Blizzard no longer announcing WOW sub numbers in financials

I was always wondering if the number of subscribers were real. Lots of my friends who used to play WOW eventually quit after years of playing. So there must be a "peak" time when the number of subscribers was the highest. It can't possibility be growing after all those years.

Some years ago I was told the number was in fact the amount of people who had ever subscribed instead of currently active subscribers.
Not sure if it was true, but I think it is a more believable explanation.

 

The sub numbers were always just fudgey anyways. Millions of people yes, but would they really have an incentive to lowball...ever? Nope, always have the incentive to inflate the numbers. It made it more likely that it was fudged at all times.

 

I don't understand all that much the ramifications of this or even why they would even choose to stop releasing it to begin with although my knee jerk reaction is to think that they are wanting to start covering up the numbers as they dwindle by the year which is of course understandable for a game that is decades old I guess.

 

I would think they know better to put in less effort when the true number of subscribers is on the decline. They should not have reduce the new content just because less people are playing. It would just create a cycle of decline on both end.

Unless I see a game is too far gone, I'd push for more new content to get the players back if I were the developer.

 

This makes perfect sense and in my opinion that's exactly what they did. Wow is not that popular nowadays, the "peak" season is already over.

 

I think this is happening because they have lost a literal ton of subscribers during the past couple of years. They won`t really admit it publicly, that`s for sure.

 

MMORPGs as a whole have been on a heavy decline. I think WoW has bled plenty of players, and to reveal that wouldn't be good to stakeholders and potential investors.

 

They don't want to reveal that WoW is dying since the game is mostly successful due to it's hype as the larget MMO on the market.

 

You clearly don't know what you are talking about. It is not, and never has been the largest MMORPG on the market. It isn't dying either. Don't be so dramatic.

 

I don't know if Blizzard is a publicly traded company, but maybe this decision about keeping subscription numbers private is about share prices. If World of Warcraft's numbers are slowly but surely declining, I think it could (even if slightly) reduce the company's value.

 

Nah, it is just harder to track and isn't a useful metric anymore when subs can be paid with Gold. People are focusing on subs to much and there are better indicators of how the game and company are doing.

 

I think so too although maybe it's just that the popularity has shifted onto something or somewhere else. I'm guessing a lot of asian countries are still big on these but there are just way too many other options now.

 

Considering the login que lately and reduced time finding groups I'm going to say subs are back up. But as I already mentioned, subs are not a valid metric anymore. They can be with gold now and that throws a monkey wrench in the tracking and what the number means.

 

Yes, hence the issues tracking it. They can't just count straight subs anymore. It wouldn't be impossible or super hard, just hard enough that they can't be bothered.