World of Warcraft Surpasses 10 Million Subscribers (Again)

[Steven Bogos]

World of Warcraft Surpasses 10 Million Subscribers (Again)

Blizzard reports that it has sold 3.3 million copies of the latest World of Warcraft expansion: Warlords of Dreanor.

It seems that every time the reports of World of Warcraft's imminent demise crop up, Blizzard does something to very definitively put the naysayers in their place, and assert its dominance of the King of MMOs. This time, the company has announced that it has sold 3.3 million copies of Warlords of Dreanor, causing the game to yet again break the 10 million active subscribers mark.

It was a very different story just 6.8 million [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/129393-World-of-Warcraft-Slows-Losses-As-Activision-Beats-Q3-Outlook] in August.

Last we heard, Blizzard was sitting on 7.4 million subscribers, meaning WoD has brought in at least an additional 2.6 million players. It's worth noting that the previous expansion, Mists of Pandaria, also broke the 10 million milestone, but as the subscriber base pre-expansion at the time was already 9.1 million, it's not quite as impressive.

"We're thrilled that so many players jumped in to play Warlords of Draenor on day one and are having a great time with the new content," said Mike Morhaime, CEO and cofounder of Blizzard Entertainment in a press release [http://blizzard.gamespress.com/WORLD-OF-WARCRAFT-SURPASSES-10-MILLION-SUBSCRIBERS-AS-WARLORDS-OF-DRAE]. "We poured a lot of hard work and passion into this expansion, and we appreciate all the kind words from players and the overwhelming support they continue to show for World of Warcraft.

For the record, Blizzard defines World of Warcraft "subscribers" as "individuals who have paid a subscription fee or have an active prepaid card to play World of Warcraft, as well as those who have purchased the game and are within their free month of access."

It's pretty impressive for a game that's over a decade old to be still pulling in these kinds of numbers. Perhaps the surge of WoD pre-orders is one of the reasons why Titan finally got the axe? [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/137608-Blizzard-Cancels-Titan-MMO-After-Seven-Years]

Source: Blizzard [http://blizzard.gamespress.com/WORLD-OF-WARCRAFT-SURPASSES-10-MILLION-SUBSCRIBERS-AS-WARLORDS-OF-DRAE]

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[Attelia]

"We're thrilled that so many players jumped in to play Warlords of Draenor on day one and are having a great time with the new content

AHAHAHAHA

Because the forums aren't awash with tales of individuals unable to play due to massive login queues and server instability. Easily the worst expansion launch. I eagerly await to see the sub numbers in a month's time. Maybe despite the negative backlash WoD has something going for it?

 

[Ticklefist]

"We're thrilled that so many players jumped in to play Warlords of Draenor on day one and are having a great time with the new content

AHAHAHAHA

Because the forums aren't awash with tales of individuals unable to play due to massive login queues and server instability. Easily the worst expansion launch. I eagerly await to see the sub numbers in a month's time. Maybe despite the negative backlash WoD has something going for it?

You mean you feel this strongly about something you haven't experienced first hand?

 

[Steven Bogos]

"We're thrilled that so many players jumped in to play Warlords of Draenor on day one and are having a great time with the new content

AHAHAHAHA

Because the forums aren't awash with tales of individuals unable to play due to massive login queues and server instability. Easily the worst expansion launch. I eagerly await to see the sub numbers in a month's time. Maybe despite the negative backlash WoD has something going for it?

You mean you feel this strongly about something you haven't experienced first hand?

Welcome to the internet

 

[Attelia]

"We're thrilled that so many players jumped in to play Warlords of Draenor on day one and are having a great time with the new content

AHAHAHAHA

Because the forums aren't awash with tales of individuals unable to play due to massive login queues and server instability. Easily the worst expansion launch. I eagerly await to see the sub numbers in a month's time. Maybe despite the negative backlash WoD has something going for it?

You mean you feel this strongly about something you haven't experienced first hand?

I was in beta. Yeah, the day 1 stuff is all secondhand (mostly from friends and forumers), but trust me when I say that WoD wasn't in a good place for most of its beta. A lot of the bug reports were ignored for months and the communication was scarce. Then there's the whole class pruning can of worms. No one has any idea what direction the dev team is heading in and they sure as celery aren't about to tell us.
I love WoW and I have for years. I'm mean because I love it

 

[BrotherRool]

It's good news for WoW, but still expansion spikes aren't exactly new. The interesting part will be if these people are retained.


This news makes me all the more impressed with EVE though, for giving up the huge expansion spikes and gambling it all on quicker more frequent updates that will help keep the overall quality of the game. They've abandoned the release-relapse cycle and put their money on growing their audience over the course of time.

 

[Bigeyez]

"We're thrilled that so many players jumped in to play Warlords of Draenor on day one and are having a great time with the new content

AHAHAHAHA

Because the forums aren't awash with tales of individuals unable to play due to massive login queues and server instability. Easily the worst expansion launch. I eagerly await to see the sub numbers in a month's time. Maybe despite the negative backlash WoD has something going for it?

You mean you feel this strongly about something you haven't experienced first hand?

I was in beta. Yeah, the day 1 stuff is all secondhand (mostly from friends and forumers), but trust me when I say that WoD wasn't in a good place for most of its beta. A lot of the bug reports were ignored for months and the communication was scarce. Then there's the whole class pruning can of worms. No one has any idea what direction the dev team is heading in and they sure as celery aren't about to tell us.
I love WoW and I have for years. I'm mean because I love it

You obviously weren't around when BC launched and servers broke for days. Or when Vanilla first launched for that matter. People seem to forget how often we got free days of pay because servers were down all the time.

Anyways WoD hit that sweet spot of BC nostalgia but with all the improvements of later expansions. Good stuff all around. Loving it so far.

 

[Adamantium93]

Easily the worst expansion launch.

BAHAHAHAHAHA...oh, you're serious? This happens with every single expansion and everyone always says "It's the worst one EVAR!". Really, the problems only existed for two or three days, they didn't effect everyone, and Blizzard has given people free game time (five days) as compensation.

I highly doubt many people will quit over that.

 

[Steven Bogos]

Easily the worst expansion launch.

BAHAHAHAHAHA...oh, you're serious? This happens with every single expansion and everyone always says "It's the worst one EVAR!". Really, the problems only existed for two or three days, they didn't effect everyone, and Blizzard has given people free game time (five days) as compensation.

I highly doubt many people will quit over that.

I actually agree, this is worse than most of the other expansions.

Sure, BC made the horrible decision to dump everyone in the same starting zone, where you had to literally fight over quest mobs, but at least I could PLAY it. I have been playing World of Warcraft since it first launched, and I have NEVER seen queues as long as 10 hrs until WoD. It was absolutely ridiculous.

 

[Ticklefist]

I'd say WotLK and Cataclysm were smoothest. With WoD I'm fortunate to be on a low-pop server so I never saw a queue. The DDOS stuff was annoying the first couple nights tho.

I'm actually scouting for a new servers atm. Moon Guard is.. running very well.

 

[hotshotbb]

No wonder it increased so drastically. Finally they wen't back to the roots and made it hard. The previous two expansions only made it easier. Hopefully they will proceed adding this kind of expansions. Found myself on the following site.

http://www.gamescoon.net/product/games/unbranded/world-of-warcraft-warlords-of-draenor-pc/

 

[Denamic]

It's more or less fair to say it's one of the worst launches ever. Literally over 6 hour queues, lag bad enough to render the game unplayable and a quest that relied on the severely overtaxed instancing tech and was impossible to turn in, rendering you unable to progress. The game could not be played for the first two days. But 5 days free time for a couple of days of inconvenience is more than fair compensation in my eyes.

 

[gamegod25]

Well the content is good...when you could play it. The launch was pretty rough IMO...long queue's on most servers, frequent lag and server crashes, and one critical quest made impossible due to trolling assholes parking their mounts over an important quest object causing an insane player pileup in one spot.

Thankfully things have gotten better since then, though I wouldn't sound an all clear just quite yet. Still running into issues occasionally but nothing too serious.

 

[Raidenko]

Good for them, I might jump back in myself if the feedback is solid still after a month or so, anyways I heard Blizzard will give 5 days pro bono WoW time to compensate for the unbeatable Que boss.

 

[seditary]

3.3 million copies... that's actually rather small compared to the already active player base. Also while Blizzard can beat their chest over it...I wonder what the numbers will be come january.

Well the article fails to mention that was 3.3 million copies on the first day and also doesn't include one of the largest regions for WoW's playerbase, China which got the expansion launch today.

 

[Makabriel]

It's more or less fair to say it's one of the worst launches ever. Literally over 6 hour queues, lag bad enough to render the game unplayable and a quest that relied on the severely overtaxed instancing tech and was impossible to turn in, rendering you unable to progress. The game could not be played for the first two days. But 5 days free time for a couple of days of inconvenience is more than fair compensation in my eyes.

Sorry, have to disagree with all of you. I've been playing since Vanilla and this wasn't the worst opening. I got to play on the second day with no problems. I remember the first couple of expansions where queues were -expected- for weeks. You can get on and play whenever you want now.

 

[thetoddo]

Only had one queue on day 2 of the xpac. My server is normally medium population so it was only 15 minutes or so. Haven't seen a queue since. Server latency was an issue for the first couple days, and competing for mobs was annoying but absolutely expected. Got one of my alts through the starting quest so that he could start passively gathering garrison resources and getting rest xp and I can attest that everything is working perfectly now up to at least that point.

Haters are gonna hate, but the (minor) issues from day 1-3 are gone and Blizz is doing what seems like daily hotfixes to fix problems as they are reported. The DDOS attack also didn't help matters right at the beginning, I wonder if that was in response to the Blizzcon speech.

 

[crepesack]

I really don't care if it was the worst launch ever. I'm going to judge the expac for how fun it is. So far so good though.

 

[Denamic]

It's more or less fair to say it's one of the worst launches ever. Literally over 6 hour queues, lag bad enough to render the game unplayable and a quest that relied on the severely overtaxed instancing tech and was impossible to turn in, rendering you unable to progress. The game could not be played for the first two days. But 5 days free time for a couple of days of inconvenience is more than fair compensation in my eyes.

Sorry, have to disagree with all of you. I've been playing since Vanilla and this wasn't the worst opening. I got to play on the second day with no problems. I remember the first couple of expansions where queues were -expected- for weeks. You can get on and play whenever you want now.

I don't know what it was like on lower pop servers, but on Draenor EU, the game was literally unplayable. Constant 5 to 10 second lagspikes, phases not working, quest turn-ins missing, obscene queue times, etc. You simply could not play the game. A launch cannot get much worse than that if it doesn't come visit you and physically spits you in the face.

Spoiler

This is how the quest turn-in to get your garrison looked like for 2 days.