Blizzard’s cash cow 
is starting to produce less milk.
Subscriptions for World of Warcraft fell to 10.3 million at the end of September, the company announced in its quarterly earnings call Tuesday. That’s a drop of 800,000 subscribers — or more than 7 percent of its customers — in just three months.
One of the biggest 
games of 2011 won’t be out until 2012.
Diablo III, Blizzard Entertainment’s much-anticipated role-playing game, has been officially moved into next year in order to give developers time to further polish the title.
Sports bars are 
no longer the sole domains of football and basketball fans.
A new breed of patron is on the rise — and while they may have minimal interest in the NBA playoffs or the World Series, they get pretty rowdy when the Zerg battle the Protoss.
[Gamasutra editor-at-large Chris Morris 
examines the backlash from this week’s controversial Diablo III news, stating Blizzard “doesn’t make decisions rashly” and those vowing boycotts “are blowing smoke.”]
Amid all the wailing and gnashing of teeth over Monday’s Diablo III announcement, I have to admit I saw things a bit differently.
Between the kerfuffle over the always-connected DRM, the decision to disallow modding and the real money auctions, players didn’t even blink when the company all but announced that the game wouldn’t be out this year. Those same people were the ones who just a week ago were seriously jonesing for the chance to get repetitive stress injuries from the non-stop clicking.
Ubisoft’s first attempts at battling piracy 
did not go smoothly – to say the least. But that’s not stopping the publisher from trying to use them again.
The company, in 2010, instituted a DRM (digital rights management) program that required players to remain online as they played a PC game. The concept was simple: Any interruption in service resulted in players being booted from the game, simultaneously erasing any progress since the last save. After getting feedback from a lot of angry fans (and weathering a denial of service attack that made games like Assassin’s Creed II and Silent Hunter V unplayable for days), the company put the strategy on ice last February.
First, the bad news: It’s looking less 
and less likely that Diablo 3 will be on store shelves by the end of the year. But if it’s any consolation, should the game slip to 2012, it looks like it won’t be too far into the calendar year.
Blizzard has unveiled a slew of information about its hotly anticipated RPG clickfest – and while fans are enthusiastically embracing some of what the developer had to say, they’re pretty upset about other parts.
Mickey Mouse may have 
two theme parks under his belt, but The Horde is getting ready to rush his castle.
What seemed like the stuff of a fanboy fantasy – a theme park dedicated to mega-hits World of Warcraft and Starcraft – has opened its gates in China. Dubbed “World Joyland,” the park is located just north of Shanghai and brings new meaning to the term “E ticket.”
If we’ve learned anything about 
addiction, it’s that the easiest way to get someone hooked on something is to offer it for free for a while. Once they can’t live without it – bam! Charge ’em.
Given how many people need their daily fix of World of Warcraft, we have to wonder why it took Blizzard so long to figure this out.
Gamasutra editor-at-large Chris Morris examines 
Activision’s move to bring a subscription option toCall of Duty players, and how the decision could hint at a wider subscription strategy at the publisher.
So now it’s official. The long-awaited (and, in some cases, long-feared) subscription service for Call of Duty is a reality. And while players pore through the previews and press release to determine exactly what Elite entails, I’m finding it a lot more interesting to look further down the road.
Make no mistake, Elite is a bold move by Activision – and one that could ultimately change the way the industry operates when it comes to user communities and digital add-ons.
Subscriber numbers tend to ebb and flow 
with massively multiplayer games. No matter how high they get, people generally expect them to come down — unless that game is World of Warcraft.
So when Activision-Blizzard announced earlier this month that subscriptions of its crown jewel had fallen 5 percent, heads turned. Was the mightiest title in the persistent world universe finally showing signs of weakness?
Chris Morris: Journalist 