--- title: World of Warcraft Lost 800,000 Subscribers Since March description: Blizzard's juggernaut MMO, World of Warcraft, has continued to hemorrhage subscribers. canonical: https://time.com/3086189/world-warcraft-subscribers/ author: Matt Peckham article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2014-08-06T14:56:02.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-04-13T08:02:54.587Z article:section: Business og:title: World of Warcraft Lost 800,000 Subscribers Since March og:description: Blizzard's juggernaut MMO, World of Warcraft, has continued to hemorrhage subscribers. og:url: https://time.com/3086189/world-warcraft-subscribers/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltb9b8a30e62b2edd5/69869e8e06f2c1588a33036c/warlords-of-draenor.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: warlords-of-draenor og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: World of Warcraft Lost 800,000 Subscribers Since March twitter:description: Blizzard's juggernaut MMO, World of Warcraft, has continued to hemorrhage subscribers. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltb9b8a30e62b2edd5/69869e8e06f2c1588a33036c/warlords-of-draenor.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Blizzard Admits World of Warcraft Lost 800,000 Subscribers Since March by [Matt Peckham](/author/matt-peckham/) ## Matt Peckham Aug 6, 2014 2:56 PM CUT  Activision Blizzard by [Matt Peckham](/author/matt-peckham/) ## Matt Peckham Aug 6, 2014 2:56 PM CUT Activision Blizzard is doing very well, according to CEO Bobby Kotick, who trotted out glowing figures during the company’s second quarter earnings call Tuesday, going so far as to raise Activision Blizzard’s full-year outlook. But when Blizzard president Mike Morhaime took his turn on the call, he admitted the company’s juggernaut MMO, _World of Warcraft_, has continued to hemorrhage subscribers. The franchise remains “healthy,” he said, [according to Seeking Alpha’s transcript](http://seekingalpha.com/article/2385385-activision-blizzards-atvi-ceo-bob-kotick-on-q2-2014-results-earnings-call-transcript?page=4 "undefined") of the call, with year-on-year revenue up, but subscribers down sharply in recent months. Here’s Morhaime: --- > “” --- _WoW_‘s current subscriber number stands at 6.8 million, according to Activision Blizzard. That’s down 800,000 from last quarter, when it stood at 7.6 million — itself a precipitously lower figure than the once-towering 12 million the game commanded at its subscription peak in October 2010\. No surprise to anyone (including Activision Blizzard) given the game’s age and shifting platform as well as genre demographics, _WoW_‘s subscription figures have been dropping steadily since 2010’s close. The last time _WoW_‘s base was this low (or high, depending on your vantage): [mid-2006](http://www.statista.com/statistics/276601/number-of-world-of-warcraft-subscribers-by-quarter/ "undefined"), a year-and-a-half after the game’s launch in November 2004\. Activision Blizzard expects to arrest that drop this fall, when it releases its fifth (and possibly final) expansion for the game, _Warlords of Draenor_. According to Morhaime: --- > “” --- That uptick brought nearly a million users back to the fold in mid-2012, but the declines began shortly after the last expansion’s release, and by the close of 2012, _WoW_ had lost several hundred thousand subscribers. The game leveled off through most of 2013 in the mid-7-million range, before the sharp drop from 7.6 million to 6.8 million this year. Again, the claim to pay most attention to is Morhaime’s about year-on-year revenue being up. That’s what matters to investors, less so subscriber numbers. If Blizzard can keep _WoW_ revenues up and deliver profits that surpass expectations, the game’s in no danger of disappearing anytime soon. That said, the clock _is_ ticking for the company to unveil its long-rumored, still-running-silent Next Big Thing, be that a new MMO (the so-called new IP, once codenamed “Titan,” and as of August 2013 developmentally rebooted), or something else entirely. We’ll know more about _Warlords of Draenor_ next week, August 14 at 12:30 a.m. ET, when Blizzard reveals the expansion’s launch date and first cinematic trailer at the Ace Theatre in Los Angeles. Activision Blizzard says 1.5 million (of the game’s roughly 3 million Western) players have already preordered the expansion. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3086189/world-warcraft-subscribers/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3086189/world-warcraft-subscribers/"},"headline":"Blizzard Admits World of Warcraft Lost 800,000 Subscribers Since March","datePublished":"2014-08-06T14:56:02.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T08:02:54.587Z","description":"The most popular and profitable MMO in history continues its steady decline, but Blizzard president Mike Morhaime says the game's annual revenue is up, not down.","url":"https://time.com/3086189/world-warcraft-subscribers/","keywords":["Tech","Video Games","mmo","Earnings","Blizzard"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltb9b8a30e62b2edd5/69869e8e06f2c1588a33036c/warlords-of-draenor.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Matt Peckham","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/matt-peckham/"}],"articleSection":"Business","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltb9b8a30e62b2edd5/69869e8e06f2c1588a33036c/warlords-of-draenor.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"warlords-of-draenor","caption":"","creditText":"Activision Blizzard","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/business/","name":"Business"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-tech/","name":"Tech"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/3086189/world-warcraft-subscribers/","name":"Blizzard Admits World of Warcraft Lost 800,000 Subscribers Since March"}}]}] ```