Blizzard: World of Warcraft returns to No. 1 in the world, with subscriptions growing from 4.5 million to 7.2 million

At the recent Global Game Developers Conference (GDC), John Hight, Blizzard Entertainment’s Senior Vice President and World of Warcraft Franchise Manager, gave an in-depth retrospective talk that discussed this. Subscriber trends for flagship MMORPG games over the past 30 years.

Mr. Hayter analyzed the release of the "Shadow Kingdom" expansion pack for "World of Warcraft" from the "Legion" version to the latest "Dragon Kingdom Server" The challenges faced later include the problem of declining subscriber numbers and the strategic adjustments and changes Blizzard has made to reverse this trend.

According to a report by the Korean online magazine Inven (the attached picture is also a slide of the meeting provided by the media), Haidt’s speech elaborated on how “World of Warcraft” started as an innovative real-time strategy game (RTS) , gradually evolved into a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMO), and expanded to multiple other game types.

While the presentation broadly covered the evolution of the game, the core focus of the discussion remained on the market performance of World of Warcraft, specifically how it continues to attract a player base. Facing the challenges of player churn and what steps to take to reinvigorate subscriber numbers.

Haight pointed out that "Legion", "War for Azeroth", Classic Edition and the early days of "Shadow Kingdom" all showed subscriber growth curves that were in line with expectations, but soon afterwards these The numbers began to decline. Subscribers typically see a spike as new expansions are released, but these increases are often short-lived as new content is consumed.

World of Warcraft has maintained relatively predictable subscriber trends during the launch of Legion, War for Azeroth, and Shadowlands , and launched the classic version at the same time.

However, the performance after "Shadow Kingdom" failed to rebound, indicating that some players have left permanently. In the early days of the Dragon Kingdom server, the total subscription of World of Warcraft players The number has dropped to 4.5 million, while at the beginning of previous expansion packs, this number was 6 to 8 million.

It is particularly noteworthy that the closure of the Chinese market has had a significant impact on the player base, especially for Classic Edition players. Blizzard Entertainment, the developer of "World of Warcraft", has obviously realized the shortcomings of the "Shadowlands" expansion pack and has already conducted internal reflection:

1. In terms of story plot: the legendary hero has become weaker , without designing more powerful enemies, the world after death is untrustworthy.

2. In terms of gameplay: the system has not been upgraded in line with player expectations, there is not enough gameplay, and the frequency of content updates is not enough.

3. Community aspect: Players’ demands were not listened to, designers’ work lacked transparency, and important content was not notified to players in a timely manner.

In order to meet the challenge, Blizzard has formulated a detailed development plan and promises to provide new content updates every 8 weeks in order to continuously provide players with fresh experiences. These adjustments represent the necessary transformation that "World of Warcraft" is undergoing as a long-term MMO.

Shadowlands fails to meet the expectations of long-term players in multiple ways, causing them to feel bored and possibly not return to the game. However, with the implementation of new content for the "World Soul Trilogy" and other efforts announced by Blizzard Entertainment, and content updates have brought about continued growth in subscriber recovery rates, it has now reached more than 7.2 million.

Inven magazine reported that Haidt emphasized at the end of the lecture that looking back on the 30 years of "World of Warcraft", we can learn a valuable lesson: players' needs are constantly evolving, but they don't want to Leave the game you love. Blizzard is actively adapting to the changes and working hard to give players reasons to stay in the game and enjoy the content they love.

Currently, subscriber numbers are responding positively to the changes Blizzard has made, but Blizzard must continue to work hard to maintain this momentum.

Xiaotan’s opinion: Due to the imminent return of the national server, the number of subscriptions of players in the national server, the steady growth maintained at the end of the national server version of Dragon, and the popularity of the exploration server, World of Warcraft has always It is not difficult to restore the number of subscriptions to tens of millions. It is still the most popular MMORPG in the world

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