But there's still plenty of people left on Azeroth.

In the last year the number of World of Warcraft subscribers has fallen in the from 12 million to 10.3 million.

The game's developer, Blizzard, announced yesterday that between July and September 800,000 players left. This is a sharp decline compared to October last year, when the game reached a peak with 12 million users.

The decline began earlier this year, as the number of subscribers slipped to 11.4 million, dropping to 11.1 by July.

The CEO of Blizzard, Mike Morhaime, revealed in a conference call attended by Gamasutra that the decline came mainly from the East, yet he added that WoW remains "one of the most popular online games in China, and by far the most popular subscription-based MMO in the world."

But laurels aren't being rested upon. "That said, we know there are improvements that we can make in the game content," said Morhaime.

In addition to the recently-announced expansion pack, Mists of Pandaria, Blizzard will launch a content update pack in the next few weeks. According to Morhaime, the release is "not intended to go out and drive new user acquisition, that's a whole other strategy. But it does drive engagement with the game, and so that will impact churn if we do it successfully, and will eventually drive winback, as players tell each other about the content they're enjoying."

The PlanetSide 2 site has been updated with a new "brief", or profile, of one of the factions set to debut in the game on release. The New Conglomerate is known to inhabit the shady side of the street and members are known as rebels, traitors and terrorists.

The blog post goes into a bit of detail about the background for The Conglomerate as well as some of the more practical, gameplay facets that players will see if they build characters of this faction:

From a gameplay perspective, the Blue and Gold are built around hitting first, hitting hardest and taking a beating.  Although their weapons might not have the most finesse (often having strong kick, long reload times, and slower firing rates) they do pack a hell of a punch.  The empire specific vehicles, the Reaver attack fighter and Vanguard medium battle tank pack on more armaments and armor as well as abilities that allow them to stay in battle longer than the other empires equivalents.  While the N.C. vehicles excel in durability and sheer firepower, their trade off is in mobility and speed.

Read the full blog post on the PlanetSide 2 site.

One week later than expected.

Warner Bros. has delayed the release of Batman: Arkham City on PC by one week.

The PC version was previously announced with a November 15th release date in North America, but will now be coming out on November 22nd instead. In Europe, the PC version will be released on November 25th.

According to recent information Tweeted by SOE's John Smedley, DC Universe Online's population is up 1000%. DCUO Producer Lorin Jameson has posted a new note on the game's Facebook page to address server woes and long player queues as a result of the explosive growth since DCUO went F2P last week.

Jameson indicates that the DCUO team is working hard to optimize game servers and is working actively with PlayStation developers to solve issues with the PS3 version of the game. Jameson also has written that updates to address these issues are being deployed as soon as they are ready.

Read the full update on the DC Universe Online Facebook page.

The Lego Group has sent word that LEGO Universe will close down on January 31, 2012. Developers say that the free zone has met with positive player reactions but that not enough free players were converting to paying customers.

As a result of the game's closure, the LEGO Group also said

"As a consequence of the closure, the LEGO Universe staff has today been informed that the ‘Play Well Studios’ in Louisville, Colorado and the game’s marketing function in Billund, Denmark will be closed. This will affect 115 employees. All affected employees will be offered assistance in finding new jobs inside or outside the LEGO Group."