Blizzard loses many WoW subscribers again

World of Warcraft has lost 800,000 subscribers in the past three months. This brings the number of subscribers to 6.8 million; the lowest number since mid-2006. Blizzard sold Diablo 3 and the expansion set Reaper of Souls 20 million times.

Blizzard released the statistics at the presentation of its quarterly results. At the end of March, WoW still had 7.6 million subscribers; a year ago there were still 7.7 million. At its peak in early 2011, WoW had 12 million paid subscribers. Especially in Asian countries, the game lost subscribers.

Blizzard expects the number of players to rise again with the introduction of the new expansion Warlods of Draenor later this year. At this point, 1.5 million gamers have already pre-ordered the expansion.

Diablo 3 and its expansion set Reaper of Souls have collectively sold 20 million copies, covering both digital and physical sales, as well as PC and console versions. Blizzard expects sales to increase even further with the release of Reaper of Souls for consoles.

Activision Blizzard’s profits, as the publisher is called since the merger of the two game publishers in 2007, fell from $324 million a year ago to $204 million in the past quarter. That amounts to 152.6 million euros. It is striking that 73 percent of the turnover came from digital sales.