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This month’s financial report will be the last time that Activision Blizzard confides subscriber numbers for World of Warcraft.
The company has said it has made the decision as there are other metrics that are better indicators of the overall Blizzard business performance”. Which essentially means it doesn’t want to divulge a diminishing total, in much the same way that Microsoft recently argued that Xbox Live metrics are a better indicator of Xbox One sales than actual Xbox One sales.
The decision comes, however, after WoW subscribers fell by just 100k in Activision’s last quarter, settling at a very respectable 5.5m.
However, the company has for some time predicted declines for its world-conquering MMO. Back in August 2014 it admitted that it didn’t expect the game to ever again grow its subscriber base, although it did just that in November of that year when numbers climbed back over 10m after the release of the Warlords of Draenor expansion.
In May 2015, however, quarterly subs crashed, dropping by 2.9m to 7.1m.
Blizzard hasn’t let up in its efforts to introduce changes to the title, however. In recent months it has both cracked down on bots and introduced a new gold and game time swapping mechanic.
A Warcraft movie is currently scheduled for launch in June 2016. After some ten years of troubled production, it is now being directed by Moon director Duncan Jones.
