Blizzard suddenly speaks again about subscription numbers of WoW. And they look good.
Update: In the meantime, Polygon has asked Blizzard to confirm the numbers. Blizzard emphasized that the number mentioned in the interview must have been a “misunderstanding” because Blizzard has not released any numbers for a year. Blizzard has neither confirmed nor denied the number of 10.1 million players and will not provide any further information on this.
Original message:
Actually, Blizzard had intended not to publish any numbers regarding active subscriptions anymore. This rule presumably only applied as long as WoW was in a downward spiral.
Is WoW returning to its former glory?
In the Polish magazine PIXEL, Tom Chilton, the Game Director of WoW, answered the question about the current state of subscriptions quite openly. It was stated (roughly translated) in the magazine:
PIXEL: “The game peaked with 12 million players. At the end of 2015, the number was 5.5 million; since then, Blizzard has not published any numbers. Can you tell us how many subscribers WoW currently has?”
Chilton: “Currently, it is around 10.1 million. It is hard to say what the future will bring. We have our internal rivalry with Overwatch, but it is still possible that we might exceed 12 million again. There is a huge number of potential players and there are still over 100 million WoW accounts.”
World of Warcraft is, at least currently, back in a strengthened position. To keep players interested, further content patches are already in the planning stage. Currently, the Patch 7.1 “The Return of Karazhan” can be tested on the test servers.
Cortyn says: Even though I’m personally quite pleased that WoW is picking up again in player numbers, such a jump with the release of an expansion is quite normal. It will only get exciting when it’s clear whether WoW can retain the players. For most players, the month of gameplay they treated themselves to at the launch of Legion is likely to have expired by now.
Ultimately, I don’t care much about the player numbers either – because whether there are 10, 5, or 3 million players, there are still enough to not wait longer than 15 minutes for a dungeon.
