The YouTuber Bellular explains: World of Warcraft still has 2 million active players – at best.
The player numbers of World of Warcraft have been a big puzzle for years. After all, Blizzard does not release any official data, so other analysis techniques and speculation have to suffice. YouTuber and streamer Bellular has made it his mission to continually reassess the current state of WoW for years. His research leads to the result: WoW may still have 2 million active players – and that only in the best case.
What has happened? In one of his latest videos, Bellular compiles several current statistics and compares them with the numbers from previous WoW expansions and patches. Although all the mentioned aspects are quite interesting, one number stands out. He states that WoW currently has between 1.2 million and 2.0 million active players.
How are the data generated? In different ways. Most of it is read through the Blizzard API and the Armory, which is the database of all WoW characters. Through the updates there, it is possible to see how many characters are actively played and are, for example, level 60 or have chosen a covenant. Together with other sites, such as Raider.IO, more data can be collected.
The most important number is the character count of 2,691,799 as of August 2. This is the number of characters that have chosen a covenant in Shadowlands and have logged in at least once in the last month so that an update in the database took place. These are characters that have either reached level 60 or have chosen the “Threads of Fate” at level 50 in Oribos as an alt.
However, around 2.7 million characters cannot be equated with 2.7 million active accounts. This number does not account for how many players play more than one active character at the same time. Those who maintain numerous alts would need to be factored out, as would players who maintain multiple accounts simultaneously.
- If each player plays an average of 1.5 characters, the active player count would be around 1.8 million.
- If each player plays an average of 3 characters, the active player count would be just over 900,000.
The actual number is likely somewhere in between.
However, it must also be noted that the data does not capture some players who are also considered “active” but are not engaged in endgame content. Characters that are currently still in the leveling phase or role-players who never reach level 60 with their characters are not accounted for.
How has the player count changed over the years? It is difficult to say. In the early years of World of Warcraft’s lifecycle, Blizzard still published player numbers. World of Warcraft peaked in 2010 with just over 12 million active subscribers. Since 2015 – when there were still 7.1 million subscribers – there have been no official numbers anymore.
However, the trend analyzed by Bellular also aligns with data from other sites and analysis methods. For instance, the amount of completed “Mythic+” dungeons in Season 2 of Shadowlands has decreased drastically, as has the amount of raid visits in the Sanctum of Domination. In other words: significantly fewer players are active in the endgame compared to a few months ago.
Scandal not yet factored in: Particularly concerning is that this data does not yet account for the significant wave of protests against Blizzard, which led to the departure of numerous players. Thus, it is quite possible that the current numbers look even bleaker and the actual player count has reached a new all-time low.
Despite everything, one should not forget that these are not official numbers, but rather compiled from various sources. The exact value of current subscription numbers and players is likely known only to Blizzard itself.
What do you think about these numbers? Do they match your perception and experience? Or do you believe the numbers are actually much larger or smaller?
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