World of Warcraft loses 10% of its member base this past quarter
 

The MMORPG giant's base is eroding quickly....

They say its the EASTERN markets that showed the most attrition. Makes sense - Korean and other MMORPG F2P offerings are flooding the markets.

Any guesses on how big the WOW member base will be next year?

Source: http://massively.joystiq.com/2011/11...triples-profi/

They seem to be in that moment where everyone as done all the stuff in the most recent expansion and they are bored. They just announced the new expansion recently and I bet a bunch of those people come back when the expansion comes out.

Most of the Asian markets do not pay monthly subscriptions anyways. They have to buy minutes. I think the fact that these are the ones that are declining is just fine by Blizzard for the most part. Fuck, they had to reskin Undead characters and skeletons in order just to allow the game to be playes in China. Fuckem.

i would be still playing if i did not have to pay every month

no doubt, have you seen the next expansion?

PANDAS?























FUCKING KUNG FU PANDAS??

ummm yeah ppl cancel.

Ha ha ha, yeah, I agree, the fucking Pandas are stupid. Why not come out with something a little cooler anyways. The Monk class will be neat and that class alone might bring some of the hardcore players back. What's really retarded is that it's only another 5 levels up. I know most people with the last expansion, leveled up within days, which made it stupid as hell. I don't see why they couldn't have just dragged it out and done 10 levels at a time. I see this new pack lets you go another 5, wow, sooo excited, ha ha.

I stopped playing at Cata, I did buy it, but with all the changes and everything, I just didn't like it and that was it, done. The repetative Raids didn't help either. You do the same damn raids week after week for a chance at gear. I had the worst when it came to rolling on stuff I needed, I rarely won.

Anyways, about the decline. The game will NEVER go back to what it was, no matter what they do with it, unless they make it free, but that's never gonna happen. It's just logical that people just get tired of the same game after years of playing, it gets old and people move onto other games. I hope when the new Everquest comes out, Everquest will take back a big chunk of the MMO world because the first 1 was truly epic. The second was good, but WoW killed it at the beginning since it launched shortly after it.

Another thing a lot of people were disappointed by with cata was the look of the gear. When you get the high end gear each class used to have a very distinct look to it now they all kind of look the same. It was like they didn't bother to take time to work out the details.

The Pandas could be cool, but I still want Ogres. Being a two headed mage would rock.

Just in time for the release of Diablo3

Blizzard is one of the best run companies on the planet. I wish they'd go public so I could buy stock...

i think swtor will also clean out wow. Wow has lasted for a long time but i think it is just another grind as many other games out there, only it is not free.

Folks playing the new Star Wars MMO beta?

They are part of Activision a publicly traded company. Ticker ATVI

They have a new MMORPG coming out with the project name "Titan" I wonder if It's something totally new or if they will base It on one of their earlier games like Lost Vikings.

Naw not that many, i think people are taking a break before the next billing cycle to kick in because there are so many other good games coming out over the next 3-4 months.

yep, just a grind... there is zero challenge to it.

you group up, mash buttons and /roll for gear.

i liked it at first but after Burning Crusade expansion till now its just been grind grind grind and its not even fun, theres no challenge to it you just go forward and kill everything in the dungeon.

I played healers, mages, rogues, everything from raids to PVP (PVP being my fave) and its all boring now.

lost vikings was a cool game

This is when I will come back ^^^

I am interested in how the real money auction house payments are going to work in Diablo 3.

Puberty's a bitch for this market. ;)

only 10%? who still plays that game

Not really...geek lasts beyond puberty these days. It is a life long stage.

its been declining a lot this year no? every quarter?

Yes, and the majority owner is Vivendi. Buying that stock is very far from a pure play on Blizzard itself. You have to hope their other ventures also keep pace. If they spun off Blizzard as its own company I'd be much more inclined to buy. :2 cents:

I couldn't imagine paying to play.

I had COD on Xbox, and I had to buy an online membership? Really? I moved over to COD on the PC. We play on clan servers, but it's all free.

Keep in mind that these are the LATEST FIGURES. WOW's base has been eroding for the prior past couple of quarters as well.

You may have a point. Activision is eagerly going for the casual gamer crowd. Just look at COD MW3 and the Pandaria content for WOW. It's a gambit. The question is.... given how FICKLE the casual gamer market is... is it a smart move to sacrifice hardcore fans for a larger casual gamer market slice?

Someone in the clan has to pay for the server, no? Doesn't really make it 100% "free".

While I play Counter Strike once in a while, I couldn't imagine myself playing a game like WoW... What is the fucking point?

To me creating a huge network of sites is way more important. It is kind of like one of those games if you really think about it... Your games building materials are my domains, scripts, what not... I just get paid for mine... that is all...

I love how you think: reconstruct work and business into a fun system where problems are reduced to fun challenges and rewards translated into elements that build on each other.

I read somewhere that if you buy a full year right now, you get a free copy of Diablo and then some exclusive content along with some other perks.

I'm assuming that will drum up business.

I think's WoW's decline began with Lich King, was fueled by Cata, and now they are strictly catering to the Asian crowd with Pandas and monks.

Personally, I can't wait for GW2! Until then, it's cod and other console games.

Yeah been waiting for GW2 to launch for around 4 years. Get on with it already.

It's surprising that a game that old has held on so long. I don't think people enjoy leveling like they used to. And all the expansions, just add another 5 to 10 levels more until you get to Heroics.

Right but the auction house type of function in Diablo will operate on real money.

Perhaps this is why their next XPac will be Asian Themed.

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/characte...s/Dasta/simple
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/characte...as/Dasa/simple

no kidding, surprising they managed to milk that cow for as long as they did, it's gotta be close to 10 years by now?!

10%? So like 100 billion? lol. Lineage 2 was the way to go back then, WoW was a realy piece of shit.

Not only that but there is X-Mas release....

http://www.swtor.com/

and they are afraid... they are giving a promo...

Signup wow for 12months and they give u diablo III key!

Blizzard has peaked, they aren't hungry anymore. SC2 was a real dissapointment when they could have taken lessons from amazing games like COHeroes.

The entire mmorpg genre has lost appeal imo. An updated wow graphics engine would still be amazing. We recently cancelled.

Subscribe to WoW for a year and get Diablo III for free. Doesn't sound like the Blizzard I know.

I unsubscribed from WoW in early 2008 and - in spite of Blizzard's repeated offers - I have no desire to go back. I'll pick up Diablo III, but I was done with WoW as soon as Stitches stopped being an elite.

Time for WoW2?

i couldnt believe wow became free signup first 20 lvls free hahah i just shake my head

They need to partner with a porn site.

this could be huge, people could make a real life living by dedicating themselves to the game and playing hard and buying and selling at auction :thumbsup

You nailed it on the head. People are already doing this with WOW (Chinese miners) but Diablo's will be more democratic and, if done right, might EXPAND opportunities for many players/buyers instead of making it a race to the bottom (of labor prices)

i gave it another try a couple of months back, lasted 2 weeks, boring as shit now - gonna wait for SWTOR, will give that a fair go.

SWOTR has already cost EA over $200 to $300 Million. Pressure is definitely on the old Pay to play model.... Given WOW's subscription situation, I wouldn't be surprised if a few execs at EA/Bioware are breaking a bit of a sweat...

ea ruins everything it touches.

Was upset when they bought Ultima Onlina, miss the old days of MMORPG before WOW

Siege Perilous for life. Where real PVP began! WOW was always carebear

Should be interesting how TITAN shapes up.

The old subscriber model. I really think Web 3.0's virtual world definition is going to be huge... TO USE AN ANALOGY: we're just in the myspace/geocities stage of this model's evolution. Still a few years until we get a facebook and its successor models.

Free to play is the hot trend, but it's simply a retread of the free trial. Eventually people will realize they end up paying more with free to play then with the old model and the huge influx of people trying it out will level off.

The free to play models is simply a trial. You can only enjoy it so long before you hit a ceiling. So it's simply a different way to market a traditional free trial. Not saying there is anything wrong with the free to play model, but it's a marketing ploy, not really a new business model.

I promise you within a year or so, these free to play sites will star offering "all you can eat" options for a monthly or yearly fee as people realize they are spending more on the "free" games than they paid for the old subscription games.