World of Warcraft drops 1.1 million subscribers in 3 months

Yet Battle.net gains nearly 7 million

Chris KempAugust 4, 2012

Mists of Pandaria World of Warcraft art header

Could we be seeing the slow decline of the biggest online franchise today? World of Warcraft has lost 1.1 million players in only three months – slightly worrying news for Activision Blizzard, who make a fair fortune off subscriptions for the game.

The publishing giant may not be too worried however, considering Mists of Pandaria will be released soon which should reinvigorate the franchise.

The numbers are from Activision’s most recent earnings call. Despite the downward turn in WoW subscriptions, in that same time period Battle.net gained 6.9 million players; mostly courtesy of Diablo 3, which has now sold 10 million copies.

There may not be cause for concern yet, but World of Warcraft is the last bastion of hope for subscription-based games, with even The Old Republic being forced to turn free-to-play. As free-to-play increasingly becomes the norm, World of Warcraft subscribers may be tempted to other, easier-on-the-wallet gaming options. It’s a franchise which relies heavily on their core subscriber base, so a big loss in subscriptions may be more worrying than the publisher is letting on.