Blizzard is no longer reporting World of Warcraft subscriber numbers in their conference calls. The last time that they did report numbers, World of Warcraft had 5.5 million subscribers, down from the 10 million they had at the start of Warlords of Draenor. The last time Blizzard reported 5.5 million subscribers was back in 2006 right before the launch of their first expansion, The Burning Crusade, making it the lowest number since the original game launched.
- Legion is expected to launch this summer, following the June release of the Warcraft film by Legendary Pictures.
- Blizzard reached an all-time high for Monthly Active Users in 2015. Fourth quarter MAUs were up nearly 25% year-over-year.
- Hearthstone now has over 40 million registered players.
- On November 12, 2015 Blizzard launched The League of Explorers, the third adventure for Hearthstone, selling over 20% more units as of the first 6 weeks after launch than the prior Adventure in the same time frame.
- Legacy of the Void sold over 1 million copies in the first 24 hours of launch.
- More than 8 million players have signed up for Overwatch beta, up from 7 million as of last earnings call.
- Activision Blizzard as a whole had higher digital revenue than retail revenue for the first time.
With this news, people are starting to wonder when World of Warcraft: Legion would launch. Before, it was stated that it would launch on or before September 22, 2016. The “before” in that statement had people hopeful that it would be much sooner and given the fact that they’ve already begun raid testing in the Alpha, many had hoped it would be coming sooner than anticipated, but with this news we now know that it will be between June and that September 22nd date. At least this narrows the time frame down between 4-7 months away, but many fans are still hoping for sooner rather than later.
The final World of Warcraft: Warlords of Draenor content patch, which introduced the Hellfire Citadel raid, launched in June of 2015. Blizzard stated that there would be no one year gap between the last patch of an expansion and the launch of the next expansion. It was because of this statement that many fans are upset with Blizzard because it appears they went back on their word, but what many fail to realize is that Blizzard has always been a company of “we’ll release it when it’s done.” Blizzard respects quality over anything so if they are taking more time to polish and deliver a great experience with Legion then this whole going back on their word deal shouldn’t even be questioned. It’s just Blizzard trying to do what Blizzard does best: make a solid and polished game.
