World of Warcraft Subscriptions Dropping

[Lonesamurai]

World of Warcraft Subscriptions Dropping

Blizzard makes plans to speed up content development.

US, May 9, 2011



World of Warcraft's subscriber base seems to be slowly dropping off, as revealed in today's Activision Blizzard investor call. The number of current World of Warcraft subscribers as reported by Blizzard President Mike Morhaime stands at 11.4 million, notably less than the 12 million subscriber milestone achieved by the game last October.

Morehaime says that Blizzard Entertainment's focus is on speeding up the development of new content for existing players, assumedly in an effort to retain them for longer. Blizzard has famously taken their time with development, often waiting until only a month or two before launch to announce a release date.

While the decrease in subscribers is significant, it is worth remembering that a large portion of Blizzard's subscriber-base stems from the Chinese market which has yet to receive the World of Warcraft: Cataclysm expansion which likely contributed to last year's milestone. Also, 11.4 million subscribers isn't exactly something to scoff at. That's more than the population of a lot of countries.

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Source: http://uk.pc.ign.com/articles/116/1166958p1.html