Blizzard: WAR, AOC players coming home

By Robert Purchese Published 6 November, 2008

Morhaime presents actual percentages.

Blizzard boss Mike Morhaime has said the people who left World of Warcraft for pastures Warhammer Online and Age of Conan are returning home.

"To date, 68 per cent of the players who listed Age of Conan as their reason for cancellation and 46 per cent of the players who listed Warhammer [Online] as their reason for cancellation have reactivated their subscriptions to World of Warcraft," said Morhaime in an Activision Blizzard financial call.

World of Warcraft now boasts over 11 million paying subscribers; a number that is likely to grow when second expansion Wrath of the Lich King arrives on 13th November.

Morhaime reckons there will be 15,000 midnight launch events to celebrate the release of what could become the fastest selling PC game ever. The current leader, World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade, sold nearly 2.4 million copies in just 24 hours.

The result of all this popularity is an expected revenue of over one billion dollars for the second year running, according to Morhaime, who eats golden Coco Pops.

Thankfully, plenty of this money has been poured into making Wrath of the Lich King, and the results are shaping up to be tremendous.

Head over to our World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King gamepage for all of our extensive coverage so far.

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.

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

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Comments (27) Latest comment 3 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • Pirotic #1 3 years ago

    So what happened to the other 32% who left for Age of Conan and didn't come back? I can't imagine anybody is still playing that pish.

  • Dizzy #2 3 years ago

    /yawn

  • r4z0rbl4d3 #3 3 years ago

    @Pirotic: They moved on to WAR? :p

  • Byzanite #4 3 years ago

    @Pirotic: Crom is still a busy server :)

  • Eraysor #5 3 years ago

    That's pretty impressive, considering I never select the correct reason for leaving because I think they're being too nosy and I left due to WAR and then came back, so I imagine more than those numbers have returned. WoW is still better than WAR.

  • TheDifficult3rdAlbum #6 3 years ago

    >The result of this is an expected revenue of....one BILLION dollars

    For some reason, I can only read this whilst doing the Dr Evil voice in my head.

  • Apologie #7 3 years ago

    I got tired of WOW after a while... it's now boring as hell, i tought i would never play another MMO again but i was Wrong, Warhammer is such an amazing game, completely PvP centric (which makes things much more fun ), the Realm vs Realm concept is awesom with very balanced faction and classes, good graphics, items etc... i will never go back to WoW or Age of Conan again.

    I advise even the biggest narrowminded WoW fanatic to try Warhammer, you wont regret it... "and by the way, the expansion for Wow as far as i see it is just more of the same, maybe im wrong, maybe not, time will tel"

  • butler` #8 3 years ago

    That is HUGE.
    Edited by 1 at 06/11/08 @ 15:14

  • butler` #9 3 years ago

    Now just to wait for Jacobs' excuses.

  • Hypercube #10 3 years ago

    Statistics are shit - that is 110% FACT. Considering that both times I've unsubbed from WoW I've always put my reason as "BORED BORED BORED" then I'm pretty sure that other people haven't been accurately factual about it. Anyhoo, if I unsub from WAR, I'm still not going back to WoW. I've so been there and done that.

  • TriggerHippie #11 3 years ago

    Yeah, I'm no more likely to resub to WoW than Everquest or UO. Its all bloody swings and round-abouts anyway. Its not like the people who have tried WAR and gone back to WoW to check out the new content aren't likely to go and check out WAR again in the future when its matured a bit.

  • DoctorZoidberg #12 3 years ago

    I gave up when it became a chore to play (never even got to seventy - 65 is my highest).

  • the_mtfr #13 3 years ago

    They make all this money and they still don't invest in porting to Linux? They could single-handedly shift the balance from Microsoft's monopoly. Or at least, invest in making a full-length 3D movie. Drool!

  • anomagnus #14 3 years ago

    meaningless statistic without knowing ht eactual numebr involved

    as i've said before, if 100 people listed war as there reason for going, and 46% came back, no big deal

    it its 2 million that left and 46% came back, thats a different story

    its telling that they dont reveal the actual numbers

  • Canyarion #15 3 years ago

    I quit WoW right before TBC, because I got bored. The thing I liked most about it were the 40-man dungeons, and they got rid of those...

    A few weeks ago I started playing again. I love it, can't get enough. And that's just TBC...

  • Kremlik Verified Co-Founder, Crash To Desktop #16 3 years ago

    I wish these 'comming home' statements would f-off forever, I'm getting stick of Blizzard trying to 'prove' they are the #1 mmo - they don't need to - all they're doing atm is rubbing it in other MMOs faces trying to get more to 'return' via so called 'facts'..

    Near enough everyone who has a slight interest in wow still will pick up WotLK, what blizzard wont tell you 6 months later is the amount that left again due to the fact the content has been used up and they are struggling to keep up with the playerbase's demands again

  • VicViper #17 3 years ago

    @farticusmaximus - Ace ventura: When Nature calls - Peanuts?(said with a heavy accent and lisp)

    Can't wait for warth myself all that new stuff to do that I done over and over before, repetive yes but with a good guild fun regardless and new gear/story is always addictive
    Edited by 1 at 06/11/08 @ 16:54

  • Nillsens #18 3 years ago

    One billion dollars...

    So when is Azeroth joining the EU?

    Edited by 1 at 06/11/08 @ 17:06

  • AOFanboi #19 3 years ago

    Patch 3.0 (the huge WotLK one) revigorated the game for me: The new achievement system is addictive, the changes to various classes, in particular paladins, has made the game more fun, and trying the new crafting skill (inscription) is also interesting. Plus, I got my pally to 55 recently so I am "go" for playing a Death Knight in WotLK next week...

    WAR was OK, but... I don't wanna boot into Microsoft Molasses (aka Vista 64) just to play a game. Give me a Mac WAR client and we are on.

  • Apologie #20 3 years ago

    WOW is shit... too boring, Blizard can kiss my ass... WArhammer is the way to go. Peace

  • Lemming81 #21 3 years ago

    So when alot of those players cancel their subs in the month it takes them to burn through WOTLK, will he report the drop? Doubt it. It's meaningless for him to brag about subs at this point when they are clearly in flux over their expansion release.

  • MaxiSleep #22 3 years ago

    Retri Pally = brutal unfair masacre in plate. love playing pally atm.

    Tried AOC - rubish and sub cancelled :(
    Still subsribed to WaR and enjoyed the PvP thing there. But Lich King will stop me playing for a bit.

  • Mooks #23 3 years ago

    I imagine alot of people just play WoW now out of habit. Its easy in WoW as most things are handed to you on a plate through grinding rep etc. Apart from raiding and PVP there feels like there is little challenge in the game and the ever pervading sense of complacency by Blizzard to offer any real innovative ideas into existing content. As other posters have mentioned they seem to be unable to keep up with the content demand of the community.

  • dunk #24 3 years ago

    I've played wow since inception, and finally beat Kil'jaeden last night, just in time for the new expansion! It's more the social aspect rather than game mechanics for me though. I played AoC to about lvl 68 had 2 accounts too), but it just wasnt 'finished' and became too much of a chore, and I also played WAR beta right up till release, but its too pvp orientated for me...

  • iokthemonkey #25 3 years ago

    The new achievement system is addictive... and trying the new crafting skill (inscription) is also interesting

    ----

    I've been doing all that for months before you.

    It's called "playing Lord of the Rings Online." :)

  • dingo75 #26 3 years ago

    When I quit I did because I was disgusted that there were no decent swords in BC at lvl 70 for my rogue and I hate using daggers.
    I stated this when I canceled.
    A few months later when I came back I found a lot that had been added + decent pvp ones.
    No idea if my feedback helped them fix this issue or not but it's a good feeling to be able to pretend I made a difference. ;)

  • Marshall2008 #27 3 years ago

    Tried War, its practically a carbon copy of WoW. BUT, the gameplay is slower (yawn) although it has better PVP.

    WoW is still the crack cocaine of MMO's and will be until the time that Blizzard releases WoW 2 or Starcraft Universe or whatever.

    I also have a lifetime subsription to Lotro but have only played for about 4 hours since I got it. Total waste of 99 quid. :(
    Edited by 1 at 09/11/08 @ 01:24