World of Warcraft podría pasar a ser gratuito en el futuro

Activision Blizzard announced the drop in WoW Subscription Numbers in a press release today.
The WoW subscription numbers have taken yet another hit, with a 1.3 million subscriber drop between February and May, Kotaku reports. They add that the subscriber loss has mostly come from eastern markets, but even so, this is over a 25% total loss from the dizzying heights of the Wrath of the Lich King subscriber numbers.

We’ve joked about WoW being dead here before on Gamebreaker, and we’re hoping it’s pretty clear that we’re not being wholly serious this time either. The game has not gone the way of the dodo, it is not pushing up the daisies, it is not an ex-MMORPG just yet. Even with this drop, the WoW subscriber numbers are very healthy compared to just about any other MMORPG on the market right now. And for a title of its age to be able to maintain such a large base, even in the face of some stiff competition is impressive indeed. 8.3 million people is not a small number.

Nonetheless, this is the lowest WoW subscription number point since early in 2007. It is a natural low point in the expansion cycle, with the latest patch on its way, and an uptick could well appear. Mists of Pandaria has been a divisive expansion, heralded jointly as being the best the game has been, and one of the worst grinds of recent years. But is this drop in numbers due to the changes in WoW, or the changes in the gaming world around it? WoW has a very diverse appeal: with a subscriber base of this size it’s nigh on impossible to please everyone, and are the players who joined later on just too different to those who came in at the start?

While WoW is hardly dead in the water, one has to wonder: what’s causing the subscription losses? And will it ever regain them?

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Activision earnings call offers more insight on WoW subscriber losses

In addition to the news that Titan may not be subscription-based, today's Activision investor call also shed some light on WoW's most recent round of subscriber losses. Blizzard says that the subscriber loss was more or less evenly split between Eastern and Western markets, which is to say that they've lost subscribers in North America, Europe, and Asia. However, patch 5.2 and 5.3 both had a positive impact on subscriber numbers and Blizzard is working on making returning to the game easier for players who have left.

While there's been a lot of panic over the subscriber losses, Blizzard isn't throwing in the towel yet: in this call they assured everyone that they're committed to the World of Warcraft playerbase (that's us!) in spite of the subscriber downturn and other projects like Titan on the horizon.

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There's an obvious reason World of Warcraft lost 1.9 million subscriptions in three months...

I must confess, I haven’t logged into World of Warcraft for over two years. TWO years. And, it’s not because the game changed much, but I have, and so has the gaming community. We’ve come to expect better things. Yet, I still compare EVERY new MMO game to World of Warcraft in some aspect. My criteria for judging MMO’s has mostly been, “Is this as fun as WoW?” I know I’m not alone in using this criteria. And, for the most part, new MMOs have fallen short of WoW’s appeal. But, it’s still no surprise that Blizzard saw a loss of 1.3 million subscribers for World of Warcraft in the first quarter of 2013, and another 600,000 in the second quarter. There’s an obvious reason that WoW has lost 1.9 million subscribers in three months; people have changed.

The key to World of Warcraft’s appeal and success was that everyone was playing it; your best friends, your wife, your uncle, your mailman, your professor, your dog-walker, Mr. T, etc. This is no longer the case. The gamers that grew up playing World of Warcraft nearly ten years ago are now ten years older. Think about that for a minute; where were you ten years ago? I, myself, was in high school, with nothing else to do but neglect my homework and play video games. Where am I now? Married with two kids and a full time job. Unfortunately, I don’t have time for three hour raids and dungeon sessions. I certainly wouldn’t be able to play the game for a long enough period of time that would provide any worth to having a monthly subscription, so, again unfortunately, I go without World of Warcraft. It’s just not worth it to me anymore.

With the release of newer, more polished MMOs such as Guild Wars 2 and Neverwinter, there’s no denying that WoW’s graphics and cost model need updating. Guild Wars 2 was a one time purchase of $60, and then you can play it free for life (or until the company shuts down the servers), and Neverwinter, which will be hitting retail sometime soon, is now in a free, open beta. Free. But where WoW falls short on graphics, Guild Wars 2 and Neverwinter fall short (in one way or another) on gameplay. I’m just starting my journey with Neverwinter, so I can’t say just yet whether or not it has staying power, but if it’s anything like my MMOs of games past, my interest in it won’t last more than a year. I haven’t logged into Guild Wars 2 in six months. I haven’t logged into DC Universe Online since a week after the latest content update was released. I haven’t logged into Defiance since a week after finishing up my review for Den of Geek.

The money that I used to spend on my monthly subscription to World of Warcraft now goes to the necessities in life. On top of that point, I have to be more choosey with the games I want to spend my hard-earned money on. I can’t just go to GameStop and buy 2 or 3 games at a time like I used to when I was 15 years old without any bills to pay. So, some games are missed, and I tend to look for the cheaper options for gaming; World of Warcraft is not one of those options. It’s not like there isn’t a cost barrier for WoW to get new subscribers, either. You’d have to first purchase World of Warcraft and its first two expansions, The Burning Crusade and Wrath of the Lich King for $19.99, then Cataclysm for another $19.99, then Mists of Pandaria for another $39.99, PLUS a monthly fee? No thanks. World of Warcraft would undoubtedly benefit from a free-to-play model (which every Tom, Dick and Harry on the web is crying for). You can add my name to that list, sure, but the game would still have to be updated graphically to hold my interest.

There’s also the need for that “new-new”; gamers always want to try the newest games. Between new retail releases from big companies like EA, Perfect World, NCsoft, Trion Worlds, XBLA and PSN titles, Indie releases every week, and alphas, closed betas, open betas, etc, gamers are constantly getting new options for games to play. And, it’s nearly impossible to keep up. I can’t tell you how many games I’ve missed already this year that I, hopefully, will get a chance to go back and play at some point, simply because there isn’t enough time in the week to play all the new games and still keep up with real life. Thankfully, gaming is part of my career, so I do get to play more than the average adult gamer (awesome). Still, there’s not enough time in the week to play all of the new games that I would like to get my hands on. There’s no time to play it, and my pockets aren’t endless, so where would World of Warcraft even fit into this equation?

It doesn’t.

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World of Warcraft Down to 7.7 Million Subscribers
That's a loss of 600,000 in the last quarter.
by Luke Karmali
July 26, 2013
Activision Blizzard has announced World of Warcraft currently has 7.7 million subscribers, down from 8.3 million last quarter.


This represents a loss of 600,000 subscribers in three months, and brings the number of people paying to play the game to its lowest figure since before the launch of the first expansion, The Burning Crusade, back in 2007.


It marks a continued decline in the number of people playing the most successful MMORPG in the world; World of Warcraft had as many as 10 million subscribers when the most recent expansion, Mists of Pandaria, released last September and had more than 12 million at its peak in 2010.

The company appears to be taking steps to mitigate the loss in earnings caused by the cancelling of subscriptions; earlier this month it was confirmed an in-game store would be coming to the title, with Eastern regions being offered additional items like experience-boosters.

Quite what this means for the future of the genre is unclear. We've been asking for some time if we should be paying to play MMOs, considering the number that have jettisoned their sub fees of late. While it seems Warcraft is unlikely to convert to free-to-play any time soon, it'll be interesting to see what effect this has on the likes of upcoming MMOs WildStar and The Elder Scrolls Online, both of which have yet to announce business models.


This latest subscriber loss means there are more former-MMO players than ever before floating around looking for a new title to latch onto. Have you played World of Warcraft before and, if so, what features would you want in a new MMO to coax you back in? Or are you just suffering from extreme genre-fatigue? Let us know what you think in the comments below.

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