It looks like many a World of Warcraft player is heading back to Azeroth before the release of the next expansion, Warlords of Draenor on the 13th November. While subscriptions to the game have been declining for a good number of years now, falling from the historic high of 13 million+, the game now boasts around 7.4 million, up from the lowest point in recent history, 6.8 million back in June.
This latest uptick in the numbers can likely be put down to pre-release excitement, as well as people wanting too get the patch downloaded and pre-loaded before release. The recent WoW 6.0.2 patch added updated character models for many players, so no doubt some of the old guard wanted to log back in to see what they actually look like now.
What will be interesting to see in the next few months, is how the community reacts when the Draenor expansion is released, letting players explore the alternate timeline. If it goes down well, the game could see an overall increase in players by the end of the year, with some predicting as many as 7.7 million by the time 2015 rolls around.
While far lower than the game's height a few years back, 7.7 million paying monthly subscribers is still an astronomical figure to maintain and equates to many tens of millions for Blizzard every month.
[Thanks Eurogamer]
