WoW Loses 600K

I know there's a certain amount of churn to be expected in the user base of your MMORPG. I find myself a little bit astonished that the user base of World of Warcraft actually declined by 600,000 users after the release of the latest expansion, Cataclysm. Two months before the release of Cataclysm, WoW subs hit 12 million. Today, the number is 11.4 million.

Blizzard president Mike Morhaime says that players just blew through the content faster than ever, because the players are getting better. So Blizzard intends to speed up the release of new content, though exactly how they plan to do that isn't mentioned.

Not everyone agrees with that explanation for the decline, though. This long-time player just got fed up with the incredible rise in difficulty level. It's certainly got to be a difficult task to keep the experienced players happy while still attracting new players. It's true that WoW at the high end has become a very technical game, requiring a high level of knowledge of all the spells and items and their interactions so you can optimize your character. That prospect is rather daunting for a new, casual player.

Still, I remember that one of Blizzard's design goals with Cataclysm was to bring new players into the game. I'm sure it did, to some extent, but clearly they are not bringing in new players fast enough to replace the old players who are leaving. WoW needs to make sure they are solving the right problem here. Is the real answer to make the shift to free-to-play?

I'm sure that's being considered, but it will be a difficult process at best. It will be interesting to watch the progression...

Star Wars MMO: WoW in Space?

Han looks... different, somehow.

From the DICE summit in Las Vegas, as reported on GamesIndustry.biz, come some interesting comments from BioWare's Greg Zeschuk. Money quote:

"It is a touchstone. It has established standards, it's established how you play an MMO. Every MMO that comes out, I play and look at it. And if they break any of the WoW rules, in my book that's pretty dumb," Zeschuk told the audience.


Now, that does sound somewhat like they intend to make a WoW clone in the Star Wars universe. Which might actually be sufficient to make some money, but perhaps not to the level that EA would like to see. I wonder if the market really needs another WoW, though. Part of the reason new MMO's have a hard time pulling players away from WoW is the group effect. Playing an MMO is fun with a group, and if you're in a guild and enjoying the experience it's not really fun to leave and go into another world. And how many people would want to pay $15 a month for an MMO... then add another $15 a month for another one? Which is all part of why F2P (free-to-play) MMOs are the fastest-growing segment of the market.


If you're looking to get players away from WoW, F2P seems like the only thing that gives a glimmer of hope. Sure, a hot license can help... though I don't know if Stars Wars is all that hot, or even warm, these days. I hope EA has a plan to transition to F2P... and they better have some sharp designers working on that if they hope to pull it off.


Star Wars: The Old Republic is supposed to be launching in the 4th quarter this year. I'm not sure whether it will soar like a Millennium Falcon, or blow up like a Death Star... but it will be interesting to watch. The results, either way, will surely affect the future of the MMORPG industry.

F2P Means $$$

Turbine's little experiment with moving their MMORPGs from subscription to free seems to be working. That's a pretty big understatement, according to Turbine. The move has resulted in Lord Of The Rings Online tripling its revenue. The player population has increased, and so has the level of activity. The success isn't limited to LOTR, either. Implementing the same model on Dungeons & Dragons Online in 2009 has shown a 500% increase in revenue, according to Turbine.

Certainly competing with the World of Warcraft juggernaut is difficult, but the free-to-play mechanism seems to be working out extremely well for Turbine. This certainly seems like the way to get some traction for MMORPGs in the current environment. It will be interesting to see if some of the new MMORPGs that have launched with subscription plans continue to hold onto that, or make the switch sometime during the year.

Of course, the landscape will alter in a big way when WoW itself makes the transition to F2P, but I don't expect that until 2012 at the earliest.