In World of Warcraft the player numbers dropped drastically again in the second quarter of 2015.
According to MMO-Champion, the player numbers for the MMORPG giant World of Warcraft have dropped drastically again. They have now fallen to 5.6 million players.
Thus, compared to the last quarter, another 1.5 million players have been lost and have fallen from 7.1 million in the first quarter of 2015 to 5.6 million paying players in the second quarter. World of Warcraft traditionally includes not only western subscription players but also Asian players, who are billed by the hour and have recently spent money on WoW.
The last time was in Vanilla WoW in December 2005 at this player count. And this happened despite the WoW Tokens that were introduced in the second quarter of 2015. With these tokens, players can indirectly purchase game time for other players – they are compensated with in-game gold.
Blizzard-Activision will likely weather the setback: Other franchises like Hearthstone, Heroes of the Storm, or Diablo 3 are breaking all records. Currently, there are said to be 70 million players registered for Hearthstone, Heroes of the Storm, and Destiny. Together, the three games have generated 1.25 billion US dollars. Of the 70 million registered accounts, 20 belong to Destiny. Diablo 3 has now sold over 30 million copies.
Also in the overall numbers, Activision-Blizzard shines, as both total revenue and digital revenue have been able to increase again.
Moreover, World of Warcraft is still number one among the games that rely on the subscription model.
On Thursday, August 6th, World of Warcraft will present the new expansion at a press conference. As history shows, new expansions always bring more players to Azeroth.
