World of Warcraft subscribers decrease

By Robert Purchese Published 10 May, 2011

12 million pre-Cataclysm, 11.4 million now.

The number of people subscribing to World of Warcraft has decreased, Blizzard has revealed.

Apparently third expansion Cataclysm couldn't hold the community's interest for long.

"We finished the quarter [Jan-March] with more than 11.4 million subscribers worldwide," announced Blizzard CEO Michael Morhaime in a conference call last night (transcript courtesy of Seeking Alpha).

In October the WOW subscriber number was 12 million.

World of Warcraft: Cataclysm was released on 7th December.

"So what we have seen so far is that people have been consuming this [Cataclysm] content very quickly and so the subscriber levels have decreased faster than in previous expansions," explained Morhaime, who put this down to WOW players being "much better and much faster at consuming content" these days.

"But that's why we're working on developing more content," Morhaime added.

Last week's release of WOW update 4.1: Rise of the Zandalari has had a "very positive" response from the community, Morhaime said. He also referred to the in-development patch 4.2 which, among other things, introduces the Firelands raid and a new and improved Ragnaros end boss.

In the future, Blizzard will "decrease" the amount of time between expansions, Morhaime said. This tallies with the infamous (and unconfirmed) leak of an internal Blizzard release schedule, which pencilled a WOW expansion for Q2 2012 and another for Q4 2013.

Morhaime went on to stress that World of Warcraft subscriber growth has never been one way. "It's been driven by new content and seasonality throughout the course of World of Warcraft's history," he said.

And Morhaime believes there are "lots" of reasons for "optimism": Cataclysm's launch in China, which will "reinvigorate" the community; "additional new free content" and "additional value-added services". Blizzard will also investigate launching WOW in other countries. Does Morhaime mean Brazil in Q3 2011 as the leaked schedule also revealed?

Nevertheless, a flagging Western appetite for World of Warcraft will cause concern ahead of the presumed 2011 launch of Star Wars: The Old Republic - the largest MMO threat Blizzard has yet faced. Morhaime addressed EA's expensive challenger stoically.

"In terms of additional competition, we knew that this year was going to be a year where we faced new competitors," he said. "It isn't the first time, though, that we have had strong competitors enter the MMO market.

"What we have seen in the past is, we tend to see our players leave for some period of time, perhaps try out the new MMOs, and then good percentage of them historically have returned to World of Warcraft.

"And so far," Morhaime added, "I haven't seen anything to indicate that this will be different."

Activision Blizzard yesterday announced earning record piles of money during the first three months of the year.

World of Warcraft patch 4.2.

Picture of Robert.

About Robert Purchese

Bertie is Eurogamer's Senior Staff Writer. When he's not hunting down news stories he's often found playing with his kids or gabbling about fantasy games and strange online worlds. @Clert on Twitter.

Read more articles from Robert by visiting the Robert Purchese archive page.

You may also like...

Comments (48) Latest comment 1 year ago

Comments for this article are now closed, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • hippyjump #1 1 year ago

    Fake promises.

    I recently quit as well.
    Blizzard has made it so that you get everything from the game by just standing still in a major city.
    I think this is the first of many to come losses.

  • stevetuck #2 1 year ago

    OH NO!!!! its now only £88million a month they make! the world is coming to an end!

  • telboy007 #3 1 year ago

    You can play a game for only so long, even something as addictive as this.

  • Evolution #4 1 year ago

    A cataclysm you might say, stevetuck?

  • geeza2020 #5 1 year ago

    Wasnt this moment spoken of in revelations???


    /whimpers

  • Zozzilla #6 1 year ago

    I quit WoW because I was getting sick of them dumbing everything down to the point where the game ended up full of complete asstards who couldn't even do the simplest of requests while in a dungeon, and as a tank...that really pissed me off. All anyone gives a shit about is getting loot, and if they don't get it because they can't follow tactics, they ragequit.

    When RIFT hit, I switched to that, and I'm actually enjoying MMO's again.

  • romelpotter #7 1 year ago

    "So what we have seen so far is that people have been consuming this [Cataclysm] content very quickly and so the subscriber levels have decreased faster than in previous expansions," explained Morhaime, who put this down to WOW players being "much better and much faster at consuming content" these days. "

    Whilst there may be an element of truth to this statement, I am willing to wager that the main reason for the quick consumption of the content is because there was less content included in the Cataclysm expansion. But I still paid over twenty dabs for what I felt was half a game i.e. I felt ripped off by Blizzard and then Rift came along just at the right time. I jumped ship after three years of Wow.

    In my opinion, Blizzard got caught up in the whole decimation of Azeroth and confused the additional content that they put out there free, with the paid content that you got with the expansion. Of course they were part and parcel of the bigger picture, however Blizz should have added enough content in the paid for expansion (i.e. more levels to Cap) and not axed half their original content that was published in the build up to the release date of the expansion.

    I did enjoy playing through the content to 85 but I just felt I paid top dollar for half a product....and that made me angry, especially when Blizz released their profitability figures!
    Edited by romelpotter at 10/05/11 @ 12:38

  • Daeltaja #8 1 year ago

    It's Guild Wars 2 they have to worry about.

  • Hei #9 1 year ago

    @8 that's not even an mmorpg

  • abigsmurf #10 1 year ago

    1-60 changes were entertaining but you level so fast you miss loads, especially if you do the redesigned instances (which are so easy it's untrue)

    60-70 is painful

    70-80 is less painful but why did they remove the incredibly awesome end to the wrathgate quest chain?

    80-85 Some great quests but it's a bit too linear, even if the order at which you do them changes, most of the quests in an area are part of the same quest line and you have to complete all of them.

    Heroics = 1 hit kills for anyone but the tank, very long boss fights. It's a cheap form of difficulty that adds little to the skill needed whilst making it very difficult to get through them with PUGs.

    I quit WoW after my experience of heroics; 2 hour wait, get to the first boss, wipe, group disbands, 2 hour wait, get a group at a boss, wipe 3 times, group disbands. 2 hour wait... I'm sure you can see the pattern. I'm sure it's better with guildmates but that just never looked like being fun to me. I'm more of a fan of tough but chaotic boss fights where you have to think on your feet rather than ones with cast iron strategies where if you diverge from the 1 way of beating the boss, you'll wipe in seconds.

  • sonicyoda #11 1 year ago

    How will they ever cope!?!?

  • Stratix #12 1 year ago

    Most of our guild quit, not because the game was too easy, but because the game was too hard.

    My small casual guild stuggled to many any progress at all on the raids, even though most of our gear was heroic level and we had done absolutely fine on Icecrown ones previously. Our hearts were definitely not in it.

    Wiping got boring quick.

  • Dannyboy1100 #13 1 year ago

    Maybe they'll make it better now and actually listen to customers.

    Oh wait it's blizzard... nevermind.

  • Eldritch #14 1 year ago

    600,000 people in still having a life shock!

  • Haunted_Tree #15 1 year ago

    I spent 400 hours patiently grinding my first character, absorbing the stories and scenery. I loved the clunkiness, the easter eggs, each ding, trying to boost the herb economy, learning how best to spec, each quest diversion, exploring the rich world Blizzard had created. I was playing on a netbook, 15 fps, and loving it (with a few instances of nerd rage along the way).

    When I hit 80, I hit the WoW wall and decided that I wasn't up to raiding so quit for a while to try some different MMOs.

    Before Cataclysm, I did it all again - a lot quicker this time but I got to see a different side to the game with a new character.

    6 months after purchase, I haven't unwrapped the Cataclysm CE yet ...

  • BigJonno #16 1 year ago

    @Hei

    Yay for ignorant comments with no basis in reality!

  • bertieboo #17 1 year ago

    Maybe they are dying off?, it's not like anyone would notice (until the dead body smell starts to rise from their basements)

  • Gaol #18 1 year ago

    Fair to say that Warcraft had to peak eventually but I think there is truth in the criticisms of Cataclysm. I think it was a good idea to make the 1-60 faster however I think they went a little overboard in how linear it is. The constant shuttles to the next quest have ruined the feeling of exploration, and the content seems far too easy for all classes. And the art design seems to have taken a step down - the goblin starting areas for example, and the messed up Azshara are nowhere near the quality of the Burning Crusade starting zones. Finally, the endgame content, particularly for casual on/off players like myself, seems as inaccessable as ever - though the plans for 4.2 with the phased quest lines looks interesting.

    I'm sure they'll get back on track, but I think a slow decrease in the number of subs is probably inevitable at this stage. Hopefully it will give Blizzard some added incentive to make a new MMORPG sooner.

  • Kami #19 1 year ago

    Cataclysm is just a muddle. Blizzard made changes that made the game easier in terms of content, but harder in terms of social interaction. Guild Levels managed to segregate servers even further, making them hostile places to be, whilst no good means to recruit members - or restriction to newer guilds - meant the pool to fish from was tiny and limited. The LFG tool became a painful chore, dailies became almost a requirement for gearing for heroics, and the whole thing just reeked of "Let's make it HARDCORE!" without any of the common sense or intelligent design in the process.

    I'm sure it may just be a blip but like others, I'm now in Rift - along with the majority of my former WoW guild. And we're having fun - we hope deeply that Blizzard find that sparkle again, because for us it just... disappeared. You would WANT to log in, laugh with others, heck, I enjoyed socialising and being a guild leader. But Cataclysm robbed us of that fun, social angle - it became too much about numbers over people.

    It's a bit late for them to go back on most of those changes. But it's not too late to tone them down. WoW did so well because it became a social thing. The new team working on WoW now felt listening to a minority of players who wanted it to be like Vanilla was worth it - and they will have to live with the repercussions of tampering with what was up until now a pretty foolproof formula.

    It won't kill WoW. But I think the slide will continue - especially with so many new big-name MMOs out this year.

  • kosigan #20 1 year ago

    Am I the only person who dislikes the usage of executive-speak phrases such as "consuming content" rather than the more plain-English "playing the game"?

  • addugg #21 1 year ago

    Quick its's end of days! Apple release your console before it's too...........

  • Bigmac1910 #22 1 year ago

    The new content is more akin to a single player experience(both lvl 1-60 and 80-85), cause of their "instancing" of the open world content. Which in turn lead to being alone most of the time as other players were in a different part of the quest line. And it's rare that I play a single player game more than once, while before somehow the replay ability was much higher.

  • MaxiSleep #23 1 year ago

    Cataclysm content, apart from the underwater zone which was great, was very dissapointing.

    It all felt so small and insignificant compared to the majesty of Icecrown

    Shark Jumped i fear.

  • Rajin #24 1 year ago

    While i was pleased at how the heroics changed at the beginning, the fundamental flaw remained from Lich king, there's no longer any incentive to work togheter on one realm. Crossrealm, while a good idea to make things go faster, completely separated the community for me. I used to add people from a realm to my list and create balanced groups out of people i knew(i loved inviting people which i would later on play with again) This however disappeared with crossrealm.

    Another part is people becoming tanks or healers just for the sake of quicker q's.... not because they're either good at it or enjoy it. Noone is willing to take the time to let others learn the tactics of certain bosses(minus the 12 year old dimwits who, after doing it 50 times still don't get it) I had people leaving after 50 min, why? Because the instance was taking to long!

    I hope they remake a LFG tool for a REALM only, or create something similar to a crossrealm friendlist(the last option isn't entirely without flaws and could end up making things worse)

    I actually played catalysm similar to a normal singleplayer MMO(that's how far the social aspect desintegrated) While the quest lines were a improvement over the previous expansions(copy paste TBC) There was not enough to keep people playing after 4 months(really i am a casual player and only played about 1-2 hours a week and i was quickly done)

    This wasn't a problem really IF they actually released new content with a bit more speed, things have moved way to slow regarding new quests and such, at the first real patch the only thing that awaits you is REHASHED content! I was actually angry when i saw how little effort they had put into it(ZG changed i admit and some of the premise seemed interesting but it still is a lame effort imho)

    Edited by Rajin at 10/05/11 @ 14:17

  • Softie2k #25 1 year ago

    As a hardcore WoW fan, I simply couldn't handle the game anymore after 6 years. Thousands of hours down the drain :(

  • rodpad #26 1 year ago

    The new 85 heroic dungeons have too much trash, CC falls apart in pugs, cheap 1s interruptable one shot death boss mechanics.

    The dungeons aren't necessarily harder, they're just ball achingly lacking in fun.

    That I feel is the real reason for people quitting.

  • bemaniac #27 1 year ago

    Yeah 4 people at my work stopped playing too most people saying that it felt a bit old and looked a bit old and 1 of them got rift instead so it's a variety of things. Not one of them cleared the raids though.

  • Agent_Orange #28 1 year ago

    6 Million of those are probably gold farmers and bots :)

  • Kremlik Verified Co-Founder, Crash To Desktop #29 1 year ago

    THIS is the massive problem with WoW these days: The player base 'consumes' the content as fast as they can, because they have no choice, simplely because the player base itself wont tolerate 'under geared' players, and it's not the case of players in greens and blues, that would be logical - no, it's ONE SET behind means 'under geared' these days, meaning it seems like you need the current 'top tier gear' before you even enter the same instance with some people.

    The player base is it's own worst enemy at times with this 'keep up or get left behind' attitude as Blizzard adapted the game to suit this play style by helping new players/alts gain 'good items' quicker, and remaking old unused content useful again (ie 4.1), mainly because the player base is only concerned with 'current' content.

    BOTH have been looked on as negative as 'welfare epics' get trumped by achievements, preventing any new player (or rerolled/alt) from getting into any raid guild due to the fact 'they lack raiding experience' (how you are meant to get it without joining those guilds is paradoxical ) and the redone content has been looked at as a waste of time by some as 'it does not 'progress' the character'.

    The irony of all this is most raiding guilds want to be in the 'top ten' of the world rankings and/or gain world firsts when it's all made moot mainly because Paragon (the world's 'best' raiding guild) gets first dibs at the content as Blizzard use them to TEST the content before it's ever released to the general public test realms (if not at all with some bosses), so they already know 'how' that raid works even before many have stepped through the portal.

    Coupled with the fact that there is very little 'world' in World of Warcraft other then a glorified single player campaign until you hit level cap, which only needs tiny tiny changes like adding PVP objectives within the world proper (something that the original dev team wanted to do since beta and was touted as core game play for the first two expansions but never really made it as 'world content'), this is the core reason why a few of the new MMORPGs (Rift/GW2) have opted for 'world event' based content, at least in those just surviving the content with a good group works just as well as 'having the best gear'.

    A 6 year gear grind to remain 'top dog' is bound to wear thin sooner or later

  • superfurry #30 1 year ago

    Cataclysm all but killed the social aspect of WoW. It used to be something that you'd sign in to, to have fun with friends primarily and then to go for loot. Now it's all about the end-game grind. Thinks that were in the past optional, like dailies and reputation grinds are now mandatory if you want to run even the most basic of heroics.

    Like many others, I've made the move to Rift which has the same vibe about now that WoW had three years ago. It's all the better for it.

  • FortysixterUK #31 1 year ago

    This is a drop in the ocean for wow. Not that it matters, my sub runs out in June and I have no intention of renewing.
    I started Rift, but frankly am finding any MMO game a chore at the moment, but have found renewed interest in all things single player on Xbox, PS3 and PC.

    If only you could "own" your characters in these MMO's and have the option to play them off line it would give you ownership of your hard worked for and paid for characters and encourage many to stay on in game I feel.
    As it is, you are paying to rent the character, and one day it will simply be gone in a server wipe. I managed to put up with that prospect for years, but now, my interest in all things MMO has waned.

    I think the only MMO to actually get it right was Phantasy Stay online. You own the character and the save. You get to play on or offline . A far better scenario. Until this happens again, I think MMOs are gonna be no go for me....*** looks for news about the new Phantasy Star game *****

  • Ryboy #32 1 year ago

    WoW's time will have to come sooner or later, and I for one am happy not to be playing it at the moment and currently enjoying a mixed bag of games that I don't get to play as I am too busy mining in the Twilight Highlands, shouting at fucktards who don't even know what CCing is or doing some other completely pointless task. And all the while paying monthly to do so. Nah, sorry WoW, it's been fun, during WoTLK especially, but I'm off.

    And I will most certainly be getting my Sith on come the autumn.

  • natureboy #33 1 year ago

    I think people are getting tired of it. Everything in life has a shelf life and WOW might just be approaching its shelf life

  • levitate #34 1 year ago

    I find it pretty funny and sad this news come merely a few weeks after I resubscribed to check things out. I've paid for a month but, frankly, I can't see myself pouring down too much time and effort into this game any longer.

    I rather play a variety of other games, going through an extensive backlog at the moment, and enjoying them instead of bothering about the best gear and getting my pants in a twist because people are obnoxious and rude in instances.

  • Inmediasress #35 1 year ago

    I quit wow even before Cataclysm.
    Simple reason it was boring as hell.

  • epiazk #36 1 year ago

    So bizarre, I quit last night, sent my gold to my GF who plays on my account (20K - had been grinding vial of the sands).

    Anyway, to be frank, I think almost every opinion here is wrong.

    Expansion packs stop growth.

  • PseudoDuck #37 1 year ago

    Every now and then I get tempted to go back to Azeroth. But I have to remember that I stopped because it became less fun and more of a grind; a grind that I was paying £9 a month for.

    I'd be lying if I said I don't miss it though.

  • Sharzam #38 1 year ago

    I stopped just before Rift launched, the two main reasons are the community and boredom.

    The community is now one of the worst MMO environments i have experienced. It has never been great but in recent months has gotten a lot worse and i think this is because of the cross realm tools, people just want to storm content as quickly as possible with no intreast in making friends or being polite. As a result no intreast in exploring just a case of 'do this on this boss' kill move on. I used to meet people and make friends then would join there guild and in some cases met people at lvl10 and did dungeons all the way thourgh now that simpley does not happen.

    The other reason is boredom, pretty simple really. The game is 6 years old, yes it has alot of new stuff but fundamentally its all the same all it does is make it look shiny. Case in point the new pre lvl60 zones are just trying to hide the grind/exploration behind a rollorcoaster veil. You no longer go off looking for quests (which may be grind) instead your just shuttled from one grind location to the next. I have no objections to making the game harder but seams that they try to make it a harder in places while dumbing it down in others for example getting levels is so incredibility easy can do it blind then do 1 heroic (as people refuse to learn normals properly as the reward for the time is not there) and then people moan. Basically learning curve is screwed, which is normally poor game design.

  • superfurry #39 1 year ago

    Oh I totally miss it. I miss the game it was during Vanilla and The Burning Crusade in particular. If I could play WoW as it played then, I'd resub in a minute.

  • damoxuk #40 1 year ago

    Played since day one but Cataclysm was the final straw. I gradually played less and less this year until past 2 months hardly at all and you know what?

    The addiction has well and truly gone - now to play catch up with all the other games.. :D

  • Scopeh #41 1 year ago

    I quit a month into Cataclysm, it became very stale and i felt i was doing the same of things over and over. Im not gonna turn into a hater like a lot of the 'Ex WoW' players have. WoW was truly a magnificient game, the game world alone deserves awards and recognition if not the gameplay. It may have lost 600k subs but it still has 10 mill more then Aion and Rift put together, WoWs supposed competition.

  • Leolian #42 1 year ago

    Quit and deleted some 35gb of data off my harddrive. Only interested in wow2 now.

  • jimr9999us #43 1 year ago

    Cata was the 1st WoW xp I didn't buy...no true new continent to explore and the dismantling of the talent trees (honestly, it pains me to even call them trees there's so few choices...more like specs) ...I couldn't see paying US$40 for it.

    This will be the year the xp's drop to US$20. Cata is a $20 game imho.

    But WoW still has more subs then all other sub-based mmog's combined, so obv. my humble opinion doesn't mean a whole lot ;)

  • Daeltaja #44 1 year ago

    I think if you've been playing since launch, now is a good time to move on. I've not played for well over a year now, but was pretty hardcore for my 4 years with the game. For all the time it took and years it stole, it truley produced the most magnificent experiences this medium has ever given me. Now and then I'll think of it when falling asleep and I get butterflies remembering some of the big boss takedowns with the guild.

    Enough remenicing then. Blizzard had to expect this drop off eventually, and as stated above, it's hardly a dent in their overall numbers, but I feel that once the things start to drop a bit more consistently, they could be looking at a far larger dip in subs all of a sudden. Particularly when SWOTOR/GW2 eventually come out.




  • butler` #45 1 year ago

    you can always tell when they're struggling, you get this email:

    Return to World of Warcraft with 7 Days of Game Time

  • prolific8 #46 1 year ago

    PMSL at all the "it's had it's day and is slowly dying" comments. Talk about overstating your own importance, "I quit so everyone else must be!". I'm willing to bet most of "quitters" in this thread that claim the game is dying are Wrath babies upset that they can't zoom through a heroic in twenty minutes and collect free epics.

  • ircaddicts #47 1 year ago

    wow never had 12 million subs to start with, not even half that. It had at best about 5 million and now thats going to do nothing but drop and drop BIG time once GW2 is out. I'm sure TOR will take another chunk too. I'm sure lots of the delusional wow fanbois will continue to play this POS fior ages and still go on about how its the best mmo ever. But no one listens to them anyway.

  • Kazama74 #48 1 year ago

    I'm glad to read that I am not the only one playing this as a single player MMO. I thought I was playing it wrong, haha. I am enjoying the hell out of it and I love all the different race-specific overarching storylines. I would really try the instances but, like many people describe here, it's just nigh on impossible to get into without turning the game into work. There must be some guilds out there that go adventuring just for the fun of it, come as you are (as the unique char you created and enjoy playing, even if this causes strategic challenges in stead of being a pre-determined mandatory-stats Tank, Healer etc) but I have not found any yet. And with the abuse you get from the average player just asking about it, I quit approaching other players alltogether. That's the one thing Blizzard cannot patch: fix the player-base.
    Edited by Kazama74 at 11/05/11 @ 12:59