3 ms·

Sounds like 2007 all over again: http://gigaom.com/2007/06/17/has-world-of-warcraft-finally-hit-a-plateau/ http://gigaom.com/2007/06/17/has-world-of-warcraft-fi

by kbutler 15y ago

Sounds like 2007 all over again: http://gigaom.com/2007/06/17/has-world-of-warcraft-finally-hit-a-plateau/ http://gigaom.com/2007/06/17/has-world-of-warcraft-finally-h... Raph Koster (much of whose work I admire!) seems a bit off-base speaking of WoW in 2007: “This is how Open Big MMOs all go. A big rush, peaking a little bit after the launch. Then a plateau for a while, then a tailing off.” http://www.raphkoster.com/2007/06/15/how-open-big-virtual-worlds-grow/ http://www.raphkoster.com/2007/06/15/how-open-big-virtual-wo... I would not expect WoW to be around forever, but I wouldn't bet on its demise any time soon. Fading? Maybe. WoW subscription history vs other games from: http://users.telenet.be/mmodata/Charts/Subs-1.png http://users.telenet.be/mmodata/Charts/Subs-1.png (from http://mmodata.blogspot.com/ http://mmodata.blogspot.com/)

mattbriggs 15y ago
With 10mil subs still they will take a long time to fade, but if you look at that chart, the first significant dip in its history was post Wrath of the Lich King, followed by the current dip which occurred after Cataclysm. They regained their subs after the wrath dip, but this one seems to be ~4x as big. It will be interesting to see what happens when Pandaria comes out, I doubt that they will ever return to their peak, but that is the point where we will _start_ to be able to make predictions on how long the demise will take.