World of Warcraft Drops 10 Per Cent of All Subscribers
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As Azeroth gets far less crowded, are we seeing the slow demise of MMO gaming’s king?
Developer Blizzard released subscription figures for World of Warcraft today to reveal that the titan of massively-multiplayer gaming is slowly haemorrhaging players. Since May this year, the number of WoW monthly subscribers has slipped from 11.4 million to 10.3 million.
The loss of over 1 subscribers in six months would be enough to kill or severely cripple most MMOs, but WoW still stands tall as the industry’s most successful and well-supported game of its genre by a long stretch.
The crown still rests on Blizzard’s head… but is it slipping? Is there a chance that the game’s dominance of the MMO market could be coming to an end?
For me, the telling test will be the release of the next expansion: World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria. The announcement of the new Panda-themed content at Blizzcon 2011 last month was met with decidedly divided opinions amongst the game’s core fanbase as well as outside observers.
Some hailed the news of a more light-hearted expansion as a welcome change that would probably appeal to a wider range of gamers and attract fresh blood to the game. Others sighed, railed and cursed before ultimately taking their concerns to the internet forums that WoW was becoming “too focused on the casual gamer market,” or in supremely oversimplified terms, “too kiddy”.
Though let us not forget that World of Warcraft is more like the tide than a single wave. Subscriber numbers ebb and flow as players tire of the game, leave, and are then drawn inexorably back in by the thought of a shiny new expansion laden with new features, new playable races/classes/etc and impossibly ornate weapons and armor to collect.
While WoW’s last expansion, Cataclysm, failed to draw as many gamers back as Blizzard originally hoped, this time things could be different. This is not because of the nature of the new expansion, Mists of Pandaria, it’s due to the simply genius business strategy employed by Blizzard.
At Blizzcon 2011 Blizzard announced that everyone who committed to an annual subscription to World of Warcraft would get a string of unusually generous perks. The first was that they will receive a free digital copy of the hotly anticipated Hack and Slash RPG Diablo 3 when it is released. Next was the guaranteed place in the beta testing of Mists of Pandaria and the cherry on top was an exclusive player mount for WoW: the winged horse Tyrael’s Charger.
This is an offer so clever that it’s almost evil! It’s dastardly in its brilliance! Imagine all the jaded ex-WoW players who can’t wait to try out Diablo 3 but still harbor a lingering fondness for their adventures in Azeroth. All of a sudden, they are offered the chance to have their cake and eat it, sign up for WoW and get Diablo 3 for free.
This move will also discourage thousands, perhaps millions of players from trying out the new MMO that can be seen hovering menacingly over WoW’s horizon: BioWare’s Star Wars: The Old Republic. Many gamers don’t have the time and/or money to play more than one monthly fee game, meaning that if they’re locked into an annual subscription to WoW, they are less likely to head off for greener pastures.
Plus, we all know that exclusive mounts are like crack to hardcore WoW players.
Therefore, I don’t think that WoW’s days are numbered. While the game’s growth may have peaked, the eventual decline will most likely be slow and steady, rather than a headlong free fall.
