Losing three million subscribers? That might be a big thing to some people, but for World of Warcraft Lead Game Designer Ion Hazzikostas, it was to be expected.
In an interview with VentureBeat, Hazzikostas attributed the drop to the cyclical pattern of MMOs and gamers. “Especially nowadays, players aren’t necessarily viewing World of Warcraft as a year-round lifestyle so much as a game that they love,” he said. “And to some extent, that’s OK. We don’t want to prevent people from enjoying the game that way. Part of the cyclical nature is that, yes, when we have a large upsurge, it’s not surprising that there’s a bit of a dip after that.”
Hazzikostas spoke at length at the successes and issues with the Warlords of Draenor expansion and testified that the new WoW Tokens haven’t caused “a drastic change” in subscriber numbers either way.
He also denied the accusations that the game has changed too radically due to the inclusion of garrisons: “Those login sessions, they’re simply a different type of experiencing the game. I don’t know that those are coming at the direct expense of, I’m going to log on and go do my guild raid, or I’m going to log on and do battlegrounds, or do PvP or whatever else I might have been doing — core multiplayer social functions.”
