Game developer Blizzard Entertainment seeks to arrest the surprisingly significant drop in the number of subscriptions to its massively multiplayer online role-playing game “World of Warcraft” with a new patch that would further give players a wide range of new gameplay options.
From a high of 10 million subscribers to start the year, “World of Warcraft” subscriptions have seen a dramatic drop to 7.1 million during the first three months of 2015 alone and the decline appears to continue since the gamers feel that they have nothing much to do and go on to in the video game, notes the International Business Times.
What is surprising is that the decline in subscription to “World of Warcraft” started just two months after an increase in the number of subscribers happened in November last year. So it was kind of a drastic pendulum swing for the video game.
But Blizzard Entertainment and its investors are still not too overly concerned, confident that the game’s value would not diminish a bit especially with the fact that the developer is about to roll out “World of Warcraft” Patch 6.2 soon. The patch contains Tanaan Jungle and the Shipyard and is expected to provide players with a host of new gameplay options.
The uptick in subscription
The increase in the subscription of “World of Warcraft” began in November last year when Blizzard Entertainment released the “Warlords of Draenor” entertainment pack, the fifth expansion set. It attracted almost three million subscriptions because the expansion pack offers old and new players to jump straight to level 90.
It was sort of a cheat for players to get past a lot of levels without doing anything. But once the players reached level 90 and played through the rest of the game, they have nothing much to go on and there is no reason for them to hang around and pay between $11.50 to $15 subscription fee.
Blizzard is confident however that once Patch 6.2 goes live, it would be able to lure back most if not all of the nearly three million subscriptions it has lost since the start of the year and perhaps attract new ones too.
A look-back at the beginning
Created and released by Blizzard Entertainment in 2004, “World of Warcraft” is the fourth installment in the fantasy ‘Warcraft’ universe, which was first introduced by “Warcraft: Orcs & Humans” released in 1994.
“World of Warcraft” takes place four years after “Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne,” and the setting of the game is within the ‘Warcraft’ world of Azeroth.
Although Blizzard made the announcement about the “World of Warcraft” as early as September 2011, it was officially released on November 23, 2004 simultaneous to the 10th anniversary of the ‘Warcraft’ video game franchise.
I returned to Warcraft as a subscriber to “try it out”. Then unsubscribed when I wasn’t 100% happy with the game. For me it boiled down to accessibility. I was struggling to adapt to the combat spell rotation. This in turn meant that I wasn’t progressing very quickly. My guildmates were willing to help me out, but I didn’t meet the gear (or skill) requirements to participate in the areas which they moved on to.
They lost me because they still won’t allow me to use my flying mounts in the new lands.
Have to say. I left due to the absolutely horrible customer service. They had an automated ticket system going so that I had to lie to the submit a ticket option, and tell them it was an IT issue instead of the actual problem I was having. After 3 weeks my problem got fixed by the IT guy who admitted they were giving automated responses to people. If it’s an automated response why did it still take 3 days to get? Absolutely no concern for their customers. I wouldn’t shop in a grocery store that was filthy with piles of food scattered around instead of stocked. Why would I give my money to Blizzard?
Being a World of Warcraft player for over 10 years, I can see why players are leaving the game. The constant changes to classes either boosting or even nerfing them, it becomes old. My son who was playing with his host of real life friends decided to ouit the game over the changes. They either got to a point they could raid and enjoy the content then got hit up with changes, nerfs and overall having to re do thier talents when they were given back then having to redo over again. I can see that what they failed to realize that people work, and they play as they can, and with the constant changes or nerfs, it was hard to keep up with. With my self and 3 other real life friends, we have been on the verge of quitting ourselves. The content is fun up to a point, there is alot you can do, but it gets old..adding more such as the patch 6.2 you are going to see membership drop more as the trade chats are getting worse, the community doesnt respect each other along with the degrading comments to women in general and
the verbal abuse that goes on is down right horrible..for this reasons alone 8 people from our guild quit the game permanetly..4 left because of the constant racial attacks. These people have been reported, every day and nothing has been done, because those same people are still there 3 months after reporting.. So, does Blizzard turn the blind eye and allow them to continue with fear they will loose another subscription? Well I for one is going to see what the patch is and probably cancell all three of my accounts and move on..Sorry Blizzard the game needs to be cleaned up and allow people enjoy or leave the game. I have gone to EVERY Blizzcon held and I may not attend this year unless we see some changes.
At first, garrisons were awesome. Now they are a hindrance. What used to take 10 minutes each morning for professions on each of my toons back in Pandaria, now takes 2 hours+. By the time I’m done doing garrison chores, I want to log off and go do something else. The kicker is, I really haven’t accomplished anything yet each day once my garrison chores are done. That’s the real incentive to NOT log on.
I really don’t understand the large loss of people. At least for me, a long time raider, this is one of the best expansions yet. Tanking is actually enjoyable and the PVE content is very challenging at parts, even for more experienced raid groups. Means I actually have to put my effort into the game and work towards progressing. At the moment the game isn’t very casual friendly but its pretty obvious unlike last expansion this one wasn’t designed for casual players. It was designed for the more experienced, skilled PVE players and in my opinion they did a good job.
I feel like you just explained the large loss of people when you said “it was designed for the more experienced, skilled PVE players.” I think most people don’t really want to do high level raiding for one reason or another. I went through Highmaul heroic and just didn’t care to keep going when Blackrock hit. I’d rather have simpler, more diverse things to do besides kill the big mob that repeatedly kills the raid group until we get the hang of it… snoozefest after awhile.
I think it’s a combination of the flying, nerf’s, gating of content (proving grounds silver achieve before accessing heroic content), for example that are frustrating people. The game is over 10 years old and players that started the game back then are now less hardcore and lack the time it takes to put into it. The game isn’t near as fun or exciting anymore but boring. Guilds members are more focused on daily content than progressing.
Well the flying nerf was meant for casual players, so instead of flying around during dailies or whatever the fuck those people do, they run on the ground and end up exploring. People complained there wasn’t enough in the game, so they put stuff in the game but HAVE to limit us to the ground so we don’t fly over it. Also the silver provings is so you don’t get people who don’t know how to play the game in heroics. If you can’t do silver provings you shouldn’t be in heroics. I mean thats a given.
Also the majority of players are either raiders/pvpers, and blizzard is smart to focus on keeping them happy, cause those are the people who stay. No matter what casuals will never stay because its impossible to make long lasting progressive content for them.
that may be so Marc but the proving grounds are basically set up for players with good AoE capabilities, there are some classes that do not have that much in the way of AoE, Blizzard needs to fix it to where the proving grounds will adjust to the specific class doing them
I started playing WoW a few weeks after initial release. The best part of WoW has always been it’s immersive world and leveling process. From a character progression perspective leveling is the most rewarding. End game progression isn’t really character progression, it’s gear and content progression. Your charter itself doesn’t really progress and that is what people enjoy the most, progressing their character.
Blizzards biggest mistake was in gutting character progression and world immersion in favor of gear progression and content progression. Both of which are much less gratifying for the average RPG player. Hence the reason you see spikes in subscriptions with new expansions and then steady declines after.