Develop is reporting that World of Warcraft has lost 300,000 subscribers between May and July, bringing the total count down to roughly 11.1 million subscribers.

This is the second straight quarter that Blizzard has posted significant subscriber losses. Earlier in the year, Blizzard reported a loss of 600,000 subscribers, bringing the subscriber numbers down to 11.4 million.

The back-to-back losses have prompted Blizzard to rethink their strategy. Blizzard CEO Mike Morhaime noted that simply pumping new content into the game hasn't been as effective as the game ages due to the increased speed with which WoW players consume the new content.

While Blizzard attributes most of the losses to content gaps they have taken a number of steps this year to spur growth. Earlier this year, Blizzard launched Cataclysm in China, and also went on to launch of the World of Warcraft: Starter Edition, which allows players to play free for as long as they want up to level 20.

Read the full story over at Develop.

good thing they have the f2p part or the lost would have been way worst lol

Was bound to happen at some point.   Will be interesting to see if it levels off or the numbers continue a sharp decline.  If the content is like cata content then I doubt it will bring back or retain a great amount.

The cataclism quest was awesome. The raid, wich is the part I usually prefer was pretty boring. The daily quest is a plague in the current trend of mmorpg. I seriously hate Daily quest and it's what push me out of WoW

I just wonder how many of those 11.1M are *paying* subs...?

blizzard can turn this around easy :just balance server so that rage of fire daily are balanced (while staying like it is now)and they ll get million of player back ,yes those daily are insanelly addictive and fun but only if the faction are balanced!

They need to overwork the graphics, thats all.

Of couse optional, so the low spec pc games can still play with the old graphics.

I think it will come with next expantion.

more importantly, who cares?

Blizzard is so out of touch it's not even funny. This is going to continue to happen.

So Blizzard.... let's not admit that a good number of people stopped subscribing because of the failed (major) talent tree adjustment and revamp of all the classes, or the imbalanced pvp it offers that has never been adjusted right. I know personally speaking those 2 factors has been my main reason for not playing WoW lately. I have played for close to 6 years and have enjoyed myself in Azeroth and beyond, but I consantly get frustrated when there is this promise of balancing talents and classes to come back and find it worse than before. Maybe I am the only one out there that feels this way, but I think not !

They're losing subscribers because they keep pumping out the same old crap over and over and over again. Adding new grinding tasks doesnt make a game fun, it makes it BORING! DAILIES ARE BORING! And they keep adding them under the sad delusion that its fun, and that this is what people want. new content is good when its real content, but when its a dozen more daily quest grinds to complete, its a joke. WoW is at its end, and their subs will only continue to plumit from here, especially when SWTOR comes out.

First...show me these numbers what sources brah?

graphic?lol it is all optional in their submenu of game you can crank this to insanelly nice look better have a strong computer tho!

Too bad only 5 mil or so are actual monthly subscribers. That means it's 4.1 mil now. Soon to be less when TOR launches.

HAHAHA!

'nuff said.

God, you people are so out of touch with reality.  All the reasons you give for this loss are things that have been said forever and none of them have ever impacted the subs.  The reality is, the game is old.  MMO's do not retain players forever.  They have a definite lifetime, just as any game does.  Comparitively, the FPS world suffers this nearly yearly as new great games hit and others fade from view.

WoW has finally reached its sunset period.  It won't die, no...thats not really realistic.  It will probably lose up to half its players, and retain those for several years more.  Worst case scenario for that game is 25% retention...and even that would be considered a landslide success by even the most succesful standards today.  Blizzard is prepared for this, I bet you that we start hearing more about the new mmo they were developing now.  Its probably not far from announced beta, to coincide with this period.

Originally posted by LauZaIM

Too bad only 5 mil or so are actual monthly subscribers. That means it's 4.1 mil now. Soon to be less when TOR launches.

 If your gonna post totla garbage like that then post facts to back yourself and not look like a complete idiot.  4.1 mill?  Yeah whatever, that doesn't even cover NA and EU subs, then there's all the other contries, Asia, Auastalia, South America... 4.1 mill subs my ass.

Anyways, WoW is an aged game.  With SWTOR and GW2 subs will continue to bleed but will stabilize out later down the road.  Then in 2013 or whenever Titan will release and Blizz will have all their subs back if not more.

Fact is, other than tougher mobs, more races, bigger shoulder pads and more levels, there's nothing actually NEW being put forth, just merely an extension of what's already there.  They need to shake things up or risk losing it all when SWTOR releases.

Originally posted by darlok6666

Anyways, WoW is an aged game.

Honestly, that's all that needs to be said.  Blizzard's subscription curve is exhibiting the typical deline of an aging MMO.