Please Sir, Can I Have Some More?
AoC and WAR players come flocking back to WoW.
Perhaps the most spectacular thing about the dominance of World of Warcraft is that it just keeps pulling people back in. Over the past year, there have been two significant assaults on WoW’s dominance of the MMO landscape. Age of Conan and Warhammer Online both managed to launch to good initial sales, but it seems a lot of those sales went to WoW players curious for change.
What hadn’t been clear until now is just how many of those players have gone back to WoW. In Activision Blizzard’s latest earnings announcement, Blizzard president Mike Morhaime clarified the situation. According to Edge Online:
“Age of Conan launched toward the end of the June quarter, and Warhammer Online came out in mid-September,” he pointed out.
“To date, 68 percent of the players who listed Age of Conan as their reason for cancellation, and 46 percent of players who listed Warhammer as their reason for cancellation have reactivated their subscriptions to World of Warcraft.”
These numbers make a lot of sense considering both the time since launch and general reception of those titles. There is obviously no hard and fast data on just what magical factor brought players back, but the undeniable pull of Wrath of the Lich King is most likely the defining part. With Blizzard’s expansion launching next week, it seems the pull of WoW has never been stronger.
Supporting our habits:
Fresh confabulation