Activision Blizzard announced on Thursday that player subscriptions for "World of Warcraft," have dropped to 9.1 million worldwide. Subscriptions to the online gaming universe peaked in 2010 with about 12 million subscribers when the last expansion pack "Cataclysm" was released. The drop in subscribers comes ahead of the gaming company's upcoming expansion pack entitled "World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria," which will be available in stores and online starting from September 25, 2012. WoW is currently free to play in the United States, with extra content available for about $15 per month.
Michael Morhaime, president of Activision owned Blizzard Entertainment, the publisher of WoW, attributed the decline in subscribes to stricter gaming regulations in China, where the government has limited how many hours a day citizen can play online games. Morhaime also believes the decline of subscribers can be attributed to successful release of Blizzard's "Diablo III," which became the fastest selling PC game of all time when it launched in May.
"Diablo III," has been a huge hit for Activision selling more than 10 million copies since its release in May, with 1.2 million coming from the World of Warcraft Annual Pass, according to Blizzard.
Despite the decline of subscribers, Blizzard's parent company Activision posted $185 million in net income on $1.08 billion in revenue for the quarter ending on June 30, 2012. These figures are somewhat lower than the previous year's $335 million in net income and $1.15 billion in revenue from the same period, according to the Wall Street Journal.