 11.4 million subscribers in May 2011, then down to 10.3 million in September of 2011. While subscriber numbers continue to fall, the rate of lost subscriptions has slowed significantly. In further clarification of the game's subscriber numbers, Blizzard President and Cofounder Mike Morhaime said that Blizzard has seen no significant change and that "December was a good month for us." This past quarter was, according to Morhaime, the "most competitive quarter ever." World of Warcraft's competition primarily came from Star Wars: The Old Republic. Blizzard believes that the success of patch 4.3, community engagement, and the Annual Pass contributed to the subscriber retention it's seen.
World of Warcraft dips to a mere 11.4 million subscribers
The latest Activision Blizzard earnings call took place earlier this afternoon, and it presented some interesting information about the current state of Blizzard and World of Warcraft. You can read the press release for yourself, but it doesn't include details of the call itself. During the call, CEO of Blizzard Entertainment Mike Morhaime pointed out that World of Warcraft had fallen again to pre-Cataclysm subscriber levels -- 11.4 million subscribers at the end of March, down from its peak of 12 million. Subscriber levels do not decline linearly, he pointed out, stating that they fluctuate based on how quickly players consume and complete content. Players are consuming Cataclysm's content faster than any expansion before it, so subscriber levels started to drop off more quickly than they have previously.
WoW subscriber numbers still increasing, multi-boxers trivial
There has been a long thread about WoW and the philosophical changes and approaches over the past four years, and in particular to some of the larger design decisions made recently (dual specs). In it Ghostcrawler makes an offhand remark about WoW's subscriber numbers:"Wrath of the Lich King is still selling very well and our subscribers are increasing."Now I want to be clear that this was made off-hand and is not from an official earnings statement. But that doesn't discount it from being full of truthiness; and nonetheless, this is rather significant in that it's been a while since we last heard any indication of current subscriber numbers. To some this news won't be very surprising, given that Wrath of the Lich King has been a huge hit. But others might raise an eyebrow that after five months of Wrath things are still up-ticking.He also mentions the ever hot topic of multi-boxers:
