WoW's John Lagrave Admits Subs Dropped Because Of TOR

Written by: Ryan Verniere (@Shaddoe) | March 20, 2012 3:00 pm

21 Comments

World of Warcraft‘s subscriptions have dropped considerably over the last year — from 11.1 million to 10.3 in three months.

It just so happens that during that time another large subscription-based MMO launched, namely Star Wars: The Old Republic. Fans and media alike questioned whether the dip in WoW subs happened to be related at all to SWTOR. During an interview with Eurogamer, WoW Senior Producer John Lagrave admitted, “We’ve seen a dip in subs. It certainly has to at least be attributable to The Old Republic.”

There you have it, folks — case closed. SWTOR beat WoW. My work here is done.

“But it’s also attributable to people who want to wait and get Mists of Pandaria,” Lagrave continued to say. Darn, maybe next time we will get him to completely admit it.

Of course, the MMO giant is not going to concede, yet. It still holds the market share in the industry, but this does put a lot of pressure on the game’s upcoming expansion. Will Mists be able to stop the downward subscription trend?

WoW's John Lagrave Admits Subs Dropped Because Of TOR

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Bent Harley Lybech

Wasn’t the 800K sub lose before SWTOR? and after SWTOR they lost around 100K?
- http://twitter.com/Luke_Malcolm Luke Malcolm
  
  correct
  - Bent Harley Lybech
    
    So the news here is that, there really isn’t any news?
    Something also tells me that during the investors calling for Q4-11 they stated that they didn’t really lose many to the other launches, so the fact that a small (and 100K is small for WoW) lose to SWTOR did happen was announced (and out of those 100K noone knows how many actually plays SWTOR now)
    - Sharuko
      
      You will not see effects of SWTOR during the Q4, 2011 report. Because SWTOR launched during the end of December. You will see the effect (if any) during Q1, 2012.
      - Bent Harley Lybech
        
        There are people that quite one mmo to switch to another, before the other is released. People hooked on the beta and stuff. So out of the 100K, some certainly switched to SWTOR.
        But it still doesn’t change the fact that this “break” is based on incorrect numbers and is far from the truth.
        They admidt they lost some, but not something that mattered to swtor, and then 1 person, simplify the statement, and it gets blown out of proportions here.
        Sad to see it hasn’t been corrected yet.:-(
      - Sharuko
        
        That doesn’t even make any sense. Even if they cancel early December, their subs are active until end of Q4. Again, we have to wait for the Q1, 2012 report.
      - Bent Harley Lybech
        
        Okay, so just because SWTOR was released December, you don’t think there are people that would actually leave wow, before decemeber?
        I bet you there was some WoW players in SWTOR beta, that made up thier mind, before decemeber, and cancled thier WoW sub.I fully agree, that Q1 also adds into the numbers, when they are released, but still doesn’t change the error in the facts and conclussion of the “break”.
Myles Adams

SWToR Came out right around the Cataclysm end of expansion fatigue, when many folks take a break before the next expansion anyway. I think that’s what the “waiting for mists” comment was referring to, though I’ll admit to not knowing how sub numbers dropped when during other expansions.

I know a number of people who play both. I know people who play neither but keep up to date on both (enjoy wading into mechanics, etc). I know people who just got “MMO’d out” over the last 7 years, and realized it when others were becoming less active (some of whom tried SWToR, some of whom did not).

I guarantee Mists will have at least some spike back up. Anything new will have a spike in interest/subscriptions. Similarly, 1.2 for SWToR will spike their activity a bit. Will it sustain? I dunno.
MosesZD

The big population crash came between Spring 2010 and Spring 2011. Since SWTOR the losses have been relatively minor. And there are other MMOs besides SWTOR that have been attracting gamers.
- Larry Shaddoe Everett
  
  Although I agree that the whole drop did not come from TOR, I am very interested to learn where TOR’s 1.7 million subs come from. Are they new MMO players? Or did every other MMO on the market just dry up? Or are people finally realizing that a person can have more than one sub?
  - Bent Harley Lybech
    
    I think that lots of mmo’s lost a bit… that ads up to a part of the 1.7m.
    then there are some that still play both. I know quite a few of those, just because they didn’t want to leave wow or rift, untill they where sure that swtor was the one they wanted to play.
    and then a big majority of the players are StarWars fans that didn’t play WoW or any other mmo.
Bent Harley Lybech

But on a side note to my comments, I fully understand that news sites can make mistakes, happens all the time. And I really like the way GB v2.0 is running
But I also hope that factual errors like this one, will be corrected. At least it’s not good for reputation, in the long run
Besides of that… Keep up the good work, guys.
http://www.facebook.com/perry.ross Perry J Ross

I, like many of my friends, left WoW for ToR and have subsiquently left ToR for no MMO at all. We are all anxiously waiting the release of GW2 but don’t hold out much hope for the genre its self if GW2 doesn’t deliver.
- Bent Harley Lybech
  
  Warcraft had a rather large fanbase, when WoW was released, don’t rememeber the number, but was way above what anyone expected.
  Rift, seems to have established a fanbase too.
  StarWars just showed that they also got a decent fanbase.
  And GuildWars, already have a good sized fanbase too.
  So wether or not, GW2 manage to be as big and drawn in alot of new players as it seems now, there will always be a good fanbase for most mmo’s to be profitable.
  MMO’s don’t have to have 10,000,000 players to “delivere”.
  In other words, there will always be a market for MMORPG’s, even if some people lose the interest in them as they grow older.
Old Ben

> “We’ve seen a dip in subs. It certainly has to
> at least be attributable to The Old Republic.”

No, John, unless you think SWTOR was released at the same time as Wrath of the Lich King, because WoW has been losing subscribers since then.

Asia, where 60% of WoW’s players live, only got Wrath when the west was getting Cataclysm. Up to the end of 2010, Asia was playing The Burning Crusade, and that was the only thing balancing Blizzard’s global numbers. In the west the game (and the number of subscriptions) had already been been declining for two years (since the western release of Wrath, at the end of 2008).

The “dip” in subs (more like a dive, since they haven’t gone back up) in WoW is mainly attributable to… WoW (specifically to the changes in the design team – and the game’s design philosophy – that occurred during the development of Wrath and carried on through Cataclysm and now MoP)
- Corin Prendiville
  
  What you are saying is not supported by facts my friend. Wow subscriber base was at an all-time high when WotLK was out and reached its peak a few months after the release of Cataclysm. The issue with Cata wasn’t its ability to bring in the subscribers, it was its ability to hold their interest for 2 years for the next expansion. I would HARDLY call a 7% subscriber loss a “dive” if this was any other game that only had 2 or 3 million subscribers, losing 1 million would be huge but we are talking about a game that has thus-far peaked at 12 million. A game losing 1-2 million subscribers at that point is more of a lull than anything else. Keep in mind every other expac of WoW has seen a 5-10% dip in subscriber-base moving toward a new expansion. Cataclysm definitely took a larger chunk than previously and I think it has Blizzard worried. The game is old, and maybe it is dieing – but its JUST A GAME. Millions still play it, and millions will continue to play it for years to come. Are its best days behind it? Perhaps, that’s for Blizzard to determine as they work on new content.
  
  Also saying that “they haven’t gone back up” when the new expansion is still 8 months away is an idiotic statement. Of course they aren’t going to have a surge in subscribers at a point that historically for WoW has been its lowest subscriber season.
  
  I do agree that WoTLK and Cata have had some underwhelming decisions, and I prefer the design methods used in Burning Crusade and Classic. I will have to say that the decisions they make are in trying to satisfy the desires of their entire subscriber base which is no longer centered around the dedicated player. If anything its centered around the people who work at Blizzard. Who want to be able to pop on the game for 15 minutes and get stuff done then go back to work.
  - Old Ben
    
    I’m not your friend, and what I am saying is completely supported by facts.
    
    In both the Western and Eastern markets, WoW subscriptions peaked right after the release of WotLK. What you apparently don’t know is that the release schedule isn’t the same in both markets.
    
    During TBC, both western and eastern markets were gaining subscribers. The strong sales of WotLK (in both markets) reflect the fact that TBC was a winner.
    
    When the west got WotLK (and started to lose subscribers), the East was getting TBC (and gaining subscribers). And since the East has a 60% share of WoW’s subscribers, the global number of subscribers kept (slowly) rising.
    
    This trend continued (losing western players in WoTLK, gaining eastern players in TBC) until the West got Cataclysm and the East got WotLK. At that point, the East went into decline as well, and the global numbers started falling.
    
    And they haven’t gone back up since, (either globally or in each individual market).
Semperf1delis

Hmm… i think its interesting to look at the actual subscriptions, though how about the people who have subscribed for longer periods, like myself, but have quit the game for SWTOR…

Personally i`ve logged in twice to WoW since Dec 20, 2012 as i switched to SWTOR, and i`ve been WoW loyal for 4 years.

I`d say theres lot more people who have stopped playing than the mentioned 800k, including unsubs and the people who have longer subs.

Semper.
Semperf1delis

Hmm… i think its interesting to look at the actual subscriptions, though how about the people who have subscribed for longer periods, like myself, but have quit the game for SWTOR…
Personally i`ve logged in twice to WoW since Dec 20, 2012 as i switched to SWTOR, and i`ve been WoW loyal for 4 years.

I`d say theres lot more people who have stopped playing than the mentioned 800k, including unsubs and the people who have longer subs.

Semper.
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1456907489 Nicholas Hawtin

I know for a fact that I have unsubscribed and just waiting for MOP, so there are some of us I am sure XD
http://www.zerolatency.co.nr/ Shantar@ArgentDawnEU

SWTOR is a good game for single player experience but it doesnt replace WoW for sure ;D Nothing replaces WoW tho, only blizzard themselves will make that happen, maybe with Titans.

WoW's John Lagrave Admits Subs Dropped Because Of TOR

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