It is no secret that Blizzard’s MMORPG World of Warcraft is no longer enjoying the numbers it used to. In fact the closest it ever got was in November 2014 with the release of the Warlords of Draenor expansion which saw subscription numbers leap past the 10 million mark. However according to the latest figures, the game is now seeing around 5.5 million monthly active subscribers.
Now 5.5 million is still a lot, and let’s not forget a monthly subscription of $15 translates those 5.5 million users into a lot of revenue, plus in-game purchases will add to that as well. So should the game’s declining numbers be something to be concerned about? Investors might be, but as far as Blizzard is concerned, that isn’t their focus at the moment.
Speaking to the folks at Polygon during BlizzCon, the game’s executive producer J Allen Brack stated that the company is focused on the game’s experience as opposed to worrying about its subscription numbers. According to Brack, “For us, the team can’t focus on how to make a quest that adds 100,000 more subscribers. How does this raid boss retain people for five months longer? You’re going to drive yourself crazy as a developer doing that.”
“The only thing we can do is focus on good experiences, focus on learning everything that we can and trying to put it into what we’re working on and make World of Warcraft the best thing that it can be.” Brack goes on to state that one of the ways they are trying to improve the experience is by making it more accessible to new and returning features, such as introducing character level boosts.
One of the changes that they are introducing is the ability to allow players to try a class by going through a tutorial before deciding if they want to boost it to 100. “If you’ve always wanted to try a rogue, you can try that, and if you decide it’s not for you before you finish, it won’t consume the token. It gives the option for people to try all the different classes.” World of Warcraft: Legion has been pegged for a release in 2016 and is currently available for pre-purchase.
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