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How Much Money World Of Warcraft Make In A Day?

9 months ago By AI Smith

The most recent projections indicate that WoW will have 8.5 million users in 2023, including Chinese gamers. This is a significant statistic that shows how popular the game is now, even after all these years.

World of Warcraft player count

Around 8.5 million people play World of Warcraft each month, according to estimates. The number of active gamers per month has fluctuated over the past three years between 7.2 million (lowest in September 2019) and 9.5 million (highest in July 2021).

In January 2023, the game had 9.48 million active monthly players, nearly breaking the previous high. These are the ActivePlayer.io projections.

World of Warcraft active monthly players

A breakdown of WoW average monthly active players per year:

YearMonthly active players estimates
20228.45M
20218.58M
20208.49M
20198.1M

Source: Estimates from ActivePlayer.io

AIn December 2022, Activision Blizzard announced 45 million Monthly Active Users (MAUs), however not all of them were World of Warcraft players. Players of other Blizzard games like Overwatch, Diablo III, StarCraft, Hearthstone, etc. are included in this figure.

A person that regularly checks in to the game does so at least once every month.

Daily WoW player count

There are between 700,000 and 3,570,000 daily players of World of Warcraft, according to estimates.

The number of WoW players varies across sources:

  • According to ActivePlayer.io, WoW has an average of around 760,000 daily users.
  • According to MMO-Population, WoW has about 3,570,000 daily gamers.

The truth probably lies in the middle.

Do people still play World of Warcraft daily, or are they playing more casually?

According to ActivePlayer.io, the WoW daily player count in the previous three years fluctuated from 385,000 (the lowest) to 853,000 (the highest) daily users.

With the popularity of World of Warcraft Classic, the game has experienced a resurrection, and its daily player numbers are not slowing down.

Now, WoW still has a large player base, but the numbers are far lower than those of Among Us or Minecraft, largely because of users of freemium mobile games.

WoW subscription numbers

According to Statista, World of Warcraft will likely have 4.6 million subscribers by 2022.

Activision Blizzard ceased disclosing subscriber figures in 2015, hence this figure is not correct. After 2015, all figures are Statista projections. The actual figures are probably greater. The pandemic’s increase in players and the popularity of WoW Classic were not taken into account in the forecast. There is no way to know, though.

Here’s a breakdown of World of Warcraft subscription numbers per year:

YearWoW subscription numbersExpansion
release
2023estimated 4.5M
2022estimated 4.6M
2021estimated 4.7M
2020estimated  4.9MShadowlands
2019estimated 5M
2018estimated  5.2M Battle for Azeroth
2017estimated 5.4M
2016estimated 5.7MLegion
20155.5M
2014Over 10MWarlord of Draenor
20137.8M
20129.6MMists of Pandaria
201110.2M
2010Over 12MCataclysm expansion release
200911.5M
2008Over 11.5MWrath of the Lich King
2007Over 10MThe Burning Crusade
2006Over 6M
20055M

Source: Activision Blizzard Annual reports, approx. end of the year numbers & Statista 2

In 2010, World of Warcraft reached its highest subscriber number with more than 12 million active users. Over 100 million World of Warcraft accounts have been generated since 2004.

Up until 2015, when they ceased reporting the information, we looked at every Activision Blizzard annual report for subscription figures. The figures for the subsequent years are projections from various sources.

There were rumors that, with the introduction of the Legion expansion, the number of WoW subscribers had returned to 10 million, namely 10.1 million. The number was never confirmed or rejected by Blizzard Entertainment.

However, they did confirm that the Legion expansion’s record sales would be tied. Similar to Cataclysm back in 2010 when Wow was at its height, it sold 3.3 million copies upon release. The exact number of WoW subscribers count may be higher than estimated.

According to initial sales, the most popular World of Warcraft expansion was Shadowlands, which sold 3.7 million copies.

By itself, World of Warcraft set records. The publication date was November 23, 2004. In the same year (2004), WoW sold 240,000 units in a single day, outpacing all other PC games in the US.

World of Warcraft Revenue

From 2004 through 2022, World of Warcraft’s income exceeded $14 billion. Based on subscription data, average subscription costs of $13.5 per month, and estimations of Chinese player value. The math is below.

We project that only from subscriptions and royalties, Blizzard made $13.766 billion. You would also need to include all in-game purchases and sales of WoW items for which we do not have statistics. So it makes sense to assume that WoW’s overall income has exceeded $14 billion.

As Blizzard never disclosed the figures, the math and justification are as follows:

Based on the sub-numbers, we can make an educated guess. We made the assumption that half of the players paid $15 per month (the other half are Chinese) based on the end-of-year subscription numbers.

Some customers pay the discounted 6-month subscription in full up front. Due to this, we’ll assume that the monthly subscription revenue would be 10% lower ($13.5 as opposed to $15).

Chinese players make up the other half of subscribers, and they pay less. Hourly payments are made by them. 45 hours cost 30 yuan ($4.3 USD), whereas 22.5 hours cost 15 yuan ($2.15 USD). Apparently, Blizzard receives a 50% royalty. That means they receive between 14% and 33% of a regular monthly subscriber for every Chinese World of Warcraft player. hence, from $2.1 to $5 per month. For the sake of simplicity, we used the medium value ($3.55).

World of Warcraft Player Count (Quick Stats)

  • According to estimates, World of Warcraft has around 8.5 million monthly players.
  • The estimates for World of Warcraft daily players range from over 700,000 to 1,650,000 players.
  • In 2022 it’s estimated World of Warcraft has around 4.6 million subscribers, according to Statista.
  • World of Warcraft revenue has reached over $14 billion from 2004 to 2022.
  • Around a third of players play WoW Classic.
  • The average age of World of Warcraft players is 31.29 years.
  • The average daily playtime for World of Warcraft is 3.7 hours.
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