Is World of Tanks Dying In Russia?


For all the time we have never written that the game is dying or something like that. 
But looking at the statistics of the WOT RU-region for 2022 (now we are talking only about this region), we can say that now this is really the case. Here’s the main one:

  • Online playerbase fell by 42%. Now it does not exceed 400k and occasionally reaches the bar of 350k
  • Players decreased by 45%
  • The number of registrations in the game decreased by 20%
  • Almost only the main core of players remained in the game, which, in turn, began to play much more (new modes also helped)

Yes, the game will live for another 5-6 years with ~+100k online in the RU-region, but these are completely different numbers and earnings for the company.

Just think about these numbers. In 2021, 12.3 million players played the game, and in 2022 only 6.7 million.
Even if you consider that 1.5 million who were transferred to the EU server, where are the other 4.5 million? This is a huge loss of audience. The transfer is still a small part, the players just leave, they are tired of this game.
According to the indicators, this is the worst year in almost 13 years of the game.

source: wotexpress-info

88 thoughts on “Is World of Tanks Dying In Russia?

  1. Maybe, just maybe the numbers have something to do with that cough “special military operation”
    It would be interesting to see if the numbers of other games are also affected, and if so, to what extent, just for comparison, before jumping to the conclusion that the game is dying.

    1. would it be really surprising? we have been stuck in the fucking hulldown meta for atleast 4 years, they only introduce either more hulldown tanks, or underpowered trashes, weakspots almost completely removed or fucking pixels, every map made to be a 3 lane cod map, or camp around the base or even behind it, steppes, every fucking retard gets to tier 10 in a week because boosters, blueprints and shit, no close battles only farm or running after dmg, what remains engaging in this game? competitive part is a fucking joke aswell, chieftain, 279e, ebr, sometimes cs and stb, and the team wins who gets the better rng hitting those chief or angled 279s cupolas, boring, and no incentive to play, no to mention they nerf the lootboxes and events every year, grind, pay more get less. i pray every day for this game to die so maybe an actual company with not so greedy fucks would release something better, without a bz-176 for example

      1. Yea and all the recent and incoming map changes are adding more hull down cover while removing every bush and blade of grass in the dam game . Again this comes down to the people balancing the game dont play the game .

    2. Well they did say over a million did migrate to the EU too. Tho 6 million did not get drafted, so I suspect most left for the same reasons people leave the game here tbh mixed with the service changes there of late.

    3. Face it, the game is dying and War Gaming shot itself in the foot by aligning with the Ukraine. They should have remained neutral, there is no law against it. But NOPE, WG always fixes things that are not broken. Reminds me of when they took the West Coast NA Server and sent it to BOT’VILLE, the SA Server. Yeah, we lost a ton of player due that fiasco. They are putting themselves out of business so stop defending them

  2. it is dying everywere
    why ?
    bz tanks
    defenders
    Meta tanks
    some players realy like to enjoy just to drive the tanks
    ALSO they made the game pay 2 win with the introduction of BZ tier 8 premium tank

    1. ALSO they made the game pay 2 win with the introduction of BZ tier 8 premium tank

      People obsess so much about BZ but pay2win started much, much earlier. Gold ammo as a mechanic is pay2win – people can get defensive all they want, paying a fee to defeat an enemy and/or deal more damage more easily is pay2win, it takes some hefty mental gymnastics do deny it.

      And if we want to talk about pay2win tanks, think about every tank, techtree and premium, whose gold ammo is straight better than standard ammo – AMX M4 54 with 130mm, Type 4/5 with 14cm, Charlemagne, Skoda T 56, Bourrasque, Progetto 46, BZ-176, HWK-30, GSOR 1008, the list goes on.

      1. What is Gold ammo? Do you have to pay gold (real money) for your ammo? It´s always the bad player´s who crying about p2w…

        1. Exactly! If you go to the WG forums, most people complaining are below 50% WR. The biggest CC whiners about “pay to win” are Crazy Claus and Quicky-Losey. Neither of whom I would listen to.

          Also, all these whiners fail to realize that if no one paid for the game ( or elements of it ) – THERE WOULD BE NO GAME. To get people to pay, there has to be some incentive.

          SO, “Free to Play” types either start paying your own way towards the cause or SHUT THE HELL UP! Damned parasites!

          1. Lmao you guys are so brainwashed you dont even realize that you need to buy/play premium tanks or premium account to maintain your gold ammo. That is p2w, as a f2p player i cant fire more than 5 gold ammo in the battle otherwise i lose too much credit, meanwhile some scrup that is rich af can buy tons of op premium tanks and fire gold all day.
            How am i supposed to beat that guy when my stupid AP shell bounces and his HEAT always pen my upper plate.
            If you waant P2W gone you gotta nerf gold ammo somehow and also put more weakpoints to OP tanks

          2. I wonder why peeps are leaving the game. Oh I know it’s toe-rags like you. You will get your wish where only those who pay will play. Then you will know every other player by their first name and your stats will go down the pan.
            WOT should be honest and call the game as it is, a shit fest dominated by toxic twats that will pay anything to win then dump on everyone else. It will die and idiots like you will be a primary cause.

          3. Viktor.. you are an example of a brainwashed suck up… tell me without telling me that you are a skill4ltu suck up… QB is and will be the biggest CC of this game… yur baboon king (yeh that’s what these morons refer him as)… did not even know the strenghts and weakness of BZ 176… he probably watched QB’s vedio to learn about it… see yur master’s first game in BZ 176… he is firing full gold and saying the tanks is bad… lol…anyways there is no arguing with a fool and a suck up like you…

            For the normal folks… this is the most P2W game in the industry… ask anyone working in the gaming industry… this game has the biggest non paying to paying players conversation ratio… also the dude above gave a bad example about gold ammo… but there are many aspects that are way pay to win than any other game… and yes I have played both War Thunder and World of Tanks… WoT is blatantly Pay2Win… if you don’t agree… let me roll out my BZ 176 and you can roll out any normal tech tree tank… let’s see…lol

            And yes gaming company needs to earn… for sure… however… they could have made this game… pay to grind or pay to progress… instead of pay to win… which only an extreme greedy company will do… and yeh morons like @Viktor will defend it too… no wonder he is a skill4ltu suck up… btw my win rate is 52% after 1500 battles… and I am sure the fool above cannot win a single game without his pay2 win premiums… btw I own them too…but I don’t deny that they are p2w…

        2. U had to buy premium boxes to have acces to a tank that it could win faster and better with gold ammo
          Its pay to win

          1. You are a moron.
            Many players have like 25million credits so shooting premium ammo is no issue.
            Why shoot ammo with less penetration 🤷🏼‍♂️

            1. Why have premium ammo if you are so damn good? Let’s have no premium ammo games and watch the whining pursue.

        3. The excuse “but gold ammo needs credits, not gold” is old and stale by now, and just untrue. It does not matter if I’m using real life cash or an in-game currency, if I can pay a fee to win where otherwise I should lose or have a hard time, that’s pay2win.

  3. It’s arguable that Russia is in a demographic and economic tailspin from which there is no sign of exit; call this a symptom. Also, can people be interested in virtual war when the real thing is in their face?

  4. Yeah, with a single standard mode in the game after 11+ years, and that mode (Randoms) being garbage most of the times, no wonder fewer (older) players want to just play the same thing after so many years. I only really play the game when Frontlines or some fun mode is active, and I get no fun from Randoms after so many years of the same old 15-3 turbo one sided garbage.

  5. It is not dying! The player drop is caused by the migration of CIS players to EU server (EU3 and EU4) simple as that. WG allowed transfering accounts on EU for RU players. More then 100K concurrent players on EU are from CIS region (Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Armenia…)

    1. Yep, it’s just related to those, while all russian serving man and woman play WoT in the trenches and have fun.

    2. You must be on War Gamins payroll. The game is dying and WG shot themselves in the foot dude, how dumb are you?

      1. You guys are talking about dying game since 2012 lol. You are completely clueless about what it takes for mmo game to actually die. At this point some asylum visit would be beneficial for some of you apocalypsts dummies.

  6. “Total players who played” is simply a number of how many unique accounts that played a battle during the year, this is a quite large change but it just means less new players and less return players.

    And players “Online in mid-december” is not worrying either, this could be heavily affected by things like the war and so on. And is also a meassurement of activity on a single day so it may be missleading.

    “Total amount of battles played” on the other hand almost doubled so the remaining players are very active. Ofcourse this could be due to an increase in botting but i doubt (and hope) that is a big factor here.

    Would be interesting to see the same numbers for EU.

  7. i’m from eu player base, my interest was long declining – end of december one day i just lost complet my interes still have 52k gold
    and 20 days prem – did not played since 27.12. the Christmas event was this time absolut garbage, adding more and more bullshit tanks (rocket tanks WOW – when we will receive farting unicorn tanks?). t8 is “world of op prem tanks spamming gold”, t10 even worse, then i saw their plans for 2023 and, no sorry it was just instantly lost interst… btw i played since 2011 and had over 50k matches

    1. Lol your interest has declined?
      For the last 12 days … Wow

      I haven’t played since 28.11.22

    1. That’s an unusual comment. Elsewhere on social media it’s the “skilled” players who praise the HE nerf the most – arguing HE is worse than gold ammo because gold ammo actually requires skill (skill in what I don’t know, I guess moving the hand and finger to press the 2-key?).

      1. ah yes because after you press 2 you just have to press right then left click on those red tanks right?

        1. Many times yes, you only need to do that. And if aiming is “skill”, then every player in the game would qualify as skilled, since aiming is one of the basics of the game and one learns how to do it by the time they hit Tier 5.

          The truth is that a bunch of powerplayers were salty they were still losing health despite being in strong positions, that’s what the HE nerf boils down to. I’m amazed that years ago the tryhards were the mocked minority. Things sure changed for the worse.

    1. very one-sided comment, there are definitely more ukrainian players out of the player-pool then russian.. not only true cis-eu connection… just watch how ukrainian authorities hunt every military age to send to the front… the mobilisation in russia was about 100.000 -200.000 man

      1. If you are playing wot all day and night then you are either disabled or no job.
        So yes get into the army lazy shit

  8. Well its simple fix the core of the game and maybe players will want to play more and new players will join and stay . Op tanks are killing the game , matchmaking is awful on all levels . arty is STILL so annoying lower tier arty is completely broken they fire every 10 to 15 secs and never miss premium rounds need to be balanced , crew 2.0 needs to not buff or make op tanks even stronger for example my 279e and Chieftain dont need a 15 percent crew skill buff and a 5 percent engine power buff then more buffs to the view range like come on . Add some new skills that are not game breaking and then fix the older ones make the crew training take less time . The new maps being added is so slow . Listen to the player base more . I just dont get it if they would just fix the core of the game players would come back to the game but a huge issue is op tanks and now to fix that idk bc most are premiums . Idk maybe get everyone to sign off on in game tank by tank . I know id be happy with a bz 176 nerf and clan wars sake could be nice to see the Chieftain nerfed .

    1. With those changes less people will play. Wot belongs to WG if they listened to the players the game would be even worse.

      1. The issue is not so much how many peoply PLAY but how many people PAY. Of course, fewer players probably correlates with fewer payers, but since the payers are the ones profiting from P2W it might not scale. So, much fuss about nothing (concrete).

        1. the problem is that from wg statistict about every player is paying on average 5€… so its better to have milions paying on average 5€ then have 1000s paying 100€

  9. Fix the turbo games . The game needs some form of skill based mm . The match maker is stacking one side with way better and a lot times with the better tanks too bc you guessed it the better players are playing al the op and strong tanks . I dont blame them i blame wargaming .

    1. You can’t. As long as there are players with 256 k battles and 42% that YOLO through the map in their light and die instantly, as long as there are people who don’t move from the beginning of the game, as long as there are players who camp in their lights or heavies, you will only have turbo battles. And gold spam, of course. But they will never fix that.

      1. i know many ppl who do not play particular tanks becouse they are afraid to lose and get bad WR on that tank… all of this stats-fapping did also a harm… wg have to introduce “hiding statistics” or even stopping to count… so ppl would again play for fun and not to fap on stats…

        1. Where is the fun in losing all the time? For me is not fun to see my team melting before i even manage to do something.

  10. WOW, these high-graded keyboard heroes are truly magnificent.
    They are shitting on whatever WG does and still playing the game.
    They are bashing Russia for invading Ukraine without knowing why and who are the people truly responsible for both Russian & Ukrainian deaths.
    How pity, most keyboard heroes here are simply too blind to see what is really happening and they refuse to understand why.
    They must be having fun spreading hatred on internet.
    People are suffering because of war. What are the reasons for being so toxic? Politics are not disgusting enough???

    1. They are bashing Russia for invading Ukraine without knowing why and who are the people truly responsible for both Russian & Ukrainian deaths.

      Soros? The Illuminati? Santa Claus?

      Russia never accepted the dissolution of the Soviet Bloc, they’ve been fuming and throwing jabs at the West for the last 30 years. Now Putler claims he wants to restore the Tsarist regime and a lot of idiots agree with him, and we have this awful situation. Who’s to blame for this? It did not start in February 2022, it started as early as Russia’s attacks in 2014.

      Also, let’s be honest – nobody in high places gives a damn about Ukraine herself. It’s a proxy conflict between Russia and the America-led West, and Ukraine only matters because she is the battlefield. If Ukraine matters for anything else, it’s because there’s a lot of lucrative contracts to be signed to rebuild the country once this farce is over.

      1. “nobody in HIGH PLACES”, oh yes such a bless you mentioned this.
        That’s why politics are disgusting, they don’t give a fuck. Those people are in “HIGH PLACES” are funding this war.
        Who doesn’t know that Russia won’t let USA & NATO place their weapons right next to them?
        Ukrainians are simply dying everyday for nothing. They are not defending their country. They are being led by a clown to death, for those are in “HIGH PLACES” in the West.
        Nobody can deny that Russia started this war, but there was a cause.
        Putin, Biden or whoever are throwing weapons in Ukraine, they are more or less the same. They don’t care about how many people will suffer.
        Yes, “HIGH PLACES” indeed.
        Politics are already disgusting enough. But for the keyboard heroes in this site, it’s not, ridiculously.

        1. Get back to your Singapore server with even less players….
          You know perfectly well who is running these wars. The eternal enemy who back roll all conflict – Jews.

          1. I bet the Jews are also behind the atomic bombings in Japan! 😀 /s

            There are several reasons to give crap to the Jews, but this? This is Hitler-tier propaganda that maybe works in alt-right forums – that is, in the internet’s garbage dumps.

      2. What a comment… A braindead muppet from the West, who is must likely an illiterate with NO job that uses Grammarly to write correctly, types who is or not an idiot. The sadder thing is there are A LOT like him in this disgusting west…

        You from rromania, poland or a baltic country, pal??

        1. And what about you? Where are you from? We too want to know with whom we have the displeasure to talk 😁

  11. Many of the players who were playing the game were Ukrainian and Russian guys who are currently in war. There are many videos how players of World of Tanks come back from war as invalids. now think of how many people have died, have lost their homes. Needless to say that people dont think about playing tanks in ukraine and russia. 12,5 million people have left ukraine. do you think that their first idea when they get to lithuania is that they will start playing tanks? their first idea is how to start working or smth like that. Most of them are still on frontlines

    1. Oh please… You assume every asylum seeker from Ukraine has a wot account.
      Get fucking real. In Ukraine you are either dirt poor or rich.

  12. Many Russians and CIS players moved to EU, many others are risking their lives for incredibly stupid reasons. It’s no surprise the RU server is experiencing a shortage of players, for some people out there there are more pressing matters than yoloing around with tanks in a video game.

  13. I have expressed a few times my opinion so far. Though… I’m not willing to get insulted by some braindead muppet from the west, that may harass me for supporting Russia in this special military operation, even though that’s not today topic!

    1) Pay-to-Win aspects of the game should be addressed ASAP! After Defender and Defender 2.0 (aka Skoda T 56), now we got another one in the form of BZ-176 – Defender 3.0 with improved steroids. Ya all enjoy playing in that tank, but DO you have fun playing against it, even firing premium shells that don’t pen??

    2) Every tank, no matter if it’s from tech-tree, premium or reward, should be rebalanced! After all, they are pixels in the game, as stated in EULA. So, at any time, a tank could be erased within a new patch. What… are the lOvElY paying customers gonna sue the company?? LoL

    Now, regarding the two aforementioned points, let’s perform an exercise. Although you are from the garbage west (that says it ALL!!), try to show empathy and be smart. Ya all love to play OP (premium) tanks and dominate the others, even if your skills may not be as good as the opponents’. Would you enjoy fighting a Progetto 46 in your Pantera P.44? Would you enjoy brawling a Defender in your IS-3? Would you enjoy playing against a Skoda T 56 in your TNH 105/1000? Would you have a great time playing a Super Conqueror vs a not-so-skilled Chieftan Mk. 6 sitting hulldown and firing full gold??

    A game should be about having fun in a balanced environment, as balanced as possible, where the skills of the player shine!

    1. I like what you said, except the braindead part, when you support a naZi-like country (ruSSia) that invades a peaceful country (Ukraine). That being said, ruSSia delanda est 😈

      1. Ignore this filth called wardaddy. He’s some American douche who has watched a few YouTube videos and thinks he’s an expert on Russia Vs Ukraine

        1. Yes, peaceful. They mind their business. What, did they invaded another country and i don’t know that?

          1. Haha, how ignorant can you be?
            This guy has literally no clue what is happening and why there is a war.
            Let’s say like this “Russia is minding their business, preventing US & NATO from being able to threat their country”.
            Let’s say like this “China is minding their business, claiming their rights on the whole South China Sea that they haven’t done for centuries”.
            Let’s say this “Politics are fcking disgusting and all the big countries are the same, all of them want to have as many as possible advantages over any other country”.
            How about that?
            You think only Ukrainian mothers are suffering now because their sons might die in next second? Russian mothers do not feel the same?
            Picking one side and thinking that is the right thing is pure stupidity.
            If Russia is Nazi-like then there wouldn’t be anything called Ukraine left by now. They would simply nuke them out of this world without any hesitation.
            If Ukranians didn’t have such a clown leader then they wouldn’t have this was.
            US & NATO keep throwing weapons into Ukraine. Ukrainians & Russians keep dying, that’s what really happening.

            1. Sonny boy Jim, i had this opinion about you that you are smart, but you had to contradict me. First, my empathy is reserved for Ukraine, they are the one invaded and bombed. Did ruSSian mother get out to protest the war? No, they like to have this imperial image about themselves. And second, ruSSia won’t nuke Ukraine, because 1, they don’t need a radioactive wasteland (that was the dumbest take i’v ever seen) and 2 they are afraid of the consequences.
              And again, ruSSia is EXACTLY like nazi Germany. They are using the same tactics as them, and they are doing even now what they did in ww2. Nothing chanced !
              And about Zelensky, i won’t go that far to say that i’m a fan, it is too woke for my taste, but in the same time, clown or not, i have mad respect for him because he didn’t run. How could i not respect that ? I dare you to say that you won’t like to have a president that would be like him in this kind of situation.

              1. Why there was no war before? Because there was no Ukrainian tried to join NATO til their clown leader. That clown was created by US themselves, nothing more than that.
                Mad respect for a person who led his people to death for his own place? Such WOW
                You couldn’t see shit below the surface, sadly.

                1. Bullshit. First, Remember Crimea ? What about Donbas ? ruSSia took it before Zelensky was elected. Second, Ukraine didn’t care much about NATO, and they could not get in NATO anyway, because Crimea, remember? In NATO you can’t join if you have territorial disputes, not to mention they had lot of problems with corruption . Third it is not ruSSia’s business if Ukraine want to join NATO. And again, i have mad respect for Zelensky, because he proved himself to be a great leader in desperate times and he didn’t run away, like the Afghan president , i can’t remember his name. And again, i dare you to say you wouldn’t want to have a president like him, in dire straits. Probably yours would run away at the first bullet shot.

                2. @Babe_Plz_Dont_Report_Me from Asia

                  Dude… stop talking to brainwashed illiterates like maltratatu or whatever. These cheap bots exist to spread lies and garbage western propaganda! Ya can see he is the puppet of eu, usa, nato, zelenski’s d1ck! XDD

                  PS Crimea was never ukrainian, but Russian! Moreover, ukraine was created artificially using territories from Hungary, Russia, polish landfill site and little gypsy rromania. Nonetheless, Putin and The Russian Federation will win and the disgusting westerners will cry after all this propaganda! XDD Can’t wait to see zelenski being hanged from a tree close to his pAlAcE!! XDD

                  Painful ending to all the russophobes! :*

                  1. Wardaddy, you still didn’t say where are you from. Why is that, it is because you are weak and inferior, and afraid of a some trash talk about your country? Or is because you are a bitch that is ashamed of his country ? 😆

                  2. You can relax , i won’t give you satisfaction of trash talking your country. Except if it is ruSSia, of course. 🙂

                  3. You absolute idiot, you’re one to talk about spreading lies and propaganda. Such a little snowflake living in blissful ignorance. Making up words to describe how you’re feelings are hurt just because you’re Russian but it’s through your government’s actions and how you act are why.

                3. See what Wardaddy said? Ukraine was “created” (bullshit by the way, but whatever) from territories taken from other countries… He doesn’t even bother to hide that ruSSia is a genocidal maniac country that likes to invade and conquer other peaceful countries . No, they are not naZis at all, they are lil’ angels 😆

            2. You think only Ukrainian mothers are suffering now because their sons might die in next second? Russian mothers do not feel the same?

              This is a very ignorant and also disturbing comment tbh. Russia is the aggressor, Russia is the one getting boners over stupid reasons (Russian leaders promote a restoration of the pre-Revolution empire, how ridiculous is that?). Your claim would not be that different from “oh but, German mothers lost their children too when Nazi Germany attacked Poland in September 1939!”. Before trying to put both sides on equal footing, think about the situation that led them to clash.

              If Russia is Nazi-like then there wouldn’t be anything called Ukraine left by now. They would simply nuke them out of this world without any hesitation.

              If we don’t count China, North Korea, Syria, Iran, and not sure what other banana land (Venezuela comes to mind), Russia has no allies in the world. They’re not nuking because the second someone detects a launch, the world glasses Russia in return. A nuke going off in Ukraine is a little price to pay for hundreds of Tunguskas going off all over northern Asia.

  14. Who cares?
    its happening or not
    they never gave a sign they care
    why would you?

    they actively hate their community.
    not the best way to keep it going

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