A better example of a more fresh MMO doing well is Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn, which according to reports passed 5 million (total, not active) subscribers in June-July. They've been tight-lipped about active subscribers, but it was assumed to be a couple of hundred thousand, although to me that seems sparse given that they recently brought out a new expansion.Nimcha said:SWTOR's latest expansion surely helps!Fappy said:The theme park MMO is in it's twilight years. This was inevitable. Hopefully someone comes along and revolutionizes the genre again. We're long overdue.
SWTOR was a bit scant at the beginning, and while more content has been added afterwards, their f2p-model really stinks. Doesn't make it a bad game, but ultimately not a good option to make the f2p-part so restrictive.
As for why Blizzard decided to stop announcing subscriber-numbers, my initial thought was that it's to silence those players who keep shouting about wow dying (which, btw, they've been saying since cataclysm, 4 YEARS ago), whose scaremongering might be deterring new players, causing them to look elsewhere. (Trying not to scare investors also seem like a good reason, though).
Quite frankly I'm tired of the same old chorus chanting about wow's (inevitable) death. Yes, it is bound to die at some point, but that doesn't make you more right. You can argue that it's been dying since Wrath of the Lich King, since the sub numbers have been steadily declining since then; that doesn't mean its OK for you to keep shouting, you're not adding anything new to the discussion, you're just part of the noise machine.
If people (like me) want to spend more money on WoW (I do it because I enjoy raiding), then we should be allowed to do so, without you shouting in our ears the same old tired soundtrack that you've been playing since patch 3.3 in Wrath.
(This was not aimed at the escapist; it was aimed at people who can't shut up about this kind of thing).