In January of 2009, World of Warcraft had passed 11.5 million players. A year later those subscriber numbers are about the same. It appears that growth has finally tapered off and World of Warcraft has finally reached a point where it may not be able to grow much more.
Blizzard Entertainment will need to do something major to rekindle the growth cycle but most likely they will focus on retaining current players with additional content and storylines. You may also see a price drop in the near future and an increasing number of promotions.
Another noteworthy item of expansion is the new World of Warcraft Facebook application now available. The WoW Armory App on Facebook allows you to share achievements and post a feed of your in-game character’s activities.
Check out the below high definition gameplay video. It is about 5 minutes long.
World of Warcraft HD Gameplay Video:
Feb 13, 2010 at 01:59:16
They are hoping to increase their rentention ratio of 30% due to the fact that they loose 70% of New Players that don’t even level past 10. So, Cataclysm is a way to revamp the old world and do some things that would make the game more exciting and less of a grind.
Basically they want those trial accounts to convert more often and tempt them to level past 10, funny enough you can level to 20 in WoW’s Trial. So they have to actually make 20 levels seem like less work and more fun, good luck Blizzard.