Posts with tag wow-population

Is WoW's audience still increasing?

by Mike Schramm Sep 29th 2009 at 3:00PM

I'm not sure how much of this is legit, but stick with us for the information first, and then stay for the debunking. Edward Hunter over at Gamasutra decided to do some poking around in comScore's MediaMetrix application (which can track, based on a survey of a few million users, access to various applications on a computer -- which programs are run when), and he found something that surprised him: despite the economic downturn and the emergence of a few other popular MMOs recently, World of Warcraft's audience is estimated globally at 13.1 million. In other words, it's still growing from the last official numbers (11.5 million players worldwide) we heard.

Now, the first issue we'd have with these numbers is the situation in China -- Hunter doesn't mention it at all, and in fact his graph (from comScore) doesn't have any dips at all in it, even though the game, and presumably its millions of players, went offline over there earlier this year. That right there throws a wrench into all of these estimations -- it's very likely comScore's information is just plain wrong.

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Virtual selves, Odds and ends, Blizzard, Rumors

WoW subscriber numbers still increasing, multi-boxers trivial

by Adam Holisky Apr 6th 2009 at 3:00PM

There has been a long thread about WoW and the philosophical changes and approaches over the past four years, and in particular to some of the larger design decisions made recently (dual specs). In it Ghostcrawler makes an offhand remark about WoW's subscriber numbers:

"Wrath of the Lich King is still selling very well and our subscribers are increasing."

Now I want to be clear that this was made off-hand and is not from an official earnings statement. But that doesn't discount it from being full of truthiness; and nonetheless, this is rather significant in that it's been a while since we last heard any indication of current subscriber numbers. To some this news won't be very surprising, given that Wrath of the Lich King has been a huge hit. But others might raise an eyebrow that after five months of Wrath things are still up-ticking.

He also mentions the ever hot topic of multi-boxers:

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, News items

World of Warcraft hits 11.5 million subscribers

by Alex Ziebart Dec 23rd 2008 at 6:00PM

It's been recently announced that the World of Warcraft has hit another milestone: a grand total of 11.5 million subscribers. This really comes as no surprise after the release of an expansion, especially one as widely hyped as Wrath of the Lich King which broke a few records of its own. I think it would be bigger news if they hadn't hit a couple of new milestones.

Gamesindustry.biz has a quote from Senior VP of merchandising at GameStop Bob McKenzie, indicating that it's not just Wrath of the Lich King doing well. These numbers haven't spiked because of all of the returning customers, WoW is gaining plenty of new ones, too. The base WoW package and the World of Warcraft Battle Chest are still doing quite well. Better than last year, he specifies. So while those base package purchases are certainly fueled by the Wrath hype, it's bringing in new customers, not just the returning customers.

WoW may not be the kind of game for every gamer out there, and the game isn't without its flaws. Despite that, it has proven over and over that it's by far one of the best games out there, and definitely the best of its genre. I don't expect it will be going away anytime soon.

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Blizzard, News items, Wrath of the Lich King

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