It really says something about Blizzard when they get worried that World of Warcrafts subscriptions drops to 10.3 million. That was back in November of 2011; a year earlier they were at 12 million. And one of the things impacting WoW's numbers? Star Wars the Old Republic. In speaking with Eurogamer, World of Warcraft producer John Lagrave said:
Of course peopple are trying Star Wars — our development team are trying Star Wars! I'm one of the few people who's still playing it actually, but yea we've seen a dip in subs. it certainly has to at least be attributable to The Old Republic, but it's also attributable to people who want to wait and get Mists of Pandaria, so it's not surprising.
While I'm sure SWTOR had an effect on the subs, I think a lot of WoW players don't like some of the changes that they made to talents, noob-friendliness, and in general, just worn out from playing the game for seven years. SWTOR dies at end game, at least for me and my friends it did. WoW begins at end game.
To battle back against subs lost, and hopefully get new player and old players back, WoW offers the game for free til level 20, minus a few features. They've also recently started the Scroll of Resurrection campaign, which if you ever had a month's time of subscription before, you get seven free days playing time, a class of your choice starting at level 80, and a free server and faction change.
Lagrave also responded to some free-to-play models for WoW, to which he said:
Right now we're very happy with the subscription system with World of Warcraft […] Mike Morhaime talks about the value we give you for that price-point, and that's a fairly legitimate statement. Certainly a very cheap form of entertainment. So yeah, we're comfortable with the subscription system. I won't say never on that, but gosh not now and it's been seven years! You'd think we'd have gotten there before now, so I don't think so.
It is worth noting that Blizzard has another MMO in the works, codenamed Titan. Not a lot is known about Titan, except that Blizzard has said it can co-exist with WoW.
