World of Warcraft player count in 2024
Read here for a World of Warcraft player count and see how many active players World of Warcraft has in 2024 and if the game is still popular to play.
World of Warcraft has long been celebrated as the father of fantasy MMOs, but how popular is WoW 20 years on from its initial release?
Let's take a look at the 2024 player count to see the overall population and determine if the game is still worth playing over other contemporary MMOs.
Blizzard doesn't regularly release the player count information for World of Warcraft, so I'll be using the MMO Population and Active Player websites to see estimated counts for the current population of the game.
MMO Population lists the total players of WoW at 142,740,000, making it the most popular MMO game by far, beating the likes of Final Fantasy XIV Online, Destiny 2, and The Elder Scrolls Online.
For a more specific breakdown, Activer Player gives us information on the average monthly and daily players. While the game has seen a loss of 400,000 players since last April, it still has an average total of 7.7 million in May.
The daily player count has also remained strong, boasting 2.1 million players, a 5% drop from the month prior.
It's worth taking these figures with a grain of salt, as they are mostly estimates based on criteria specific to each website, but they do help illuminate the level of popularity that World of Warcraft still has in 2024.
It's fair to say that based on the data we have, World of Warcraft is still an incredibly popular video game in 2024, showcasing a level of staying power that perhaps no other game in the world is capable of.
Below is a table of each World of Warcraft expansion and its sales numbers, provided by Statista:
|
World of Warcraft Expansion |
Number of copies sold on first day of launch |
|
Dragonflight (2022) |
TBA |
|
Shadowlands (2020) |
3.7 million |
|
Battle for Azeroth (2018) |
3.4 million |
|
Legion (2016) |
3.3 million |
|
Warlords of Draenor (2014) |
3.3 million |
|
Mists of Pandaria (2012) |
2.7 million |
|
Cataclysm (2010) |
3.3 million |
|
Wrath of the Lich King (2008) |
2.8 million |
|
The Burning Crusade (2007) |
2.4 million |
Through this, we can see the sustained growth with each expansion. As an MMO, active players are more important than initial player numbers, but this can give us a glimpse of the sustained popularity of the franchise.
Shadowlands received record-breaking sales numbers on the first day of release. Whilst exploring initial Dragonflight sales, the 2022 Activision Blizzard Fourth Quarter financial report stated:
"While early Dragonflight sales have not reached the level of the prior expansion, community feedback on the title has been positive."
Even if sales didn't quite match the expansion from before, the player numbers are still going strong two years on. There's even a new expansion set to release later in 2024, titled The War Within, which is the first of a confirmed trilogy of expansions.
Check out our World of Warcraft homepage for more guides. We've also covered all Amazon Prime Gaming rewards, how to gain early access to The War Within expansion, the best Alliance and Horde races, how to use the Ping system, and all expansions in chronological order.
About The Author
Kiera Mills
Kiera is a former GGRecon Guides Writer.
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