Despite the brief rise in subscribers at the beginning of this year, it appears that World of Warcraft is once again on a downward trend. Yesterday, Activision Blizzard announced that World of Warcraft has lost about 800,000 subscribers in the company’s quarterly earnings report. Is this a sign of an inevitable end for WoW in the near future? 

Ever since the MMO giant, World of Warcraft, hit it’s subscriber peak of 12 million back in Q3 of 2010, it has had a steady decline of subscribers in each quarter following. Despite a few spikes in subscribers following the release of new expansion packs, the trend has stayed fairly consistent. Now in 2014, 10 years after the game’s original release, the amount of subscribers for WoW is equivalent to numbers recorded back in 2006. So this raises some pretty serious concerns for fans and investors alike.

However, while it is true that World of Warcraft is in decline, Blizzard has also mentioned recently that there are already over 1.5 million pre-orders for the the expansion, Warlords of Draenor. Also, it is starting to appear as if about 7 million is the new norm for the MMO and this current decline is only part of a natural “ebb and flow” of consumer behavior. So WoW could easily have a long and fairly prosperous future for the company in the years ahead. To put it frankly – there still is not enough data yet to conclusively project the end of the game in the future.

Either way, all good things eventually will come to an end, (Even if it happens to be one of the biggest MMO’S to ever exist.) and it doesn’t always have to be a bad thing. So whether it be a few years from now, or even a decade, whenever World of Warcraft ends, hopefully it will cause the birth of many great new MMO’S to follow in it’s massive footsteps.

My Opinion:

I believe that the end of WoW is closer than most people probably think. At this point in the MMO’s life, for the company it is an upwards battle with time. Blizzard may be able to milk the game for a few more years, but eventually the MMO will begin to lose subscribers enmass again. I wouldn’t worry too much however. Activision Blizzard most likely understands this and will be prepared for the future. Who knows, perhaps we will see a sequel to World of Warcraft sometime soon?

http://middleofnowheregaming.com/2014/08/06/world-of-warcraft-loses-800000-subscribers-what-does-this-mean-for-the-mmo-giant/

Nothing, WoW will be around for years. It's by far the most profitable MMO around even with its decline in subs. WoD will bring quite a bit back, then it will go down again, nothing new here. Even if it lost another MILLION subs they'd still make good money out of it, and until its not profitable (looong ways away) it will still be around. It made one billion dollars last year come on...

Losing almost 1 million subs in 3 months is not nonthing when you had a total of 7 million. Sure the game is still making alot money but it takes subs to make that money.

that it is slowly dying? i mean, this day was bound to come. but 6.8M is still a huge number. this means that they are making around 300M a quarter in revenue if the sub is 15$ (which i think it is). i doubt expenses for the game is that high, so its still a HUGE cash cow.

no content, nothing in months. wtf do you expect? those guys are click bait.

lets revisit this when WoD comes out.

New game plox? WOW is the COD of the MMO world but really its been on COD WW for ever and it only gets :DLC/Expansions

Lies and slander.

Every single MMO developer in the entire World would love to be sitting at a "lowly" 6.8 Million subscribers.

10 Years old in November and Warlords will be pushing subs back over 7 Million.

They can keep this going for another 5-10 Years. When they eventually announce a F2P model for people it will be terrifying.

Doesn't mean shit in that case.

We cleared Siege of Orgrimmar HC before 2014 started.And we were pretty casual already.Im pretty sure Method cleared it in October 2013 or so.
Probably now every casual has cleared it at least once in any mode (LFR,Flex,Normal,HC)

There is literally NO content for almost 1 YEAR
And Siege of Orgrimmar was already easy so it didn't really last.
Was there even a patch in all those months after that?I stoped playing after the first kill so i don't know.

Nearly 1 full year without NEW CONTENT and the subs go down?   O M G   DOOOOOOOOOOOM

Think a little bit.
People playing the Beta of WoD are pleased.
Today they announced some LFR Molten Core 40 Man raid to get a pet and a Southshore vs tarrens mill Battleground for WoD.
And in general WoD looks thousand times better than MoP.Its closer to BC again.
Expect a lot of people coming back but until then Subs will go down cause why pay for NOTHING IN ALMOST 1 YEAR?

This happens btw at every end of the expansion.
And yeah subs went down in general but that is cause the last few expansions went into the wrong direction and the content gaps were far to long.
But there isn't a single MMORPG even coming close to WoW on the Market and will never be.
Stop wishing deep within that WoW might die - Its the best MMORPG out there even in its current state.

^ Pretty much this, though maybe with a bit less edge heh. WoW usually loses a chunk of active subs in the last few months in the lead-up to an expansion, yes WoW has lost subs over the years, and some of the million may indeed be people not coming back. But, when WoD launches, you'll definitely see an uptick in subs.

And as noted above, they haven't released any new content since Siege of Orgrimmar, which was quite awhile ago. I'm not in a HC guild, but we cleared Garrosh in ~April. My sub's actually lapsed for the moment, but I'm going to Blizzcon this year, so I'll at least check out WoD, just for the goodies I'll get for attending Blizzcon heh.