At the Game Developers Conference 2024, Blizzard has presented updated information on World of Warcraft subscriptions for the first time in nine years, which also gives certain details of the game's recent past. In addition to this account, the developers have analyzed the reasons why the Shadowlands expansion was a failure, also telling how WoW Classic boosted the game again, and brought it to the levels of yesteryear.
Although it was something known in the community, the details were uncertain since Blizzard had not published official data on the game's subscriptions since 2015. The last known figure was 5.5 million subscribers worldwide and Now, during GDC 2024, a graph was shown that covers the expansions from Legion to Dragonflight, revealing some interesting data in the process.
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According to the report, Legion achieved more subscribers at launch than Battle for Azeroth, despite the latter setting a sales record at launch. Following the release of Battle for Azeroth, subscriptions fell to their lowest level in eight years. But then everything got better with the launch of World of Warcraft Classic, which drove subscriptions to the highest point since 2016. Then came the debacle, although Shadowlands was received with enthusiasm, it generated a “historically high attrition” of players that not even Burning Crusade Classic or Wrath of the Lich King Classic could remedy.
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Dragonflight generated a rebound despite the failure of Shadowlands
In addition to the other data revealed and although Blizzard has not provided precise figures, some financial data and analysis offer clues. Among them, it is indicated that Battle for Azeroth's lowest point could have been around 4 million players and WoW Classic would have had around 8.27 million subscribers at its 2019 launch.
After that came Shadowlands at the end of 2020 and despite an encouraging start with numbers similar to the premiere of Classic, its users dropped month by table until losing half of its subscribers at the beginning of 2022, where it could have had a minimum of 4 .5 million active players. The appearance of Dragonflight was a new boost for Blizzard and the community, recovering many players who had left, which was consolidated with the current Season of Discovery, where subscriptions could have reached 7.25 million , not far from what was achieved 4 years ago with WoW Classic.
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Blizzard has also acknowledged that Shadowlands had major flaws as the story and setting did not connect with players, the new antagonist was not well developed, and beloved characters were left behind. Furthermore, the gameplay did not meet expectations, with long-term irrelevant mechanics (Borrowed Power) and a lack of variety in content. Finally, communication with the community was poor, with a lack of transparency and long periods without news.
New pirate event for World of Warcraft adds Battle Royale to the game, with its own servers for 60 players and optional PvP
Days before this report, Blizzard had finally revealed the content of the mysterious World of Warcraft pirate patch, which is a new limited-time event called Plunderstorm. A version of the Battle Royale style set in the WoW universe, with a mode that is open to all players, including World of Warcraft Classic players.
Plunderstorm, part of patch 10.2.6, brings a game mode accessible to all WoW players with an active subscription and no expansions required. However, this mode differs from what was expected, as classes, traditional combat, and armor optimization have been removed. Instead, you control members of a pirate crew, searching a region for skills and fighting for treasure.
