World of Warcraft drops to 7.7 million subscribers
WoW subscriptions to pre-BC levels
World of Warcraft, the most famous MMORPG since Evercrack took second place, is losing subscribers at an alarming rate. Activision announced yesterday in a press release that the WoW subscription rate took 600,000-person loss in a three-month period.
WoW has been plagued recently with dying servers and the need for cross realm zoning to compensate, prompting rumors that the giant may finally be spiraling downward after all. WoW survived countless releases of advertised “WoW-killers” - including the now free-to-play “Rift” and “Star Wars: The Old Republic” - but they ultimately survived each attack until the flop that was the release of the expansion “Cataclysm” in 2011.
“Mists of Pandaria” received better reviews from players – who don’t seem to like changes to zones they’ve played in for years after all – and the industry alike. When the expansion was released in September, there were approximately 10 million playing the game.
However, raw numbers don’t lie, and the 7.7 million subscription figure released yesterday hasn’t been seen since before “The Burning Crusade” when the game was still new. “Wrath of the Lich King” has been touted by many as the best expansion pack Blizzard’s released for the MMO, and the numbers agree: over 12 million were subscribed to the game during the height of “WoTLK” in 2010.
The subscription fall could very well be because players are frustrated by the emptiness of some servers or the discrepancy between Alliance/Horde on PVP servers. For example, RPPVP server Ravenholdt has a whopping total of 4,542 subscribers, 69 percent of which are Alliance. However, people may also be unsubscribing during the current lull waiting for patch 5.4, which will allow players to kill a now power-crazed Garrosh. Lulls between raids are not a new phenomenon, and only one new raid has been introduced since 5.2.
Source: Business Wire
World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria
Release: 9/25/2012 [NA]
ESRB Rating: Teen
Publisher: Activision
Purchase: Amazon
