Blizzard is struggling with a sharp drop in the number of WoW subscribers

World of Warcraft has seen the number of paying players drop from over 10 million to 7.1 million in the past three months. On the other hand, Blizzard saw the total revenue of Destiny and Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft increase to almost a billion dollars.

Activision Blizzard announced this during the presentation of its quarterly figures. The decrease in the number of World of Warcraft subscribers is partly due to the revival in mid-November after the release of Warlords of Draenor.

A new WoW expansion often triggers an uptick in subscriber numbers, followed by a decline. However, the number of World of Warcraft subscribers has been declining for years.

However, WoW’s revenues have not declined drastically, according to the company itself. Activision Blizzard increased prices in certain regions and added new paid features to the game, such as WoW tokens.

Furthermore, the publisher indicated that Destiny and Hearthstone in addition to total revenues over time of almost 1 billion dollars, together have 50 million players. Since it was already known that Hearthstone has 30 million, 20 million remain for Destiny. They spend an average of three hours a day with the game.

The Call of Duty franchise is also doing well, according to the results, with online community growth in double-digit percentages, partly due to the strong sales numbers of Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare, although Activision Blizzard is not giving precise numbers. The microtransactions in Call of Duty also increased player engagement and activity.

Total revenue in the first quarter was $1.3 billion, about $1.1 billion, $167 million more than last year. Profit for the first quarter was $394 million.