World of Warcraft: Blizzard Clearly Worried by Subscriber Implosion
Let’s face it-the past few quarters have not been kind to World of Warcraft’s subscriber base. The long-running MMORPG top dog has been hemorrhaging subscribers like crazy. How crazy? Let’s put it this way, if any other game lost the same numbers within the same time frame, they would be going belly up Thankfully, WOW sports a subscriber base that is north of 10 million users.
Still, you can’t continue to lose large numbers of subscribers and expect to be around in a few years. Given the big impact a weakened subscriber base may have on WOW publisher Activision’s stock price, the stakes are high in getting as many previous WOW players to digitally dust off their game installs and start roaming Azeroth again. To get past players to play World of Warcraft again, Blizzard is offering returning players a Scroll of Resurrection. While this is obviously an awesome premium to have as a welcome back gift, it does seem a bit heavy handed in premium terms. One quite probable dilemma Blizzard might find itself in is having to shell out increasingly powerful in-game incentives just to get people to come back to the game. At least one game industry observer has called such a subscriber base resuscitation move as smelling of desperation. Why desperation? Because this comes in the wake of the free up to level 20 version of WoW that was launched last year. How does the Scroll of resurrection work? Current subscribers can send it to any past member who had an account for at least 30 days.
The recipient gets one week of free game time, free Cataclysm upgrade (digital only), a level boost, and free realm transfer. What does the sender get? The sender gets a premium mount-the Spectral Gryphon if you’re Alliance or the Spectral Wind Rider if you’re Horde. What do you guys think? Let us know in the comment section below or join GameBandits on Facebook.
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