After two strong months, the player numbers of World of Warcraft are declining again. At least that’s what the analyses from SuperData say.
World of Warcraft: Shadowlands was well received by most players. The expansion had a lot to offer at launch, impressing with numerous systems and a wealth of story content. However, the hype phase has subsided, and player numbers have significantly dropped again. At least that’s what the analysts from SuperData, who evaluated numerous data, say.
Where do the data come from? The information comes from “SuperData Research”. They publish comprehensive information about different games, their player counts over time, and revenues compared to other titles or over the months every few months. The entire report usually costs a lot of money, but parts of it are publicly accessible, and many insights can be gleaned from that alone.
What do the data say? SuperData primarily compares the months of November, December, and January.
- After a fantastic start, Shadowlands was the game with the highest revenues on PC in November – even surpassing League of Legends.
- In December, that dropped, and WoW fell behind Cyberpunk 2077 and League of Legends.
- In January, WoW dropped even further to 5th place, behind games like Crossfire, Dungeon Fighter Online, and Fantasy Westward Journey Online.
Overall, between November and January, WoW’s revenues decreased by 61% and player numbers by 41%. However, the Chinese market is not included in this data.
The decline in revenue was mainly due to the expansion aging, and the majority of revenue came from the sale of the addon itself.
Is that bad for WoW? Not necessarily. For World of Warcraft – and actually all major MMORPGs – it is completely normal for player numbers to drastically increase at the launch of an expansion. After the first month, the numbers usually decline again. Many players pay for just one month, check everything out, and then disappear again until the next major content update. Some only return with the next expansion.
Finally, it should be noted that the “hype” wave surrounding WoW: Shadowlands lasted longer than with previous expansions. Blizzard confirmed this only a few weeks ago in an earnings call. According to them, WoW: Shadowlands was also performing better weeks after launch than at a similar point in previous expansions (like “Battle for Azeroth”).
Content drought could become a problem: Despite a relatively good start, WoW needs to step up soon, and it looks grim here. Because even if the next big patch 9.1 Chains of Domination sounds promising and looks really good on paper, there is a problem. The update is likely still months away.
This could be the longest gap between the release of an expansion and the deployment of a proper content patch that WoW has experienced in the last 10 years. This will put even the biggest fans to a tough test, as content is slowly but surely being cleared. Only those who enjoy collecting may still be occupied thanks to the Anima system for several more months.
Did you expect this development? Do you think Shadowlands is doing better than other WoW expansions? Or is the upcoming content drought now too big a problem?
