Activision Blizzard no longer sharing World of Warcraft’s subscriber numbers

Every quarter, Activision Blizzard reveals dwindling subscriber numbers for World of Warcraft, and every quarter we question if it's finally time for the long-running MMORP to make the move to free-to-play. Well no more. Activision announced this will be the last quarter they plan on providing the subscriber number "as there are other metrics that are better indicators of hte overall Blizzard business performance."

What those numbers are, we don't know yet; but, I'm sure it'll definitely sound better than the 5.5 million current subscribers Blizzard announced for the third quarter of 2015. 

Let's be perfectly clear here, 5.5 million isn't a bad number by any means. Sure, it's 100,000 lower than the previous quarter, but World of Warcraft remainst he number one subscription-based MMORPG in the world.

The problem is just how far World of Warcraft has fallen since its peak in 2011 during which Activision Blizzard enjoyed around 12 million subscribers. Since then, Activision Blizzard has seen those numbers slowly dwindle every quarter, save for a few upticks when a new expansion releases. 

World of Warcraft's numbers will likely enjoy another boost with the release of the new expansion, Legion, but if it's like previous expansions, the increase in subscribers will only be temporary.