World of Warcraft saw its number of subscriptions drop from over 10 million to around 9.1 million during the past couple of months. To Blizzard president Mike Morhaime, this is a natural part of the cycle for the game before an expansion, helped by the release of Diablo III.
“Historically we have seen usage decline towards the end of an expansion cycle,” said Morhaime. “We saw a similar drop in subscribers in the months before Cataclysm, followed by a substantial return of players around the Cataclysm launch. We’re also seeing that a number of players took a break from WoW to play Diablo III.”
Speaking of Diablo III, Morhaime acknowledged issues with the game, saying, “While Diablo III was our 14th #1 seller, we did experience some challenges. Due to the unprecedented influx of players a number of service issues arose that we needed to work around the clock to address. The vast majority of these issues were ironed out within a couple weeks of launch. As I mentioned in a letter to players recently, we’re not satisfied with just breaking launch records. We want people to play and enjoy Diablo III for a long time. We’ve already made a number of fixes and updates, including activation of the auction house… and the Diablo team has also been working on improvements to in-game rewards and having a player vs. player mode which we hope will enhance the value and longevity of the game.”
Source: GamesIndustry International
