World of Warcraft Cautionary Note

So World of Warcraft is in pretty big trouble. In the first quarter of 2013 the game lost 1.3 million of its 9.3 million subscribers–a drop of 14 percent in three months. That’s not a dip; it’s a hemorrhage.

This isn’t a big deal in the grand scheme of things. WoW is the most successful MMORPG in the history of the industry, but it never had more than 10 million subscribers at its peak.

Yet it’s a nice little reminder that class-leading entities which dominate purely by scale don’t necessarily live forever. Especially if the good or service they provide is completely non-essential.

In totally unrelated news, how’s Facebook Home doing? Oh.