In a recent Activision Blizzard investor’s note, the published reported that the hugely popular MMORPG World of Warcraft has lost 600,000 subscribers worldwide in just four months. The current tally, with Blizzard announcing the number of subscribers as 8.3 million in March, is estimated to currently be at 7.7 million.
Users who subscribe to World of Warcraft need to pay $15 to play the game. Given that there haven’t been any major changes in the game, or consistent updates on the scale of Guild Wars 2 (which also has no monthly subscription), it’s not that surprising that players would be interested in playing something else.
The first signs of this were seen when the fourth expansion, Mists of Pandaria, sold less copies in a week than the Cataclysm had managed to sell in 24 hours (2.7 million vs 3.3 million).
Is it the beginning of the end? Time will tell, but at the very least, it indicates that Blizzard needs to up its game.
