World of Warcraft loses 800k subscribers — down to 6.8 million total, its lowest since 2006

The World of Warcraft bleeding continues, but the upcoming expansion should act as a temporary tourniquet.

Publisher Activision Blizzard announced that its long-running, popular massively multiplayer online role-playing game is down to just 6.8 million subscribers. That’s down 800,000 from 7.6 million last quarter. This is the lowest membership for World of Warcraft since 2006. It’s not much of the surprise that the decade-old game is losing players, considering its age and how some online gamers are moving from paid subscriptions to free-to-play games with in-game transactions. Blizzard also intends to launch the MMO’s latest expansion, Warlords of Draenor, in the next few months. That should boost subscriber numbers, and 1.5 million people have already prepurchased the add-on. So while the game is still making money, Blizzard’s need to replace World of Warcraft’s revenue is clearer than ever.