World of Warcraft Loses 1.3 Million Players in First Quarter of 2013

[dlevere]

By Vinay Mandalia

World of Warcarft, gaming industry’s most popular franchise and one of Activision Blizzard's cash cow, is bleeding subscribers with 1.3 million defecting the game in the first quarter of 2013 alone.

Activision Blizzard, through an earnings call press release [PDF] on Wednesday, revealed this bit of information and according to the company the massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) saw a decline of over 14 per cent subscribers in the first quarter of 2013, the total now standing at 8.3 million.

Launched back in 1994 2004 as Warcraft: Orcs & Humans the MMORPG saw a boost in 2012 with the launch of Mists of Pandaria when it sold over 2.7 million copies in the first week itself.

World of Warcraft has been in limelight on and off for both right as well as wrong reasons. Back in October 2012 entire cities in World of Warcraft were found dead – the reason for which was believed to be an in-game hack. Blizzard acknowledged that an in-game exploit was used by miscreants and fixed it before more users started using the exploit.

The gaming publisher isn’t optimistic though and believes that the numbers will decline as time passes. According to Activision executives the subscriber base of WoW is expected to dip further as more and more free-to-play games emerge on the Internet.

WoW’s declining subscriber base won’t be leaving too deep a wound for Activision as it’s not the only franchise that is making money the gaming publisher. There are other franchises like the Diablo 3 and StarCraft 2: Heart of the Swarm alongside the bestselling Call of Duty series that Activision Blizzard will be counting on to recuperate the loss of subscribers.

According to the earnings call, Activision registered sales of $1.32 billion in its first quarter as compared to $1.17 billion year-on-year and managed to rake in a net income of $456 million – an improvement of $72 million year-on-year.

[olala]

The reason is simply,the site its ignored the cheatin user,the updated server is to slow,
The user who deciced to leave is the same guys who want play fair,its not only wow,but this issue may been over other online games,

And yae I'm the one who leave wow too(since 2009),becouse,well I'm borred

dood

[OldSchoolGamer]

I never understood how and why people would want to play a never-ending game. If there is no ending, then you can't beat the game and therefore what is the point... just to complete mission/quest after mission/quest and raise your stats/experience. At least with classic retro games that have no ending, there is a point in the game where the game starts to recycle it's levels (Ex: After 99 levels or 255 levels) and the gamer can consider that an ending once he reaches that 99th or 255th level. But in a lot of these new generation MMO's, there is nothing that a gamer can consider to be an ending.

[OldSchoolGamer]

My opinion... In a hypothetical situation, if the world was searched and the two best lawyers were found in the world... one lawyer to represent the argument that retro gaming is more fun and the other lawyer to represent the argument that new generation gaming is more fun. And there was a non-biased jury. I'm confident that retro gaming would win unanimously. And that is sad because when I was a kid, I never would have imagined that future generation games that have amazing graphics would not be as much fun as retro games. Somewhere along the line, game developers stopped focusing on the fun factor of games. NES/SNES/Genesis were the peak of fun and everything that came after those consoles were a slow and steady decline in fun. Yes, of course there were a bunch of great games and good consoles that came after those consoles, but I'm just saying. It's outrageous after all these years and with all this great technology and graphics, that the NES/SNES/Genesis are still the best consoles with the most fun games.

[olala]

My opinion... In a hypothetical situation, if the world was searched and the two best lawyers were found in the world... one lawyer to represent the argument that retro gaming is more fun and the other lawyer to represent the argument that new generation gaming is more fun. And there was a non-biased jury. I'm confident that retro gaming would win unanimously. And that is sad because when I was a kid, I never would have imagined that future generation games that have amazing graphics would not be as much fun as retro games. Somewhere along the line, game developers stopped focusing on the fun factor of games.

Lol you said twice:P
But for this case,I'm agree with you dood
that's why I'm get borred when I tried playin online games,mostly I playd only less than 1year

No actualy fun I get,only little well bulls rank to showin to other user lol,
I'm more into standalone always
To get a fun,like good gameplay,storyline,enjoyed
Also if I'm get borred,well I dunt mind to play certain title just for searchin hidden content,maybe bugs/easter egg/buggy:P

dood

[Demonic722]

Somewhere along the line, game developers stopped focusing on the fun factor of games. NES/SNES/Genesis were the peak of fun and everything that came after those consoles were a slow and steady decline in fun.

Do you even own a current generation console, let alone played one?

[OldSchoolGamer]

Do you even own a current generation console, let alone played one?

The systems I own are the Atari 2600, NES, SNES, Genesis, Dreamcast (great 2K sports games), and PS2 (Madden, enough said). So the PS2 was the last system I personally owned. My younger brother has all the current consoles and I sometimes play a lil with him. The FPS games are the only type of current generation games I like. The rest are not much fun in my opinion. I can't even count how many times I've watched my brother play some MMO and wander around for 45 minutes without even encountering any action. Then play some soccer game and having to press 4 different buttons to execute one specific kick... 4 friggin buttons on a controller that has 50 buttons (<--over exag obvi) just to execute an action that is what the sport is all about... kicking. It's ridiculous how unnecessarily complicated they make some games. But hey, to each their own. To be clear, I don't hate the other consoles... I think they are good. But they are not as fun as the NES/SNES/Genesis in my opinion. And that's very disappointing to me.

[Demonic722]

Yeah, to each his own. I won't even bother diving too much into this topic.

[rimsky82]

I judge a game for what it is, not on how old it is. There are great and shitty games for every console.

I think it's ignorant to judge an entire generation of games on one or a few shitty ones.

Also, if I had the two best lawyers in the world, I wouldn't waste their arguments on preference. Besides, why should it matter to anyone who would "win" that case. People will play what's fun to them, the end.

[Mezmorize]

I just hate how the current gen is shifting to all these shooters and away from RPG's.
Or how gaming magazines are now calling FPS games RPG's and the REAL RPG's being called JRPG's.
I kinda feel the same as OSG, the last system that I could really 'get into' was the PS2.
I only bought a PS3 when the first hack came out for it, and the only game I've ever bought was the newest Final Fantasy (at the time).

Never planned to own a Wii or 360 but ended up with both just because of running across a good deal at work.
Glad I did get the Wii though, my nieces love it and I like it's emulator support and such.

[OldSchoolGamer]

I judge a game for what it is, not on how old it is. There are great and shitty games for every console.

I think everyone does this... or at least most people.

I think it's ignorant to judge an entire generation of games on one or a few shitty ones.

The two unnamed games were used as an example to support my opinion. It would be ignorant on both people to think that one would judge a generation of games by just experiencing a couple of games.

Also, if I had the two best lawyers in the world, I wouldn't waste their arguments on preference.

That's why it was hypothetical.

---

What my feelings on the matter are... The fact that the NES/SNES is still considered and argued by so many people that it's more fun than newer generation systems is disappointing. That after about 30 years advantage of improved technology, graphics, studies, experience, knowledge, etc... the fact that the NES/SNES can even be considered on the same 'fun level' or even better is extremely disappointing. They should be significantly more fun than the NES/SNES after having 30 year advantage of the said factors... but they are not. In fact, the NES even gets voted the best system of all-time. Now, once again, I'm not saying new generation systems aren't good or aren't fun... They are fun... they are video games and video games are fun. I'm just saying I am disappointed now and I would have been disappointed as a kid as well if I would have known that after 30 years that the video game systems aren't significantly more fun.

[OldSchoolGamer]

Glad I did get the Wii though, my nieces love it and I like it's emulator support and such.

Yea, the Wii is a good "family" video game system. It's basically the only system I've ever seen whole families participate in... from Grandparents to Grandchildren, to mothers and fathers... everyone plays.

[olala]

Jrpg is the best!
Its simply pharse& for japanese only,
I've lot playin jrpg rather than rpg?
Jrpg=rpg
Reason simply,almost psp-ps3 are focused in that,sadly I dunt have ps3,if I have one,ill bought all those title

dood

[dlevere]

World of Warcraft down another 100,000 subscribers

November 6, 2013 1:19 PM
By Jeffrey Grubb

Corrected at 1:30 p.m.: This story originally compared World of Warcraft’s current subscribers to its May levels. The most up-to-date comparison is to the game’s subscriber numbers from August. We’ve fixed that and apologize for the confusion.

Activision Blizzard revealed that World of Warcraft continues to slowly bleed paying subscribers.

The massively multiplayer online role-playing game is now down to approximately 7.6 million subscribers, according to Blizzard. That’s down from 7.7 million in August, and it’s down 400,000 from May. Despite the slow leak in members, World of Warcraft remains the world’s No. 1 subscription-based MMO role-playing game.

This is the lowest subscription rate for World of Warcraft since 2006. It’s down from a high of 12 million in 2010.

This news comes as Activision Blizzard, which publishes World of Warcraft, revealed its third-quarter earnings today. Even while its premiere MMO is losing revenue, the company managed to beat its earnings outlook.

“Our third-quarter results exceeded our expectations, and we are able to raise our outlook for 2013 net revenues and earnings per share,” Activision Blizzard chief executive Bobby Kotick said in a statement. “Robust continued engagement with our core franchises drove digital revenue, which constituted a majority of all revenue. This quarter demonstrates that games like Call of Duty and World of Warcraft engage and entertain our fans year round.”

In addition to the core WOW experience, Activision launched the beta for its digital collectible-card game Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft. This free-to-play title has players competing head-to-head and spending money to buy card packs and compete in special matches. This is the company’s first major free-to-play game, and it could act as a testing ground Blizzard’s future game or potential changes to World of Warcraft.