Blizzard Claims People Returning to WoW From Rivals

[modeps]

http://sochl.com/resources/images/evav/wow.jpg

Blizzard CEO Mike Morhaime has announced that their userbase is starting to come back from going off to competitors like Warhammer Online and Age of Conan. Gamesindustry.biz (http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/morhaime-warhammer-and-conan-subscribers-returning-to-warcraft) has the story:

"To date, 68 per cent of the players who listed Age of Conan as their reason for cancellation and 46 per cent of the players who listed Warhammer as their reason for cancellation have reactivated their subscriptions to World of Warcraft."

This news supports claims made by Blizzard's COO, Paul Sams, who told GamesIndustry.biz that an increasing number of subscribers were returning to World of Warcraft from Warhammer Online, however it falls short of his given estimate of "well over half" .

The draw of that King of Lich is too much for people to resist.

[MasterEvilAce]

Warhammer is not addictive.. that's the problem. I don't play and feel the sense of identity. "I'm a chaos!!!!" I don't go to my city and think "I belong here. This is my hometown"

In WoW... you do.
Remember the sunwell!
FOR THE HORDE!

But I'm still not going back because it's a grind.

[Roc Ingersol]

I'd be surprised if they actually left in large numbers to begin with.
How many subs are we even talking about here? 50k?

People come and go in MMOs for a variety of reasons, but no game has yet gathered its subscribers by poaching active accounts to any large degree. So it's hardly surprising that new games aren't stealing from WoW.

[Primus]

Didn't WAR hit 800,000 recently? You would think it would be winding down as of late.

[oldschooldimo]

yeah, i just had a group of friends that were really hardcore about WAR when it came out. they just told me yesterday that they are going back to WoW.

[randir14]

I'm already bored with Warhammer but I canceled my WoW account years ago and wont be going back to it.

[PopoWRX]

Once I reupped to WoW, a good number of my friends did as well, so we have enough people to do 10-man content and seeing as how all raids are 10/25 mans in Wrath, this bolds well for us. Plus the sheer epicness of the various quest lines is something to look forward to.

[Zander]

I can't play WoW anymore, everything feels like a re-skin of the old continent to me. I'll be playing Warhammer for quite a while.

[Lutheran]

I might be the only person on this site that didn't play this game yet

[Librum]

A big reason I play WoW over all the others is that so many of my friends do. None of us are big PvPers, so WAR held little interest for us. I did buy WAR and gave it a try, but it just wasn't my cup of tea. However, I never canceled my two WoW accounts and recently added a third during the perhaps misnamed 'Recruit a Friend' rush, since, like me, a number of people in my guild just added a new account to level alts they didn't have.

[Spiff]

I might be the only person on this site that didn't play this game yet

Ditto here... even with the pressure from friends to join.

[Silverbaine]

I went back to wow... for a day... then got bored with it again.

[Mephistopheles]

The stats are a little bit meaningless when we've got no way of knowing what percentage of the people who left WoW for those games actually indicated it when they cancelled their WoW subscription. I'd be willing to give Blizzard the benefit of the doubt if not for the fact that they seem to be working a little too hard to convince everyone that their competitors are failing for me to take their word for it.

I thought about going back for WotLK but I saw some raid footage from the beta and it looked exactly like content I've already done, just with bigger numbers. As much as I did enjoy WoW while I played it there was always that voice in the back of my head telling me I should be doing something better with my time. I could see myself maybe going back for some casual 5/10 man content, but I don't think I'll ever commit to full-time raiding again.

[Shifter]

I've always been a "solo" MMO player, simply due to the fact that I game in tiny little spurts (due to presence of baby). I tried Conan and WAR, and I'm definitely feeling the siren's song of lingering addiction pulling me back for some more WoW.

[Hapless]

I thought about going back for WotLK but I saw some raid footage from the beta and it looked exactly like content I've already done, just with bigger numbers.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G7E4Qtg5vo8

If this is the same looking content, what the hell have i been raiding for the last few years?

[Yellowman]

I tried to go back to WoW but I just couldn't bring myself to care anymore.