Blizzard Lost Nearly 50% of Players in the Last Four Years
The latest figures are devastating for Blizzard Entertainment. The latest report shows that the number of active users of the studio's games has almost halved.
- According to a recent report from Blizzard Entertainment, the studio's games have lost half of their players in four years;
- Reasons cited include the Activision Blizzard lawsuit scandal, lack of responsiveness to community requests, and growing competition.
Is this the beginning of the end for Blizzard Entertainment? As recent statistics show, the number of fans of the studio's games is steadily decreasing. And the recent events that take place around the company indicate that the problems may intensify.
Activision Blizzard's data from the second quarter of this year shows that the number of active players in the studio's games dropped to 26 million. And while still most publishers can only envy such numbers, the outflow of players is visible. Back in 2017 active users of the studio's games (World of Warcraft, Overwatch, Hearthstone or Diablo III) amounted to 46 million, which is almost twice as many.
To better illustrate this decline, we can use a graphic shared on Reddit, which shows this trend. It was created based on Activision Blizzard's quarterly financial reports:
A large share of the decrease in the number of players should certainly be attributed to World of Warcraft (for years it has been the largest title in the studio's portfolio). The last increase in the number of users in Blizzard's games took place at the turn of 2016 and 2017. That's when Blizzard's flagship MMORPG got the well-received Legion expansion. Released two years later, Battle for Azeroth was no longer such a success, but the total number of all games, comparing year to year, remained stable. Last year's Shadowlands, despite its financial success, failed to stop players from abandoning the game, even despite a lockdown in place for much of 2020 that forced many to stay home.
What's worse, Blizzard Entertainment's troubles don't end there. In the span of a few weeks, the company has suffered a great deal of image damage in connection with the scandal with discrimination and sexual harassment in the background. Players were not indifferent to these reports, adding to that accusations of lack of feedback to the requests of players. This resulted in many top youtubers and streamers associated with WoW leaving the game.
As if that wasn't enough, the competition is not idle and grows stronger. Former World of Warcraft players have an alternative in the form of such titles as Final Fantasy XIV Online and New World, which pick up Blizzard's players disappointed with the recent events. Keep in mind, however, that despite the fact that a lot things evidence against Blizzard's MMORPG, we can not assume that the decline is solely WoW's fault.
So let's go back to the first question that is asked in this text - "is this the beginning of the end for Blizzard Entertainment?" It's still too early to settle that question, but the recent signals are most likely the final bell for Blizzard. The hope for the studio to turn the tide could be the release of Overwatch 2, the sequel to the studio's popular online shooter. However, we still do not know the release date of the game, which is also not a good sign.
