Yet another of Activision-Blizzard’s always thrilling financial reports has included some World of Warcraft subscription numbers, indicating that subs are down to 5.6 million people.
World of Warcraft numbers operate on such a different plain to other videogame statistics, that there are a couple of ways you can view this news. In one sense, it’s absolutely incredible that this decade old MMO still pulls in numbers that other games can only dream about. 5.6 million subscribers is clearly not to be sniffed at.
But by WoW’s astronomical standards, it is a decline. The Warlords of Dreanor spiked the subscription numbers back up to the 10 million range as recently as late 2014/early 2015. Viewed through that lens, dropping back to 5.6 million within eight months or so is quite a precipitous fall.
However, Blizzard are poised to announce a sixth expansion for the game at Gamescom on 6 August. The last expansion pushed the subscription numbers right back up again. Will it happen once more?
Elsewhere in the financial summary, it was noted that Diablo 3 has now “sold through” more than 30 million copies, globally.
There were also “registered player” numbers of Hearthstone and Heroes of the Storm, but they were rather unhelpfully bundled up with Destiny. Across all three games, there are 70 million registered. But without the break-down for the individual titles that’s pretty useless as a statistic.
