14 DAY TRIAL // Blizzard has revealed that the number of subscribers for its World of Warcraft MMORPG has continued to decrease since earlier this year, now reaching 10.3 million, registering a 10 percent drop that translated in more than 800,000 people deactivating their subscriptions to the online game.
World of Warcraft is by far the most popular online role playing game out there, with no other title managing to even come close to the level of popularity experienced by the title made by Blizzard.
Things aren't going so well however this year, as after some massive growth up to and after the release of the Cataclysm expansion at the end of 2010, the number of subscribers has decreased significantly, going from around 12 million to 11 million, as revealed by the studio back in May.
Now, as part of a recent Activision Blizzard earnings call, new data was shared with investors that pointed to another decrease in subscriber count for World of Warcraft, this time at 10 percent, meaning 800,000 players have stopped paying their monthly subscriptions.
"In its Q3:F11 earnings conference call Activision Blizzard reported that worldwide active subscribers to World of Warcraft finished the September quarter at 10.3MM, a decrease of 800K during the quarter," said Doug Creutz, analyst at Cowen and Company, via CVG. "They further specified that a majority of the decline in active accounts was 'coming from the East', i.e. mostly from China."
Quite a lot of big MMOs have been released in recent times, many already going free-to-play, like DC Universe Online, while the biggest competition that World of Warcraft might face, Star Wars: The Old Republic, is getting ready to be launched later this year.
In the meantime, Blizzard revealed last month that a new expansion is coming to WoW, called Mists of Pandaria, which adds a new playable Pandaren race, as well as quite a few big changes, although it's nothing as dramatic as previous add-ons like Wrath of the Lich King or Cataclysm.
What say you? Have you also abandoned World of Warcraft or are you still among the loyal 10.3 million subscribers?