In Season 4 of BFA we had an average amount of monthly players around:
6,5mln in best months till April 2020 (whole world data estimated from activeplayer.io)
Sine May 2020 playerbase began shrinking:
May: -3%
June: -3%
July: -3%
August: -5%
it went like that till February, where Shadowlands regained 5% of population with 5,1mln player (Monthly) in March.
Activision LOST 1,5mln players since last season of BFA.
How they claim shadowlands to be a financial success just boggles my mind with all those layoffs.
This again. Players come for new expansions and big patches. See what they want to and quit again.
The numbers went back to normal after those players went again.
World of Warcraft player numbers fell back to normal levels as the excitement around November’s Shadowlands expansion subsided. From November to January, revenue fell by 61% and user numbers declined by 41% (these figures do not include China). This roughly matches the pattern seen for the past several expansions, though Shadowlands had a bigger launch.
There’s a reason why it’s called a Rollercoaster game now.
You saw the rollercoaster go up in November
and now it went down.
It’s weird because MMORPGs are meant to be “steady” with loyal hardcore players… because they do that, that’s why classic mostly resembles that. That’s why retail isn’t really a MMORPG anymore.
To the op, SL was a big financial success because people were waiting for something to do after BFA and most thought SL could not be as bad or worse than BFA. Combine this with 6 month subs and the pandemic, many purchased or prepurchased SL.
What should boggle your mind is thinking that you know better than Blizzard, and that you are more worried about the numbers (which no one knows other than them, sorry to burst your bubble) than Blizzard.
Well apparently it has alot of loyal customers and alot of players who necessarily don’t even like wow but just check out the new expansions anyway and then the people who sub at every content patch to clear content they want to and then unsub.
Most of the world has been in some kind of lockdown, which in turn allowed a lot of us to up our game time by a rather large amount, and burn through content that would usually take longer.
Also with the warmer weather moving in, a lot of us will venture outside gasp
@Profundi: I am sorry to tell you, but all the stats you listed are wrong as those numbers are estimates and after checking their current live estimate I can assure you that that number, too is entirely wrong. According to the site, WoW would currently have 30 670 players online across the entire globe. That simply can not be right, because it would mean that after I deduct my current estimate of EU activity, the rest of the world would have a NEGATIVE amount of players.
People burn trought wow content becouse baseline difficulty of content, which is what most people do since its path of least resistance, do not have any longettivity and challenge at all. Ofc your game will become seasonal with spikes when your game content is nonchallenging joke.
I think it is relatively steady - with the player numbers seeming to remain consistent. I think the rollercoaster only comes from the people who we all know numerous of them who have historically played wow and will always hop in for a new expansion.
Personally i know someone who plays every patch but once theyve done the raid and the story will unsub until next patch. He doesnt bother with any other content apart from to gear to see the full story and then says see you in a few months and goes back to playing csgo.
They have an odd philosophy to be honest. As you say most of the content is trivially easy but when you reach the endgame activities difficulty is ramped very quickly indeed.
There is only easy and hard with no real curve leading from one to the other. That is a really strange thing.
