For a game that is over 10 years old, World of Warcraft remains surprisingly strong, especially compared to most other MMOs. The game’s subscription numbers soared to a surprising 10 million users at the release of its most recent expansion, Warlords of Draenor, but that number has since dipped to only 7.1 million a few months later.

While a 29 percent drop in users might spell death for other games, World of Warcraft is used to these sorts of dips, and lead designer Ion “Watcher” Hazzikostas is not worried about the latest numbers.

“Obviously, it was tremendously exciting to see the reception that Warlords got,” Hazzikostas told GamesBeat. “It was gratifying for us; it affirmed that we had picked the right idea and the right setting for an expansion and managed to deliver on an experience that really got a lot of people excited about the game. At the same time, we try to be even-handed in how we consider what those subscriber numbers do over time.”

“When we have a large upsurge, it’s not surprising that there’s a bit of a dip after that”

Hazzikostas explained that subscriber numbers in WoW are cyclical, with large spikes at the release of new content, especially new expansions, followed by a sudden drop a few months later.

“Especially nowadays, players aren’t necessarily viewing World of Warcraft as a year-round lifestyle so much as a game that they love,” Hazzikostas said, “where they’re going to check in, see what we’ve got, play the content in a patch, go off, play some other great game that just came out, and then come back when we have something new to offer them. And to some extent, that’s OK. We don’t want to prevent people from enjoying the game that way.”

He added, “Part of the cyclical nature is that, yes, when we have a large upsurge, it’s not surprising that there’s a bit of a dip after that.”

While Warlords brought WoW to its highest subscription numbers in three years, the overall subscriber base has continued to trend downward since the 2010 release of Catacylsm, the poorly received third expansion to the game. Still, any games that can shrug off a loss of 2.9 million subscribers likely is not going anywhere anytime soon.

Screenshot by Eric David | SiliconANGLE