Speaking at the Activision Blizzard investor call, Blizzard CEO Mike Morheime revealed the current subscriber numbers for World of Warcraft. Currently, the game has 11.4 million subscribers worldwide, down on the 12 million figure quoted in October 2010. Mike, in answering investor's questions put the decline down to the player's voracious consumption of the Cataclysm content, and promised to get expansions out faster. "The more experienced [our players] are, they've become much faster at consuming content. We need to be faster in delivering expansions to players. We're looking at ways to speed up the development process." Mike also noted that player numbers have "declined at a faster rate" than during the previous expansion.
However, Blizzard and their partners, Netease, were looking to launch the new expansion pack in China this year.
Mike also highlighted the recent addition of premium mobile services for World of Warcraft, in the mobile auction house and mobile guild chat, whilst also letting slip that a new premium mount would be added to the game soon.
I bet it's a flaming flying horse. With laser eyes.
WoW next big patch, Undermine(d), gets a release date, starting the countdown clock until my gaming time is entirely consumed with doing donuts in my new ride
Bobby Kotick says he'd never have raised World of Warcraft's subscription by even a dollar because 'it's a prickly audience, you don't wanna do too much to agitate them'
