World of Warcraft subscribers slide, as Activision Blizzard sees profit fall 35 percent

<< LINK REMOVED >> Well, that is true, but we need to know if this is Operating Profit or not. If $293M is NOT Operating profit than WoW is finally in substantial trouble for the future near - mid future. If it is Operating Profit instead of plain profit then yes, they still got enough life to go another round.

As for improving the game, at this point I am not sure they want to risk changing much. I think that once they no longer have profit from it, it will be converted to free to play, which will either raise profit or sink it completely (unlikely, but I don't do F2P).

I am a recovered MMO player, for years I have managed to stay clear from the long raid hours and all that social garbage (I truly loved it while it lasted), thing is, WoW would need to change its gameplay, its very dated, its more action bar gameplay and cool downs than anything else. Now days if I ever where to fall back to MMOs I would either go for a survival one, a Tera's action oriented game or Wildstar's reduced action bars. WoW is too much now days and frankly that is sweet irony as I was strongly against "dumbing down" WoW, look at me now... Time changes us I guess and an MMO needs to be aware of this change on their audience.

<< LINK REMOVED >> It does NOT "cost little" to run WoW...

Source: << LINK REMOVED >>

As I have stated in another post above, if this profit refers to Operating Profit then yes, WoW is fine, if this is not Operating Profit then, well... Its not doing that great. I do think Activision will do fine with Destiny though. As for Blizzard they will likely not be as profitable as before and the deal the struck with Activision way back will be coming to haunt them.

<< LINK REMOVED >> Overall the expansion was quite well done and I think anyone who gave it a try now would be pleansantly surprised. That said, I'm taking a break till it gets closer to WoD release myself.

<< LINK REMOVED >> Well, it will go up slightly, but then it'll go back down. WoW IS the single best successful MMO in the industry, but it's following Nintendo's path. People who want to play WoW, are already playing WoW. And people who don't like WoW, don't like it. There's not much that can be done to get people to look at it again, once they've built their opinion. That's why the numbers continue to drop. Eventually we will all get bored with WoW, despite it's content and numbers.

@Immendorf I rather have the exclusions right of the bat than being led to believe they forgot to include it. While Gamespot does make some "interesting mistakes", this is not one of them.

<< LINK REMOVED >> I just don't like the "time traveling" one bit, I think this is pretty much the end of the lore from one perspective. Not that it is not interesting to see it first hand mind you, but time traveling, really?

Now days, they would need to limit that action bar or cooldowns, I just can't keep up with them anymore. During raids I spent a lot more time managing my bars than actually playing the game, that was also something dull.

I have no other complaints, the player models were long overdue. Characters looked completely out of place after Cata, the Worgen and Goblins are both visually stunning compared to the old original races. I just feel like they waited too long.

The Warchief base mechanic looks really nice and I wondered why this had not come sooner, but it really does feel like level 100 content.

<< LINK REMOVED >> lol, care to elaborate? I hold no love now days for MMOs, but how is "the most successful MMO/game of all time" (financially wise) a "trainwreck"? I am really curious as to what that means here.

Yes, I would love to have those resources spend elsewhere, in games that actually innovate over the years and cut down on this social garbage, but "trainwreck", really? Are you the CEO of EA by chance? j/k

<< LINK REMOVED >> I can see what you are saying here, but isn't a public company (shares and investors) audited by external third parties all the time? There is certainly merit to your question and numbers seem to back you up as I really doubt that many stayed stuck in the original games, but then again if they lie to investors they will be in serious trouble that the company Activision-Blizzard might not recover from without a major restructuring.

Still, its better to question than live in doubt quietly. So know your point has a place here.

<< LINK REMOVED >> Everquest only got about halfway to a million during it's peak. A pay-to-play MMO in this day still having numbers that high is pretty impressive.

<< LINK REMOVED >> I find it funny when idiots like you think that MMO's that release with 1/100th of the content WoW has and manages to release it in rapid succession you think they're doing a good job.

<< LINK REMOVED >> F2P MMOs often fall towards quantity rather than quality on their content. Doesn't matter if you keep adding new content quarterly if that content isn't interesting.

@Keithy211 Because WoW was a good game to start with. Blizzard was obligated to make the best game they could from the start because people were paying out of the gate.

F2P developers not only don't have that much money to start with they aren't obligated to make anything particularly awesome at the start because people get what they pay for. If you pay nothing you can't expect anything. It is why most F2P games I've ever tried have been half arsed pieces of shit that no one wants to play.

The only game I've ever played that I thought was a quality game was Maplestory in fact. But that was because the game comes from South Korea, and South Korea has one of the biggest F2P infrastructures on the planet where people will buy microtransactions.

The fact that WoW is such a big hit even now goes to show how much work Blizzard have done over the years that not only is WoW appealing even when there isn't anything "new" coming along, i.e. WoW is fun in its own right, but it offers a framework within which people can create new experiences with their friends. That is all WoW is really, it is a world that you can explore with your friends. That is fun no matter what but it is even better when there is a quality product under your feet at the same time.

<< LINK REMOVED >> Well no matter what you think of WoW, the fact is some of the largest and most richest content in MMOrpg is blizzards several years old mmo. With nonstop events each and every month, and the games flexibly changing structure to accommodate new players and old it still delivers $15 dollars worth of content each month. I only played the game for 3 years and haven't played it now for 3 years but I am still impressed at just how much content - new and old- there is to do when I see my other friends play it.

Is wow still relevant after all of these years? 7 mill + subscribers - hey I hate facebook but still have to give it up for something that keeps that many people engaged and satisfied.

Is the content as good as newer F2P mmo s? Yes and no, but by shear volume it is enough to keep its subscribers happy. No game or even genre has the power to keep its audience forever- the fact that wow has now for so many years. Wows preorder for its new expansion is larger then most of the people playing f2p mmos.

The developers must be doing something right - it still is keeping so many subscribers.