World of Warcraft has experienced periodic lulls in game subscriptions since its release in 2005. There have been times during the game's 10 year life where there have been gentle drops, followed by a steady climb up. This trend stopped with the launch of Cataclysm (2011), the game when from an all time high of around 12 million subscribers to a very steady decline.
Mists of Pandaria, the expansion that followed Cataclysm brought the game down to Burning Crusade numbers, The latest expansion, Warlords of Draenor brought back players – for a short time. The expansion had promised an experience that harkened back to the days of pre-Cataclysm World of Warcraft, but apparently that wasn't the case.
World of Warcraft has hit an all-time low since its initial year.
Currently there are around 5.6 million subscribers, a number that hasn't been seen since December 2005, two months after World of Warcraft released. Blizzard is gearing up to release a new expansion for World of Warcraft at Gamescom tomorrow and a Warcraft based film directed by Duncan Jones. Either of these might entice players back to the game, but there's no guarantee. It will be interesting to see what course of action Blizzard takes if numbers continue their decline.
