World of Warcraft Loses 1.3 Million Players in First Quarter of 2013 523
hypnosec writes "World of Warcarft, the gaming industry's most popular franchise and one of Blizzard's cash cows, is bleeding subscribers with 1.3 million defecting from the game in the first quarter of 2013 alone. Blizzard revealed a subscriber decline of over 14%, the total now standing at 8.3 million in their earnings call press release (PDF)."
Re:not where from, where to? (Score:5, Informative)
League of Legends.
Too easy (Score:4, Informative)
In my opinion they made the game too easy. I remember when I started, every battle was an actual challenge.
Now you just rush through everything. It's almost impossible to die unless you run headlong into a bunch of enemies.
In the past, quest mobs at the end of a quest chain usually were elite mobs, and really tough. Now you don't even notice they are anything special.
Dungeons are especially bad. I'm leveling my monk at the moment, playing a healer, and it's downright boring most of the time. The biggest challenge is to keep close to the tank while he is churning through the mobs.
Now, I like the actual new content. Even the boss fights are rather interesting - or would be if it wasn't for the fact, that you can do it all in LFR where it is possible to ignore most of the mechanics. And when I've already killed the bosses countless times in LFR that makes the normal 10 man raid much less interesting. At least for me.
They also dumbed down some classes so much that it gets annoying. I remember when they banned the first heal bots. Now you can select a heal bot as a spec. Just play a disci priest. You don't even need to target who you want to heal; it's automatic.
I'm also miffed about the changes to the fire mage. I chose that spec because I found it more interesting than the others. More choices to make in a fight. But they really did their best to dumb it down to a similar level as all the other specs with almost no choice what to do at any given moment. Something procs - you need to use it almost instantly.
Still, I don't see anything that could replace WoW for me. So if I decided to stop playing, I'd probably not pick up anything else in it's stead.
Re:It's beginning to feel dated (Score:5, Informative)
I don't think graphics really caused anyone to quit. I know a lot of people who used to play Wow, thats never in the top 10 reasons. Really, graphics were good enough a decade ago, improving them farther doesn't improve fun. The main reasons I hear, in no particular order are:
1)World PvP is dead
2)Too much grind
3)Too much catering to casuals
4)Not enough time
5)Just bored of it
6)Expansion X sucked
7)Class X sucks now
8)Too little focus on PvP
9)Too much focus on raiding
10)Too slow content
11)Too fast content
Nothing there has to do with the game, its more the gameplay.
Re:not where from, where to? (Score:4, Informative)
This is actually true, Eve has sucked up a lot of players over time as people transitioned into PvP oriented play. I know several. I use to play EQ, and WoW.
I think Star Trek Online grabbed a few as well.
Re:not where from, where to? (Score:4, Informative)
Be an enabler, like me! Beethoven Symphony No. 6 in F major, Op. 68, Movement 1 [youtube.com]
Re:not where from, where to? (Score:5, Informative)
Work is my "non priority". It is a necessary evil that I have to tolerate to get money so I can work on my priorities.