It seems that MMO giant World of Warcraft has hit a patch of rough water with their subscriber number having taken a hit from the March-June period. Going from about 7.6 Million on March 31st, the tally is now down to 6.8 Million as of June 30th.
Though this may seem to be a decent sized drop, Blizzard is actually enjoying a spike in revenue. This quarter’s earnings of $658 Million trumps the $608 Million which they earned around the same time last year. If anything, this big drop in subscribers is related to the twilight hours of the most recent expansion. Conversely, the inflow of cash can be accredited to pre-orders for their up and coming expansion: Warlords of Draenor. According to Blizzard, this kind of number activity is pretty much business as usual when it comes to a new expansion. With current subscribers finishing up the last of the new content from the old, they take a bit of a break to whet their appetite for the new. However, it does beg the question: how effective is the expansion-based model that World of Warcraft updates on and for how much longer?
In the current MMO market, it seems that fewer games are utilizing expansion-based updates in favor of smaller, more frequent additions. On top of this, these other MMOs tend to not charge extra for their updates, whereas each new World of Worldcraft expansion typically comes with a $60 price-tag in addition to the usual subscription fee. While it cannot be denied that being the best in the genre has its advantages, could we possibly see a time when the wait and the price do start having a negative effect on the subscriber count?
World of Warcraft: Warlords of Draenor Announcement Trailer
So, do you think the drop in subscribers is just the nature of the MMO beast? Could this be an omen of complications to come for World of Warcraft?
