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Blizzard has seen World of Warcraft subscriber numbers slide by millions in the past three months, as players of the massively multiplayer online role-playing game leave in their droves following the launch of the Warlords of Draenor expansion.
The current number of subscribers now sits at a pretty hefty 7.1 million, but this is down 3 million from the 10 million achieved earlier this year. World of Warcraft: Warlords of Draenor was clearly a massive hit when it arrived, shifting 3.3 million copies in just 24 hours, but it’s struggled to retain this player-base. Luckily Blizzard still has plenty of players there to keep its coffers full, aided by the news more than 30 million players worldwide are active in collectible card game Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft.
"World of Warcraft's revenue performance at constant FX has been more stable, driven by continued strong uptake on value added services, and price increases in select regions, which partially offset subscriber declines, particularly in the East," Blizzard wrote. "World of Warcraft remains the No. 1 subscription-based MMORPG in the world.”
It seems churlish to note WoW dropping to 7.1 million monthly subscribers now, more than a decade after its launch, but the fear is World of Warcraft’s appeal is drying up. Blizzard’s next plan is to release expansion packs at a faster rate in order to keep players hooked in.
Onwards and upwards to that Hearthstone news though, which has seen the F2P CCG amass 30 million players since its launch last year. That’s not the only pie Blizzard’s got its fingers in either, the Diablo 3 beta launched recently and already more than three million new players have signed up.
Looking forward Blizzard’s got plenty more to keep fans happy, with theHearthstone: Blackrock Mountain expansion, the imminent Heroes of the Storm launch, StarCraft 2’s Legacy of the Void expansion pack, and of course Overwatch coming soon.
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