First the news that WoW is down 1.3 million subs and only counts 8.3 million.  We never really know how many are playing, given that the Chinese playerbase is so liquid.  That being said, many servers are turning into ghost towns (not Stormrage, that’s for sure) where it seems that open world PvP is the main cause.  Guess that there’s real competition out now for those who want their kicks.

To contrast a bit, no other western game even has 1.3 million subscribers.  At 15$ a month, that’s about $20 million lost on a monthly basis.  Still, 8.3 million players after 9 years is something!

The second bit of news is that Diablo 3’s recent patch has destroyed the economy in a fell swoop.  A bug on the RMAH (for real money) caused massive gold duping, to where some people have amassed more money individually than the game had as a whole previously.  That link shows gold that is worth about $10 million real cash.  Given that the normal AH, that uses gold, had a cap of 2 billion per item, a lot of that money has been spread around to users selling item and caused hyper-inflation.  An item that might sell for a few million a week ago was going for the full 2 billion yesterday.  Not sure how this type of bug got through QA, considering it’s the main cash cow for the game.

And Blizzard isn’t considering a roll-back.

Quite a series of events.