Are the numbers of players really declining that strong?

[Subutay]

Hello,

it is been a while since i played WOW, but when i read all those stuff like Blizzards harassment of Woman and ppl. getting fired "again". And Players stop playing this game that the numbers of active people should be around 1 Million now!

I´am curious and asking you guys you play this game after and before those incidents happened are many places really abondened?

 

[Crystalpall]

The game has been progressively getting worse and worse, no wonder people are quitting over time. I wouldn’t say that one thing or another is the definite answer why, it’s more like a constant downward trend for the game.

Classic could’ve been a good restart, but they decided to keep doing what they do and this is the result.

 

[Daltert Moropi]

I wouldn’t state that the math of Bellular’s is completely accurate.

Referring this vid, for those that aren’t getting what I’m referring towards.

that data only goes to mainly to 60s and not the other brackets like the 20s and 50s.

I’d think that it’s actually probably between 2-3 million (4 million tops).

Other than that I’ve been playing other games like: Tera, Realm of the Mad god, Aura Kingdom, Bound by Flame, Hand of Fate, Slasher’s Keep, Styx, Baldur’s Gate, and Minecraft 2b2t. might try that one game where the ex. Blizz employees a go once they release it.

but all in all, I’ll still play the game like people play tf2 but, the confidence of spending on their games now has been diminished quite a bit.

 

[Sketchbag]

Hopefully if the numbers get low enough they'll server merge and cluster the active subs to boost ques for those realms not connected...

 

[Leek]

Al

Hopefully if the numbers get low enough they'll server merge and cluster the active subs to boost ques for those realms not connected...

Already happened with oceanic, bar a few servers all of us are basically one server. And we outnumbered severely by alli lol

 

[ohti]

A lot of the problems that people are complaining about (in terms of the game itself, I'm not referring to the company drama stuff) are end game problems that have little to no effect on twinks. Twinks are very plug and play. Here, you'll find a lot of people that are still playing... because, well, we're in our own little bubble where nothing fundamentally changes all that much or often; whereas endgame is much more of a hamster wheel that people are growing tired of.

I'm in that same boat. I gave endgame a shot for the first time since Legion in season 1 of Shadowlands. It was fun for a while, but eventually I just lost interest in keeping up with the game and went back to playing my twinks, where, even after not logging in for months at a time, hadn't changed at all.

My point is: all of the reasons people are quitting the game don't apply to the people that main twinks.

 

[DigitalChemyst]

Agree with @ohti here, mostly...

The endgame player base has been declining since it last surged in Legion, mostly due to the reasons stated above. And Bellulars' video does an excellent job of analyzing those reasons, as well as the data used to draw those conclusions. While it is not perfectly accurate data, his methodology is spot on, and his overall statistical analysis is correct. Players are abandoning endgame at a record pace not seen since WoD.

Here's where this gets scary for twinks. While in large part, this does not affect our player base all that much, it will hurt future growth. Since there will be fewer players overall, it only follows that our population will experience decline as well, albeit not in such devastatingly high proportions (imagine if half of all active twinks right now quit).

In the same vein, it is possible that a lack of good endgame content could, at least in the short term, produce an increase in our population. A great example of this was when Asmongold decided to try out 39s because he was bored with endgame.

But I think the overall trend will be: fewer endgame players = fewer twinkers.

 

[Dj3nka]

that data only goes to mainly to 60s and not the other brackets like the 20s and 50s.

I’d think that it’s actually probably between 2-3 million (4 million tops).

Even if that's the case the drop-off at max level is still insane. This level of MAU-s is worse than WOD with the OW in the background boosting it, and this is even without the case and all the shit that's been going on recently.

They're either moving to the whale milking long term strategy even harder or they have an ace up their sleeve... but considering everything going on i think that we're far from seeing anything good for a while.

 

[icehawk]

Already happened with oceanic, bar a few servers all of us are basically one server. And we outnumbered severely by alli lol

Even with all the joined servers, with Timewalking Chromie I only ever see people in SW.
Outside of SW and Goldshire, I see maybe 1 person a week….. sad but true.
I try to keep Chromie in the zone I’m in but even then can’t see hardly anyone. Seems no one is levelling much these days, or Kang is running them all through dungeons……
#sololife….
Ps - where do Horde hang out so I can crack some skulls….

 

[Leek]

Even with all the joined servers, with Timewalking Chromie I only ever see people in SW.
Outside of SW and Goldshire, I see maybe 1 person a week….. sad but true.
I try to keep Chromie in the zone I’m in but even then can’t see hardly anyone. Seems no one is levelling much these days, or Kang is running them all through dungeons……
#sololife….
Ps - where do Horde hang out so I can crack some skulls….

Most of OCE horde are warmode off, those that have warmode on are usually in org, cuz alli heavily outnumber horde on OCE

 

[icehawk]

Most of OCE horde are warmode off, those that have warmode on are usually in org, cuz alli heavily outnumber horde on OCE

Ahhhh flying under the radar with WM off.
I miss seeing people around. I wish even with Chromie u could still be all phased in the same phase.
With so many players, it amazing the lack of people around. In years gone by there was always people around, but now…….
An eerie emptiness…..

 

[Daltert Moropi]

They're either moving to the whale milking long term strategy even harder or they have an ace up their sleeve... but considering everything going on i think that we're far from seeing anything good for a while.

Probably, but I don’t think the events unfolded right now would keep some of those whales. They probably jumped ship as well since people have feelings for other individuals. Wouldn’t be surprised is some of those whales are also in some of the wow communities like asmond’s crowd that joined him in ff14.

 

[Bestworld]

 

[Desodelete]

It's no revelation that we'd live better, healthier lives without world of warcraft. That doesn't stop us from playing. I'm done once tbc runs it's course. It may be a good thing that the game is in decline, because people will quit and think "what now"? Nothing quite like wow out there, despite the weird attempt people are making to put ffxvi on a pedestal. I expect long time players will take up more casual gaming pursuits and branch out to try more activities.

 

[Bestworld]

This “wrapping paper artifact boost” is not a mistake. It’s simply a way to pump more money out of some one month subscriptions and token purchases from the free to play community to subsidize the lost revenue from loosing those players this thread ask about.

I gotta be 100% honest here. Believing that Blizzard is doing any initiative whatsoever to captivate subs in a twinking perspective, let alone in an exploitatious and gamebreaking manner, is some serious tinfoil hat conspiracy level thinking.

If Blizzard wants to run an initiative to harvest subs, it's gonna be where the sub count matters, which is endgame. It's completely illogical to think that Blizzard is out to cashgrab twinks, as the time spent on actively doing something that affects twinks (even if the bug was "intentional", it'd still require development time to actively implement), is simply not worth the potential low cashgrab gain from it (if any at the bottom line).

It makes a million times more sense to do something endgame based that secures a larger and longer lasting sub count.

Blizzard may be losing touch with its players, but they're not complete imbeciles on basic math and resource allocation.

 

[Chops]

It seems to me like a lot of people simply played the game from a sort of social/hobby inertia. That is, they logged on out of habit or out of some sense of just seeing what they're friends in game were up to or from a lack of anything else to do.

When the game is your hobby and you have no other hobbys it can be a weird feeling to try and fill your time with something else. Hence the "inertia" thing. Folks logged in because they always logged in.

And now people are being confronted (via disgruntled content creators and shitty executives and bad game design) with the reality that they've spent a lot of time playing a game that they just don't really like anymore. Built by a company that turns out to be as cold hearted and profit driven as every other.

And so they're leaving.

Good for them.

To bounce off what supacow was saying, your life will be better when you engage your time purposefully. I don't agree with him that gaming is a negative drain on that but it certainly can be for people who sort of passively spend their time on it.

Have goals both in the game and out of it. If you can't think of anything to do in this game but mindlessly que into random BGs then maybe (and I do mean just maybe) ask yourself what you're getting out of that. Mindless entertainment definitely has its place! I encourage endulging in it. But you gotta ask yourself if you're purposefully endulging in it to relax or if you're passively doing it for a lack of knowing what else to do.

It's ok to step back or even wholly walk away from the game if it's no longer serving your life, or the consumption of blizzard IP clashes with your ethics. Good on every single person who recognizes this and takes action. And honestly, good on the content creators who built their careers in this game being willing to provide an example of that.

 

[meowmix]

Supäcow here,
To be honest, I recommend you all quitting World of Warcraft for your own good. I have played this game for 15 years and had a lot of fun. Only now that I have deleted World of Warcraft from my three computers has a loving reality returned to my life. Blizzard merely keeps shifting around what you’ve already known every so often to keep you hooked like drug addicts on the dopamine rush of Player versus Player combat. You don’t get to play for free as a free to play consumer. You are giving away your time and energy to build characters which they hope will impress new consumers into taking on the same addiction as you already unknowingly/knowingly have. This “wrapping paper artifact boost” is not a mistake. It’s simply a way to pump more money out of some one month subscriptions and token purchases from the free to play community to subsidize the lost revenue from loosing those players this thread ask about.
Since I quit World of Warcraft these things have happened:
I stopped feeling sick as much.
I installed an art studio in a spare bedroom.
Began writing poetry again and plan on having a book published.
Reconnected with my girlfriend in new ways.
Have been exercising in my in-home gym stronger than I ever have before.
Have reconnected with nature and gave my time and energy back to myself.

Blizzard Entertainment is a corporation whose God is money. They do not care about the player just as much as they do not care about their employees, hence the current lawsuit.
What I found truly disgusting: Even after I deleted Warcraft from all three of my computers on the same day. The very next day I found the Warcraft program had been reinstalled on its own. Not only that. I also started noticing I was getting bombed with Blizzard advertisements as my new click bait on every page on every site of the Internet. For this truly evil reason I must step away from gaming permanently. Thank you all for being my friend in game. I would rather be friends with you all in real life without the simulation. Break free, there is more out there!

Sincerely,
Supäcow

Sad to see you go , but happy that you are better off without it . Ill be missing ya , especially in the community chats , ya know cause we're super old and still kicking ass

 

[toskosa]

I play wow and still do things in the real world like backpacking canoeing etc, I don't understand how playing wow has shut off the real world form people. Like I have also played this game for 15 years and never had a problem separating the two....except during tbc when I was a mt...I def went a bit overboard then but I was also around 15 at the time.

 

[Cleatuss]

Honestly I played 20s off and on. Problem for me is TBC endgame Arenas battlegrounds and world PVP have been more fun. I have a couple of decked out 20s. Maybe I’ll come back and play my survival Hunter with the bramble king staff and the Valentines necklace. It sounds like they’re good again

 

[Dabow]

NFT games are the thing now.