March 20, 2012 by Paul Curtin
Star Wars: The Old Republic might not have turned out to be the first official World of Warcraft slayer (nothing besides Blizzard pulling the plug or the Internet exploding will ever kill WoW), but it was good enough to win our 2011 Game of the Year Award and most likely steal many players from Blizzard’s MMO behemoth. In a recent interview with Eurogamer, Blizzard’s John Lagrave stated that WoW‘s 11.1 million subscriber base has dropped to 10.3 million in the past three months. Lagrave went on to say:
“Of course people 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 yeah 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.”
Although losing less than 10% of their subscribers to a game as good as SWTOR isn’t too big of a deal for Blizzard, I doubt that most of those people who have left WoW are “waiting” for Mists of Pandaria; if anything, they’re pissed off by the upcoming Panda Patch and saying so long to WoW. Plus with Star Wars: The Old Republic just releasing the trailer for their upcoming massive 1.2 patch that’s giving players almost everything they’ve been requesting for the past three months like upgraded graphics, more zones, armor customization, guild banks, the ability to move HUD frames, pets, and more, SWTOR seems to be getting better and better and more enticing for fans looking to hop off the Panda Express.
