YouTuber Bellular analyzes the data from World of Warcraft and shows how many are still playing – and the numbers paint a grim picture.
Streamer Bellular occasionally takes a look at the numbers regarding players in World of Warcraft. Now, a year after the release of WoW: Shadowlands, he has once again taken the time to assess the state of the game. He uses various data sources, such as Raider.io, which gives him a quite concrete picture of the current state of endgame content in World of Warcraft. It can be noted: Significantly fewer players are engaging with endgame content than a year ago.
In one of his latest videos, Bellular analyzes a whole range of numbers.
The raid participation has dropped drastically: There were a proud 44,317 guild kills of the first boss in Castle Nathria on normal difficulty. However, only 20,080 guilds have defeated the first boss in Sanctum of Domination, also on normal. This indicates a player decline of almost 55% in this area.
Particularly bitter is the direct comparison with the previous expansion, Battle for Azeroth. Because there, “only” slightly over 38,000 guilds were present for the first boss – even fewer than in Shadowlands. In the second raid, there were still 22,061 guilds at that time.
Shadowlands has, therefore, plummeted even more between the release and the first patch than was the case with BfA – and this, despite the fact that BfA sold worse than Shadowlands.
This statistic unfortunately continues in the heroic mode. While guilds managed to defeat the first boss in Castle Nathria 38,420 times, only 18,466 did so in Sanctum of Domination – a drop of nearly 52%.
However, it is also important to mention that Sanctum of Domination was a slightly easier raid tier, and especially the last 3 bosses were significantly easier than the last 3 bosses.
Bellular also poses some theses regarding the numbers. He suspects that, firstly, the more casual players are the ones leaving, who would only raid “normal” or occasionally try heroic. Heroic raiders would not detach from the game so easily – and the mythic players would probably stay the longest. According to Bellular, this is also due to the social ties within the guilds and a certain sense of duty.
Mythic+ looks even worse: A look at the “Mythic+” season paints an even gloomier picture. In Season 1 of Shadowlands, there were still significantly over 750,000 dungeons of the “Mythic+” category completed per week; at the same time in Season 2, it is only just under a third of that. Just over 250,000 dungeons of this category are still being completed weekly.
Even the last season of Battle for Azeroth had over 500,000 dungeon visits per week at that time, making it twice as strong as the current season.
What impact does Patch 9.1.5 have? It is still too early to say. Bellular wants to reevaluate in a few months, once Patch 9.1.5 has had enough time to take effect. Since the update was released only a few weeks ago, precise evaluations are not yet possible.
The great hope of most WoW players, however, likely rests on the next addon, meaning Patch 10.0. After all, our survey showed that only 24% of players are actually looking forward to Patch 9.2. Many simply long for an end to Shadowlands and hope that the next addon will bring more motivation, a fresh story, and better features.
Are you surprised by Bellular’s numbers? Did you not expect the player decline in endgame content to be so severe? Or did you suspect it would be even harsher?
