Pretty typical WoW hate here.

The OP asked when WoW will hit a subscription plateau in the near future not if you liked it or if you have a friend that recently quit.

WoW hasnt hit a plateau yet but it is slowing. At E3 Blizzard along with the Guiness Book of World Records announced that WoW was at 11.6 million. Thats only a gain of 100,000 in 6 months but WoW is still one of the few MMOs that is actually having significant gains.

Im predicting slow growth until the next expansion where it will top off at 12 million.

I don't know how, what, where, when, or why WoW will plateau or die but I think I canceled for the last time. It just isn't fun anymore.

Originally posted by Xiaoki

Pretty typical WoW hate here.

The OP asked when WoW will hit a subscription plateau in the near future not if you liked it or if you have a friend that recently quit.

WoW hasnt hit a plateau yet but it is slowing. At E3 Blizzard along with the Guiness Book of World Records announced that WoW was at 11.6 million. Thats only a gain of 100,000 in 6 months but WoW is still one of the few MMOs that is actually having significant gains.

Im predicting slow growth until the next expansion where it will top off at 12 million.

If your saying I was hating, I wasnt, I just dont like people who think WoW started MMORPGs so they compare it to that.

I think most of the evidence shows that WoW is hitting its plateau this year.  Maybe...maybe they'll get to 12M, but not much beyond that.

Several factors lead me to conclude this:

1)  Go to MMOGchart or MMOdata and you'll see that the rate of growth was slowing at a geometric rate as early as two years ago.  It was growing, but very slowly at the time of last measure, and this was true even withn the release of Lich King.  This slowing has coincided with all the promotional efforts that were made...tons of money in TV ads and smalltime browser distribution apps like HPgames did little to increase subs.  It did increase them, don't get me wrong, but not as much as it should have, given all the effort and money.

2)  Jeff Kaplan, alongside other instrumental devs in this game's success, is no longer on the WoW team.  In other words, Big Bliz's best devs are not on this game.  The brief history of this genre shows us that changes in key staff like this are a sign that the game is going to go downhill about one year later.  I don't think the decline is going to be as rapid with this game, but the game is going to change, and it will change in ways that will probably cause much ire in the hardcore WoW fanatics.

3)  WoW is in the fight of its life in Asia.  This is because of a) the service outage and b) the big push currently underway from the launch of Aion.  The fact that both of these things happened at the same time is a "perfect storm."  If addicts can't get their fix from their drug of choice, they'll either experiment with a new drug or get clean...neither one of which is what Bilzzard wants.

4)  WoW is also fighting for the youth market and entry-level MMO players...particularly with games like Free Realms, which have become much more savvy than WoW to capture this vital segment for WoW's future growth in the years to come.  Free realms has 3 million registered players since April, and while I don't think Free Realms and other "kiddie faire" will conquer WoW, they will have an impact on WoW's ability to attract new subscribers.

5)  Blizzard has also shifted priorities.  For most of WoW's rapid growth, there were no other projects.  Those projects it did have were cancelled to make room for more WoW development.  These days though, it is working on Diablo III.  It is working on Starcraft II.  And they are giving both of these games their full attention.  They cannot afford to screw these marquee titles up, because people have been waiting over a decade for them.

So, based on all these factors, I have to conclude that WoW is about as big as its gonna get.  Therearen't many people left to sell this game to, and never before has the game had to deal with as many unique challenges as it has this year.

 Blizzard is probably one of the oldest CO in game history.

Blizzard and Westwood were competers at the bigining.

Blizzard already know this and probably already considred a new game long time ago.

I might say if Blizzard is going to make a Wow 2 the plans for it where probably made in 2005.

Originally posted by Azzthuras

Im not a WoW fan, but ive watched over there site to see what there population is doing. Ive seen it beginning to plateau, and even know you can say its rising, its not. Its rising a little bit, but mostly because other subscribers are making new accounts and useing both. Blizz racks in a couple billion a month and after there xpac Emerald Dream, theres only one left till the end of there series "World Of Warcraft".

So, when do you think it will hit its plateau? Before the end of the series? Or after?

After.  Which will conviently correspond w/ the announcement of their next big MMO... which will conviently release in November of the following year.

Originally posted by Beatnik59

I think most of the evidence shows that WoW is hitting its plateau this year.  Maybe...maybe they'll get to 12M, but not much beyond that.

Several factors lead me to conclude this:

1)  Go to MMOGchart or MMOdata and you'll see that the rate of growth was slowing at a geometric rate as early as two years ago.  It was growing, but very slowly at the time of last measure, and this was true even withn the release of Lich King.  This slowing has coincided with all the promotional efforts that were made...tons of money in TV ads and smalltime browser distribution apps like HPgames did little to increase subs.  It did increase them, don't get me wrong, but not as much as it should have, given all the effort and money.

2)  Jeff Kaplan, alongside other instrumental devs in this game's success, is no longer on the WoW team.  In other words, Big Bliz's best devs are not on this game.  The brief history of this genre shows us that changes in key staff like this are a sign that the game is going to go downhill about one year later.  I don't think the decline is going to be as rapid with this game, but the game is going to change, and it will change in ways that will probably cause much ire in the hardcore WoW fanatics.

3)  WoW is in the fight of its life in Asia.  This is because of a) the service outage and b) the big push currently underway from the launch of Aion.  The fact that both of these things happened at the same time is a "perfect storm."  If addicts can't get their fix from their drug of choice, they'll either experiment with a new drug or get clean...neither one of which is what Bilzzard wants.

4)  WoW is also fighting for the youth market and entry-level MMO players...particularly with games like Free Realms, which have become much more savvy than WoW to capture this vital segment for WoW's future growth in the years to come.  Free realms has 3 million registered players since April, and while I don't think Free Realms and other "kiddie faire" will conquer WoW, they will have an impact on WoW's ability to attract new subscribers.

5)  Blizzard has also shifted priorities.  For most of WoW's rapid growth, there were no other projects.  Those projects it did have were cancelled to make room for more WoW development.  These days though, it is working on Diablo III.  It is working on Starcraft II.  And they are giving both of these games their full attention.  They cannot afford to screw these marquee titles up, because people have been waiting over a decade for them.

So, based on all these factors, I have to conclude that WoW is about as big as its gonna get.  Therearen't many people left to sell this game to, and never before has the game had to deal with as many unique challenges as it has this year.

Well said

No matter how much I like WoW, the game feels 'old'.  There are a lot of things in the game I think Blizzard should go back to and revamp but I also realize that the payback for that probably is not there.  I think WoW is in a 'mid-life cricis'.  It is too old and too established to go and redo stuff from the start so it compensates by being more 'adventurous'.  Some of the changes coming in the next patch are stuff I would never consider Blizzard would implement.  There are some key focus changes in the way stuff is handled and it is upsetting a lot of the old-time players.  Personally I find it kinda liberating as it cuts away at certain MMORPG 'norms' I do not like that much anymore. 

It's reached it's peak already, probably around the time TBC released really... so now it's all downhill from here I believe. The latest expansion felt really cheap and lacked anything that interesting. People were literally done with it in a month and had blown through everything it had to offer...which wasn't much. Blizzard keeps trying to take shortcuts and dazzle their customers with quick gimmicks and flashy fillers, but the meat and potatoes of that game is long gone.

It'll be around for a long, long time, but it's past its prime now. Like the Simpsons .

With no significant gameplay changes, WOW will peak at the next expansion. To be honest, the only empirical data we have to go by are subscriber and sales numbers.

We can debate all day long if (personally) I think WOW has hit its plateau or not. So I am going to speak from an empirical point of view only.

WOTLK sold a lot more than BC and quicker so we know, as of November, there is still a lot of love for the game. Sub numbers increased shortly thereafter so it maintained a lot of that number.

The game itself has remained in the top selling charts and continues to be there so we know its selling as well.

WOW is suffering from old game syndrome. People have been there and done that for 4 years now so they know what to expect. There is no major factor to really bring in people anymore that has not been seen already. This is why I say WOW will hit its plateau when Blizzard stops being inventive and gets stale. We have seen some of this in WOTLK so far. The next expansion needs to bring something unique to the game (and hopefully the genre). They need to have something like housing or ship combat or something that really makes people go WOW (pardon the pun).

When the next expansion releases, we will know if WOW has hit its plateau or not. Until then, we are seeing the cycle of WOW. Expansion release......massive amounts of players........players exhaust content.....get bored and quite........go to forums and act as if WOW is horrible......new patch.....resub.....rinse and repeat.

We are on the tail end of the WOTLK expansion. The new one will be here sooner rather than later. We have yet to see patch 3.3 with Arthas, the culmination of the expansion and trust me, many, many people want to face him and see how the story plays out.

So WOW hasn't hit its plateau, but its climbing the side of the plateau. Its greatest enemy is time and that is one thing it cannot escape.

In terms of subs, yeah, it might have reached its peak or will soon reach its peak.  The quality of the game is improving, which is really ridiculous because the quality at the beginning was already far ahead of the competition.

While the community is still the best for any mmorpg, you can tell that the excitement is tending to wear off.  And i dont mean wear off for just those people that played since vanilla, raided all the dungeons and got all the pvp titles.  No im talking in general about the whole community.  People are much more accepting of  noobies now, are much less elitist, and tend to stick to their day to day in game routine rather then find unique and whacky things to do ingame. 

People dont "hate" the alliance or horde anymore.  Guild loyalty, which has never been very strong unless you are surrounded by friends, has really diminished.  People no longer idolize the pvp super stars.  And server firsts are met with a "grats" and nothing more.

I guess people are just getting burnt out.

WoW is a great success and brought many new players to the mmo genre, no doubt about that. However even the greatest product will finally come to its end/stagnation.

As reported the growth rate of subs is slowing down while market share is huge = the product has reached its CASH COW position and therefore Blizzard is doing the only thing reasonable for a profit oriented company - milking it with minimum investment. Even if we see new features, engines implemented, they use wow as a platform to test new things before implementing it in new products in big scale. Quite a text book situation here.

I just had two of my friends sign up for WoW. Dunno if they'll turn hardcore but the game is definitely still drawing up fresh players.

WoW is going to be toppled from it's #1 spot in the Western Market sooner or later. Right now, the only games on the horizon that I can see doing it is TOR and/or Blizzard's new MMO.

 It's on its plateau right now, but it WOULD be on the DECLINE right now if there ever was a REALLY POLISHED, FUN fantasy MMORPG on the market (sorry LOTRO-AoC-whatever lovers, that isn't nearly as much quality entertainment).

Also, if not for really good development team who makes new, interesting patches and changes for the masses every couple of months or so.

Originally posted by wizyy

 (sorry LOTRO-AoC-whatever lovers, that isn't nearly as much quality entertainment).

For you its not, for others it is.

To OP:
I too feel it may have already started its decline. I canceled my 4 accounts about 3 months ago. Can’t promise that I will never return, just done with it for now. Actually going back to the 1st MMO I ever played (AC).  Ah... the memories...
 

Same as eq. After they update the Character models And ruin the game with New story cause they have used up all the old stuff. :).

Originally posted by jusomdude

I don't know how, what, where, when, or why WoW will plateau or die but I think I canceled for the last time. It just isn't fun anymore.

Same here i quit for the second time and vowed to not quit a third, lol.

I think it's pretty close to leveling off. I mean you can only go up for so long. Bear in mind that just because it levels off, it's not going anywhere for a LONG time. If EQ can last as long as it has with nowhere near the sub numbers then Wow could be around for another 5-10 years before they finally pull the plug. I'm sure it will retain at least a million subs for quite a while. I think we are going to get one more big expansion and then Blizzard will hatch their plan for their next MMO project.