Subscribers – MMO Fallout

Post-Expansion WoW Drops 3 Million Subscribers

For those of you who follow MMOs to a T, this news will not be that surprising. World of Warcraft is now seven months out of the launch of Warlords of Draenor and hitting a peak of ten million players, and the numbers are beginning to fall. Activision Blizzard announced in its first quarter filings that subscription figures dropped from 10 million to 7.1 million, bringing the number down to just above its trough before the launch of the Draenor expansion.

(Source: Activision Blizzard Q1 reports)

World of Warcraft is Dying: Subscriptions Increase

As World of Warcraft continues its descent to an early death, Blizzard has revealed that World of Warcraft has seen a bump in subscribers. The MMO behemoth is currently sitting at 7.4 million, six hundred thousand more subscribers, as of October 14th. The imminent release of Warlords of Draenor expansion is no doubt bringing players back, as the game receives a bump with each expansion’s release.

Warlords of Draenor launches in November.

(Source: WoW Insider)

Darkfall: Unholy Wars Short On Subscribers

Today’s Taco Tuesday discussion comes to us from the Darkfall: Unholy Wars forum where a rather interesting event has taken place. In a recent stream, Aventurine’s own Creative Director Claus Grovdal revealed some of his own hopes for future content. Grovdal wants to see a new class introduced, one that would deploy turrets and function as a support class much like engineer classes in other MMOs. He would also like to see repeatable prowess quests, introduce more quests into the game, and provide more loot for players, as well as improving the user interface, which Grovdal apparently does not like.

Grovdal also revealed that the game currently holds twenty thousand subscribers, which is quite a feat for a small developer. Unfortunately, he also notes that Aventurine wants thirty five thousand total to cover expenses, putting Darkfall well below its target. With Grovdal as the new creative director, hopefully he can put a plan into action and bring Aventurine up to its target subscription count.

(Source: Stream)

World of Warcraft Down To 8.3 Million

Sound the alarms, prepare for the apocalypse, and call up your mother to tell her you never liked her cooking anyway, because World of Warcraft has announced a drop in subscriptions and that can only mean one thing: An apocalyptic flooding of the internet by the usual group of self-involved, cynicism spewing gamers that always pop out whenever news like this hits. Activision Blizzard has revealed that World of Warcraft lost 1.3 million subscribers last quarter, hitting 8.3 million at the end of March.

“While we have had a solid start to the year, we now believe that the risks and uncertainties in the back half of 2013 are more challenging than our earlier view, especially in the holiday quarter. The shift in release dates of competing products, the disappointing launch of the Wii U™, uncertainties regarding next-generation hardware, and subscriber declines in our World of Warcraft business all raise concerns, as do continued challenges in the global economy. For these reasons, we remain cautious. However, our focused and disciplined approach to our business has served us well in the past, and through continued investment and
careful management of our costs, we expect to continue delivering shareholder value over the long term as we have for the last 20 years.”
-Bobby Kotick

Blizzard released Starcraft II: Heart of the Swarm, which ranked as the #1 PC game for the quarter. Black Ops II ranked #2 in overall dollars.

(Source: Activision Blizzard)

World of Warcraft Has "More Than 9.6 Million Subscribers"

You all know what February means, and I’m not talking about TERA going free to play. It’s quarterly report month! Activision has released their fourth quarter reports for 2012, and things are looking…toward the future. Net revenues for 2012 were up $500 million to $4.99 billion, with CEO Bobby Kotick describing the year as “the best performance in [Activision’s] history.” Skylanders, Activision’s toy-based game, has officially made its way into the billionaire’s club, selling over 100 million toys to the tune of $1 billion worldwide. Diablo III became the #1 best selling PC game with more than 12 million sales, while Mists of Pandaria took its place at #3.

World of Warcraft still retains its throne as #1 subscription MMO, dropping from the 10 million reported in Q3 2012, while still not dipping as low as the 9.1 million the quarter before.

As of December 31, 2012, Blizzard Entertainment’s World of Warcraft remains the #1 subscription-based MMORPG, with more than 9.6 million subscribers

Back in 2011, Blizzard announced a commitment to release more content at a faster pace, in order to combat the issue of players chewing through an expansion’s content and then unsubscribing out of lack of things to do.

(Source: Quarterly report)

World of Warcraft Has “More Than 9.6 Million Subscribers”

World of Warcraft still retains its throne as #1 subscription MMO, dropping from the 10 million reported in Q3 2012, while still not dipping as low as the 9.1 million the quarter before.

As of December 31, 2012, Blizzard Entertainment’s World of Warcraft remains the #1 subscription-based MMORPG, with more than 9.6 million subscribers

(Source: Quarterly report)

Mortal Online: 450,000 Subscriptions In 5 Years

As an avid fan of the sandbox genre, I would love to see Mortal Online evolve from the money-losing machine that it is today to a powerful name in the industry. Who knows, maybe in a few years Star Vault will be powerful enough to make my death look like an accident. Sandboxer.org has posted a chat in which Star Vault CEO Henrik Nystrom talks about his vision for Mortal Online, not just the developer hitting more sales but the game eventually doing well enough to compete and even succeed Eve Online.

Now, Eve Online has an estimated 450,000 subscribers (plus PLEX traders), so the goal may seem a bit off in the distance. Mortal Online’s Awakening expansion will bring with it drugs. What kind of drugs, you ask? The illegal kind, more illegal than a Pepsi machine in a grade school hallway.

We await Mortal Online’s next expansion with anticipation.

(Source: Sandboxer)

World of Warcraft Subscriber Bleeding Stemmed: 10.2 Million

It seems like only yesterday that we were talking about the possible, perhaps, maybe imminent death of World of Warcraft at some point in the near or far foreseeable horizon of an unpredictable future just out of our gaze but right under our noses. Over the past few months, Blizzard has really revved up the promotion machine, offering free upgrades to Cataclysm and level 80 characters for returning, offering a free copy of Diablo III for promising Blizzard you would delay the divorce for another twelve months.

Well the promotions must be working, because World of Warcraft’s subscriber loss seems to have shorted out: From 10.3 million reported in November to 10.2 million reported in Blizzard’s latest report. You can check out the report at the link below for more information on Diablo III, Call of Duty, etc.

(Source: Blizzard Finances)

The Old Republic Dropped 400,000 Subscribers, 1.3 Million

I have good news and bad news. First the good news: Electronic Arts is reporting a net income of $76 million compared to this time last year where the publisher posted a loss of $276 million. Additionally, total revenue for the past fiscal year came to $4.14 billion, compared to $3.59 billion the year prior. On the kind-of-massively-but-not-really front, EA’s “Play4Free” games rake in around $2 million monthly.

Now the bad news: The Old Republic has dropped 24% in population since February, when Bioware revealed that the game carried 1.7 million subscribers. The Old Republic now boasts 1.3 million, which may not include the nearly forty countries that the game just launched in at the end of April.

In addition to the recent Legacy update, Bioware has the upcoming Allies update to hopefully bring in lapsed subscribers.

(Source: EA Finances)

The Old Republic Responsible For WoW Subscriber Losses

Talking to Eurogamer, Producer John Lagrave admitted that the launch of The Old Republic has had an effect on World of Warcraft’s subscription numbers. Lagrave goes on to talk about possibly extending the current World of Warcraft unlimited trial (up to level 20) to level 40, or even level 60, but with a firm reminder that Blizzard has no plans to take the MMO to a free to play model, as Blizzard still feels that the game runs best as a subscription.

“Of course people are trying Star Wars – our development team are trying Star Wars! I’m one of the few people who’s still playing it actually, but yeah we’ve seen a dip in subs. It certainly has to at least be attributable to The Old Republic, but it’s also attributable to people who want to wait and get Mists of Pandaria, so it’s not surprising.”

Blizzard is one of several developers to be very open about their loss of subscribers, and one of the few companies to actually post a base figure of how many are still playing. Up until recently, a major portion of Blizzard’s dropped subscribers have been attributed to losses over in China where the rate of income per user is lower than in the West, in territories including China where users pay for World of Warcraft like a prepaid phone (adding hours). Blizzard also attributes some of the loss to players to a need to release more content at a faster pace, as players complete it. Meanwhile, the expansion of the cash shop has more than made up for the loss of subscribers, leading to higher revenue each quarter.

In the face of 1.7 million subscribers for The Old Republic, Blizzard is looking to entice its previous customers to return and current customers to remain so. Back in October, Blizzard launched the expanded Annual Pass offering a free copy of Diablo 3, a spectral mount, and guaranteed access to the Mists of Pandaria beta (The Diablo 3 promotion ends May 1st, if you were thinking about signing up). Just recently, Blizzard launched the Scroll of Resurrection campaign, offering an upgrade to Cataclysm, a free level 80 character, and free faction/server changes for the recipient.

All of this on the heels of Blizzcon 2012 being cancelled so Blizzard can focus on its development, and laying off 600 non-developmental workers.

You can read the rest of the discussion at the link below.

(Source: Eurogamer)

Spread It:

Spread It:

Spread It:

Spread It:

Spread It:

Spread It:

Spread It:

Spread It:

Spread It:

Spread It: