Update: Morhaime was apparently refering to trial accounts and not players that had purchased the full game. The statistic is not abnormal for MMO trial runs and we appologize for any confusion we might have caused.
[Original story below]
Blizzard made clear during their fiscal report that World of Warcraft's user base is holding at roughly 11.5 million. While this might suggest a highly stable base of users considering the total is on par with the last announced subscriber total, another statistic suggests a high degree of “churn” among the game's paying customers.
According to Blizzard CEO Mike Morhaime, roughly 70 percent of new players do not progress in the game past level 10. It's worth noting that level 10 can be achieved in World of Warcraft in only a few hours, so this suggests that many buy the game but don't continue progressing and let their subscription lapse.
In order to combat this trend of new players losing interest, the expansion World of Warcraft: Cataclysm is expected to refresh the beginning game content and bring it up to par with the more recently created late game content. Additionally, Blizzard hopes to release the second expansion, World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King, in China soon and help drive up interest in the region.
3 Comments
February 11, 2010
This is simply poor reporting. It's 70% of TRIAL accounts do not progress pass level 10. These are people who download the trial version of the game. These are not people who own the full retail copy which they would then need to purchase.
http://kotaku.com/5469238/most-new-world-of-warcraft-players-dont-go-past-level-10
February 11, 2010
My understanding was that it was "new" players, not strictly players with trial accounts. That frankly makes it less significant - I'll update the story.
March 10, 2010
These are people who download the trial version of the game. These are not people who own the full retail copy which they would then need to purchase.
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