The once most played PC game could finally be on the decline as Blizzard has revealed that the subscription base for their MMO monster “World of Warcraft” is decreasing. Blizzard boss Mike Morhaime confirmed in Activision Blizzard’s Q1 2011 financial call last night that WoW’s sub base was at 11.4 million, down 600k from the 12 million figures that was reported before Cataclysm launched.
“During the first quarter of 2011, as players have eagerly consumed the new content, we have seen subscribership return to prelaunch levels in the West,” said Morhaime. “We finished the quarter with more than 11.4 million subscribers worldwide. ”
Morhaime also said that the company hopes to see an increase once the Cataclysm expansion finally launches in China later this year. Also Blizzard are looking at possibly introducing new content to the masses quicker, as the rate of completion has become faster by WoW enthusiasts.
“As our players have become more experienced playing World of Warcraft over the many years, they have become much better and much faster at consuming content,” he said, answering an investor’s question.
“And so I think with Cataclysm, they were able to consume the content faster than with previous expansions. But that’s why we’re working on developing more content. We launched our first update last week and we have another update that’s already in test. The response that we’ve gotten so far from players has been very positive and we really think that we need to be faster at delivering content to players.
“And so that’s one of the reasons why we’re looking to decrease the amount of time in between expansions.”
In my honest opinion I think WoW is well overdue a complete overhaul. Blizzard should definitely look at introducing a new engine if they aren’t already. Subscribers just need something completely fresh to look forward to. Nobody wants to dump money constantly into something that isn’t evolving at a satisfying rate. Let us know what you think.
