Gosh, World of Warcraft has been in the news a lot. I wonder why oh 800,000 subscribers gone that’s why. I wonder why tha- oh yeah they haven’t released content in over a year and all of the recent content has been achievable by anyone with half a brain and the forward arrow key. What is Blizzard’s response? Well, take every bit of information about their anniversary and every bit about the expansion, cut it into a size much smaller than an M&M, and spam everyone each week with a new announcement.

So now we have this nostalgia thing coming up. They’re adding in a corgi, for free, adding a 40-player Molten Core, and a new deathmatch battleground for Tauren Mill. So it’s sort of like oh we hit the tipping point where almost no one is playing our game anymore, we better load it up with things people wanted 8 years ago around the time TBC came out. Oh ho ho ho, yeah, here you guys go. You’re not playing our game? Pshaw, fine then, have a little bit of fan service.

I’m kidding, not really, but the 800k subs were in the eastern market. The western market doesn’t bleed nearly that fast, considering it only has a few million subscribers to start with. Why, oh why would this happen? Not enough content and other games that offer a more enjoyable experience have arrived.

Not to mention, in the eastern market, players pay hourly. Once they don’t log in for awhile, aka not pay for time, they’re not counted anymore. Obviously, if there is no reason to login, they’re going to lose those subscribers, which is still a drop in the bucket compared to what they have.

So yeah, new content is the quick fix, considering the game is more profitable than ever, which means that they could continue to lose subscribers, but as long as the cash shop and the addons keep the money rolling in, the shareholders and investors are super happy with the game.

I’ve been talking about WoW since before it’s launch and it’s getting kind of annoying. Why can’t the Internet learn trends? It’s like, oh no WoW lost 800k subscribers right at the tail end of an expansion in the eastern markets queue the following:

  • Yes, WoW is now dead. Haha, suckers, I knew you scrub lords were going to fail. My game that I am playing now, insert game name, is vastly superior.
  • No newbs, this is in Asia where they pay by the hour, these subscriber numbers are wrong and have always been wrong, since it counts the players who log in for an hour.
  • You’re all wrong scrub newbs, WoW is kicking and alive and awesome, I am playing 29 hours a day wtf newbs shut up if you don’t know what you’re talking about.
  • I played WoW back in 1729 when it was good, but then they added <insert game mechanic> and I can’t have anymore and refuse to play (bonus points: search for posts/comments by user and discover a request for a scroll of resurrection).
  • Derp herp a derp a derp WoW sux it always did graphics sux u sux why talk about WoW let me tell you Wizards 101 is where it’s at.
  • Comedy troll option.

Anyway, it’s important to just rationalize this idea that for some reason Blizzard hates giving people content, for some reason the game is more profitable than the last year or whatever, and 800,000 people in Asia decided to not buy a few more hours to go play ArcheAge or whatever. In the meantime, comments act the same as comments do, and voila. The Internet is where it is supposed to be.

Join me tomorrow when I talk lifehacks for MMO gamers.


To read the latest guides, news, and features you can visit our World of Warcraft Game Page.

Last Updated: Mar 13, 2016

About The Author

Get in the bush with David "Xerin" Piner as he leverages his spectacular insanity to ask the serious questions such as is Master Yi and Illidan the same person? What's for dinner? What are ways to elevate your gaming experience? David's column, Respawn, is updated near daily with some of the coolest things you'll read online, while David tackles ways to improve the game experience across the board with various hype guides to cool games.

Comments